Nicholas and Alexandra: The Tragic, Compelling Story of the Last Tsar and his Family

by Robert K. Massie

  Nicholas was careful during his visits to Headquarters not to intrude on the authority of the Grand Duke. Sitting beside the Commander-in-Chief at morning staff conferences, the Tsar played the part of the interested, honored guest. Together, the two men listened to reports of the previous day’s operations at the front; together, they bent over the huge maps of Poland, East Prussia and Galicia, studying the red and blue lines which marked the positions of the opposing armies. But when the moment came to issue commands, the Tsar was silent and the Grand Duke spoke.

  It was when the Tsar was in this relaxed, happy mood at Headquarters that General Hanbury-Williams first met him. “At 2:30 I was summoned to meet the Emperor,” he wrote. “On arrival, I found two huge Cossacks at the door of His Imperial Majesty’s train…. The Emperor received me alone. He was dressed in perfectly plain khaki uniform, the coat being more of a blouse than ours, with blue breeches and long black riding boots, and was standing at a high writing desk. As I saluted, he came forward at once and shook me warmly by the hand. I was at once struck by his extraordinary likeness to our own King, and the way he smiled, his face lighting up, as if it were a real pleasure to him to receive one. His first question was one of inquiry after our King and Queen and the Royal family…. I had always pictured him to myself as a somewhat sad and anxious-looking monarch, with cares of state and other things hanging heavily over him. Instead of that I found a bright, keen, happy face, plenty of humor and a fresh-air man.”

  Meals at Headquarters were hearty and masculine: plentiful zakouski, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, vodka and wines. The vodka, wrote Hanbury-Williams, “went down my throat like a torchlight procession.” At the table, surrounded by men he considered his fellow officers, Nicholas spoke freely without the inhibitions imposed at court. Once he offered an analysis of the difference between Russia and the United States:

  “At dinner tonight, H.I.M. [His Imperial Majesty] talked about empires and republics. His own ideas as a young man were that he had a great responsibility and he felt that the people over whom he ruled were so numerous and so varying in blood and temperament, different altogether from our Western Europeans, that an Emperor was a vital necessity to them. His first visit to the Caucasus had made a vital impression on him and confirmed him in his views.

  “The United States of America, he said, was an entirely different matter, and the two cases could not be compared. In this country [Russia], many as were the problems and the difficulties, their sense of imagination, their intense religious feeling and their habits and customs generally made a crown necessary, and he believed this must be so for a very long time, that a certain amount of decentralizing of authority was, of course, necessary but that the great and decisive power must rest with the Crown. The powers of the Duma must go slowly, because of the difficulties of pushing on education at any reasonably fast rate among all these masses of his subjects.”

  As for the personal role of the Autocrat, Nicholas admitted that, while he could give any order he liked, he could not ensure that it was carried out. Often, when he found that something he had asked had not been properly done, he said wistfully to Hanbury-Williams, “You see what it is to be an autocrat.”

  At Headquarters, the Tsar took long afternoon walks along country roads thoroughly scouted in advance by Cossack patrols. In warm weather, he rowed on the Dnieper, often removing his blouse so that the sun could tan him. Occasionally, for variety, he challenged other officers to a race. Nicholas liked to win, but he would row only against men who had a chance of beating him.

  In November 1914, the Tsar left Headquarters for a long journey to the southern Causasus, where his troops were fighting the Turks. “We are passing through picturesque country,” he wrote to Alexandra, “… with beautiful high mountains on one side and the steppes on the other. At each station, the platforms are crowded with people … thousands of them…. We are running along by the Caspian Sea. It rests the eyes to look on the blue distance, it reminded me of the Black Sea … not far off are the mountains, beautifully lit by the sun.” In Kuban province, passing Cossack villages, he admired the people and their rich orchards. “They are beginning to be wealthy, and above all they have an inconceivably high number of small infants. All future subjects. This all fills me with joy and faith in God’s mercy. I look forward in peace and confidence to what lies in store for Russia.”

