Belsatzar ward in selbiger NachtVon seinen Knechten umgebracht.
Belsatzar ward in selbiger NachtVon seinen Knechten umgebracht.
Belsatzar ward in selbiger NachtVon seinen Knechten umgebracht.
He had omitted the conjunctive “aber” which comes in the poet’s line after “ward”; and then, having first written “selbigen,” had changed it to “seinen,” feeling perhaps that these modifications were necessary to fit the occasion. Perhaps unconsciously he also converted Belsazar (as Heine spells the name) to Belsatzar. The writer was quoting a Jew whose poem expatiates on the overthrow of a Gentile sovereign who had offended Israel. TheBook of Daniel is not so explicit. It says:—“In that night was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldeans slain.” (Dan. vi. 30.) But the author of the inscription wished to make it “plain” that “Belsatzar” was slain by his own people.
“The death of Nicholas II. and his family did not suffice for the Soviet plan of “government” with, or without, Germany. Nothing short of extermination of all the Romanovs could satisfy the enemies of “Belsatzar.” Whenever theTsik(Central Executive Committee) and theChrezvychaika(inquisition) laid hands on any of the ex-Tsar’s relatives their fate was sealed. It did not matter where the unfortunate princes might be, or what local authority happened to be ostensibly involved—theTsikand Yankel Sverdlov, Red Jewish Autocrat of All the Russias, directed the disposal of them.
It is quite useless for the apologists of Soviet rule to insinuate that local bodies may have committed excesses without the knowledge and approval of the Centre; in these murders of Grand Dukes and a Grand Duchess—in all 11 persons of the blood Royal—the hand of the Central Government is clearly apparent. Moreover, they were all slain in cold blood, of deliberate purpose; not like the victims of the holocaust at Perm, because areign of stark terror had been ordained from Moscow.
It is with mind and hand still atremble after reciting the horrors of the cellar and the woods of Ekaterinburg that I take up this tale of woe, all the more pitiful on account of the utter absence of any pretext for the crime—just sordid murder unrelieved by any shadow of political expediency or provocation.
First, I take the case of the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich; he “disappeared” before the others—about a month before the Tsar—and he was the ostensible heir although he had formally resigned his rights to the people. I have collected all the materials concerning his last days in Perm.
The Tsar’s brother had remained at Gachina, his usual residence, during the early months of Bolshevist rule. There he was arrested in March, 1918, and sent into exile. His secretary, Nicholas Nikolaievich Johnson, and the former Chief of the Gendarmerie at Gachina, Colonel Znamerovsky, were arrested at the same time and transported together with him, guarded by Letts. Perm was their destination, and in that city they resided for the next two months.
Apart from being under surveillance, the exiles enjoyed comparative freedom. The Grand Duke took his walks with his secretary. Although suffering from a chronic complaint (gastric ulcers) which required constant exercise and a special diet, he hadno cause to complain of his health while in Perm. The fact was many people sent him dainties, such as sterlets freshly caught out of the Kama, so that his rooms at the Korolevskie Nomera (King’s Inn) were always full of provisions. He felt so well that he seldom had recourse to the medicine for stilling the terrible pains that he suffered during acute attacks of the malady.
Popularity has its drawbacks. The people of Perm did not realise that their attentions to the exile might arouse suspicion among his Red enemies. When things came to such a pass that the Tsar’s brother found himself running the gauntlet of popular ovations, it became necessary to avoid too frequent appearances in the streets. Znamerovsky warned the Grand Duke that the Reds at the suburban Motoviliha arsenal were beginning to grow restive and openly agitating against the liberty allowed to the exiles. So thereafter the familiar figure of Michael Alexandrovich in his shabby grey suit and top boots was seen no more, and he took his exercise under the cover of darkness.
The Grand Duke had left his wife and children at Gachina. Countess Brasova (his morganatic spouse) came to visit her husband in the middle of May. Madame Znamerovskaia had also arrived in Perm. It was a rash step. Countess Brasova had much difficulty in getting away; in fact it was only managed by a stratagem. The komisars were toldthat if they interfered the matter would be referred to Moscow. This frightened them.
Reaching Moscow on the 22nd or 23rd of May Countess Brasova decided to take a still bolder step to save her husband. Conscious of his complete aloofness from politics, she imagined that personal intercession with the Red chieftains would move them to let him go. Of course it was an illusion excusable only in a distracted wife. I mention it because Lenin himself intervened in the matter. It was the lofty idealist of Sovietdom that absolutely refused to permit the departure of Michael, and thereby assumed responsibility for what happened.
Madame Znamerovskaia did not leave Perm. She was there when her husband was shot and later shared his fate. But I am anticipating.
