It was essential, the group knew, to disable the telegraph station, manned by a couple of sailors, and it was Gorshkov’s task to take two officers and capture it at 10 p.m. An hour later, twenty of their group would assemble in the small garden at the back of the station; while a third group of thirty men, led by Kuli-Mirza, would gather in the dark alleys near the house and arm themselves with weapons brought there at midnight. Everything was to be ‘accurately synchronized’, Gorshkov told Levine, and the attack on the Ipatiev House was to begin ‘exactly at 1.20 a.m.’ from a signal by whistle given by Major General Golitsyn. After the attack, involving thirty-five men and the use of grenades to kill the guards, and with another fifteen outside keeping guard on the street, the family would be driven away in three waiting vehicles to the Agafurov villa.
That was the plan; it was now a matter of deciding when to enact it.64
* * *
In early July, just as the Gorshkov plan was being put together, undaunted by the very high odds against success, Little Markov ventured into Ekaterinburg by train from Tyumen to attempt to find out about the ‘welfare of my beloved sovereigns’.65 The railway station was chaotic, crammed with rolling stock and ‘extemporized armoured trains, which had been hastily put together from iron coal trucks’, and ‘crowds of tattered soldiers were strolling about the platforms and on the lines’. They had come in response to posters plastered everywhere exhorting loyal Bolsheviks to head to the front against the Czechs and Whites, in the ‘defence of the Red Urals’.66 The counter-revolution was now at Ekaterinburg’s gates.
Markov made his way straight up to the Ipatiev House. ‘My heart ached when I saw the building,’ he recalled, ‘it was surrounded by a high wooden fence which hid the windows; double sentries were posted on all sides.’ He remained in the vicinity until the evening, during which time he walked around the perimeter of the house three times. It was final confirmation, were it needed, that he and his fellow monarchists had been hoping against hope for the impossible. He had to ‘face the fact that nothing could be accomplished by force … The house was a trap affording no way of escape.’67 His fellow monarchists might still be plotting, but for Little Markov the only remaining hope for the Romanovs lay elsewhere, through diplomatic intervention: ‘A great foreign power, for whom the Bolsheviks felt both fear and respect, must intervene, and this great power could only be Germany.’
In early July of 1918 the grim reality for Russia’s last Imperial Family was this: ‘If the Germans did not succeed in saving the Tsar and his Family, then they were indeed doomed.’68
Chapter 12
‘It Is Too Horrible and Heartless’
With Tsaritsa Alexandra and her sister Grand Duchess Ella both imprisoned in Western Siberia, a renewed sense of urgency had been aroused among their German relatives that spring of 2018. For some time, at his brother the Kaiser’s request, Prince Henry of Prussia, who was also the two women’s brother-in-law, had been monitoring reports from Russia on the plight of their two cousins, but obtaining reliable news of them was frustratingly difficult. The German ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, was thus quick to act when Richard von Kühlmann, the German Foreign Minister in Berlin, passed on news received on 22 June that ‘Recent developments in the Urals unfortunately justifies the worst fears for the fate of the Imperial Family.’1
Hearing this, Mirbach had made strong representations to the Soviets. ‘I told Chicherin outright that I was pretty sure that some harm had come to the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg.’ If this news, which had sparked outrage ‘in the widest circles’, turned out to be incorrect, he warned Georgy Chicherin, then he ‘did not understand why you Bolsheviks do not respond with an outright denial’. The Soviet Foreign Minister had not been able to give Mirbach a clear answer; he ‘only protested feebly that false reports were so rife that there was little point in denying each and every one of them’.2 Even Joffe, the Soviets’ own ambassador in Berlin, was rattled by rumours about the Tsar’s murder. He wrote to Lenin on 21 June complaining, ‘I cannot do my job if I do not know what is going on in Russia … I know nothing of what is happening to the former tsar. When Kühlmann asked me yesterday, I told him that I had had no news.’3 Joffe had thought it quite possible that the story of the Tsar’s murder was true; Germanophobia was rife in the Urals and people there were, irrationally, convinced that Nicholas was a German sympathiser.
