The Race to Save the Romanovs
Page 34
In London, my editor and publisher Sarah Rigby and Hutchinson Publishing Director Jocasta Hamilton both provided warm and supportive back-up in the writing and production of this book, as too has my wonderful publicist Najma Finlay, with whom I am lucky to have such a fruitful partnership. Laurie Ip Fung Chun offered considerable enthusiasm in overseeing the book through to the paperback edition with Windmill. Mandy Greenfield gave my text the most scrupulous copy edit, for which I am enormously grateful.
Throughout I have had the never-failing reassurance of a caring and supportive agent, who believes in my work and has been an absolute rock in the writing of this difficult and challenging book. My love and thanks and deepest respect, as ever, go to Caroline Michel at PFD and the exceptional team of people who look after every aspect of my work there, from books to broadcast media to foreign and dramatic rights. Thank you Jon Fowler, James Carroll, Tessa David, Dan Herron, Jonathan Sissons, Alexandra Cliff, Marilia Savvides, Laura Otal, Janelle Andrew – I know you all have my back, and it is truly a privilege to have you in my professional life. I look forward to a few more books together yet.
Finally, and on a poignant note, I managed to finish the text of this book and deliver it on time, despite the heartbreaking loss in the final stages of the writing of my mother, Mary, and my former husband, Irving. In their very different ways they have both left their stamp on my life, experiences and worldview; on the things that have moulded me as a writer and that have made me the person I am now. This book is dedicated to them, and also my late father, Kenneth, who sadly never lived to see me take up my writing career. I hope he would have been proud. They and my dear family – brothers Mike, Chris and Pete, and daughters Dani and Lucy – have all helped see me safely through to the end of this, my fourteenth book.
Helen Rappaport
West Dorset, March 2018
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS
Ambassador
Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs
AVPRI
Arkhiv Vneshney Politiki Rossiiskoy Imperii
Dissolution
Meriel Buchanan, The Dissolution of an Empire
Dnevniki
V. M. Khrustalev, Dnevniki Nikolaya … i Alexandry, 2 vols
Fall
Mark Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalev, Fall of the Romanovs
FO
Foreign Office
FOT
Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold, File on the Tsar, 2nd edn, 1987
GARF
Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Russkoy Federsatsii
HBCA
Hudson’s Bay Company Archives
Last Days
P. M. Bykov, Last Days of Tsar Nicholas
LP
Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko, Lifelong Passion
Mission
Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, vol. 2
Murder
Captain Paul Bulygin and Alexander Kerensky, The Murder of the Romanovs
Nicholas II
Robert Service, The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II
RA
The Royal Archives
Revolyutsiya
Genrikh Ioffe, Revolyutsiya i semya Romanovykh
Ross.Arkhiv
L. A. Lykova (ed) and N. A. Sokolov, ‘Predvaritelsnoe sledstvie’
Sudba
Sergey Melgunov, Sudba Imperatora Nikolaya II posle otrecheniya
Thirteen Years
Pierre Gilliard, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court
TNA
The National Archives
Tsarism
Semion Lyandres, The Fall of Tsarism
Tsaritsa
Sergey Markov, How We Tried to Save the Tsaritsa
Full bibliographic references are only given if the title does not appear in the bibliography.
Chapter 1: Happy Families
1 Ambassador, 80–1.
2 LP, 47.
3 Ambassador, 86, 89.
4 Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, London: Viking, 1985, 329.
5 Röhl, Young Wilhelm, 326.
6 Ibid., 333.
7 Poore, Memoirs of Emily Loch, 154.
8 Mosolov, At the Court of the Last Tsar, 203; Nicholas II, 141.
9 Carter, Three Emperors, 290.
10 Urbach, Royal Kinship, 114.
11 Princess of Battenberg, Reminiscences, London: Allen & Unwin, 1925, 236, 237.
12 Aronson, Grandmama of Europe, 185, quoting Sir Henry Ponsonby.
13 Ibid., 118.
14 See Bomann-Larsen, Kongstanken, 118, 153, 314.
15 King, The Court of the Last Tsar, 426–7.
16 LP, 129.
17 Ibid., 127.
18 Isaac Don Levine, The Willy–Nicky Letters between Kaiser Wilhelm and the Czar, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920, 73.
19 John C. G. Röhl, Kaiser Wilhelm II, a Concise Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 83.
20 Mosolov, At the Court of the Last Tsar, 209.
21 Isaac Don Levine, review of the Reminiscences of the Princess of Battenberg, in Salt Lake City Tribune, 7 March 1926. See also Paléologue, Guillaume II, 76.
22 Egan, Ten Years Near the German Frontier, 51, 52.
23 See Helen Rappaport, ‘Mister Heath: The English tutor who Taught Nicholas II to be the Perfect Gentleman’, Royalty Digest Quarterly, 2016: 2, 10–16.
24 LP, 204, 213.
25 Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, NewYork: Bantam, 1962, 22.
26 Carter, Three Emperors, 351.
27 Ann Morrow, Cousins Divided: George V and Nicholas II, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006, 94.
28 Hardinge papers, vol. 18, 28 March 1909, quoted in Roderick R. MacLean, Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe, 1890–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 168.
