Chapter Seven.The Plot to Spread Epidemics in Russia.In my work of unmasking Rasputin I find that constant secret communications were at that time passing between the “holy” scoundrel and his infamous paymasters in the Königgratzer-strasse, while messages were continually being exchanged in strictest confidence between the Kaiser and the German-born Tsaritza, who lived beneath the thraldom of this common horse-stealer.Berlin, with all its devilish inventions for unfair warfare prohibited by the Hague Convention, had not overlooked the fact that owing to the primitive sanitation of Russia, epidemics had very often been widespread and most difficult to stamp out; therefore the suggestion to artificially produce outbreaks of bubonic plague and Asiatic cholera in the heart of the Empire had been suggested to that traitor, the Prime Minister Boris Stürmer, and his fellow-conspirators of the “camarilla,” of whom the Siberian charlatan known as “Holy Father” was the head. While the Imperial Court bowed its knees to the erotic rascal, yet strangely enough the people doubted him, and in secret jeered at him. The satanic suggestion from Berlin, however, appealed to the camarilla of pro-German plotters.The Russian army was gallantly holding out, even though many traitors held highest commands. The Germans had reached the height of their offensive power on that front, and a separate peace with Russia was in Berlin admitted to be, highly necessary, if the ultimate success of their arms was to be achieved. Therefore, if a devastating epidemic broke out, then Stürmer would have excuse to go to the Tsar and strongly urge the necessity for peace as the only salvation of the Empire.Hence the necessary steps were at once taken by the conspirators who were in the habit of meeting almost daily in the Gorokhovaya. Proof of what was on foot is disclosed by the following secret despatch from Berlin, which is included in Rasputin’s private papers, which so fortunately fell into the hands of the patriotic party of Russia. I here reproduce it:“Memorandum 26932.366.”‘Number 70’ has placed your communication and suggestions before a high quarter, and they are all approved. He is sending you, by way of Malmo, Karl Jöhnke, whose number is 229, a bacteriologist of the Frankfort Institute, who will arrive in Petrograd on the 18th, and seek you. By the same ship will arrive, consigned to our friends the firm of Yakowleff and Company, wholesale fruiterers, of the Nikolskaya, in Moscow, one hundred and twenty-six barrels of Canadian apples, with ninety cases of Canary bananas. These will be distributed in the ordinary course of trade to Kazan, Kharkow, Odessa, and other centres. See that P. (Protopopoff) grants easy facilities for rapid transport to the consignees in Moscow, as they are perishable.”‘Number 229’ has full instructions to deal with Ivan Yakowleff, who is our ‘fixed post’ in Moscow, and who is receiving his instructions in secret by the messenger who brings you this. The fruit must not be handled or eaten, as it has been treated and is highly dangerous.“Cholera should occur within three weeks of the arrival of the fruit. We rely upon P. taking steps to facilitate its rapid delivery. Some of it should be presented to charitable institutes for distribution among the poor.“Inform A. (Anna Vyrubova) that Korniloff (General Korniloff, whom all know to be one of the most successful of Russian generals) suspects her concerning the Zarudni affair and has at his house some correspondence which is incriminating. It is in a cupboard in his bedroom and should be secured at once. (G. Zarudni was active in political law cases before the Revolution, and has since been appointed Minister of Justice in the Kerensky Cabinet.) Zarudni is working against both S. (Stürmer) and yourself. If an accident happened to him it would render the atmosphere more clear. The same applies to his friend N.V. Nekrasov, who is on the Duma Budget Committee and on the Railway Committee. Both may upset our plans.“Against General Ostrogradski, Inspector-General of Cavalry, a charge of treason should be made. The bearer brings documents in order to arouse suspicion that he has sold military secrets to Austria. These can be produced at his trial. His continued activity against us, and his hatred of yourself are both dangerous.”‘Number 229’ will make personal reports to you concerning the negotiations with Roumania and also regarding the efforts we are making to prevent war material from England reaching Russia.”‘Number 70’ notes with gratification that the explosion at the nitro-glycerine works at Viborg has been effected, and that the factory was totally destroyed and most of the workmen killed. Please pay E. (an analytical chemist named Paul Eck, who was a friend of Rasputin’s) the sum promised.“It would be best if their Majesties removed to Tsarskoe-Selo. Anna Vyrubova should cultivate Boris Savenkov, Commissioner to the Seventh Army. (This suggestion shows the remarkable foresight of Berlin, for to-day Boris Savenkov is acting Minister of War.) You yourself should lose no time in becoming acquainted with Countess Vera Kokoskin, who lives at Potemkinskaya, 29. She is eager to meet you. Admit her as a disciple, for being an attractive and ambitious woman, she has considerable knowledge of what is in progress in certain quarters in the Duma. Being in want of money, and being blackmailed by a penniless lover named Sievers, she would probably be ready to become our friend. ‘Number 70’ therefore throws out this suggestion, yet at the same time impresses upon you and your friends the necessity of the creation of the epidemic and the bringing in of Roumania on the side of the Allies.”Those final words of that cipher despatch disclose a cunning that was indeed unequalled. I know full well that readers may be inclined to pause and to doubt that such dastardly methods could actually be pursued against civilisation. To such I can only point out that boxes of the same microbes were found in the German Legation in Bucharest, and were officially reported by the United States Legation in that city.The fierce German octopus—so carefully fostered and so well prepared—had alas! stretched its thousand searching tentacles upon the patriotic Russian people who were ruled by their weak and careless Emperor, while the pro-German Empress listened to every rumour, and in her heart hoped for a separate peace with Germany as the only salvation of her land. Truly the Romanoffs have proved themselves a weak-kneed and irresponsible dynasty. Alexander, however, was never weak. In the long-ago days when I had audience with his late Majesty one morning in his small reception-room in the Winter Palace, he wore a rough drab shooting suit; bluff and full-bearded as any of his ministers, he talked to me fully of his regret that the Nihilists should be ever plotting to kill him, and assured me of his own personal efforts to free his people from a corrupt Church and an iron bureaucracy.“Please tell your British people that as Tsar I am doing the utmost in my power to improve and civilise my dear Russian people, to whom I am devoted, and to whom I will if necessary give my life.”Those words of the father of the Tsar Nicholas will be found reproduced in the columns ofThe Timesafter my joining as “Russian Correspondent.”But let us examine the result of the secret order to Rasputin from Berlin which I have reproduced above.In the first place I find among the papers, a letter dated from the Potemkinskaya, 29, as follows:“Holy Father,—I thank you for your introduction yesterday to Her Majesty the Empress, and to the Grand Duchess Olga. Truly we are all your kindred spirits and disciples, who know at last the joys and pleasures of the life which Almighty God has given unto us. Anna was most charming, and I saw His Majesty as arranged. At your suggestion I mentioned the Gospodin Sievers, and the Emperor has promised to appoint him Vice-Governor of Omsk. All thanks to you, dear Holy Father. I shall be at our reunion at your house to-morrow, and my daughter Nada, who is in search of the Truth, will accompany me. Till then, I kiss your dear hand.—Vera Kokoskin.”This letter speaks for itself. Another document is a letter to Rasputin dated from the Hôtel Metropole, Moscow, and is in plain language as follows:“The consignment of fruit from your generous donors has duly reached the Maison Yakowleff and is being distributed in various charitable quarters and is much appreciated in these days when prices are so high. Some of it has been sent to the director of the Borgoroditsky Convent at Kazan, and also some to the Society of St. George at Kiev. Please inform and thank the donors.—Karl Jöhnke.”Eagerly the camarilla awaited the result of their dastardly handiwork. The allotted three weeks passed, but no epidemic was reported. Evidently the monk wrote to the German bacteriologist, who was posing as a Dane, for the latter wrote from the Hôtel Continental at Kiev:“The fruit, owing to delays in transit, was not in a condition for human consumption. This is extremely regrettable after all the trouble of our kind donors.”Therefore, while certain isolated cases of cholera were reported from several cities—as the sanitary records prove—Russia had had indeed a providential escape from a terrible epidemic, the infected fruit being distributed over a wide area by charitable organisations quite unsuspicious of its source.Failure to produce the desired result induced Rasputin and his paymasters in Berlin to adopt yet another method of forcing Russia into a separate peace.Brusiloff had recommenced his gallant offensive, and the situation was being viewed with increased apprehension by the German General Staff. Roumania was still undecided whether or not to throw in her cause with that of the Allies. The great plot to destroy Roumania is again revealed by documentary evidence contained among Rasputin’s papers, and also in the despatches received in Bucharest—where, of course, the clever intrigue was never suspected.A message in cipher received by Rasputin, on August 8th, the day of General Letchitzki’s great triumph, reveals a truly Machiavellian plan. It reads thus:“Memorandum 27546.112.“Matters in the Dobroudja are approaching a serious crisis. Urge S. (Boris Stürmer, the Prime Minister) to suggest at once to the Emperor, while at the same time you make a similar suggestion to Her Majesty, that Roumania must be forced to take up arms against us. She must not be allowed to remain neutral any longer. S. must send a despatch to Bucharest so worded that it is our ultimatum. If she does not join the Allies immediately she must fight against Russia.”Accordingly, three days later, after the Holy Father and his unholy fellow-conspirator had had audiences at Tsarskoe-Selo, Stürmer sent an urgent despatch to the Roumanian Government demanding that it should join the Allies, without further delay. At Bucharest no plot was suspected, and indeed on the face of things, it seemed no unusual request. Even people in Great Britain were daily asking each other “When will Roumania come in it?”The reason she had not joined was because she was not yet prepared. Germany knew that and with Rasputin’s aid had laid a plot to invade her. She was, while still unready, forced into the war by Stürmer. Nineteen days after the despatch of that cipher message from Berlin she formally declared hostilities against Austria-Hungary.Berlin was delighted, and the sinister “dark force” of Russia rubbed his dirty hands with delight. The plot he saw must succeed. Truly it was a vile and devilish one, which not even the shrewdest diplomat suspected, namely, to deliver Roumania and her resources of grain and oil to the enemy. As an outcome of the conspiracy the Russo-Roumanian army, owing to treachery in the latter, at once retreated under pressure from Mackensen’s forces, and very quickly, almost before the Allies were aware of it, Roumania and the Constanza railway were in the enemy’s hands. Disaster, engineered by the camarilla, followed disaster after that “Now or never” ultimatum of Stürmer’s. The promises made to the brave Roumanians were broken one after the other. Why? Because with Rasputin, Protopopoff and certain Generals suborned by the mock-monk, the Prime Minister’s intention was to use the great retreat and the rapid absorption of Roumania as a means to force the Tsar and his Empire into a separate peace.Indeed, Rasputin—in attendance daily at Tsarskoe-Selo—by declaring to the Empress and his sister-disciples at Court that he had been accorded a vision of the Tsar and Kaiser fraternising, and interpreting this as a divine direction that peace should at once be made with Germany, had very nearly induced His Majesty to sign a declaration of peace, when one man in the Empire discovered the dastardly manoeuvre, the Deputy Gospodin Miliukoff, whose actions I will describe in a further chapter.
In my work of unmasking Rasputin I find that constant secret communications were at that time passing between the “holy” scoundrel and his infamous paymasters in the Königgratzer-strasse, while messages were continually being exchanged in strictest confidence between the Kaiser and the German-born Tsaritza, who lived beneath the thraldom of this common horse-stealer.
Berlin, with all its devilish inventions for unfair warfare prohibited by the Hague Convention, had not overlooked the fact that owing to the primitive sanitation of Russia, epidemics had very often been widespread and most difficult to stamp out; therefore the suggestion to artificially produce outbreaks of bubonic plague and Asiatic cholera in the heart of the Empire had been suggested to that traitor, the Prime Minister Boris Stürmer, and his fellow-conspirators of the “camarilla,” of whom the Siberian charlatan known as “Holy Father” was the head. While the Imperial Court bowed its knees to the erotic rascal, yet strangely enough the people doubted him, and in secret jeered at him. The satanic suggestion from Berlin, however, appealed to the camarilla of pro-German plotters.
The Russian army was gallantly holding out, even though many traitors held highest commands. The Germans had reached the height of their offensive power on that front, and a separate peace with Russia was in Berlin admitted to be, highly necessary, if the ultimate success of their arms was to be achieved. Therefore, if a devastating epidemic broke out, then Stürmer would have excuse to go to the Tsar and strongly urge the necessity for peace as the only salvation of the Empire.
