Rescuing the Czar / Two authentic diaries arranged and translated

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s appeared to be listlessly unconcerned and sat upon one corner of the large flat-topped desk, swinging his feet indifferently; but when I started for the door he sprang to attention like a wel

rchway into the little square room beyond the study, where I halted them and said: 'Men, these women will die before they'll tell us where the treasure is at present. The OLD MAN and WOMAN seem utterly indiffere

courageous of them, with a hangdog expression, 'we might give them until midnight.'... 'Very well,' I snapped viciously, I'LL PUT OFF THE EXECUTION till that hour; then if

ft, I bored into the pit of his stomach and sent him sprawling on the carpet, where he BLED as profusely as a corn-fed bull.... This blood was exactly what I wanted, and in my anxiety to make a good job of it I kicked him several times in the face until he lay there, motionless and senseless, bleeding from every gash.... In the joy of giving this remorseless bully what he needed to overcome hi

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olated, though nicely furnished and elegant two-story dwelling, I got closer to the heart of my celebrated prisoner and his family than any other man alive.... In the few hours left to us befor

by Pobedonostzev to regard myself as the source of SPIRITUAL POWER and instructed to regard an unorthodox opinion as a transportation offense. Now, while I reverence profoundly the sacred tenets of my holy religion, I regard religious freedom as indispensable to the dignity of spiritual belief. For that reason I made that reformation in 1905. As I grew up I rebelled against my intolerable confinement,-I went out among the PEOPLE and TALKED WITH THEM. They were friendly in most instances and gave me very good advice. I did not need a bodyguard to go about. I was as safe among the people as I would be in the Winter Palace. Often have I walked to the hotels alone to call on some particular friend without any thought of fear. Nor was it necessary,-I liked the people as genuinely as I believe they respected me. I learned their hunger for land by going around; and it was on that account that I projected and completed our Siberian Railways so as to give our people the coveted opportunity and an outlet to the markets of the world. Given an opportunity to accumulate and prosper, men will hesitate about going to war unless THEY ARE MISLED. I saw such an opportunity in international trade. I visited the Orient, extensively investigating the commercial field in that direction. It was a mighty task, necessitating a reference to others who should have been as much interested in the accomplishment as I was myself. Their mistakes have made me quite unhappy and there has always been CONTENTION between my Ministers and myself. If Witte had kept his hands off when Count Solsky got after the plotting school teachers and rebellious students, the propaganda against my reign which has honeycombed the Empire with sedition might have been checked in time to prevent this dissolution,-for it is more than a "revolution." It is idealism run amuck. France, England, the people of America, have been duped by the intelligentia-the Kadets-who never seemed to realize that in order to hold this Empire together not only FORCE but SUPERSTITION was required,-'si mundus vult decipi decipiatur,' it is the only principle that will hold unorganized ignorance in disciplinary subjection to orderly and regulated progress; and without this discipline the ARMY, or the power that holds this incongruous Nation together, will dissolve, as you may now see, while the whole Empire will fly to pieces. My strong Ministers were too physical and myopic to look beyond their noses. They were afraid to seem afraid of truth,-and they even accused me of plotting with Kazantsev and Feodorov against the life of my Minister of Finance,-always excuses for fomenting discontent! They never seemed to realize that the HAPPINESS of the PEOPLE meant the SECURITY of the CROWN. As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Min

sed "Petrograd," not th