Gourkho, the Soldier.

Evening Star, Issue 7876, 8 April 1889, Page 4

Gourkho, the Soldier.

TUB ONLY MAN IN RUSSIA TO CONDCTtft THE WAR. There is a dearth of great soldiers in the Ilussia of to-day. In fact, since SkobelofT, the Lean sabreur, expired in Moscow after an altogether too comprehensive champagne supper, and was straightway canonised as the patroQ saint of KatkofF and his PanSlavistic party, thcro is no Muscovite general left who enjoys mere than a circumscribed reputation—save one. This saving clause is ijut in for the benefit of the subject of this sketch, General Gourkho. It is true there are some splendid military leaders in the Russian Army, men who would undoubtedly make names of a world-wide renown for themselves in a war with Germany or Austria. Such men, for instance, Us Sherpeloff, than whom there is not a more brainy or more popular officer in the Czar's pay, and whom his countrymen look upon as likely to walk in SkobeloiFs footsteps in the coming conflict, and Paskiewitch, who is said to have the late General Todleben's genius for strategy and engineering. But these men are not at all known outside of Russia, and in their case it would be discounting the future to call them great soldiers. Joseph Wladimirowitch Gourkho, however, has a military reputation as sound unci solid (13 that of MacMahon was up to •sth August, 1870, when the German Crown Prince laid his legions low on the battlefield of Woerth. There is small doubt that Alexander 111. would entrust the supreme command of all his arniiea to Gourkho when it comes to the fighting point, either between this sovereign and his great old great-uncle, William, in Berlin, or else hi 3 " much-beloved cousin," Francis Joseph, of Vienna, Austria. Fate has behaved like a very capricious jade to Gourkho during the fifty-nine years of his life. A brief sketch of his career will prove this. Ho cornea of a noble family, which counts its azure blood unalloyed for more than a thousand years, and which looks down upon the Romanoffs as upstarts and parvenus. For that reason, too, like many of the oldest and noblest families in Russia, the Gourkhos never condescended to have any such Western appellations as count, baron, or prince tacked to their grand name, blazoned forth in many ancient parchments in the Kieff archives. The young sprig Gourkho, then, was educated in the Imperial corps of pages at St. Petersburg, and in 184U was appointed cornet in the Imperial Guard Hussar Regiment. He afterwards completed his military studies in the academy of the General Staff. In 1852 ho was appointed a captain in an infantry regiment, and served with distinction during tho Crimean War under General Diebitch. In 1557 he returned to the Neva, was promoted a staff of licer, and commanded a squadron of the Imperial Guard Hussars. In IS6O he was made one of the aides-de-camp of the i)mperor, and received his promotion as colonel in 1801. Two years later he took an active part in drowning the Polish rebellion in a sea of blood, and in this wise distinguished himself sufficiently in numerous engagements to warrant his recall to St. Petersburg as commander of the same imperial Guard Regiment in which he began his military career. In 1807 he roso to the rank of major-general, being then but thirtynine years of age—a rare case in bureaucratic Russia. In 1573 followed his promotion to a brigadiership in the Imperial Guard, and in 1876 he was made commander of a division in the same elite corps. At the outbreak of the Turkish War, in 1877, he was Bent to lead tho advance guard of the Russian Army of the Danube, f Jo pushed on so rapidly to Tirnova (7th July), and over the Balkans to the Tundja Valley, within two days' march of Adrianople, as to make him famous. The comparative slowness, however, of the army following in his wake made his efforts and thoso of his men bootless. Ho had to retreat before a large corps of Turks under Suleiman's Pasha'? command, and took a stand in the wild Shipka Pass, which he occupied and held until the news of his appointment as Adjutant-General and the order to return to St. Petersburg and mobilise his guard corps division reached him. A few days sufficed him for tho task, and in October we see him again in tho midst of the fray and given supremo command over a large corps of cavalry, which whs to prevent Osman Pasha from cutting through and continuing breaking the chain of investment around Plevna. Ho defeated, while employed in this task, a Turkish army corps under Shefket Pasha, B3nt to relievo Osman, at Gornii Dubnjak on 21st October, 1877, and on 28th October took Tetish. After Plevna had surrendered, Gourkho was made commander of a large corps of infantry, and with them he crossed under the most trying circumstances and through blinding snowstorms and avalanches the Balkans, arriving on the 4th January, 1878, at Sofia. Then he hurried on to Philippopolis and dispersed the army of Suleiman Pasha, which had, it is true, already badly suffered in the engagements around the Shipka Pass, accomplishing the task on 10th and 17th January. In Adrianople he finally joined the Russian main army, and with them ho marched on to within earshot of Constantinople. After the war he was made general of cavalry and Adjutant-General of the Emperor's chief general stall'. On 14th April, 1879, tho Emperor appointed him Governor-General of St. Petersburg, and invested him as such with the most extraordinary and far-reaching powers. Thi3 was done immediately after SoloviefTs unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Alexander 11. ; and to pick |out Gourkho under such circumstances for a post which gave tho sovereign's life virtually into his hands, Bhowcd tho entire confidence the Czar had in the man. At this juncture Dame Fortune, who had hitherto constantly smiled on our hero, played him a vile trick. C "in; ho at onec declared a state of siege in •.,.,,; capital, and took the utmost precautious against Nihilistic conspirators. But, despite all he could do, the latter made two more desperate att; nipts on the Emperor's life during the' same winter. Gourkho was dismissed from his hi»h position, all hi 3 titles and dignities taken away from him, »nd he, inst'.-ad, sent into banishment. It

