Plots to Rescue the Tsar and His Family

[Tsarina Anastasia]

Anna Virubova, a friend of Empress Alexandrovna's, supposedly wrote secret notes in French that were smuggled in (by nuns?). The notes asked for the Tsar to draw a map of the Ipatiev House and asked his advice for a secret escape in the middle of the night. Nicholas responded saying that he could only be rescued by force. The imperial family and their attendants (Dr. Botkin, Demidova, Trupp, Kharitonov) anxiously waited every night, fully clothed and ready to move quickly. Whether these notes were legitimate or orchestrated by the Bolsheviks is debatable. I reccomend The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander.

[lexi4]

Originally Posted by Tsarina Anastasia

Anna Virubova, a friend of Empress Alexandrovna's, supposedly wrote secret notes in French that were smuggled in (by nuns?). The notes asked for the Tsar to draw a map of the Ipatiev House and asked his advice for a secret escape in the middle of the night. Nicholas responded saying that he could only be rescued by force. The imperial family and their attendants (Dr. Botkin, Demidova, Trupp, Kharitonov) anxiously waited every night, fully clothed and ready to move quickly. Whether these notes were legitimate or orchestrated by the Bolsheviks is debatable. I reccomend The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander.

The Kitchen Boy is a good fictional book.

[Tsarina Anastasia]

Yeah, it uses a lot of facts that help you to understand what was happening.

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by Tsarina Anastasia

Anna Virubova, a friend of Empress Alexandrovna's, supposedly wrote secret notes in French that were smuggled in (by nuns?). The notes asked for the Tsar to draw a map of the Ipatiev House and asked his advice for a secret escape in the middle of the night. Nicholas responded saying that he could only be rescued by force. The imperial family and their attendants (Dr. Botkin, Demidova, Trupp, Kharitonov) anxiously waited every night, fully clothed and ready to move quickly. Whether these notes were legitimate or orchestrated by the Bolsheviks is debatable. I reccomend The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander.

What I'll do is quote various books where the "The Mysterious Letters" are mentioned.

p. 512 Robert Massie's NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA:

>>Preston new nothing of attempts to resuce the Tsar, and Bykov found plots sesething on every corner.<<

Thomas H Preston was the British Consul in Ekaterinburg.
P. M. Bykov was the Chairman of theEkaterinburg Soviets.

The report of the letters are found in General M. K. Dieterichs [Diterikhs], Chief-of-Staff of Admiral Kolchak's White Army, who was very much a part of the investigation into the disapearance of Nicholas II and the others.

>>..The first letter was a message from an anonymous White offier to the Tsar:

"With God's help and your prudence we hope to achieve our object without running any risk. It is necessary to unfasten one of your widnows, so that you cn open it; please let me know exactly which. If the little Tsarevich cannot walk, matters will be very compliced, but we have weighed this up too, and I do not consider it an insurmountable obstacle. Let us know definitely wheter you need two men to carry him and whether any of you could undertake this work. Could not the little one be put to sleep for an hour or two with some drug? Let the doctor decide, only you must know the time exactly, beforehand. We will supply all that is necessary. Be sure that we shall unerstake nothing unless we are absolutely certain of success beforehand. We give you our solemn pledge of this before God, history and our own conscience." The letter was signed; "Officer."<<

p. 513 Massie's book continued:

>>The second letter quoted by Dieterichs is Nicholas's reply:
"The second wndow from the corner, looking out onto the square, has been kept open for two days already, even at night. The seveth and eight windows near the main entrances... are likewise kept open. The room is occupied by commandant and his assistants who constitue the inner guard at the present time. they number thirteen, armed with rifles, revolvers and grenades. No room but our has keys. The commandant and their assistants can enter our quarters whenever they please. The orderly officer makes the round of the house twice an hour at night and we hear his arms clattering under our windows. One machine gun stands on the balcony and one above it, for an emergency. Opposite our windows on the other side of the street is the [outside] guard in a little house. It consists of fity men... In any case, inform us when there is a chance and let us know whether we can take our people [servants]... From every post there is a bell to the commandant and a signal to the guard room and other places. If our people stay behind, can we be certain that nothing will happen to them?"

Nicholas II's diary
June 27

>>We spent an anxious night, and kept up our spirits, fullly dressed. All this was because a few days ago we received two letters, one after the other, in which we were told to get ready to be rescued by some devoted people, but days passed and nothing happened and the waiting and the uncertainty were very painful.<<

Quote p.513 Robert Massie's NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA.

