@Kevin F. Kiley I am only trying to assist those who may be less technically savvy, or digitally aware around determining the origins or motivations of electronic sources.Sadly, state sponsored misinformation is a reality. Either primarily, via a shell website or manufactured persona, or the secondary dispersal by those using those sources.They work best when there is a kernel of truth, or a grain of real academic research. They would have taken the perfectly normal and quite conservative conclusions you have used. They have then woven it into an anti-British article, placing it (and Whitworth) into a narrative of repeated historical meddling in the affairs of an innocent Russia. When seen in the context of the Scripal/Salisbury incident and subsequent strained relationships, this is entirely consistent with a misinformation operation. The “unwitting agent” comment was a general warning, and aimed at no one in particular, but remains a very real danger when dealing with anonymous postings.Regardless of who or what sources you choose to quote, our ‘Mr Samsonov’ has achieved his operational objective. He has sowed dissent between the citizens of two allies. He has allowed the suspicion of British fidelity to be amplified and cast UK intelligence services in a bad light. Even better, he has recruited a proxy to do it for him, so this message can come from a more credible source.This is not personal. I have messaged you directly with my concerns, I would hoped you had read it before continuing. However, having presented the evidence to forumites I fervently hope that they will be more sceptical when using and posting material like this.
@david Tomlinson We put up with a lot of jingoistic writing. Paul Johnson's bio of Napoleon comparing him to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot might not be state-sponsored propaganda, but it was published by Penguin, not on an obscure website.
II take your point @tomholmberg but there is a world of difference between somebody’s honestly held academic opinion and a misinformation operation. In the first the author might misquote or produce mistaken conclusions, but it’s transparent. It’s been subject to editorial rigour and publishing governance. In the second data is being deliberately manipulated or misrepresented to suit a narrative with nefarious intent.In the former academic debate is preferable, as it only surfaces and addresses perspectives. In the latter we are giving oxygen to the very intent of the instigator, and legitimising it with our argument.Our tinfoil hat wearing brethren (aka conspiracy theorists) are productive targets for any misinformation warrior. I am sure some will regard the Scripal affair as an attack on two completely innocent ex-military intelligence officers on a perfectly normal tourist outing. They probably think that it was really instigated by the Salisbury tourist board to internationally publicise the height of the cathedral spire (123m BTW). It would be more risible if we could forget that an innocent British bystander, Dawn Sturgess died in the Novachok attack.
It’s like that press conference question for President Trump:“Just now President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. Intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? “. We are constantly called upon to make a judgement call. Who posted it (attribution), What did they post (fact check), Why did they post it (motivation).
There are no scholastic or serious articles posted by Alexander Samsonov that I can find. It is the name of a WWI Russian General who committed suicide after Tannenberg. I think therefore that it is a pseudonym, and there are very good reasons why we don’t use them as contributors on this site.En.topwar.ru is not a seriously curated or moderated academic site. Nor does it practice free speech, one of its’s terms and conditions is:“m) Using derogatory vocabulary or nicknames in relation to Russia, its symbols and first persons.”For example, here is another of his considered and rational articles on how Reagan’s America was on the brink of collapse.https://en.topwar.ru/179413-kak-ssha-borolis-s-krasnym-medvedem.htmlEn.top war.ru is registered:“Mass Media Registration Certificate EL No. FS77-76970, issued by 11.10.2019 by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor)”The copyright information is 2010-2021 “Military Review”Presumably that is the modern successor to “The Command and Staff School Military Review” that I was familiar with as an official publication in the 1980’s?At the very least we have a non-scholarly article put out anonymously in the post Scripal/Salisbury era.At worst, this is part of a sustained state sponsored subtle misinformation campaign seeking to use academia to attack the close North Atlantic relationship.This research took me 5mins and used Google and a web browser. Would we have used an historical source in such a cavalier and irresponsible manner? I hope not.We are living in the post truth world everyone.
