wily scoundrel worked well, for the personal protection at once afforded
him by order of the Tsar was as complete as the surveillance upon the
Emperor himself.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE "HIDDEN HAND" OF BERLIN.
Rasputin, though revealing himself constantly as a blasphemous
blackguard, had by the middle of 1916 become the greatest power in
Russia. Through his good offices Germany hoped to crush the Empire.
Examination of the confidential reports concerning his scandalous
activities here before me causes me to halt aghast that the Imperial
Court, which I attended in peace time, Petrograd society, and the
hard-working classes in Russia, should have become so completely and so
utterly hypnotised by his disgraceful "religion." The latter had eaten
into the Empire's heart, causing an outburst of open and disgraceful
immorality in the higher circles--a new "sensation" that was appalling.
In Moscow, Kazan, Tambov, and other cities, "circles" of the
"Sister-Disciples" had been eagerly formed, together with a branch which
were meeting in secret at a small old-world monastery called Jedelevo,
in the Province of Simbirsk, and about whose doings many scandalous
whispers reached Petrograd.
"Grichka" possessed the reputation of being a popular preacher. That
was not so. He had never been ordained a priest; he was a pure
adventurer, and did not belong to any ecclesiastical order. Therefore
he had no licence to preach in a church. He was simply a Siberian
peasant convicted of theft, blackmail, and outrage, who had set himself
up to be a "holy man." And as such, all Russia, from the Empress
downwards, accepted him and swallowed any lie that he might utter.
Truly the whole situation was amazing in this twentieth century.
He preached often to his "sister-disciples" in their _salons_, and
sometimes at "At Homes," where fast society women who had fallen beneath
the pious scoundrel's fascination hoped to make other converts. To such
"At Homes" only young and pretty women were ever invited. Rasputin had
no use for the old and angular.
One evening one of these reunions for recruiting purposes was held by
the yellow-toothed old Baroness Guerbel, at her big house in the
Potemkinskaya, and to it a young married woman, wife of an officer named
Yatchevski, who was well-known in Petrograd, had been invited. Her
husband, hearing of this, called three of his own burly Cossacks, and
next night they concealed themselves close to Rasputin's house. There
they waited until the bearded "holy man" emerged to go upon his usual
evening visit to the Winter Palace; when the men suddenly sprang upon
him, and hustling him into a narrow side street, stripped him of his
finely embroidered silk shirt, of the usual Russian model, his wide
velvet knickerbockers, and his patent-leather top-boots. After that
they administered to the fellow a sound and well-deserved thrashing,
having first gagged and bound him. Afterwards they placed him, attired
only in his underwear, upon a manure heap in a neighbouring stable-yard,
while the clothes they had taken from him were packed in a big cardboard
costume-box and delivered by special messenger privately to the Empress
at the Palace.
Her Majesty was, of course, furiously indignant that her dear "Father"
should thus be made, sport of. At once a rigid inquiry was ordered, but
the perpetrators of the well-merited punishment were never discovered.
Rasputin was ever active as head of the camarilla. The attention of the
Holy Synod had time after time been called to the amazing exploits of
this pious charlatan, until at last it was deemed expedient to hold yet
another inquiry, into the fellow's conduct.
Supplied with German money, he employed spies on every hand to keep him
informed of any untoward circumstances, or any undue inquisitiveness.
So he quickly heard of this proposed inquiry and consulted Bishop
Teofan, brother of one of his favourite "sister-disciples," who lived in
Siberia. That night both Monk and Bishop sought the Tsar and Tsaritza.
Rasputin declared angrily that there was a most formidable plot against
himself. He therefore intended to leave Petrograd, and return to
Siberia for ever.
"Because by divine grace I possess the power off healing, thy Church is
jealous of me," he declared to the Emperor. "The Holy Synod is seeking
my overthrow! Always have I acted for the benefit of mankind, and so
through me thy dear son is under God's grace. But the Russian Church
seeks to drive me forth. Therefore, I must bow to the inevitable--and I
Will depart?"
