Wherever they went, Alexis was insatiably curious. At Reval, on the Baltic coast, they visited four British submarines which had been sinking German ships in the Baltic. The hulls and conning towers were sheathed in sparkling ice as Nicholas thanked the officers and men and awarded the St. George Cross to the four Royal Navy captains. For Alexis, the submarines had an extraordinary fascination. “Alexei … crept into every possible hole,” wrote Nicholas. “I even overheard him talking freely to a lieutenant asking him questions.” That night, to the Tsarevich’s delight, the Tsar brought the four submarine captains back to the train for dinner.
In the south, the Tsar and his son inspected four regiments of Caucasian cavalry. Alexis was thrilled, and even the stolid Gilliard was impressed: “Among other units were the Kuban and Terek Cossacks, perched high in the saddle and wearing the huge fur caps which make them look so fierce. As we started to return, the whole mass of cavalry suddenly moved forward, took stations on both sides of the road, broke into a gallop, tearing up the hills, sweeping down the banks of ravines, clearing all obstacles, and thus escorted us to the station in a terrific charge in which men and animals crashed together on the ground while the melée rose the raucous yells of the Caucasian mountaineers. It was a spectacle at once magnificent and terrible.”
Besides visiting troops, father and son toured cities, factories, shipyards and hospitals. In Odessa, wrote Nicholas, “the streets were crowded with young soldiers and … people…. Our Treasure [Alexis] sat with a serious face, saluting all the time. Through the tumult of the crowd and the shouts of ‘Hurrah!’ I managed to hear women’s voices calling out, ‘The Heir!, The Angel!, The pretty boy!’ … He heard them too and smiled at them.” Once when the train stopped outside a town, “Alexei’s cat ran away and hid under a big pile of board. We put on our great coats and went to look for her. Nagorny found her at once with a flashlight, but it took a long time to make the wretch come out. She would not listen to Alexei. At last, he caught her by one of her hind legs and dragged her through the narrow chink.” Returning to Headquarters after a month on the train, Nicholas reported happily to Alexandra, “Alexei has borne the strain … astonishingly well, only occasionally he suffered from a little bleeding at the nose.”
The Empress, as if unable to stay away from the exclusive male retreat of her husband and son, made occasional visits to Headquarters. Bringing her daughters and sometimes Anna Vyrubova, she lived aboard her train. During the mornings, while the Tsar was at work, she sat by the river or visited the families of peasants and railway workers. At noon, staff motorcars arrived to bring the ladies to the governor’s house for lunch. In the afternoon, while the family went driving together, the cars went back to the train for the maids, gowns and jewels needed to costume the women for dinner. In a house crowded with men, the ladies changed as best they could in niches and closets.
At dinner, Hanbury-Williams found her “much easier to get on with than I expected…. She told me how terribly shy she felt on coming into the room where we all were assembled … the chiefs of the Allied military missions … and a galaxy of Russian officers…. The moment one began to laugh over things, she brightened up and talk became easy and unaffected…. It seems extraordinary how little it takes to cheer her up…. She is so proud of Russia and so anxious that the Allies should win the war…. War to her seems almost more terrible, if such a thing is possible, than to other people. But she spoke of it to me as the ‘passing out of darkness into the light of victory. Victory we must have.’”
As long as Alexis was alone with his father, the Tsar carried the day-to-day burden of caring for his son’s health. His letters to Alexandra were filled with detailed descriptions: “When we arrived by train in the evening, Baby played the fool,” he wrote late in November 1915. “[He] pretended to fall off his chair and hurt his left arm (under the armpit). It did not hurt afterwards but swelled up instead. And so the first night here, he slept very restlessly, kept on sitting up in bed, groaning, calling for you and talking to me. Every few minutes he fell off to sleep again. This went on till 4 o’clock. Yesterday he spent in bed. I explained to everyone that he had simply slept badly…. Thank God, it is all over today except for paleness and a slight bleeding at the nose. For the rest, he is exactly as he usually is and we walked together in the little garden.”
The following summer, in July 1916, Nicholas wrote: “This morning while we were still in bed, Alexei showed me that his elbow would not bend; then he took his temperature and calmly announced that he had better stay in bed all day.” In November 1916: “The Little One is suffering from a strained vein in the upper part of his right leg…. During the night, he kept waking and groaned in his sleep. Fedorov has ordered him to lie quietly in bed.” On the following day: “Baby’s leg hurts from time to time and he cannot get off to sleep the first part of the night. When I come to bed, he tries not to groan.”
Although the situation was unprecedented in the history of war and monarchy—an emperor, the commander-in-chief of the world’s largest army, spending his nights caring for a groaning child—Nicholas carefully avoided any specific discussion of his son’s illness. “He rarely refers to the Tsarevich’s health but tonight I could see that he was anxious about him,” wrote Hanbury-Williams. “I suppose he recognizes that the boy’s health can never be satisfactory and no doubt wonders what will happen if he lives to succeed to the throne. Anyhow, he is doing all he possibly can to train him on what, if he ever succeeds, will be a very heavy task. He wishes very much that he may be able to travel about and see something of the world, and gain experiences from other countries which will be of use to him in Russia, with all the complications, as he put it to me, of this enormous Empire.”
