The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II

by Donald Crawford

  The time was approximately 2 a.m. on Thursday June 13.

  With four men armed with the axes and spades taken from the carriages ‘it didn’t take very long’31 to dig the single grave into which they then threw the bodies. Before burying Michael and Johnson their bodies were stripped of all their clothes and possessions, which were put into the phaetons and taken back to Motovilikha, seemingly as proof that they were dead. They had been told not to touch personal effects but the temptation of trophies proved too much for them. From Michael’s pockets they took a watch, a cigar case, a penknife and a tobacco tin.32 Johnson’s pockets yielded among other things a handsome silver watch which Markov kept for himself and which he would go on wearing for the rest of his life. 33

  At Motovilikha the killers took the bloodied clothes, poured kerosene over them and set them on fire. Myasnikov, lighting a cigarette, looked at his watch. It was 4 a.m.34

  No one would ever find the graves.

  THE first telegrams from the Perm Cheka announcing the ‘escape’ of Michael Romanov had already been despatched. Malkov telephoned Myasnikov at 2.20 a.m. to confirm that he had cabled the Soviet of People’s Commissars at Moscow, for the attention of Trotsky and Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Cheka supremo. A copy was also sent to Petrograd and to the Ural Soviet and the regional head of Cheka in Ekaterinburg. The message read: Last night Michael Romanov and Johnson were abducted by persons unknown in military uniform. Search as yet unsuccessful, most energetic measures taken.35

  That was code for Michael is dead. No alarm bells sounded in the Kremlin, as would have been the case if Michael had actually escaped and was on his way to lead the ‘Whites’. No vengeful tribunal descended on Perm to exact punishment for those charged with Michael’s security. No one demanded an accounting by the local leadership, or the arrest of those whose negligence had permitted the rescue. There was no enquiry, no scapegoat, no consequence.

  Moreover, the ‘energetic measures’ to find the ‘escaped Michael’ involved no more than despatching token search parties, sent out everywhere except the road to Motovilikha and beyond. What the Cheka did do, and promptly, was to arrest Chelyshev and Borunov as ‘accomplices’.36 Chelyshev would later recount what had happened in the Korolev Rooms to a fellow prisoner, Aleksandr Volkov, a former valet in the Tsarskoe Selo household. He told him he was in no doubt that Michael had not been rescued by friends but abducted by enemies.37

  Nevertheless, the story of the ‘escape’ was spread so convincingly that most ordinary people accepted it as fact. In the local Soviet newspaper, the Perm Izvestiya, Michael was said to have been abducted ‘soon after midnight’ by ‘three unidentified armed men in military uniform…Orders were immediately given for Romanov’s arrest and mounted militia units were despatched along all highways, but no traces were found.’38

  Many of Perm’s townspeople saw ‘the hand of God’ in Michael’s disappearance. Prayers led by the archbishop were said for him in the cathedral, ‘for the health of God’s servant Michael’; rumour had it that he would reappear at the head of an army and restore order.39

  One of the few who wondered if all was as it seemed to be was Krumnis in the Korolev Rooms. He noted that ‘everything about the escape seemed strange, all the more so because there were no house searches’.40 The sister of the senior Cheka man Lukoyanov, so recently promoted to Ekaterinburg, admitted that the news ‘had been received rather strangely at the Cheka; they weren’t particularly worried’.41

  The telegram to them apart, Moscow had full details of the murder shortly afterwards. According to Myasnikov, a local Bolshevik leader, M. P. Turkin, was immediately sent to the Kremlin to report on what had happened to Yacob Sverdlov, President of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and so powerful he was known as the ‘Red Tsar’. Sverdlov was said to be ‘very, very pleased’; he then telephoned Lenin, ‘who was also very pleased’.42

  However, there is independent evidence that Turkin was indeed in Moscow at that time, for he is listed as a delegate to the All-Russian Congress held there at the beginning of July, and presided over by Sverdlov.43 Moreover, shortly after the murder, Myasnikov went to Ekaterinburg, to a meeting of the Ural Regional Soviet at the Hotel Amerika on Pokrovsky Prospekt. Those present were the leaders of the Ural Soviet, headed by Myasnikov’s old Perm friend, Beloborodov. The purpose of the meeting was to draw up a resolution for the execution of their Romanov prisoners. Although they knew Michael was already dead, his name was included as one of those the Regional Soviet ‘considers it indispensable to execute…’ However, the resolution recognised that ‘for reasons of foreign policy’ it might be necessary to keep that ‘absolutely secret’.44

