FATE LAUGHS AT LAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

FATE LAUGHS AT LAST

Soldier of Fortune Who Defied Death

UNHARMED IN TEN WARS, HE WAS KILLED BESIDE THE GATES OF MADRID

PARIS, Jan. 30 IVAN KOPIETZKI RASKOVIC just could not help fighting. It was in his blood. Death he scorned. "They will never get me," he used to boast. "The bullets know me by this time, and keep out of my way. I am only 43, and when I have fought my twenty-fifth war I will retire. Then perhaps the armament kings will erect a statute to me. But Ivan Kopietzki Easkovic will never achieve his ambition. Last spring he fought his tenth war in Abyssinia. When the trouble started * in Spain, he just naturally went there—and there he stayed. In the fighting near the University City of Madrid he was hit by an ignorant bullet that had not heard of him. Born a Croat, Ivan Kopietzki Easkovic was brought up in a little village of old Serbia, near Nish. He joined several patriotic associations which aimed at the union of all Slavs, and, although he was officially a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian empire, he joined up in the army of King Peter I, and fought in the two Balkan 'wars of 1911 and 1913.

Shot if Captured The Great War found him once again in the colours. He did not hesitate to fight for his ideal, a united Slav nation, against the Austrian Empire, although he -would liax-e been treated as a deserter and shot if captured. But death wanted nothing to do with Ivan. As he proceeded unscathed through the horrors of war, his political ideas fell with ever-increasing rapidity toward the left, so that when he reentered Zagreb in the autumn of 3918, he was completely won over for the cause of the world revolution. He soon got into trouble tfith the police, and decided to go to Eussia. But on his way he ran into the Bavarian civil war, and stopped for the duration. He was wounded, and fled across the frontier to Salzburg. In the summer of 1919 he fought in the ranks of the Hungarian Eed Army against the Czechs and the Eumanians. Then, after the collapse of Hungarian Communism, he spent several comparatively peaceful months in Vienna. Tiring of inactivity, he decided to resume his interrupted trek to Moscow, but once again he was disappointed. In Munich ho learnt from one of his old

comrades, a woman, that he had been condemned to death, and would be shot if caught.

He was hungry, homeless and penniless. He could not return to Austria, for as a militant communist the police were too interested in him. His friend suggested that ho should try to get to Russia dressed as a woman.

Ivan bad small hands and feet, delicate features, long hair and a highpitched voice. '

Into Red Russia * He did not hesitate. Ivan never hesitated. He borrowed some clothes, shaved off his beard, and set out 011 foot, without a passport, with no papers, for the Russian frontier on the Baltic coast, where, he had been told, the frontier guards were less vigilant. It was- also ISOO miles away, but that was a mere detail. And so Ivan arrived in Leningrad, which was still called St. Petersburg in those days. On his journey he slept in convents, under bridges, on seats, anywhere. Shortly after arriving in Russia he saw his picture in a German news-

paper. The authorities were offering 3 g£ reward for him, dead or alive. 1 Ivan laughed and joined tho ft Army. He took part in the H UBto . if Polish war, ■ his sixth altogether, and II saw the famous advance almost to the p gates of Warsaw, and the subsequent IP debacle. After peace was signed, If took part in the "cleaning up" 0 f th 5 fl Caucasians. Ivan never considered thfc f§ expedition as a serious war. and did not IP number it among his campaigns. p But Ivan, as well as fighting, Jj || meddled with politics. Nobody with whom he conspired against whom P but he got into trouble and left 1 in a hurry. With the Foreign Legion - He went to France, joined tie §1 Foreign Legion, and performed bril- "I liantly in the war. in Morocco. Btrfcjjj, J adventurer's blood soon tired of peace. time soldiering, and be deserted, found & his way to Arabia and. met Colonel' S Lawrence, . . I Lawrence introduced him to Ibn Saud and Ivan fought in Ibn Sand's array, Once again he fell into disgrace, and 1 just escaped a very nasty, form of r*. | venge. Once again he started off f M i Eussia, but this time he landed in lion. I golia, fighting his ninth wa r against 1 Chinese and Japanese bandits. • Spasmodic warfare with bandits sooj 1 palled on him. and he started roaming again. When he arrived in Africa Ms practised eye soon detected the symp. toins of trouble, and he settled t*mporarilv in Addis Ababa as chief civil engineer to the Emperor. This peaceful occupation did not last long. The Italo-Abvssinian war, Ivan's tenth, broke out, and Ivan tu?ned militarv engineer. He caused tbs f Italians quite a bit of bother until tlw 1 break-up of the black armies. Then, | with a forged passport of a South | American state, he left Addis Aliaba g and made his way to Zagreb.

"I'll Be Back" j In his new- new capacity of a South | American gentleman he examined hii 1 home country, v;ent on to Paris, and I then to the Riviera. Roulette did not really interest kim, f and when the civil war broke out ia I Spain he packed his bags and left for 1 the scene of action. 1 "Cheerio," he said to his friends as | he left, "I'll be back soon." | "So-long," they answered, confident i; in his legendary luck. f . • | But all good things come to an end. The gods of Fortune decided thai | eleven wars were enough for any man, and Ivan Kopietzky Raskoyic is no | more. He died in a counter-attack on the University City. ' | It was his misfortune to live in the century of eternal peace. K.P.A., (Copyrijkt), |