Chapter Eight. The Mock-Monk Unmasked.

Documentary evidence contained in the papers which the monk so carefully preserved shows conclusively that he paid a secret visit to Berlin in the first week of October, 1916. While the brave Russian army were fighting valiantly, ever and anon being betrayed by their leaders, treachery of the worst and vilest sort was afoot in the highest quarters.

That German potentate, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who occupied an important position in the entourage of the Tsar, was acting as counsellor to the Tsaritza, and at the same time, aided actively by the woman Vyrubova, was working to delude the Emperor and defeat his gallant armies. At Russian Field Headquarters the Tsar was cheered everywhere, and his officers were enthusiastic. It was known that the German offensive had spent itself, and it was believed by those who were being bamboozled that, when all was ready, Russia would press on to her well-deserved victory.

But the day of Russia’s great offensive never arrived. Great Britain and France were supplying her with guns and munitions conveyed up to Alexandrovsk with much difficulty, and the Allies were daily hoping that the “Russian steam-roller” would once again start upon its westward course. London, Paris and Rome were in ignorance of the amazing plot of the pro-German traitors.

Meanwhile the mock-monk, in the garb of a Dutch pastor, had arrived in Berlin to make arrangements with the enemy for Russia’s final conquest.

By the scoundrel’s fatal weakness for preserving letters addressed to him, in the hope that when he fell out of favour at Court he might use them for blackmailing purposes—for after all this “holy” man had started life as a common thief—we have again evidence of his treachery in the following letter dated from Tsarskoe-Selo, October 18th, the day following the Allied landing in Athens. Addressed to Rasputin, it is in German, in the fine handwriting of the Tsaritza, and reads as follows:

“Holy Father,—At last we have welcome news of you! This morning your messenger reached us bringing me a letter, and one for Anna. What you tell us is indeed good news. We are glad that you have seen William (the Emperor), and that he has been so gracious to you. Your news regarding the forthcoming offensive against the British is most encouraging. The British are Germany’s real enemies. Tell His Majesty that all goes well, and that Stürmer quite agrees that we must have a separate peace and is taking every step towards that end.

“Nikki is still at the front encouraging the troops. How foolish, and yet we have all to show a bold front. The news of the landing at Athens has disconcerted us, though it has caused great joy in Petrograd. Inquire if nothing can be done further in an attempt to spread disease in the more populous regions. This would kill enthusiasm for the war and force peace quickly.

“Dmitri (the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, who was Rasputin’s fiercest enemy) has been sent by Nikki to Samara. It would be a relief to us all if he never returned. He with Nicholas (the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch) are plotting to defeat us. But Germany shall win. It shall be as you, my dear Father, saw in your vision.

“Pray for us, O Father. Give us your benediction, for while you are absent we are all dull and lonely. Tell William to send you back quickly and safely to us. Give my best greetings to the brave Hindenburg. It is horrid to be compelled to sustain an anti-German attitude when one knows that our Fatherland is unconquerable, even though the Russian flag be bathed in blood.

“Inform the General Staff that the secret agent Erbach-Fürstenau, who fell into General Neudorff’s hands last month has at my instigation been acquitted by the court-martial and will very shortly escape back to Germany. I have personally arranged that the papers seized upon him shall be destroyed.

“Charges are being levelled against General Sukhomlinoff. He has been betrayed by a man named Kartzoff. In order to suppress the latter’s further activity, he has been arrested for treason at my instigation and sent without trial to an unknown destination. So we have one enemy the less. It is reported that Manasevitch-Manuiloff (private secretary to Prime Minister Stürmer) has been arrested for attempting to blackmail his chief. But I will see that Nikki stops the trial.

“My dear boy Alexis is improving. Anna is with him constantly. He sends his greetings and asks for your prayers. I kiss your holy hand. Your sister Alec.”

Russia was still being betrayed by the Empress, who had fallen so entirely beneath the occult influences of the rascal who, in turn, had become the catspaw of the Kaiser.

The charges against General Sukhomlinoff, ex-Minister of War, mentioned by the Tsaritza, had apparently alarmed her. And well they might. An official in the ministry named Kartzoff had betrayed his chief, whereupon Colonel Tugen Baranovsky, late Chief of the Mobilisation Department of the Russian General Staff, had made depositions to the effect that the mobilisation plans drafted by the General were full of errors, while rifles, machine-guns, and field and heavy guns were all lacking. Depositions had been made by General Petrovsky, late Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the General had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while a third official, Colonel Batvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had asserted that General Sukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts Factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each while the Toula Factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.

Such were a few of the charges against the ex-Minister, a bosom friend of Rasputin and of Stürmer, and these were being whispered abroad everywhere, even though by the influence of the Tsaritza the principal witness against the General had been sent to “an unknown destination!”

Written on the same day and conveyed secretly to the monk in Berlin—evidently by the same messenger who carried the Tsaritza’s letter to her “Holy Father”—was one from the conspirator Protopopoff. It is on the private note-paper of the Minister of the Interior and discloses truly an amazing state of affairs, as follows:

“Brother Gregory,—I send you this hastily and with some apprehension. Both Nicholas and Dmitri (the Grand Dukes), are actively at work against us! Beware! They know far too much, hence it behoves us to be most discreet. I was at Tsarskoe-Selo yesterday and discussed it with F. (Count Fredericks, Minister of the Imperial Court). There is a secret movement to upset our plans, but I have ordered the Secret Police to spare no pains to present full and adequate reports to me, and rely on me to take drastic steps.

“An hour ago it came to my knowledge that an individual named Wilhelm Gebhardt, living at Hildegard-strasse, 21 Wilmersdorf, Berlin, has knowledge that you are in the German capital and is probably watching your movements to report to our enemies here. Give news of this to our friend ‘Number 70’ and urge that he shall be immediately arrested as a spy of Russia. If he is executed his mouth would be closed, for he is dangerous. The man with whom he is in association in Petrograd, a person named Tchartovyski, member of the Duma, I have ordered to be arrested and charged with communicating with persons in Germany.

“S. (Stürmer) is eager for news regarding the proposed German offensive against the British in Flanders, and the exact position regarding the ‘U’ boat campaign. Inform the Chancellor that news we received from Washington to-day shows that President Wilson is determined, and warn him that J. and G., whom he will know by initials as German agents in the United States, have been discovered, and may be arrested. He may perhaps communicate with them by wireless, and they may escape while there is still time.

“Further, inform the Chancellor that our efforts to make more marked the shortage of food have been negatived by the action of Nicholas and Dmitri, for we fear to go further lest the truth be disclosed. Their activity cannot be ignored.

“Urge that the distribution of fruit to charitable institutions be repeated.

“The charges against Sukhomlinoff are extremely grave, and may have serious consequences. I am, however, taking steps to ascertain the intentions and to arrest those who are in association.

“Her Majesty is eager and nervous regarding you. Write and assure her that all is well with your dear self. As the saviour of Russia from the wiles of the Allies, the Russian people ought to regard you as great as the Great Peter himself.

“A tall, thin individual named Emil Döllen will probably call upon you at your hotel. If so, receive him. He may convey a message from me sent by wireless to Riga and re-transmitted.

“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 Königgratzer-strasse, 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 documentary 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-strasse, 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 warship 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. (Stürmer) 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 God 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 attitude 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 régime 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 passed.

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.