Hence the necessary steps were at once taken by the conspirators who were in the habit of meeting almost daily in the Gorokhovaya. Proof of what was on foot is disclosed by the following secret despatch from Berlin, which is included in Rasputin’s private papers, which so fortunately fell into the hands of the patriotic party of Russia. I here reproduce it:
“Memorandum 26932.366.
”‘Number 70’ has placed your communication and suggestions before a high quarter, and they are all approved. He is sending you, by way of Malmo, Karl Jöhnke, whose number is 229, a bacteriologist of the Frankfort Institute, who will arrive in Petrograd on the 18th, and seek you. By the same ship will arrive, consigned to our friends the firm of Yakowleff and Company, wholesale fruiterers, of the Nikolskaya, in Moscow, one hundred and twenty-six barrels of Canadian apples, with ninety cases of Canary bananas. These will be distributed in the ordinary course of trade to Kazan, Kharkow, Odessa, and other centres. See that P. (Protopopoff) grants easy facilities for rapid transport to the consignees in Moscow, as they are perishable.
”‘Number 229’ has full instructions to deal with Ivan Yakowleff, who is our ‘fixed post’ in Moscow, and who is receiving his instructions in secret by the messenger who brings you this. The fruit must not be handled or eaten, as it has been treated and is highly dangerous.
“Cholera should occur within three weeks of the arrival of the fruit. We rely upon P. taking steps to facilitate its rapid delivery. Some of it should be presented to charitable institutes for distribution among the poor.
“Inform A. (Anna Vyrubova) that Korniloff (General Korniloff, whom all know to be one of the most successful of Russian generals) suspects her concerning the Zarudni affair and has at his house some correspondence which is incriminating. It is in a cupboard in his bedroom and should be secured at once. (G. Zarudni was active in political law cases before the Revolution, and has since been appointed Minister of Justice in the Kerensky Cabinet.) Zarudni is working against both S. (Stürmer) and yourself. If an accident happened to him it would render the atmosphere more clear. The same applies to his friend N.V. Nekrasov, who is on the Duma Budget Committee and on the Railway Committee. Both may upset our plans.
“Against General Ostrogradski, Inspector-General of Cavalry, a charge of treason should be made. The bearer brings documents in order to arouse suspicion that he has sold military secrets to Austria. These can be produced at his trial. His continued activity against us, and his hatred of yourself are both dangerous.
”‘Number 229’ will make personal reports to you concerning the negotiations with Roumania and also regarding the efforts we are making to prevent war material from England reaching Russia.
”‘Number 70’ notes with gratification that the explosion at the nitro-glycerine works at Viborg has been effected, and that the factory was totally destroyed and most of the workmen killed. Please pay E. (an analytical chemist named Paul Eck, who was a friend of Rasputin’s) the sum promised.
“It would be best if their Majesties removed to Tsarskoe-Selo. Anna Vyrubova should cultivate Boris Savenkov, Commissioner to the Seventh Army. (This suggestion shows the remarkable foresight of Berlin, for to-day Boris Savenkov is acting Minister of War.) You yourself should lose no time in becoming acquainted with Countess Vera Kokoskin, who lives at Potemkinskaya, 29. She is eager to meet you. Admit her as a disciple, for being an attractive and ambitious woman, she has considerable knowledge of what is in progress in certain quarters in the Duma. Being in want of money, and being blackmailed by a penniless lover named Sievers, she would probably be ready to become our friend. ‘Number 70’ therefore throws out this suggestion, yet at the same time impresses upon you and your friends the necessity of the creation of the epidemic and the bringing in of Roumania on the side of the Allies.”
Those final words of that cipher despatch disclose a cunning that was indeed unequalled. I know full well that readers may be inclined to pause and to doubt that such dastardly methods could actually be pursued against civilisation. To such I can only point out that boxes of the same microbes were found in the German Legation in Bucharest, and were officially reported by the United States Legation in that city.
The fierce German octopus—so carefully fostered and so well prepared—had alas! stretched its thousand searching tentacles upon the patriotic Russian people who were ruled by their weak and careless Emperor, while the pro-German Empress listened to every rumour, and in her heart hoped for a separate peace with Germany as the only salvation of her land. Truly the Romanoffs have proved themselves a weak-kneed and irresponsible dynasty. Alexander, however, was never weak. In the long-ago days when I had audience with his late Majesty one morning in his small reception-room in the Winter Palace, he wore a rough drab shooting suit; bluff and full-bearded as any of his ministers, he talked to me fully of his regret that the Nihilists should be ever plotting to kill him, and assured me of his own personal efforts to free his people from a corrupt Church and an iron bureaucracy.
“Please tell your British people that as Tsar I am doing the utmost in my power to improve and civilise my dear Russian people, to whom I am devoted, and to whom I will if necessary give my life.”
Those words of the father of the Tsar Nicholas will be found reproduced in the columns ofThe Timesafter my joining as “Russian Correspondent.”
But let us examine the result of the secret order to Rasputin from Berlin which I have reproduced above.
In the first place I find among the papers, a letter dated from the Potemkinskaya, 29, as follows:
“Holy Father,—I thank you for your introduction yesterday to Her Majesty the Empress, and to the Grand Duchess Olga. Truly we are all your kindred spirits and disciples, who know at last the joys and pleasures of the life which Almighty God has given unto us. Anna was most charming, and I saw His Majesty as arranged. At your suggestion I mentioned the Gospodin Sievers, and the Emperor has promised to appoint him Vice-Governor of Omsk. All thanks to you, dear Holy Father. I shall be at our reunion at your house to-morrow, and my daughter Nada, who is in search of the Truth, will accompany me. Till then, I kiss your dear hand.—Vera Kokoskin.”
This letter speaks for itself. Another document is a letter to Rasputin dated from the Hôtel Metropole, Moscow, and is in plain language as follows:
“The consignment of fruit from your generous donors has duly reached the Maison Yakowleff and is being distributed in various charitable quarters and is much appreciated in these days when prices are so high. Some of it has been sent to the director of the Borgoroditsky Convent at Kazan, and also some to the Society of St. George at Kiev. Please inform and thank the donors.—Karl Jöhnke.”
Eagerly the camarilla awaited the result of their dastardly handiwork. The allotted three weeks passed, but no epidemic was reported. Evidently the monk wrote to the German bacteriologist, who was posing as a Dane, for the latter wrote from the Hôtel Continental at Kiev:
“The fruit, owing to delays in transit, was not in a condition for human consumption. This is extremely regrettable after all the trouble of our kind donors.”
Therefore, while certain isolated cases of cholera were reported from several cities—as the sanitary records prove—Russia had had indeed a providential escape from a terrible epidemic, the infected fruit being distributed over a wide area by charitable organisations quite unsuspicious of its source.
Failure to produce the desired result induced Rasputin and his paymasters in Berlin to adopt yet another method of forcing Russia into a separate peace.
Brusiloff had recommenced his gallant offensive, and the situation was being viewed with increased apprehension by the German General Staff. Roumania was still undecided whether or not to throw in her cause with that of the Allies. The great plot to destroy Roumania is again revealed by documentary evidence contained among Rasputin’s papers, and also in the despatches received in Bucharest—where, of course, the clever intrigue was never suspected.
A message in cipher received by Rasputin, on August 8th, the day of General Letchitzki’s great triumph, reveals a truly Machiavellian plan. It reads thus:
“Memorandum 27546.112.
“Matters in the Dobroudja are approaching a serious crisis. Urge S. (Boris Stürmer, the Prime Minister) to suggest at once to the Emperor, while at the same time you make a similar suggestion to Her Majesty, that Roumania must be forced to take up arms against us. She must not be allowed to remain neutral any longer. S. must send a despatch to Bucharest so worded that it is our ultimatum. If she does not join the Allies immediately she must fight against Russia.”
Accordingly, three days later, after the Holy Father and his unholy fellow-conspirator had had audiences at Tsarskoe-Selo, Stürmer sent an urgent despatch to the Roumanian Government demanding that it should join the Allies, without further delay. At Bucharest no plot was suspected, and indeed on the face of things, it seemed no unusual request. Even people in Great Britain were daily asking each other “When will Roumania come in it?”
The reason she had not joined was because she was not yet prepared. Germany knew that and with Rasputin’s aid had laid a plot to invade her. She was, while still unready, forced into the war by Stürmer. Nineteen days after the despatch of that cipher message from Berlin she formally declared hostilities against Austria-Hungary.
Berlin was delighted, and the sinister “dark force” of Russia rubbed his dirty hands with delight. The plot he saw must succeed. Truly it was a vile and devilish one, which not even the shrewdest diplomat suspected, namely, to deliver Roumania and her resources of grain and oil to the enemy. As an outcome of the conspiracy the Russo-Roumanian army, owing to treachery in the latter, at once retreated under pressure from Mackensen’s forces, and very quickly, almost before the Allies were aware of it, Roumania and the Constanza railway were in the enemy’s hands. Disaster, engineered by the camarilla, followed disaster after that “Now or never” ultimatum of Stürmer’s. The promises made to the brave Roumanians were broken one after the other. Why? Because with Rasputin, Protopopoff and certain Generals suborned by the mock-monk, the Prime Minister’s intention was to use the great retreat and the rapid absorption of Roumania as a means to force the Tsar and his Empire into a separate peace.
Indeed, Rasputin—in attendance daily at Tsarskoe-Selo—by declaring to the Empress and his sister-disciples at Court that he had been accorded a vision of the Tsar and Kaiser fraternising, and interpreting this as a divine direction that peace should at once be made with Germany, had very nearly induced His Majesty to sign a declaration of peace, when one man in the Empire discovered the dastardly manoeuvre, the Deputy Gospodin Miliukoff, whose actions I will describe in a further chapter.
