On a sweltering afternoon in July 1918, a new official appeared at the House of Special Purpose. Jacob Yurovsky, a member of the Bolshevik secret police, had arrived from Moscow to replace the former commandant, the drunken and incompetent Avdeev. More efficient than his predecessor, Yurovsky immediately replaced the old guard with more reliable men from the newly formed Commission for Struggle against Counter-revolution or Sabotage – the Cheka. Though he treated the prisoners with a polite, if abrasive, respect, his insistence on covering the windows with grilles and his apparent fear of an imminent rescue attempt heightened the sense of tension in the house.
Yurovsky had come to Ekaterinburg with only one purpose in mind: the murder of the Imperial family. It was a task that must be carried out in secrecy. Lenin needed international recognition for his new regime, and regicide without trial would place the Bolsheviks in a very bad light. Moreover, as long as he was alive, or believed to be alive, the Tsar might prove a useful bargaining tool with foreign governments. To maintain secrecy, Yurovsky believed that it was vital that all his prisoners should die so none would be left to tell the world of what had happened.
Only those soldiers in whom Yurovsky had absolute trust were informed of his plans as he set about preparing for the murder and the subsequent disposal of the bodies. The cellar of the Ipatiev house was selected as the ideal location for the killing: below ground level, it could not be seen from the road, and the plastered walls would, he thought, dampen the sound of shooting and prevent the bullets from ricocheting across the room. In the days leading up to the massacre, he hand-picked his firing squad and selected a burial site. The Koptiaka woods outside the town were filled with disused mine shafts where the corpses could be easily disposed of and, as a precaution, a separate squad under the command of the Commissar Pyotr Ermakov would be stationed around the site to prevent the intrusion of any unwelcome witnesses.
Oblivious of the plot, the Romanovs continued their dull routine of reading and prayer, and on the evening 16th July, after playing bezique, Nicholas and Alix retired to bed at ten-thirty.
While the family slept, Yurovsky organised his firing squad. Each man was given a specific target and told to aim at the heart so that the operation would be carried out quickly with the minimum blood loss. Throughout the evening, the soldiers drank heavily. Even the most hardened revolutionaries would not find it easy to murder four innocent girls and a thirteen-year-old boy in cold blood.
Shortly after midnight, Yurovsky woke the Tsar’s physician, Dr Botkin, and ordered him to rouse the family. There had been shooting in the town, he said, and for their own protection they must come down to the cellar. Half an hour later, the Romanovs calmly descended the twenty-three steps, Nicholas carrying his son, who was unable to walk following a recent haemorrhage. The daughters and their maid, Demidova, carried pillows with them and Anastasia’s little dog, Jimmy, followed them down the stairs.
Ushered into the empty room, Alix asked for chairs. Two were brought and she sat down on one of them, as Nicholas placed the Tsarevich on the other. Yurovsky informed the family that, since there were rumours that they had escaped, it was necessary to take a photograph to send back to Moscow, and asked them to assemble accordingly. The girls, their father, Dr Botkin, Demidova, the valet and the cook gathered around Alexei and the Tsarina, awaiting the entrance of the photographer.
The door burst open and Yurovsky hurriedly read from a paper informing the prisoners that, in view of an imminent rescue attempt, the prisoners must be shot.
“What? What?” murmured the Tsar, as Alix and her daughters blessed themselves and the soldiers opened fire. The Tsar, Tsarina and Dr Botkin died instantly with bullets through the head but, for all Yurovsky’s careful planning, the massacre descended into savage butchery. The drunken soldiers missed their targets and bullets bounced off the jewels sewn into the girls underclothing, ricocheting across the room and filling the cellar with smoke. The maid, Demidova, screamed and covered her face with the pillow; and ironically, Alexei, who had come close to death so many times, was also still alive and moaning on the floor until Yurovsky put a bullet through his head.
When the bullets proved useless, the soldiers stabbed at the girls with bayonets but still the jewels deflected the blades. In anger and panic the firing squad struck them with rifle butts before shooting them through their heads in an orgy of killing.