  The meeting also agreed that the Ural Soviet should send immediately two envoys to Moscow to obtain the endorsement of the Bolshevik leadership for their decision. The first envoy was a very senior figure in the ranks of the Ural Soviet: secretary and war commissar Filipp Goloshchenkin; the other was a man with no position at all — Myasnikov, who it was said was carrying ‘a personal report’ for Lenin. The two envoys were instructed to return ‘not later than July 15’.45

  The man who had been Emperor Michael II was dead. Now the question was how best to deal with the other Romanovs in the custody of the Ural Soviet. Five weeks after the murder of Michael, the world would have the answer to that.

  23. LONG LIVE MICHAEL

  IN both London and Berlin the ‘escape’ of Michael was seen as of high importance, with both sides wondering how best to exploit that to their own advantage. Although the British, like the French, had withdrawn their ambassadors from Petrograd to the greater safety of Murmansk, on the White Sea, they still had a skeleton staff there, of whom the naval attaché Captain Francis Cromie was key to their intelligence sources. Just over two weeks after Michael’s murder, and based on reports from a spy in the German general staff, he reported by telegram on June 29, 1918, that the Germans intended to follow up their seemingly successful offensive in the West by a new effort in Russia. Their aim was to ‘break the Brest peace and declare a monarchy. Considerations will be more favourable than Brest Peace Conference, return of all territory to Russia, even Ukraine…Economic conditions will be onerous but less so than at present. Candidate for the throne is Grand Duke Michael and a high German Agent has already been sent to Perm to open negotiations, but Grand Duke has temporarily disappeared’.

  The despatch to London, which fitted the facts as Cromie understood them, urged that since the Germans appeared bent on restoring the monarchy, albeit for their own interests, the best course for the British was to forestall them and back the monarchists first. ‘In Ukraine there are 200,000 officers of whom 150,000 will at once join up, but only in support of monarchy’, he said, adding that ‘Grand Duke Michael is the most popular candidate’.1

  The Germans had re-established an embassy in Moscow, with Count Joachim von Mirbach, a Russian expert, as ambassador; they also maintained an important consulate in Petrograd. Their messages to Berlin and to the Kaiser’s brother Prince Henry, who was primarily responsible for questions relating to the Romanov dynasty, were also supportive of Michael as emperor. Prince Henry took the keenest interest in bringing the Bolsheviks to heel: his two sisters-in-law were Alexandra and Ella, both prisoners, and his wife, Princess Irene, was aunt to the five children in Ekaterinburg.

  The question was how to rescue them, and the best hope of that might well prove to be Michael. On June 27, two weeks after his ‘escape’, The Times in London had reported rumours that ‘he is at the head of an anti-revolution movement in Turkestan’ and that ‘he had issued a manifesto to the Russian people…leaving the decision as to the form of government to be adopted by the Duma which was to be convoked’.

  This seemed to re-affirm Michael’s manifesto on becoming emperor: that it was for the Russian people to decide its status, and that if he was to be emperor it was to be as a constitutional monarch not an autocrat. That being so, its authenticity seemed real enough. A week later, the newspap
er had him ‘at the head of the Siberian revolt’.2

  On that same day, July 3, 1918, von Mirbach in Moscow advised Berlin that of all the Romanovs who might be restored to the throne the most popular was Michael, and that there was no support for ex-Tsar Nicholas whose cause he judged to be hopeless.

  Of more immediate concern to von Mirbach was the news that Michael was not only leading the Siberian revolt but that he remained an ally of Britain and France and had published a ‘manifesto’ calling on all former Tsarist officers to support him. ‘Effect of Michael Aleksandrovich’s support for Entente on generals and officers, including those of groups who lean towards us, considerable according to impressions here. Groups here have shown themselves noticeably more restrained towards us during the last week.’3

  A few days later came further confirmation to Berlin that Michael was the only possible candidate for the throne of a restored monarchy. For the Germans their evidence of that, in part, was the reaction of the people in Petrograd to news reports that Nicholas had been killed.

