Wilson was moved by this talk. “What a tragedy there is in that life,” he wrote. Nevertheless, when he left Russia a week later, he added, “It seems as certain as anything can be that the Emperor and Empress are riding for a fall. Everyone—officers, merchants, ladies—talks openly of the absolute necessity of doing away with them.”
The killing of Rasputin was a monarchist act. It was intended by the Grand Duke, the Prince and the Right-wing deputy to cleanse the throne and restore the prestige of the dynasty. It was also intended, by removing what they conceived to be the power behind the Empress, to eliminate the Empress herself as a force in the government of Russia. The Tsar, they thought, would then be free to choose ministers and follow policies which would save the monarchy and Russia. This was the hope of many members of the Imperial family, most of whom disliked the murder, but were glad the murdered man was dead.
The Tsar’s punishment of Grand Duke Dmitry and Prince Felix Yussoupov, mild though it was, disappointed these hopes. The family addressed a collective letter to Nicholas which combined a plea for pardon for Dmitry with a request for a responsible ministry. Nicholas, still outraged that members of his family had been involved in the assassination, was further offended by the letter. “I allow no one to give me advice,” he replied indignantly. “A murder is always a murder. In any case, I know that the consciences of several who signed that letter are not clear.” A few days later, hearing that one of the signers, the liberal Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, was going around his Petrograd clubs openly berating the government, the Tsar ordered him to leave the capital and remain in residence on one of his country estates.
The murder, far from closing the breach within the Romanov family, had widened it further. The Dowager Empress was greatly alarmed. “One should … forgive,” Marie wrote from Kiev. “I am sure you are aware yourself how deeply you have offended all the family by your brusque reply, throwing at their heads a dreadful and entirely unjustified accusation. I hope that you will alleviate the fate of poor Dmitry by not leaving him in Persia.… Poor Uncle Paul [Dmitry’s father] wrote me in despair that he had not even been given a chance to say goodbye.… It is not like you to behave this way.… It upsets me very much.”
From his home in Kiev, the Tsar’s cousin and brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich hurried to Tsarskoe Selo to plead that the Empress withdraw from politics and the Tsar grant a government acceptable to the Duma. This was the “Sandro” of Nicholas’s youth, the gay companion of his suppers with Kschessinska, the husband of his sister Xenia and the father-in-law of Prince Felix Yussoupov. He found the Empress lying in bed, dressed in a white negligee embroidered with lace. Although the Tsar was present, sitting and quietly smoking on the other side of their large double bed, the Grand Duke spoke plainly: “Your interference with affairs of state is causing harm … to Nicky’s prestige. I have been your faithful friend, Alix, for twenty-four years … as a friend, I point out to you that all the classes of the population are opposed to your policies. You have a beautiful family of children, why can you not … please, Alix, leave the cares of state to your husband?”
When the Empress replied that it was impossible for an autocrat to share his powers with a parliament, the Grand Duke said, “You are very much mistaken, Alix. Your husband ceased to be an autocrat on October 17, 1905.”
The interview ended badly, with Grand Duke Alexander shouting in a wild rage: “Remember, Alix, I remained silent for thirty months. For thirty months I never said … a word to you about the disgraceful goings on in our government, better to say in your government. I realize that you are willing to perish and that your husband feels the same way, but what about us?… You have no right to drag your relatives with you down a precipice.” At this point, Nicholas quietly interrupted and led his cousin from the room. Later, from Kiev, Grand Duke Alexander wrote, “One cannot govern a country without listening to the voice of the people.… Strange as it may appear, it is the Government which is preparing the Revolution … the Government is doing all it can to increase the number of malcontents and it is succeeding admirably. We are watching an unprecedented spectacle, revolution coming from above and not from below.”
