Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1905-11-18
T r II T Fl.

of flowers mysteriously appeared on
the table, and delighted royalty at
once took possession of it. Admiral
Shestakoff saw the mass of fragrant
blossoms in the imperial hands, and
turned furiously to his officers.
Did / not give orders that no one
must present flowers?"
"N-nobody did" stammered BiriIeff
"s-she t-took it hers-self!"
Alexei Alexeievitch Birileff is some
whit older than General Rediger. He
was born in 1914, some ten years be-
fore the Crimean war, and entered the
imperial Russian navy at eighteen,
with the rank of midshipman In those
days, and, in fact, until after the
Russo-Turkish war, Russia's navy was
almost negative quantity; she had
no Far-Eastern ports to worry over,
and the Treaty of Paris, recently
signed, forbade her to build or main
tain warships in the Black Sea. She
was, therefore, limited to the Baltic
and the Caspian-for on this inland
sea Russia has had few boats since
the days of Peter the Great. BY 1868
AleXei Birileff had risen to the rank
of lieutenant, and in 1890 he was ga
zetted commander of the first-class
cruiser and training-ship Minin-so
called from a eventeenth-century he.
70 who liberated Russia from the vic
torious Poles and drove their armies
from Moscow The Mimi and the
battleship Gangut which Birileff com
manded in 1894, have both long been
on the retired list, pushed aside by
newer vessels, whose names are now
familiar to us all. From this time pro-
motion came rapidly. Birileff became
rear-admiral in 1894, flag officer of the
Artillery Squadron in 1897, flag officer
of the Mediterranean squadron in 1900,
and vice-admiral in 1901. A year ago
he was made commander-in-chief OF
the navy yard and military governor
of Cronstadt, and shortly afterwards
commander-in-chief of the Baltic fleet
and Baltic navy yards, the post he held
when appointed Minister of Marine a
short time ago.
TWO or three years ago there were
several great regulations in the Rus
sian navy Makaroff and Skrydloff
had won laurels in the Russo-Turkish
war as pioneers in torpedo fighting
AleXeieff had won name at the bonn
bardment of Taku. When one thinks
of these vanished regulations one can
understand that the Russian govern
ment wished to put men like Admiral
Birileff and General Redlger into the
Ministries of War and Marine; they
have sound records of service, and
names in no way connected with Far
Eastern disasters. A man equally new
to the greater fields of service is Cen
eral Dedyulin, recently appointed
Chief of Police in st. Petersburg, and
who may shortly become the first min
lister of new government Department
of Police. General Dedyulin is in his
forty-seventh year, and, like General
Rediger, comes from the exclusive
Corps de Pages. He got his commits
sion in 1877, the year of the Russo
Turkish war, as ensign in the Uhlan
regiment of the body-guard, and was
decorated for service in Turkey. For
! the four years after the war he was
busy with his studies in the Academy
of the General Staff, graduating in
1883, the year before General Rediger
came there as professor. He got
his colonelcy in 1892, and did good
work in the general staff, in the di-
vision of transportation. Promoted to
be major-general in 1900, General De.
dyulin was made chief of the Corps de
GendarmeS in 1903 from whicI nost