Until now, Alfonso and the Spanish royals had figured very little in the lives of the Romanov family, although theirs was a blood tie through Alfonso’s wife Ena, who was Alexandra’s cousin. As monarch of a neutral country, the thirty-one-year-old Spanish king had since 1914 been working tirelessly for the welfare of prisoners of war on both sides, and his first impulse on behalf of the Romanovs was humanitarian. However, Alfonso perhaps had more reason than other royals to show sympathy for Nicholas and Alexandra, because Ena, like Alexandra, was a carrier – from their shared grandmother Queen Victoria – of the fatal haemophilia gene. Her marriage to Alfonso had been blighted by the birth of two haemophiliac sons: the heir, Alfonso, in 1907 and Gonzalo in 1914.
It is more likely, however, that Alfonso’s instinct for the preservation of thrones was the impulse behind this gesture of solidarity for a fellow monarch, in the spirit of gallantry of the Rey Caballero (Knightly King) in which he viewed his own monarchy. There is no doubt that of all the European royals, Alfonso appreciated the seriousness of Nicholas and Alexandra’s position. For he too had been living with the threat of revolutionary violence for years and had already survived several assassination attempts, including one on his wedding day in 1906 when a Catalan anarchist threw a bomb and killed thirty people. In 1917 Alfonso himself was facing the increasing threat of insurgency from Spanish republican and anarchist groups.5
In Copenhagen the Danish king had also greeted the revolution and Nicholas’s abdication with considerable horror: ‘the tsaritsa’s family has removed my family from the throne,’ he told his Prime Minister, in a reference to Alexandra’s German ancestry and his cousin Nicholas’s Danish descent. Even in 1917, among her close relatives Alexandra was still perceived as a pro-German intriguer against the Russian state. Such was King Christian’s anxiety that he sent instructions to Harald Scavenius, his ambassador in Petrograd, to report back in detail on the Imperial Family’s situation and find out about the possibility of them leaving Russia. At this very early stage the Danish government made the logical assumption that both the Danish Dowager Empress (who was his aunt) and the Imperial Family would be given political asylum by King Christian.6 This also seemed to be the initial expectation in Russia, as British nurse Dorothy Seymour confirmed in her Petrograd diary: ‘Rumour has it that the (imperial) family is to go to Denmark almost at once.’7
After signing his abdication manifesto at Pskov and attempting once more to head back to his wife and children at Tsarskoe Selo, Nicholas had asked to be allowed to travel to Stavka to say farewell to the army and the officers of his entourage. His train arrived at Mogilev at 8.20 p.m. on 16 March and, in one of their final private conversations, Nicholas’s ADC, Anatoly Mordvinov, asked the Tsar what he intended to do now. ‘I shall live as a completely private person,’ he said. ‘I think we shall go to Livadia – for Alexey’s health.’ ‘It is essential too for my sick daughters.’ Or perhaps, he added somewhat fancifully, they might be able to go to the monastery at Kostroma, 215 miles south-west of Moscow, where the Romanov dynasty had been founded in 1613. Mordvinov could not disguise his alarm: ‘your majesty, you must go abroad as quickly as possible,’ he urged, ‘even Crimea is not safe in the present situation.’ ‘No, not for anything!’ was the reply. Nicholas was adamant: ‘I do not want to leave Russia, I love her too much.’8
Back in Petrograd, the question of what would happen next to the former Tsar and his family was also being addressed. At a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the newly formed Provisional Government, Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov made an announcement on their future. It was essential that they be removed beyond the bounds of the Russian state, for political reasons and their own safety. This measure, Milyukov argued, was justifiable for all members of the House of Romanov, but in the first instance his government considered it absolutely essential for Nicholas II and his brother Grand Duke Mikhail and their families. Meanwhile their places of residence would be put under guard and their freedom restricted. Their secure containment was a matter of urgency.9
In London, however, where news of the abdication had just been announced, ‘government circles were preoccupied with one thing only: the potential weakening of Russia’s military strength’, as the Russian ambassador to London, Konstantin Nabokov, recalled in his memoirs. Even the British Labour movement, while busy congratulating the Russian working classes for overturning the old order, was nevertheless urging their continuing support in the war and warning that ‘any remission of effort means disaster’.10 British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour made clear the government’s anxieties about a republic being established in Russia, now that Nicholas had abdicated on behalf of his son, and worried that in the face of extremist pressure ‘a disgraceful peace will be patched up with Germany’. With this in mind, the Foreign Office was quick to make clear to Sir George Buchanan in Petrograd how he should conduct matters with the new government: ‘All your influence should be thrown into the scale against any Administration which is not resolved to fight to a finish.’11
At Stavka, his role in the war now over, Nicholas sat down on 17 March and composed a note in pencil, in which he laid out four major demands about the future of his family and those in the entourage who remained with them:
1) That I may proceed unimpeded to Tsarskoe Selo with the persons accompanying me.