  On trips, when outdoor exercise was impossible, Nicholas solved the problem by rigging an apparatus inside the train. “My hanging trapeze has proved very practical and useful,” he wrote. “I swung on it many times and climbed it before meals. It really is an excellent thing for the train, it stirs up the blood and the whole organism.” From this description arises a piquant image of the Imperial train rolling through dusty villages, past platforms crowded with curious and worshipful peasants, while inside, hidden from view, the Little Father hangs by his heels, swinging back and forth on his trapeze.

  In the autumn of 1915, the Tsar brought his son, the eleven-year-old Tsarevich, to live with him at Army Headquarters. It was a startling move, not simply because of the boy’s age but also because of his hemophilia. Yet, Nicholas did not make his decision impetuously. His reasons, laboriously weighed for months in advance, were both sentimental and shrewd.

  The Russian army, battered and retreating after a summer of terrible losses, badly needed a lift in morale. Nicholas himself made constant appearances, and his presence, embodying the cause of Holy Russia, raised tremendous enthusiasm among the men who saw him. It was his hope that the appearance of the Heir at his side, symbolizing the future, would further bolster their drooping spirits. It was a reasonable hope, and, in fact, wherever Alexis appeared he became a center of great excitement.

  Perhaps more important, the Tsar was thinking of the distant future and the day his son would sit on the throne. Alexis’s education, up to that point, had been anything but normal. As a prince, he lived in a restricted world; because of his illness, it was primarily a world of adoring women. By taking his son from the muffled, silken-pillowed atmosphere of the palace and bringing him into the bracing air of beards, leather and uniforms at Stavka, Nicholas proposed to broaden the education of the future tsar.

  It was enormously difficult for the Empress to let Alexis go. During his entire lifetime, he had not been out of her sight for more than a few hours; whenever he was gone, she imagined dangers which others would never dream of. On his trips to Headquarters, the Tsarevich was surrounded with protection by his personal retinue: Fedorov and Derevenko the doctors, Gilliard the tutor, Derevenko and Nagorny the sailor bodyguards. Yet real risks were involved and the Empress was acutely aware of them. In traveling on the Imperial train, there was danger of stumbling and falling in the corridors as the carriages lurched. Bouncing in automobiles over dirt roads, traveling in a zone where German airplanes might appear, walking long distances and standing for hours as thousands of men marched by—no doctor would permit this activity for any other hemophiliac. While he was away, Alexandra’s letters to the Tsar were filled with concern for him: “See that Tiny [Alexis] doesn’t tire himself on the stairs. He cannot take walks…. Tiny loves digging and working and he is so strong and forgets that he must be careful…. Take care of Baby’s arm, don’t let him run about on the train so as not to knock his arms…. Before you decide, speak with Mr. Gilliard, he is such a sensible man and knows all so well about Baby.” Every night at nine p.m., the Empress went to Alexis’s room as if he were there saying his prayers. There, on her knees, she prayed to God that her son would come home safely.

  Once when Gilliard had returned alone to Tsarskoe Selo, leaving Alexis at Headquarters, the Empress explained to him why she had let her son go at all. “After the meal, we went out on the terrace,” wrote the tutor. “It was a beautiful evening, warm and still. Her Majesty was stretched on a sofa and two of her daughters were knitting woollen clothing for the soldiers. The other two Grand Duchesses were sewing. Alexis Nicolaievich was naturally the principal topic
of conversation. They never tired of asking me what he did and said … with a candor which utterly amazed me [the Empress then] said that all his life the Tsar had suffered from his natural timidity and from the fact that, as he had been kept too much in the background, he had found himself badly prepared for the duties of a ruler on the sudden death of Alexander III. The Tsar had vowed to avoid the same mistakes in the education of his own son.” Suppressing her own terrible fears, the Empress agreed with her husband.