"No! No!" cried the Empress in despair. Then, turning quickly to her
husband, who had left some important business of State, which he was
transacting in his private cabinet with the War Minister, Her Majesty
exclaimed:
"Nikki. This ecclesiastical interference cannot be tolerated. It is
abominable! We cannot lose our dear Father! Order a list of his
enemies in the Church to be made, and at once dismiss them all. Put our
friends into their places."
"If thou wilt leave matters entirely to me," said the sham saint,
addressing the feeble yet honest autocrat, "I will furnish the list,
together with names of their successors."
"I give thee a free hand, dear Gregory," was the Emperor's reply.
Within twelve hours all those in the Russian Church who had sought to
unmask the pious rascal found themselves dismissed, while in their
places were appointed certain of the most drunken and dissolute
characters that in all the ages have ever disgraced the Christian
religion, their head being the arch-plotter Bishop Teofan.
About this time, after many secret meetings of the camarilla at
Rasputin's house, Protopopoff succeeded in bribing certain generals at
the front with cash--money supplied from Germany, to prevent a further
offensive. In consequence, at a dozen points along the Russian lines
the troops were defeated and hurled back. This created exactly the
impression desired by the camarilla, namely, to show to the Russian
people that Germany was invincible, and that a separate peace was far
preferable to continued hostility. It was to secure this that Rasputin
and his gang were incessantly working.
Scandal after scandal was brought to light, and more than one officer of
the high Russian command was arrested and tried by court-martial.
Rasputin and Protopopoff had now become more than ever unscrupulous.
Generals and others who had accepted bribes to further Germany's cause
were secretly betrayed to the Ministry of War, care, however, always
being taken that they could produce no absolute evidence against those
who had previously been their paymasters.
A notorious case was that of General Maslovsky, who, before the war,
commanded the Thirteenth Army Corps at Smolensk. He, with General
Rosen, commandant of the Twenty-third Army Corps at Warsaw, had been
induced by a "sister-disciple" of Rasputin's--a pretty young
Frenchwoman--to accept a large sum paid into his account at the Volga
Kama Bank in Moscow, provided that the Russians retreated in the Novo
Georgievsk region. This they did, allowing great quantities of
machine-guns, ammunition and motor lorries to fall into the enemy's
hands.
In order to create scandal and public distrust, the "holy man" secretly
denounced these two traitors, who were arrested and tried by
court-martial at Samara. The prisoners in turn revealed the fact that
big payments had been made by the young Frenchwoman. So she, in turn,
was also arrested. Rasputin, however, did not lift a finger to save his
catspaw. She declared that she had simply been the tool of the
mock-monk, but the latter privately informed the President of the Court
that the young Frenchwoman was a well-known spy of Germany known to the
Court, and whom he had held in suspicion for a considerable time.
No word against Rasputin's loyalty was ever believed, for was he not the
most intimate and loyal friend of both Emperor and Empress? Therefore
the court-martial found the prisoners guilty, and the trio paid the
penalty of all spies--they were shot in the barrack-square of Samara!
This is but one illustration of Rasputin's crafty intrigue and cool
unscrupulousness. Possessed of a deeply criminal instinct as he was, it
was impossible for him to do an honest action. He never failed to
betray his friends, or even send them to their graves upon false charges
secretly laid, if by so doing he could further his own despicable ends.
The dissolute rascal, possessed of superhuman cunning, held Russia in
the hollow of his hand, and aided by his fellow-scoundrel, Protopopoff,
he could make or break the most powerful men in a single hour.
That he was in active communication with Germany, and that the vile
plots against the Russian arms were being manufactured in Berlin, is
plainly shown by the following letter, which after his death was
discovered, together with a quantity of other highly incriminating
correspondence--which I shall disclose later--in a small safe concealed
beneath the stone floor of the well-stocked wine-cellar at the house in
the Gorokhovaya.
It is in one of the sentence-ciphers of the German Secret Service, but
fortunately in the same safe the de-cipher was found, and by it that
communication as well as others is now revealed.
The letter is written upon thin pale-yellow paper, so that it might be
the more easily concealed. It had probably been bound up in the
cardboard cover of a book and thus transmitted. This letter before me
reads as follows:--
"Number 70. August 16th, 1916.
