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-Furstenau, 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 Sturmer) 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 Sturmer, 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. (Sturmer) 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 Dollen 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 Koniggratzer-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. (Sturmer) 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 the _regime_ of 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 by _agents 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. The _Kolnische Zeitung_, in its
unwonted enthusiasm, wrote: "We Germans need have no fear. Sturmer may
be relied upon not to place any obstacles in the way of Russia's desire
for peace with Germany." While the _Reichspost_ said: "We may rest
assured that Sturmer will be independent in his relations with Downing
Street."
And yet Sturmer 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, Sturmer--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 this _debauchee_ and 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 Sturmer 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, Sturmer, 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
Sturmer 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 Schusselburg, 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, Sturmer, 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."