As the smoke gradually cleared, Yurovsky ordered the soldiers to take the bodies to a lorry that was waiting in the courtyard, its engine already running to muffle the sound of the guns. Even then, one of the girls cried out; she was not yet dead. The lorry set out through the darkness but the plans were to go further awry. There were no proper roads through the woods, and the wheels stuck in the mud. Yurovsky, desperate to complete his mission before the light of dawn, hastily order the corpses to be transferred to carts and wheeled towards the chosen spot, known as The Four Brothers. By then, Ermakov’s men had arrived hoping to take part in the killing and were disappointed to discover than the prisoners were already dead. In their frustration they set about taking rings and medals from the bodies until Yurovsky threatened execution for any man caught stealing. Some semblance of order returned and, as the dawn began to break, they reached the planned burial site.
By morning, news of events in Ekaterinburg reached the ears of the soviet in Alapaevsk. Now it was their turn to massacre their prisoners. At midday on 17th July, a Cheka detachment arrived at the old schoolroom to replace the guards. Throughout the afternoon they searched the prisoners’ belongings and warned of an imminent move but by evening nothing seemed to be happening and the Grand Dukes retired to bed.
Suddenly in the middle of the night, Ella and her companion, Barbara, were awoken by two soldiers who whispered that their lives were in danger so they must dress quickly as they were to be taken away to a place of safety. Meekly and silently, they obeyed and as soon as they were dressed the soldiers blindfolded them and led them out to a waiting cart, which immediately set off along the Sinyachikhenskaya road. The Grand Dukes followed in other carts.
For twelve miles the convoy continued through the semi-darkness until it reached a wooded area littered with disused mines. Alighting from the cart, the soldiers ordered Ella to walk forwards and, as she neared the opening of a flooded mine, struck her head with rifle butts plunging her down the nineteen metres into the water. In spite of serious head wound, she succeeded in scrambling onto a ledge as the soldiers forced the other prisoners one after another into the shaft. As in the fiasco of Ekaterinburg, the soldiers soon realised their plans were going terribly wrong. The prisoners had not drowned as they had anticipated, and even after they had hurled hand grenades into the shaft it was clear that at least some of the victims were still alive. From the ledge below they heard the sound of singing: “Lord save your people.”
At a loss as to what to do, the soldiers gathered brushwood and set it alight before hurling it into the pit and returning to Alapaevsk, where they spread the story that the Grand Dukes had escaped during a raid by the White Army. Few of the townspeople believed the tale, particularly when peasants reported hearing voices from the mine days later, but they dared not offer assistance or contradict the official line.
The prisoners were left to die of infected wounds and starvation, yet even then, Ella continued her life of service. Beside her on the ledge lay a young Grand Duke, the son of Serge’s cousin, Konstantin Konstantinovich. His head was bleeding and he was probably coughing up blood. Tearing strips from her veil, Ella carefully bandaged his wounds. There was nothing else to do then, but pray and endure the slow and painful wait for death.
Chapter 36 – Victors and Vanquished
Days after the massacre in Ekaterinburg, Victoria Battenberg, unaware of her sisters’ fate, was desperately trying to secure them a safe haven, if not in England then perhaps in Spain. Queen Ena and King Alfonso were willing to help and negotiations were still underway when the news reached England on 24th July, that t
he Tsar had been assassinated.
There was still, as yet, no news of the Empress and her children or of Ella but rumours were rife. Alix was in captivity with her daughters in Perm; Ella had been rescued by plane and taken to Czechoslovakia; she was still in Alapaevsk; they were ill; they were well; no one could be sure. For almost a month Victoria, Irène and Ernie remained optimistic until the first blow came before the end of August. Though the bodies had not been found – and would remain hidden for almost seventy years – intelligence reports seemed to confirm that the entire family had been murdered.
King George V was the first to hear of the massacre and immediately ordered the newspapers to refrain from printing the story until Victoria had been informed. He wrote a letter which Alix’s close friend and cousin, Marie Louise, volunteered to take to her on the Isle of Wight.