2) That [we] may reside in safety at Tsarskoe Selo until the children’s recovery, with those same persons.
3) That [we] may proceed unimpeded to Romanov-on-the-Murman [Murmansk] with the same persons.
4) That we may return to Russia at the end of the war to settle in the Crimea – in Livadia.12
That evening, the document was telegraphed to the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, Prince Lvov, by Nicholas’s Commander in Chief, General Alexeev. While being extremely reluctant to leave his country at all, Nicholas had realised that he might have to agree to evacuation out of Russia for the duration of the war, on the promise of being allowed back when it was all over. But thereafter he set his heart on being able to live in quiet obscurity in the place that he and his family loved most – their home on the shores of the Black Sea at Livadia. It was a naïve hope and Nicholas did not know that when Alexeev transcribed his draft into a telegram to the Provisional Government, he omitted the fourth demand, knowing full well that the response to it would be an emphatic ‘No’.13 The Romanovs would never be allowed to live in Crimea; the continuing presence of the former Imperial Family in Russia was something the new government would not countenance. Wherever the Imperial Family went, it had to be out of Russia and well away from any attempt at a counter-revolution. Even now the government was fearful of an officers’ uprising at Stavka in support of the former Tsar.
For the time being, Nicholas’s cousin King George was silent. No one in Britain was entirely sure where the Tsar was at present, but one thing was certain: there ‘seemed to be no hope of keeping the Emperor on the throne,’ reported Buchanan. The immediate preoccupation, in telegrams between him and London, remained how to keep the Russian people onside in the war and, more importantly, get crucial munitions production in Russia, which had stalled during the revolution, back on track. On the day of the abdication, Sir George had urged that British Labour leaders send messages of support backing the Provisional Government, as ‘advice from England at present carries great weight’. The Foreign Office responded with a message on 16 March that ‘Organized Labour in Great Britain’ was ‘watching with the deepest sympathy the efforts of the Russian people to deliver themselves from [the] power of reactionary elements which are impeding their advance to victory’. The ‘despotism of Germany must be overthrown’; any ‘remission of effort means disaster to comrades in trenches and to our common hopes of social regeneration’.14
As yet, no ultimate destination of exile for the Romanovs was mentioned. Although Sir George Buchanan had a meeting with Milyukov of the Provisional Government in the company of the French and Italian amba
ssadors on the afternoon of the 17th, the discussions covered a wide range of issues. Milyukov, who was clearly under a great deal of strain, confirmed that his priority was to ensure, like them, that Russia continued ‘ruthlessly prosecuting the war to victory’. But to do so required concessions and the need to remove any threat of counter-revolution – in other words, the Imperial Family. With this in mind, Buchanan asked ‘what the Emperor was going to do’? Milyukov was vague; the Tsar’s position ‘was a precarious one as all the faults committed by the late Government were laid to his charge’. But was His Majesty’s life in danger, asked Buchanan? No, Milyukov responded; but ‘he would like to see him leave the country as soon as possible’.15 The Provisional Government was in such a precarious situation that ambassador Paléologue wired the French Foreign Office to inform them that it was seriously considering ‘expulsing [sic] the entire Imperial Family from Russia’.16 Such was Paléologue’s concern that later on the 17th he went over to the British embassy to see his colleague Buchanan. Over tea and in the company of Buchanan’s wife, Lady Georgina, all three discussed the dangers to the Imperial Family at Tsarskoe Selo and the need for an urgent evacuation:
They thought that a British cruiser should be sent to fetch the fallen Sovereign on the Murman Coast. It would not be suitable for a French boat to assume this task, as the Arctic Ocean was comprised in the zone of the British naval operations.17
Over at Mogilev, General Alexeev was becoming extremely anxious about the delay in receiving a response from the Provisional Government to the Tsar’s telegram. On 18 March he sent another, urging permission for Nicholas’s train to leave Stavka as soon as possible for Tsarskoe Selo. By now the complexities of what to do with the former Tsar had begun to unravel for the Provisional Government. Three days on from the abdication, and much to its consternation, it had still heard nothing from King George. As Russia’s main ally, everyone was now looking to him for a solution. On 18 March, Milyukov therefore sent a preemptive telegram to the British government, expressly asking that they offer asylum to the former Tsar and his family.