It has been suggested that these false rumours were in fact the work of the Bolsheviks themselves; that Moscow had deliberately circulated them as a means of testing the water on European and domestic reaction to news of the Imperial Family’s eventual murder. It is further alleged that the disappearance of Grand Duke Mikhail in June had also been used to sound out the public response to liquidation of members of the Romanov family.4 The Soviets were certainly getting worried about the gathering threat of the Czech and White forces closing in on Ekaterinburg. Joffe had informed Kühlmann on 22 June of the difficulty in obtaining reliable news because ‘the [telegraph] line between Ekaterinburg and Moscow has been interrupted by the Czechoslovakian troops in between’. The Czechs had apparently openly stated that they were ‘fighting for and in the name of the Czar’, which had served only to heighten hostility towards the Imperial Family among the local population. Joffe predicted that ‘should the Czechs score a victory this would be a catastrophe for the family’. Nevertheless, he reiterated to Kühlmann that he had pointed out to Lenin’s government in Moscow by telegraph ‘how important it was to ensure the safety of the Imperial Family’, and told him that they intended bringing them to Moscow as soon as ‘the interruption of the railway line by the Czechoslovakians is cleared’.5 With communications with the Urals extremely weakened, the Germans had no way of getting at the truth of the situation.
Persistent rumours that the Romanovs had been killed were, meanwhile, not helping the German cause among those Russians who had hoped that they would ‘get rid of the Bolsheviks’ and do all they could to ‘save our Imperial Family from their filthy hands’, if not restore them to the throne. Russian aristocrat Baroness Hartong expressed the feelings of many in her class when she wrote to Mirbach on 21 June describing their disappointment:
The people think that it’s you who is supporting the Bolsheviks instead of getting rid of them for us. The people are beginning to think that you are here to perpetuate the country’s disorder and to undermine everything further, in every way. As to the awful rumour going around about the assassination of the Emperor and His family, the people are convinced that this is the Bolsheviks’ doing, committed on German orders.6
In conclusion the Baroness warned: ‘the Russian people … now don’t expect anything from the Germans and think that it’s the Allies who will come to save them’.7 When her letter to Mirbach was passed on to him, the Kaiser scribbled triumphantly in the margin, ‘Tallies completely with my warnings! … Our frantic clinging to the Bolsheviks inevitably had to make us suspect and also has done with the Russian people, who believe that we continue to support the revolution, instead of our liberating them from it and imposing order, which is what they expected from us.’ It was the Allies who were now seen as Russia’s – and the Tsar’s – potential liberators. In Wilhelm’s view, Mirbach had repeatedly overestimated the Bolsheviks and had not been tough enough with them. Instead he had been propping up their tenuous hold on power, while what Germany should have been doing was more vigorously seeking an alliance with pro-German monarchists that would guarantee the safety of the Romanovs and, more importantly, ensure that the Red menace did not spread from Russia to Germany. Wilhelm was incandescent: his ambassador’s ‘misjudgment of the domestic Russian political situation’ was ‘catastrophic’. He had, in fact, for some time been thinking of replacing him with Admiral von Hintze – ‘the only knowledgeable person in our foreign service’.8
The Germans remained equally concerned about the welfare of the other members of the Imperial Family imprisoned in Crimea, so much so that at the beginning of June,
a German military attaché was sent there to check on their situation. He passed on an offer from the Kaiser to Dagmar to take refuge in Germany, but she refused; she was adamant that whichever way she got out of Russia, she would not do so with German help.9 With German troops now occupying Ukraine, and in May taking Crimea – a fact that in itself had greatly alleviated the threat to Dagmar and her family – some monarchists had already made contact.
