Nicholas and Alexandra (55 page)

With the defeat of the supposedly invincible Russian army, the people of Moscow rushed into the streets to take vengeance. For three days beginning June 10, 1915, shops, factories and private houses belonging to people with German names were sacked and burned. "The country house of Knop, the great Russo-German millionaire who more than any man helped to build up the Russian cotton industry . . . was burned to the ground," wrote the British Consul, R. H. Bruce Lock-hart. "The police could or would do nothing. ... I stood and watched while hooligans sacked the leading piano store of Moscow. Bechsteins, Bluthners, grand pianos, baby grands, and uprights, were hurled one by one from the various stories to the ground."

In Red Square, a mob shouted open insults to the Imperial family, demanding that the Empress be shut up in a convent, the Tsar deposed, Rasputin hanged and Grand Duke Nicholas crowned as Nicholas III. From Red Square, the crowd surged to the Convent of Mary and Martha, where the Empress's sister Grand Duchess Elizabeth met

them at the gate. There were wild, accusing shouts that she was giving sanctuary to a German spy and that she was hiding her brother Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse. The Grand Duchess, standing alone in white-and-gray robes, calmly invited the leaders to search the house to see for themselves that her brother was not there. As she answered, a stone landed at her feet. "Away with the German woman!" shouted the crowd, just as a company of soldiers arrived to drive them off. Within the government, military defeat and the nation's anger
brought swift political repercussions. General Sukhomlinov, at last at
a loss to explain away the desperate lack of guns and munitions with another amusing story, was swept away on June 20. On June 27, the Tsar, calling on "all faithful sons of the Fatherland without distinction of class or opinion, to work together with one heart and mind to supply the needs of the army," announced that the Duma would be summoned "in order to hear the voice of the land of Russia." A new Special Defense Council, including both ministers of the government and leaders of the Duma, was formed. These were hopeful signs, but they were appearing late. General Polivanov, Sukhomlinov's successor as Minister of War, a vigorous, brusque, efficient man, spoke frankly to his fellow ministers at a meeting of the ministerial council on July 16. "I consider it my duty to declare to the Council of Ministers that the country is in danger," he declared. "Where our retreat will end, only God knows."

With his soldiers retreating, the Tsar's intense feelings about beinsr with the army were revived. On July 16, walking restlessly in the park at Tsarskoe Selo with the Tsarevich and Gilliard, he said to the tutor, "You have no idea how depressing it is to be away from the front. It seems as if everything here saps energy and enfeebles resolution. . . . Out at the front men fight and die for their country. At the front there is only one thought—the determination to conquer."

Nicholas's strong feelings about the army were constantly stimulated from another, less noble source: the personal animosity of the Empress against Grand Duke Nicholas. Alexandra had never liked the fiery, impetuous soldier who towered over her less colorful husband. She had never forgotten that it was his melodramatic threat to blow out his brains in the presence of the Tsar and Witte which had forced the signing of the 1905 Manifesto, creating the Duma. At the front, she knew that "Nikolasha's" heroic size gave him the aura of the warrior grand duke, the real strong man of the Imperial family. There were rumors that among his intimates the Grand Duke did nothing to

correct the stories that he would one day be crowned as Nicholas III. Worst, she knew that Nicholas Nicolaievich had sworn implacable hatred against Rasputin. Once Rasputin, hoping to regain favor with the man who had been his most prominent patron and had first introduced him at the Imperial palace, telegraphed the Grand Duke offering to come to Headquarters to bless an icon. "Yes, do come," replied Grand Duke Nicholas. "I'll hang you."

Against this powerful, dangerous enemy Rasputin fought back skillfully. He quickly discovered the arguments to which the Empress was most susceptible, and whenever he was in her presence, he used them with poisonous effect against the Commander-in-Chief: The Grand Duke is deliberately currying favor in the army and overshadowing the Tsar so that one day he can claim the throne. The Grand Duke cannot possibly succeed on the battlefield because God will not bless him. How can God bless a man who has turned his back on me, the Man of God? In all probability, if the Grand Duke is allowed to keep his power, he will kill me, and then what will happen to the Tsarevich, the Tsar and Russia?

