IN the following pages I shall describe the circumstances of the murder of the Imperial family as they appear from the depositions of the witnesses and evidence examined by the enquiry. From the six thick manuscript volumes in which it is contained I have extracted the essential facts of this drama about which, alas! there can be no longer any doubt. The impression left by reading these documents is that of a ghastly nightmare, but I do not feel justified in dwelling on the horror.
About the middle of May, 1918, Yankel Sverdlof, President of the Central Executive Committee at Moscow, yielding to the pressure of Germany,[75] sent Commissary Yakovlef to Tobolsk to arrange for the transfer of the Imperial family. He had received orders to take them to Moscow or Petrograd. In carrying out his mission he met with resistance which he did his best to overcome, as the enquiry has established. This resistance had been organised by the divisional government of the Ural, whose headquarters were at Ekaterinburg. It was they who, unknown to Yakovlef, prepared the trap which enabled them to seize the Emperor en route. But it appears to have been established that this plan had been secretly approved by Moscow. It is more than probable, indeed, that Sverdlof was playing a double game, and that, while pretending to accede to the pressure of General Baron von Mirbach in Moscow, he had arranged with the Ekaterinburg commissaries not to let the Czar escape. However this may be, the installation of the Czar at Ekaterinburg was carried out on the spur of the moment. In two days the merchant Ipatief was evicted from his house and the construction of a strong wooden fencing rising to the level of the second-floor windows begun.
To this place the Czar, Czarina, Grand-Duchess Marie Nicolaïevna, Dr. Botkin, and three servants accompanying them were brought on April 30th. Also Anna Demidova, the Czarina’s maid, Tchemadourof, the Czar’s valet, and Sednief, the Grand-Duchesses’ footman.
At first the guard was formed by soldiers picked at random and frequently changed. Later it consisted exclusively of workmen from the Sissert workshops and the factory of Zlokazof Brothers. They were under the command of Commissary Avdief, commandant of the “house destined for a special purpose,” as Ipatief’s house was named.
The conditions of the imprisonment were much more severe than at Tobolsk. Avdief was an inveterate drunkard, who gave rein to his coarse instincts, and, with the assistance of his subordinates, showed great ingenuity in daily inflicting fresh humiliations upon those in his charge. There was no alternative but to accept the privations, submit to the vexations, yield to the exactions and caprices of these low, vulgar scoundrels.
On their arrival in Ekaterinburg on May 23rd, the Czarevitch and his three sisters were at once taken to Ipatief’s house,
