HEIR TO ALL THE RUSSIAS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1897, 4 November 1913, Page 5

HEIR TO ALL THE RUSSIAS.

NVHO WILL SUCCEED NIC! 30LAS ? The cabled referenco to'a forthcoming ihappv event at the Peterhof Palaoe in St. Petersburg revives interest in- the problem of the Russian succession. It is; a year now since little Alexis, the •Tsarevitch, first became ill in Spala 'Palace, but hardly a word about it has nppeared in tho Rusgidn press (writes the St. Petersburg correspondent of the San Francisco '"Chronicle"). Yet before Christmas of 1912 four doctors bad admitted that Alexis was hopelessly sick; that he would never walk again, tind ( that at best his death was a question of years. This means the fulfilment of the Russian proverb "Alexeyu kak Alexeyu"—"As with 'Alexis, so .with Alexis." The proverb is connected with the fate .of the Grand Duke 'Alexia. Petrovitch, - son of Peter the Great. Peter put Alexis to death beicause Alexis intrigued against'his reforms. . - 1

The immediate cause of Alexis's illness was his persistence 111 jumping off a chair into his bath, which made him knock • his groin violently 'against a metal tap. Alexis was never strong. He suffers from the same complaint as 'King George V'b uncle, the late Dulce of Albany, in" that he has fewer than the normal number of skins and if liable to bleed at a rough touch. Alexis's case from the point" of view cf recovery, or even long lifo, is hopeless. Since Christinas he has not walked 100 yards. He still can stand, and was lately photographed standing in' order to prove to the public that rumours were exaggerated. Nicholas last July'demanded the formal opinion of the four doctors—Rauchfuss,. Botkin, 'Feodorff, and Ostrogradsky—and all four signed a paper saying "it is not probable that His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexis Nikolaievitch will reach mature years." This was a mild way of pronouncing sentence of flcath. _ . ■ If no alternative heir be found the successor will be Grand Duke Michael jAlexandrovitch, Nicholas's only surviving brother. The Grand Duke Michael is married to a divorcee, Madarao j iWruble, formerly Mamontoff. He is, further, hopelessly uneducated, interests himself only -m his stables, and is unfit to rule. Nicholas held the view that from him alone depended the heirship, but, according to the law on the subject, the Tsar Nicholas here has no power at all. Michael and the Grand Dukes next in order of seniority cannot be put aside without the separate consent of each. Michael is reported to be ready to renounce the succession, but trouble remains, because the next four heirs are all as unfit as he. Tho first threo are the sons of tho lato Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandroviteh, Cyril, "Boris, -and Andrei. Cyril is excluded because ho is married to the divorced wifo of the Grand Duke of Hosse, who is a brother of Tsaritsa Alexandra. Boris and Andrei aro excluded because they aro hopelessly disreputable. The last resource is young Gravid Duke Dmitri, son of Nicholas's Uncle Paul. The original plan was to make hint heir and marry him to Nicholas's daughter, Grand Duchess Olga. Dmitri was_ then a fairly intelligent, decent-living youth, but ho has since developed vicious habits) So among all the young Romanoffs near tho throne there is not one who would make a tolerable Tsar. Tho Tsarkoe-selo clique, headed by Baron Fredericks, has evolved a plan to repeal the Salic law, under which no woman may ascend tho throne so long as there aro malo heirs, and to adopt tho system which prevails in England, under which a woman succeeds, to the oxclusion of males who ere moro distant relations than she is, to tho Sovereigp. "Unaor this scheme the next Sovereign in Russia, would be Grand Duchess Olga, who is highly intelligent, well brought up, and strong willed. This would moan the exclusion from tho throne of tho malo line of Romanoffs, but that would matter little, for the pure Romanoff male line has been extinct since 1730, when Petor 11, son of Peter tho Great, died jvithout leavina a son.