ITALIAN NAVY'S NEW COMMANDER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 51, 27 October 1914, Page 2

ITALIAN NAVY'S NEW COMMANDER.

Little htus been heard in this country of the Duke of the Abruzzi’s qualifications as a naval officer, and his appointment as Commander-In-Chief ol the Italian Navy has therefore come as a complete surprise. His life record of daring and adventure proves, however, that he will bo no ornamental head of his Royal cousin’s fleet. When he lectured in London before King Edward at the Queen’s Hall, seven years ago, he was a captain in the Italian -Navy, and looked every inch a sailor—a slim, youthful man in his early thirties, with a long, sharplymoulded face, head erect, and the air of a born leader of nen. The Duke was in command of I Lilian warships visiting Jamestown v (ion ho first met Miss Katherine ElkLts, the American heiress. All the world knows how ho failed to obtain the King of Italy’s consent to his engagement to Miss Elkins, in spite of his willingness to renounce all his titles and privileges. The Elkins affair brought the Duke into even greater prominence than his feats as a traveller and explorer, although these were far from inconsiderable. When he was in his teens he conquered difficult Alpine peaks, then he went to Alaska, where he climbed the virgin Mount Elias, over 18,000 feet high. From mountain "limbing ho turned to Arctic exploration, getting nearer to the Pole than Nansen. Finally, he was the first human being ever to ascend the snowcapped “Mountains of the Moon” in Equatorial Africa.