Chapter Eight.The Mock-Monk Unmasked.Documentary evidence contained in the papers which the monk so carefully preserved shows conclusively that he paid a secret visit to Berlin in the first week of October, 1916. While the brave Russian army were fighting valiantly, ever and anon being betrayed by their leaders, treachery of the worst and vilest sort was afoot in the highest quarters.That German potentate, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who occupied an important position in the entourage of the Tsar, was acting as counsellor to the Tsaritza, and at the same time, aided actively by the woman Vyrubova, was working to delude the Emperor and defeat his gallant armies. At Russian Field Headquarters the Tsar was cheered everywhere, and his officers were enthusiastic. It was known that the German offensive had spent itself, and it was believed by those who were being bamboozled that, when all was ready, Russia would press on to her well-deserved victory.But the day of Russia’s great offensive never arrived. Great Britain and France were supplying her with guns and munitions conveyed up to Alexandrovsk with much difficulty, and the Allies were daily hoping that the “Russian steam-roller” would once again start upon its westward course. London, Paris and Rome were in ignorance of the amazing plot of the pro-German traitors.Meanwhile the mock-monk, in the garb of a Dutch pastor, had arrived in Berlin to make arrangements with the enemy for Russia’s final conquest.By the scoundrel’s fatal weakness for preserving letters addressed to him, in the hope that when he fell out of favour at Court he might use them for blackmailing purposes—for after all this “holy” man had started life as a common thief—we have again evidence of his treachery in the following letter dated from Tsarskoe-Selo, October 18th, the day following the Allied landing in Athens. Addressed to Rasputin, it is in German, in the fine handwriting of the Tsaritza, and reads as follows:“Holy Father,—At last we have welcome news of you! This morning your messenger reached us bringing me a letter, and one for Anna. What you tell us is indeed good news. We are glad that you have seen William (the Emperor), and that he has been so gracious to you. Your news regarding the forthcoming offensive against the British is most encouraging. The British are Germany’s real enemies. Tell His Majesty that all goes well, and that Stürmer quite agrees that we must have a separate peace and is taking every step towards that end.“Nikki is still at the front encouraging the troops. How foolish, and yet we have all to show a bold front. The news of the landing at Athens has disconcerted us, though it has caused great joy in Petrograd. Inquire if nothing can be done further in an attempt to spread disease in the more populous regions. This would kill enthusiasm for the war and force peace quickly.“Dmitri (the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, who was Rasputin’s fiercest enemy) has been sent by Nikki to Samara. It would be a relief to us all if he never returned. He with Nicholas (the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch) are plotting to defeat us. But Germany shall win. It shall be as you, my dear Father, saw in your vision.“Pray for us, O Father. Give us your benediction, for while you are absent we are all dull and lonely. Tell William to send you back quickly and safely to us. Give my best greetings to the brave Hindenburg. It is horrid to be compelled to sustain an anti-German attitude when one knows that our Fatherland is unconquerable, even though the Russian flag be bathed in blood.“Inform the General Staff that the secret agent Erbach-Fürstenau, who fell into General Neudorff’s hands last month has at my instigation been acquitted by the court-martial and will very shortly escape back to Germany. I have personally arranged that the papers seized upon him shall be destroyed.“Charges are being levelled against General Sukhomlinoff. He has been betrayed by a man named Kartzoff. In order to suppress the latter’s further activity, he has been arrested for treason at my instigation and sent without trial to an unknown destination. So we have one enemy the less. It is reported that Manasevitch-Manuiloff (private secretary to Prime Minister Stürmer) has been arrested for attempting to blackmail his chief. But I will see that Nikki stops the trial.“My dear boy Alexis is improving. Anna is with him constantly. He sends his greetings and asks for your prayers. I kiss your holy hand. Your sister Alec.”Russia was still being betrayed by the Empress, who had fallen so entirely beneath the occult influences of the rascal who, in turn, had become the catspaw of the Kaiser.The charges against General Sukhomlinoff, ex-Minister of War, mentioned by the Tsaritza, had apparently alarmed her. And well they might. An official in the ministry named Kartzoff had betrayed his chief, whereupon Colonel Tugen Baranovsky, late Chief of the Mobilisation Department of the Russian General Staff, had made depositions to the effect that the mobilisation plans drafted by the General were full of errors, while rifles, machine-guns, and field and heavy guns were all lacking. Depositions had been made by General Petrovsky, late Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the General had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while a third official, Colonel Batvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had asserted that General Sukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts Factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each while the Toula Factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.Such were a few of the charges against the ex-Minister, a bosom friend of Rasputin and of Stürmer, and these were being whispered abroad everywhere, even though by the influence of the Tsaritza the principal witness against the General had been sent to “an unknown destination!”Written on the same day and conveyed secretly to the monk in Berlin—evidently by the same messenger who carried the Tsaritza’s letter to her “Holy Father”—was one from the conspirator Protopopoff. It is on the private note-paper of the Minister of the Interior and discloses truly an amazing state of affairs, as follows:“Brother Gregory,—I send you this hastily and with some apprehension. Both Nicholas and Dmitri (the Grand Dukes), are actively at work against us! Beware! They know far too much, hence it behoves us to be most discreet. I was at Tsarskoe-Selo yesterday and discussed it with F. (Count Fredericks, Minister of the Imperial Court). There is a secret movement to upset our plans, but I have ordered the Secret Police to spare no pains to present full and adequate reports to me, and rely on me to take drastic steps.“An hour ago it came to my knowledge that an individual named Wilhelm Gebhardt, living at Hildegard-strasse, 21 Wilmersdorf, Berlin, has knowledge that you are in the German capital and is probably watching your movements to report to our enemies here. Give news of this to our friend ‘Number 70’ and urge that he shall be immediately arrested as a spy of Russia. If he is executed his mouth would be closed, for he is dangerous. The man with whom he is in association in Petrograd, a person named Tchartovyski, member of the Duma, I have ordered to be arrested and charged with communicating with persons in Germany.“S. (Stürmer) is eager for news regarding the proposed German offensive against the British in Flanders, and the exact position regarding the ‘U’ boat campaign. Inform the Chancellor that news we received from Washington to-day shows that President Wilson is determined, and warn him that J. and G., whom he will know by initials as German agents in the United States, have been discovered, and may be arrested. He may perhaps communicate with them by wireless, and they may escape while there is still time.“Further, inform the Chancellor that our efforts to make more marked the shortage of food have been negatived by the action of Nicholas and Dmitri, for we fear to go further lest the truth be disclosed. Their activity cannot be ignored.“Urge that the distribution of fruit to charitable institutions be repeated.“The charges against Sukhomlinoff are extremely grave, and may have serious consequences. I am, however, taking steps to ascertain the intentions and to arrest those who are in association.“Her Majesty is eager and nervous regarding you. Write and assure her that all is well with your dear self. As the saviour of Russia from the wiles of the Allies, the Russian people ought to regard you as great as the Great Peter himself.“A tall, thin individual named Emil Döllen will probably call upon you at your hotel. If so, receive him. He may convey a message from me sent by wireless to Riga and re-transmitted.“Present my humble compliments to His Majesty the Emperor. Would that I were with you at glorious Potsdam. These Russians of ours are arrant fools, or we should have been hand-in-glove with Berlin against the effete nations who are our Allies. I salute you and await your return.—Your brother, D.A. Protopopoff.”This autograph letter is from the man who was Russian Minister of the Interior—the man in whom every true-born son of Russia believed so implicitly that he went to his death fiercely and gallantly for his Emperor!Surely that position had no parallel in history. Imperial Germany with her long-prepared plans had seized the Russian bear by the throat, and was throttling it, just as she has attempted to grapple with the British lion. If the ever-spreading tentacles of the Kaiser’s propaganda bureau and his unscrupulous and well-financed spy-service were so successful in Russia, which before the war was half-Germanised by the Tsaritza, the villain Rasputin and their traitor ministers, then one is permitted to wonder to what depths the Königgratzer-strasse, with the Kaiser at its head, have descended in order to try and create famine and revolution in the British Isles, wherein dwell “the worst enemies of Germany.”The documentary evidence extant shows that the unkempt “prophet,” whose peasant hands were kissed by the Empress of Russia, and before whom bowed the greatest ladies of the Imperial Court, lived during the greater part of October, 1916, in that small hotel, the Westfalischer-Hof, in the Neusladische-strasse, on the north of the Linden. He called himself Pastor van Meeuwen, and his companion was his trusty manservant, a cosmopolitan fellow, who afterwards disclosed much that I have here been able to reveal to British readers.That he had frequent audiences of the Emperor William and received his personal instructions is apparent from the copies of telegrams which the revolutions eventually unearthed from the archives of the Ministry of Telegraphs.One message by wireless, despatched from a Russian warship in the Baltic to the Admiralty station at Reval, coded in the same cipher as that used by Rasputin and his German confederates, the key of which was found in the safe in the Gorokhovaya, is as follows:“To his Excellency the Minister Protopopoff.—All goes well. I had an audience at the Neues Palais to-day of three hours’ duration. Inform Charles Michael (the Duke Charles Michael of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was the German adviser of the Tsaritza, and naturalised as a Russian subject in July, 1914) that the Emperor William sends his best greetings and acknowledgments of his despatch of the 3rd inst. It has been found necessary to recall the troops who have been held ready at Hamburg and Bremen for the invasion of Britain. The General Staff have, after due consideration, decided that an invasion might meet with disaster, hence they are turning their attention to submarine and aerial attacks upon Britain in order to crush her. I have learnt from a conversation with the Kaiser that London is to be destroyed by a succession of fleets of super-aeroplanes launching newly-devised explosive and poison-gas bombs of a terribly destructive character.“Urge S. (Stürmer) to disclaim at once all knowledge of the Rickert contracts. The payments are completely concealed. I have no fear of Sukhomlinoff’s betrayal. He is discredited and will not be believed: yet it would be best if the Emperor ordered the trial to be cancelled.—The Tsar did so, but the General was tried after his deposition.“To yourself and our dear Empress greetings. I pray for you all, and send you my benedictions.—Your brother, Gregory Efimovitch.”That the rascal hurried back to Petrograd is apparent by a letter dated a week later from Madame Kokoskin, the latest of his sister-disciples, who wrote from the Potemkinskaya 29, Petrograd, saying:“Holy Father,—I have just heard with joy from dear Anna that you have returned to-night. May God grant you the fruits of your pilgrimage. (To his sister-disciples he had pretended to make a pilgrimage to the monastery of Verkhotursky, where in secret most disgraceful orgies often took place.) My daughter Nada will be with me at our reunion at Anna’s to-morrow at six.—Vera.”Rasputin seems to have arrived in Petrograd the bearer of certain verbal messages from the Kaiser to the Tsaritza, for he went at once to Tsarskoe-Selo and there remained all next day. That the Empress had now grown very frightened regarding the attitude of the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Dmitri, the latter a young and energetic figure in Russian politics, is proved by an attempt which, a few days later, she made to conciliate them both. But they discarded her advances, for, having already learnt much regarding the “Holy Father,” they were actively preparing to bring about the prosecution of General Sukhomlinoff, well knowing that its disclosures must wreck therégimeof the hated mock-monk and shake the House of Romanoff to its foundations.Hence it was that, two days later, the patriotic informer Ivan Kartzoff, the unfortunate official who had been sent by the Tsaritza’s influence to “an unknown destination,” was found shot dead in a wood near Kislovodsk, a small town in the North Caucasus, while two of the other witnesses were arrested at Protopopoff’s orders upon false charges of treachery, incriminating papers—which had been placed among their effects byagents provocateurs—being produced as evidence against them.Thus the most strenuous efforts were being made by the camarilla to prevent the bursting of that storm-cloud which grew darker over them with every day that passed.The monk was, however, fully alive to the danger of exposure, and he therefore resolved to play yet another bold clever card in the desperate game of the betrayal of the Russian nation.
Documentary evidence contained in the papers which the monk so carefully preserved shows conclusively that he paid a secret visit to Berlin in the first week of October, 1916. While the brave Russian army were fighting valiantly, ever and anon being betrayed by their leaders, treachery of the worst and vilest sort was afoot in the highest quarters.
That German potentate, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who occupied an important position in the entourage of the Tsar, was acting as counsellor to the Tsaritza, and at the same time, aided actively by the woman Vyrubova, was working to delude the Emperor and defeat his gallant armies. At Russian Field Headquarters the Tsar was cheered everywhere, and his officers were enthusiastic. It was known that the German offensive had spent itself, and it was believed by those who were being bamboozled that, when all was ready, Russia would press on to her well-deserved victory.
But the day of Russia’s great offensive never arrived. Great Britain and France were supplying her with guns and munitions conveyed up to Alexandrovsk with much difficulty, and the Allies were daily hoping that the “Russian steam-roller” would once again start upon its westward course. London, Paris and Rome were in ignorance of the amazing plot of the pro-German traitors.
Meanwhile the mock-monk, in the garb of a Dutch pastor, had arrived in Berlin to make arrangements with the enemy for Russia’s final conquest.
By the scoundrel’s fatal weakness for preserving letters addressed to him, in the hope that when he fell out of favour at Court he might use them for blackmailing purposes—for after all this “holy” man had started life as a common thief—we have again evidence of his treachery in the following letter dated from Tsarskoe-Selo, October 18th, the day following the Allied landing in Athens. Addressed to Rasputin, it is in German, in the fine handwriting of the Tsaritza, and reads as follows:
“Holy Father,—At last we have welcome news of you! This morning your messenger reached us bringing me a letter, and one for Anna. What you tell us is indeed good news. We are glad that you have seen William (the Emperor), and that he has been so gracious to you. Your news regarding the forthcoming offensive against the British is most encouraging. The British are Germany’s real enemies. Tell His Majesty that all goes well, and that Stürmer quite agrees that we must have a separate peace and is taking every step towards that end.
“Nikki is still at the front encouraging the troops. How foolish, and yet we have all to show a bold front. The news of the landing at Athens has disconcerted us, though it has caused great joy in Petrograd. Inquire if nothing can be done further in an attempt to spread disease in the more populous regions. This would kill enthusiasm for the war and force peace quickly.
“Dmitri (the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, who was Rasputin’s fiercest enemy) has been sent by Nikki to Samara. It would be a relief to us all if he never returned. He with Nicholas (the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch) are plotting to defeat us. But Germany shall win. It shall be as you, my dear Father, saw in your vision.
“Pray for us, O Father. Give us your benediction, for while you are absent we are all dull and lonely. Tell William to send you back quickly and safely to us. Give my best greetings to the brave Hindenburg. It is horrid to be compelled to sustain an anti-German attitude when one knows that our Fatherland is unconquerable, even though the Russian flag be bathed in blood.
“Inform the General Staff that the secret agent Erbach-Fürstenau, who fell into General Neudorff’s hands last month has at my instigation been acquitted by the court-martial and will very shortly escape back to Germany. I have personally arranged that the papers seized upon him shall be destroyed.
“Charges are being levelled against General Sukhomlinoff. He has been betrayed by a man named Kartzoff. In order to suppress the latter’s further activity, he has been arrested for treason at my instigation and sent without trial to an unknown destination. So we have one enemy the less. It is reported that Manasevitch-Manuiloff (private secretary to Prime Minister Stürmer) has been arrested for attempting to blackmail his chief. But I will see that Nikki stops the trial.
