Sofia Perovskaya Terrorist Princess: The Plot to Kill Tsar Alexander II and the Woman Who Led It by Robert R. Riggs

Author:Robert R. Riggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Global Harmony Press Inc.
Published: 2017-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14: Attack Is Made on a Train of Marmalade

On the morning of November 19th, Prince D. D. Obolensky came in from the country to Tula in the hope of getting a lift across the 180 kilometers northward to Moscow in one of the imperial trains. The Emperor’s passage had disorganized the time table. Ordinary trains were running up to eight hours late. Obolensky found the police and railway officials at Tula completely exhausted. Rumors circulated that the “nihilists” were up to something. Catching Goldenberg with his trunk full of heavy explosive strongly tended to confirm that something was afoot. A favorite theory was that the revolutionaries would throw a torpedo on the rails as the train passed. There were patrols, house searches, and precautionary arrests. Prince Obolensky was on friendly terms with court officials. He had little difficulty securing permission to travel in the baggage train. Under the original schedule this train should have been the first. But, due to a mechanical issue, the baggage car locomotive was unable to keep to the time table. It was decided, on the spur of the moment, to alter the order and have the Emperor’s train travel ahead of the separate baggage train.

Obolensky found a number of friends on board the baggage train. He chatted with them, had something to eat, and sat back to read a book. At 11 o’clock at night a conductor came through to announce that they were getting close to Moscow. Obolensky started getting his things together. Suddenly there was a crash. He was thrown out of his seat. He scrambled out of the coach and walked up the line. Guards, soldiers, and railway men were running up and down shouting. In the pitch dark, everything was in confusion. Obolensky tripped over a fallen telegraph pole. He noticed a hole in the ground from which emerged a thin trail of smoke. Some 50 meters away was a small house. One of the guards went across to it. There was a light burning in front of the icon, the samovar was boiling and the tea china was on the table, but there was no sign of the occupants. Obolensky walked up to the fourth coach. It was derailed, on its side, a broken mass of iron and timber. No one was hurt. Fortunately, it was solely a baggage car with no one riding in it. The car was full of jam, being brought back from the imperial estates in the Crimea for the palace in St. Petersburg. Marmalade and broken containers were scattered everywhere. A railway engineer appeared and argued that the rain must have loosened the embankment. Obolensky, however, smelled dynamite. He recognized the smell because he had recently been supervising blasting operations on his estate.

Obolensky walked to town and took a cab to the Kremlin. By then it was very late. The official reception was over and the Emperor and his staff had gone to bed. Obolensky insisted on seeing Count Adlerberg. The sleepy count was incredulous.

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