Oblivious to all the toing and froing behind the scenes, Nicholas was meanwhile spending time with his mother Dagmar, who at his request had travelled up by train from Kiev the previous day to see him. She arrived with her son-in-law Sandro. Dagmar had sat there ‘sobbing aloud, while [Nicky] stood motionless, looking at his feet and, of course, smoking,’ recalled Sandro, who thought that his brother-in-law’s uncanny calmness ‘showed his firm belief in the righteousness of his decision’.18 For the next three days Dagmar and Nicholas walked together, wept together, dined, went to church and shut themselves away in private conversation. Reassuring news came of Alexandra and the children on the 19th: Olga, Tatiana and Alexey were now recovering from the measles; Anastasia, who had also succumbed, was still running a fever; and, sadly, Maria had now been laid low by the illness too and was suffering the complications of pneumonia.19
That same morning of 19th March, Dagmar sent for Major-General Hanbury-Williams, one of the Allied commanders at Stavka, and they had a long conversation about Nicholas’s future. Both felt that he should leave Russia immediately, straight from Stavka, under British military protection, but ‘the crux of the situation and the difficulty’ was that there was no way Nicholas would go anywhere without Alexandra and the children.20 Like Milyukov, Hanbury-Williams had already seized the initiative and telegraphed his government about ‘possible plans to send the tsar to England’, but Dagmar was ‘alarmed by the question of the sea voyage’, given the German submarine blockade, and preferred Denmark as an option, which was a lot nearer.21 But even a protracted rail journey to an ice-free port, as Sandro pointed out, would be risky. Hanbury-Williams assured them that together with his fellow Allied generals, Maurice Janin and Louis de Ryckel, he was willing to escort the Tsar’s train back to Tsarskoe Selo and beyond, to ensure his safety. ‘We have been his guests for over a year and have received much kindness from him.’22 Nicholas was touched by the offer, but told Hanbury-Williams that ‘he hoped that he would not have to leave Russia’. He still clung to the idea of being allowed to go to Crimea.23
It was not until that Monday, 19 March, that General Alexeev finally received a response from the Provisional Government agreeing to Nicholas’s three requests. Once he had returned to Tsarskoe Selo, and his children had recovered from the measles, the family would then be granted ‘unhindered passage’ north to the port of Murmansk.24 The government’s agreement to these demands had been thought necessary, it was later revealed, in order to win Nicholas’s confidence and ensure his swift and compliant departure from Stavka. Nicholas now had a long conversation with Hanbury-Williams and reluctantly conceded that if he really had to leave the country, he would rather go to England than anywhere else.25 Hanbury-Williams and Buchanan had both been urging the British government to take in the Romanovs, but the Foreign Office was still instructing Buchanan to act with caution: ‘As regards future movements of the Emperor we would of course be glad to see him leave Russia, if only in the interests of his personal safety.’ But, Sir George was informed, ‘no invitation has, however, been sent to His Majesty to come to England, and it seems very doubtful whether such a course would be desirable’.26 The British government’s position continued to be one of extreme reticence to do anything.