LIFE ONG PASSION, NICHOLAS AND ALXANDRA THEIR OWN STORY collected by Maylunas and Mironenko tell us that on 14/27 June 1918 that Nicholas wrote the following in his diary:

>>Our dear Maria is 19 years old. The weather was still as tropical, 26 degrees in the shade and 24 in the rooms, almost impossible to bear! We spent and anxious night and stayed awake fully dresssed. This was because, a few days ago, we received two letters one after the other, which informed us that we shold prepare to be rescued by some people devoted to us! But the days passed and nothing happened, only the waiting and the uncertainty were torture.<<

LIFE ONG PASSION, NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA THEIR OWN STORY collected by Maylunas and Mironenko tell us that on 15/28 June 1918 what Alexandra wrote:

>>..[in part]...we hear the night sentry under our rooms being told quite particularly to watch every movement at our window -- they have become again most suspeicious, since our window is opened & don't all one to sit on the sill even now.<<

[norwegianne]

Originally Posted by Marengo

Another thing is that in this people usually focus on George V and not on the other European monarchs. Of course Britain was Russia's main ally and George and Nicky were cousins, but there was an entire network of crowned cousins, I usually wonder what they did? Or what was tried by the Russians themselves?

I think that in most cases the other European monarchs in 1917 had even less power than George V. WWI was still going on, which definitely complicated things in Europe in general.


In the book Kong Olav Ser tilbake (King Olav looks back) by Kjell Arnljot Wig (1977), King Olav mentions (p. 52) something about the worries they had for their Russian relatives: "I also remember that they at home, by the end of the war, talked on how the Russian relatives fared, because we didn't know much. With the family in England there was contact throughout the war, through courier. But regarding the situation in Russia, one didn't know more than what the newspapers could tell on how the revolution went along, and there were many kinds of rumours.

I don't think there had been any warm connection, at all really. Our Russian relatives did live pretty isolated." (By that time the big Fredensborg gatherings, had dwindled to something akin to nothing.)

Given that he was 14 years old in 1917, he was obviously not privy to everything that went on in adult discussion, or in the councils of State, where attempts to negotiate might have been discussed.

[AGRBear]

THE FALL OF THE ROMAOVS by Steinberg and Khrustalev have a copy of the "officer of the Russian army" letter following p. 310 where the translation is given at the bottom of the page.

On this same page is this Soviet order copied:
>> "All prisoners' correspondence is to be examined by a person specially aurthorized for this purpose by the Presideum of the [Ural] Regional Soviets.<<

These letters of communication between "officer" and IF continued to p. 320.
---
NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA by Robert Massie tells us p. 512:

>>...Bykov said, notes were intercepted inside loaves of bread and bottles of milk, containing messages such as: "The hour of liberation is aproaching and the days of the usurpers are numbers," "The Slav armies are coming nearer and nearer Ekaberinburg.... The time has come for action," "Your friends sleep no longer."

Here is what we find in THE FATE OF THE ROMANOVS starting on p. 228:

>>As the Romanovs waited, the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks planned their next move. Other, genuine letters apparently followed the disicovery of the first, conclealed, as Ekaterinburg Soviet member Paul Bykov recalled.<< Already noted in my post above.

>>Like the first confiscated latter, none of these survived, and only the forgery composed by the Cheka are known.<<

>>It was in 1964 that Isai Rodzinsky spoke at leanght of "the correspondence I carried on with Nicholas." In his account Rodzinsky clearly recalled the letters he wrote in French, "I remember the red ink with which they were written to the present day," the elderman said. Rodzinsky, according to his fellow Cheka member Kudrin, had been selected to copy the letters because "he had a good handwriting." Rodzinsky also left a telling comment: "We had to be able to show," he said, "evidence that a rescue had been arranged."

Let me repeat this: "We had to b e able to show evidence that a rescue had been arranged."

King and Wilson go on to say:

>>This "evidence," as both Rodzinsky and Kudrin later revealed, was never intended for public consumption, but for the eyes of the Central Executive Committe, to prove the exsistence of a monarchist plot to rescue the Romanovs.<<

So, the question in my mind is, who wanted this done? The Ural Soviets? The Moscow Soviets?

Did the Bolshsviks really intercept notes from the "officer" or was the officer part of the Soviet conpiracy to make it appear a rescue plot was occuring?

If there really was an "officer", who was he and what happened to him? And, why didn't they keep his notes found in milk bottles, bread ...?

