The Last Days of the Romanovs: How Tsar Nicholas II & Russia's Imperial Family Were Murdered

THE LAST DAYS OF THE ROMANOVS by GEORGE GUSTAV TELBERG. PUBLISHERS NOTE: During the night between the i6th and 17th of July, 1918, the former Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his family, as well as all the persons Attached to it, were murdered by the order of the Yekaterinburg oviet of workmens deputies. The news of this crime broke through the closed ring that surrounded Bolshe vist Russia aad spread over the entire world. At the end of July, 1918, the town of Yekaterin burg was taken from the Bolsheviks by the forces of the Siberian Government. Shortly after their occu pation of the district an investigation was ordered to be made of the circumstances attendant on the mur der. A judicial examination therefore took place of the witnesses connected with the life of the imperial family at Czarskoe-Selo, Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg by N. A. Sokoloff, the Investigating Magistrate for Cases of Special Importance of the Omsk Tribunal. Upon the fall of the Kolchak regime, copies of the depositions were taken from the archives by M. George Gustav Telberg, Professor of Law at the University of Saratov and Minister of Justice at Omsk, when he fled with the other ministers of the Omsk government. These combined statements re construct the life-story of the imperial family from the time of the emperors abdication until the murder of himself, his wife, his children, including the czare vitch, and their few faithful servants in IpatiefFs house at Yekaterinburg. The translator has endeavored to preserve the orig inal simplicity, and in some cases the crudeness and lack of education apparent in the witnesses. Colonel Kobylinsky, M. Gilliard and Mr. Gibbes are edu cated men who apparently gave their evidence with out displaying any outward emotion, but, though they did not exaggerate the sufferings of thd imperial family, they were not eye-witnesses of the final hours of their captivity. The testimony of the soldiers strikes a more sin ister note. Two of them witnessed most of the daily happenings at IpatiefFs house, but they display cer tain evidences of pity and of having been well-dis posed towards the prisoners whose murder they condemned. Indeed these men are most insistent that the crime was committed by the Letts. The third soldier Medvedeff took an active part in the murder. The narrative of Mr. Robert Wilton which sup plements the translations of the official records is, we think, a document of incalculable value. Written by a man who for sixteen years was correspondent for the London Times in Russia, and who not only speaks Russian but was present throughout the inves tigation of the scene of the murder and during the search for the relies, his story has a poignancy and an intrinsic value that cannot be overestimated. It is proper here to explain to the reader that the contents of this volume as represented by the Official Depositions in Part I and Mr. Robert Wiltons Nar rative in Part II came into existence quite independ ently and without the design, originally, of publish ing them together. Mr. Wilton, who escaped from Siberia after the fall of the Kolchak Government, took with him one of three copies of the dossier of the official investigation. Upon this original source he based his story, adding to it certain facts which he had personally gathered. By a most fortunate circumstance, George H. Doran Company, who were preparing for the press the depositions secured by M. George Gustav Telburg, learned of Mr. Wiltons narrative, and arrangements were immediately made to combine the records in one volume. As the two parts of the book are from different sources, no effort has been made to secure uniformity in certain minor variations in the spellings of proper names...