April 18th.—Payment made to Gregory Rasputin by Nicholas Pokotilo. Address Select Hotel, Ligovskaya 44, Petrograd, representatives of Messrs Solovoioff, of Odessa.—62,460 roubles.
June 1st.—Payment to His Excellency D.A. Protopopoff made for rent of lands at Vyazma, by Alexander Koltchak, agent of the estate of Prince Tchekmareff, less 15 per cent, commission to Messrs Montero and Company, of Kieff;—21,229 roubles.
June 3rd.—Payment to Vera Zoueff, dancer at Luna Park, by G. Merteus, Nevsky 81, Petrograd.—13,000 roubles. (The woman who passed as a Russian was one, Bertha Riehl, a German dancer, and a secret agent of Berlin.)
June 17th.—Payment to Sophie Tatistcheff (who had married Baron Roukhloff, one of the Tsar’s secretaries who had control of his Majesty’s private correspondence), by Safonov’s Bank, in settlement of an insurance claim for property destroyed by fire at Poltava.
I have copied these in their order of sequence, but the items number over one hundred, and reveal payments of huge sums of German secret service money to Rasputin and his friends, thus forming a most illuminating disclosure as to the manner in which Russia was rapidly being undermined.
With such dark forces at work in the very heart of the Empire, it is indeed marvellous that General Brusiloff could have effected his superhuman offensive between Pripet and the Roumanian frontier. He started with his four armies early in June, 1916, and by the middle of August had captured 7,757 officers, 350,845 men and 405 guns. Berlin became seriously alarmed at such a situation. All Rasputin’s plotting with Stürmer, Count Fredericks, Protopopoff, Countess Ignatieff, Madame Vyrubova, and a dozen other less prominent but equally importunate officials, together with all the steady stream of German marks flowing into Petrograd could not stem the Russian tide on the German and Austrian front’s. The Russian “steam-roller” seemed really progressing.
The Kaiser grew seriously alarmed. At the instigation of Count von Wedel, his right-hand in espionage and unscrupulous propaganda, a secret message was sent to Rasputin—a message which he preserved among his other papers. It runs as follows, and is in the German cipher of the Königgratzer-strasse of which the mock-monk kept a de-cipher in his interesting safe. Hence it has been available:
“F.G. 2,734—22.
“Memorandum from ‘Number 70,’ August 29th, 1916.
“It is deemed of extreme urgency that the offensive of the Pripet should at once cease; and be turned into a victory for the Central Powers as promised us in your despatch of July 1st. You are not keeping faith with us! What is wrong? S. (Stürmer, the Prime Minister) is inciting the Russians to victory in his speeches.