  Alexis himself was longing to escape from the Alexander Palace. For months, his greatest excitement had been a series of afternoon automobile drives taken within a radius of twenty miles of Tsarskoe Selo. “We used to start out immediately after lunch,” wrote Gilliard, who arranged the excursions. “[We] often stopped at villages to watch the peasants at work. Alexis Nicolaievich liked questioning them, and they always answered him with the frank, kindly simplicity of the Russian moujik, not having the slightest idea whom they were speaking to. The railway lines of the suburbs of St. Petersburg had a great attraction for the boy. He took the liveliest interest in the activities of the little stations we passed and the work of repair on track and bridges…. The palace police grew alarmed at these excursions which took us beyond the guarded zone…. Whenever we left the park, we were certain to see a car appear and follow in our tracks. It was one of Alexis Nicolaievich’s greatest delights to try and throw it off the scent.”

  For a lively, intelligent eleven-year-old boy, the chance to visit Army Headquarters was a promise of high adventure. On an October morning in 1915, the Tsarevich, dressed in the uniform of an army private, delightedly kissed his mother goodbye and boarded his father’s train. Even before reaching Headquarters, Alexis saw his first review of front-line troops. As the Tsar walked down the ranks, Gilliard wrote, “Alexis Nicolaievich was at his father’s heels, listening intently to the stories of these men who had often stared death in the face. His features, which were always expressive, became quite strained in an effort not to lose a single word of what the men were saying. His presence at the Tsar’s side greatly interested the soldiers … they were heard whispering their ideas about his age, size and looks. But the point that made the greatest impression on them was the fact that the Tsarevich was wearing the uniform of a private soldier.”

  A series of German victories in the summer of 1915 had forced relocation of Stavka from Baranovichi to Mogilev, a Russian town on the upper Dnieper River. Here, the trains had been abandoned and Headquarters established in the house of the provincial governor, a mansion on the crest of a hill overlooking a bend in the river. As the building was crowded, Nicholas reserved only two rooms for himself—a bedroom and an office. For Alexis, a second cot was placed in the Tsar’s bedroom.

  “It is very cosy sleeping side by side,” Nicholas wrote to Alexandra. “I say prayers with him every night…. He says his prayers too fast and it is difficult to stop him…. I read all [your] letters aloud to him. He listens lying in bed and kisses your signature…. He sleeps well and likes the window left open…. Noise in the street does not disturb him…. Yesterday evening when Alexei was already in bed, a thunderstorm broke out; the lightning struck somewhere near the town, it rained hard after which the air became delightful and much fresher. We slept well with the window open…. Thank God he looks so well and has become sunburnt…. He wakes up early in the morning between 7 and 8, sits up in bed and begins to talk quietly to me. I answer drowsily, he settles down and lies quietly until I am called.”

  There was a tender charm in this intimate companionship between father and son, briefly shared in the middle of a great war; for them, the room at Mogilev became a tiny haven of peace and affection set in the eye of the hurricane. “He brings much light into my life here,” Nicholas wrote. Later, he said, “His company gives light and life to all of us.”

  Every morning at Headquarters, the Tsarevich did lessons with Gilliard on the veranda. Afterward, he played in the garden with a toy rifle. “He always carries his little gun with him and walks backwards and forwards on the path marching and singing loudly,” wrote Nicholas. “I went into the little garden where Alexei was marching about singing loudly and Derevenko was walking on another path, whistling…. His left hand hurts him a little because yesterday he worked in the sand on the river bank but he pays no attention and is very cheerful. After lunch, he rests for about a half an hour and Mr. Gilliard reads to him while I write. At the table, he sits on my left hand…. Alexei loves to tease. It is extraordinary how he has lost his shyness. He always follows me when I greet my gentlemen.”

  In the afternoons, “we go out in the car … either into a wood or on the bank of the river, where we light a fire and I walk about nearby.” On hot days in summer, they swam in the Dnieper: “He splashes about near the bank. I bathe not far away.” Once “we found a lovely place with soft sand where he played happily. The sand was as soft and white as on the seashore. Baby [Alexis] ran about shouting. Fedorov allowed him to go barefoot. Naturally, he was delighted.” Sometimes, playmates appeared. “Did he [Alexis] describe to you how the peasant boys played all sorts of games with him?”