“My dear boy Alexis is improving. Anna is with him constantly. He sends his greetings and asks for your prayers. I kiss your holy hand. Your sister Alec.”
Russia was still being betrayed by the Empress, who had fallen so entirely beneath the occult influences of the rascal who, in turn, had become the catspaw of the Kaiser.
The charges against General Sukhomlinoff, ex-Minister of War, mentioned by the Tsaritza, had apparently alarmed her. And well they might. An official in the ministry named Kartzoff had betrayed his chief, whereupon Colonel Tugen Baranovsky, late Chief of the Mobilisation Department of the Russian General Staff, had made depositions to the effect that the mobilisation plans drafted by the General were full of errors, while rifles, machine-guns, and field and heavy guns were all lacking. Depositions had been made by General Petrovsky, late Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the General had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while a third official, Colonel Batvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had asserted that General Sukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts Factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each while the Toula Factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.
Such were a few of the charges against the ex-Minister, a bosom friend of Rasputin and of Stürmer, and these were being whispered abroad everywhere, even though by the influence of the Tsaritza the principal witness against the General had been sent to “an unknown destination!”
Written on the same day and conveyed secretly to the monk in Berlin—evidently by the same messenger who carried the Tsaritza’s letter to her “Holy Father”—was one from the conspirator Protopopoff. It is on the private note-paper of the Minister of the Interior and discloses truly an amazing state of affairs, as follows:
“Brother Gregory,—I send you this hastily and with some apprehension. Both Nicholas and Dmitri (the Grand Dukes), are actively at work against us! Beware! They know far too much, hence it behoves us to be most discreet. I was at Tsarskoe-Selo yesterday and discussed it with F. (Count Fredericks, Minister of the Imperial Court). There is a secret movement to upset our plans, but I have ordered the Secret Police to spare no pains to present full and adequate reports to me, and rely on me to take drastic steps.
“An hour ago it came to my knowledge that an individual named Wilhelm Gebhardt, living at Hildegard-strasse, 21 Wilmersdorf, Berlin, has knowledge that you are in the German capital and is probably watching your movements to report to our enemies here. Give news of this to our friend ‘Number 70’ and urge that he shall be immediately arrested as a spy of Russia. If he is executed his mouth would be closed, for he is dangerous. The man with whom he is in association in Petrograd, a person named Tchartovyski, member of the Duma, I have ordered to be arrested and charged with communicating with persons in Germany.
“S. (Stürmer) is eager for news regarding the proposed German offensive against the British in Flanders, and the exact position regarding the ‘U’ boat campaign. Inform the Chancellor that news we received from Washington to-day shows that President Wilson is determined, and warn him that J. and G., whom he will know by initials as German agents in the United States, have been discovered, and may be arrested. He may perhaps communicate with them by wireless, and they may escape while there is still time.
“Further, inform the Chancellor that our efforts to make more marked the shortage of food have been negatived by the action of Nicholas and Dmitri, for we fear to go further lest the truth be disclosed. Their activity cannot be ignored.
“Urge that the distribution of fruit to charitable institutions be repeated.
“The charges against Sukhomlinoff are extremely grave, and may have serious consequences. I am, however, taking steps to ascertain the intentions and to arrest those who are in association.
“Her Majesty is eager and nervous regarding you. Write and assure her that all is well with your dear self. As the saviour of Russia from the wiles of the Allies, the Russian people ought to regard you as great as the Great Peter himself.
“A tall, thin individual named Emil Döllen will probably call upon you at your hotel. If so, receive him. He may convey a message from me sent by wireless to Riga and re-transmitted.
“Present my humble compliments to His Majesty the Emperor. Would that I were with you at glorious Potsdam. These Russians of ours are arrant fools, or we should have been hand-in-glove with Berlin against the effete nations who are our Allies. I salute you and await your return.—Your brother, D.A. Protopopoff.”
This autograph letter is from the man who was Russian Minister of the Interior—the man in whom every true-born son of Russia believed so implicitly that he went to his death fiercely and gallantly for his Emperor!
Surely that position had no parallel in history. Imperial Germany with her long-prepared plans had seized the Russian bear by the throat, and was throttling it, just as she has attempted to grapple with the British lion. If the ever-spreading tentacles of the Kaiser’s propaganda bureau and his unscrupulous and well-financed spy-service were so successful in Russia, which before the war was half-Germanised by the Tsaritza, the villain Rasputin and their traitor ministers, then one is permitted to wonder to what depths the Königgratzer-strasse, with the Kaiser at its head, have descended in order to try and create famine and revolution in the British Isles, wherein dwell “the worst enemies of Germany.”
The documentary evidence extant shows that the unkempt “prophet,” whose peasant hands were kissed by the Empress of Russia, and before whom bowed the greatest ladies of the Imperial Court, lived during the greater part of October, 1916, in that small hotel, the Westfalischer-Hof, in the Neusladische-strasse, on the north of the Linden. He called himself Pastor van Meeuwen, and his companion was his trusty manservant, a cosmopolitan fellow, who afterwards disclosed much that I have here been able to reveal to British readers.
That he had frequent audiences of the Emperor William and received his personal instructions is apparent from the copies of telegrams which the revolutions eventually unearthed from the archives of the Ministry of Telegraphs.
One message by wireless, despatched from a Russian warship in the Baltic to the Admiralty station at Reval, coded in the same cipher as that used by Rasputin and his German confederates, the key of which was found in the safe in the Gorokhovaya, is as follows:
“To his Excellency the Minister Protopopoff.—All goes well. I had an audience at the Neues Palais to-day of three hours’ duration. Inform Charles Michael (the Duke Charles Michael of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was the German adviser of the Tsaritza, and naturalised as a Russian subject in July, 1914) that the Emperor William sends his best greetings and acknowledgments of his despatch of the 3rd inst. It has been found necessary to recall the troops who have been held ready at Hamburg and Bremen for the invasion of Britain. The General Staff have, after due consideration, decided that an invasion might meet with disaster, hence they are turning their attention to submarine and aerial attacks upon Britain in order to crush her. I have learnt from a conversation with the Kaiser that London is to be destroyed by a succession of fleets of super-aeroplanes launching newly-devised explosive and poison-gas bombs of a terribly destructive character.
“Urge S. (Stürmer) to disclaim at once all knowledge of the Rickert contracts. The payments are completely concealed. I have no fear of Sukhomlinoff’s betrayal. He is discredited and will not be believed: yet it would be best if the Emperor ordered the trial to be cancelled.—The Tsar did so, but the General was tried after his deposition.
“To yourself and our dear Empress greetings. I pray for you all, and send you my benedictions.—Your brother, Gregory Efimovitch.”
That the rascal hurried back to Petrograd is apparent by a letter dated a week later from Madame Kokoskin, the latest of his sister-disciples, who wrote from the Potemkinskaya 29, Petrograd, saying:
“Holy Father,—I have just heard with joy from dear Anna that you have returned to-night. May God grant you the fruits of your pilgrimage. (To his sister-disciples he had pretended to make a pilgrimage to the monastery of Verkhotursky, where in secret most disgraceful orgies often took place.) My daughter Nada will be with me at our reunion at Anna’s to-morrow at six.—Vera.”
Rasputin seems to have arrived in Petrograd the bearer of certain verbal messages from the Kaiser to the Tsaritza, for he went at once to Tsarskoe-Selo and there remained all next day. That the Empress had now grown very frightened regarding the attitude of the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Dmitri, the latter a young and energetic figure in Russian politics, is proved by an attempt which, a few days later, she made to conciliate them both. But they discarded her advances, for, having already learnt much regarding the “Holy Father,” they were actively preparing to bring about the prosecution of General Sukhomlinoff, well knowing that its disclosures must wreck therégimeof the hated mock-monk and shake the House of Romanoff to its foundations.
Hence it was that, two days later, the patriotic informer Ivan Kartzoff, the unfortunate official who had been sent by the Tsaritza’s influence to “an unknown destination,” was found shot dead in a wood near Kislovodsk, a small town in the North Caucasus, while two of the other witnesses were arrested at Protopopoff’s orders upon false charges of treachery, incriminating papers—which had been placed among their effects byagents provocateurs—being produced as evidence against them.
Thus the most strenuous efforts were being made by the camarilla to prevent the bursting of that storm-cloud which grew darker over them with every day that passed.
The monk was, however, fully alive to the danger of exposure, and he therefore resolved to play yet another bold clever card in the desperate game of the betrayal of the Russian nation.
Chapter Nine.Documentary Evidence of Treachery.Germany never plays straight, even with those who accept her gold to play the dangerous game of traitor. The few who know the ramifications of the underground politics of Europe are well aware of this fact.This was brought home to Rasputin, when immediately after his return to Petrograd from his secret visit to the Kaiser in the guise of a pious Dutch pastor, the German Press became guilty of a grave indiscretion. Naturally the monk waxed furious. TheKölnische Zeitung, in its unwonted enthusiasm, wrote: “We Germans need have no fear. Stürmer may be relied upon not to place any obstacles in the way of Russia’s desire for peace with Germany.” While theReichspostsaid: “We may rest assured that Stürmer will be independent in his relations with Downing Street.”And yet Stürmer was at this moment crying, “No separate peace!” and had sent constant despatches to Downing Street assuring us of his intention to prosecute the war to the finish. By this he misled the Allies, who naturally regarded the assertion of the German newspapers as mere frothy enthusiasm.But those indiscreet German assurances were instantly seized upon by that small and fearless band of Russian patriots who—headed by the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Dmitri—had united to expose and destroy the disgraceful camarilla whose object it was to wreck the Empire, and hand it mangled and defenceless to be torn by the eagle of Germany.At the instigation of the peasant-charlatan and thief whose hand the Empress kissed, calling him her Holy Father, Stürmer—also paid lavishly by Germany—was following a clever policy of isolation, and had raised a lofty barrier between the Government and the elected representatives of the people. After ten months of office thisdebaucheeand traitor had only appeared in the Duma on one occasion, and then he made a speech so puerile that he was greeted with ironical laughter.With the very refinement of cunning which betrayed the criminal mind, he, at Rasputin’s suggestion, crowded the work of legislation into the Parliamentary recesses, and passed Bills by virtue of Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws, which allowed the Government to legislate when the Duma was not in session. Till then all had gone smoothly for Berlin. But there opened a new chapter of the history of the downfall of the great Romanoffs.Early in November, 1916, a number of very serious and secret conferences of the camarilla took place at Rasputin’s house. Both Stürmer and Protopopoff were now viewing the situation with the gravest anxiety, for the Empire was being swiftly aroused to a sense of its insecurity. There were sinister whispers on all hands of traitors, and of a disinclination on the part of the capitalists and Government to win the war.The Empress had been guilty of a serious indiscretion, for she had mentioned to a young officer at Court the dastardly attempt of German agents to produce an epidemic of cholera by distribution of infected fruit to charitable institutions. That officer’s name was Tsourikoff. The hand of Rasputin was heavy and swift. Four days after the fact became known he died suddenly in his rooms in the Moskovskaya Quarter in Petrograd. He had been to the Bouffes in the Fontanka, where he had met a dark-eyed siren with whom he had afterwards had supper at that well-known establishment, Pivato’s, in the Morskaya. The lady could not be traced after his death. Truly the hand of the illiterate monk was ruling Russia with his pretence of working miracles, and with that mock-religious jargon in which he addressed his noble-born sister-disciple. He held secret death within his fingers, to be dealt to any who might upset his plans, or those of the Empress.That the latter actually did, in an excess of her enthusiasm for the success of her native Germany, betray the plans of Rasputin and his paymasters to the young officer Tsourikoff, is proved by a telegram which she addressed to the monk from the Imperial train at Sinelnikovo, on the way to Livadia. This sardonic message still remains upon the records of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, and reads:“The accident to Captain Tsourikoff is to be deplored. Please place a wreath upon the grave on my behalf. Pray for us.