One branch of the Imperial family, the “Vladimirs,” were not content to write letters, but talked openly of a palace revolution which would replace their cousin by force. Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna and Grand Dukes Cyril, Boris and Andrei—the widow and sons of the Tsar’s eldest uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir—carried resentments which stretched deep into the past. Vladimir himself, a forceful, ambitious man, always jealous of his older brother, Tsar Alexander III, had accepted with difficulty the accession to the throne of his mild-mannered nephew. A vociferous Anglophobe, he was infuriated when Nicholas chose as his consort a princess who, although born in Darmstadt, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Vladimir’s widow, Marie Pavlovna, also was German, a Mecklenberger, and the third lady of the Russian Empire, ranking directly after the two Empresses. Socially, Marie Pavlovna was everything that Alexandra was not. Energetic, poised, intelligent, well read, devoted to gossip and intrigue, openly ambitious for her three sons, she turned her grand palace on the Neva into a glittering court which far outshone Tsarskoe Selo. In the lively conversations which dominated her dinner parties and soirees, amusement and scorn directed at the ruling couple were frequent themes. Never did the Grand Duchess forget that after the Tsarevich, who was ill, and the Tsar’s brother, who had married a commoner, the next in line for the throne was her eldest son, Cyril.
In addition, each of the Vladimir sons had separate personal reasons for prickly relations with the Tsar and the Empress. Cyril was married to the divorced wife of Alexandra’s brother Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse. Andrei kept as his mistress the ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinska, who had been in love with Nicholas II before his marriage. Boris, the middle Vladimir son, had proposed to his cousin Olga, the Tsar’s eldest daughter. The Empress, in writing to her husband, expressed some of the flavor of her rebuff to Boris: “What an awful set his wife would be dragged into … intrigues without end, fast manners and conversations … a half-worn, blasé … man of 38 to a pure fresh girl 18 years his junior and live in a house in which many a woman has ‘shared’ his life!! An inexperienced girl would suffer terribly to have her husband 4–5th hand—or more!” As the proposal had been transmitted not only in the name of Boris, but in that of his mother as well, Marie Pavlovna bore great bitterness toward Alexandra.
Rodzianko got a taste of this bitterness, and the conspiracy growing out of it, when in January 1917 he was urgently invited to lunch at the Vladimir Palace. After lunch, he wrote, the Grand Duchess “began to talk of the general state of affairs, of the Government’s incompetence, of Protopopov and of the Empress. She mentioned the latter’s name, becoming more and more excited, dwelling on her nefarious influence and interference in everything, and said she was driving the country to destruction; that she was the cause of the danger which threatened the Emperor and the rest of the Imperial family; that such conditions could no longer be tolerated; that things must be changed, something done, removed, destroyed.…”
Wishing to understand her meaning more precisely, Rodzianko asked, “What do you mean by ‘removed’?”
“The Duma must do something. She must be annihilated.”
“Who?”
“The Empress.”
“Your Highness,” said Rodzianko, “allow me to treat this conversation as if it had never taken place, because if you address me as the President of the Duma, my oath of allegiance compels me to wait at once on His Imperial Majesty and report to him that the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna has declared to me that the Empress must be annihilated.”
For weeks, the grand-ducal plot was the talk of Petrograd. Everyone knew the details: four regiments of the Guard were to make a night march on Tsarskoe Selo and seize the Imperial family. The Empress was to be shut up in a convent—the classic Russian method of disposing of unwanted empresses—and the Tsar was t
o be forced to abdicate in favor of his son, with the Grand Duke Nicholas as Regent. No one, not even the secret police who had collected all the details, took the Grand Dukes seriously. “Yesterday evening,” Paléologue wrote on January 9, “Prince Gabriel Constantinovich gave a supper for his mistress, formerly an actress. The guests included the Grand Duke Boris … a few officers and a squad of elegant courtesans. During the evening the only topic was the conspiracy—the regiments of the Guard which can be relied on, the most favorable moment for the outbreak, etc. And all this with the servants moving about, harlots looking on and listening, gypsies singing and the whole company bathed in the aroma of Moët and Chandon brut impérial which flowed in streams.”