As long as the Russian army continued to advance, Grand Duke Nicholas's command remained secure. But once his soldiers began to retreat, his position became increasingly vulnerable. Through the summer, Alexandra's letters to the Tsar maintained a steady drumfire of criticism against the Grand Duke, echoing and re-echoing Rasputin's arguments:

June 11 (O.S.): "Please my angel, make N. [Nikolasha, the Grand Duke] see with your eyes. ... I hope my letter did not displease but I am haunted by our Friend's [Rasputin's] wish and know it will be fatal for us and the country if not fulfilled. He means what he says when He speaks so seriously."

June 12: "Would to God N. were another man and not turned against a Man of God's."

June 16: "I have absolutely no faith in N.—know him to be far from clever and having gone against a Man of God, his work can't be blessed or his advice good. . . . Russia will not be blessed if her sovereign lets a Man of God sent to help him be persecuted, I am sure. . . . You know N.'s hatred for Gregory is intense."

June 17: "N's fault and Witte's that the Duma exists, and it has caused you more worry than joy. Oh, I do not like N. having anything to do with these big sittings which concern interior questions, he understands our country so little and imposes upon the ministers with his loud voice and gesticulations. I can go wild sometimes at his false position. . . . Nobody knows who is the Emperor now. ... It

is as though N. settles all, makes the choices and changes. It makes me utterly wretched."

June 25: "I loathe your being at Headquarters . . . listening to N.'s advice which is not good and cannot be—he has no right to act as he does, mixing in your concerns. All are shocked that the ministers go with reports to him, as though he were now the sovereign. Ah, my Nicky, things are not as they ought to be and therefore N. keeps you near to have a hold over you with his ideas and bad counsels."

The Tsar did not share his wife's strong views of Grand Duke Nicholas. He respected the Grand Duke and had full—and thoroughly justified—confidence in his loyalty. Paléologue, visiting
Stavka,
once attempted to discuss the Tsar's views with the Commander-in-Chief. Drawing himself up, the Grand Duke replied coldly, "I never discuss an opinion of His Majesty's except when he does me the honor of asking my advice." To suppress talk in some ranks of the army that Russia could not go on fighting, the Grand Duke issued an Order of the Day: "All faithful subjects know that in Russia, everyone from the Commander-in-Chief to the private soldier, obeys and obeys only the sacred and august will of the Anointed of God, our deeply revered Emperor, who alone has the power to begin and end a war."

Wherever possible the Tsar tried to buffer relations between the Empress and Grand Duke Nicholas. In April 1915, when Nicholas was to visit Lemberg and Przemysl, Alexandra wanted the Grand Duke to remain behind so that her husband alone could receive the cheers of the troops. Calmly, Nicholas dissuaded her: "Darling mine, I do not agree with you that N. ought to remain here during my visit to Galicia. On the contrary, precisely because I am going in wartime to a conquered province, the commander-in-chief ought to be accompanying me. It is he who accompanies me, not I who am in his suite."

Nevertheless, as the retreat continued, the Tsar's determination to take personal command of the army intensified. With the army and the nation in danger, he was convinced that it was his duty to unifv civil and military authority and take on his own person the full weight of responsibility for Russia's destiny. In the Council of Ministers, where bitter attacks had been made on Grand Duke Nicholas's handling of military operations, Prime Minister Goremykin warned his colleagues, "I consider it my duty to repeat to the members of the Council my emphatic advice to be extremely careful in what thev are going to say to the Emperor about . . . those questions that relate to General Headquarters and the Grand Duke. Irritation against the Grand Duke at Tsarskoe Selo has become of a character which threatens serious consequences. I fear that your representations may serve as a pretext to bring about grave complications."

On August 5, Warsaw fell. "The Emperor, white and trembling, brought this news to the Empress as we sat at tea on her balcony in the warm autumn air," wrote Anna Vyrubova. "The Emperor was fairly overcome with grief and humiliation. 'It cannot go on like this,' he exclaimed bitterly."

Three weeks later, Nicholas and Alexandra made an unannounced, private visit by automobile to Petrograd. They drove first to the cathedral in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, where they knelt before the tombs of the tsars. From there they went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, where they remained for several hours kneeling at the miraculous icon of the Virgin, praying for guidance. That night, the Council of Ministers was summoned to the Alexander Palace. Nicholas dined that evening with his wife and Anna Vyrubova. Before leaving for the meeting, he asked them to pray that his resolution remain strong. Silently, Anna pressed into his hand a tiny icon which she always wore around her neck. Carrying the icon, Nicholas walked out of the room and the two women settled down to wait. As the minutes stretched into hours, Alexandra grew impatient. Throwing a cloak around her shoulders and motioning Anna to follow, she slipped out onto a balcony which led past the windows of the council chamber. Through the lace curtains inside, they could see the Tsar, sitting very straight in his chair, surrounded by his ministers. One of the ministers was on his feet, arguing passionately.

