Nicholas and Alexandra (60 page)

Nevertheless, Goremykin's stubborn, old-fashioned views of autocracy and the role of the minister were much too rare and valuable for him to be let go. "I am a man of the old school and an Imperial Command is for me a law," he declared. "To me, His Majesty is the anointed one, the rightful sovereign. He personifies the whole of Russia. He is forty-seven and it is not just since yesterday that he has been reigning and deciding the fate of the Russian people. When the decision of such a man is made and his course of action is determined, his faithful subjects must accept it whatever may be the consequences. And then let God's will be fulfilled. These views I have held all my life and with them I shall die." Not surprisingly, the Empress was delighted with Goremykin, whom she always affectionately called the "Old Man." "He sees and understands all so clearly and it is a pleasure speaking to him," she declared.

Just how unique Goremykin and his views of autocracy were became glaringly apparent in the severe ministerial crisis which followed the Tsar's decision to take command of the army. Of all the ministers, Goremykin alone supported his master's decision. In vain, he urged them, "I call upon you, gentlemen, in the face of events of extraordinary importance to bow to the will of His Majesty, to lend him your full support in the moment of trial, and to devote all your powers to the service of the Sovereign." When they refused, he said wearily, "I beg you to inform the Emperor that I am not fitted for my position and that it is necessary to appoint a man of more modern views in my place. I shall be grateful to you for the service."

Instead, the majority of the ministerial council decided that, as the Tsar refused to heed its advice, there was nothing to do but resign. "It is our duty," declared Sazonov, the Foreign Minister, ". . . to tell the Tsar frankly that under existing conditions we cannot govern the country, that we cannot serve conscientiously and that we are doing harm to the country. . . . The Cabinet cannot perform its functions while it does not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign." A collective

letter of resignation, signed by eight of the thirteen ministers, was addressed to the Tsar. It had no effect whatsoever. Nicholas summoned the ministers to Headquarters and told them that until he saw fit to replace them, they were not permitted to resign.

A few days later, in a letter to Alexandra, he ruminated on the gap between himself and his ministers. "The behavior of some of the Ministers continues to amaze me. After all I told them at that famous evening sitting, I thought they understood . . . precisely what I thought. What matter—so much the worse for them. They were afraid to close the Duma—it was done. I came away here and replaced N. [Grand Duke Nicholas] in spite of their advice; the people accepted this move as a natural thing and understood it as we did. The proof— numbers of telegrams which I receive from all sides with the most touching expressions. All this shows me clearly one thing: that the Ministers always living in town, know terribly little of what is happening in the country as a whole. Here I can judge correctly the real mood among the various classes of people. . . . Petrograd and Moscow constitute the only exceptions on the map of the fatherland."

The Empress was less interested in finding excuses for ministerial behavior than she was in driving each man who had signed the letter out of office. Thus, the next sixteen months saw a sad parade of dismissals, reshuffles and intrigues. In that time, Russia had four different prime ministers, five ministers of interior, four ministers of agriculture and three ministers of war. "After the middle of 1915," wrote Florinsky, "the fairly honorable and efficient group who formed the top of the bureaucratic pyramid degenerated into a rapidly changing succession of the appointees of Rasputin. It was an amazing, extravagant, and pitiful spectacle, and one without parallel in the history of civilized nations."

Two of the signers, Prince Shcherbatov, the Minister of Interior, and Samarin, the Procurator of the Holy Synod (Minister of Religion), went quickly, dismissed without explanation early in October. Krivoshein, the Minister of Agriculture, left in November, and Kharitonov, the State Controller, departed in January. The next to go, in February 1916, was the faithful Goremykin. "The ministers do not wish to work well with old Goremykin . . . therefore, on my return some changes must take place," had written Nicholas. At first, the Empress was reluctant. "If in any way you feel he hinders, is an obstacle for you, then you better let him go," she wrote, "but if you keep him he will do all you order and try to do his best. . . . To my mind, much better clear out ministers who strike and not change the President who

with decent, energetic, well-intentioned . . . [colleagues] can serve still perfectly well. He only lives and serves you and your country and knows his days are counted and fears not death of age, or by knife or shot." Rasputin also hated the idea of losing Goremykin: "He cannot bear the idea of the Old Man being sent away, has been worrying and thinking over that question without end. Says he is so very wise and when others make a row ... he sits merely with his head down—it is because he understands that today the crowd howls, tomorrow rejoices, that one need not be crushed by the changing waves."