The Imperial government was crumbling and among those who watched the process with dismay were some who were not Russian. The war and the alliance had conferred on the Ambassadors of France and Britain, Maurice Paléologue and Sir George Buchanan, positions of vast importance. Through the two Embassies in Petrograd and across the desks of the two Ambassadors flowed major questions of supply, munitions and military operations, as well as matters of diplomacy. As it became increasingly apparent that Russia’s domestic political crisis was affecting her capacity as a military ally, Buchanan and Paléologue found themselves in a delicate situation. Accredited personally to the Tsar, they had no right to speak on matters affecting Russian internal policy. Nevertheless, by the winter of 1917 both Ambassadors found themselves begged on all sides to use their access to the Tsar to plead for a government acceptable to the Duma. Personally convinced that nothing else could save Russia as an ally, they both agreed. Paléologue’s attempt, put off by Nicholas’s vagueness and gentle courtesy, failed completely. On January 12, Buchanan, in turn, was received at Tsarskoe Selo.
Sir George Buchanan was an old-school diplomat, distinguished by discretion, silvery hair and a monocle. Seven years’ service in Russia had left him weary and frail, but with a host of friends and admirers, including the Tsar himself. His only handicap in fulfilling his post was his inability to speak Russian. This made no difference in Petrograd, where everyone who mattered also spoke French or English. In 1916, however, Buchanan visited Moscow, where he was made an honorary citizen of the city and given a priceless icon and a massive silver loving cup. “In the heart of Russia,” wrote R. H. Bruce Lockhart, the British Consul General, who was assisting in Buchanan’s visit, “he had to say at least a word or two in Russian. We had carefully rehearsed the ambassador to hold it up and say to the distinguished audience, ‘Spasibo’ which is the short form of Russian for ‘thank you.’ Instead, Sir George, in a firm voice, held up the cup and said, ‘Za pivo’ which means ‘for beer.’ ”
At Tsarskoe Selo, Buchanan was surprised to be received by the Tsar in the formal audience chamber rather than in Nicholas’s study, where they usually talked. Nevertheless, he asked whether he could speak frankly, and Nicholas assented. Buchanan came straight to the point, telling the Tsar that Russia needed a government in which the nation could have confidence. “Your Majesty, if I may be permitted to say so, has but one safe course open to you—namely, to break down the barrier that separates you from your people and to regain their confidence.”
Drawing himself up and giving Buchanan a hard look, Nicholas asked, “Do you mean that I am to regain the confidence of my people or that they are to regain my confidence?”
“Both, Sire,” Buchanan replied, “for without such mutual confidence Russia will never win this war.”
The Ambassador criticized Protopopov, “who, if Your Majesty will forgive my saying so, is bringing Russia to the verge of ruin.”
“I chose M. Protopopov,” Nicholas interjected, “from the ranks of the Duma in order to be agreeable to them—and this is my reward.”
Buchanan warned that revolutionary language was being spoken not only in Petrograd but all over Russia, and that “in the event of revolution only a small portion of the army can be counted on to defend the dynasty.” Then he concluded with a surge of personal feeling:
“An ambassador, I am well aware, has no right to hold the language which I have held to Your Majesty, and I had to take my courage in both hands before speaking as I have done.… [But] if I were to see a friend walking through a wood on a dark night along a path which I knew ended in a precipice, would it not be my duty, Sire, to warn him of his danger? And is it not equally my duty to warn Your Majesty of the abyss that lies ahead of you?”
The Tsar was moved by Buchanan’s appeal and, pressing the Ambassador’s hand as he left, said, “I thank you, Sir George.” The Empress, however, was outraged by Buchanan’s presumption. “The Grand Duke Serge remarked that had I been a Russian subject, I should have been sent to Siberia,” Buchanan wrote later.
Although Rodzianko had disdained Marie Pavlovna’s suggestion that the Empress be “annihilated,” he agreed with the Grand Duchess that the Empress must be stripped of political powers. Earlier in the fall, when Protopopov had come to him and mentioned that the Tsar might appoint the Duma President as Premier, Rodzianko had stated as one of his terms that “the Empress must renounce all interference in affairs of state and remain at Livadia until the end of the war.” Now, in the middle of winter, he received a visit from the Tsar’s younger brother Grand Duke Michael. Michael, the handsome, good-natured “Misha,” was living with his wife, Countess Brassova, at Gatchina, outside the capital. Although after the Tsarevich he was next in line for the throne, he had absolutely no influence on his brother. Worried and realizing his own helplessness, he asked how the desperate situation might be saved. Again Rodzianko declared that “Alexandra Fedorovna is fiercely and universally hated, and all circles are clamoring for her removal. While she remains in power, we shall continue on the road to ruin.” The Grand Duke agreed with him and begged Rodzianko to go again to tell the Tsar. On January 20, Nicholas received him.
