OBITUARY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9398, 27 April 1891, Page 5

OBITUARY.

GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS.

COUNT YON MOLTKE.

C. M. NORWOOD.

\by electric telegraph.—COPYßlGHT.]

[Special to Press Association.]

[Received April 25, at 10.30 a.m.l

ST PETERSBURG, Aram 24. The Grand Duke Nicholas died to-day.

The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch, third son of the Czar Nicholas 1., and brother of the Czar Alexander 11., was bom July 27 (August 8) 1831. Being destined for a military career, he received a suitable education, and entered into active service at the ago of sixteen. The Grand Duke spent a few days in Sebastopol, when that fortress was besieged in 1855; he was attached for a period of two years to the general staff of the army of the Caucasus, and in that capacity he was present at several skirmishes with the Tcherkeasea. Nominated a General and Inspector-General of Engineers, he com-manded-in-ohie£ all the army, having General Todleben as his assistant. He was also appointed Commander of the Royal Body Guard, and President of the chief commission for the organisation and instruction of the troops. In the recent war against Turkey he received the com-mand-in-chief of the army of the Danube, which, after a council of war held some days previously at Kioheneff, invaded Eoumania, April 24, 1877. The Grand Duke himself arrived at Bucharest on May 25, and was received at the railway station with great ceremony, by the reigning Prince Charles 1., and the Metropolitan. In April, 1878, he resigned the command-in-chief of the Russian army before Constantinople, and was succeeded by General Todleben. He married, Feb. 6,1856, the Princess Alexandra, daughter of Prince Peter of Oldenburg (she was born June 2, 1838), and has two sons.

[Beoeived April 26, at 6.20 p.m.l BERLIN, April 25.

Count Yon Moltke died suddenly last night, from syncope. The distinguished soldier had been present at the afternoon sitting of the Reichstag, bnt during the evening he was taken ill and passed quietly away. The Connt was in his ninety-first year, the anniversary of his ninetieth birthday in October last having been celebrated with great rejoicing throughout Germany. [Count Hellmuth von Moltke, chief Marshal of the German Empire, chief of the General Staff, is descended from a wellknown Mecklenburg family, and was born at Parchim, Oct. 26,1800, in the neighbourhood of which place his father, a former officer of the Mollendorf regiment, possessed the estate of Gnewitz. Soon after Hellmuth’s birth his parents settled down in Holstein j and thus the boy, in his twelfth year, went to Copenhagen, in order to devote himself, in the barracks there, to the military profession. In 1822 he entered the Prussian service, as a lieutenant in the Bth infantry regiment, and studied in the Military Academy. The war had nearly rained his parents, and the young officer was thrown entirely on his own resources. After having spent some time in the School of Division of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Moltke was entered into the General Staff. In 1835 he undertook a tour in Turkey, which brought him under the notice of the Sultan Mahmoud, who advised with the young Prussian officer on the reorganisation of the Turkish army. Moltke remained several years in Turkey, and in 1839 took part in the campaign of the Turks in Syria against the Viceroy Mehemed Ali of Egypt and his adopted son Ibrahim Pasha. In 1845, having returned to Prussia, and published an account of his Turkish experiences, he became adjutant to Prince Henry of Prussia, then resident in Rome, and after his death, in 1847, was engaged in connection with the general command on the Rhine, becoming, in 1848, a member o ithe Grand General Staff, and, in 1849. chief of the staff of the 4th Army Corps, in Magdeberg. In 1858 he was advanced to the rank of chief of the Grand General Staff of the Prussian Army, and in 1859 became a lieutenant-general. In the Austro-Italian war Moltke was present in the Austrian head-quar-ters. After the conclusion of peace, he spared no pains that he might fully develop the capacities of the Prussian General Staff and the Prussian army. When the war of 1864 against Denmark broke out Moltke sketched the plan of the campaign, and assisted in its execution, acting similarly in the case of the war of 1866. The whole plan of the Bohemian campaign was due to the Lieu-tenant-General, who was personally present in the battle of Kdniggratz, which he led, and in like manner arranged the bold advance of the Prussian columns against Olmutz and Vienna, and negotiated the armistice and the preliminaries of peace. For these services he received the Order of the Black Eagle, and a national dotation. To “Father Moltke” (Vater Moltke), as ho is familiary termed in the German army, and his brilliant strategy are ascribed the splendid victories of the German arms in the Franco-German war. He was the Commander-in-Chief. The whole plan of the campaign was due to him. In recognition of his unrivalled services, Moltke, who was already a Baron, was created a Count (Oct. 28, 1870), made the Chief Marshal of the German Empire (September, 1871), and again received a national dotation. The illustrious Marshal, who was generally regarded as the first strategist of the day, received from the Czar the Order of St George, the highest military decoration of Russia, in October, 1870; and from his own Sovereign the Grand Cross of the Order of the Iron Cross, March 22,1871. An English translation of his “ Observations on the Influence that Arms of Precision have on Modern Tactics,” was published at London in 1871.

LONDON, April 25,

Charles M. Norwood, of the firm of O. M. Norwood and Co., ship-owners, and Chairman of the Docks Committee.