The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1499: Chapter 247: The Power of the Tsar

The ladies discussed fervently the enormous impact of the Tsar’s visit to Moscow on the city, but their observations ultimately were not like those of Sir Arthur Hastings, whose energy was focused on intelligence matters all day.

The ”Moscow Telecommunications” was sealed, followed by the Moscow fire, the assault on British diplomats, a series of upheavals that shook the usually complacent Moscow authorities into panic.

Tsar Nicholas I’s admonition to the Moscow Government at the Kremlin was merely an appetizer; the Tsar soon let this ancient Russian capital taste the traditional Russian flavor of the iron fist.

The Tsar was dissatisfied with the Moscow authorities’ interrogations of liberal factions, dissatisfied with handing them over to open police management, dissatisfied with the inability to capture the arsonists who have plagued Moscow for a long time, and he was furious that the arsonists dared to commit crimes at the Moscow theatre, right under his nose. Moreover, the public attack on British diplomats in the street made him lose face in diplomatic circles.

In essence, Tsar Nicholas I was dissatisfied with everything in Moscow, and gossip was stirring privately among Moscow’s officialdom that ’His Majesty the Tsar might consider rebuilding Moscow’s political ecology’.

For a time, everyone in Moscow authorities from top to bottom was on edge, from Duke Dmitry Golitsyn, the head of the Moscow Government, down to the most insignificant junior staff sharpening quill pens in the office, everyone was anxiously viewing their future.

From the dawn of the second day after the Tsar’s arrival in Moscow, all police stations were filled with sentries, with a company of light cavalry stationed in every police station’s yard.

The parade ground at the Krutitsy barracks was lined with all kinds of well-wiped cannons reflective of light; the garrison soldiers began drilling before it was light, and by four thirty in the morning, their shouts could be heard from practicing bayonet charges.

In the evening, cavalry and infantry patrol squads rampaged through various streets.

The usually slack Police Chiefs also rode horses, leading Cossacks and Constitutional Soldiers to inspect back and forth along the city’s main roads without stopping day and night.

Duke Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, also led by example in this respect, surrounded by aides, he rode to personally inspect the city gates.

Peaceful Moscow suddenly became as if on the brink of warfare, with unsettling rumors and anxious hearts everywhere.

The Tsar’s majesty not only enveloped Moscow in a dark cloud, but even foreign officials like Arthur felt the spreading work pressure from the general unease.

He just learned that the batch of liberal factions caught earlier had already been handed over entirely to the Third Bureau, as per the Tsar’s directive, from the Moscow police.

What the Tsar brought from St. Petersburg was not only his own ethereal imperial presence but also Bendendorf, the head of the Third Bureau, one of the most competent agents from the St. Petersburg side, related to both the Governor of Moscow and the Academic Director of Moscow University, Alexander Feodorovich Golitsyn, and several interrogation experts meticulously trained by the Third Bureau.

As a former leader of a secret agency, Arthur would never underestimate the abilities of his Russian colleagues.

And years of experience in the government also told him, once this group has received orders from their superiors, with a clear purpose in mind to investigate a case, whatever kind of result they would eventually find out.

Such cases appeared not only in the Fouchet Memo that he read in France but also not only in stories he heard from former Paris Security Department head Victor but in the Bernie Harrison case and the Liverpool explosion case he experienced firsthand.

Reaching a conclusion first then slowly finding evidence to support it, such a method of investigating cases is very straightforward, not needing much effort, the biggest problem is merely getting the criminal to confess to crimes they might not have committed. And this biggest issue should barely be a problem for the interrogation experts of the Third Bureau.

At such a time, Arthur could only hope that Herzen really kept in mind the words he said that day.

As for another of the few good news, perhaps it was that the second appointed Moscow Trial Committee by the Tsar did not entirely exclude local Moscow officials.

Although Tsar Nicholas I would often employ various means to declare to his subjects that—the power of the Tsar in Russia was unlimited.

And in Russia’s capital St. Petersburg, he almost achieved this point.

But let’s not forget, this is Moscow, the gathering place of Russia’s traditional old nobility.

The Tsar’s policies can be implemented without pressure in the bureaucratic city of St. Petersburg, but in Moscow, a city that preserved most of Ancient Russia’s traditions, even the Tsar had to concede in certain aspects.

For example, although Russia’s capital was St. Petersburg, and the Tsar lived there in Russia’s most modern city for years, every Tsar’s coronation ceremony had to be held at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Because this is Russia’s rule, whether the Rurik Dynasty or the Romanov Dynasty, no matter what the Tsar is called, he must respect and fulfill this.

In the seven-member list of the second session of the interrogation committee, although the Tsar’s confidants occupied four seats, and Duke Dmitry Golitsyn of the first session committee was replaced, but the one to replace his chairman position was still a Moscow official—Duke Sergei Golitsyn, the Academic Director of Moscow University, while the chief judge was Sergei Star, the Moscow City Defense Commander.