WHERE IS JOHANN ORTH?

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3247, 18 January 1926, Page 7

WHERE IS JOHANN ORTH?

ARCHDUKE OP AD STRIA WHO RESIGNED RANK. THREW ORDER OF GOLDEN FLEECE IN EMPEROR’S FACE. An act of renunciation almost without parallel In history Is that of the Archduke Johann Salvator, of Austria, who abandoned what might have been one of the most brilliant careers In Europe for the love of a beautiful ballet girl. The Duke’s romance and his subsequent mysterious disappearance have been the theme of absorbing speculation for over thirty years. Seventy years ago the hero of this strange romance was born at Florence, the son of Leopold 11., Grand Duke of Tuscany. In the child’s veins flowed the proud blood of the Hapsburgs; ho was near kin to many of the great ruling families of Europe: and of the ex * alted circle in which he was cradled the young Prince gave early promise of being a distinguished ornament. As he grew up to handsome boyhood he developed rare gifts of mind and a studious disposition. Ho showed a marked aptitude for languages, a skill in music and poetry, and a passion for Nature; but his favourite study, even In the schoolroom, was the science of war. He meant to be a scho.ar, but first and foremost a soldier; and long before he reached manhood there was little that he did n6t know of the military systems and resources of every nation in Europe. Swift Promotion.

When, his schooldays over, the young Archduke joined the Austrian Army, he was quickly recognised as a soldier of remarkabe skill promise. From rank to rank he was promoted so swiftly that, while still in the twenties, he was a full-blown general, in command of the armies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was declared by Field-Marshal von Moltke to be the most accomplished strategist in Europe. v

To his great gifts, however, were allied an autocratic, unbending will, and a passion for reform and intrigue which were to prove his undoing. His first tactical blunder was In publishing a pamphlet in which he unmercifully exposed the faulty organisation of the Austrian artillery. This ho followed with a book on drill and training, in which ho scathingly criticised the military system of Austria from top to bottom, turning It Into ridicule, to the consternation, and wrath of the army authorities and the Emperor. Not content with these indiscretions, his hot-headedness next carried him into the dangerous field of International politics, until he became a serious menace to the peace of Europe. The end of it all was inevitable. The Emperor, his authority defied and his paiience exhausted, sent for the Archduke, and after a stern lecture on his conduct bade him choose between two alternatives. A Beautiful Vision. He must either amend his ways altogether or leave the army and resign his Royal rank. “In a fit of ungovernable rage,” his niece tells n*. “Johann tore off his Order of the Golden Fleece, flung it at the Emperor, and left his presence a broken man, retiring to his estate near Gmundon.” Here he spent long months of solitude, literally “eating out his heart,” a solitude broken only by very rare visits to a Vienna theatre. One night ,ln the Imperial Theatre, his eyes wer e drawn to one of the ballerinas, whos 0 fresh young beauty and grace were a new revelation to him of the possibilities of female loveliness.

Before he left the theatre he realised that he would know no peace until ho had won the bewitcher of the senses and made her his own; and before he slept he had discovered who she was and where she was to be found.

The girl whose magic had oast such a potent spell over the Prince’s heart was Emllie Stubel, a daughter of a •mall tradesman, whose beauty, grace and clever dancing had captured the heart and homage of Vienna. She was, It Is true, a maid of low degree, but she was a Jewel fit to be worn on any man's breast, and prize to be coveted by a Prince who had foresworn the world of rank and fashion and yearned for a sharer of the humble life ho had mapped out for himself. As a simple, If handsome and fascinating student. Archduke Johdnn sought an Introduction to the tradesman’s daughter, and alter a brief wooing In which he won her heart as completely as she had conquered his, obtained her glad consent to be his wife. Revelation on Wedding Ev®.

It was not until the very eve of her ■wedding-day that Emllie learnt the secret of her lover’s high rank —that the uian who had wooed and won hei as a poor student was none other than Johann Salvator, Archduke of Austria, cousin of the Emperor, and kinsman of half the Royalties of Europe. For one year more Prince Johann—now and henceforth known to the world as “Johann Orth” —led an Ideally happy and simple life with his humble bride on his Gmunden estate, until at last he determined to waste his life no longer in idleness and humiliation. “I claim the right to work,” he said, "and as I am not allowed to do it in my own country, I will go out into the world in search of it.” A few days later Johann Orth and his young wife left the Gmunden home, where they had been so happy together, and for long months all trace of them was lost. It was rumoured that the Archduke had been recognised as waiter at a Berlin restaurant; and, again, that he was doing reporter’s work in America. But nothing reliable was known dt them until, In the early months of IS9O, they were discovered In London, wher e Johann secured the master's certificate on which he had set his heart. “Into the Blue.” Prom London he went to Hamburg, where he purchased the Santa Margherlta, a well-found Iron sailing ship of about 1300 tons; and, a few weeks later, with his wife as companion, and a crew of Croats and Italians, ha «st sail fnom Chatham on

a voyage to South America with a cargo of cement. The vessel arrived safely at La Plato, and, after shipping an entirely new crew, sailed for Valparaiso, around Cape Horn. From th 0 moment, however, that the Margherlta’s masts dipped below the horizon on this voyage, she, vanished as completely as if the sea had swallowed her.

Yet through all the years that have since passed many have clung stoutly to their belief that Archduke Johann still lived, and would reappear some day; and every year has brought some fresh rumour to keep this faith alive. Again and again he Is said to have been seen and recognised in various parts of the earth. He had been reported fighting with the Japanese against the Russians,, in Chili, bearing arms against Balmaceda; and again in Mallorca, in company with his kinsman, the Archduke Louis Salvator. j “Don Ramon’’ the Mysterious. ) George Lacour, a French author of repute, proved to his satisfaction that Johann was living in the Argentine, tinder the guise of a mysterious ’ and elusive “Don Ramon;" and tienor Eugenio Charzun, a Senator of Uruguay, not long ago declared that he had seen him start from the Argentine on a voyage to Japan. Still more recently it was stated that he was a passenger on a ship bound from America to England, that he had been challenged by a fellow-passenger who had ( recognised him, and admitted that he [was the missing Archduke. He has also been reported as living the life of a hermit on a Pacific Island.

To her last day his mother, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, clung tenaciously to the belief that h e was j still alive. Year after year, until death 'claimed her, sh e kept his rooms in Schloss Orth ready at any moment to | receive her wandering son; and a light burning in them to welcome him home on the darkest night. “My son is not dead,’’ she would say to lhos e who offered sympathy. “I know that he lives and will come back to me before 1 die." In the Secret. There were, it is saldi only two men, now dead, who knew the truth; and neither would declare it. One was Dr. Von Harbeler ,the Archduke’s confidential friend and attorney, who, It is believed, heard from him regularly every month, but from whom no one was ever able to elicit a word. The other was Baron del Abaco, also an intimate friend, whose life-story is llttlp less romantic than that of the Archdukte himself. -Shortly after Johann’s disappearance the Baron, a distinguished army officer and a favourite of the Austrian Court, abandoned his family, rank and title, and voyaged over the seas to begin a new life in the heart of German New Guinea. It is said that the Archduke Johann before his disappearance, confided his plans to the Baron, under a pledge of secrecy, and that the Baron, until his death, was in constant communication with his Royal friend.