As World War I started kicking off Tsar Nicholas took supreme command of the Russian armies hoping it might lift their spirits after heavy losses — 1.5 million Russian troops had already been killed by the Germans. This left Rasputin and Alexandra home alone. That worried the ruling elite even more. Rumours abounded that they were having affair (for which there is no evidence) and also that Rasputin was convincing Alexandra how to rule Russia. We’ll never know how true that was but people were not impressed with the state of play.

The net continued to close in on Rasputin and the inevitable assassination attempt came but in typical Rasputin style he didn’t go down easily and the details are patchy.

Many relevant documents have either been lost in time, or were purged by paranoid Soviets. The memoirs of the killers: 29-years-old Felix Yusupov (below) and 47-years old Vladimir Purishkevich are still around as are some other accounts. But none are 100% reliable and none fully match up with each other.

Late on the evening of his murder, Rasputin was invited to Yusupov’s castle. On arrival he was lead down into a sound proof room which had been designed for the purpose in mind. This is where the details get sketchy. Officially he was poisoned at this point (although a later autopsy found no poison in his gut). Yusupov played the waiting game, but after an hour Rasputin had not fallen foul of the poison, so he went upstairs to consult the conspirators. He returned to the basement armed…

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