OBITUARY.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1204, 12 January 1878, Page 3

OBITUARY.

KINO VICTOR EMMANUEL. Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and of Queen Theresa, daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, was born March 11-th, 1820, and received at his baptism the names Marie - Albert • Eugene - Ferdinand - Thomas-Yictor-Emmanuel. He was carefully educated in science and military tactics, and married April 12th, 1842, the Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, who died January 20th, 1855. He took an active part, as Duke of Savoy, in the events of 1848, accompanying his father to the field, and behaving with great bravery at the battles of Quito and Novara. On the evening after the latter (March2 4th, 1849), Charles Albert signed his abdication in the Bellini Palace. Little was then known of his son "and successor, who assumed the title Victor Emmanuel 11,, except that he was a dashing hunter, somewhat haughty, and a reputed opponent of Liberalism. He succeeded in obtaining from Austria terms less humiliating than those imposed on his father, hut the treaty of peace was not signed till August, 1849. On mounting the throne of Sardinia he endeavoured to reorganise the finances, the army, and the system of public instruction, concluded with England several treaties of commerce, established railways, and promoted free trade. He indignantly refused the offer made by Austria for the cession of Parma, provided he would abolish the constitution. Genoa having revolted and expelled his garrison, he sent an army against it, recovered his former rights, and his efforts for the prosperity of his kingdom were generally successful. He had, however, one great struggle throughout his reign with the court and clergy of Eome. Guided by Count Cavour, he confiscated much church property, and took away many clerical privileges. He concluded in January, 1855, a convention with France and England to take part in the war against Russia, and dispatched to the Crimea an army of 17,000 men under General De La Marmora, which distinguished itself by a victory on the banks of the Tchernaya. Sardinia took part in the Conference of Paris, where her ambassador laid before the representatives an able paper on the state of Italy. In 1855, the king lost his mother, wife, and brother, and was brought to the verge of the grave by fever. After his recovery, he visited France and England, where he was received with great enthusiasm, and was created a Knight of the Garter and Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. In the early part of 1859, the king, whose relatione with Austria had been for a long time the reverse of friendly, announced in the chamber that a storm was impending, and Count Cavour detailed the grievances of Sardinia against Austria in a diplomatic circular. Lord Derby’s government used its best endeavours to avert a war which seemed imminent, but without effect. Austria summoned Sardinia to disarm, but in vain; and the Austrian army crossed the Ticino. The Emperor of the French despatched a powerful army to Italy, and having assumed the command, joined the Sardinian forces, and defeated the Austrians at Montebello, May 20th ; at Palestro, May 30th and 31st; at Magenta, June 4th; and at Solfcrino, June 24th, the Emperor and the King being present in person. The Austrians were expelled from Lombardy, the princes from Naples, Tuscany, Parma, and Modena; and the Treaty of Villa Franca, concluded July 11th, confirmed by the Treaty of Zurich, November 10th, terminated the war and established Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy. The Parliament, assembled at Turin, March 17th, 1861, formally established the title, which was recognised by England March 30th, and by France Juno 24th. A treaty for the transfer of the seat of government from Turin to Florence, and the evacuation of Rome by the French in two years, was signed September 15th, 1864. The court was transferred to Florence in 1865, and the French army was withdrawn from Rome in 1867. In 1866 the King of Italy, making common cause with Prussia, by a treaty signed May 12th, declared war against Austria. The Italian army was defeated by the Austrians at Custozza, June 24th, and the Italian fleet sustained a reverse off Lissa, July 20th ; but in consequence of the success of the Prua-

sians, peace was signed at Vienna,Oct. 3rd, by which Venice and the territory of Venetia were ceded to Italy, and Victor Emmanuel made his public entry into Venice Nov. 7th. Subsequent events resulted in the occupation of Rome by the troops of Victor Emmanuel, and the transfer to that city of the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870. His family consists of the Princess Clothilde Marie Therese Louise, born March 2nd, 1843, and married Jan. 30th, 1859, to Prince Napoleon; Prince Humbert Renier Charles Emmanuel Jean Marie Ferdinand Eugene, heir apparent, and Prince of Piedmont, born March 14th, 1844; Prince Amadeus Ferdinand Marie, Duke of Aosta (once King of Spain), born May 30th, 1845 ; and Princess Maria Pia, born Oct. 16th, 1847, married Oct. 6th, 1862, to Louis 1., King of Portugal. FIELD-MARSHAL VON WRANGEL. Field-Marshal Frederick Von Wrangel, whose death was recently announced at the age of ninety-four years, was the patriarch of the Prussian army ; and to be the patriarch of the army is, in Prussia, to be the patriarch of the nation. There was no man more endeared to the Emperor-King than his nonagenarian General, compared with whom His Majesty could almost boast the years of middle-life. Both the Mouarch and the crowd were proud of him ; and for any parallel to the interest which his presence evoked among the Berlin multitude we must carry our memories back to the undying popular curiosity and favour that attended the appearance in Piccadilly more than a quarter of a century ago of the Iron Duke. Like the Sovereign himself, Von Wrangel had lived through all the humiliations and all the avenging triumphs that Prussia has experienced since the opening of the century. He was the living type of Prussian endurance, Prussian long-sightedness, Prussian valour, Prussian victory. He was born in 1784, or some years before there broke out among the French people that tremendous manifestation of national energy, which, after venting itself upon domestic abuses, was to become a source of terror to the whole of Europe. By the time the French Republic had arrived at the conclusion that its mission was both to conquer and to revolutionise the world, Frederick von Wrangel was undergoing the apprenticeship of a soldier. When Prussia received the just reward of the irresolution and selfishness of her rulers in the crushing disaster of Jena, in the autumn of 1806, the deceased veteran was in his twentysecond year—an age at which humiliations, whether personal or national, sink deep into the heart. He saw the capital of his country occupied by the French, and his sovereign subjected to something very like indignity by the all-conquering Corsican. He must have witnessed the dignified sorrow of the beautiful and patriotic queen, the mother of the present Emperor of Germany, who had been so largely instrumental in rousing the spirit of her husband’s subjects, and now had the grief of seeing that their tardy intrepidity had only brought down upon them the searching vengeance of Napoleon. He obtained his captaincy in the year 1811, and could therefore not have been closely admitted to those ingenious counsels by which Schamberst and Hardenbrog contrived, not only to bafile the limitations placed by Bonaparte on the size of the Prussian army, but to turn a strict observance of the letter of the cruel law into a military weapon for the overthrow of their country’s oppressor. Blucher was the embodiment of that idea, and it was consummated at Waterloo.