by Theo Aronson
And there were more sinister tales about her than this. 'Some people say that Alexandra Feodorovna is mad,' wrote Princess Catherine Radziwill, safe behind her pseudonym of Count Paul Vassili, 'and that her madness takes an erotic direction, which accounts for the seclusion in which she is kept.' Of course, continues the Princess self-righteously, 'I do not believe this rumour.'
Unsuccessful in so many ways, Alicky had made an unqualified success of her marriage. She and Nicky were devoted to each other. 'Nicholas II was much more than a loving and devoted husband,' says Mussolov, a member of the imperial household. 'He was literally the lover of his life's partner.' Throughout their married lives, they shared the same bed. Their letters to each other, even in middle age, were love letters. 'When a man likes nothing better than to remain at home with his wife, it is a sure sign that he is very much in love with her,' wrote the visiting Infanta Eulalia, who had known Alicky as a girl. 'Judged by that test, there is no happier couple in Europe than the Emperor and Empress of Russia.'
Nicholas and Alexandra spoke to each other, and to their children, in English. When the Empress spoke Russian, it was with a strong English accent.
'I will say no more here,' wrote one British Ambassador to St Petersburg, 'than that the Emperor, had he been an Englishman, would have been the most perfect type of English gentleman, and that the Empress, though shy and reserved, was devoted to England and thoroughly English in all her tastes.'
Higher praise, one feels, His Excellency could not possibly have bestowed.
Nowhere was this 'Englishness' of the imperial household more apparent than in the bringing up of the children. They were being raised in what was generally regarded as the British fashion: that is, simply and strictly. They slept on camp beds, they bathed in cold water, they ate plainly cooked food. They were watched over by English nannies. Meals were served on the dot and the day rigidly organized. By the year 1903 Nicky and Alicky had four daughters – Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia – with only six years separating the eldest from the youngest. Differing in personality, they were none the less all affectionate, obedient and good-natured girls. As their unsociable mother discouraged them from mixing with other children, the four young grand duchesses remained closely attached to each other and to their parents. Together, the six of them made a delightful family group. Amidst all the turbulence of the reign, Tsarskoe Selo remained a haven of peace.
One thing only was lacking to complete this picture of domestic bliss: the Emperor and Empress had no son.
This was not for any want of trying. To present her husband with a son, and the Empire with an heir, was Alicky's dearest wish. The birth of each of their four daughters had meant sharp disappointment for the parents; indeed, after the birth of her last daughter, Anastasia, the Empress had begun to despair. She prayed with increased fervour, she made pilgrimages to little-known sanctuaries, she gave audience to half-crazed prophets, she consulted dubious 'soul doctors'. By the winter of 1903 she was once more pregnant. Finally, on a sultry day in August the following year, and with surprisingly little suffering, she gave birth to a son.
'A great never-to-be-forgotten day when the mercy of God has visited us so clearly,' wrote the jubilant Tsar in his diary on 12 August 1904. 'Alix gave birth to a son at one o'clock. The child has been called Alexis.'
The thirty-two-year-old mother was radiant. Her prayers had been answered: God had given Holy Russia an heir. He was an heir, moreover, who looked the very picture of good health. 'I saw the Tsarevich in the Empress's arms,' wrote one observer. 'How beautiful he was, how healthy, how normal, with his golden hair, his blue eyes, and his expression of intelligence so rare for so young a child.'
The Tsar was no less ecstatic about his son's appearance. 'I don't think you have seen my dear little Tsarevich,' he said to a member of the court a few months after the boy's birth. 'Come along, I will show him to you.'