Unbeknown to any member of the family or even to N. N. Jackson, Colonel Znamerovsky had conceived a plan of escape which he intended to put into practice, fearing that the Motoviliha workmen might be goaded into violence. I am in possession of the details of this plan, and I can state most positively—in the light of subsequent events—that it was not carried out, nor even attempted.
On the 13th June a telegram reached Gachina from Perm, announcing that “our general favourite and Johnny had been removed by whom and whither unknown.” This message was supposed to have come from Znamerovsky—it could havecome only from him. The first feeling was one of unmixed joy; then doubts began to arise, and no small anxiety as to the probable repression that would at once fall upon the household at Gachina. Surely enough soon afterwards Countess Brasova was arrested by Uritsky, the bloodstained Komisar of Petrograd, who himself was assassinated two months later by another Jew. After innumerable tribulations, she managed to escape with her children out of Russia.
What had happened in Perm? A despatch from Mr. Alston, the British Acting High Commissioner, reported from Vladivostok, February 13, 1919:—“Mr. T. has just arrived here.... When at Perm he says he lived in the same hotel with Grand Duke Michael and Mr. Johnson, his secretary, who was a Russian. At two a. m. on or about the 16th June he saw four of the Perm militzia or police take them off, and he is convinced that they were killed.”
Later, it became possible to obtain the evidence of eye-witnesses, which corroborated and amplified Mr. Alston’s despatch. The Grand Duke had two servants with him in Perm, Borunov and Chelyshev. They lived in an adjoining room. Mr. Johnson lived upstairs. Chelyshev escaped and gave the following version:—
At about the date above mentioned (12th to 16th June—he was hazy on this point) he was asleep one night when three men in soldiers’ dress, fully armed, entered his room, woke him up and roughlyordered him to lead them to Michael Romanov. In vain he protested that the Grand Duke was asleep. They threatened him with the Chrezvychaika. He had to comply. He first woke Mr. Johnson. Then he led the way to the Grand Duke’s room. He was asleep. Chelyshev roused him and explained the reason. The Grand Duke looked at the armed men.
One of them said: “We have orders to take you—orders from the Sovdep.” The Grand Duke replied: “I shall not come unless you show me a paper.” One of the men then stepped forward and, laying his hand roughly on the Grand Duke’s shoulder, exclaimed: “Oh! these Romanovs! We are fed up with you all!”
Realising that resistance was futile, the Grand Duke rose and dressed himself. Mr. Johnson had also meanwhile made himself ready, and insisted that the men should take him away as well. After some argument they agreed. Chelyshev declares that he also asked to be taken, but that the men refused.
As the soldiers and their prisoners were going out of the room, Chelyshev remembered about the medicine, and, grasping the bottle, followed, calling out: “Please your Highness, take it with you.” He knew that without his medicine the Grand Duke might be subjected to great and needless suffering. The soldiers roughly pushed him aside and, making some brutal remark about the Imperialfamily, led the prisoners away. From that moment they were lost to view. Many stories of Michael’s escape and of his having been seen at Omsk, at Semipalatinsk, at Chita, at Harbin, etc., have been successively disproved.
Against the version of an escape there are the strongest evidences:—The Grand Duke would never have been a party to any attempt to evade his gaolers, knowing full well that both the Tsar—for whom his loyalty and affection were proverbial—and his own family would suffer for him. It may be objected that he was removed against his will by friends in disguise; but this theory cannot explain away their refusal to allow him to take with him a remedy necessary to his health and perhaps to his life. There had been plots to procure his escape—so I have reason to believe; but in every case the plans had been betrayed. Colonel Znamerovsky knew this. He would trust nobody with his plan, but obviously it miscarried, for he was himself to go with Michael, and we know that instead of that he was murdered. The shooting of Znamerovsky followed close upon the Grand Duke’s disappearance.
Chelyshev afterwards professed confidence in his master’s escape, but at the time he had no such illusion. In fact, he was convinced then that the Grand Duke had been trapped, for when he had had time to recover from his surprise, he went to the local Soviet and complained that the Grand Duke hadbeen kidnapped. He relates that no attention was paid to him at first but that later some semblance of a search was made and quickly dropped.
Regarding the ultimate disposal of the two prisoners, stories circulate just as numerous and varied as the stories of their escape. I need not cite them. It suffices that the Grand Duke Michael, gentlest of men, to whom all thought of power and even of ambition was repugnant, disappeared to be seen no more.
Perm and its vicinity was destined to witness other tragedies full of horror. Many other members of the Romanov family had been interned there including (1) the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, sainted sister of the Empress, venerated by grateful Muscovites while Alexandra was disliked; (2) the Grand Duke Sergius Mikhailovich former Master of the Ordnance, and quite remote from politics; (3) Prince Igor; (4) Prince Ioan; (5) Prince Constantine, all three brilliant young men, the sons of the late Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich, none of them concerned with political matters; and (6) Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Palei son of the Grand Duke Paul and step-brother of the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. This youth of seventeen had given promise of being one of the world’s greatest poets.