"Your reports upon the activity of Krusenstern (Commander of the 28th
Army Corps), and also upon the friendship of Sakharoff and Yepantchine
(two prominent members of the Duma), is duly noted. The firm of
Berchmann Brothers, of Kiev, are paying into the Credit Lyonnais in
Petrograd 120,000 roubles to your account, with a similar sum to your
friend S. (Boris Sturmer, Prime Minister of Russia).
"Instructions are as follows: Suggest to S. this plan against the Duma.
From the archives of the Ministry of the Interior he can obtain a list
of the names and places of residence of thousands of Russian
Revolutionists of the extreme school. These he can, if we order it,
place in prison or have them tried by court-martial and shot. He will,
however, act most generously and secretly. He will, under promise of
protection send them forth as his agents, well supplied with funds, and
thus arrange for a considerable number of pro-German Social Democrats to
enter Petrograd and work alongside the Russian Anarchists, Tolstoyans,
Pacifists, Communists and Red Socialists. With such a widespread
propaganda of wild and fierce agitators in the munition factories, we
shall be able to create strikes and commit outrages at any moment
instructions are given. They should be ordered to continually urge the
working men to strike and to riot, and thus begin the movement that is
to make Europe a federation of Socialist republics. This plan attracts
the working-class, and has already succeeded on the Clyde and in
Ireland. Your only serious opponent is Gutchkoff, but you will arrange
with the Empress that his activities be at once diverted into another
sphere.
"Enlist on our side as many members of the Duma as possible. Furnish
from time to time a list of payments made by you, and the firm of
Berchmann will sustain your balance at the Credit Lyonnais.
"We await the result of your good services, which are highly appreciated
by His Majesty, and which will be amply and most generously rewarded
when we have Russia in our hands, which will not be long.
"Messages: Tell S. (Sturmer, the pro-German Prime Minister and a
creature of the Empress) to be extremely careful of the Grand Duke
Dmitri. He holds a compromising letter written by Nada Litvinoff
regarding her attempt to suborn Brusiloff. The woman Litvinoff is
reported to be staying at the Regina Hotel in Petrograd. No effort
should be spared to obtain and destroy that letter, as it is very
compromising. Professor Miliukoff should be removed. Ten thousand
roubles will be paid for that service. J. or B. might be approached.
Both are in need of money.
"Instruct Anna (Madame Vyrubova) to tell the Empress to receive a woman
named Geismann, who will demand audience at noon on August 30th. She
carries a verbal message from the Emperor. It is important that you
should know Countess Zia Kloieff, of Voroneje. She possesses influence
in a certain military quarter that will eventually be most useful and
highly essential.
"H--(a spy whose identity is up to the present unknown) has fixed August
29th, at 11:30 a.m., for the disaster at the shell-filling factory at
Krestovsky. An electric line is laid beneath the Neva, and all is
prepared.
"Salutations from all three of us.--N."
Such were the secret instructions received from Berlin by the murderous
charlatan who posed as one of the most loyal Russians in the Empire.
His reply, of which a copy is appended--for strangely--enough he was a
businesslike rascal--is as follows. It is brief but to the point:--
"Yours and remittances received. S. already at work. Have informed Her
Majesty. All is being prepared for our great coup. The more disasters
and loss of life in munition factories the better the impression towards
yourselves. S. has already sent four hundred extreme revolutionists to
the front with money and instructions. Have noted all your points.
Martos takes this to Helsingfors, and will await your reply with any
further orders.
"Have had no instructions concerning the Englishman C. Please send.
Suggest imprisonment upon false charge of espionage. If so, please send
incriminating papers to produce as evidence.--G."
The scoundrel's reply here before me is, in itself, in his own
handwriting, the most damning evidence against him.