@Kevin F. Kiley if you want to be an unwitting agent in a misinformation operation, it’s up to you. If you don’t, you need to be more digitally aware. We teach it in secondary school.The scholarly works are perfectly fair if a little elderly, (I remember 1977 as Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee). The characterising it as an ongoing and sustained interference into Russia’s affairs isn’t. That is propaganda, and it is as obvious to some of us as the Corsican Ogre paradigm isThe manipulation of naive academics by propagandists is not as well known as it should be. I for one have no ambition to be such a pawn. However, if you live in a (nominally) free country you are free to do what you wish.
@Kevin F. Kiley Well, actually that’s not true in all jurisdictions. We have manslaughter for example which covers those situations where an unlawful act is undertaken but unforeseen death results. It can also apply to more than one person, as we have the concept of joint enterprise.Conspiracy to murder requires that death is both premeditated and planned by more than one person. If death occurs as a result of a scuffle, and the result could not reasonably been foreseen by those taking part in that activity then neither murder or conspiracy has occurred.My point is that even if there was a conspiracy (which there is only rumour and circumstance to suggest) Whitworth cannot have participated in it from a distance of approx 1,800 miles and having left some 11 months before. It wasn’t even his last job, having been deployed to Denmark in the August and returning to Britain on 27 September, 6 months before the incident.If ridiculous assertions like this are being made in the face of confirmed and verifiable data, this might reasonably colour your judgement of the rigour that has been applied to the remainder of the article. I think you are right though, this has similar hallmarks to other Russian “transitions of power”. Exporting conspiracy and assassination to Russia seems to be the epitome of the English expression “taking coals to Newcastle”
@Kevin F. Kiley I agree entirely, the article is pretty poorly evidenced. Sadly, Russia had form for intrigue and assassination, I wouldn’t have e thought Britain had much to add to the mix bar gold. With that in mind, we should use logic to determine what actors motivation might have been. Qui Bono? What advantage would Alexander give to Britain? A suspected Francophile I would have thought limited advantage to Britain? If it was a conspiracy it ended 6 years later in Tilsit, so it wasn’t a very successful one.I’m not sufficiently cognisant of St Petersburg politics, but can imagine many power plays and motivations amongst courtiers. External influences seem most unlikely.
@tomholmberg This is history, the loss of documents is axiomatic. It doesn’t necessarily indicate deliberate redaction, much less a conspiracy. Indeed there is such a thing as too complete to be true e.g. the Hitler diaries hoax.
His PRIMARY evidence is? Conspiracy theories are driven by secondary sources quoting secondary sources in circular arguments.Even if a document is known to have been destroyed, that’s not evidence of as to why. Conspiracies are tough enough to prove contemporaneously, ask any police detective. At a distance of more than two centuries? Without something like a confession by a conspirator it’s nigh impossible for a responsible historian to make a case without resulting in unsubstantiated speculation.However, let’s address the accusation of ‘underhanded ness’. It’s rather a foreign concept to an agent or a secret policeman. Secretiveness and guile are their stock in trade. If Russia was an ally at the time, there might be some mileage. However Paul was in close negotiation with a mortal enemy and threatening to take a number of other states with him. Supporting dissident elements that could effect a satisfactory regime change seems eminently sensible. If you could effect such a coup with minimum risk bloodshed? How many lives were lost in the ‘whiff of grapeshot’? Or is the life of a Tsar worth more than an ordinary Russian?As I’ve already pointed out, there is very little evidence for a pre-meditated murder, just abdication under duress anyway.
I have to say that I'm surprised that this article is taken at all seriously. It reads to me like nationalistic myth-making rather than considered historical research - broad brush statements without supporting evidence. Britain can rightfully be accused of many underhand dealings throughout history, and I clearly don't know if there was any involvement in Paul's murder, but to portray the state of Russia as the weaker, put-upon party, strikes me to be nothing more than nationalist propoganda.
