orders and bring his charges to Moscow as directed. As this could not be disproved and Yakovlev was still plainly a deputy of Sverdlov, he was allowed to go. Six months later, he deserted to the White Army of Admiral Kolchak.
Mirbach, realizing that he had been outwitted, was furious. Sverdlov was deeply apologetic, wringing his hands and telling the German Ambassador, “What can we do? We have no proper administrative machinery as yet, and must let the local Soviets have their way in many matters. Give Ekaterinburg time to calm down.” But Mirbach, knowing that this game was lost, decided to try another tack. Later, in May, one of the Kaiser’s aides-de-camp appeared in the Crimea, where a scattering of Russian grand dukes had gathered. With him, this officer carried an offer from the Kaiser to proclaim Tsar of all the Russias any member of the Imperial family who would agree to countersign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. When every Romanov present refused, the German emissary even asked for a meeting with Felix Yussoupov. The meeting never took place and Rasputin’s murderer was spared the temptation of visualizing on his own head the Russian Imperial Crown.
Mirbach wasted no more time on Nicholas. When the Russian monarchists came back to him in June, imploring him to save the Tsar from his captors in Ekaterinburg, Mirbach washed his hands, declaring, “The fate of the Russian Emperor is in the hands of his people. Had we been defeated, we would have been treated no better. It is the old, old story—woe to the vanquished!”
Woe indeed! Early in July, Mirbach was assassinated in his Embassy in Moscow. His murderers were two Russian Social-Revolutionaries who were convinced that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had betrayed the revolution to the Germans: “The dictatorship of the proletariat,” they cried, “has become the dictatorship of Mirbach!” Four months later, in November 1918, Germany itself was vanquished.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE city of Ekaterinburg lies on a cluster of low hills on the eastern slope of the Urals. Atop the highest of these hills, near the center of town, a successful merchant named N. N. Ipatiev had built himself a handsome, two- story house. Constructed into a slight incline on the side of the hill, the lower story was at: street level on one side of the house and became a semi-basement on the other. At the end of April, as Nicholas and Alexandra were being taken from Tobolsk, Ipatiev was suddenly given twenty-four hours to vacate his house. After he left, a group of workmen arrived and hurriedly erected a high wooden fence shutting off the house and garden from the street. Five rooms on the upper floor were sealed as a prison, with the glass on the windows painted white so that those inside could not see out. The lower floor was hastily converted into guardrooms and offices. When it was ready, the house was given the ominous official designation “The House of Special Purpose.”
As Yakovlev’s train bearing the captives arrived in the city’s main railway station, the mood of Ekaterinburg was all too evident. An angry mob surged around the coaches, shouting, “Show us the Romanovs!” So threatening did the crowd become that even the officials of the local Soviet agreed to let Yakovlev move the train back to an outer station before handing over his prisoners. Nicholas stepped out, wearing an officer’s greatcoat with the epaulets removed, and carried his own luggage to a waiting car. Then, with Alexandra and Marie beside him, followed by only one other car, he was driven quickly through back streets to the Ipatiev house. There at the door stood Isiah Goloshchekin, a member of the Presidium of the Ural Soviet and personal friend of Sverdlov. Goloshchekin greeted the Tsar ironically: “Citizen Romanov, you may enter.”
At once, the captives were ordered to open their hand luggage. Nicholas was willing, but the Empress objected. Seeing his wife upset, Nicholas paced up and down the room, saying bitterly, “So far we have had polite treatment and men who were gentlemen, but now …” The guards cut him short. Roughly, they told him to remember that he was no longer at Tsarskoe Selo, and that if he continued to act provocatively, they would isolate him from his family. A second offense, they warned, would result in hard labor. Frightened for him, Alexandra quickly submitted. Upstairs in their new room, she took a pencil and drew on a window a swastika as a symbol of faith. Beneath, she added the date of their first day in Ekaterinburg, “17/30 Apr. 1918.”
