JOHANN ORTH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19501, 9 June 1925, Page 8

JOHANN ORTH.

CENTRE OF AN AUSTRIAN MYSTERY. If we are to believe the' latest news from Vienna, a romantically appropriate ‘ last chapter has to be written to the queer story of that Hapsburg Archduke whom the world for a generation has called Johann Orth (says the Daily Telegraph). He came to the younger branch of the Hapsburgs, which, from the middle of the eighteenth to the hilddle of the nineteenth century reigned as Grand Dukes over Tuscany. The liberation of Italy sent the Archduke Johann Salvator back to his Austrian fatherland while he wae still a boy. He did not take to it kindly. He published attacks on the Government, and criticisms of other Archdukes, he patronised democrats, he even composed music. Inevitably he was in ill-favour with the Emperor Francis Joseph, and as a natural consequence of that he became intimate with the Crown Prince Rudolph, whose life ended in an ugly mystery at Meyerling. That the two ever thought of a coup d’etat, as some of the many voices of scandal have said, no one is required to believe. Johann Salvator fell in love with a girl at the opcira called Hilly Stubel, and wanted to abandon his rank and marry her. He had a final quarrel with the Emperor, which ended, says his niece, in his throwing the insignia of his Order of the Golden Fleece at the Imperial Majesty. Then he left Austria under the name of Johann Orth, the surname being borrowed fram the chateau of his family in the Salzhammergut. Milly Stubel went with him. Whether they were married in London, as the common story goes, there is no evidence. Official efforts seem' to have been made to persuade him to return. A letter, apparently genuine, is extant in which Johann Orth gives a tolerably handsome version of his quarrel with the Emperor. In March, 1890, he sailed on th barque Sainte Marguerite for La Plata. Milly Stubel was on board. After they reached South America. Johann Orth, whose versatility had acquired a master mariner's certificate, himself took command, and set -sail for Valparaiso. About that time the weather round the Horn was even worse than usual. The Sainte Marguerite never reached Valparaiso or any other port. An Austrian cruiser sent by the Emperor searched the southern seas in vain. There seems little occasion for doubt that Johann Orth went down with his ship. But innumerable stories have saved him from the sea. These generally depend on evidence more or leas vague that Johann was not in the Sainte Marguerite when she sailed from La Plata. Why he should not have been there is no rational explanation. But Johann has been seen in a Spanish convent in Buenos Aires, in the Arctic regions, in the hintcriad of Chile, and now he has died in a hospital in Vienna under the name of Albert Goebel. This, it is fair to say, is the most plausible of all his reappearances. Three people who know the Archduke have identified the liody. On the other hand, his nephew, who also adjured his title, declines to accept the identification. The dead man has left a widow, who says that he told her he did sail on the Sainte Marguerite, but escaped in a small boat when she sank. I)e- . tails of this remarkable adventure arc lacking. It seems that the case of Johann Orth remains much where it was. All the ascertained facts point to his death off the Horn 30 vears ago. But lovers of the marvellou* will" retort that it is not only the probable which happens.