This is not meant to diminish the huge part that Russia played in the defeat of Napoleon's dreams of domination, but a little more impartial analysis of the events of that time would make this article rather more plausible.
@Kevin F. Kiley That would presuppose there were any cogent charges to answer. Personally, I will admit to a certain sense of bemusement at historical tergiversation, not to mention the odd painfully mixed metaphor and an intriguing perspective on human anatomy.
I agree a poorly researched article - so a snuff box?
Did anybody read
The best sources concerning the final phase of the conspiracy are T. Schiemann, “Des Generals Grafen von Bennigsen Brief an den General von Fock über die Emordung Kaiser Pauls, ” Historischc Vierteljahrschajt (1901), pp. 57-69
or his book about the murder? No - well it explains a lot about how one is able to lance conspiration theories.
Of course our anglo saxon friend doesn't master the German language - Ermordung and Historische Vierteljahrschrift ( so did he read it?)
Lord Whitworth and the Conspiracy Against Tsar Paul I: The New Evidence of the Kent ArchiveJames J. Kenney, Jr.
"It is in the nature of the service that only records of failures were preserved, for the very good reason that they were necessary to protect the individuals concerned... Success must be attributed to conventional warfare or diplomatic treaty and never to the secret service. I have not therefore attempted to include the one great success in the years discussed, but there is reason to believe that the assassination of Paul I was directed from the alien office, almost certainly with the assistance of Calonne [who was a French royalist and the former Minister of Finance to Louis XVI]. There is a paper in the foreign office files which suggests that Lord Whitworth laid the basis of the plan, and the French records unequivocally state that that was so. They also name an agent, Charles-Philippe de Bosset, a Swiss officer from Neuchatel, whose employment by the alien office is well documented, as the man who is believed to have taken the order from London to St Petersburg for the operation to be put into effect."
Secret Service: British Agents in France, 1792-181. Elizabeth Sparrow.
"Circumstantial evidence links the Alien Office to such 'wet operations'as the attempted murder of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 and actual murder of Tsar Paul ..."
Titan: The Art of British Power in the Age of Revolution and Napoleon. William R. Nester.
He was the ambassador, so if his government had an ongoing intelligence operation it would be unlikely that he wouldn’t know about it.However, Paul’s murderers arrived with articles of abdication. That at least allows the possibility that the intention that night was deposition rather than murder. Certainly the choice of a snuff box as murder weapon does not sound overly pre-meditated.There is an acre of difference between allowing for the possibility of eventually forcing abdication and wishing someone dead. There is also a huge difference between being willing to support an internal movement for regime change and subsequently being on good relations with the new administration and being the axis of evil plotting such a thing. There are modern parallels in Oman for the British and with Castro for the Americans. It’s very strange to have much morale outrage if you come from a country whose head of state is the former director of such ‘wet’ operations.What this reveals is the propensity for historians who know the outcome of an operation to assume retrospectively that the result was the intent of the participants. Such narratives are incredibly seductive and therefore we see conspiracies everywhere. Such ‘reverse engineering’ is the origin of Barnum statements and the basis of numerous charlatans operations.The reality though is that human endeavours are extremely complex and rarely works like that. Evolution is far more likely than revolution, so ascribing an outcome to someone not on the scene for nearly a year is tenuous in the extreme. That academics are willing to do so says more about them than the actors at the time. Intelligence practitioners have a much more pragmatic approach.Trained risk practitioners are familiar with the difficulty in modelling such complex situations. Spend time with probability trees and decision diagrams and you realise that although people might conspire linking that to outcomes is a very different proposition.
And almost 12 months before the crime? All governments paid (pay?) for information or influence.There is circumstantial evidence that Napoleon was really an alien lizard based lifeform. Short of exhuming his body and testing it for exobiological DNA, prove me wrong. And if you do, I’ll just claim the Illuminati switched bodies. Pass me a tin foil hat do.Whitworth was on the other side of the continent, and had been for several months. How pray was he influencing events in St Petersburg without leaving an audit trail of correspondence? Telepathy?