—Alec.”In the last days of October, 1916, the diabolical conspiracy entered upon a new and even more desperate stage, for very slowly the astounding truth was leaking out to the long-suffering Russian people. The Grand Duke Nicholas had been joined by the Grand Duke Serge, formerly Inspector-General of Artillery, General Vernandea, ex-Assistant Minister of War, and M. Mimascheff, who all three had been actively investigating the alleged treachery of General Sukhomlinoff. They had publicly made further statements most damning to the General. His late colleague Vernandea had alleged that the Minister of War had paid no heed to the equipment of the Army, had given no contracts except to those factories who gave him bribes, and that after 130 days of war the Russian Army were without shells. The Grand Duke Serge had told a secret meeting in Petrograd that General Sukhomlinoff had suppressed the personal reports addressed to the Tsar by all the heads of the Ministry of War and had actually prevented new guns being ordered from the Schneider Works, while the ex-Minister of Commerce declared that the Minister of War had never once requested him to organise manufacturers and owners of works for national defence.On hearing from Rasputin that these allegations were being made, the Empress at once, at the monk’s instigation, telegraphed in cipher to the Tsar, who was at the front:“Suppress at once, I beg of you in the interest of us all, the base charges now being made against Sukhomlinoff. Boris threatens to resign if they continue. If you do not act immediately the situation will become a very ugly one.”In reply the Emperor sent a message to his wife at Livadia next day, in which he said:“I have taken the necessary steps that the allegations shall not be repeated.”They were, however, repeated in Court at the trial of the ex-Minister at Petrograd on August 28, 1917.Meanwhile Rasputin, Stürmer, and Protopopoff, a truly diabolical trio, proceeded to put into force a new and ingenious plan to create further unrest and by that means dishearten the people. The Empress returned to Tsarskoe-Selo, where the charlatan immediately saw her and obtained her full approval to his suggestion. The plan was to disseminate the wildest rumours, in order to incite disorder among the proletariat. In that highly-charged atmosphere created by the growing food crisis—which Stürmer and Protopopoff had so cleverly brought about at Germany’s instigation—it was easy to throw a spark among the inflammable popular masses, exasperated and disorganised by the deplorable state of affairs. In consequence, a veritable whirlwind of false rumour was released in the hope that a movement would be started which would shatter, weaken for long, or stifle all manifestations of patriotism, and cause the country to sue for a separate peace.Rasputin himself was responsible for putting this new plan into execution. Rumours arose with a startling rapidity. It was said in Petrograd that all Moscow was involved in a rising; the wires were cut, the Moscow police were on strike, and that the troops had refused to fire on the crowd. Simultaneously, similar rumours were circulated in Moscow concerning a sanguinary riot in Petrograd; while at Kharkoff it was believed that Moscow was in revolution, and at Moscow it was declared that there was a revolution at Kharkoff.These rumours, which all emanated from the malignant brain of the “Saint,” were of course false, but colour was given to them by the dastardly outrages committed by two German secret agents, Lachkarioff and Filimonoff (who were subsequently allowed to escape to Sweden), who blew up two great mills outside Moscow, and also blew up the blast furnaces at the Obukhov Steel Factory, causing great loss of life; while at the same time, a desperate attempt was made also by other German agents to destroy the great powder factory opposite Schüsselburg, which, before the war, had been owned by Germans.The unrest thus created by Rasputin quickly assumed alarming proportions, and the camarilla was secretly satisfied. The Prime Minister, Stürmer, in order to mislead the public further, made a speech deploring the fact that anybody credited such unfounded reports; but he did not do so before the Labour group of the Central War Industrial Committee had issued a declaration to the working classes warning them to remain patient and prosecute the war with vigour.How amazingly clever was this traitorous camarilla, seeking to hurl Russia to her destruction, is shown by a significant fact. On the very day of the issue of that Labour declaration General Brusiloff, interviewed at the Russian Headquarters of the South-West Front by Mr Stanley Washburn, said:“The war is won to-day, though it is merely speculation to estimate how much longer will be required before the enemy are convinced that the cause, for the sake of which they drenched Europe with blood, is irretrievably lost. Personally, never since the beginning have I believed that the enemy had a chance of winning.”Meanwhile the Emperor was still absent at the front, and Rasputin, in addition to directing the affairs of the Empire through the Empress, whom he visited daily at the Palace, was holding constant reunions of his sister-disciples, whereat he pretended to see visions, while he was also blackmailing all and sundry, as his voluminous correspondence with some of his “sisters” plainly shows. Two letters from the Grand Duchess Olga, daughter of the Tsar, dated October 30th and November 1st, are indeed plain evidence that the monk was forming a fresh “circle” of his female neophytes, consisting wholly of young girls of noble families.Suddenly, like a bombshell, there dropped upon the Tsaritza and the camarilla the startling news, that Miliukoff, who had now at his back the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Serge and Dmitri, intended to publicly expose the Empress’s pet “Saint.” From Tsarskoe-Selo she wrote to him on November 7th, apparently in great haste, for it is a pencilled note:“Holy Father,—Anna has just told me of Miliukoff’s intention in the Duma. The Emperor must further adjourn its re-assembling (which had been prohibited from meeting since July). I have telegraphed to him urging him to do this. If not, Noyo’s suggestion to pay the agents J. or B. ten thousand roubles to remove him. I would willingly pay a hundred thousand roubles to close his mouth for ever. This must be done. Suggest it to P. (Protopopoff). Surely the same means could be used as with Tsourikoff, and the end be quite natural and peaceful! You could supply the means as before. But I urge on you not to delay a moment. All depends upon Miliukoff’s removal. If he reveals to the Duma what he knows, then everything must be lost. I kiss your dear hands. With Olga I ask your blessing.—Your dutiful daughter, A.”It seems incredible in this twentieth century that an Empress should have been so completely beneath the thraldom of an erotic criminal lunatic. But the evidence is there in black and white.Two previous attempts upon the life of Professor Miliukoff had happily failed, but the tenor of that letter illustrates the Tsaritza’s increasing fears lest the real traitor should be unmasked.A cipher telegram from the Emperor, who was at the South-West Headquarters, is on record, dated November 8th, and was addressed to the Tsaritza. It was evidently a reply to her frantic request:“Tell our dear Father (Rasputin) that to postpone the Duma would, I fear, create an unfavourable impression, and I judge impossible. Protopopoff has asked my authority to arrest Miliukoff upon some technical charge, but I do not consider such a course good policy. I agree that to-day’s situation is grave, and agree that at the last moment some steps should be taken to prevent him from speaking.”On receipt of that very unsatisfactory reply the Tsaritza summoned the mock-monk, who was remaining at the Palace evidently awaiting the Emperor’s reply. Stürmer and Madame Vyrubova, the high-priestess of the Rasputin cult, were also present. What actually transpired at that Council of Three is unknown. It is, however, beyond question that it was arranged that M. Miliukoff, whom they held in such fear—as well as a friend of his, a Conservative deputy named Puriskevitch—should be “removed.” That the illiterate scoundrel, with his unique knowledge of the scriptures, was an adept in the art of using certain secret drugs, and that by his hand several persons obnoxious to the camarilla had died mysteriously is now proved beyond any doubt, for as cleverly as he systematically drugged the poor little Tsarevitch, so also he could with amazing cunning “arrange” the deaths of those who might betray him.M. Miliukoff, knowing that his patriotic and hostile intentions were being suspected, took such precautions, however, that even the bold emissaries of Rasputin failed to approach him.At noon, on November 14th, the Minister Protopopoff wrote a hurried note upon the paper of the Ministry of the Interior, which is on record, and is as follows:“Dear friend Gregory,—How is it that your plans have so utterly failed and M. (Miliukoff) is still active? To-day at 2 the Duma meets! Cannot you arrange that he is absent? Cannot you work a miracle? Skoropadski (a well-known German agent) has betrayed us and put the most incriminating documents into M.’s hands. We tried to arrest the fellow last night in Riga, but, alas, he has eluded us. Take every precaution for your own safety. If M. attends the sitting we are all lost.—Yours cordially, D.A.P.”The plot to kill M. Miliukoff had failed! The Empress knew of it and sat in the Winter Palace, pale, breathless and eager for messages over her private telephone. The vile, black work done by her “Holy Father” was to be exposed! What if her own Imperial self were exhibited in her true traitorous colours!Meanwhile, at two o’clock, M. Rodzianko took his seat as President at the Tauris Palace. The usual service was held and then the historic sitting of the Duma opened. The House was crowded, and the British, French and Italian Ambassadors being in the diplomatic box, the members, Octobrists, Progressive Nationalists, the Centre, the Zemsto Octobrists and Cadets, rose in one body and gave vociferous cheers for the Allies. “Russia will win!” they cried.The first speaker was M. Garusewicz, who, on behalf of the Polish Club, addressed the Allied Powers, protesting against the Austro-German action and expressing the hope and confidence that a final solution of the Polish problem would be the outcome of the war.The two men whom the camarilla had plotted to murder were calmly in their places. M. Miliukoff, a pleasant-looking grey-haired man, sat gazing at the speaker through his gold-rimmed spectacles, listening attentively until the speaker had concluded. Meanwhile the Tsaritza, sitting in her luxurious little room in the Palace with the dissolute Anna Vyrubova as her sole companion, was listening to messages which, as arranged, came to her over the telephone every ten minutes.At last M. Miliukoff rose, quite calm, and bowed to the President. Instantly there was silence. Without mincing matters in the least he told the House—in a speech which was wholly suppressed by the authorities—how the camarilla had endeavoured to remove him but in vain; and then, after many hard words which electrified all present, he denounced the “Saint” as the dark and sinister force which was hurling the Russian Empire to its destruction. Then, branding the pro-German Prime Minister Boris Stürmer as “Judas the Traitor,” he took up a bundle of documents, and shaking them in his hand dramatically he declared: “I have here, gentlemen, the evidence of Judas. Evidence in cold figures—the number of shekels, the pieces of silver, for betrayal.”The House sat breathless! The ghastly truth was out. When M. Miliukoff sat down his friend M. Puriskevitch rose politely and asked permission and indulgence to make a speech in German—the hated language—promising it should be very brief. All he uttered were the two words: “Hofmeister Stürmer!” The Duma, understanding, cheered to the echo.Over the telephone the Empress, pale and neurotic, listened to what had been alleged against her “Holy Father” and his friend Stürmer, whereupon she suddenly gave a low scream and fainted.The truth was out at last! The first blow of retribution had on that afternoon fallen upon the Imperial House of Romanoff.But Rasputin, the amazing, remained unperturbed. He merely smiled evilly. The game had become desperate, he knew, but he still had other cards to play.
Germany never plays straight, even with those who accept her gold to play the dangerous game of traitor. The few who know the ramifications of the underground politics of Europe are well aware of this fact.
This was brought home to Rasputin, when immediately after his return to Petrograd from his secret visit to the Kaiser in the guise of a pious Dutch pastor, the German Press became guilty of a grave indiscretion. Naturally the monk waxed furious. TheKölnische Zeitung, in its unwonted enthusiasm, wrote: “We Germans need have no fear. Stürmer may be relied upon not to place any obstacles in the way of Russia’s desire for peace with Germany.” While theReichspostsaid: “We may rest assured that Stürmer will be independent in his relations with Downing Street.”
And yet Stürmer was at this moment crying, “No separate peace!” and had sent constant despatches to Downing Street assuring us of his intention to prosecute the war to the finish. By this he misled the Allies, who naturally regarded the assertion of the German newspapers as mere frothy enthusiasm.
But those indiscreet German assurances were instantly seized upon by that small and fearless band of Russian patriots who—headed by the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Dmitri—had united to expose and destroy the disgraceful camarilla whose object it was to wreck the Empire, and hand it mangled and defenceless to be torn by the eagle of Germany.
At the instigation of the peasant-charlatan and thief whose hand the Empress kissed, calling him her Holy Father, Stürmer—also paid lavishly by Germany—was following a clever policy of isolation, and had raised a lofty barrier between the Government and the elected representatives of the people. After ten months of office thisdebaucheeand traitor had only appeared in the Duma on one occasion, and then he made a speech so puerile that he was greeted with ironical laughter.
With the very refinement of cunning which betrayed the criminal mind, he, at Rasputin’s suggestion, crowded the work of legislation into the Parliamentary recesses, and passed Bills by virtue of Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws, which allowed the Government to legislate when the Duma was not in session. Till then all had gone smoothly for Berlin. But there opened a new chapter of the history of the downfall of the great Romanoffs.
Early in November, 1916, a number of very serious and secret conferences of the camarilla took place at Rasputin’s house. Both Stürmer and Protopopoff were now viewing the situation with the gravest anxiety, for the Empire was being swiftly aroused to a sense of its insecurity. There were sinister whispers on all hands of traitors, and of a disinclination on the part of the capitalists and Government to win the war.