  This wholly false story, spread by the Ural Soviet at the same time as they were announcing Michael’s ‘escape’, was that while being evacuated by special train from Ekaterinburg because of the threat posed by advancing Czechs, Nicholas had become involved in a furious row with one of his guards, and the soldier had then killed him with a bayonet thrust. The object of all this was to test both public and foreign reaction to the death of Nicholas, while covering up the real murder of Michael.

  The result from the Bolshevik standpoint was encouraging, as the German despatch from Petrograd to Prince Henry confirmed just over three weeks later. The report, passed on by Henry to the Kaiser, stated that although the ‘murder’ of Nicholas on the train was widely believed,

  …the effect of this news on the masses was scarcely perceptible. Even the Russian church, whose interest can only be bound up with the imperial family, did not react in any way. Although the rumour was not retracted for almost two weeks, a requiem mass did not take place anywhere. This notoriously proved that the ex-Tsar has lost all sympathy from the people.

  Grand Duke Michael is a different matter. The newspapers which carried the news of his flight and his alleged manifesto in Siberia were read feverishly and he is seen as the only possible source of deliverance from the unbearable circumstances. The famous Russian writers Kuprin and Amfiteatrov even attempted to publish a newspaper article about the Grand Duke, in which His Imperial Highness was characterised as the only Romanov not to have been discredited in any way. Both were, of course, immediately arrested.

  The report, largely confirming Cromie’s assessment of German intentions, concluded: ‘only the restoration of the monarchy in Russia with German assistance… will guarantee Germany an alliance with Russia and the maintenance and support of German interests in East Europe’. What was needed was that ‘a general Church Congress, presided over by the Patriarch, offers the Grand Duke the crown’.4

  Here, it seemed, was proof that the Kremlin’s dead-and-alive strategy was paying off. They had given the Germans an emperor for their planned monarchy but one who was set to go to war with them, while denying them the possibility that they could credibly find an alternative. If the Bolshevik leadership had been able to read the German diplomatic cables they would have been well pleased with themselves. The threat of a German-led counter revolution was real enough, but muddying the waters was better than going back to war with them, as the Socialist Revolutionaries wanted to do — they would murder the German ambassador von Mirbach on July 16.

  What was more, the Bolshevik ‘escape’ story continued to be accepted at face value by the world at large. The man they had buried in a wood outside Perm was alive and well and in Siberia. Everyone knew that, because it said so in the newspapers.

  But the newspapers were printing only what seemed to be credible reports from a number of sources. A Japanese diplomatic despatch to Tokyo was picked up by the British military attaché, who promptly cabled London on July 8, 1918 that ‘a counter-revolutionary movement headed by Grand Duke Michael has started in Omsk…’ 5 Four days later even a Moscow newspaper was reporting Michael’s reappearance. ‘Rumour has spread here’, said a report from Vyatka, ‘that the former Grand Duke Michael Romanov is in Omsk and has taken command of the Siberian insurgents. There are claims that he has issued a manifesto to the people calling for the overthrow of Soviet power and promising to convene Assemblies of the Land to resolve the question of what regime there should be in Russia.’6 The stories about Michael even reached Persia where Dimitri recorded in his diary the rumours that ‘Misha is advancing on Moscow with Cossacks and has been proclaimed Emperor’.7 The adage that a lie if repeated often enough becomes the truth was working well for the Kremlin.

  What continued to trouble Berlin, however, were the reports that support for them was slipping away among the monarchists. As the German military attaché in Moscow observed on July 17, if Michael was leading a pro-Allied force ‘then this would place Russian officers of a monarchist tendency in a difficult position’.8 However, the hopeful news on July 17,1918, was that ‘General Brusilov, formerly supreme commander, has therefore sent a lieutenant-commander to the Grand Duke to prevent him aligning himself with the Entente’.9 Nothing more would be heard of that, but next day came other news which, while not of any political significance in the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution, was not only to be believed but true.