In Kiev, Alexander Mosolov, former head of the Court Chancellery, met up with two other members of the imperial circle – Prince Kochubey and Duke George of Leuchtenberg – in an effort to secure German help for the Romanovs. Leuchtenberg was distantly related to Nicholas and was also a cousin of the heir to the Kingdom of Bavaria. Using his connections, he managed to obtain an audience with General Eichhorn, Commander in Chief of the German army of occupation in Ukraine, and his chief of staff. They both promised to supply material backing for a mission to rescue the Romanovs, to be undertaken via the Volga and Kama rivers to Ekaterinburg. Knowing that Nicholas – like Dagmar – would never agree to being rescued by the Germans, Mosolov arranged to send a letter to the Kaiser via Baron Alvensleben, German ADC to the Hetman of Ukraine, asking him to guarantee that the Romanovs, once liberated, could live in Crimea and would not be forced to leave for Germany. But he was disappointed. A long-awaited reply merely informed him that Wilhelm was not able to act without his government’s agreement. Was this perhaps a veiled admission that Wilhelm could not risk provoking a reaction from the Spartacists – radical German socialists, who even now were plotting an uprising against his throne? Mosolov then appealed to Count von Mumm, the German ambassador to the Hetman, and again received a negative answer. Mumm had, he said, been surprised at the suggestion and had refused assistance. Rescuing the Tsar was not a German priority, he told him.10
It would appear from these exchanges, and the meetings that Foreign Minister Kühlmann had with Soviet ambassador Joffe in Berlin, that the official German line on the Romanovs in the summer of 1918 was restricted to diplomatic appeals that they be properly looked after and put in a safe and suitable place. But then events overtook everyone: German ambassador Count Mirbach was assassinated. On 6 July, Socialist Revolutionaries, intent on provoking a renewal of conflict between Russia and Germany, shot him dead at his embassy in Moscow. Mirbach was replaced by Karl Helfferich, with Dr Kurt Riezler, a diplomat who had been working closely with Mirbach on the Romanov issue, retaining responsibility for the negotiations.
Mirbach’s assassination sparked a major crisis for the severely undermined Soviet government, now facing the threat of a coup by the Socialist Revolutionaries and other anti-Bolshevik elements.11 In retaliation, the Germans demanded that they be allowed to bring a battalion of troops to Moscow to guard their embassy. Even though Lenin refused this demand, the Germans still could not make a move on his government in response, while they were concentrating so many troops on the Western Front. Indeed, the Imperial German Army had recently redeployed more than fifty divisions from the Eastern Front in preparation for a major renewed offensive on the Marne. For now, the Germans had to hang on to the Bolsheviks, however much they disliked them, and continue to juggle their interests between them and the anti-Bolshevik monarchists. That way they could keep Russia divided and take advantage of its present ‘military paralysis’.12
The British too had by the end of June begun courting the anti-Bolsheviks. Robert Bruce Lockhart had made undercover contact with the National Centre – a secret organisation led by Professor Peter Struve and other cadets and Right Centre politicians who favoured the establishment of a military dictatorship and ultimate restoration of the monarchy. British intelligence officials working under the command of Stephen Alley at Murmansk were also negotiating with monarchists, and other opposition parties such as the Right Social Revolutionaries, for their support for the Allied intervention forces now arriving in northern Russia. But if the Allies did not move fast, the Germans would beat them to it and ‘restore order and proclaim [a] monarchy’, warned the British consul in Petrograd, Arthur Woodhouse.13 The last thing the British wanted was German hegemony in Russia over a puppet tsar. The most effective way to coordinate anti-Bolshevik and anti-German forces – in an attempt to oust the Soviets – might now perhaps be by liberating the Romanovs and using them as a rallying point. But if this realisation had indeed finally hit home, it came too late. The Germans were the ones holding the only trump card left; in Moscow everyone was anticipating a full-scale German invasion.
* * *
It is puzzling that beyond the official German Foreign Ministry documents and a few erratic comments by the Kaiser, there is so little surviving evidence of German involvement in the Romanov question in 1917–18, even at this late stage. At a meeting with members of the Ukrainian State Council in Kiev on 5 July, Baron Alvensleben had declared that ‘Kaiser Wilhelm wished at all costs to rescue the sovereign, Tsar Nicholas II.’ Wilhelm had, according to his daughter-in-law Crown Princess Cecile, been having sleepless nights worrying about the fate of the Romanovs. But Wilhelm’s own memoirs are a total blank on the matter; and Alvensleben’s papers, which might shed light on these last dramatic days, have not survived.14 The memoirs of Alexandra’s brother Ernie, who was known to be making representations for Alexandra’s and Ella’s safety, tell us nothing, either. As for the private papers and diaries of Mirbach’s assistant, Riezler, these, like those of Mirbach himself, contain no mention at all of German diplomats’ efforts on behalf of the Romanovs in 1918. In June 1921, Riezler did however hand over the key diplomatic correspondence discussed here to Sokolov’s inquiry.