Prince Ioan was married to Princess Elena of Serbia, who had come to the Urals to share her husband’s exile. She had been persuaded to go to her country, the Bolshevists hesitating to incarcerateher, and she was at Ekaterinburg when, towards the end of June, she heard that Prince Ioan and the other captives had been put on starvation rations. She decided, come what might, not to leave him behind. Thereupon the Bolshevists arrested her. She was in the prison at Ekaterinburg when the Tsar and his family were murdered. In the same prison were some people who had followed the Imperial household into captivity; young Countess Anastasia Hendrykova, Mlle. Schneider, the Emperor’s valet Volkov. (Prince Dolgoruky and General Tatishchev had “disappeared” earlier.) Of course none of them knew anything about the awful happenings in Ipatiev’s house.
When the Jewish murderers and their accomplices, the German-Magyar “Letts,” had taken wing before the advance of the Whites these prisoners were sent to Perm for future disposal, while they themselves had hurried westward, having helped to accomplish the hellish design of the Jew fiend, Yankel Sverdlov—to exterminate “all the Romanovs.” Orders had already preceded them to Perm and the design had been fully accomplished there. The murder of the Romanovs of Perm took place exactly twenty-four hours after the murder of the family in Ekaterinburg.
Here are the bare facts of this new butchery. The six Romanov prisoners above-mentioned with the Grand Duchess’s companion, the nun Varvara, and S. M. Remes, manager for the princes, were interned in the village school of Alapaevsk, a place in the environs of Perm.
On the night of July 17 (1918) their warders came to tell them the story that Yurovsky had retailed to the Tsar: that there was danger for them, that the enemy (i.e., the Czecho-Slovaks) were approaching, and that in the interest of their personal safety they would be removed. It was even confided to them whither they were going, namely to the Siniachkhin Works. All unsuspicious, they at once complied. The programme of the murder was here somewhat different. It was not convenient to carry it out on the premises. The party took their seats in the nativekorobs(a small tarantass) and were driven north.
When twelve versts (eight miles) out the caravan halted in a wood which contained a number of disused iron-ore mines—one sees the similarity of detail in the murderers’ plan—and here the unfortunates were slain and their bodies thrown down the shafts.
It was a much cruder performance than that of Ekaterinburg. The actual murderers here were simply Russian criminals, escaped convicts who “worked” for the Chrezvychaika, the Red Inquisition. They just slaughtered the victims and got rid of the bodies without so much as rifling their pockets.
Meanwhile at the school certain “precautions” were being taken. A pretended “escape” wasstaged. The school building and its approaches were “faked” to show evidence of combat between the Red Guards and pretended White Guards, and to give verisimilitude to the performance they took a peasant who happened to be locked up in the local gaol, murdered him and placed his dead body in the school to represent the White “bandits.”
Mr. Preston, the Consul, telegraphed from Ekaterinburg, October 28, 1918, that on the retaking of Alapaevsk by the White troops on September 28, the corpses of the Romanov Princes, the Grand Duchess and their attendants were found sufficiently preserved to be recognised, and that they were buried in the presence of a great concourse of people.
The discovery had been made, thanks to the resource of a local police agent, whose name I do not give for special reasons.Post mortemexamination showed that the victims had been bludgeoned to death but must have undergone a prolonged agony before they died. The Grand Duke Sergius was shot through the head, perhaps to put him out of his misery; for the murderers were just butchers who did not seek to torture their victims. There was no refinement of cruelty about them. They were only Russians. It is not true that they threw their victims down the shaft before life was extinct. The autopsy has dispelled that legend. The murderers even exploded hand grenades down the shaft, probably to make assurance doubly sure.
The investigation has clearly established the authorship of these murders. The orders came from Moscow through the same channels that had been used in the murder of the Tsar—namely, from the Jew Sverdlov to the Jew Goloshchekin, and, as usual, the Russian workman Belodorodov acted as the dummy president of the Ekaterinburg Soviet board—the channel through which Moscow acted in the Urals. These orders were carried out by the leading komisars of Perm, among them being the Komisar of Justice Soloviev.
As in the case of the murder at Ekaterinburg, the Bolshevists at Perm followed up their traitorous crime by announcing that there had been a conspiracy. The world was told that the Princes had been kidnapped by bands of White Guards. (When the Whites had to evacuate Perm, General Diterichs arranged to have the bodies of the martyred Princes removed eastward. They rest in a place of safety—at the Russian Cathedral in Peking).
