The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1917-03-29
4 REIGN OF MISFORTUNEs.
Czar Accused of Writing to Kaiser
Secretly.

of Russia. has been theme OF man!
contra dictions. On one point, now
ever. all chronicles have agreed, ana
that has been in regard to the essen
tial timidity of the man.
Circumstantial stories have been
circulated from country to country
during the progress of the great war
that the car was secretly maintain
ing a. confidential correspondence
with the kaiser The letters OF the
warning monarchs were said to have
been dispatched by couriers from re-
trograd and Berlin, who would meet
by Encouragement at some obscure
point in Sweden, where they would
exchange the royal missives.
This piece of gossip, attributed to
high authority, illustrates the estlma-
ton in which the czar was held. he
was believed to be fearful of the lib
eralizing forces fermenting in his un-
wieldy empire, and fretfully dlstrust-
fnl fo the democratic influence of his
allies. England and France, upon the
dawning aspirations of his own peo-
pie.
Fear for the future of autocracy IN
Russia was attributed to him as
motive for clinging with childlike de-
pendence to the one European ruler
who. although technically his enemy,
was always to be counted upon as
last-ditch champion of the divine
right" of monarchs, whether Hohen-
zollern or Romanoff.
Reign of Misfortunes.
The story of the courier corre-
spondence with the kaiser may not
have been literally true, or, if true,
it may never be proved-but this
weeks events in Russia point to the
conclusion that it was at least a
straw showing which way the wind
blew in Russia.
The reign of Car Nicholas, now
ingloriously ended by deposition, has
been anything but happy one. Its
twenty-five years have been marked
by mysterious misfortunes shadoWlng
the personal fortune and fame OF the
monarch himself. The series began
with his accession to the throne on
the death of his father in 1894.
Hundreds of peasants and laborers
were killed in disaster which gave
a note of horror to his coronation
festivities. The populace had been
hidden to assemble in plain near
Moscow, where they would be treated
to refreshments and view of the
young car, who would say a few
words to them from high platform
built for the purpose.
Owing to culpable mismanage-
ment, the crowding people were
pushed into deep ditch that had
been dug around the plain, and many
were crushed to death. Count Paul
Vassili, veteran Russian diplomat,
and a bitter critic of the czar, wrote
in his memoirs this description of
what followed:
A Stupid Blunder.
The emperor was expected at any
moment, and he could not be allowed
to see all those bodies scattered
everywhere about. Soldiers were re-
Questioned and they hastily-will
such fatal stupidity be believed?-
thrust the corpses under the very pa
vilion in which the sovereign was to
alight and from the balcony of which
he was to witness the feast.
Thus by a terrible blunder of
which he knew nothing, but for
which he was ever after bitterly re-
preached, Nicholas II actually stood
for more than five hours over the
dead bodies of his subjects, killed in
their endeavors to welcome him.
Count Vassili adds that the czar
appeared at great court ball that
evening without showing any sign of
distress, and when a royal visitor ex-
pressed sorrow at the disaster, re-
piled, calmly:
Yes, it is very sad; but such acci-
dents happen often when there is a
great congregation of people,
Others have seen Car Nicholas II
as an idealist and humanitarian. AL
though no man of his time has been
more hated and cursed, the late w.
T. Stead, of England, believed him a
passionately sincere apostle of uni
versal peace. Andrew Carnegie
holds the same view, largely inspired
by the Cars inauguration of the
first peace conference at The.Hague.
Good Acts and Bad.
The establishment of the Russian
Duma, limited as it's powers were