“The consignment of fruit from your generous donors has duly reached the Maison Yakowleff and is being distributed in various charitable quarters and is much appreciated in these days when prices are so high. Some of it has been sent to the director of the Borgoroditsky Convent at Kazan, and also some to the Society of St. George at Kiev. Please inform and thank the donors.—Karl Jöhnke.”
Eagerly the camarilla awaited the result of their dastardly handiwork. The allotted three weeks passed, but no epidemic was reported. Evidently the monk wrote to the German bacteriologist, who was posing as a Dane, for the latter wrote from the Hôtel Continental at Kiev:
“The fruit, owing to delays in transit, was not in a condition for human consumption. This is extremely regrettable after all the trouble of our kind donors.”
Therefore, while certain isolated cases of cholera were reported from several cities—as the sanitary records prove—Russia had had indeed a providential escape from a terrible epidemic, the infected fruit being distributed over a wide area by charitable organisations quite unsuspicious of its source.
Failure to produce the desired result induced Rasputin and his paymasters in Berlin to adopt yet another method of forcing Russia into a separate peace.
Brusiloff had recommenced his gallant offensive, and the situation was being viewed with increased apprehension by the German General Staff. Roumania was still undecided whether or not to throw in her cause with that of the Allies. The great plot to destroy Roumania is again revealed by documentary evidence contained among Rasputin’s papers, and also in the despatches received in Bucharest—where, of course, the clever intrigue was never suspected.
A message in cipher received by Rasputin, on August 8th, the day of General Letchitzki’s great triumph, reveals a truly Machiavellian plan. It reads thus:
“Memorandum 27546.112.
“Matters in the Dobroudja are approaching a serious crisis. Urge S. (Boris Stürmer, the Prime Minister) to suggest at once to the Emperor, while at the same time you make a similar suggestion to Her Majesty, that Roumania must be forced to take up arms against us. She must not be allowed to remain neutral any longer. S. must send a despatch to Bucharest so worded that it is our ultimatum. If she does not join the Allies immediately she must fight against Russia.”
Accordingly, three days later, after the Holy Father and his unholy fellow-conspirator had had audiences at Tsarskoe-Selo, Stürmer sent an urgent despatch to the Roumanian Government demanding that it should join the Allies, without further delay. At Bucharest no plot was suspected, and indeed on the face of things, it seemed no unusual request. Even people in Great Britain were daily asking each other “When will Roumania come in it?”