More than half a year later a crime equally abominable was perpetrated at Petrograd. The victims were the Grand Dukes Paul Alexandrovich, Dmitri Constantinovich, Nicholas Mikhailovich (the historian), and George Mikhailovich. They had been imprisoned for some time without any charge being preferred against them. On January 29, 1919, they were removed to the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, and there on the same day without any investigation or form of trial they were “killed by RedGuards with revolvers”—such is the trite information that is available. But the crime of Ekaterinburg and the slaughter of Alapaevsk give a clue as to the authorship of this atrocity. The last of the Romanovs within the power of the Jew-ruled Soviet had passed away. Perhaps, some day, N. A. Sokolov will be able to investigate the crime of Petrograd.
We now approach the end of this long martyrology. The members of whom I am about to speak form part of the Red Terror ordained by the Soviet to avenge the murder of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin, which took place about a month after the crime of Ekaterinburg.
I referred above to the transfer of certain prisoners from that city to Perm. Volkov, the Tsar’s valet, has deposed that altogether thirty-six persons travelled in the prison train. Among them were Countess Hendrykova, Mlle. Schneider, and Princess Elena. They all found themselves interned in the same prison in Perm. Here Volkov met Chelyshev, who had also been locked up, and from him heard the account of the abduction of the Grand Duke Michael. They saw the Princess leave. After great difficulty the Siberian Government had managed to rescue her. She did not, of course, know that her husband had been murdered. She thought he had escaped, and went away willingly enough this time.
The Terror had been proclaimed on September 1, 1918. The officialIzvestiyadeclared that the “proletariat (sic) will reply ... in a manner that will make the wholebourgeoisieshudder with horror.” TheKrasnaia(Red)Gazetaannounced:—“We will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds.... Let them drown themselves in their own blood.”[11]
“On the night of September 3rd”—I am quoting Volkov—“we were led out of the prison, eight of us. There were Countess Hendrykova, Mlle. Schneider, and Mme. Znamerovskaia, myself, and four others. We were surrounded by twenty-two armed guards, part Letts, part Magyars.
“We had been told that we were to be transferred to another prison; we carried our small possessions. When we saw that they were leading us out of the town, we realised that our last hour hadcome. It was terribly hard on the ladies. They dragged themselves along with difficulty in the heavy mud. After several miles, we came to a corduroy road with swamps on either side.” (It was a sewage farm.) “Some of our guards suddenly began offering to carry our bags. I knew that meant that they were going to shoot us directly, so each one wanted to secure his booty beforehand. It was now or never. While they were wrangling over the spoils I made a dash for it.”
Volkov leapt the ditch and was scuttling across the slimy waste when the Magyaro-Letts opened fire. He fell just as the first shot rang out and remained lying. They thought he was dead and moved on. He then made another dash and finally got away. After wandering about for forty-three days, he came into the White zone and was saved.
The frightfully mangled remains of Countess Hendrykova and Mlle. Schneider were discovered by us in the summer of last year and committed to the grave in Perm, in full view of the prison windows where they had been fellow captives of Princess Elena.
“Comrade” Petrovsky’s accusations were undeserved in Perm. The Red Terror ran a full stream of blood in that region. The peasants, being regarded by Bolshevists as the worst kind ofbourgeoisie, provided the bulk of the “scores of hundreds” of victims. For details of these horrors Iwould refer the reader to the White Book on Bolshevism issued in April, 1919.
Respecting Count Tatishchev and Prince Dolgoruky, nothing is known as to the manner of their death. According to Volkov, who was in prison with him in Ekaterinburg, Tatishchev was summoned to the office on or about June 8th, and was there informed that, by order of the Soviet, he was to be deported to the province of Ufa. He was thereupon taken away from the prison and seen no more.
Although secret-service investigation among the Reds strengthens the belief that Michael was murdered, it is a fact that no trace of his dead body has been discovered; and it is, therefore, conceivable that he survived. There are many records of wonderful escapes from Red Guard shooting squads. Volkov is an instance. Chelyshev, the other servant, was twice led out to execution, yet in the end reappeared. If the Grand Duke was taken away by Russians, the chances of his escape would be naturally greater. But even admitting this happy contingency, the murderous intention of the Soviet rulers remains unaffected.
Prince Dolgoruky remained some time in the Ekaterinburg House of Detention. He was frequently in communication with the worthy Mr. Preston, trying to relieve the sufferings of the captives in Ipatiev’s house. Probably this hastened his end. We know that the British Consul was threatened with death if he “interfered” any more. Dolgorukydisappeared like his senior, the Count. Their memories, like the memories of Hendrykova and Schneider, will live through the ages as of those who have been “faithful unto death.”