AGRBear

HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF THE LAST DAYS OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FAMILY complied from the papers of their Enlgish Tutor Charles Sydney Gibbes by J. C. Trewin p. 110-111:

>>Toward the middle of June, in this hot and dragging summer, there were the usual cloudy hopes of a rescue attempt: They stayed cloudy; the anxious monarchist never found a workable plan. Now the end was coming indeed. Avadeiev and his guards, so it was rumoured, had been growing too lenient; they were replaced by men of the Secret Police...<<

What Gibbes actually wrote is not copied to this book. Does anyone have what he wrote?

AGRBear

[AnastasiaEvidence]

No, actually an officer sent the Tsar and his family a rescue note in French. Alexandra wrote only in English at the time in Yakeringburg. It was her main langauge she knew fluently.

[lexi4]

Originally Posted by AnastasiaEvidence

No, actually an officer sent the Tsar and his family a rescue note in French. Alexandra wrote only in English at the time in Yakeringburg. It was her main langauge she knew fluently.

Source please?

[AGRBear]

THE FALL OF THE ROMANOVS p. 310
>>137
Letter from an "officer of the Russian army" to the imperial family, (19 or 20 June 1918.
Original in French.<<

>>Friends are no longer sleeping and hope that the hour so long awaited has come. The revolt of the Czechoslovaks threatens the Bolsheviks every more seriously. << Jumping down a few lines the letter goes on to say:
>>Be ready at every hour, day and night. Make a drawing of your two three bedrooms [showing] the position of the furniture, the beds. Write the hour that you all go to bed [in margin: 11:30]. Answer with a few words... You must give your answer in writing to the same soldier who transmits this note to you, but do not say a single word.

From somone who is ready to die for you,
Officer of the Russian Army<<

The foot note of the authors, Steinberg and Khrustalev, adds to this story p. 315:

>>1. It is now widely believed that this letter and the following from an "officer"... were part of a plan by local authorities to engineer the imperial family's "escape" in order either to executed them while they were trying to flee or to create a pretext for execution. In the 1960s, a former member of the Ural Cheka, I. Rodzinsky, testified that Pyotr Voikov, a gradudate of the University of Geneva and a member of the Ural Regional Soviet Executive Committe, drafted the letters, which Rodzinsky then copied.

AGRBear

[norwegianne]

The Danish book Zarmoder blandt Zarmordere: Kejserinde Dagmar og Danmark 1917-1928 by Bent Jensen, mentions several attempts by the Danish royal family, and the Danish government, to get a diplomatic solution to get the Czar and his family out of Russia. The book also mentions that the Danish government contacted the Germans to ask for help, and were denied twice. The Danish envoy in Russia, Harald Scavenius, according to the book, worked hard to try to get things solved.

One tack the Danish allegedly tried were to point out according to the book, was that if the Russians did not want the Dowager Czarina and her family to have Russian titles, and the titles were no longer in effect, then the title Princess of Denmark was still valid for Marie/Dagmar, and thus she [and her family] should be sent to Denmark .

[Avicenna]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Jo, if you can find that article, I'd love to take a gander at it!

Russophile, sorry for the belated answer to your above mentioned post. The article Jo has mentioned was published last year in the "Spiegel" with the titel
"Die gekaufte Revolution: Wie Kaiser Wilhelm II. Lenins Oktoberrevolution mitfinanzierte". The same article is published today in the "Spiegel"-Special booklet on history - BTW written by Klaus Wiegrefe - "Experiment Kommunismus" (an awsome summary of the history of kommunist Russia from 1914-1991) in Chapter 1: "Die Deutschen und die Revolution." Wiegrefe uses the same sources - plus some news ones - as Sebastian Haffner, who has published already back in 1968 his book "Der Teufelspakt" on German-Russian relations. But be careful, in the latest version of "Der Teufelspakt" the publishing house has carried out some mayor cutbacks. If you can, try to get the 1968 version. Not sure though if it is available in English.

Additionally there is another book by Gerd Koenen, published in 2005 on German-Russian relations between 1914 and 1945. Again, I do not know if this is available in English.

[AGRBear]

More on Captain Stephen Alley:

British spies in plot to save tsar - Times Online

>> From The Sunday Times
October 15, 2006
British spies in plot to save tsar
John Crossland

A NEWLY discovered diary has uncovered a plot by the British secret services to rescue the last tsar and his family from the house in Ekaterinburg where he was imprisoned by the communists and later executed.

The diary of Captain Stephen Alley, second in command of the British intelligence mission in Petrograd — now St Petersburg — shows he positioned four undercover agents ready to extract what he called “the valuables” — the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian imperial family — from the House of Special Purpose where they were held.

The diary also includes a sketch map drawn by Alley of the house and its surroundings.