That Sturmer and Protopopoff acted upon those instructions has since
become apparent. Events have shown it. Puppets in the hands of the
Emperor William, with money flowing to them in an ever-endless stream
from businesslike sources entirely unsuspected by the highly patriotic
banks handling those substantial amounts, they were swiftly yet surely
undermining the greatness of the Russian Empire and seriously cutting
the claws of the Russian bear. The "Russian steam-roller," as certain
English prophets--oh! save them!--were so fond of calling the Muscovite
army in the early days of the war, was growing rusty for want of proper
lubrication. Rasputin and his friends were placing its machinery in the
reverse gear by their marvellously well-concealed intrigues, and their
lavish distribution of money to those long-haired revolutionists who had
honestly believed that by removing the autocrat they would liberate
their dear Russia.
No plot more subtle, more widespread, or more utterly amazing has ever
been conceived in the whole world's history than the one which I am here
disclosing.
A convicted criminal, a mere unmannered and uncouth peasant from far
Siberia, held both Emperor and Empress of Russia beneath his thumb. He
gave to both of them orders which they weakly obeyed. If one of the
erotic scoundrel's "sister-disciples" asked a favour--the appointment of
lover or of husband to a lucrative post--he went at once to the Emperor,
and actually with his own illiterate hand wrote out the orders for His
Majesty to sign.
And to that unkempt blackguard, who seldom indulged in the luxury of a
bath. Her Majesty the Empress bowed her knee, honestly believing that
the Almighty had endowed him with powers superhuman, and that he could
cause disaster or death whenever he willed it.
Further amazing and incriminating letters are before me as I write, and
I shall print more of this secret correspondence in order that readers
in Great Britain may know the depths of Germany's villainy and the exact
methods by which Russia has been betrayed.
The official _dossier_ concerning the crimes and conspiracies of the
arch-scoundrel is astounding. It becomes increasingly amazing as one
turns over its voluminous pages, its confidential reports, its copies of
telegrams dispatched under fictitious names, since obtained from the
telegraph bureaux of Russia, and its originals of secret instructions
from Berlin.
In the latter one finds the subtle hand of the notorious Steinhauer, the
head of the Kaiser's spy-bureau, the fair-bearded, middle-aged Prussian
who accompanied the German Emperor to Buckingham Palace on his last
visit to London, and who was one of the select party of German motorists
who came to tour England with Prince Henry of Prussia at their head.
It devolved upon myself to accompany and watch that tour very closely.
Even then one department in Whitehall had not been chloroformed by the
dope of the Sleep-quietly-in-your-beds Party--a department in the
formation of which I had had some hand. Steinhauer I had met in
Germany, though he did not know me, and when he came to England with His
Imperial Highness, as Herr Eschenburg of Stuttgart, driving his big red
"Mercedes," I considered that it was high time to keep a strict eye upon
him--which I did. What I discovered of his movements and of his
associates has been of greatest advantage since the outbreak of war.
No more expert spy exists in all the world today than "Herr Eschenburg
of Stuttgart", whose real name is Steinhauer, known in the German Secret
Service as "Number Seventy."
The _dossier_ here placed at my disposal shows that Herr Steinhauer
visited Rasputin in Petrograd four times before August, 1914, while his
underlings arrived at the house in the Gorokhovaya many times after the
two Empires had come to grips.
Rasputin, in his unique position as autocrat aver the Autocrat, felt
himself the personal agent of the Kaiser, and as such seems to have
somewhat resented Steinhauer's rather arrogant orders. Indeed, he
complained bitterly to the German Emperor, who, in reply, propitiated
the Siberian peasant by explaining that he was so occupied by the
campaign against his enemies that he left all matters of detail to "our
trusted and loyal friend Steinhauer, whose actions and orders are as my
own."
On August 28th, 1916, there arrived in Petrograd a pretty dark-haired
young Dutch woman named Helene Geismann. She presented a letter of
introduction to Rasputin that evening at his house, and was promised
audience of Her Majesty the Empress at noon next day.
The monk was at Tsarskoe-Selo when the young woman called. It was a
meeting day of the higher, or Court Circle of the "sister-disciples,"
such seances being held at five o'clock each Friday afternoon.
Three new "disciples" had been initiated into the mysteries of the
mock-pious rascal's new "religion." Their names were the Baroness
Zouieff, and Mesdemoiselles Olga Romanenkoff and Nadjezda Tavascherne,
the two latter being of the noblest families of Moscow, and all moving
in the Court entourage.
