Read the Romanov Prophecy (2004) for Free Online

to the last Romanov to occupy the Russian throne—Nicholas II—and what happened in Siberia on July 16, 1918. He’d read many published accounts and several unpublished ones during the past few weeks. All were, at best, contradictory. It took a detailed study of each report, culling out obvious falsehoods and combining facts, to glean any useful information. His growing notes now formed a cumulative narrative of that fateful night in Russian history.

    Nicholas rustled from a sound sleep. A soldier stood over him. It wasn’t often over the course of the past few months that he’d been able to actually sleep, and he resented the intrusion. But there was little he could do. He’d once been the Tsar of All Russia, Nicholas II, the embodiment of the Almighty on Earth. But a year ago last March he’d been forced to do the unthinkable for a divine monarch—abdicate in the face of violence. The provisional government that followed him was mainly liberals from the
Duma
and a coalition of radical socialists. It was to be a caretaker body until a constituent assembly could be elected, but the Germans had allowed Lenin to cross their territory and reenter Russia, hoping he’d wreak political havoc.
    And he had.
    Toppling the weak provisional government ten months back in what the guards proudly called the October Revolution.
    Why was his cousin the kaiser doing this to him? Did he hate him that much? Was winning the World War important enough to sacrifice a ruling dynasty?
    Apparently so.
    Just two months after seizing power, to no one’s surprise, Lenin signed a cease-fire with the Germans, and Russia abandoned the Great War, leaving the Allies without an eastern front to occupy the advancing Germans. Britain, France, and the United States could not be happy. He understood the dangerous game Lenin was playing. Promising the people peace to gain their confidence, but needing to delay its implementation in order to placate the Allies, while at the same time not offending his real ally, the kaiser. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed five months back, was nothing short of devastating. Germany gained a quarter of Russia’s territory and nearly a third of its people. That action, he’d been told, had generated great resentment. The talk among the guards was that all of the Bolshevik enemies had finally coalesced under a unified White banner, chosen in startling contrast to the communist Red flag. A mass of recruits had already gravitated to the Whites. Peasants particularly were drawn, since land was still denied them.
    A civil war now raged.
    White versus Red.
    And he was merely Citizen Romanov, prisoner of the Red Bolsheviks.
    Ruler of no one.
    He and his family had first been held in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, not far from Petrograd. Then they were moved west to Tobolsk, in central Russia, a river town full of whitewashed churches and log cabins. The people there had been openly loyal, showing great respect to their fallen tsar and his family. They’d daily gathered in large numbers outside the confinement house, removing their hats and crossing themselves. Hardly a day went by without a delivery of cakes, candles, and icons. The guards themselves, members of the honored Rifle Regiment, had been friendly and had taken the time to talk and play cards. They’d been allowed books and newspapers, even correspondence. The food had been excellent and every comfort was shown them.
    All in all, not a bad prison.
    Then, seventy-eight days ago, another move.
    This time here, to Yekaterinburg, on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, deep in the heart of Mother Russia where Bolsheviks dominated. Ten thousand Red Army troops wandered the streets. The local population was bitterly opposed to anything tsarist. The house of a wealthy merchant, a man named Ipatiev, had been commandeered and converted into a makeshift prison. The House of Special Purpose, Nicholas had heard it called. A high wooden fence had been erected, the