Queen Victoria, the 'Grandmama of Europe', at the age of Seventy-five
Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the brilliant and emotional Vicky, aged forty-seven, in the year that she became German Empress
Queen Victoria, photographed for her Golden Jubilee. Behind her stand her eldest son, the forty-five-year-old Bertie, Prince of Wales, and her daughter-in-law, the forty-two-year-old but perennially youthful-looking Alexandra, Princess of Wales
Queen Victoria's son-in-law Fritz. German Crown Prince and later Kaiser Frederick III, preparing to take part in the Golden Jubilee procession
A painting, by Tuxen, of the Grandmama of Europe, surrounded by her enormous family, at the time of her Golden Jubilee
The Wales family in 1889. (Standing, left to right): Eddy (The Duke of Clarence), Maud (later Queen of Norway), the Princess of Wales, Louise (later Duchess of Fife), the Prince of Wales. (Seated): George and Victoria
Queen Victoria, on the arm of her grandson, Willie, German Crown Prince, arriving in Berlin to visit her dying son-in-law, Kaiser Frederick III. Behind her walk her daughter Vicky, the German Empress, Crown Princess Dona, and three of Vicky's daughters
Four generations: Queen Victoria holds Prince Edward of York (later King Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor). Behind stand Bertie, the Prince of Wales and Georgie, the Duke of York
The wedding of Tino and Sophie in the cathedral in Athens Eddy, the Duke of Clarence, holds the crown above his cousin Sophie's head
Sophie, daughter of the Empress Frederick, and Crown Prince Constantine of Greece, at the time of their marriage in 1889
Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Alicky, the intense and introspective Empress of Russia, during the early years of her marriage
Queen Victoria with the Prince of Wales, Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsaritsa Alexandra and their baby, the Grand Duchess Olga, during the visit of the Russian imperial family to Balmoral in 1896
Nando, Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, holding his eldest son, Carol (afterwards King Carol II of Romania)
The beautiful and theaterical Marie of Romania, in one of her exotic rooms at Cotroceni Palace in 1907
King Alfonso XIII and Queen Ena of Spain, in the early days of their marriage
King Alfonso XIII and Queen Ena, photographed on the way back from their wedding, seconds before the bomb was thrown at their carriage
The Empress Alexandra of Russia, at the height of her beauty and power
The bizarre Queen Marie of Romania, in her specially designed crown and robes, at her coronation in 1922
The funeral procession of Edward VII, attended by nine monarchs and a gathering of other royalties from all over Europe
Princess Maud of Wales and Prince Charles of Denmark (later King and Queen of Norway), at the time of their marriage
The first coronation ever photographed; the enthronement of King Haakon and Queen Maud in Trondheim Cathedral in June 1906
The spartan and soldierly King Alexander of Yugoslavia
The honest-to-goodness Queen Marie of Yugoslavia, with her sons Peter, Andrej and Tomislav
The scene after the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles in 1934
Princess Sophie of Greece at the time of her conversion to the Greek Orthodox faith and subsequent banishment from Germany by her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II
Mignon, daughter of Queen Marie of Romania and wife of King Alexander, holding her eldest son Peter, afterwards King Peter II of Yugoslavia
Princess Louise of Battenberg, afterwards Queen of Sweden, painted by Philip Laszlo
Queen Ena of Spain, painted by Philip Laszlo
Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Princess Ingrid of Sweden alter their marriage in Stockholm in 1935
King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark later in life
The scholarly King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden
The vivacious Queen Louise of Sweden
The baby was being bathed. Standing him up in the palm of one of his hands, Nicholas showed him off. 'There he was,' says the admiring visitor, 'naked, chubby, rosy – a wonderful boy!'
'Don't you think he's a beauty?' asked the Tsar proudly.
2
For Nicholas and Alexandra, the birth of the Tsarevich Alexis was the one shaft of light in a frighteningly stormy sky. Abroad and at home, the Russian Empire was in serious trouble. February 1904 saw the beginning of a disastrous war with Japan; January the following year saw the beginning of a revolution.
