Death of Nicholas

As it must to all men, death came, last week, to His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch of Russia, 72. at Cap d'Antibes, French Riviera, where he lay ill of pneumonia (TIME, Dec. 31).

The Grand Duke Nicholas, so-called "strong man" of the former Russian imperial family, was commander-in-chief of the Russian armies (1914-15), and second cousin of assassinated Tsar Nicholas II and last, whose successor he claimed to be. A leader of glorious victories and masterly retreats, the Grand Duke Nicholas was beloved of thousands of Russian emigres and commanded popularity even among the masses in Russia after the Revolution, to the constant discomfort of the Soviet state.

Present when death came were Grand Duke Peter and representatives of the ''White Russian Army," organized by the late Baron Wrangel (TIME, May 7), pledged to the Grand Duke Nicholas, and now left desolate in Jugoslavia and Rumania, where the "soldiers" work as laborers.

The incontestably legal heir to Russia's vanished Throne is now the Grand Duke Cyril Yladimirovitch, a bitter rival of Nicholas, who long since proclaimed himself ''Tsar of Russia."

Prayed over the Grand Ducal bier, last week, the Archimandrite Theodosius of the Greek Orthodox (old Russian) Church.

In Italy the royal family decreed a fortnight period of mourning to honor Nicholas Nicholaievitch, who was brother-in-law of Queen Elena.