A KINGDOM SURRENDERED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

A KINGDOM SURRENDERED.

"ROMANCE OF AN AECEDUICE. BALLET DANCER AS WIFE. LOSS OF BRILLIANT CAREER. SAILED TO SEA AND VANISHED An act of renunciation almost without parallel in history is that of tho Archduke Johann Salvator. of Austria, who abandoned what might have been one of Iho most brilliant careers in Europe for tho lovo of a beautiful ballet girl. Tho Duke'.'i romance and his subsequent mysterious disappearance have been the theme of absorbing speculation for over 30 years. Seventy years ago tho hero of this Btrango romance was born at, Florence, tho son of Leopold 11., Grand Duke of luscany. In tho child's veins flowed the proud blood of the Hapsburgs; he was near kin to many of the great ruling families of Europo; and of the exalted circle in which ho was cradled the young Prince gave early promise of being a distinguished ornament. Aa ho grew up to handsomo boyhood ho 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, oven in the schoolroom, was tho science of war. He meant to bo a scholar, but first and foremost a soldier; and long before ho readied manhood thero was littlo that ho did not know of the military systems and resources of every nation in Europe. Swill Promotion.

When, his schooldays over, the young 'Archduke joined the Austrian Army, he was quickly recognised as a soldier of remarkable ekill and promise. From rank to rank he was promoted so swiftly that, while still in the twenties, he was a fullblown general, in command of the armies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was declared by Field-Marshal von Molt.ke to be the most accomplished strategist in

Europe. To his great gifts, however, wero 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 ho mercilessly exposed tho faulty organisation of the Austrian artillery. Tlus he followed with a book on drill and training, in which h# scathingly criticised the military system of Austria from top to bottom, taming it into ridicule, to the consternation and wrath of the army authorities and the Emperor.

Not content with these indiscretions, his hot-headedness noxt 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 pa&nce exhausted, sent for the Archduke, and after o, stern lecture on his conduct bade him choose between two alternatives. A Beautilnl Vision.

E= must either amend his ways altogether or leave the army find resign his Royal rank "In a fit of ungovernable rape;-" his niece tells us, "Joliann tore off his Order of the Golden Fleece, flung it at tho Emperor, and left his presence a broken man, retiring to his estate near G-muneden." Here he spent long months of solitude, literally "eating out his heart," a solitude broken only by very Jtare visits to a Vienna theatre. One night, in the Imperial Theatre, his eyes were drawn to one of the ballerinas, whose fresh young beauty and grace were u new revelation to him of the possibilities of female loveliness. Before he left the theatre he realised that he would know no peace until he had won the bewitchor of tho 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 whoso magic had cast such a potent spell over the Prince's heart was Emii'ii Stiibel, daughter of a small tradesman, whose beauty, grace, and clever dancing had captured tho 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 a 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 oat for himself. As a simple, if handsome and fascinating, student, Archduke Johann sought an introduction to the tradesman's daughter, and after 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 Eve. It -was not until the very eva of her wedding-day that Emilie learnt the secret, of her lover's high rank—that the man who had wooed and won her 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:," ho 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 thum was lo3t. It was rumoured that, the Archduke had been recognised as a waiter at a Berlin restaurant; and, again, that he was doing reporter's work in' America. But nothing reliable was known of them untii, in the early months of 1890, they were discovered in London, where Johann secured the master's certificate on which he had set his heart.

" Into the Blue." From London ho went to Hamburg, where he purchased tho Santa Margherita, a well-found iron sailing ship of about i3OO tons; and, a few weeks later, with his wife as companion and a crew of Croats and Italians, he set sail from Chatham; on a voyage to South America with a cargo of cement. The vessel arrived safely at La Plata, and, after shipping an entirely new crew, sailed for Valparaiso, around Capo Horn, From the moment, however, that the Margherita's masts dipped below the horizon on this voyage. <*he vanished as completely a,s if the sea had swallowed her. Yet through all tho years that have *inco 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 Been and recognised in various parts of the earth. He had been reported fighting with the Japanese against the Russians; ,'n Chili, bearing arms against Balmaceda; and again in Mallorca, in company with his kinsman,, the Archduke Louis Salvator. " Don Kamon" tho Mysterious.

George Lacour, a French author of repute, proved to his satisfaction that Johann was living in the Argentine, under the guise of a mysterious and elusive "Don ."Ramon"; and Senor Eugenio Charzun, a Senator of Uruguay, not long ago declared f hat he had seen him start from the

Argentine on, a voyage to Japan, Still ' ijnore recently >t was stated that he was ' a passenger on a ship bound from America to England, that he had been challenged

bv a fellow-passenger who had recognised him, and admitted that he was the missing Archduke. Ho 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 tho belief that ho was alive. Year after year, until death claimed her, she 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 those who offered her sympathy. "I Snow that ho lives and will come back to me before I die." In the Secret.

There were, it is said, only two men, now dead, who knew the truth; and ueither would declare it. One was Dr. von Harbeler, the Archduke's confidential friend and attorney, who, so it was believed, hcarcf from him regularly every month, but from whom no one was ever able to elicit a word.

Tho other svas' Baron del Abaco, also an intimate friend, whose life-story is little less romantic than that of the Archduke himself. .Shortly after Joh,inn'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 tho Archduke Johann, beforo his disappearance, confided his plans to the Baron, under a pledge of secrecy; and that tho Baron, until his death, was in constant communication with his Royal friend.