Around the tigers of the Soviet and their feasts of blood hovered the jackals, singly, in twos and threes, and in packs, waiting to snatch some morsel.
It would be impossible to mention all the sorry scavengers that thronged around the Romanovs before and after their martyrdom. I refer only to such of them that affected, one way or another, the course of the tragedy and its investigation.
Chronologically I record the name of Soloviev first, because he figures in thedossieras an actor while the family was still at Tobolsk. The depositions of numerous witnesses, substantiated by Soloviev himself, show that he was receiving a salary of Rs.40,000 (nominally £4,000) from a banker named X. (well known in Petrograd and reputed to be a Jew), who acted as the chief of the German secret service during the war, having the disbursement of secret funds from Berlin in his hands.
Having married a daughter of Razputin, named Matrena, after the “saint’s” death, and formed a connection with Anna Vyrubova, then at liberty in the Red capital, and with other friends of Grishka, this young man, an ex-officer in the Russian Armyand former A.D.C. to Guchkov, started on a “mission” to Siberia. Ostensibly he went to his wife’s home. His own explanation is that he was interested in the fisheries of the Ob; also that he took money and comforts to Tobolsk to the Imperial family from their friends in Petrograd. He deposes that he handed the money to the priest Vasiliev, also the presents. He accuses the priest of appropriating the one and the other. The priest makes counter accusations.
There appears to be reason to believe that the Empress knew of this “mission,” and, retaining to the very end all her illusions regarding Grishka and Anna, gave her confidence to Soloviev as his son-in-law and the associate of Vyrubova. How he repaid this confidence will be seen.
The agent of X. naturally kept him and the Germans informed as to all the happenings at Tobolsk, but one may be quite sure that he did not stop there. Information given to the Germans meant, of course, its communication, when Berlin so desired, to the Bolshevists, its servants. Is it surprising in these circumstances that each of the four separate and independent organizations formed to release the Imperial exiles was betrayed before anything could be attempted?—for the Solovievs were many and the tentacles of X. were far-reaching.
It could not be a coincidence that officers who met Soloviev in Tiumen were arrested by the Reds and “disappeared.” Two such cases are recorded inthedossier. It is certainly more than a coincidence that before and after the fall of the Kolchak Government he was in mysterious association with persons who were strongly suspected of being German agents, and could give no satisfactory account of the source of his income since he had been cut off from the supplies of X.
N. A. Sokolov found him and Matrena at Chita, enjoying the confidence and support of Maria Mihailovna, the so-called “Queen of Diamonds,” who presided over the destinies of the Ataman’s household and had a decided finger in the Trans-Baikalian pie. The “Queen” bore a striking likeness to a certain Jewess who had spied on the Russian South Western front in the days of the war. She came in person to release the Solovievs from the House of Detention to which they had been relegated by Sokolov’s legal order. Sokolov himself had to flee from Chita to avoid worse consequences.
The priest Vasiliev was of another stamp. His antecedents should have dispensed him from ecclesiastical office. He had killed the sexton of the church where he had previously served. The plea of accident, of which he availed himself to secure a nominal punishment of “penitence,” could not engender a proper recognition of his responsibilities. The man was a self-seeker; he saw in the captivity of the Romanovs an opportunity to advance his own and his son’s interests. He indulged in all manner of demonstrations of “loyalty”—bell-ringing and prayers—without regard to their effect upon the captives and their gaolers. As a matter of fact, they did much harm to the family.
The accusation brought against him by Soloviev appears to be borne out in part by the discovery of a certain quantity of articles belonging to the Imperial family in his (Vasiliev’s) house.
The Czech pharmacist Gaida, commanding their rearguard when they were stopped by orders from Berlin and Moscow, who afterwards entered the service of the Omsk Government, played a sorry part in the investigation of the Tsar’s murder. Immediately after the occupation of Ekaterinburg by the Whites, Gaida requisitioned Ipatiev’s house for his personal use and took for himself the room in which the Tsar and his wife had lived. The judiciary begged him not to do so, explaining that it was most necessary that the house should not be disturbed, in the interests of justice. They were brushed aside. Gaida threatened violence if they did not leave him alone. They drew up aprocès-verbalon the matter. It is in thedossier.
In the light of this incident, it is rather strange to read the Red proclamations denouncing the Czecho-Slovaks as the agents of the counter-revolution who were coming to deliver Nicholas Romanov. Gaida’s complete indifference to the Romanovs and their fate was shared by his countrymen, and it is extremely doubtful if they would have behavedbetter towards the Romanovs than they did afterwards to Kolchak.[12]
Among the spies and officers employed by Gaida, some are known to have been Bolshevist agents. One of the officials of his intelligence branch proved to be the Nikolsky who had behaved so brutally to the exiles at Tobolsk and was afterwards president of the local Soviet. When the Russian officers at Ekaterinburg heard of his previous exploits they killed him, without giving the investigation an opportunity to obtain his deposition.