In conversation with Buchanan later that day, however, Milyukov continued to press for a commitment from the British and asked ‘whether I knew if arrangements were being made for His Majesty to go to England’. The following day came further requests for Buchanan to emphasise the urgency of the matter, for the Provisional Government had now declared its hand by publicly stating its ‘intention of sending Nicholas II abroad’ – a fact confirmed by Minister of Justice Alexander Kerensky at a meeting that day at the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Angry workers’ meetings in Petrograd’s factories were already demanding retribution against ‘the deposed Nicholas II, the bloodstained’; ‘We have no guarantee that this vampire will not make new attempts to enter the arena of our lives,’ proclaimed one resolution. Other workers were calling for the arrest of all members of the House of Romanov. Abdication was not enough; regicide was in the air.27 By 20 March Hanbury-Williams was filled with alarm: ‘Anarchism is showing itself already,’ he noted in his diary, ‘and it will be lucky if the Imperial Family can be got away somewhere in safety.’28
In response to calls for Nicholas’s imprisonment and even his execution, Alexander Kerensky insisted that the government had taken responsibility for the personal safety of the Tsar and his family and it would honour that obligation to the letter. ‘After the briefest of delays and under his personal supervision they would all be transferred to Murmansk from where they would sail for England.’29 But was a ship on its way? asked a harassed Sir George Buchanan in yet another urgent telegram to London on the 20th. Foreign Minister Milyukov was now ‘positively pressing for the tsar’s departure and was taking it for granted that Britain would send a ship to pick him up’.30
But still no official invitation came; the British Cabinet was clearly dragging its feet. The best it could suggest, in response to Milyukov’s and Buchanan’s frantic messages, was that Denmark or Switzerland might be a better place of refuge for the Imperial Family.31 It was a lacklustre suggestion, Denmark never being a realistic option for the Allies, as it was far too close to Germany. Such proximity would pose ‘a serious danger of His Imperial Majesty becoming a focus of intrigue of Germany’.32 There were other political considerations to bear in mind as well: David Lloyd George had only recently congratulated the Russian people on a revolution that had been ‘the greatest service’ they had ‘yet made to the cause for which the Allied peoples have been fighting since August, 1914’.33 ‘A little strong,’ thought King George when he saw this, though it turned out the wording had been on the advice of the Russian ambassador to London, Nabokov.34
By now Milyukov was seriously concerned that his government would no
t be able to protect the Tsar if the revolutionaries marched from Petrograd out to Tsarskoe Selo, and this time he asked the straight question: would ‘the King and HM’s government … at once offer asylum in England?’35 He had confided to French ambassador Paléologue that he wanted to see them go ‘mainly in order to spare them the sorrows of imprisonment and trial, which would greatly increase the difficulties of the Government’.36 The Tsar’s continuing presence in Russia was a destabilising influence; his departure would ‘strengthen the Russian Government and help matters settle down’.37 Milyukov also hoped that the British would ensure that Nicholas would ‘abstain from interfering in Russian politics while on English soil’.38 In Russia or out of Russia, the former Imperial Family had fast become a headache for him and his colleagues and they desperately wanted rid of them.
* * *
Before leaving Stavka on 21 March, and now having being told that he was under formal arrest, a pale and drained Nicholas composed a final order to his troops, trusting in their abiding love of and loyalty to Russia and their commitment to carrying on the fight on the Eastern Front. He then said a restrained farewell to his officers, in particular the loyal Cossacks of the Tsar’s escort. It had seemed as though ‘those around him had been far more upset than he,’ as one officer recalled, but Nicholas later confided in his diary: ‘my heart was almost breaking’.39 He then had lunch with his mother, during which he reiterated how much he would prefer to remain in Russia. She, however, had been begging him not to delay, once he got back to Tsarskoe Selo – but to travel out of Russia immediately, even though the children were still sick.40 Mother and son sat together in her train, until at 4.30 p.m. came the ‘terrible painful parting’, as Dagmar later recalled. A quarter of an hour later, Nicholas – wearing his simple khaki tunic ‘with the cross of St George in its buttonhole’ – stood at the window of his carriage as his train pulled away. ‘His expression,’ recalled Sandro, was ‘infinitely sad’ as the train headed off, ‘a stream of smoke on the horizon’, away from a windy and frosty Mogilev on its journey back to Tsarskoe Selo. On the train shortly afterwards he informed his companions: ‘Did you know? I’ve been deprived of my freedom.’ His matter-of-fact delivery reminded one of them of that famous ‘Rien!’ in the diary of Louis XVI on the day the Bastille fell.41
The Race to Save the Romanovs Page 7