“I have often had to face difficult situations that have needed tact as well as courage,” she wrote, “but never anything so terrible as to inform someone that her much-loved sister, brother-in-law, and their five children had all been murdered.”[182]
The letter from George V could hardly have brought great consolation, considering his refusal to grant them safe haven.
According to Marie Louise, Victoria’s devastating grief was ‘too overwhelming for mere words’ and her immediate response was to work in the garden ‘all day and every day for three weeks.’
Distressing as the news was, Victoria gleaned some comfort from the hope that at least Ella had been spared. Throughout the early autumn, disjointed stories from war-torn Russia continued to suggest that the Grand Duchess had been rescued. It was not until early November that the awful truth was revealed.
Six weeks after Ella had been thrown down the mine, the White Army marched triumphantly into Alapaevsk, where the locals, freed from the fear of the Bolsheviks, reported what they knew of the Grand Dukes’ disappearance. The White Army commander, Admiral Kolchak, ordered an immediate investigation and, after following several conflicting leads, the investigator, Malshikov succeeded in locating the mine. Stones and charred wood blocked the entrance to the shaft, which was found to be flooded and so badly damaged by the fire and grenades that it took several weeks before the search for bodies could begin in earnest.
Gradually, in various states of decomposition the corpses of the Grand Dukes were brought to the surface until at last, on 11th October 1918, Ella’s body too was recovered.
Though horrified by their find, the investigators were amazed to discover that Ella’s body remained intact; by her side was an unexploded grenade, on her breast a cedar wood crucifix and an icon of Christ. Local people, outraged by the murder of the gentle Grand Duchess, flocked in their hundreds to the church in Alapaevsk where Ella and her companions were given an official funeral.
Even then, a further month would pass before Victoria received confirmation of all that had happened. Having so recently heard of the fate of Nicholas, Alix and their children, the death of her closest sister came as a terrible, if not unexpected, blow.
“Victoria’s splendid courage remained unshaken,” wrote Marie Louise, “She faced [many grievous trials] with calmness and strength and never allowed her sorrows to dim the happiness or joys of those around her.”[183]
Victoria, herself found comfort in the knowledge that Ella’s faith would have sustained her to the end: ‘If ever anyone has met death without fear she will have…’
By the time the news reached her younger sister in Germany, Irène was living in fear for her own life.
The vicissitudes of war continued relentlessly throughout the spring and early summer of 1918. In March the Germans staged a final grand offensive on the Western Front and broke through the Allied lines to regain the Marne. For four months the slaughter continued along the Somme and defeat seemed a real possibility for the combined British and French armies but, by the beginning of July, with American support, they were prepared to mount a counter-attack. On 8th August, the British under Field Marshal Haig broke through the enemy lines and in the weeks that followed the Allied troops made further inroads through the Germans’ defences.
In September, a combined force of Serb, Greek, French and British troops launched an attack in the Balkans and by the beginning of October Foxy Ferdinand of Bulgaria had been forced to abdicate. Within weeks Turkey, too, had yielded and the Austro-Hungarian Empire splintered into separatist groups forcing Emperor Karl[·] to agree to an Armistice on 3rd November.
Of the Central Powers, only the Kaiser was prepared to fight to the end but his efforts were in vain. Realising it was only a matter of time before the Allies achieved a final victory, the Roumanians reneged on the Treaty of Bucharest and declared that unless the Germans left their country, they would take up arms again. On November 9th, to Queen Marie’s delight, King Ferdinand ordered his troops to remobilise.
For Kaiser Wilhelm the situation was hopeless. News had already reached his brother, Henry, Admiral of the Fleet, that his sailors had mutinied. On the 8th November revolution broke out in Munich and on the 9th the regiments in Berlin marched beneath a Bolshevist flag. In an almost identical replay of events in Russia, the Kaiser’s trusted cousin, Max of Baden, urged him to abdicate in favour of his twelve-year-old grandson but, mindful perhaps of the fate of Cousin Nicky, Willy vehemently refused. The following day, his generals announced that they were no longer prepared to defend him and warned that unless he left the country, Civil War would erupt. Realising that he had no alternative but to flee, he boarded a train bound for Holland where Alice of Albany’s cousin, Queen Wilhelmina, offered him a safe home at Doorn, where he would remain in modest comfort to the end of his life.
