ROYAL LOVE TRAGEDY.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1919, Page 10

ROYAL LOVE TRAGEDY.

SECRET OF CZAR'S DAUGHTER. WOOED BY A PRESTCE Tho tragic love doxy of the Russian . Grand Duchess Olga. who met a terrible , death at the hands of Bolshevik soldiers, forms one of the greatest Royal love ro- ' mances of all time. The lady was the beautiful daughter of the late Czar, and, had she chosen, might have been alive to-day as Queen-Regent of the new Serbia which has arisen, phoenix-like, from tho ashes of the old. Prince Alexander of Serbia loved Olga, and sought her hand. The Czar left it tor her to decide. What was Olga's reply? Did she say "No" to the wooing of Alexander? Or did she say "Yes," and the world war, which broke out six months afterwards, come to defer the wedding to what they thought would be a happier time? Out of the ruck of the war and the ruin of dynasties comes this love story, j writes- Mr. William G. Shepherd, the well-known correspondent, in a message from The Hague. It is not often that a Royal love story is told as fully as this one. All of Crown Prince Alexander's side of the story is found in an official record which has just come to light in Holland. o|ga's side has perished with her and with her family. A grey-hair-ed, grey-whiskered old Serbian statesman, who was Premier of Serbia in 1912, travelled to Russia to talk to the Czar about Alexander's love for Olga. He was Pashitch, a leading statesman of Europe. The visit was made at Petrograd on February 2, 1914, six months before the European war broke out. For half an hour Pashitch talked to the Czar about the Balkan situation. The Czar, little knowing what the grey-bearded old Serbian had in his mind, entered enthusiastically into the discussion, criticishig Austria, Montenegro, Ferdinand of Bul° garia, and expressing his love for Serbia and the need of friendship with Greece. Then Pashitch told of Alexander's love story to the Czar. lam able, from Bogitshevick's hook, "Causes of the War," to give Pasliitch'a report as he wrote it himself:—''Thereupon I referred to the matter of the marriage of our heir to the throne in the following words:—'T pray your Majesty may graciously permit me to propose a wish and a request of our King and not to be-, angry if I do so.'" Pashitch seemed to realise that he was asking on behalf of the Crown Prince of a tiny country —Crown Prince by virtue of assassination—the hand of the most beautiful maiden of one of the greatest Courts of Europe. ''Our King," he continued, "wished to marry his son to one of the Grand Duchesses." The Czar—so runs the report of Pashitch—replied, smiling, that he was not at all ill-dispos-ed to the request of the King and it was quite a proper one. His principle, however, was to permit his children to decide matters of the heart for themselves, and he did not wish to influence them in their choice of future life-partners; The Czar said he found the Crown Prince "quite smart.'/ "He did not boaat about his war experiences." I thereupon thanked him and promised to tell no one, not even the King, what the Czar had told me. Only the Crown Prince was to know of it. The Czar said that the Crown Prince had not mentioned the matter when he was visiting there, to which I answered that lie feared a refusal. So ends the official story of Pashitch. The beautiful Olga is dead. Perhaps to this day only Pashitch and the young Prince Alexander know whether" OJgai Midyea oxmj..