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Updated: May 1, 2025
Allegations had been made by General Petrovsky, later Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the general had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while Colonel Balvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had asserted that Soukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each, while the Toula factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.
Yatchevski was, of course, unconscious of the knowledge held by the monk. He was at the Ministry of War, head of one of its many departments, a loyal patriotic Russian, who, like our millions, believed that Soukhomlinoff was "out to win." He was ignorant of the irresistible power which the dirty "saint" could wield.
Then after a pause he added: "Ring up His Excellency the Minister of War and ask where Brusiloff is at the present moment." I did so, and after a short wait found myself talking to General Soukhomlinoff, who told me that the Russian commander was that day at headquarters at Minsk.
She moved in that rather gay, go-ahead set of which, prior to the war, the reckless Madame Soukhomlinoff was the centre, and she had recently become quite a notable figure in Petrograd society. Rasputin, furious at her interruption, roared: "Silence, woman! Go out of the room at once!" But Madame Svetchine, springing to her feet, cried: "It is monstrous! Disgraceful! Blasphemous!
One day the German agent, who was an exceedingly wily person, came to Rasputin and told him that he had induced the young lady of Kharkof to reveal to him certain secrets concerning the dealings of Soukhomlinoff and the supply of machine-guns for the Army facts which had been presented in strictest confidence by one of the War Minister's enemies to the President of the Kharkof tribunal.
I sat in silence, listening to this strange talk of what was to happen to England when Russia was crushed. "The charges against Soukhomlinoff ought never to have been made," the Emperor went on, addressing the monk. "I understood from your report to Steinhauer that you were arranging that the Tsar should hush up the inquiry?"
The result was that not only did Rasputin obtain possession of the concession for Otchakov, but he sold it a month later for a huge sum to a syndicate of bankers in Vienna, who still hold it. The monk, after paying a dole to the ex-agent of police, divided up the spoils with Protopopoff, Stürmer and Soukhomlinoff, and, in addition, he bought a very valuable diamond necklace for Anna Vyrubova.
"Well, that difficulty can be overcome, surely?" asked the monk. General Soukhomlinoff, a traitor himself, laughed lightly as he replied: "Of course. There were other means.
Only on the previous night the Tsar, accompanied by Soukhomlinoff and Rasputin, had dined at the mess of the officers of the Guard, and all three, His Majesty included, had become highly hilarious, and later on hopelessly drunk. "True!" exclaimed the Minister of War, who had so misled Russia and the Tsar into a belief that all was prepared for hostilities against Germany.
The capital teemed with Germans like Stürmer and Fredericks, traitors like Protopopoff and Soukhomlinoff, men like Azeff, Guerassimoff and Kurtz one day the bosom friend of Ministers and powerful noblemen, and the next cast into the fortress of Peter and Paul Rogogin, the sycophant Raeff whom Rasputin had made Procurator of the Holy Synod and the drunken "saint" Mitia the Blessed at last dismissed spiritualists, charlatans, and cranks.
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