was due to a softening impulse of the autocrat, hia master, that the e*ile at the last moment was given tli'o mild form of police surveillance oil his own estates in the interior o? the vast laud. Thero he stayed, nv:;\')si! mid sullen, and no ni.-m has seen the Gourkho of former days again, lie has not beta known to smile since. Ho had the dreary satisfaction, however, of seeing his successor oven less fcucccssful than himself, for the !;'.st attempt, which occurred a couple of years later, resulted in tlie wellremembercd tragic death of the Emperor, and Gourkho's cynical reply to his Imperial master, "that the Devil himself could not keep tiie'j;s accursed Nihilists out of mischief/' lml been Justified by the sequence. Alexander 111. took two more years, however, to make up 'lis mind about Courkho's loyalty or ability, He recalled him in 1883 from his exile, and appointed Mm GovernorGeneral of Warsaw, a field in which Gourkho has had frequent occasion to demonstrate that he ia anything but a friend to the Nihilist, or any other foo of his master's. In fact, the common saying in Warsaw is that there has never been a'reprcsentative of the Czar there so inhumanely severe towards all those who show even the faintest tinge of | liberalism in their political aspirations. He strangles every Polish thought, every breath, I every infant movement in its cradle, if it have but the slightest anti-Russian coloring. Like Mouraviell, the "hangman," Gourkho seems to have made it his ambition to stamp out the last visible truce oi Polish nationality, and there ia probably no better hated man walking tho earth to-day than Gourkho. In his fine gidieniu tonal palace in Warsaw, situated in a street where every foot is alive with glorious memories of Polish independence, ho Kits like au evil genius casting baleful spells, and pronouncing drcad_ sentences over political off'-idcrs. The chains of slavery have been tirnily riveted by him on the slender ankle of the Sarmatian, tho man of superior race. Will tho chain ever break ? Those muxt havo been sombre, vengeful thoughts that have filled his brain during the lonesome, interminable winter nightmi las estates away oft' in the woods, where he could hear the wolves howling with hunger, and tho brandies on tho treeu crackling with frost. But thoro is to-day tho successor of the courtly and amiable Baron Not/.ebue, descendant of the German poet of that name and with a poet's soul of hia own, making tho contrast all the greater. There he is in a position yielding him vaster and more unlimited power than ever, lording it over an enslaved nation of 5.000,000 souls, clad with almost royal power, and once again basking in the sunshine of Imperial favor. Alexander 111. has regained all the confidence in Gourkho which his murdered father lost during the last few years of his troubled existence, and no Russian can boast of being more securely in the favor of his Imperial lord than this same Gourkho, tho whilom exile. How securely he is in the good graces of Alexander 111. was shown but a couple of months ago. At a certain stage of this Bulgarian embroglio, when Kaulbars seemed for a moment to waver in his task of bulldozing a weaker nation, and when a more formidable and a sterner man scorned to be required for tho purpose, it was Gourkho whom the Czar thought of. Luckily for tho Bulgarian!!, General Kaulbars redeemed his reputation of a bully a day or so later, and the great gaoler of Portland was not required. They would have regretted the change if Alexander 111. had found it expedient to send Gourkho in the other's place. Thus the whirligig of fortune boss onco more lifted Gourkho on high. Given now a good, bitter, bloody war, and the man may do still better. Those who know him well say he is made of stern stuff, and likes gore above everything else as an item of daily diet. The day is, however, probably not far distant when General Gourkho can show tho world at large whether he i 3 as great a soldier as he is considered to be.