Lying just off the farthest-flung rim of the Russian Empire, almost half a world away from St Petersburg, was the burgeoning island empire of Japan. For some years the two empires had been squabbling over the Pacific seaboard of yet a third empire – the decaying Chinese Empire. By the year 1903 Russia, much to the chagrin of the Japanese, had already bullied China into handing over its most valuable Pacific coast possessions. When the Russians began advancing into the Korean peninsula as well, Japan decided that she could stand for no more. In February 1904, without a formal declaration of war, Japanese ships attacked a Russian squadron lying off Russian-controlled Port Arthur.
The war that followed was a disaster for Russia. The Japanese, fighting so near home, were in a much better position than the Russians whose lines of communication (restricted to the still incomplete Trans-Siberian railway line) stretched for some four thousand miles. Again and again the Russians were obliged to fall back before the Japanese forces. By the summer of 1904, Port Arthur was in a state of siege.
At sea, the situation was even worse. With the Russian Far Eastern Fleet immobilized at Port Arthur, the Russian Baltic Fleet was sent to its aid. Leaving St Petersburg, it was obliged to sail through the North Sea, all the way round Africa and across the Indian Ocean to Japan. As it finally steamed through the Strait of Tsushima, eight months after setting out, it was attacked by the Japanese. In an engagement that lasted for less than an hour, the Russian Fleet was all but annihilated.
In the meantime Russian-held Port Arthur, having withstood the Japanese bombardment for months, finally surrendered in January 1905. Both on land and at sea, Russia had been humiliatingly defeated. The loss of Russian lives had been tremendous.
News of the surrender of Port Arthur intensified the feeling of discontent throughout the country. Not only were there demands that the war, with its frightening death toll, should end, but that the shocking conditions in factories and on the lands should be improved. In addition, the people wanted some say in their government. It was considered iniquitous that in the year 1905 they should be at the mercy of the Tsar's will, or rather, of that will implemented by a harsh and repressive government. They wanted a fully representative assembly – a Duma.
By January thousands of workers in St Petersburg were on strike. As yet, their demands could hardly be called revolutionary. Their anger was directed, not at Tsar Nicholas II, but at his government. Appreciating this fact, a sympathetic priest named Father George Gapon decided to take control of the situation. He would rally the workers and lead them in peaceful procession to the Winter Palace. Here he would hand a petition, listing their grievances, to the Tsar. The Tsar, he assured the workers, would listen to their plea. Was he not the father of all Russians?
On the morning of Sunday, 22 January 1905, Father Gapon led his march through the snowy streets towards the Winter Palace. The crowd was good-natured and expectant. They carried flags, icons, crosses, religious banners and pictures of the Tsar and, as they tramped along, they sang the imperial anthem, 'God Save the Tsar'.
Within seconds, however, the cheerful scene changed to one of tragedy. The troops guarding the approaches to the Palace lost their heads and opened fire. In their hundreds, the bullet-riddled corpses of men, women and children crumpled to the ground; before the Tsar's Palace, the white snow was red with blood. From thenceforth the day, which had started so optimistically, was to be known as 'Bloody Sunday', and Nicholas II as a blood-stained tyrant.
But he was not directly to blame. Unsuspected by Father Gapon and his marchers, the Tsar was not even in the Winter Palace that day. He was at Tsarkoe Selo. Nor had he known anything about Father Gapon's petition. Whether or not he would have accepted the petition is uncertain but he certainly did not, as was generally believed, order the troops to open fire on the crowd. The news of the massacre upset him terribly: 'Lord, how painful and sad this is!' he wrote that evening.
The Empress was no less upset but her reaction tended to be more defiant. In a letter to her sister, Princess Victoria of Battenberg, she tried to justify their position: the Tsar lacked good advisers, foreign newspapers were exaggerating the casualties, the crowd had refused to retreat when told to do so. St Petersburg was 'a rotten town, not one atom Russian', the petition had made 'atrocious' demands, Russia could not possibly be given a parliament, the people were not ready for a constitution.
