500 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (MILAN MIQUEL.) 



around to an Austrophile policy had something 

 to do with the estrangement, the private mis- 

 conduct of Milan much more. While Natalie 

 made an official visit to the court of ISt. Peters- 

 burg, the King took a political journey to Vienna, 

 where the Emperor of Austria counseled him to 

 seek a reconciliation with the Queen. The affair 

 was apparently settled when suddenly, while 

 Queen Natalie was in Wiesbaden, toward the mid- 

 dle of 1888, the King gave her public notice not 

 to return to Servia. At this time he flouted the 

 majority of the Skupshtina, which opposed his 

 plans for reorganizing the army. The scandal of 

 the divorce filled the measure of his unpopularity. 

 Queen Natalie had Prince Alexander with her at 

 Wiesbaden, and when she received the decree of 

 banishment she refused to be separated from her 

 son, but by the aid of the law he was torn from 

 her arms.* Milan demanded. a divorce from the 

 Servian synod, although the bishops unanimously 

 asserted that the synod was incompetent to pro- 

 nounce the decree. "The King thereupon removed 

 the bishops and appointed a metropolitan who 

 was willing to serve him in the matter. By this 

 proceeding he destroyed all vestiges of prestige 

 and respect that remained for him. He tried to 

 break the force of the coming storm by further 

 arbitrary expedients. When the elections resulted 

 in an overwhelming victory for the Radicals he 

 simply annulled them. The situation grew more 

 critical, and on March 6, 1889, he abdicated in 

 favor of his son Alexander, reserving for himself 

 the regency during the minority of the new 

 King. He scarcely attempted to exercise his 

 rights, plunged deeper than ever into the pleasures 

 and dissipations of Parisian life, and in 1892 re- 

 nounced the regency, as he had before resigned 

 the throne, in consideration of a sum of money 

 voted by the Skupshtina. The Servian people to 

 be rid of him gave him 3,000,000 francs. When 

 this money was gone he returned to Servia re- 

 peatedly and asserted the strong influence that 

 he possessed over his son. Each time, with men- 

 aces and bribes combined, the Servians induced 

 him to return to his exile. In 1898, King Alex- 

 ander, having by his father's incitement, on April 

 13, 1893, dismissed the regents and taken up the 

 reins of authority, recalled him and appointed 

 him generalissimo of the Servian army. When 

 he abdicated the throne, on Sept. 30, 1891, he re- 

 nounced his titles, rank, and Servian nationality. 

 From 1892 he was known as Count of Takovo, 

 but after his return to Servia he took again the 

 name of King Milan. His divorce had been an- 

 nulled, and on March 7, 1893, he was formally 

 reconciled with his wife. His return to Belgrade 

 and assumption of the chief command of the 

 active army and his reassertion of a tutelage over 

 his son caused fresh political storms. In order 

 to avert revolution or civil war he made the 

 Knezevich plot the pretext for imprisoning and 

 condemning to jail or exile every politician who 

 combated his influence. The effects of these vio- 

 lent proceedings opened the eyes of King Alex- 

 ander at last, and he took a course similar to 

 that which Milan had employed with Queen Na- 

 talie. While his father was sojourning abroad 

 the young King took the occasion to announce 

 officially his approaching marriage to the widow 

 Draga Machin. This drew from the ex-King the 

 expected vehement protest, upon which King 

 Alexander simply deprived him of his rank of 

 generalissimo and forbade him ever to reenter 

 Servian territory. The banished King, after his 

 fresh disgrace, began to intrigue against his son 

 and to organize plots with the object of regaining 

 the Crown for himself, counting on the aid of some 



of the military officers who still remained faith- 

 ful to him and on the support of Austria, since 

 Alexander after his marriage had fallen under 

 Russian influence. His unexpected death was the 

 result of an attack of influenza which was epi- 

 demic in Vienna. Milan was the son of Miloch 

 Yephremovich and grandnephew of Miloch, the 

 first hereditary Prince of Servia, who took the 

 name of Obrenovich from his mother's first hus- 

 band, was a farmer and breeder of hogs before 

 he took the lead in the rebellion against Turkey, 

 was recognized as Prince by the Sublime Porte 

 in 1830, having been elected by the National As- 

 sembly in 1817, abdicated in 1839, was restored 

 to the throne in 1858, the Karageorgevich family 

 having reigned in the interval, and died in 1860. 

 Miquel, Johannes von, a German statesman, 

 born in Neuenhaus, Hanover, Feb. 19, 1829; died 

 in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Sept. 8, 1901. He came 

 from a family of French emigres. He studied law 

 at Heidelberg and Gottingen, and in the revolu- 

 tionary movement of 1848 he was an ardent revo- 

 lutionist of extreme views, an atheist, and a So- 

 cialist, who proposed to lead a peasant's revolt. 

 As soon as Germany was reduced to something 

 like the old order under the old rulers, who had 

 the military, when he saw that the path to great- 

 ness through revolution was closed, if he did not 

 forget his Marxist ideals, he hid them in his 

 mind, and studied the means of entering political 

 life under the conditions that he found. While 

 practising law he was studying politics, and when 

 struggling for bread he aimed to be minister. 

 He was elected to the Hanoverian Diet first in 

 1864, after having won a high reputation as an 

 advocate in Gottingen. As Biirgermeister of Os- 

 nabriick in 1865 he exhibited remarkable admin- 

 istrative ability. In the Hanoverian Diet he made 

 himself a master of finance, and his disclosures 

 of the mismanagement under the Guelphs spread 

 his fame throughout Germany. All Germany was 

 the sphere of his political hopes and plans. With 

 Bennigsen he founded the National German Union 

 which set forth the means and conditions of ac- 

 complishing the unification of Germany. Their 

 program was accepted by the practical poli- 

 ticians of all the states, so that when Prussia 

 annexed Hanover it was said that Hanover had 

 annexed Prussia. His parliamentary and polit- 

 ical reputation was already established when he 

 entered the Prussian Chamber, and his services 

 in having smoothed the way for the incorporation 

 of Hanover gave him a position of importance in 

 the Diet and afterward in the Reichstag, which 

 he turned to good account. He was one of the 

 most loyal and useful of Bismarck's lieutenants, 

 carrying a doubtful vote oftentimes by his facts, 

 arguments, and eloquent appeals. He was chair- 

 man of the Committee on the Reform and Unifi- 

 cation of Judicial Procedure, and this great work 

 was in a great measure his. In 1869 the Berlin 

 Discontogesellschaft engaged him as legal direc- 

 tor, but after four years he gave up the position 

 in order to devote himself entirely to legislative- 

 labors. In 1882 he accepted the office 'of head 

 Biirgermeister of Frankfort, and for eight years 

 he administered the affairs of that city to the 

 satisfaction even of the burghers who were bit- 

 terly opposed to him in politics. The post made 

 him ex offtcio a member of the Prussian House 

 of Lords, in which he gave serviceable aid to 

 Prince Bismarck in bringing to an end the Cultur- 

 kampf. In 1884 he pressed upon the National 

 Liberals a program involving a compromise with 

 political and economic theories with a view to 

 their coming into office by absorbing the Mod- 

 erates of other parties. His plan was successful, 