Another hostile Czech was a certain Zaiêek, a former Austrian officer, who was in charge of an important section of the Intelligence Department. When the former Extraordinary Komisar Yakovlev, repenting of the part he had played in the removal of the Tsar from Tobolsk, came over to the Whites and applied to General Shenik for service, he happened to come into the hands of Zaiêek, who, being a traitor and a spy, took measures to have Yakovlev sent away, perhaps knowing that he had been in the confidence of Mirbach and might give the whole German show away.
The Omsk Government, largely composed of Socialist-Revolutionaries, gave little encouragement to the investigation. To them the murder of theex-Tsar appeared to be a matter of quite inferior interest. The investigating magistrate, being in straits for money, applied to the Governor-General of the Ural, a mining engineer named P——, for a sum of 100 roubles (then worth about £1) to provide the monthly stipend of a typist. Being a member of the S.R. party, this high official refused, explaining that in his opinion no inquiry was needed, as it was clearly “a simple case of the shooting of hostages,” too common to worry about.
When, at a later stage, this person was making his way eastward in a luxurious car stuffed with “loot,” the officers of Ataman Semenov searched it, found several millions of Romanov roubles (the currency of the oldrégime, worth even now about 250 to the £) besides gold and platinum, and shot him on the spot as a “speculator.”
The investigating magistrate was able to discover the whereabouts of a noted Bolshevist named Ilmer, who had come to Siberia secretly with an important mission from Moscow. He communicated with the Secret Service at Omsk, requesting that an officer should be sent to apprehend Ilmer. But Ilmer did not turn up. It was ascertained that the Secret Service instead of sending the officer had sent a telegram, with the result that Ilmer escaped.
Perhaps the worst enemies of the investigation were in the Ministry of Justice. It being a cardinal maxim of the Kolchak Government that it wielded supreme authority over the Russian dominionspending the convocation of a constituent Assembly, the blessed formula consecrated by advanced politicians and adopted as asine qua nonby the Powers of the Entente, the Minister of Justice had to be a Socialist-Revolutionary. M. Starynkevich, a lawyer who had been exiled by the formerrégime, fulfilled the necessary requirements.
He persistently and deliberately declined to treat the Tsar’s murder as anything more than an ordinary penal offence and would not appoint a special investigator. The inquiry was therefore conducted casually. A member of the Tribunal of Ekaterinburg without special training in criminal investigation had the case in hand. (Curiously enough he was of Jewish extraction.) The blunders or worse then committed are directly ascribable to Starynkevich.
It was only by direct and categorical orders from the supreme ruler (Admiral Kolchak) that the appointment of a special investigator (N. A. Sokolov) was assured. But realising that renewed and constant attempts would be made to upset the investigation, Kolchak gave Sokolov a special warrant of appointment and otherwise supported him in his work. It was very necessary, for all that Omsk would allow him for expenses was Rs.4.50 per diem (about 6d.), and when he arrived in Ekaterinburg he had exactly 165 Siberian roubles (then about £2) in his possession for all outlays.
Bad enough, this was nothing to what came after.The investigation was frequently embarrassed by the excessive zeal of amateur Sherlocks or Pushfuls. In some cases their thirst for information could not be ignored, as they claimed to make their demands from a high personage friendly to the Omsk Government. In February of last year Sokolov prepared a confidential report for transmission abroad, and handed it to Admiral Kolchak. The next morning it appeared in full in the local organ of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The paper was suppressed a few hours later, but, of course, the mischief had been done. The murderers knew exactly how the investigation stood. All the names of the accused and witnesses were printed in full for the whole world to read, and there also was the name of the investigator (Sokolov), whose appointment had been so distasteful to Starynkevich, practically inviting anybody to come and kill him. (A summary of the disclosed information was published inThe London Timesof February 18, 1919.)
This same Starynkevich, now an ex-Minister, has lately come out in another “disclosure.” He has informed the representatives of Jewry that not a single Jew was concerned in the murder of the Imperial family. It seems almost incredible, but here is the document. It is a letter from the Secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association, giving details of an interview with M. Starynkevich. It says: “the Minister, in a statement given to mewritten down with his own hand, and herewith literally translated, declares that:—
“On the strength of the data of the preliminary inquiry, the course of which was reported to me every week by the Attorney-General, I can certify that, among the number of persons proved by the data of the preliminary inquiry to have been guilty of the assassination of the late Emperor Nicholas II. and of his family, there was not any person of Jewish descent.”