Without exception, the ministers were aghast at the Tsar's proposal. They pointed to the disorganization of governmental machinery that would come if the head of state were to spend all his time at Headquarters, more than five hundred miles from the seat of government. They declared that the unity of administration which Nicholas sought would merely become a concentration of all blame for military defeats and political turmoil on the head of the sovereign. In the last resort, they begged him not to go to the front at a moment when the army was defeated. Nicholas listened, his brows and hands covered with perspiration, until every minister had spoken. Then he thanked them and announced quietly, "Gentlemen, in two days I leave for
Stavka."

His public letter to the Grand Duke, explaining his decision, was characteristic of the Tsar. Eloquent and felicitous, it managed to spare the Grand Duke's pride while gracefully easing him out of his post:

To Your Imperial Highness:

At the beginning of the war there were reasons of a political nature which prevented me from following my personal inclinations and immediately putting myself at the head of the army.

Hence the fact that I conferred upon you the supreme command of all the military and naval forces.

Before the eyes of all Russia, Your Imperial Highness has during the war displayed an invincible courage, which has given me and all Russians the greatest confidence in you, and roused the ardent hopes with which your name was everywhere associated in the inevitable vicissitudes of military fortune. Now that the enemy has penetrated far into the empire, my duty to the country which God has committed to my keeping ordains that I shall assume supreme command of the fighting forces, share the burdens and toils of war with my army and help it to protect Russian soil against the onslaught of the foe.

The ways of Providence are inscrutable; but my duty and my own desires strengthen me in a determination which has been inspired by concern for the common weal.

The hostile invasion which is making more progress every day on the western front, demands above all an extreme concentration of all civil and military authority, unity of command during the war, and intensification of the activities of the whole administrative services. But all these duties distract our attention from the southern front, and in these circumstances, I feel the necessity for your advice and help on that front. I therefore appoint you my lieutenant in the Caucasus and Commander-in-Chief of the brave army operating in that region.

To Your Imperial Highness I wish to express my profound gratitude and that of the country for all your work in the war.

Nicholas

The letter was personally delivered to Grand Duke Nicholas at Headquarters by the War Minister, Polivanov. "God be praised," said Nicholas Nicolaievich simply. "The Emperor releases me from a task which was wearing me out." When the Tsar himself arrived at
Stavka,
he wrote: "N. came in with a kind, brave smile and asked simply when I would order him to go. The following day at lunch and dinner he was very talkative and in a very good mood."

The fall of the Grand Duke was a source of grim satisfaction to the Germans. "The Grand Duke," Ludendorff wrote later, "was really a great soldier and strategist." In the Russian army, officers and men were sad to see him go, but the summer of disaster had dimmed his hero's luster. Within the mauve boudoir at Tsarskoe Selo, the change was hailed as a supreme personal triumph. When Nicholas left for
Stavka,
he carried with him a letter of ecstasy from Alexandra:

My very own beloved one, I cannot find words to express all I want to—my heart is too full. I only long to hold you tight in my arms and whisper words of intense love, courage, strength and endless blessings. . . . You have fought this great fight for your country and throne—alone and with bravery and decision. Never have they seen such firmness in you before. ... I know what it costs you . . . forgive me, I beseech you, my Angel, for having left you no peace and worried you so much, but I too well know your marvelously gentle character and you had to shake it off this time, had to win your fight alone against all. It will be a glorious page in your reign and Russian history, the story of these weeks and days. . . . God anointed you at your coronation, he placed you where you stand and you have done your duty, be sure, quite sure of that and He forsaketh not his anointed. Our Friend's prayers arise day and night for you to Heaven and God will hear them. ... It is the beginning of the great glory of your reign, He said so and I absolutely believe it. . . . Sleep well, my Sunshine, Russia's Savior. Remember last night how tenderly we clung together. I shall yearn for your caresses. ... I kiss you without end and bless you. Holy Angels guard your slumber. I am near and with you forever and ever and none shall separate us.