CZAR'S FATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1920, Page 3

CZAR'S FATE.

THE STORY CONTINUED.

GERMAN DUPLICITY MOVED.

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Aug. 1!). The Times correspondent continues the grim story of the extermination of the Romanoff's, cabled on Friday. He describes the critical stage in 191.8 at which the Czar's fate hung in the balance. The enforcement of the humiliating terms of .the Brest-Litovsk Treaty had begun. Germany had become absolute mistress of the .Russian situation. Mirbaeh, installed at Moscow, worked through a crowd of Bolshevik puppets imported from Germany. The success of thb German seemed assured. Then a fatal series of disputes arose between Berlin and Ludendorff. The party, at. Berlin wanted a continuance of systematic penetration and peaceful conquest. Ludendorff favoured displacement of the Soviets and modification .of the Brest-'Litovsk trpaty and the restoration of Nicholas as a Vassal Sovereign. The quarrels destroyed the whole edifice of German duplicity and deceit.

The assassination of Mirbaeh completed the collapse, Sovietdom thereupon asserted itself, and decided to ensure that the restoration of the Romanoffs should forever be impossible.' The correspondent acquits Lenin. The real authors of the crime consisted ;of members of a notorious counter-revoiu-tionary committee associated with the inner circle of the Bolshevik central executive. The most prominent were Sverdolov, Safarov, Voikov, Goloschekin, and Ourovsky. The first-named was the uncrowned Czar of the Soviets and really more powerful than Lenin and Trotsky. ■Sverdlov's direct connection with the Ekaterinburg murders is established beyond. doubt. Goloschekin iigures as his obedient instrument, Sverdlov carrying out the most desperate enterprises. He was abnormally bloodthirsty and insisted on hearing minute descriptions. He would exhibit a frenzy of joy on listening to descriptions of torlures. *•

Ourovsky, an ambitious Jew, acted ns chief gaoler and tormentor of the doomed Royalties. He attended pravers at Ipatiev's house and even chatted pleasantly with the sick boy Alexis whom he shot dead a few days later with his own hands. Ourovsky took to Moscow several trunks of his victims' intimate correspondence. Svordlov promised their publication in order to show the people the character of their ex-rulers, but suppressed priceless documents. The diaries and papers of Nicholas and Alexandra contained no hint of treachery, but, on the contrary, proved Nicholas's unbounded loyalty to Russia and the Allies, and, unfortunately, also his complete subserviency to his wife.