29 See Buxhoeveden, Life and Tragedy, 121–2.
30 Viscount Esher Reginald, Journals and Letters, vol. 2, London: Ivor Nicolson & Watson, 1934, 460.
31 Aronson, Grandmama, 191.
32 Van der Kiste, Crowns in a Changing World, 87, 88.
33 Carter, Three Emperors, 385.
34 Tomaszewski, A Great Russia, 50, 51.
35 Ambassador, 91.
36 Virginia Cowles, 1913:The Defiant Swan Song, London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967, 62.
37 Catrine Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, London: John Murray, 2006, 302.
38 Margot Asquith, Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary: The View from Downing Street, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 93.
39 Bomann-Larsen, Makten, 61.
40 HRH Prince Nicholas of Greece, Political Memoirs 1914–1917, London: Hutchinson, 1928, 20.
41 Platen, Bakom den Gyllne Fasaden, 295–6.
42 Egan, Ten Years near the German Frontier, 16.
43 Holden, ‘Harold Schou-Kjeldsen’, 14, 19–20.
44 Fort Wayne Sentinel, 5 June 1915.
Chapter 2: ‘Some Catastrophe Lurking in the Dark’
1 The papers are now lodged at the Archivo Orleans-Bourbón, Fundación Infantes Duques de Montpensier Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the archive of the granddaughter of the Queen of Romania’s sister, Beatrice.
2 Letters of 12 February 1913; 7 February 1914, John Wimbles Papers.
3 Egan, Ten Years near the German Frontier, 318.
4 Aronson, Grandmama of Europe, 144–5.
5 Mosolov, Court of the Last Tsar, 78.
6 Alexandrov, The End of the Romanovs, 156.
7 See e.g. Ambassador, 619–20.
8 Smith, Rasputin, 527.
9 Hardinge, Old Diplomacy, 83.
10 Letter of 12 February 1913, John Wimbles Papers
.
11 Letters of 31 January 1910; 26 June 1912, John Wimbles Papers.
12 Letter of 12 February 1913, John Wimbles Papers.
13 Ibid.
14 Letter of 12 April 1914, John Wimbles Papers.
15 John W. Davis, The Ambassadorial Diary of John W. Davis: The Court of St James’s 1918–1921, Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1993, 56.
16 De Angelis, Personality of Nicholas and Alexandra, 65–6.
17 Ibid., 60.
18 Ambassador, 740.
19 LP, 530, letter to Nikolay Mikhailovich of 14 February [OS] 1917.
20 Almedingen, Empress Alexandra, 184–5; Shulgin, ‘Dni’, in Haugolnykh, Beloemigranty, 72.
21 Patrick Buchanan, Later Leaves of the Buchanan Book, Montreal: E. Garand, 1927, 277.
22 Marie of Romania, Story of My Life, vol. 2, London: Arno Press, 1971, 123.
23 Hall, Little Mother of Russia, 279.
24 Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, 284.
25 Tsarism, 106.
26 De Angelis, Personality of Nicholas and Alexandra, 36, 38; LP, 534.
27 Van der Kiste, Crowns in a Changing World, 136.
28 De Angelis, Personality of Nicholas and Alexandra, 46.
29 Bomann-Larsen, Makten, 121.
30 Mironenko, ‘Romanov Family Tensions’, 146.
31 Letter of 29 December 1916, John Wimbles Papers.
32 Jamie Cockfield, White Crow: the Life and Times of the Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich Romanov, 1859–1919, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio, 2002, 182; Stopford, Russian Diary, 94.
33 Neklyudov, Diplomatic Reminiscences, 400, writing in 1916.
34 LP, 477.
35 Bokhanov et al., The Romanovs: Love Power & Tragedy, London: Leppi Publications, 1993, 282–3.
36 LP, 475.
37 Egan, Ten Years near the German Frontier, 319–20.
38 LP, 527.
39 Rodzianko, Reign of Rasputin, 247. Van der Kiste, Princess Victoria Melita, 117.
40 Yusupov, Lost Splendour, 266; Rodzianko, Reign of Rasputin, 244; Tsarism, 58.
41 Pipes, Russian Revolution, 269.
42 Tsarism, 58.
43 Ibid., 264, 271. For further details of pre-revolutionary conspiracies against N&A, see Lyandres’s valuable collection of contemporary interviews, and especially 271–2.
44 Mission, 41.
45 TNA FO 800/205/16, 5 January 1917.
46 TNA FO 800/205/17–18, 7 January 1917.
47 Ibid.
48 TNA FO 800/205/22.
49 See Mission, 43–9, for his description of this final audience with Nicholas on 12 January 1917.
50 Sir George Buchanan to Sir Charles Hardinge, 13 January 1917, quoted in McKee, ‘British Perceptions’, 283.
51 Lange, Jorden er Ikke Storre, 86.
52 Ibid., 86, 87; Egan, Ten Years near the German Frontier, 106. Egan observed at the time that the feeling in court circles there was that ‘If Prince Valdemar of Denmark had been the son instead of the brother of the Dowager Empress, Russia would have a future.’