  It came in the form of a brief announcement by Comrade Sverdlov during a meeting of the Council of the People’s Commissars in the Kremlin that ‘at Ekaterinburg, by a decision of the Regional Soviet, Nicholas has been shot’. That was all, and after that, with no further comment, Lenin directed the comrades to continue their discussion of the draft of a new public-health law.10 Unlike Michael, the Kremlin did not care if the world knew that Nicholas was dead, because they knew the world did not care either.

  FIVE days earlier, on Friday July 12, Goloshchekin, the special envoy sent to Moscow to find out what the Kremlin wanted to do with the Romanovs in captivity, returned to Ekaterinburg to report that the answer was that the Ural Regional Soviet could do whatever it thought best. The situation was critical. Advancing Whites and Czechs were now so close that the city could fall in three days. The decision was quickly made and brutally simple: they would kill the whole family, and then next day they would kill the six Romanovs held in Alapaevsk. The executioner in the Ipatev House was to be Yacob Yurovsky, a local photographer turned secret policeman. He and a picked squad of other Cheka men would shoot Nicholas, Alexandra and the children, after which their bodies would be taken away, burned, and the remains hidden from any chance of discovery.

  At midnight on Tuesday, July 16, the family was awakened by Yurovsky and told that because of the immediate military threat they were to be evacuated at once. Having dressed, they went quietly downstairs and were told to wait in a basement room while their transport was arranged. Yurovsky brought in three chairs, for Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexis; the four girls stood in a row behind them. That done, Yurovsky re-entered the room with his Cheka death squad, and the firing began. It was pitiless slaughter, finished off with bayonet and rifle butt, and so horrific that when the truth came out it would revolt the world.11

  The following day Grand Duchess Ella and the five male Romanovs at Alapaevsk were to face an even more terrible and deliberately cruel end. Taken in peasant carts to a disused mineshaft, they were then all buried alive, save for Grand Duke Serge who was shot after he tried to resist. Their killers shovelled earth and rubble on top of them, but later admitted under interrogation by the Whites who captured them shortly afterwards that they had heard hymn singing coming from the shaft for some time afterwards.12

  As in Michael’s case the Alapaevsk Romanovs were said to have been abducted by Whites and to have escaped. Apart from admitting the death of Nicholas, the rest of the family were said to have been evacuated to safety. The Bolsheviks also cynically continued in
negotiations with the Germans for the release of Alexandra and the children, using the dead family as a bargaining tool.13

  They did not bother to say more about Nicholas. The announcement of his death had no more effect on public opinion than the false story of him being killed by a Red Guard five weeks earlier. In Moscow the British diplomat Bruce Lockhart noted that ‘I am bound to admit that the population of Moscow received the news with amazing indifference’,14 though that might not have been the case if they had known that five innocent children had also been murdered. When that did become known, revulsion at the massacre in Ekaterinburg — as well as the burying alive at Alapaevsk — would leave a stain on the Bolsheviks and their Soviet Union that would never wash away.

  NOT knowing the truth, the Germans brushed aside the killing of Nicholas and persisted in their efforts to win over the invisible Michael. No one doubted that he was alive and in Omsk, 1,000 miles to the east of Perm, yet no one seemed to wonder why there were no reports or photographs of him actually in action — holding meetings, visiting troops, handing out medals, or sending telegrams to London, his ally in arms.

  The first report of an actual ‘sighting’ of Michael was not until August 26, some ten weeks after his ‘escape’, when a British agent in Stockholm identified only as ST12 told London that ‘a Swede arrived from Omsk reports that Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich is living in the Governor’s House in Omsk with the Imperial Russian flag flying, with guards and procedures as in old regime days’.15

  By then, however, the German armies in France were on the retreat. On August 8, 1918, a British counter-offensive had smashed their lines in what the German commander General Erich von Ludendorff would call ‘a black day for the German army’. They would never recover. However, the hope in Berlin that they could at least secure an armistice which would allow them to carve out a new Russian empire was not yet entirely dashed, and in Russia itself the Germans would continue to think that it was still possible, persisting even unto the end in their aim of securing Michael’s support and thus of his ‘army’ for the German cause.