“On the strength of the data of the preliminary inquiry, the course of which was reported to me every week by the Attorney-General, I can certify that, among the number of persons proved by the data of the preliminary inquiry to have been guilty of the assassination of the late Emperor Nicholas II. and of his family, there was not any person of Jewish descent.”
The letter proceeds:—
“I put to him the question as to how he explains the fact of General Knox having sent to the British War Office a report to the contrary. M. Starynkevich ... said that the Russian military circles had vehemently asserted from the very outset that the assassination of the Tsar’s family was the handiwork of the Jews, and that this point must be established by the inquiry. They started an investigation of their own, and insisted on the whole course of their inquiry being left to themselves. The Minister of Justice had to contend with great difficulties before he obtained that the inquiry should be carried out by the regular organs of his department. Even the impartial investigation did not cease to be hampered by the interference of the military. Thus, when the First Examining Magistrate, Sergeiev, had failed to discover any trace of Jewishparticipation in the crime, these military circles vociferously protested against him and insinuated that M. Sergeiev was a Jew himself. This campaign was so violent and persistent that the Minister of Justice had to discharge M. Sergeiev from the case and to entrust the further proceedings to another examining magistrate. His successor (i.e., Sokolov) was likewise unable to discover any trace of Jewish participation in the murder of the Tsar’s family.”
“I put to him the question as to how he explains the fact of General Knox having sent to the British War Office a report to the contrary. M. Starynkevich ... said that the Russian military circles had vehemently asserted from the very outset that the assassination of the Tsar’s family was the handiwork of the Jews, and that this point must be established by the inquiry. They started an investigation of their own, and insisted on the whole course of their inquiry being left to themselves. The Minister of Justice had to contend with great difficulties before he obtained that the inquiry should be carried out by the regular organs of his department. Even the impartial investigation did not cease to be hampered by the interference of the military. Thus, when the First Examining Magistrate, Sergeiev, had failed to discover any trace of Jewishparticipation in the crime, these military circles vociferously protested against him and insinuated that M. Sergeiev was a Jew himself. This campaign was so violent and persistent that the Minister of Justice had to discharge M. Sergeiev from the case and to entrust the further proceedings to another examining magistrate. His successor (i.e., Sokolov) was likewise unable to discover any trace of Jewish participation in the murder of the Tsar’s family.”
I have given this “statement” in full to prevent any subsequent “misapprehensions.” M. Starynkevich’s record is known to the reader. He shows himself in his written “denial” to be a quibbler. The degree of “guilt” of the implicated persons had not been fully established in the initial stages of the inquiry, but they were known to be implicated and known to be Jews. The names of Yurovsky, Goloshchekin, Safarov, Voikov are in Sergeiev’s ownprocès-verbaux, and they were perfectly known by him to be Jews.
It was only natural that the maintenance of Sergeiev, reputed to be of Jewish descent, at the head of the investigation alarmed all who were concerned with the establishment of the truth, but M. Starynkevich carefully conceals another, still more important, reason for their anxiety. Sergeiev was a judge, not an investigating magistrate. He had been deputed to take over the conduct of the investigation from the first magistrate (Nametkin) in the early days of August, 1918, and, contrary to law and to the rules of criminal investigation in Russia as well as in other countries, had continued to conduct the inquiry after the formation of the government at Omsk and despite the fact that fully qualified investigating magistrates were available.
The persistent refusal of the Minister to relieve Sergeiev could be understood only in one sense. Not till February of the following year did Starynkevich at last comply with the law, but even then it was not by his own initiative. Soon afterwards he himself had to leave. Hence his complete ignorance of the subsequent course of the investigation. His slurs upon the military are beneath contempt. But on this and on any other points, Sokolov and thedossierare here to answer him, if necessary.
The murderers of the Romanovs have been unmasked in the preceding chapters, but not all of them. The parts played by Yurovsky and Goloshchekin are apparent. They were confidential agents of Yankel Sverdlov, the Red Tsar. Other very important personages remained in the background; they were the Komisars Safarov, Voikov and Syromolotov.
I give here a complete list of the names or cognomens of the so-called “judges”: (1) Beloborodov, (2) Goloshchekin, (3) Sakovich, (4) Voikov, (5) Bykov, (6) Syromolotov, (7) Safarov, (8) Ukraintsev, (9) Kiselev, (10) Vainer, (11) Hotimsky, (12) Vorobiev, (13) Andronokov, (14) Andreiev, (15) Simashko, (16) Avdeiev, (17) Kariakin, (18) Zhilinsky, (19) Chufarov, (20) Yurovsky, (21) Efremov, (22) Anuchin. The above formed the Oblastnoy Sovdep (Regional Council of Deputies),i.e., the representatives for the whole of the Ural region. The Board was composed of five members, Beloborodov, the Russian “dummy,” as President, and Goloshchekin, Safarov, Voikov and Syromolotov, all four Jews, asmembers. The “Chrezvychaika” (inquisition) was “run” by Goloshchekin, Yurovsky, Efremov, Chustkevich and three other Jews.