I’m as fond of a conspiracy theory as the next member of a social media group. However, Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth might have found it quite difficult leading and organising the conspiracy to murder the Tsar in St Petersburg as he wasn’t there.He was dismissed as Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary by Tsar Paul earlier in 1800. In August Whitworth was in Copenhagen and returned to England on 27 September 1800. Paul wasn’t murdered until 23 March 1801, some 6 months or so afterwards. Indeed, he was probably distracted by arrangements for his marriage a fortnight later, on the 7th April 1801.So, an interesting idea, just not supported by the known data I’m afraid. Incidentally @Kevin F. Kiley , that’s what I mean when I say an interpretation is ‘counter-factual’.
"Lack of documentary evidence is not evidence of innocence. It is known that the gov't cleansed files of damning files, if they were even kept in the first place..."Um... I was wondering. How can one assert knowledge of files being redacted, while questioning even the existence of those very same files? That seems to be more than one bite of the cherry.
@Kevin F. Kiley I am only trying to assist those who may be less technically savvy, or digitally aware around determining the origins or motivations of electronic sources. Sadly, state sponsored misinformation is a reality. Either primarily, via a shell website or manufactured persona, or the secondary dispersal by those using those sources. They work best when there is a kernel of truth, or a grain of real academic research. They would have taken the perfectly normal and quite conservative conclusions you have used. They have then woven it into an anti-British article, placing it (and Whitworth) into a narrative of repeated historical meddling in the affairs of an innocent Russia. When seen in the context of the Scripal/Salisbury incident and subsequent strained relationships, this is entirely consistent with a misinformation operation. The “unwitting agent” comment was a general warning, and aimed at no one in particular, but remains a very real danger when dealing with anonymous postings. Regardless of who or what sources you choose to quote, our ‘Mr Samsonov’ has achieved his operational objective. He has sowed dissent between the citizens of two allies. He has allowed the suspicion of British fidelity to be amplified and cast UK intelligence services in a bad light. Even better, he has recruited a proxy to do it for him, so this message can come from a more credible source. This is not personal. I have messaged you directly with my concerns, I would hoped you had read it before continuing. However, having presented the evidence to forumites I fervently hope that they will be more sceptical when using and posting material like this.
There are no scholastic or serious articles posted by Alexander Samsonov that I can find. It is the name of a WWI Russian General who committed suicide after Tannenberg. I think therefore that it is a pseudonym, and there are very good reasons why we don’t use them as contributors on this site. En.topwar.ru is not a seriously curated or moderated academic site. Nor does it practice free speech, one of its’s terms and conditions is: “m) Using derogatory vocabulary or nicknames in relation to Russia, its symbols and first persons.” For example, here is another of his considered and rational articles on how Reagan’s America was on the brink of collapse. https://en.topwar.ru/179413-kak-ssha-borolis-s-krasnym-medvedem.html En.top war.ru is registered: “Mass Media Registration Certificate EL No. FS77-76970, issued by 11.10.2019 by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor)” The copyright information is 2010-2021 “Military Review” Presumably that is the modern successor to “The Command and Staff School Military Review” that I was familiar with as an official publication in the 1980’s? At the very least we have a non-scholarly article put out anonymously in the post Scripal/Salisbury era. At worst, this is part of a sustained state sponsored subtle misinformation campaign seeking to use academia to attack the close North Atlantic relationship. This research took me 5mins and used Google and a web browser. Would we have used an historical source in such a cavalier and irresponsible manner? I hope not. We are living in the post truth world everyone.