The Empress had been guilty of a serious indiscretion, for she had mentioned to a young officer at Court the dastardly attempt of German agents to produce an epidemic of cholera by distribution of infected fruit to charitable institutions. That officer’s name was Tsourikoff. The hand of Rasputin was heavy and swift. Four days after the fact became known he died suddenly in his rooms in the Moskovskaya Quarter in Petrograd. He had been to the Bouffes in the Fontanka, where he had met a dark-eyed siren with whom he had afterwards had supper at that well-known establishment, Pivato’s, in the Morskaya. The lady could not be traced after his death. Truly the hand of the illiterate monk was ruling Russia with his pretence of working miracles, and with that mock-religious jargon in which he addressed his noble-born sister-disciple. He held secret death within his fingers, to be dealt to any who might upset his plans, or those of the Empress.
That the latter actually did, in an excess of her enthusiasm for the success of her native Germany, betray the plans of Rasputin and his paymasters to the young officer Tsourikoff, is proved by a telegram which she addressed to the monk from the Imperial train at Sinelnikovo, on the way to Livadia. This sardonic message still remains upon the records of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, and reads:
“The accident to Captain Tsourikoff is to be deplored. Please place a wreath upon the grave on my behalf. Pray for us.—Alec.”
In the last days of October, 1916, the diabolical conspiracy entered upon a new and even more desperate stage, for very slowly the astounding truth was leaking out to the long-suffering Russian people. The Grand Duke Nicholas had been joined by the Grand Duke Serge, formerly Inspector-General of Artillery, General Vernandea, ex-Assistant Minister of War, and M. Mimascheff, who all three had been actively investigating the alleged treachery of General Sukhomlinoff. They had publicly made further statements most damning to the General. His late colleague Vernandea had alleged that the Minister of War had paid no heed to the equipment of the Army, had given no contracts except to those factories who gave him bribes, and that after 130 days of war the Russian Army were without shells. The Grand Duke Serge had told a secret meeting in Petrograd that General Sukhomlinoff had suppressed the personal reports addressed to the Tsar by all the heads of the Ministry of War and had actually prevented new guns being ordered from the Schneider Works, while the ex-Minister of Commerce declared that the Minister of War had never once requested him to organise manufacturers and owners of works for national defence.
On hearing from Rasputin that these allegations were being made, the Empress at once, at the monk’s instigation, telegraphed in cipher to the Tsar, who was at the front:
“Suppress at once, I beg of you in the interest of us all, the base charges now being made against Sukhomlinoff. Boris threatens to resign if they continue. If you do not act immediately the situation will become a very ugly one.”
In reply the Emperor sent a message to his wife at Livadia next day, in which he said:
“I have taken the necessary steps that the allegations shall not be repeated.”
They were, however, repeated in Court at the trial of the ex-Minister at Petrograd on August 28, 1917.
Meanwhile Rasputin, Stürmer, and Protopopoff, a truly diabolical trio, proceeded to put into force a new and ingenious plan to create further unrest and by that means dishearten the people. The Empress returned to Tsarskoe-Selo, where the charlatan immediately saw her and obtained her full approval to his suggestion. The plan was to disseminate the wildest rumours, in order to incite disorder among the proletariat. In that highly-charged atmosphere created by the growing food crisis—which Stürmer and Protopopoff had so cleverly brought about at Germany’s instigation—it was easy to throw a spark among the inflammable popular masses, exasperated and disorganised by the deplorable state of affairs. In consequence, a veritable whirlwind of false rumour was released in the hope that a movement would be started which would shatter, weaken for long, or stifle all manifestations of patriotism, and cause the country to sue for a separate peace.
Rasputin himself was responsible for putting this new plan into execution. Rumours arose with a startling rapidity. It was said in Petrograd that all Moscow was involved in a rising; the wires were cut, the Moscow police were on strike, and that the troops had refused to fire on the crowd. Simultaneously, similar rumours were circulated in Moscow concerning a sanguinary riot in Petrograd; while at Kharkoff it was believed that Moscow was in revolution, and at Moscow it was declared that there was a revolution at Kharkoff.
These rumours, which all emanated from the malignant brain of the “Saint,” were of course false, but colour was given to them by the dastardly outrages committed by two German secret agents, Lachkarioff and Filimonoff (who were subsequently allowed to escape to Sweden), who blew up two great mills outside Moscow, and also blew up the blast furnaces at the Obukhov Steel Factory, causing great loss of life; while at the same time, a desperate attempt was made also by other German agents to destroy the great powder factory opposite Schüsselburg, which, before the war, had been owned by Germans.
The unrest thus created by Rasputin quickly assumed alarming proportions, and the camarilla was secretly satisfied. The Prime Minister, Stürmer, in order to mislead the public further, made a speech deploring the fact that anybody credited such unfounded reports; but he did not do so before the Labour group of the Central War Industrial Committee had issued a declaration to the working classes warning them to remain patient and prosecute the war with vigour.
How amazingly clever was this traitorous camarilla, seeking to hurl Russia to her destruction, is shown by a significant fact. On the very day of the issue of that Labour declaration General Brusiloff, interviewed at the Russian Headquarters of the South-West Front by Mr Stanley Washburn, said:
“The war is won to-day, though it is merely speculation to estimate how much longer will be required before the enemy are convinced that the cause, for the sake of which they drenched Europe with blood, is irretrievably lost. Personally, never since the beginning have I believed that the enemy had a chance of winning.”
Meanwhile the Emperor was still absent at the front, and Rasputin, in addition to directing the affairs of the Empire through the Empress, whom he visited daily at the Palace, was holding constant reunions of his sister-disciples, whereat he pretended to see visions, while he was also blackmailing all and sundry, as his voluminous correspondence with some of his “sisters” plainly shows. Two letters from the Grand Duchess Olga, daughter of the Tsar, dated October 30th and November 1st, are indeed plain evidence that the monk was forming a fresh “circle” of his female neophytes, consisting wholly of young girls of noble families.
Suddenly, like a bombshell, there dropped upon the Tsaritza and the camarilla the startling news, that Miliukoff, who had now at his back the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Serge and Dmitri, intended to publicly expose the Empress’s pet “Saint.” From Tsarskoe-Selo she wrote to him on November 7th, apparently in great haste, for it is a pencilled note:
“Holy Father,—Anna has just told me of Miliukoff’s intention in the Duma. The Emperor must further adjourn its re-assembling (which had been prohibited from meeting since July). I have telegraphed to him urging him to do this. If not, Noyo’s suggestion to pay the agents J. or B. ten thousand roubles to remove him. I would willingly pay a hundred thousand roubles to close his mouth for ever. This must be done. Suggest it to P. (Protopopoff). Surely the same means could be used as with Tsourikoff, and the end be quite natural and peaceful! You could supply the means as before. But I urge on you not to delay a moment. All depends upon Miliukoff’s removal. If he reveals to the Duma what he knows, then everything must be lost. I kiss your dear hands. With Olga I ask your blessing.—Your dutiful daughter, A.”
It seems incredible in this twentieth century that an Empress should have been so completely beneath the thraldom of an erotic criminal lunatic. But the evidence is there in black and white.
Two previous attempts upon the life of Professor Miliukoff had happily failed, but the tenor of that letter illustrates the Tsaritza’s increasing fears lest the real traitor should be unmasked.
A cipher telegram from the Emperor, who was at the South-West Headquarters, is on record, dated November 8th, and was addressed to the Tsaritza. It was evidently a reply to her frantic request:
“Tell our dear Father (Rasputin) that to postpone the Duma would, I fear, create an unfavourable impression, and I judge impossible. Protopopoff has asked my authority to arrest Miliukoff upon some technical charge, but I do not consider such a course good policy. I agree that to-day’s situation is grave, and agree that at the last moment some steps should be taken to prevent him from speaking.”
On receipt of that very unsatisfactory reply the Tsaritza summoned the mock-monk, who was remaining at the Palace evidently awaiting the Emperor’s reply. Stürmer and Madame Vyrubova, the high-priestess of the Rasputin cult, were also present. What actually transpired at that Council of Three is unknown. It is, however, beyond question that it was arranged that M. Miliukoff, whom they held in such fear—as well as a friend of his, a Conservative deputy named Puriskevitch—should be “removed.” That the illiterate scoundrel, with his unique knowledge of the scriptures, was an adept in the art of using certain secret drugs, and that by his hand several persons obnoxious to the camarilla had died mysteriously is now proved beyond any doubt, for as cleverly as he systematically drugged the poor little Tsarevitch, so also he could with amazing cunning “arrange” the deaths of those who might betray him.
M. Miliukoff, knowing that his patriotic and hostile intentions were being suspected, took such precautions, however, that even the bold emissaries of Rasputin failed to approach him.
At noon, on November 14th, the Minister Protopopoff wrote a hurried note upon the paper of the Ministry of the Interior, which is on record, and is as follows:
“Dear friend Gregory,—How is it that your plans have so utterly failed and M. (Miliukoff) is still active? To-day at 2 the Duma meets! Cannot you arrange that he is absent? Cannot you work a miracle? Skoropadski (a well-known German agent) has betrayed us and put the most incriminating documents into M.’s hands. We tried to arrest the fellow last night in Riga, but, alas, he has eluded us. Take every precaution for your own safety. If M. attends the sitting we are all lost.—Yours cordially, D.A.P.”
The plot to kill M. Miliukoff had failed! The Empress knew of it and sat in the Winter Palace, pale, breathless and eager for messages over her private telephone. The vile, black work done by her “Holy Father” was to be exposed! What if her own Imperial self were exhibited in her true traitorous colours!
Meanwhile, at two o’clock, M. Rodzianko took his seat as President at the Tauris Palace. The usual service was held and then the historic sitting of the Duma opened. The House was crowded, and the British, French and Italian Ambassadors being in the diplomatic box, the members, Octobrists, Progressive Nationalists, the Centre, the Zemsto Octobrists and Cadets, rose in one body and gave vociferous cheers for the Allies. “Russia will win!” they cried.
The first speaker was M. Garusewicz, who, on behalf of the Polish Club, addressed the Allied Powers, protesting against the Austro-German action and expressing the hope and confidence that a final solution of the Polish problem would be the outcome of the war.
The two men whom the camarilla had plotted to murder were calmly in their places. M. Miliukoff, a pleasant-looking grey-haired man, sat gazing at the speaker through his gold-rimmed spectacles, listening attentively until the speaker had concluded. Meanwhile the Tsaritza, sitting in her luxurious little room in the Palace with the dissolute Anna Vyrubova as her sole companion, was listening to messages which, as arranged, came to her over the telephone every ten minutes.
At last M. Miliukoff rose, quite calm, and bowed to the President. Instantly there was silence. Without mincing matters in the least he told the House—in a speech which was wholly suppressed by the authorities—how the camarilla had endeavoured to remove him but in vain; and then, after many hard words which electrified all present, he denounced the “Saint” as the dark and sinister force which was hurling the Russian Empire to its destruction. Then, branding the pro-German Prime Minister Boris Stürmer as “Judas the Traitor,” he took up a bundle of documents, and shaking them in his hand dramatically he declared: “I have here, gentlemen, the evidence of Judas. Evidence in cold figures—the number of shekels, the pieces of silver, for betrayal.”
The House sat breathless! The ghastly truth was out. When M. Miliukoff sat down his friend M. Puriskevitch rose politely and asked permission and indulgence to make a speech in German—the hated language—promising it should be very brief. All he uttered were the two words: “Hofmeister Stürmer!” The Duma, understanding, cheered to the echo.
Over the telephone the Empress, pale and neurotic, listened to what had been alleged against her “Holy Father” and his friend Stürmer, whereupon she suddenly gave a low scream and fainted.
The truth was out at last! The first blow of retribution had on that afternoon fallen upon the Imperial House of Romanoff.
But Rasputin, the amazing, remained unperturbed. He merely smiled evilly. The game had become desperate, he knew, but he still had other cards to play.
