RUSSIAN .REGICIDE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16822, 21 August 1920, Page 3

RUSSIAN .REGICIDE.

WELL-FOUNDED ACCOUNT.

ROYALTY EXTERMINATED

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright,

LONDON, August, 18. The Times has begun a scries of articles giving an authentic account of the murder of the Russian Royalties at Ekaterinburg in July, 1918, the motives for which, based on signed depositions of cye-witnesscs, were examined before ai legal commission, as well as a long chain of circumstantial evidence.

The articles dispose of numerous distorted versions derived from Bolshevik sources, and reveals the Czar’s real attitude _to the Allies. They throw a flesh light on a clouded period in Russian history, in which the Empress and the sinister figure of Rasputin appear, and they touch upon more recent interplay of Gorman Bolshevik ambitions. 'Jkc writer is an English, journalist, who for 1G years was The Times correspondent in Potrograd before the” war, and was afterwards the narrator of the successes and misfortunes of the Denikin and Koltchak armies.

The correspondent narrates that General Dieterichs started an inquiry regarding the murders, which Nicholas Sokolov, a magistrate and an export crime investigator, completed under the authority of Koltchak. The co • icspondcnt himself assisted at the inquiry for many months, and is one of the signatories of the more important iccords, and was ultimately entrusted with the custody of the official dossier.

When tlie Bolsheviks became aware of tho investigation they threatened to assassinate Sokolo.-, then a fugitive in China. Tho,perilous smuggling of in criminating documents eastwards through Siberia, amidst the hastening debacle of Koltchak’s army, reads like a romance. Tho Moscow authorities, four clays after the murders officially described the shooting of the Czar, after a trial, as an act of necessity, and affirming that the ox-Erapross and her children were safe. The* investigation has overwhelmingly proved that tho whole family, including the five children and their faithful attendants, totalling 11, were shot simultaneously, without trial.

Tho evidence shows the elaborate preparations made for the murder's. The victims were all subjected to horrible tortures, mental if not physical, and were shot in the- basement of al house of a Russian Jew named Ipatiev, where they had been for some time imprisoned. Tho Bolsheviks attempted to hurriedly remove traces of the martyrdom, but Sokolov found marks of bullets and bayonet thrusts on the blood-splashed walls of the room. Perfunctory washing had left tell-tale signs. Tho assassins carted tho bodies 10 miles north, of tho city, where they were buried under cover of the woods, surrounded by a. cordon of Red Guards. When the, cordon was witbdrown, peasants followed tbo trail and discovered alongside a disused iron ore pit a vast collection of relics, including pearls and ether jewels in beautiful settings, gold and platinum buttons, corset frames, apd a human finger intact. “It’s tho Czar they’ve been burning.’’ declared tho peasants, who had not been misled by current reports of his escape. Tho correspondent, examining tho spot afterwards, found topaz beads and other gems such as tho young Princesses wore. Immediately after tho Ekaterinburg tragedy an Imperial servant escaped from a Red shooting squad, and reported that several Grand Dukes and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth had been murdered. Some bodies were found in an iron pit. It was evident tho Reds aimed at tbo wholesale extermination of the Romanoffs.

Many Russians who boned for a restoration of tho Monarchy, including those with a bias towards Germany-, believed that soma still gave credence to any tale of a miraculous escape of tho Royalties, but oven tho hope of the survival at least of tho three children must bo abandoned. It is established beyond doubt that tho Czar rejected attempts to secure his endorsement of tire Brest-Litovsk treaty, and fell a victim to his loyalty to the Allies. All the murdered Romanoffs were inconvenient to tho German as, well as to tho internationalist plans.—Times.