A greater availability of evidence might have served as a valuable counter to widespread claims that the Germans did nothing to try and help the Imperial Family at this time. All that survives is a cryptic remark made by Mirbach’s secretary, Freiherr von Bothmer, in his personal diary for 22 July 1918, stating that ‘the German side had tried “certain” things to help the family diplomatically’.15
* * *
With regard to any possible eleventh-hour German efforts, one piece of surviving tangential evidence is a letter in the British Foreign Office archives. It comes from the Swiss section of the League for the Restoration of the Russian Empire and suggests that ‘Berlin was considering kidnapping the Tsar and his family and bringing them to Germany.’ But who exactly had this plan emanated from, and where is the proof that it was ever more than mere speculation? The Swiss League had been requested to sound out the views of the Allied governments on this, so it claimed, and letters had already been sent to the French and Italian Prime Ministers, Georges Clemenceau and Vittorio Orlando.16 Those letters have so far not surfaced. Exiled Russian monarchists had also visited the British consul in Geneva with regard to this plan, claimed Summers and Mangold, who concluded that it was actually initiated. But such a rescue seems, like all the others, a fool’s errand that is hard to credit. In any event, it would have met with the utmost resistance by the Romanovs, who we know had already indicated loud and clear that they would rather die in Russia than accept German help. As it turned out, the despatch from the Swiss League soliciting the Foreign Office’s approval was sent on 17 July and did not arrive till the 21st: rather ‘late in the day’, as an official noted.17
Whatever Kaiser Wilhelm’s true intentions, from early July there had certainly been another burst of diplomatic activity, but by a lone Russian, not a German. On the 2nd, Petr Botkin, former Russian ambassador to Portugal and Dr Botkin’s increasingly anxious brother, sent yet another anguished cry to the French. Directing his appeal to the Foreign Minister in Paris, Stephen Pichon, he described the state of extreme anxiety in which all Russians devoted to the Romanovs now found themselves. He begged Pichon, in the name of his country’s close former alliance with Russia up until the revolution, to take steps to help protect the former Emperor and his family. This was Botkin’s last hope – all his efforts to galvanise French help had so far come to nothing: ‘every step that I took
remained fruitless, and as replies to my letters I have only the receipts of the couriers confirming that my letters reached their destinations’.18 Botkin was deeply dismayed at this official silence from France, particularly in view of the bonds of Franco-Russian friendship. Even the heavily censored French press had recently alluded to the ‘responsibility of the Allies’ in the event of the Emperor’s murder. Once again he was met with indifference; the French did not reply. Yet they were clearly keeping an eye on the situation, through their agents on the ground in the Urals. On 6 July, a French agent, Commandant Charles Boyard, arrived in Ekaterinburg from Perm to check out rumours about the family’s safety and stayed with the consul Thomas Preston at the British consulate, down the road from the Ipatiev House.19
Gorshkov’s group of conspirators from the Military Academy were also now staking out the house as they continued to prepare for a rescue. On 12 July, they had had a final meeting when it was ‘decided to strike the day after tomorrow, the fourteenth’. But then ‘an unexpected hitch developed’. The group was warned that two squadrons of Red Guards had just arrived in town, en route to Chelyabinsk. These were vicious, hardened fighters, and the group would have to wait until they had left, which they were told would be on the night of 18–19 July.
And so Gorshkov and his friends fixed their attack on the Ipatiev House for the night after that – 19–20 July.20
* * *
For the Romanov family at the Ipatiev House, Tuesday, 16 July, in Ekaterinburg was much like any other day, punctuated by the same frugal meals, brief periods of recreation in the garden, reading and games of cards. Over the last three months their lives had become deadened by the extreme constraints placed upon them and by a total lack of contact with the outside world. It was only the fact that they were still together, and in Russia, that kept them going; that and their profound religious faith and absolute trust in God.
The Race to Save the Romanovs Page 26