Nicholas II was away at the front, therefore Rasputin on such occasions
ruled the Empire, and actually signed with his own hand orders and
appointments, as His Majesty's representative. When the Emperor was
absent the dirty, unkempt peasant, who called himself a monk, usurped
his place in the Imperial household.
Through this unprincipled scoundrel and blackmailer Germany was cleverly
working to undermine and effect the fall of the Muscovite Empire. No
expense was being spared, nor were there any scruples. Germany intended
that the Russian defensive should crumble.
When the Empress received the young woman Geismann, an emissary from
Berlin and the bearer of several documents, including an autograph
letter from the Kaiser, the "Holy Father" was also present. The
superstitious, neurotic Empress could do nothing without the advice of
the man who had by his mock-piety and his sensuous "religion" so
completely entranced her. She, like her weak, narrow-minded husband,
had become completely hypnotised by the dissolute charlatan, in whose
hands lay absolute power.
When the Kaiser's messenger presented the secret letter to the Empress,
she also handed another to Rasputin.
This was found among the contents of the safe in the basement of
"Grichka's" house, and is in German, as follows:--
"_Strictly private and confidential_.
"General Headquarters in France, Montmedy, August 10th, 1916.
"Your excellent service to our Empire has been reported to me by Herr
Steinhauer. I congratulate you, happy in the knowledge that the Empress
Alexandra has, in yourself, such a good and wise counsellor. You have
done much, but there is still more good work for you to accomplish.
"Your friends must see that there is an increasing lack of material and
ammunition, that information reaches Berlin regarding orders for guns,
explosives and automobiles placed in England, in order that we can watch
for them near the Finland coast, and destroy them. Disasters on
railways, in munition works and elsewhere are advisable. Steinhauer is
sending you six trusted agents to effect these. Your friends must
afford them official protection, and they must be also afforded
opportunity.
"I have also sent certain suggestions to Her Majesty the Empress which
she will discuss with you. Your two most dangerous enemies at the
moment appear to be Prince Yuri Lvov, who has a great following, and the
man from Tiflis, M. Cheidze. If their activities could be ended, you
would be in far less danger. It may be possible for you to arrange
this. Consult with the Empress. It is my Imperial will that the
payment arranged between us shall be doubled from this date.
Salutations.
"Wilhelm R. and I."
Could any letter be more incriminating? The Kaiser, with his constant
appeals to Almighty God, was suggesting outrage and assassination to his
paid agent--the man who, aided by the Prime Minister Sturmer and the
blackmailer Protopopoff, held the future of Russia in his unwashed
hands!
For half-an-hour the young Dutch woman, the Kaiser's secret messenger,
was kept waiting in an ante-room while the Empress consulted with her
"Holy Father." Then at last Her Majesty handed the woman an autograph
letter to take back to the Emperor William. All that is knows of the
contents of that note is that it contained a promise that Germany should
triumph.
What chance had poor suffering Russia against such crafty underhand
conspiracy? Every one of her proposed military movements were being
betrayed to Germany long before they were executed, and thousands of
lives of her fine soldiers were daily being sacrificed, while the
arch-traitor Rasputin continued his career of good-living,
heavy-drinking, and bi-weekly "reunions."
At these meetings the blackguard usually crossed his hands upon his
breast, and with appalling blasphemy declared himself sent by the
Almighty to deliver Russia from the invader.
Towards all--to society, to those of the immoral cult that he had
founded, to Russia's millions, he posed as a stern patriot. Every one
believed him to be so. If not, surely, he would not be so closely
intimate with their Majesties they argued. Nobody in Russia dreamed
that he was the agent of the Kaiser, or that the Empress had full
knowledge of the great plot in progress.
In the following month there occurred a number of mysterious disasters.
Four explosions occurred in rapid succession; two at Petrograd, one at
Moscow, and one at Kostrovna, all involving considerable loss of life,
while troop trains were derailed at several important junctions, and
other outrages committed, by which it was apparent that German agents
were actively work. Yet the police were powerless to detect the
perpetrators of these dastardly acts. Truly the black eagle of Prussia
had struck its talons deep into Russia's heart.