  In Mogilev, meals were served in the dining room of the governor’s house or, in warm weather, in a large green tent set up in the garden. Along with the regular Headquarters staff, there were always “colonels and generals who are returning from the front…. [I] invite them to lunch and dinner. Mogilev is like an enormous hotel where crowds of people pass through.” Alexis plunged happily into this bustling atmosphere. “He sits on my left hand and behaves well but sometimes becomes inordinately gay and noisy, especially when I am talking with the others in the drawing room. In any case, it is pleasant for them and makes them smile.”

  The Tsarevich’s favorites at Headquarters were “the foreigners—the military attachés of Britain, France, Italy, Serbia, Belgium and Japan. Before long, they had, in effect, adopted the high-spirited boy as their mascot. “I had expected to find a very delicate and not very lively boy,” wrote Hanbury-Williams, who became one of the Tsarevich’s favorites. “But in the periods of what may be called his good health, he had all the spirits and the mischief of any ordinary boy of that age…. He wore a khaki uniform and long Russian boots and was very proud of himself as a soldier, had excellent manners and spoke various languages well and clearly.

  “As time went on and his first shyness wore off, he treated us as old friends and … had always some bit of fun with us. With me it was to make sure that each button on my coat was properly fastened, a habit which naturally made me take great care to have one or two unbuttoned, in which case he used at once to stop and tell me I was ‘untidy again,’ give a sigh at my lack of attention to these details and stop and carefully button me all up again.”

  Once Alexis had made sure of his new friends, quite incredible things began to happen, especially at lunch: “While the rest of the party were eating zakouska, every conceivable game went on, a ‘rag’ in fact, ending most likely in a game of football with anything that came handy. The Belgian general of whom he was very fond, and used always to call ‘Papa de Ricquel,’ being a man of no mean girth, gave great opportunities for attack. The devoted tutor was almost in despair and it generally ended with the intervention of the Emperor, by which time the small boy was carefully hidden behind a curtain. He then used to reappear with a twinkle in his eye and solemnly march to take his place at the table. There he would begin again by a bread pellet attack … which risked all the Imperial china and glasses. If, however, he had a stranger sitting next to him he had all the courtesy and charm of his father, talking freely and asking sensible questions. The moment, however, that we adjourned to the anteroom the games used to begin again, and went on fast and furious till either the Emperor or his tutor carried him off.”

  After lunch, the games often continued in the garden: “He dragged some of us off after lunch in the tent to a round fountain in the garden which had porpoise heads all round it, with two holes in each to represent the e
yes. The game is to plug up these holes with one’s fingers, then turn on the fountain full split and suddenly let go. The result was that I nearly drowned the Emperor and his son and they returned the compliment, and we all had to go back and change, laughing till we nearly cried.” Nicholas, expecting that the Empress might disapprove of such rough games, wrote an explanatory note: “I am writing … having come in from the garden with wet sleeves and boots as Alexei has sprayed us at the fountain. It is his favorite game … peals of laughter ring out. I keep an eye in order to see that things do not go too far.”

  Late in October, to show his son that war was not all games and toy forts and lead soldiers, the Tsar took Alexis on a month-long trip the length of the battlefront. In Galicia, returning after dark from a mass review, Nicholas and Alexis made a surprise visit to a front-line dressing station. The rooms were lit only by torches. Moving from one bandaged body to the next, Nicholas spoke to the suffering men, many of whom could scarcely believe that the Tsar himself was walking among them. Close behind came Alexis, deeply moved by the groaning and suffering all around him. Later, standing before a field of men on parade, Nicholas asked those who had served since the beginning of the war to raise their hands. “But very few hands were lifted above those thousands of heads,” wrote Gilliard. “There were whole companies in which not a man moved…. [This] made a very great impression on Alexis Nicolaievich.”