Nevertheless, in Goremykin's enfeebled hands, the government had almost ceased to function. His fellow ministers avoided or ignored him. When he appeared in the Duma, the elderly man was greeted by a prolonged hiss which made it impossible for him to speak. The Tsar, the Empress and Goremykin himself understood that the situation could not continue. "I keep wracking my brains over the question of a successor for the Old Man," wrote Nicholas. Alexandra sadly agreed, and for a while they thought of appointing Alexander Khvostov, the conservative Minister of Justice. An uncle of the singing Minister of Interior, this older Khvostov was one of the ministers who had refused to sign the infamous letter. First, however, Khvostov was to have a visit from Rasputin.

"Our Friend told me to wait about the Old Man until he had seen Uncle Khvostov on Thursday, what impression he will have of him," Alexandra wrote to the Tsar. "He [Rasputin] is miserable about the dear Old Man, says he is such a righteous man, but he dreads the Duma hissing him and then you will be in an awful position." The following day, the Empress wrote, "Tomorrow Gregory sees old Khvostov and then I see him in the evening. He wants to tell his impression if a worthy successor to Goremykin." But Khvostov did not survive the interview; Alexandra wrote indignantly that Rasputin was received "like a petitioner in the ministry."

The next candidate brought forward, Boris Sturmer, was more successful. Equipped with Goremykin's arch-conservative instincts while lacking completely the old man's courage and honesty, Sturmer, then sixty-seven, was an obscure and dismal product of the professional Russian bureaucracy. His family origins were German; his great-uncle, Baron Sturmer, had been Austria's representative on the guard which sat on St. Helena keeping watch on Napoleon. Stiirmer himself, first as Master of Ceremonies at court, then as the reactionary governor of Yaroslav province, had attracted a universally bad repu-

tation. "A man who had left a bad memory wherever he occupied an administrative post," declared Sazonov. "An utter nonentity," groaned Rodzianko. "A false and double-faced man," said Khvostov.

When Sturmer first appeared, Paléologue, who had scarcely heard of him, busied himself for three days gathering information. Then he penned this discouraging portrait: "He ... is worse than a mediocrity—third rate intellect, mean spirit, low character, doubtful honesty, no experience and no idea of State business. The most that can be said for him is that he has a rather pretty talent for cunning and flattery. . . . His appointment becomes intelligible on the supposition that he has been selected solely as a tool; in other words, actually on account of his insignificance and servility. . . . [He] has been . . . warmly recommended to the Emperor by Rasputin."

In fact, Sturmer was first recommended to the Tsar by Rasputin's friend and protégé Pitirim, who, with Rasputin's aid, had been named Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in Petrograd. "I begat Pitirim and Pitirim begat Sturmer" was the way Rasputin sardonically put it. Nevertheless, Stunner's name was the one that filled the Empress's letters. "Lovy, I don't know but I should still think of Sturmer. . . . Sturmer would do for a time. He very much values Gregory which is a great thing. . . . Our Friend said about Sturmer to take him for a time at least, as he is such a decided loyal man."

To the astonishment of Russia and even of the faithful Goremykin, who had no inkling that his wish for retirement was about to be granted, the unknown Sturmer was suddenly named Prime Minister in February 1916. The Duma regarded the appointment as a crushing humiliation, an insult to all of their work and aspirations. There was no doubt that when the new Prime Minister appeared before them, their outrage would exceed anything they had directed at Goremykin. At this point, Rasputin offered an ingenious suggestion. The
starets
had no love for the Duma, but he understood its usefulness. "Dogs collected to keep other dogs quiet," he called the members. Under the circumstances, he advised Nicholas to make a placating gesture. "Of course if you could have turned up for a few words, quite unexpected at the Duma . . . that might change everything," Alexandra explained the scheme to her husband. Nicholas agreed, and on February 22, 1916, the Tsar appeared in person before the Imperial Duma. The gesture was an overwhelming success. A
Te Deum
was sung, Nicholas greeted the members as "representatives of the Russian people" and presented the Order of St. Anne to Rodzianko. Although Sturmer was present at the side of the Tsar, his appointment was temporarily for-

gotten—as Rasputin had cunningly foreseen—amid a storm of cheers.

