The morning news., 1894-11-02

D
/ trothed to Princess Maria Dagmar, the
/ beautiful second daughter Of King Chris
! tian N. of Denmark, and the sister OF
/ the wife Of the Prince of Wales and oi
| Otho, king Of Greece. The princess Of %
| summers stood with the Emperor and
| Empress Of Russia at the bedside Of hel
| betrothed when he was dying, and there
and then he exacted from her promise
/ that instead of his heart and hand she
! would accept those Of his brother, the
Grand Duke Alexander.
The heir to the Russian throne, however,
did not like this arrangement very welh
for the reason that a few years before he
had formed an attachment for the daugh-
ter of the noble poet, Metcherski who was
one of the empress maids of honor. He
proposed to marry her and told his pa
rents he would never accept any one else
for a wife. They sent him from St Pc
tersburg with is regiment and while he
was absent the young lady was obliged to
accept an offer which Prince Paul Demi-
dorf had been instructed to make her
Believing that the czarowitz had forsaken
her, she became the princes wife, and a
year later she died at Vienna, leaving an
infant son behind her. Alexander then
yielded to his parents wishes, and be
came reconciled to the Princess Dagmar,
to whom ne was married on Nov 9, 1866.
In her company he soon forgot his great
disappointment At his wife's entreaty he
NOLlStlLt4 u study anu LOOK ltSSOLSt al
ways with her at his side, from professors
of history, mathematics. and political
economy. He and she became inseperable
companions. She went with him in his
hunting excursions, and he always ac-
companied her in her annual visits to Den
mark, where they cast the cares of state
aside, and lived a natural bourgeois life.
The car was a lover Of peace. He had
seen enough of the reality of campaigning
TO recoil with his whole soul from the
thought of war. Alexander, was in fact,
a soldier from boyhood. Before the Turk
ish-Russian war of 1S7-1S7S he had al
ready attained the rank of fun general
of infantry and the command of the corps
of the guard, then a picked body of over
fifty thousand men of all arms. He was
in active service throughout the whole of
the campaign on the Danube, giving up
for the time the command of the guards
and assuming that of two corps of the
line, the Twelfth and Thirteenth intrusted
with the protection of the Russian left
flank from sorties from the Turkish for
tresses Of Rustchuck and Ruzgrad. He
had a full share of hard fighting in the
hOUy contested action of KarahasankiVi.
Ablava, Melchka and Tristenik. He met
largely superior force of Turks under
Mehemet Ali whom he kept fully employed
falling back in obedience to his instruc-
tions, but suffering no check which could
benefit the enemy In the last two battles
in November, 1877. he signally defeated
Suleman Pasha, who had succeeded Ma
hemet Ali.
After entering Rustchuk in February,
1873 he relinquished his command to Gen.
Todleben and returned to st. Petersburg,
resumed command of the guard, and was
soon after promoted to the most impor-
tant military position in the empire, which
he held till the death of Alexander H.
the command of all the troops in the de-
partment of the capital succeeding there
in his uncle field marshal, the Grand
Duke Nicholas. This was a merited ac-
acknowledgement by the car of the great
service his son had rendered in the Turk
ish campaign. Had MOhammed Ali been
able TO break the line so stubbornly held
by the cZarowitZ, the entire Russian army
would have been seriously compromised
If not wholly destroyed. His conduct in
this trying position won for him in all
military circles the reputation of able gen.
eralship as well as unsurpassed personal
bravery and endurance. That the Czar
had been no carpet soldier was evident
from the marks of frost bite on the third
and fourth fingers of his left hand and a
slight scar on his temple, where a bullet
grazed it in one of the battles in the Turk
ish war.
Alexander was the second son of his
father. He was born March 10, 1915. The
death of his brother, Nicholas, left him
cZarowitz, heir apparent to the throne of
the Russian Empire. In 1866 he married
the Danish Princess Dagmaret, sister of
the Princess of Wales Their first child,
Nicholas Alexandrovitch, who now be-
comes car of all the Russas, was born
May u, 1868.
When the nihilsts killed Alexander II.
in 1881, SO severely was the Russian mon
archy shaken that no attempt was made
to celebrate the coronation of the new en-
Alexander III. was crowned with most
splendid ceremonies. There were fetes
for days and days through all Russia.
The white Father did not pass the
thirteen years of his reign in peace and
quietude. His days were troubled by the
different attempts made to efface him
from the world of the living. Notwith-
standing all the care that was taken to
prevent even the slightest mishapsthe czar
came more than once very near meeting
his DOOM The most serious attempt to
kill him was made in the beginning of
April 1857. He was fired at in the park at
Gatschina by an officer, but escaped unin-
jured, although the pistol was discharged
at close quarters. The would-be assassin
was arrested.
Personally his majesty was always un-
affected by fear, so that the terrorists
never attained their object-that of fright
ening him into accessions of their de-
mandS by attempts on his lie. he was on
this point almost a fatalist. He has said
if it were the Will of divine providence that
he should fall the victim of bullet or a
bomb in the hands of one of his own sub
jects, he must submit; but so long as he
| lived he would continue to devote his life
and work to what he termed the main
tenance of the dignity of Russia. The
czarina, on the other hand, was always
anxious for her husbands safety.
March Is following the attempted as
| sassination, three persons were arrested
! in the streets of st. Petersburg with eX
! plosive machines in their possession, anc
| from them the authorities obtained dis
/ closures respecting the ramihcations OF
] the conspiracy. Some of these men wer,
! confined in the Schusselburg fortress
while others were placed in the citadel o
| ST. Petersburg. On this occasion TIVE
women-one the wife of a general, tn,
other of doctor, who were COMPROMISED
| to some extent in the murder OF the pre-
/ ceding czar in 1SSl-were parties to tn,
| plot, but they refused to give any infor
nation to the police. Traces, however
| of the conspiracy were discovered a
! Charkoff Kieff, Warsaw, Moscow, Odes
sa and NoVo Tcherkask.
About the same period a military plo
| was discovered in the Caucasus, and as
! result of the discovery over a hundred ~