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Even could these allegations be successfully disproved, that would not draw to Cyril the loyalty evoked from Russians by the sheer, heroic magnitude of the Grand Duke Nicholas. The glory of his early victories, and of his masterly retreat from Warsaw, is not dimmed by the fact that Nicholas II finally withdrew command of the Western Front from the Grand Duke. Stories are still told of the iron discipline which he kept, and of the wise and genuine humanity with which he tempered it. Like Napoleon he was loved because he inspired his men to march and fight to their uttermost, exultant limit, while always feeding and bedding them as well as could 'by any possibility be done. That he defied the Tsar, the politicians and Rasputin separately, collectively and repeatedly is well known. On one celebrated occasion the Black Monk had persuaded the Tsar to order that he, Rasputin, should inspect the Crank Duke Nicholas' lines, and the "Debauchee" wired that he was coming. He changed his plans upon receiving a one-sentence telegram from the Grand Duke Nicholas:
COME AND I SHALL SEE THAT YOU ARE HANGED.
Today such sardonic defiance of an Absolute Autocrat and a Hypnotist-Monk may seem more witty than significant; but at the time it took titanic courage. No wonder the last, scattered, phantom remnants of the Imperial Army have remained fanatically loyal to Nicholas. Last week, in Nice, the Grand Duke, stricken with pneumonia, sank low, and lower. Oxygen was finally administered and some recovery noted; but tearful, fatalistic members of Nicholas' entourage seemed to sense and fear that the old warrior was joining his last battle with Death.
* Prince Dimitri has been employed for some years in Manhattan, Prince Rostislav in Chicago.