The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II Read Online Free PDF

Gerasimov, had been given a Top Secret order on the authority of Nicholas himself, charging him with the task ‘of taking all reasonable measures to prevent the marriage of Madame Brasova (Wulfert) to Grand Duke Michael abroad; all Russian embassies, missions and consulates shall render Major-General Gerasimov every reasonable assistance that he might need to accomplish the task and, should necessity arise, to put under arrest any persons at the discretion of Major-General Gerasimov’. 13
     
    A year earlier, when they had gone to Paris and Cannes, the Okhrana had followed them and watched them day and night. There had been nothing to arouse their suspicions, but their trail had been ludicrously obvious, their car blundering hopelessly in the wake of Michael’s grey open Opel tourer. The Okhrana therefore decided to change tactics: in future their agents were instructed to follow the baggage and Michael’s staff and servants as they journeyed from place to place by train, whether or not Michael was with them or travelling separately by car. Their purpose was to prevent a marriage, not watch them having a picnic. 14
     
    This year they were going first to Berlin. They set off on September 12, 1912, leaving two-year-old George and nine-year-old Tata to be looked after by their staff in Gatchina. In itself, that seemed evidence that they would be back, since they were hardly likely to run away without their children, and knowing the consequences of any marriage abroad.
     
    Although the order authorised the ‘arrest of any persons’ the Okhrana thought complicit in any marriage attempt, in practical terms that was hardly feasible abroad where Russian law did not apply. However, what the Okhrana could do was to warn the priests in any Russian church — whether Berlin, Paris or Nice — that they faced serious punishment if they agreed to any marriage, and to intimidate the two formal witnesses required to make a marriage valid by threatening their interests in Russia. The Okhrana would have plenty of notice of any such attempted marriage since the banns would have to be called in the preceding three weeks.
     
    Michael had no chance, it seemed. The Okhrana would always be one step ahead of him. Whatever ideas he might have, he would return to Russia a bachelor.
     
    Senior Agent Bint, the man entrusted with the task of watching Michael, was satisfied that all was well in Berlin, for no banns were called there in the Russian church and in any case on September 23 Michael and Natasha left and took the train to Bad Kissingen, where both signed into to a health sanatorium, Michael ‘drinking the waters and taking baths’ as he jovially noted on a postcard to his brother. 15 With Michael holed up in the sanatorium it would be three weeks before the bored Okhrana needed to stir themselves again.
     
    Bint, a practised hand at bribing telegraph clerks and hotel porters, was quickly tipped off on Sunday October 14 that Michael and his staff were heading for Paris, and then almost immediately that he had cancelled his rail tickets and instead was going to Cannes, though he would be driving there separately via Switzerland and Italy, leaving his staff to take the train with the baggage.
     
    There was no doubt about Michael’s intentions, for on that same Sunday he sent a second postcard to his brother telling him that ‘having now completed my treatment, I am setting out in the car towards Cannes, where I expect to be on Saturday’. 16 Since the Okhrana read that postcard, having paid their informants to make sure they could, they duly boarded the train, following the baggage, but confident that Michael would turn up when he said he would — on Saturday, in Cannes.
     
    What they did not know, however, was that Michael, wise to their ways, intended that they should read his postcard, as he had intended that they should read his first. Addressing them to ‘His Imperial Majesty,’ what he meant to do was to address them to the