Part 13 (1/2)

”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-stra.s.se, 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 doc.u.mentary 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-stra.s.se, 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 wars.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed.

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.

DOc.u.mENTARY 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.suring us of his intention to prosecute the war to the finish. By this he misled the Allies, who naturally regarded the a.s.sertion of the German newspapers as mere frothy enthusiasm.

But those indiscreet German a.s.surances 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 pa.s.sed 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.