53 RA PS/PSO/GV/C/Q/1550/XVIII/215.
54 Ibid.
55 RA PS/PSO/GV/C/O/1177/218.
56 Lange, Jorden er Ikke Storre, 86.
57 TNA FO 800/205/39.
58 RA PS/PSO/GV/C/Q/1550/XVIII/220.
59 Lange, Jorden er Ikke Storre, 89.
60 Tsarism, 104–5, 284–5.
61 Ibid., 108.
62 Letter of 11/24 February 1917, John Wimbles Papers.
63 Buxhoeveden, Life and Tragedy, 250–1.
64 Voiekov, S Tsarem I bez tsarya, 165–7; Dnevniki, 1: 212.
65 Buxhoeveden, Life and Tragedy, 252.
66 Fuhrmann, Wartime Correspondence, 697.
67 Dnevniki, 1: 254.
68 Buchanan telegram to FO, 17 March, TNA FO 371/2995; Tsarism, 289.
69 De Angelis, Personality of Nicholas and Alexandra, 2; Dnevniki, 1: 264.
70 LP, 550; Sukhanov, Russian Revolution, 172.
71 Nicholas, diary of 15 March 1917, Dnevniki, 1: 254.
Chapter 3: ‘Alicky Is the Cause of It All and Nicky Has Been Weak’
1 Diary for 13 March 1917, Rose, King George V, 209.
2 Van der Kiste, Crowns in a Changing World, 138.
3 Urbach, Go-Betweens for Hitler, 100–1.
4 AVPRI F. 133. Op. 470. D. 32. 1917. L. 20 and 21, quoted in Mednikov, ‘Missiya Spaseniya’, 65–6.
5 Regrettably none of the many books on Alfonso by the distinguished Spanish historian Carlos Seco Serrano are available in English, but see Alfonso XIII en el centenario de su reinado.
6 Jensen, Zarmoder, 29–30.
7 Dorothy Seymour diary, 3/16 March 1917 (NS), in Imperial War Museum, Documents 95/28/1.
8 Mordvinov, Iz perezhitogo, 2: 146.
9 Notes of the Meetings of the Provisional Government, March–October 1917, 1: 385, notes for 15/2 March, quoted in Mironenko et al. (eds), Gibel semi imperatora Nikolaya II, 83.
10 TNA FO 371/2995, 16 March 1917.
11 Balfour to Buchanan, 17 March 1917, TNA FO 800/205 and FO 371/2995.
12 LP, 552.
13 According to Zhukov, see mironenko et al., Gibel semi imperatora, 287; Sudba, 76.
14 TNA FO 371/2995 ciphered telegrams of 15 and 16 March.
15 Ibid..
16 Basily, ‘Notes on Departure’, 4. Basily cites ‘Mr Paléologue telegram no. 354 to the French Foreign Office’. See Ambassador, 834–5.
17 Basily, ‘Notes on Departure’, 5; citing ‘unpublished documents furnished by Mr Paléologue’.
18 Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, 288.
19 Fuhrmann, Wartime Correspondence, 652, 653.
20 TNA CAB/24/8/147–8; Williams to Alexeev, 19 March; Sudba, 79.
21 Ibid., 78. According to Alexander Kerensky, speaking many years later in exile, shortly after Nicholas arrived back at Stavka, General Mannerheim – future commander of the Finnish army and President of Finland, who was devoted to the Tsar – had suggested a secret mission to send him on a special train to Sweden via Finland, but Kerensky had thought it too risky.
22 Ibid., 79–80; TNA CAB 24/8, 23 March 1917, 281.
23 Hanbury-Williams, Emperor Nicholas II, 169–70.
24 Zhuk, Voprositelnye znaki, 30.
25 Basily, ‘Notes on the Departure’, 3.
26 Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, 152.
27 Levine, Eyewitness to History, 112; Browder, Russian Provisional Government, 179.
28 Hanbury-Williams, Emperor Nicholas II, 171; TNA CAB 24/8.
29 Basily, ‘Notes on Departure’, 5; Russkoe slovo, 21 March 1917; Kerensky, ‘Tsarskaya Semya’, in Haugolnykh, Beloemigranty, 192.
30 TNA FO 371/2998.
31 TNA FO 371/2995, FO 371/2998.
32 Stamfordham note of meeting, 22 March 1917, LP, 559.
33 Lloyd George, War Memoirs, III: 3616, quoted in Rose, King George V, 209.
34 LP, 560; Nicolson, King George V, 299.
35 Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, 152; Dissolution, 193; FO 371/2998.
36 Ambassador, 845.
37 FO 371/2998, 22 March 1917.
38 Basily, ‘Notes on Departure’, 6.
39 Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, 288–9; Dnevniki, 1: 341, 358.
40 Dagmar diary quoted in Dnevniki, 1: 338.
41 Dnevniki, 1: 365.
42 For a detailed discussion of the motives for the arrest of Nicholas and Alexandra, see Sudba, 80–5.