It used to be believed that Britain had abandoned the tsar, his wife Alexandra — a granddaughter of Queen Victoria — and their children. But in recent years evidence has emerged that both King George V and the government of David Lloyd George were willing to rescue the family. No evidence has previously come to light, however, of the advanced stage that preparations had reached.

Alley’s diary was found accidentally by his descendants in a trunk of his papers and will be featured in Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren, a documentary to be shown on Channel 4 in December.

The diary shows that, after they had been sprung from custody, the tsar and his family were to be taken by train to Murmansk and then shipped to safety by the Royal Navy.

On May 24, 1918, Alley, who was employed by MI1 (c), part of what became MI6, wrote to the War Office in London naming the six Russian- speaking officers he wanted to carry out the rescue. He asked London for a grant of £1,000 a month (about £25,000 today) due to “increased requirements for intelligence purposes”.

Andrew Cook, the historian who has examined the papers for the documentary, believes Alley’s telegrams to London may have been intercepted, leading the Bolsheviks to reinforce defences around the tsar’s prison. “At the first hint of a rescue the whole family would have been shot,” he said.

Alley’s apparent reluctance to activate the plot led to his sacking and recall to Britain. He worked for MI5 in the second world war and died in 1969 at the age of 93.

He always kept his work secret, even from Beatrice, his wife. Anthony Summers, author of The File on the Tsar, said: “She told me that when she asked her husband what he did, he would say, ‘Sometimes I will go away for a night and sometimes for a year, and I won’t be able to tell you where I am, but I’m working for the king.’ She thought he was going for dirty weekends.”<<

[Michael HR]

I think the only chances were either at Tsarkoe Selo in March - August 1st and perhaps Tobolsk. Once they reached Ekaterinburg there was no chance. If efforts had been made in the early days they may have been saved. Once August 1st came they lost all hope IMHO.

[bbb]

i agree, once they were in Ekaterinburg their fate was sealed.
In the book "lost fortune of the tsars" by william clarke", he details some of the plots and factors out of control. it seems to me politics, cost of upkeep and family rivalry and conflicts doomed any plans to failure.

i hadn't been aware of the King of Spains efforts on their behalf.
quote "Princess Victoria felt the Spanish approach might be best, followed by a backup telegram from Queen Mary".

"(alfonso,delaying no further)... a flurry of telegrams had already been sent to Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Rose, Copenhagen and Moscow." on August 6 he sent the following telegram to Princess Victoria at the Isle of Wight.
"Letter received. I have started negotiations to save Empress and girls as Tsarevich think is dead. Proposition is to leave them to go to neutral country and on my word of honour they would remain here until the end of the war. Hope all the differenct sovereigns will assist me. will let you know all news i get- best love alfonso."

"August 15 George V sent him a telegram "Grateful if you will exert all your influence....to rescue Imperial family of Russia"

"two days after alfonso's personal appeal to the kaiser, he received a positive promise of help from Berlin, and within the week Berlin, Vienna and Moscow were receiving similar requests from the Pope and the King of Denmark"

Money for upkeep of the family seemed to be an undercurrant in efforts quote "The King of Spain made it clear that the royal family could stay in Spain at his expense until the end of the war and the Pope, promised to "ready to provide, if needed the finance for the ladies maintenance in proper style", also offering the Empress Marie "a life annuity to enable her to live in accordance with the dignity of her position".

"as late as the third week of september the russian government was still informing the german government that a proposal has been made to move the whole Imperial family to the Crimea"

page 92 "the germans were not the only players to realise the hostage value of the family..........the bolsheviks in ekaterinburg has had "considerable friction with the central bolshevic government on money matters' and in the final months had begun to use the royal family 'as a means of extracting funds ....by means of threatening to kill them', at a time the Gentral Government was anxious to hand over the family to the Germans in Moscow."
(i think this would have horrified the Tsar, can you imagine his reaction in being saved by "the enemy" even if he was a relative, knowing the outcome it certainly would have been better than what turned out to be the alternative)

"ransom demands did not cease even with the disappearance or death of most of the family, as late as december the King and Queen of Denmark provided 500,000 roubles for the release of the 4 grand dukes, they had already sent 25,000 for the empress, eight months earlier." the four dukes were shot in january 1919.

the more i read about the "secret messages" especially once they were in the "house of special purpose", i'm very suspicious and believe it was probably the soviets trying to arrange an "escape execution". I would expect the family would be very careful whom they trusted (no one at that point) and also insisted that their attendants were included in any rescue attempt.

[Michael HR]

Thank you for the information. For me I always have blamed Goerge V for the lost chance to save the Tsar, that and the illness the children suffered at Tsarkoe which made it impossible to move them at perhaps the only time they could have been saved.