With Stunner installed at the top, the Empress, urged on by Rasputin, continued to weed among the ministerial ranks. Her next major target was Polivanov, the Minister of War. The Empress had never liked him. "Forgive me," she had written the Tsar when Polivanov was appointed, "but I don't like the choice of Minister of War Polivanov. Is he not our Friend's enemy?" In the short time since he replaced the indolent Sukhomlinov, the brusque, efficient PoUvanov had worked wonders in training and equipping the army. It was primarily due to his efforts that the beaten Russian army of 1915 was able to recover and launch the great offensive of 1916. Nevertheless, Polivanov was marked, not only by his rough refusal to have anything to do with Rasputin, but also by his eagerness to work closely with the Duma in obtaining maximum support for his army program. In the end, Polivanov's doom was sealed when he discovered that Rasputin had been supplied by Sturmer with four high-powered War Office cars too fast to be followed by the police when he set off for one of his steamy nocturnal haunts. Polivanov sternly objected, and soon Alexandra was writing to Nicholas, "Get rid of Polivanov . . . any honest man better than him. . . . Remember about Polivanov. . . . Lovy, don't dawdle, make up your mind, it's far too serious." On March 25, PoUvanov fell. "Oh, the relief! Now I shall sleep well," she said when she heard the news. Others were appalled. Polivanov was "undoubtedly the ablest military organizer in Russia and his dismissal was a disaster," wrote Knox. General Shuvaiev, Polivanov's successor, Knox described as "a nice old man, quite straight and honest. He had no knowledge of his work, but his devotion to the Emperor was such that if the door were to open and His Majesty were to come into the room and ask him to throw himself out of the window, he would do so at once."

The next to go was Sazonov, the Foreign Minister. A brother-in-law of Stolypin, Sazonov was a cultivated man of liberal background and a close friend of both Buchanan and Paléologue. He had been Foreign Minister since 1910 and was completely trusted both by the Tsar and by the Allied governments. Nevertheless, since his signing of the ministerial letter, Alexandra had wanted him removed. She suspected, rightly, that along with his friendship with England and France, he also wanted a responsible government in Russia; both, she believed, would undermine the autocratic Russia she hoped to pass along to her son. Through the winter, she kept up a barrage at "long-nosed Sazonov . . . Sazonov is such a pancake." Then, in March 1916, she wrote to

Nicholas, "Wish you could think of a good successor to Sazonov— need not be a diplomat. So as ... to see we are not later sat upon by England and that when questions of ultimate peace come we should be firm. Old Gorernykin and Stiirmer always disapproved of him as he is such a coward towards Europe and a parliamentarist—and that would be Russia's ruin."

Sazonov's downfall came in July 1916, and was actually precipitated by the question of autonomy for Poland. At the outbreak of war, Russia had promised a virtually independent, united Polish kingdom, linked to Russia only in the person of the Tsar. The Poles were enthusiastic, and on first entering Galicia, Russian troops were welcomed as liberators. Military defeat and the loss of most Polish territory in 1915 had delayed action on the pledge, at the same time encouraging those Russian conservatives who resisted its enactment, fearing that autonomy for one part of the empire would stimulate other provinces to seek the same thing. Alexandra, spurred by Rasputin, argued that "Baby's future rights" were challenged. Nevertheless, Sazonov, backed by Britain and France, continued to insist.

On July 12, Sazonov saw Nicholas at Headquarters. "The Emperor has entirely adopted my
views. ... I won all along the line," he reported jubilantly to Buchanan and Paléologue. In enormous good humor, the Foreign Minister left for a Finnish holiday during which he planned to draft an Imperial proclamation on Poland. Meanwhile, both Stiirmer and the Empress hurried to Headquarters, and while he was still in Finland, Sazonov was abruptly dismissed. Appalled, Buchanan and Paléologue pleaded that the dismissal be set aside. Failing, Buchanan then boldly asked the Tsar's permission to have King George V grant the fallen minister a British court decoration in recognition of his services to the alliance. Nicholas agreed and was genuinely pleased that Sazonov, whom he liked and had dealt with shabbily, was receiving the honor.