The troubles did not end with 'Bloody Sunday'. On the contrary, it marked their beginning. For a year all Russia was in turmoil. The Tsar's uncle, the reactionary Grand Duke Serge, who was married to Alicky's sister Ella, was blown to bits in Moscow. The Black Sea Fleet mutinied. There were murders, strikes, riots and uprisings throughout the Empire. Russia, soundly thrashed by the Japanese, was forced to make peace. By October the country was crippled by strikes. No trains ran, schools and universities were closed, shops were empty. The streets of the capital resounded to the cries of 'Long live the Workers' Soviet!' and 'Down with the Tsar!' as banner-waving students and workers clashed with sabre-slashing Cossacks.
To avert a full-scale revolution, something had to be done. Daily the anguished Tsar conferred with his most able Minister, Count Sergius Witte. Witte gave his master a choice: the rebellion must be crushed by force or the country given a constitution. Nicholas, who hated having to make choices, was urged by Witte to grant a constitution. Reluctantly, the Tsar agreed.
By the Imperial Manifesto of 30 October 1905, Russia ceased to be an absolute autocracy and became a type of constitutional monarchy. Although this granting of a constitution by no means ended all unrest, it did avert a revolution.
The first Duma was opened in the throne room of the Winter Palace in the spring of 1906. Into this magnificent setting, and looking distinctly out of place amongst the gorgeously uniformed councillors of state, senators, diplomats and courtiers, came the newly-elected members of the Duma, some of them in workers' blouses and breeches. In front of his great gilt throne stood the Tsar and beside him the Tsaritsa, looking superb in white with a single strand of pearls about her neck.
But neither husband nor wife had much faith in the régime which the Tsar was about to inaugurate. 'I hear everybody talking about a new era,' said Alexandra afterwards, 'but I see no signs of it. They all talk about the Duma as though its opening were to be some kind of re-birth. They'll merely talk and talk.'
She was right. But she was quite wrong in imagining that the imperial throne would be made safer for her son in any way other than by the relinquishing of what she looked upon as a God-given autocracy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Revolutionary Queen
1
Very different from the introspective Empress Alexandra was her cousin Maud, the daughter of King Edward VII and the wife of Prince Charles of Denmark. By the summer of 1905 Princess Maud was thirty-five years old and had been married for nine years. She and her husband, the gangling, good-natured Prince Charles, had only one child, Prince Alexander, who had been born in 1903. The responsibilities of marriage and motherhood had made very little difference to Maud's looks, personality or way of life. With her piled coiffure, her high collars and her small, slim-waisted figure, she was still like an echo of her mother, Queen Alexandra. She remained as unaffected, as tomboyish and as fond of the outdoors as she had ever been. She still divided her time between her little palace in Copenhagen, and Appleton, her adored English country home near Sandringham.
Of all Queen Victoria's granddaughters living on the Continent, none remained more persistently English than Princess Maud. Her talk, interests and pursuits were those of English county society; she was never happi
er than when gardening, riding, bicycling or driving a wagonette. Although ill at ease in public, in her intimate circle she was said to be 'full of chaff'. Her tone was bantering and her conversation peppered with words like 'rotter' and 'bounder'. 'That's rot. It's because you funk,' she once shouted to a companion who had protested that his horse was incapable of jumping a hedge.
On King Edward VII's spring cruises in the Mediterranean, she was full of what her companions considered to be the greatest fun. Knowing that the commodore of the royal yacht was terrified of monkeys, she once played a leading part in an elaborate practical joke whereby the poor commodore was convinced that a monkey was being brought on board. Such escapades were guaranteed to reduce the members of the party, including King Edward and Queen Alexandra, to fits of uncontrollable laughter.
With her family, and particularly with her mother and her unmarried sister, Princess Victoria, Maud kept on the closest terms. 'The habit of relying on her mother's taste and judgement has remained with Princess Maud even since she has a home of her own,' wrote one member of the royal circle, 'and every opportunity of spending time with her parents is eagerly seized.'