@Kevin F. Kiley Well, actually that’s not true in all jurisdictions. We have manslaughter for example which covers those situations where an unlawful act is undertaken but unforeseen death results. It can also apply to more than one person, as we have the concept of joint enterprise. Conspiracy to murder requires that death is both premeditated and planned by more than one person. If death occurs as a result of a scuffle, and the result could not reasonably been foreseen by those taking part in that activity then neither murder or conspiracy has occurred. My point is that even if there was a conspiracy (which there is only rumour and circumstance to suggest) Whitworth cannot have participated in it from a distance of approx 1,800 miles and having left some 11 months before. It wasn’t even his last job, having been deployed to Denmark in the August and returning to Britain on 27 September, 6 months before the incident. If ridiculous assertions like this are being made in the face of confirmed and verifiable data, this might reasonably colour your judgement of the rigour that has been applied to the remainder of the article. I think you are right though, this has similar hallmarks to other Russian “transitions of power”. Exporting conspiracy and assassination to Russia seems to be the epitome of the English expression “taking coals to Newcastle”
@tomholmberg This is history, the loss of documents is axiomatic. It doesn’t necessarily indicate deliberate redaction, much less a conspiracy. Indeed there is such a thing as too complete to be true e.g. the Hitler diaries hoax.
I have to say that I'm surprised that this article is taken at all seriously. It reads to me like nationalistic myth-making rather than considered historical research - broad brush statements without supporting evidence. Britain can rightfully be accused of many underhand dealings throughout history, and I clearly don't know if there was any involvement in Paul's murder, but to portray the state of Russia as the weaker, put-upon party, strikes me to be nothing more than nationalist propoganda.
This is not meant to diminish the huge part that Russia played in the defeat of Napoleon's dreams of domination, but a little more impartial analysis of the events of that time would make this article rather more plausible.
Get the tinfoil...
"It is in the nature of the service that only records of failures were preserved, for the very good reason that they were necessary to protect the individuals concerned... Success must be attributed to conventional warfare or diplomatic treaty and never to the secret service. I have not therefore attempted to include the one great success in the years discussed, but there is reason to believe that the assassination of Paul I was directed from the alien office, almost certainly with the assistance of Calonne [who was a French royalist and the former Minister of Finance to Louis XVI]. There is a paper in the foreign office files which suggests that Lord Whitworth laid the basis of the plan, and the French records unequivocally state that that was so. They also name an agent, Charles-Philippe de Bosset, a Swiss officer from Neuchatel, whose employment by the alien office is well documented, as the man who is believed to have taken the order from London to St Petersburg for the operation to be put into effect."
Secret Service: British Agents in France, 1792-181. Elizabeth Sparrow.
"Circumstantial evidence links the Alien Office to such 'wet operations' as the attempted murder of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 and actual murder of Tsar Paul ..."
Titan: The Art of British Power in the Age of Revolution and Napoleon. William R. Nester.
And almost 12 months before the crime? All governments paid (pay?) for information or influence. There is circumstantial evidence that Napoleon was really an alien lizard based lifeform. Short of exhuming his body and testing it for exobiological DNA, prove me wrong. And if you do, I’ll just claim the Illuminati switched bodies. Pass me a tin foil hat do. Whitworth was on the other side of the continent, and had been for several months. How pray was he influencing events in St Petersburg without leaving an audit trail of correspondence? Telepathy?
I’m as fond of a conspiracy theory as the next member of a social media group. However, Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth might have found it quite difficult leading and organising the conspiracy to murder the Tsar in St Petersburg as he wasn’t there. He was dismissed as Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary by Tsar Paul earlier in 1800. In August Whitworth was in Copenhagen and returned to England on 27 September 1800. Paul wasn’t murdered until 23 March 1801, some 6 months or so afterwards. Indeed, he was probably distracted by arrangements for his marriage a fortnight later, on the 7th April 1801. So, an interesting idea, just not supported by the known data I’m afraid. Incidentally @Kevin F. Kiley , that’s what I mean when I say an interpretation is ‘counter-factual’.