In Tobolsk, meanwhile, the remaining four children waited anxiously to hear what had happened to their parents. On May 3, a telegram to Kobylinsky announced that the Tsar and Empress had been detained at Ekaterinburg. Soon after, a letter from Ekaterinburg, written by the maid Demidova but dictated by the Empress, said non-committally that all were well and advised the Grand Duchesses to “dispose of the medicines as had been agreed.” In the code worked out by the family before separating, “medicines” meant “jewels.” All of the gems brought from Tsarskoe Selo had been left in Tobolsk, as Nicholas and Alexandra, leaving on hours’ notice, had had no time to hide them on their own persons. Now, having been thoroughly and roughly searched, Alexandra was advising her daughters to take the steps agreed on. Accordingly, for several days the girls and trusted servants sewed jewels into their clothing. Diamonds were sewed inside cloth buttons, rubies were hidden inside bodices and corsets. Tatiana, rather than Olga, supervised this work. She was regarded by prisoners and guards alike as head of the family remaining in Tobolsk.
The Bolsheviks had no intention of leaving the family separated. On May 11, Colonel Kobylinsky, who had held his command for twelve difficult months, was relieved, and on May 17, the soldiers of the Tsarskoe Selo regiments acting as guard on the governor’s house were replaced by Red Guards from Ekaterinburg. Kobylinsky’s place was taken by a bullying young commissar named Rodionov, whose orders were to bring the remainder of the party to Ekaterinburg as soon as the Tsarevich could travel. When Rodionov arrived, he went immediately to see Alexis. Finding the boy in bed, Rodionov stepped out of the room, waited a minute and then reentered, thinking to catch him up, using his malady as a pretext for not moving. Determined not to let anyone deceive him, Rodionov instituted daily roll-call of all the prisoners. He refused to allow the young Grand Duchesses to lock their doors at night, explaining that he had to be able to enter at any time to make certain that they were there. One morning, Anastasia came to the window and seeing Dr. Botkin’s son Gleb in the street below, began to wave. Rodionov dashed into the street and pushed Gleb away, shouting, “Nobody is permitted to look at the windows! Comrades,” he cried to the sentries, “shoot everybody who so much as looks in this direction.” Anastasia continued to smile as Gleb bowed to her and walked away.
By May 19, Alexis was well enough to travel, and at noon the following day, Nagorny carried him aboard the steamer
At the Tyumen railway station, Gilliard was separated from Alexis and placed in a fourth-class carriage at the rear of the train. They traveled all day and reached Ekaterinburg in the middle of the night. The following morning, looking out his window through a steady drizzle of rain, the tutor had a last glimpse of the Imperial children:
“Several carriages were drawn up alongside our train and I saw four men go towards the children’s carriage. A few minutes passed and then Nagorny the sailor … passed my window carrying the sick boy in his arms; behind him came the Grand Duchesses, loaded with valises and small personal belongings. I tried to get out but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana Nicolaievna came last, carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown valise. It was raining and I saw her feet sink into the mud at every step. Nagorny tried to come to her assistance; he was roughly pushed back by one of the commissars.… A few minutes later the carriages drove off with the children.… How little I suspected that I was never to see them again.”
Once the children and Nagorny had disappeared, the guards divided up the rest of the party. General Tatishchev, Countess Hendrikov and Mlle. Schneider were sent to prison to join Prince Dolgoruky, who had been there since arriving with the Tsar. Kharitonov the cook, Trup the footman, and Leonid Sednev the fourteen-year-old kitchen boy were sent to join the Imperial family and Dr. Botkin in the Ipatiev house. When these people had gone, Rodionov entered the coach and announced, to their amazement that everyone else—Dr. Derevenko, Baroness Buxhoeveden, Sidney Gibbs and Gilliard himself—were free. For ten days, they remained in Ekaterinburg, living in the fourth-class railway carriage, until ordered by the Bolsheviks to leave the city. On July 20, in Tyumen, Gilliard and the others were rescued by the advancing White Army.