‘What retribution to the man who started this awful war,’ Queen Mary wrote, but in Roumania, Missy was less ecstatic about her cousin’s demise and recorded that she was distressed on hearing of his abdication.
Ironically, Willy’s first words on reaching his Dutch haven were, “And now for a lovely cup of English tea.”
For those he had left behind, the situation was far less civilised. As revolutionaries swept into Kiel, Irène and Henry tied red flags to their car as they fled from the city amid a shower of bullets. They eventually reached the safety of Hemmelmarck in Northern Germany where they settled into relative obscurity. Irène’s brother, Ernie, meanwhile, displayed even greater courage. Refusing to flee, he calmly met the revolutionary soldiers who marched into the New Palace at Darmstadt, and voluntarily agreed to hand over his rights as Grand Duke. Though stripped of his titles and privileges he was permitted to remain in his Hessian home.
Across the border in Hesse-Kassel, Mossy’s husband, Fischy, was likewise stripped of his authority but permitted to retain his land. Within a month all the minor ancient dukedoms and principalities were swept away. Charlotte’s husband, Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Meiningen and her son-in-law, Heinrich, abdicated on 10th November. Alice of Albany’s brother, Duke Charles of Coburg; Marie Louise’s former husband, Aribert of Anhalt; and the Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe – all were ousted. In the aftermath of the First World War, the peaceful monarchical Germany, which Prince Albert had once envisaged, vanished forever.
In Britain, the Armistice of 11th November 1918 was met with a frenzy of rejoicing surpassing the revelries that had greeted the outbreak of war. As King George stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, his cousin, Marie Louise, mingled incognito with the crowds at the gates and joined in the cheering. For Victoria Battenberg, the only one of her siblings to witness the celebrations, victory must have had a hollow ring. Grieving for two of her sisters, her brother-in-law, her nephew and four nieces, and worrying about the ultimate fate of her brother and sister in Germany, she might well have shared the sentiments expressed by her mother half a century before, at the end of the Austro-Prussian War:
“We must devote all our energies to the reconstruction of our suffering country. I trust all governments will do the same, and think no more of war.”[184]
Since the outbreak of host
ilities, the Connaughts had lost their mother; the Christians, their father; Queen Ena of Spain, a brother; Moretta, a husband; and Mossy, two sons. The power and glory of the pre-war monarchies had gone forever. Yet, who better to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, than the conquered Queen who refused to admit defeat: the brilliantly flamboyant Marie of Roumania.
On the day the Armistice was announced, as celebrations echoed through the streets of Jassy, the French Minister presented the Queen of Roumania with the Croix de Guerre in recognition of her unstinting commitment to the Allied cause. Three weeks later, on 1st December a triumphant Marie, in military dress, rode with her armies into Bucharest to be greeted by the exultant crowds bearing the flags of every Allied nation. If ever a queen were created to shine, none could have done it more brilliantly than the ebullient Marie of Roumania.
Epilogue – After the Idyll
For the royalties of Europe, whether victors or vanquished, the world would never be the same again. Even those who had retained their thrones and titles would no longer enjoy the halcyon days of the pre-war world, where queens and princesses flitted across the continent with the world at their feet.
Within a year of the Armistice, Queen Victoria’s eldest granddaughter, was dead. Charlotte, who had spent much of the last few months of her life confined to bed with her various porphyria-related symptoms, died on 1st October at Baden-Baden. She was buried in Thuringia, near Hesse.
For a further ten years, her younger sister, Moretta, widowed since 1916, eked out a lonely existence in Germany attempting to restore her family ties with England. In November 1927 at the age of sixty-two, she embarked on yet another disastrous love affair, marrying a young Russian officer, Alexander Zubkhov, thirty-five years her junior. Within two years, her husband, who had apparently married her only for her money, had deserted her and she was bringing court proceedings against him when she died, virtually bankrupt and disillusioned, on 13th November 1929.
Queen Victoria's Granddaughters 1860-1918 Page 30