Andrew Cook - To Kill Rasputin

The forthcoming Allied Mission – a deputation from England and France, due to arrive in less than three weeks – was to see people of influence and set up links to enable Russia to get in step with the other two Allied powers. Buchanan explained that it was difficult for the English and French visitors to have any faith in this process when one hardly knew which Minister would be in power from one week to the next. It was important to allow good people to make their own decisions about the team they wanted to work with. And on this topic, he felt he must warn His Majesty (again) that the Tsarina must not be used as a tool of the German propaganda machine by those around her. He tried to tell him (again) how important it was to work with the people of Russia. Warming to his theme, Sir George suggested that the Tsar had come to the parting of the ways.

If I were to see a friend walking through a wood on a dark night along a path which I knew ended in a precipice, would it not be my duty, sir, to warn him of his danger? And is it not equally my duty to warn Your Majesty of the abyss that lies ahead of you? 21

The Tsar thanked him but told him not to exaggerate Russia’s problems. If they were in any way as severe as he implied, he could in any case rely on his army to defend him from an uprising.

According to Stopford, who met him bounding up the embassy stairs, Sir George came back from the audience looking rather chipper. However, at some point the following day, his mood was to change to one of concern and trepidation. Quite how or when it reached him is not clear, but his own diary leaves us in little doubt that Buchanan received news of the most unwelcome kind – news that could have catastrophic diplomatic consequences for Britain. Rather than wait to see if he would be summoned, Buchanan decided to take the bull by the horns and raise the matter directly with the Tsar himself at the Russian New Year’s Reception.

The stunning news Buchanan had heard on the grapevine was to the effect that evidence had recently come into the possession of the Tsar that led him to suspect ‘a certain British subject’ of being Rasputin’s killer. According to Buchanan:

I took the opportunity of assuring him that the suspicion was absolutely groundless. His Majesty thanked me and said that he was very glad to hear this. 22

Whether or not the Tsar believed Buchanan’s assurance and indeed how assured Buchanan himself actually was that no British subject was in anyway involved is equally unclear. It would seem that Buchanan had contacted Hoare for his reaction, but then again, Hoare was not necessarily aware of what his own men were up to a good deal of the time.

Who then was this nameless mystery man who had come to the Tsar’s attention and who had caused Buchanan at least one night’s troubled sleep? The Tsar had supported the Allies in the first place in order to get foreign debt written off and access to Constantinople as a reward when they won, so he did not want to offend them. But he, the Okhrana and Rasputin’s friends had been asking themselves exactly who had had an interest in murdering Rasputin, and had drawn certain conclusions.

Robert H. Bruce Lockhart was a handsome rugger player with a weakness for dangerous love affairs. He was also a British consular officer with a better understanding of Russia’s troubles than most. He had been in Russia since 1912 and had learned to be wary of the political judgement of his compatriots. In particular, he wrote in 1932,

…my experiences of the war and of the Russian revolution have left me with a very poor opinion of secret service work. Doubtless it has its uses and its functions, but political work is not its strong point. The buying of information puts a premium on manufactured news. But even manufactured news is less dangerous than the honest reports of men who, however brave and however gifted as linguists, are frequently incapable of forming a reliable political judgement. 1

The extreme revolutionary surge in Russia by the end of 1916 was unstoppable, but very few of the British had yet recognised that Russia’s imperial system was too far gone to save. Part of the problem was the company they kept. Bruce Lockhart was pretty well alone among the British in taking the progressive intelligentsia seriously as a political force, and he was stationed in Moscow. He was also a Foreign Office employee. In Petrograd, the capital, the Ambassador and Consul worked for the Foreign Office; the Military Attaché worked for the War Office; and the British Intelligence Mission was ostensibly part of the War Office, paid for out of Foreign Office funds. While the functions of all three were different, all must keep a close eye on their particular spheres of interest.

In Petrograd, both diplomats and Secret Service men felt it necessary to cultivate contacts in the Duma but also, importantly, among the aristocracy. As newcomers, Sir Samuel Hoare and his wife were completely out of the social loop, and had a dull time of it in consequence. The Hon. Albert Stopford knew the conspirators and brought Dmitri Pavlovich and Buchanan together. But Stopford and Buchanan were older men, on a different wavelength to Dmitri and Yusupov.

During the war years a junior lieutenant in the British Military Censor’s office probably went to more parties in high places than all the members of the Embassy staff put together. 2

Bruce Lockhart was referring to Lt Oswald Rayner, whose job disguised his intelligence function. Rayner, a good-looking young man, was a Smethwick draper’s son, the least likely recipient, one might suppose, of the glittering favours that Prince Yusupov could bestow. Yet at twenty-seven he had been taken up by the inner circle of gilded youth. He had reached this position by his own intellect, industry, charm and great good fortune.

He had been born in November 1888 into modest circumstances, and would in due course have five younger brothers and sisters. At eleven he obtained a scholarship to King Edward’s School, then located in New Street, Birmingham. 3The boy absorbed education like blotting paper, but the son of a draper with six children could go only so far before lack of money would dictate that he go out in the world and obtain employment; and we know from correspondence that the family was in financial difficulties in the early years of the century. 4Rayner was good at languages, and when he left school he was fortunate enough to obtain a position as an English teacher at an establishment run by a Mr Ölquist in Helsinki. In Finland (which was then annexed to Russia) he would meet a Finnish couple whose generosity would change his life forever. In February 1907, when he was eighteen, he wrote home delightedly:

Dear Mother and Father,

I am writing to you in order to lay before you such a romance as you would scarce expect to find anywhere outside the bounds of fiction.

As you already know, people have been very kind and hospitable to me in Finland. Amongst those who have been kindest, I believe I have already mentioned Mr and Mrs Uno Donner. Mr and Mrs Donner have very often invited me to spend evenings with them at their flat. I have always enjoyed these visits more than any others; for from the first, I could be perfectly natural there. At all other places I have been obliged, more or less, to pose as a good deal older than I really am, in order to apologise as it were for my position as English Teacher in the Institute… To make a long story short, they have asked me if I would like to put myself under their charge and continue my studies at Oxford! They broached the subject just after dinner one evening a few days ago. Naturally I was quite overcome with astonishment and returned home dazed, expecting every moment to wake up from a more than usually vivid dream. I promised to give them a definite answer the following day at 12 o’clock. I was brooding over the matter during the night, and came to the conclusion that provided you agreed to the proposal, this strange turn of my fortunes would open out new roads for my future, and provide me with my highest aspiration realised – an Oxford University career. 5