Part 6 (1/2)

At this the Empress betrayed terrible distress. But the ruse of the 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 cla.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 thras.h.i.+ng, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.d'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 quant.i.ties 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!