3-082-169 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late M. De Giers, Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1895. 'The political prospects of the reign of the Emperor Nicholas II. will not be greatly affected by the loss of the aged Minister for Foreign Affairs, who died on Jan. 26; for M. de Giers had been expected to retire on the death of Alexander III., and had, in fact, taken no active part in State business for several months past. He was, indeed, at no time a statesman of commanding influence...An accomplished and useful official servant of the empire, with great experience and knowledge of affairs, and with considerable diplomatic tact, M. de Giers was not so much an indispensable man as a man of that type which is always indispensable to a despotic system of government...In 1850 [he] was appointed First Secretary of the Russian Legation at Constantinople, and for some time acted as Secretary to the Russian Commissioner in what were then called "the Danubian principalities," Moldavia and Wallachia, now forming the independent kingdom of Roumania. He resided at Bucharest, as Consul-General, after the Crimean War, until 1863, when he became the Russian Ambassador in Persia. From 1869 to 1872 he was Minister at Berne, the Federal capital of Switzerland, and afterwards at Stockholm'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.