BOLSHEVIK BRUTALITY

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160734, 21 August 1920, Page 2

BOLSHEVIK BRUTALITY

MASSACRE OF ROYAL FAMILY. Times. LONDON, August 19. The Times' has begun a series of articles giving 'an authentic account of the murder of the Russian Royal Family at Eketarinburg in June, 1918, the motives for which were based on signed depositions of eyewitnesses examined before a legal commission as well as a long chain of circumstantial evidence. The articles dispose of numerous distorted versions dreived from Bolshevist sources. They reveal the Czar’s real attitude to the Allies and throw a fresh light on a clouded period in Russian history, in which the Emperor and t*e sinister figure of Rasputin appear. They also touch upon a more recent interplay of German 'and Bolshevist ambitions. The writer is an English journalist, and for - sixteen years was the Times’ correspondent in Petrograd before the war. Afterwards he was the narrator of the successes and of Denikin and Koltchak'S armies. The correspondent narrates that General Dieteichs started an inquiry regarding the murders, which Nicholas Sokolov, a magistrate and expert crime investigator, completed under the authority of Koltchak. The correspondent himself assisted at the inquiry for many months, and is one of the signatories. The more important records were ultimately entrusted to the custody of an official dossier, when the Bolsheviks became aware of the success of the investigation they threatened to assassinate Sokolov, then a fugitive at Chita. The perilous smuggling of the incriminating documents eastwards -through Siberia, amid the hastening debacle of the Koltchak army reads like a romance. The Moscow authorities four days after the murders officially described the shooting of the 'Czar after trial as an act of necessity, and affirmed that the ox-Ern-press and children were safe. Investigation has overwhelmingly proved that the whole family, including five children and faithful attendants, totalling eleven, wore shot simultaneously without trial. The evidence shows elaborate preparation for the murders. The victims were all subjected to horrble tortures—mental, if not physical—and were shot in the basement of the house of a Russian Jew, Ipatiev, where they had been for some time imprisoned. The Bolsheviks attempted to hurriedly remove traces of the martyrdom, but .Sokolov found marks of bullets and bayonet thrusts and bloodsplashed walls. The room had been a shambles. Perfunctory washing had left tell-tale signs. The assasins carted the bodies ten miles north of the city, where they wore burned under cover of woods, surrounded by a cordon of Red Guards. When the cordon was withdrawn, peasants followed the trail, and discovered alongside a disused ir<*li ore pit, a vast collection of relics, including pearls and other jewels in beautiful setting's of gold and platinum, buttons, corset frames, and a human finger intact. “It’s the Czar they’ve been burning,” declared the peasants, who had not been misled by current reports of his escape. The correspondent, examining the spot afterwards, found topaz beads and other gems such as the young princesses wore. ■ Immediately after the 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 the iron pit. It was evident that the Rods aimed at the wholesale extermination of the Romanoffs. Many Russians hoping for restoration of the Monarchy, including those belonging to German orientation believe some still give credence to any tale of the miraculous escape of the Royalties, but even the hope of the survival at least of the children must be abandoned. It is established beyond doubt that the Czar rejected attempts to secure his endorsement of the Brest Litovsk Treaty, and fell a victim to loyalty to the Allies. All the murdered -Romanoffs were inconvenient to the German as well as internationalist plans.