That such may be the fact will seem convincing from a careful study of the incidents narrated in the following rudimentary story of “Rescuing the Czar.”  In a technical sense it is not a story.  Nevertheless, while partaking of the nature of a simple diary, it reads like a romance of thrilling adventure upon which a skilful novelist may easily erect a story of permanent interest and universal appeal.  But it is this very lack of art—­this indifference to accomplished technique—­that makes “Rescuing the Czar” so interesting and so convincing a rebuttal of the Royal Executioners’ Case.

There have been many periods in the progress of society when such an original piece of work as “Rescuing the Czar” would have been welcomed by the historian of serious events.  The preservation, discovery and the piecing together of the various scraps of first-hand information by the actual participants in the tragic scenes narrated in these diaries, by the compiler of this book represent a work of so discriminating a judgment that its contribution to the historical wealth of the period involved will assume an increasing, if not a prophetic, value as time goes on, either to explain the mystery or authenticate the evidence revealed.  While apparently no connection is evident between the two authors of the First and Second Parts of “Rescuing the Czar,” the discriminating reader will be impressed by the independent way each of them, operating unconsciously of the other, sustains the manifest conclusion that both are recording international secrets that never were intended for the public eye.

Imbedded in the national consciousness of many European States the historian finds everywhere the shadowy outlines of “nobility” and “aristocracy” delineated on the surface of traditionary pretense and political desire.  It forms the inheritance of distributive power in nations ascending from monarchial institutions to theoretical republics or pseudo-democracies, and it imparts a touch of pathos to the lingering hope of Royalty that humanity may some day welcome its return to reverence and power.  It forms the superstructure on which the crumbling column of aristocracy sustains its capital pretensions amid the ruins of privileged exemption from the universal law of change.  Consequently the reader will not be surprised nor much alarmed when encountering its subterranean methods depicted in these pages.  They will merely fortify the accepted impression among students of events that when Time binds up the wounds of Revolutionary Russia the world will discover an Agrarian Democracy, instead of a Soviet Communism or Romanoff Empire, emerging from the cosmos of organized disorder in that land.  This seems to be the trend of thought behind “Rescuing the Czar.”  Yet it does not conceal a fundamental inclination to sympathize with every rank that suffers in this onward sweep of power.  Royalty and Rags, throughout these pages, find many mourners over the sacrifices each has made to reconcile the eternal conflict