“Your Majesty,” said Rodzianko, “I consider the state of the country to have become more critical and menacing than ever. The spirit of all the people is such that the gravest upheavals may be expected.… All Russia is unanimous in claiming a change of government and the appointment of a responsible premier invested with the confidence of the nation.… Sire, there is not a single honest or reliable man left in your entourage; all the best have either been eliminated or have resigned.… It is an open secret that the Empress issues orders without your knowledge, that Ministers report to her on matters of state. … Indignation against and hatred of the Empress are growing throughout the country. She is looked upon as Germany’s champion. Even the common people are speaking of it.…”
Nicholas interrupted: “Give me the facts. There are no facts to confirm your statements.”
“There are no facts,” Rodzianko admitted, “but the whole trend of policy directed by Her Majesty gives ground for such ideas. To save your family, Your Majesty ought to find some way of preventing the Empress from exercising any influence on politics.… Your Majesty, do not compel the people to choose between you and the good of the country.”
Nicholas pressed his head between his hands. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that for twenty-two years I tried to act for the best and that for twenty-two years it was all a mistake?”
The question was astonishing. It was completely beyond the bounds of propriety for Rodzianko to answer, yet, realizing that it had been asked honestly, man to man, he summoned his courage and said, “Yes, Your Majesty, for twenty-two years you followed a wrong course.”
A month later, on February 23, Rodzianko saw Nicholas for the last time. This time the Tsar’s attitude was “positively harsh” and Rodzianko, in turn, was blunt. Announcing that revolution was imminent, he declared, “I consider it my duty, Sire, to express to you my profound foreboding and conviction that this will be my last report to you.”
Nicholas said nothing and Rodzianko was curtly excused.
Rodzianko’s was the last of the great warnings to the Tsar. Nicholas rejected them all. He had pledged to preserve the
autocracy and hand it on intact to his son. In his mind, urbane grand dukes, foreign ambassadors and members of the Duma did not represent the peasant masses of the real Russia. Most of all, he felt that to give way during the war would be taken as a sign of personal weakness which would only accelerate revolution. Perhaps when the war was ended, he would modify the autocracy and reorganize the government. “I will do everything afterwards,” he said. “But I cannot act now. I cannot do more than one thing at a time.”
The attacks on the Empress and the suggestions that she be sent away only angered him. “The Empress is a foreigner,” he declared fervently. “She has no one to protect her but myself. I shall never abandon her under any circumstances. In any case, all the charges made against her are false. Wicked lies are being told about her. But I shall know how to make her respected.”
Early in March, after two months of rest with his family, Nicholas’s spirits began to improve. He was optimistic that the army, equipped with new arms from Britain and France, could finish the war by the end of the year. Complaining of the “poisoned air” of Petrograd, he was anxious to return to Stavka to plan the spring offensive.
Protopopov, meanwhile, sensing the approach of a crisis, tried to mask his fears by recommending forcible countermeasures. Four cavalry regiments of the Guard were ordered from the front to Petrograd, and the city police began training in the use of machine guns. The cavalry never arrived. At Stavka, General Gurko was disgusted at the prospect of fighting the people and countermanded the order. On March 7, the day before the Tsar left for Headquarters, Protopopov arrived at the palace. He saw the Empress first; she told him that the Tsar insisted on spending a month at the front and that she could not change his mind. Nicholas entered the room and, taking Protopopov aside, said that he had decided to return in three weeks. Protopopov in agitation said, “The time is such, Sire, that you are wanted both here and there.… I very much fear the consequences.” Nicholas, struck by his minister’s alarm, promised if possible to return within a week.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty Page 50