RUSSIA: Ashes in Urns

The mystery surrounding the fate of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, so often solved, has been solved again. In the expressive words of Le Matin, Paris Journal: "General Janin [onetime head of the French Mission in Siberia] has spoken." It appears that the General was given several urns of human ashes by the Russian General Diterichs and M. Gilliard, tutor to the little Tsarevitch. These gruesome relics he handed over to M. de Giers, quondam Russian Ambassador to Rome, and the latter has, apparently, handed them over to the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch, cousin of the Tsar and leader of the world-scattered Russian Monarchists. Describing the contents of the urns, General Janin said: "To me fell the difficult charge of bringing to France, for the Grand Duke Nikolai, the remains of the Emperor Nicholas II, of the Empress, of the Tsarevitch Alexis, of the young Grand Duchesses and of two servants. These poor remains could no longer be separated. The ashes of the Sovereign were mixed with those of his faithful valets. All that was recognizable was a finger, held by experts to belong to the Empress because it was that of a middle-aged woman and its nail had been carefully manicured. There was also—with calcined precious stones, the remains of burnt clothing, the buckle of the Tsarevitch's sword belt, military buttons, some portable icons, and other objects of piety— a shapeless little mass of human grease!" The Monarchists, headed by the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch, however, declined to reveal the present resting place of the urns and all that could be obtained by diligent newsmen were multiplex corroborations of General Janin's tale. It has been rumored that the whole story of the ashes is pure propaganda for the Russian Monarchist cause, but this is not borne out by the facts of the case.