Chapter Ten.Discloses the Charlatan’s Wiles.Up till this juncture the penalty for even mentioning the name of Rasputin was imprisonment. The censorship, controlled by his catspaw Protopopoff, took care to adopt the most drastic measures to suppress every mention of the mysterious “Saint” who was the centre of that band of neurotic noblewomen who kissed his filthy hands and bowed their knees to him.“O Holy Father! the Chosen One of God! Give us thy blessing and we beseech of thee to pray for us. May the sin we here commit be committed for the purification of our souls; and may we, thy sister-disciples, be raised to thine own plane of piety by God’s great mercy.”Thus ran the blasphemous opening prayer repeated at each of the scoundrel’s erotic reunions—those meetings held with closed doors both within the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, in the Gorokhovaya, and elsewhere.But on that historic November 14th, 1916, the “Saint” had been publicly named, and hence became seriously alarmed. Two hours after the fearless Miliukoff had denounced him in the Duma the whole of Petrograd palpitated with excitement. All knew that the utterances of the fearless patriot who had actually pilloried the monk in public would be denied publication in the Press. Therefore those who were bent upon winning the war at once arranged to have typewritten copies of the speech circulated from hand to hand, and by that means the bold denunciation obtained a wider circulation than any other words ever spoken in the Duma.The newspapers appeared with black columns. “M. Miliukoff continued the debate,” was all that was allowed to appear in print. The cables to the Allies were rigorously censored, so that in England even Downing Street were in ignorance of what had really occurred. Paris, London and Rome were still living in a fool’s paradise, thanks to the grip which Germany had gained upon official Petrograd, and were being led to believe that all in the Russian Empire were united against the hated Hun.The reports in the British Press of that period were most mystifying. That the Duma were dissatisfied with the state of affairs was plain, but had not the House of Commons often expressed equal dissatisfaction? The fact, however, that the name of Rasputin had actually been mentioned and that the “Holy Father” had been exposed as Germany’s spy, who controlled the “Hofmeister Stürmer,” was never dreamed until a month later, even by such outspoken journals as the ParisMatin.At Tsarskoe-Selo, however, all were in deadly fear. Even Anna Vyrubova viewed the situation with greatest alarm. She wrote to him an hour after Miliukoff had denounced him, as follows:“Her Majesty is prostrated. All seems lost. The Emperor departs for the front again at midnight. He fears a rising in Petrograd, and is regretful that M. (Miliukoff) was not suppressed in time to save us. Someone, he says, has blundered. If you would save yourself go instantly upon a pilgrimage. Describe a vision that will allay the people’s anger and give them further confidence in you. M. has denounced you as a mocker of God and a mere juggler with woman’s credulity. Our dear Empress knows you are not. But she must continue in that belief. Shall Alexis be taken with another seizure? If so, prophesy the day and hour. I await word from you in secret, and ask your blessing.—Your sister, Anna.”The suggestion in this letter is, of course, that a dose of the secret drug be administered to the poor little Tsarevitch at an hour to be previously prophesied by the mock-monk. The Matter was, however, on the alert. On receipt of the letter he went at once to the Palace, abruptly leaving the camarilla who had assembled to plot further, and to save themselves and their own fat emoluments by more juggling with the security of the Empire.To the Empress, whom he found in hernégligéin her boudoir, with Anna in sole attendance, he said:“Truly, O Sister! our enemies seek to encompass us! But God is our strength. As surely as the Russian people have denounced me, so surely will God in His wrath send His punishment upon the Heir to the Throne. Miliukoff, who has sought the protection of Satan himself, has spoken his poisonous words against me. Therefore I go to-morrow upon a pilgrimage to retire and to pray for the future of the Empire, and the forgiveness of those who have dared to speak ill of one sent by God as the Deliverer.”“No! No!” gasped Her Majesty, starting from her chair in pale alarm. “You will not leave us at this juncture—you will not, Holy Father, leave us to our fate?”“It is decreed,” he said in that low hard voice of his. “I have witnessed a vision even an hour since—I have heard the Voice! I must obey. But,” he added seriously, “I tell thee, O Sister! that near five o’clock in the morning of the day following to-morrow thy dear son will be visited by God’s wrath. He—”“He will be again ill!” gasped the unhappy woman, who believed that the bearded man in the black kaftan before her was sent by Providence as Russia’s deliverer. “Surely you cannot mean that! You will pray for him—you will save him. Remember he is my son—my all!”“Truly I mean what I have spoken, O Sister!” was his reply. “But I will pray for his recovery—and all can be achieved by the sacrifice of the flesh and by prayer. God grant his recovery!” he added piously, making the sign of the cross and raising his mesmeric eyes heavenwards.At this the hysterical traitress in her pale-pink gown edged with wide Eastern embroidery of emeralds and turquoises, fell upon her knees and kissed the scoundrel’s knotted, unclean fingers, while her faithful Anna looked on and crossed herself, muttering one of the prayers in the blasphemous jargon of the “sister-disciples.” The failure to assassinate Professor Miliukoff had brought home to the camarilla and also to the spy-bureau in Berlin—acting through Swedish diplomatic channels—that the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Serge and Dmitri, together with their small circle of staunch friends of the nobility, were determined to place them in the pillory.The agent of Germany, Skoropadski, a friend of the notorious Azeff, of the Russian Secret Police, whose exploits before the war were often chronicled, had betrayed his employers. Commencing life as a Russianagent provocateur, employed in Warsaw against the Revolutionists, and consequently a most unscrupulous and heartless person, he had entered the service of Germany with Protopopoff’s connivance and had been the means of the ruin and downfall of dozens of patriotic Russian officials. By virtue of his office as spy of Germany he knew the double game that the Prime Minister, Stürmer, was playing at Rasputin’s instigation. Documents passed through his hands, and often he passed in secret between Petrograd and Berlin andvice versâ, posing as a Swede and travelling by way of Stockholm.He was an expert spy, and ready to serve any paymaster. Furthermore, he had a grudge against Rasputin because one of his own lady friends had joined the cult of “Believers,” and thus had his hatred been aroused. Therefore, when the little band of patriots at the head of which was the Grand Duke Nicholas approached him in secret, he was at once ready to place the most damning documentary evidence in their hands—those papers which Professor Miliukoff had flashed in the faces of the Duma.The anger of Stürmer and Protopopoff was now at a white heat. The latter, as Controller of the Secret Police, made every effort to arrest the artful Pole, but he happily escaped, and is now believed to be in Paris.Such was the story, revealed here for the first time, of the manner in which the Revolutionists were able to present to the people’s representative the infamous acts of the monk Rasputin and his official “creatures” who wore their tinselled uniforms, their tin decorations and enjoyed titles of “Excellency.” Traitors have been in every land since the Creation; and, as I examined this amazingdossiercollected by the patriotic party in Russia, with its original letters, its copies of letters, its photographs and its telegrams in the sloped calligraphy of their senders, I marvel, and wonder who in other countries are the traitors—who while pretending to serve their own kings or their presidents are also serving the Mammon of Germania?I pen these chapters of the downfall of Tsardom with unwilling hand, for I have many friends in Russia and, as a traveller in the Land of the Tsar over many thousands of versts, I have grown to know—perhaps only slightly—the hearty, homely and hospitable Russian people. I have suffered discomforts for months among those clouds of mosquitoes on the great “tundra,” and I have travelled many and many weary miles over the snows of winter, yet never did I think that I should sit to chronicle such adébâcle.Notwithstanding the tears of the Empress, the villainous Rasputin, having arranged with Anna the hour when she should drug the poor little Tsarevitch, departed on a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Tsarytsine.Facts concerning this journey, when he fled from the wrath of the people, have just been revealed by his friend the monk Helidor, who having learnt the manner in which he betrayed the Empire, has come forward to elucidate many things hitherto mysterious.Helidor, who is a man of high intelligence and true religious principles, has stated that at Rasputin’s invitation both he and Monsignor Hermogène joined “Grichka,” as he terms his dissolute friend, upon the pilgrimage. Rasputin the traitor was received everywhere as an angel from Heaven. The people of all classes prostrated themselves and kissed his unclean hands. In Tsarytsine during two days he entered many houses, where he embraced all the good-looking women, but discarded the old and ugly. He was often drunk and riotous.On entering the monastery at last he isolated himself for four days on pretence of prayer, but he was assisted in his religious exercises by a good-looking young nun with whom he openly walked in the monastery grounds.Tired of the retirement and the nun’s companionship, he travelled to his native Siberian village of Pokrovsky, Helidor accompanying him.“During our journey, which was a long one,” Helidor says, “I tried to discover some testimony to the sanctity of my companion. I only found him to be a most uncouth and dissolute person, whose constant talk was of women, and who drank incessantly. I had been mystified by him until then, but I realised that even having been denounced in the Duma, he was quite undisturbed, for his egotism was colossal, and he constantly declared to me that he was the actual Autocrat.”Helidor’s description of the so-called “monastery” at Pokrovsky is interesting as being from an authentic and reliable source.“We arrived there at last,” he declared in an interview the other day. “It was a mean Siberian village half hidden in the Siberian snow, for the winter was unduly early. I observed my host closely, for I now knew him to be a traitor and a charlatan. The ‘monastery’ as he called it in Petrograd, and for which hundreds gave him subscriptions, was not a religious house at all, and it had never been consecrated as such. Rasputin himself was not even a monk, for he had never been received into the church.”In describing this “monastery” for which the monk had filched thousands upon thousands of roubles from the pockets of his neophytes in Petrograd, Helidor says:“It was a large house, which had only recently been furnished luxuriously. It was full of holy ikons, of portraits of women, and of magnificent presents from their Majesties. The occupants of the place numbered a dozen women, mostly young, garbed as nuns and performing daily religious observances.”Apparently the establishment was a Siberian “Abode of Love,” much upon the lines, as the Smyth-Piggott cult, yet Helidor has declared that what struck him most was the open hostility of the mujiks towards the “Holy Father.”“They are annoyed, my dear brother Helidor, because you have come with me from Petrograd,” the “saint” declared in excuse.But Helidor noticed that Antoine, the Archbishop of Tobolsk, who visited him, betrayed the same marked hostility, while the people of the village all declared without mincing matters that Grichka, whom they had known as a convicted horse-thief and assaulter of women, was merely adébauché.Again came wild telegrams from the Empress. The “Saint’s” prophecy had been fulfilled and the Tsarevitch had been taken seriously ill at the exact hour he had predicted.“Nikki has returned. Both of us are in deadly fear,” she telegraphed. “Kousmin (the Court physician) cannot diagnose the malady. Come to us at once, Holy Father, I pray to you, come and save us. Give your blessing and your sympathy to your devoted sister.—A.”At the same time His Majesty sent a telegraphic message to the man who made and unmade Ministers and who ruled all Russia at home and in the field. It was despatched from the Winter Palace half-an-hour after the message of the Empress, and read:“Friend, I cannot command, but I beg of you to return instantly to us. We want your help. Without it, Alexis will die, and the House of Romanoff is doomed. I have sent the Imperial train to you. It leaves in an hour.—Nicholas.”Of this summons the villainous ex-thief took no notice.Helidor says: “He showed me the telegrams and laughed triumphantly, saying, ‘Nikki seems very much troubled! Why does he not return to the front and urge on his soldiers against the advancing hosts.’ The greater our losses the nearer shall we be to peace. I shall take care that ignorant Russia will not win against the causes of civilisation and humanity.”“Civilisation and humanity!” This illiterate and dissolute peasant, who each night became hopelessly intoxicated and who in his cups would revile his paymasters the Huns and chant in his deep bass voice refrains of Russian patriotic airs, was actually the dear “friend” of the Tsar of All the Russias! The vicious scoundrel’s influence was reaching its zenith.To Western readers the whole facts may well appear incredible. But those who know Russia, with its complex world of official corruption and “religious” chicanery, are well aware how anything may happen to that huge Empire when at war.After a fortnight’s silence, during which the sinister hand of Anna Vyrubova regularly administered that secret drug to the poor, helpless son of the Emperor, Rasputin, with amazing effrontery, dared again to put his foot in Petrograd. On the night of his arrival the Tsaritza, awaiting him anxiously at Tsarskoe-Selo, sent him a note by Ivan Radzick, the trusted body-servant of the Emperor for fifteen years, a note which the miracle-worker preserved most carefully, and which ran as follows:“Holy Father,—I await you eagerly. Boris (Stürmer) and Frédéricks are with me. Things are increasingly critical. Hasten to us at once and cure poor little Alexis, or he will die. The doctors are powerless. I have had urgent news from Berlin. Miliukoff must be removed, and so must Kerensky and Nicholas (the Grand Duke). Boris has arranged it. You have the means. Something must happen to them within the next forty-eight hours. Nicholas has handed Nikki an abominable letter of threats. The British Ambassador is wary and knows of this. His despatches to London to-night must be intercepted. I am sending the car for you, and await in eagerness once again to kiss your dear hands.—Your devoted sister, Alec.”
Up till this juncture the penalty for even mentioning the name of Rasputin was imprisonment. The censorship, controlled by his catspaw Protopopoff, took care to adopt the most drastic measures to suppress every mention of the mysterious “Saint” who was the centre of that band of neurotic noblewomen who kissed his filthy hands and bowed their knees to him.
“O Holy Father! the Chosen One of God! Give us thy blessing and we beseech of thee to pray for us. May the sin we here commit be committed for the purification of our souls; and may we, thy sister-disciples, be raised to thine own plane of piety by God’s great mercy.”