These “inner circles” are the men who “tried” the Tsar and condemned him to death, in other words, assumed the duty of carrying out Sverdlov’s orders. They sent “compromising” documents to Moscow afterwards: letters alleged to have been surreptitiously exchanged between the Tsar and officers outside. They are rank forgeries. One of them alludes to “five windows” facing the square, whereas the Tsar’s quarters comprised only two windows on that side, and if the alleged plotters had succeeded in penetrating the double barriers, scaling the house and entering as directed, they would have jumped into a veritable hornet’s nest. Besides, how could they hope to escape the machine-gunner on the roof?
This mockery of a trial has been perpetuated by the “fakes” of sensation-seekers and imaginative writers. One enterprising foreigner cabled thousands of words from Ekaterinburg not long after the murder, describing the aeroplanes that hovered over the city—presumably to carry off the Tsar—and the dropping of bombs, etc., all of which was, of course, rank nonsense; but he also gave a wonderful account by “the Tsar’s faithful servant,” whose name had never been heard of, who told with a wealth of detail how the Tsar was fetched away “for trial” and how he came back and took anaffecting leave of his wife and children before being shot all alone.... There are pages and pages of this stuff, and it is all absolute twaddle, but none the less mischievous.
There was no trial of any sort whatsoever. The person named Sakovich in the above list was found in Ekaterinburg afterwards. He admits that he was in the room when Goloshchekin and his friends were talking to Yurovsky just before the murder, but he did not even pay attention to what they said, as the conversation was of such a banal character. No trial—therefore no verdicts, judgments or other such like formulæ, and no reading of any papers to the Tsar before the family was sent to its last account. This so-called “paper” is an invention inspired by the murderers, to fit in with the Moscow story of an intended trial. The only “paper” concocted by the murderers was the “Decision” as to the “execution.” At the Soviet headquarters in Ekaterinburg numerous drafts of this document were afterwards discovered and figure in thedossier. They show how troubled the murderers were to invent an appropriate lie for approval by Moscow.
Why was the Tsar moved from Tobolsk and why was he not brought to Moscow, as Yakovlev had been instructed? It is absurd on the face of it to hint that the Ural Regional Sovdep was overriding the decisions of Moscow. We have just seen that the virtual rulers of the Ural were YankelSverdlov’s fellow-Jews and associates, even subordinates.
An answer is offered by the Soviet organ, of the 4th May, 1918. It explains that it was “owing to alleged indications of efforts being made by local peasants and by Monarchist groups to promote escape.” We trace here the handiwork of Soloviev and Vasiliev. And it adds: “The regional Soviet of the Urals are charged with surveillance over the Imperial family” (The London Times, May 6, 1918).
But while this answer goes a certain way, and definitely involves the responsibility of the Moscow government for all that happened in the Urals, it by no means tells the whole truth. The inside history of Yakovlev’s mission has been explained. Yakovlev was the agent of Sverdlov. But Sverdlov as president of the Tsik[13]was over the foreign as well as the domestic affairs of Sovietdom, being in fact Prime Minister. Now Sverdlov had been a paid agent of Germany and was still in the closest touch and relationship with Mirbach. The Tsar’s own definition of Yakovlev’s mission was unquestionably right, in substance, if not in detail: to obtain his endorsement of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The Soviet organs published long accounts of Yakovlev’s journey. In these he is falsely describedas the representative of the Sovnarkom, i.e., of Lenin’s parliament. That was merely to cover up the tracks. Yakovlev is quoted as speaking of Nicholas Romanov as a pleasant enough person, but of “extraordinarily limited intellect.” He was not clever enough to realise the advantages that were offered to him.
The Germans, of course, were extremely displeased by thiscontretemps, more especially as it came in conjunction with the failure of their plan to nobble the Russianintelligentziaand with their aid to set up the “new government” that Ludendorff craved. One of Mirbach’s chief assistants, a Dr. Ritzler, then remarked to one of these Russians that “the Bolsheviks were still necessary.” A few months later the Red terror avenged the slight inflicted upon the German associates of Sverdlov.
Voikov, the Jew, boasted to his “lady” friends in Ekaterinburg after the murder that “the world will never know what we did with the bodies.” It was his accomplices that suggested to the remorse-stricken Fesenko that the “cinders were not there.” The insolent confidence in the superiority of their “precautions” displayed by Voikov is characteristic of his race.
The murderers invented another story in Perm, of which I have not yet spoken. Their agents gave information that one of the Grand Duchesses had been seen in the city and that she had been shot during the Terror some months after the “execution”