Rescuing the Czar

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Rescuing the Czar

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Title: Rescuing the Czar Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated
Author: James P. Smythe
Release Date: July 22, 2004 [EBook #12983]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE CZAR ***

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RESCUING THE CZAR
Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated

by
JAMES P. SMYTHE, A.M., Ph.D.

THIRD EDITION
1920

PART ONE
RESCUING THE CZAR

FOREWORD
by
W.E. Aughinbaugh, M.D., LL.B., LL.M.
Is the former Czar and his Imperial family still alive? There are
millions of people in Europe and America who are asking this question.
European governments have considered the question of sufficient
interest to justify the investigation by official bodies of the alleged
extinction of this ancient Royal Line. Millions have been expended for
that purpose. Commissions have pretended to investigate the subject
after the event. Volumes have been returned of a speculative nature to
authenticate a mysterious disappearance that has never been explained.
April 5; the Universal Service carried a cable from Paris reading: "Czar
Nicholas and all members of the Imperial family of Russia are still
alive, according to M. Lassies, former member of the Chamber of
Deputies, who has just returned from a mission to Russia." This was
several weeks after the manuscript of the following account of the
_Czar's Escape_ was in my possession.[A] Yet this confirmation of the

manuscript has not sufficiently overcome the universally persistent
doubt that has grown out of many previous imposing reports.
In certain Royal quarters the anxiety to disseminate the "reports" of
their Commissions is too apparent to authorize a judicial mind to accept
their speculative guesswork as convincing evidence of a legal corpus
delicti when no identified bodies have ever been produced. This
eagerness to convince the world by substituting a mere disappearance,
or the lack of evidence, for positive proof of the Royal assassination
raises very naturally the presumption that certain circles are more
interested in misleading than in satisfying the public mind.
To those schooled in the methods and objects of international
propaganda during the Great War it is evident that, in a period of
revolution, when thrones and dynasties become unpopular within the
area of hostility and discontent, the adherents of Royalty may not be
unwilling to appease the demand for vengeance by some theatrical
display of meeting it with a pretense or an artifice until the passions of
the populace have subsided and sober toleration resumes its sway over
the sated revolutionary mind.
That such may be the fact will seem convincing from a careful study of
the incidents narrated in the following rudimentary story of "Rescuing
the Czar." In a technical sense it is not a story. Nevertheless, while
partaking of the nature of a simple diary, it reads like a romance of
thrilling adventure upon which a skilful novelist may easily erect a
story of permanent interest and universal appeal. But it is this very lack
of art--this indifference to accomplished technique--that makes
"Rescuing the Czar" so interesting and so convincing a rebuttal of the
Royal Executioners' Case.
There have been many periods in the progress of society when such an
original piece of work as "Rescuing the Czar" would have been
welcomed by the historian of serious events. The preservation,
discovery and the piecing together of the various scraps of first-hand
information by the actual participants in the tragic scenes narrated in
these diaries, by the compiler of this book represent a work of so
discriminating a judgment that its contribution to the historical wealth

of the period involved will assume an increasing, if not a prophetic,
value as time goes on, either to explain the mystery or authenticate the
evidence revealed. While apparently no connection is evident between
the two authors of the First and Second Parts of "Rescuing the Czar,"
the discriminating reader will be impressed by the independent way
each of them, operating unconsciously of the other, sustains the
manifest conclusion that both are recording international secrets that
never were intended for the public eye.
Imbedded in the national consciousness of many European States the
historian finds everywhere the shadowy outlines of "nobility" and
"aristocracy" delineated on the surface of traditionary pretense and
political desire. It forms the inheritance of distributive power in nations
ascending from monarchial institutions to theoretical republics or
pseudo-democracies, and it imparts