Thus ran the blasphemous opening prayer repeated at each of the scoundrel’s erotic reunions—those meetings held with closed doors both within the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, in the Gorokhovaya, and elsewhere.
But on that historic November 14th, 1916, the “Saint” had been publicly named, and hence became seriously alarmed. Two hours after the fearless Miliukoff had denounced him in the Duma the whole of Petrograd palpitated with excitement. All knew that the utterances of the fearless patriot who had actually pilloried the monk in public would be denied publication in the Press. Therefore those who were bent upon winning the war at once arranged to have typewritten copies of the speech circulated from hand to hand, and by that means the bold denunciation obtained a wider circulation than any other words ever spoken in the Duma.
The newspapers appeared with black columns. “M. Miliukoff continued the debate,” was all that was allowed to appear in print. The cables to the Allies were rigorously censored, so that in England even Downing Street were in ignorance of what had really occurred. Paris, London and Rome were still living in a fool’s paradise, thanks to the grip which Germany had gained upon official Petrograd, and were being led to believe that all in the Russian Empire were united against the hated Hun.
The reports in the British Press of that period were most mystifying. That the Duma were dissatisfied with the state of affairs was plain, but had not the House of Commons often expressed equal dissatisfaction? The fact, however, that the name of Rasputin had actually been mentioned and that the “Holy Father” had been exposed as Germany’s spy, who controlled the “Hofmeister Stürmer,” was never dreamed until a month later, even by such outspoken journals as the ParisMatin.
At Tsarskoe-Selo, however, all were in deadly fear. Even Anna Vyrubova viewed the situation with greatest alarm. She wrote to him an hour after Miliukoff had denounced him, as follows:
“Her Majesty is prostrated. All seems lost. The Emperor departs for the front again at midnight. He fears a rising in Petrograd, and is regretful that M. (Miliukoff) was not suppressed in time to save us. Someone, he says, has blundered. If you would save yourself go instantly upon a pilgrimage. Describe a vision that will allay the people’s anger and give them further confidence in you. M. has denounced you as a mocker of God and a mere juggler with woman’s credulity. Our dear Empress knows you are not. But she must continue in that belief. Shall Alexis be taken with another seizure? If so, prophesy the day and hour. I await word from you in secret, and ask your blessing.—Your sister, Anna.”
The suggestion in this letter is, of course, that a dose of the secret drug be administered to the poor little Tsarevitch at an hour to be previously prophesied by the mock-monk. The Matter was, however, on the alert. On receipt of the letter he went at once to the Palace, abruptly leaving the camarilla who had assembled to plot further, and to save themselves and their own fat emoluments by more juggling with the security of the Empire.
To the Empress, whom he found in hernégligéin her boudoir, with Anna in sole attendance, he said:
“Truly, O Sister! our enemies seek to encompass us! But God is our strength. As surely as the Russian people have denounced me, so surely will God in His wrath send His punishment upon the Heir to the Throne. Miliukoff, who has sought the protection of Satan himself, has spoken his poisonous words against me. Therefore I go to-morrow upon a pilgrimage to retire and to pray for the future of the Empire, and the forgiveness of those who have dared to speak ill of one sent by God as the Deliverer.”
“No! No!” gasped Her Majesty, starting from her chair in pale alarm. “You will not leave us at this juncture—you will not, Holy Father, leave us to our fate?”
“It is decreed,” he said in that low hard voice of his. “I have witnessed a vision even an hour since—I have heard the Voice! I must obey. But,” he added seriously, “I tell thee, O Sister! that near five o’clock in the morning of the day following to-morrow thy dear son will be visited by God’s wrath. He—”
“He will be again ill!” gasped the unhappy woman, who believed that the bearded man in the black kaftan before her was sent by Providence as Russia’s deliverer. “Surely you cannot mean that! You will pray for him—you will save him. Remember he is my son—my all!”
“Truly I mean what I have spoken, O Sister!” was his reply. “But I will pray for his recovery—and all can be achieved by the sacrifice of the flesh and by prayer. God grant his recovery!” he added piously, making the sign of the cross and raising his mesmeric eyes heavenwards.
At this the hysterical traitress in her pale-pink gown edged with wide Eastern embroidery of emeralds and turquoises, fell upon her knees and kissed the scoundrel’s knotted, unclean fingers, while her faithful Anna looked on and crossed herself, muttering one of the prayers in the blasphemous jargon of the “sister-disciples.” The failure to assassinate Professor Miliukoff had brought home to the camarilla and also to the spy-bureau in Berlin—acting through Swedish diplomatic channels—that the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Serge and Dmitri, together with their small circle of staunch friends of the nobility, were determined to place them in the pillory.
The agent of Germany, Skoropadski, a friend of the notorious Azeff, of the Russian Secret Police, whose exploits before the war were often chronicled, had betrayed his employers. Commencing life as a Russianagent provocateur, employed in Warsaw against the Revolutionists, and consequently a most unscrupulous and heartless person, he had entered the service of Germany with Protopopoff’s connivance and had been the means of the ruin and downfall of dozens of patriotic Russian officials. By virtue of his office as spy of Germany he knew the double game that the Prime Minister, Stürmer, was playing at Rasputin’s instigation. Documents passed through his hands, and often he passed in secret between Petrograd and Berlin andvice versâ, posing as a Swede and travelling by way of Stockholm.
He was an expert spy, and ready to serve any paymaster. Furthermore, he had a grudge against Rasputin because one of his own lady friends had joined the cult of “Believers,” and thus had his hatred been aroused. Therefore, when the little band of patriots at the head of which was the Grand Duke Nicholas approached him in secret, he was at once ready to place the most damning documentary evidence in their hands—those papers which Professor Miliukoff had flashed in the faces of the Duma.
The anger of Stürmer and Protopopoff was now at a white heat. The latter, as Controller of the Secret Police, made every effort to arrest the artful Pole, but he happily escaped, and is now believed to be in Paris.
Such was the story, revealed here for the first time, of the manner in which the Revolutionists were able to present to the people’s representative the infamous acts of the monk Rasputin and his official “creatures” who wore their tinselled uniforms, their tin decorations and enjoyed titles of “Excellency.” Traitors have been in every land since the Creation; and, as I examined this amazingdossiercollected by the patriotic party in Russia, with its original letters, its copies of letters, its photographs and its telegrams in the sloped calligraphy of their senders, I marvel, and wonder who in other countries are the traitors—who while pretending to serve their own kings or their presidents are also serving the Mammon of Germania?
I pen these chapters of the downfall of Tsardom with unwilling hand, for I have many friends in Russia and, as a traveller in the Land of the Tsar over many thousands of versts, I have grown to know—perhaps only slightly—the hearty, homely and hospitable Russian people. I have suffered discomforts for months among those clouds of mosquitoes on the great “tundra,” and I have travelled many and many weary miles over the snows of winter, yet never did I think that I should sit to chronicle such adébâcle.
Notwithstanding the tears of the Empress, the villainous Rasputin, having arranged with Anna the hour when she should drug the poor little Tsarevitch, departed on a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Tsarytsine.
Facts concerning this journey, when he fled from the wrath of the people, have just been revealed by his friend the monk Helidor, who having learnt the manner in which he betrayed the Empire, has come forward to elucidate many things hitherto mysterious.
Helidor, who is a man of high intelligence and true religious principles, has stated that at Rasputin’s invitation both he and Monsignor Hermogène joined “Grichka,” as he terms his dissolute friend, upon the pilgrimage. Rasputin the traitor was received everywhere as an angel from Heaven. The people of all classes prostrated themselves and kissed his unclean hands. In Tsarytsine during two days he entered many houses, where he embraced all the good-looking women, but discarded the old and ugly. He was often drunk and riotous.
On entering the monastery at last he isolated himself for four days on pretence of prayer, but he was assisted in his religious exercises by a good-looking young nun with whom he openly walked in the monastery grounds.
Tired of the retirement and the nun’s companionship, he travelled to his native Siberian village of Pokrovsky, Helidor accompanying him.
“During our journey, which was a long one,” Helidor says, “I tried to discover some testimony to the sanctity of my companion. I only found him to be a most uncouth and dissolute person, whose constant talk was of women, and who drank incessantly. I had been mystified by him until then, but I realised that even having been denounced in the Duma, he was quite undisturbed, for his egotism was colossal, and he constantly declared to me that he was the actual Autocrat.”
Helidor’s description of the so-called “monastery” at Pokrovsky is interesting as being from an authentic and reliable source.
“We arrived there at last,” he declared in an interview the other day. “It was a mean Siberian village half hidden in the Siberian snow, for the winter was unduly early. I observed my host closely, for I now knew him to be a traitor and a charlatan. The ‘monastery’ as he called it in Petrograd, and for which hundreds gave him subscriptions, was not a religious house at all, and it had never been consecrated as such. Rasputin himself was not even a monk, for he had never been received into the church.”
In describing this “monastery” for which the monk had filched thousands upon thousands of roubles from the pockets of his neophytes in Petrograd, Helidor says:
“It was a large house, which had only recently been furnished luxuriously. It was full of holy ikons, of portraits of women, and of magnificent presents from their Majesties. The occupants of the place numbered a dozen women, mostly young, garbed as nuns and performing daily religious observances.”
Apparently the establishment was a Siberian “Abode of Love,” much upon the lines, as the Smyth-Piggott cult, yet Helidor has declared that what struck him most was the open hostility of the mujiks towards the “Holy Father.”
“They are annoyed, my dear brother Helidor, because you have come with me from Petrograd,” the “saint” declared in excuse.
But Helidor noticed that Antoine, the Archbishop of Tobolsk, who visited him, betrayed the same marked hostility, while the people of the village all declared without mincing matters that Grichka, whom they had known as a convicted horse-thief and assaulter of women, was merely adébauché.
Again came wild telegrams from the Empress. The “Saint’s” prophecy had been fulfilled and the Tsarevitch had been taken seriously ill at the exact hour he had predicted.
“Nikki has returned. Both of us are in deadly fear,” she telegraphed. “Kousmin (the Court physician) cannot diagnose the malady. Come to us at once, Holy Father, I pray to you, come and save us. Give your blessing and your sympathy to your devoted sister.—A.”
At the same time His Majesty sent a telegraphic message to the man who made and unmade Ministers and who ruled all Russia at home and in the field. It was despatched from the Winter Palace half-an-hour after the message of the Empress, and read:
“Friend, I cannot command, but I beg of you to return instantly to us. We want your help. Without it, Alexis will die, and the House of Romanoff is doomed. I have sent the Imperial train to you. It leaves in an hour.—Nicholas.”
Of this summons the villainous ex-thief took no notice.
Helidor says: “He showed me the telegrams and laughed triumphantly, saying, ‘Nikki seems very much troubled! Why does he not return to the front and urge on his soldiers against the advancing hosts.’ The greater our losses the nearer shall we be to peace. I shall take care that ignorant Russia will not win against the causes of civilisation and humanity.”
“Civilisation and humanity!” This illiterate and dissolute peasant, who each night became hopelessly intoxicated and who in his cups would revile his paymasters the Huns and chant in his deep bass voice refrains of Russian patriotic airs, was actually the dear “friend” of the Tsar of All the Russias! The vicious scoundrel’s influence was reaching its zenith.
To Western readers the whole facts may well appear incredible. But those who know Russia, with its complex world of official corruption and “religious” chicanery, are well aware how anything may happen to that huge Empire when at war.
After a fortnight’s silence, during which the sinister hand of Anna Vyrubova regularly administered that secret drug to the poor, helpless son of the Emperor, Rasputin, with amazing effrontery, dared again to put his foot in Petrograd. On the night of his arrival the Tsaritza, awaiting him anxiously at Tsarskoe-Selo, sent him a note by Ivan Radzick, the trusted body-servant of the Emperor for fifteen years, a note which the miracle-worker preserved most carefully, and which ran as follows:
“Holy Father,—I await you eagerly. Boris (Stürmer) and Frédéricks are with me. Things are increasingly critical. Hasten to us at once and cure poor little Alexis, or he will die. The doctors are powerless. I have had urgent news from Berlin. Miliukoff must be removed, and so must Kerensky and Nicholas (the Grand Duke). Boris has arranged it. You have the means. Something must happen to them within the next forty-eight hours. Nicholas has handed Nikki an abominable letter of threats. The British Ambassador is wary and knows of this. His despatches to London to-night must be intercepted. I am sending the car for you, and await in eagerness once again to kiss your dear hands.—Your devoted sister, Alec.”