Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

The Saida returned to Fiume at the end of a year without having been able to accomplish anything beyond confirming the report of Don Mensilla. And in response to the pope’s letter many reports came back, but none of them resulted in the finding of John Orth.

Shortly after the return of the Saida the Austrian heirs of John Orth moved for the payment of his insurance, and the Hamburg Marine Insurance Company, after going through the formality of a court proceeding, paid the claim. In 1896 a demand was made on two banks, one in Freiburg and the other in St. Gallen, Switzerland, for moneys deposited with them by the archduke after his departure from Austria in 1889. One of these banks raised the question of the death proof, claiming that thirty years must elapse in the case of an unproved death. The courts decided against the bank, thereby tacitly confirming the contention that the end of the archduke had been sufficiently demonstrated. About two million crowns were accordingly paid over to the Austrian custodians.

In 1909 the court marshal in Vienna was asked to hand over the property of John Orth to his nephew and heir, and this high authority then declared that the missing archduke had been dead since the hurricane of August 3-5, 1890. He, however, asked the supreme court of Austria to pass finally upon the matter, and a decision was handed down on May 9, 1911, in which the archduke was declared dead as of July 21, 1890, the day on which the heavy storms about the Patagonian coasts began. His property was ordered distributed, and his goods and chattels were sold. The books, instruments, art collection and furniture, which had long been preserved in the various villas and castles of the absent prince, were accordingly sold at auction in Berlin, during the months of October and November, 1912.

In spite of the great care that was taken to discover the facts in this case, and in the face of the various official reports and court decisions, a great romantic tradition grew up about John Orth and his mysterious destiny. The episodes of his demotion, his marriage, his abandonment of rank, and his exile had undoubtedly much to do with the birth of the legend. Be that as it may, the world has for more than thirty years been feasted with rumors of the survival of John Orth and his actress wife. In the course of the Russo-Japanese war the story was widely printed that Marshal Yamagato was in reality the missing archduke. The story was credited by many, but there proved to be no foundation for it beyond the fact that the Japanese were using their heavy artillery in a manner originally suggested by the archduke in that old monograph which had got him disciplined.

Ex-Senator Eugenio Garzon of Uruguay is the chief authority for one of the most plausible and insistent of all the John Orth stories. According to this politician and man of letters, there was present at Concordia, in the province of Entre Rios, Argentine Republic, in the years 1899 to 1900 and again from 1903 to 1905, a distinguished looking stranger of military habit and bearing, who had few friends, received few visits, always spoke Italian with a Señor Hirsch, an Austrian merchant of Buenos Aires, and generally conducted himself in a secretive and suggestive manner. Señor Hirsch treated the stranger with marked respect and deference.

Senator Garzon presents the corroborative opinion of the Jefe de Policia of Concordia, an official who firmly believed the man of mystery to be John Orth. On the other hand, Señor Nino de Villa Rey, the closest friend and sometime host of the supposed imperial castaway, denied the identity of his intimate and scoffed at the whole tale. At the same time, say Garzon and the chief of police, Señor de Villa Rey tried to conceal the presence of the man, and it was the activity of the police authorities, executing the law authorizing them to investigate and keep records of the identity of all strangers, that frightened the “archduke” away. He went to Paraguay and worked in a sawmill belonging to Villa Rey. Shortly before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war he left for Japan.

This is evidently the basis of the Yamagato confusion. Senator Garzon’s book is full of doubtful corroboration and too subtle reasoning, but it is rewarding and entertaining for those who like romance and read Spanish.[5]

[5] See Bibliography.

The missing John Orth has likewise been reported alive from many other unlikely parts of the world and under the most incredible circumstances. Austrian, German, British, French, and American newspapers have been full of such stories every few years. The much sought man has been “found” mining in Canada, running a pearl fishery in the Paumotus, working in a factory in Ohio, fighting with the Boers in South Africa, prospecting in Rhodesia, running a grocery store in Texas—what not and where not?

One of the most recent apparitions of John Orth happened in New York. On the last day of March, 1924, a death certificate was filed with the Department of Health formally attesting that Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria, the missing archduke, had died early that morning of heart disease in Columbus Hospital, one of the smaller semi-public institutions. Doctor John Grimley, chief surgeon of the hospital, signed the certificate and said he had been convinced of the man’s identity by his “inside knowledge of European diplomacy.”