For the most part, all went well, the disease remained under control, and Nicholas enjoyed the deceptive sense of calm and stability which often comes to the parents of hemophiliacs. But the disease, capricious and malevolent, awaits precisely these moments to strike. In December 1915, the Tsarevich suffered a severe nosebleed. The attack was the worst since Spala, the kind which haunted the dreams of the Empress. Unlike other external bleeding which can be checked by pressure and bandaging, nosebleeds pose an extreme danger to hemophiliacs. Difficult to treat, unsusceptible to pressure, once started they are almost impossible to check.
Nicholas and Alexis were on the train headed for Galicia to inspect a number of regiments of the Imperial Guard. “On the morning of our departure,” recalled Gilliard, “Alexis Nicolaievich, who had caught cold the previous day and was suffering from a heavy catarrh in the head, began to bleed heavily at the nose as a result of sneezing violently. I summoned Professor Fedorov but he could not entirely stop the bleeding…. During the night, the boy got worse. His temperature had gone up and he was getting weaker. At three o’clock in the morning Professor Fedorov, alarmed at his responsibilities, decided to have the Tsar roused and ask him to return to Mogilev where he could attend to the Tsarevich under more favorable conditions.
“The next morning we were on our way back to GHQ, but the boy’s state was so alarming that it was decided to take him back to Tsarskoe Selo…. The patient’s strength was failing rapidly. We had to have the train stopped several times to be able to change the [nose] plugs. Alexis Nicolaievich was supported in bed by his sailor Nagorny (he could not be allowed to lie full length), and twice in the night he swooned away and I thought the end had come.”
During the crisis, Anna Vyrubova was with the Empress: “I was with the Empress when the telegram came announcing the return of the Emperor and the boy to Tsarskoe Selo, and I can never forget the anguish of mind with which the poor mother awaited the arrival of her sick, perhaps dying child. Nor can I ever forget the waxen, grave-like pallor of the little pointed face as the boy with infinite care was borne into the palace and laid on his little white bed. Above the blood-soaked bandages his large blue eyes gazed at us with pathos unspeakable, and it seemed to all around the bed that the last hour of the unhappy child was at
hand. The physicians kept up their ministrations, exhausting every means known to science to stop the incessant bleeding. In despair, the Empress sent for Rasputin. He came into the room, made the sign of the cross over the bed and, looking intently at the almost moribund child, said quietly to the kneeling parents: ‘Don’t be alarmed. Nothing will happen.’ Then he walked out of the room and out of the palace. That was all. The child fell asleep and the next day was so well that the Emperor left for the Stavka. Dr. Derevenko and Professor Fedorov told me afterwards that they did not even attempt to explain the cure.”
Gilliard’s account gives more credit to the doctors’ efforts, but does not challenge Vyrubova’s assertion that the Empress was convinced that only Rasputin had saved her son: “At last we reached Tsarskoe Selo. It was eleven o’clock. The Empress, who had been torn with anguish and anxiety, was on the platform with the Grand Duchesses. With infinite care the invalid was taken to the palace. The doctors ultimately succeeded in cauterizing the scar which had formed at the spot where a little blood vessel had burst. Once more the Empress attributed the improvement in her son’s condition to the prayers of Rasputin, and she remained convinced that the boy had been saved thanks to his intervention.”
Nicholas, sadly leaving his son surrounded again by women and pillows, returned to his life at the front. From Galicia, where he reviewed the Guards, he wrote, “They did not march past owing to the deep, thick mud—they would have lost their boots under my very eyes…. It was already getting dark…. A Te Deum [was held] in the center of a huge square in complete darkness. Having sat down in the car, I shouted ‘Good bye’ to the troops and from the invisible field rose a terrible roar…. On that day, I inspected 84,000 soldiers, Guards alone, and fed 105 commanding officers [on the train]…. Tell the Little One I miss him terribly.”
At Mogilev, a stillness settled over the governor’s house. Conversations at meals became formal and professional. “Tell him,” Nicholas wrote to Alexandra, “that they [the foreigners] always finish their zakouski in the little room and remember him. I also think of him very often, especially in the garden and in the evenings and I miss my cup of chocolate [with him].”
The Tsarevich remained at Tsarskoe Selo the rest of the winter, regaining his strength. The Empress reported his progress in every letter: “Thank God, your heart can be quiet about Alexei … Baby has got up and will lunch in my room. He looks sweet, thin, with big eyes…. Sunbeam is at last going out and I hope he will regain his pink cheeks again…. He received a charming telegram from all the foreigners at Headquarters in remembrance of the little room in which they used to sit and chat during zakouski.”
By February, he was well enough to go out into the park to play in the snow. One day, the Tsar—home for a few days—and his sisters were with him. “He [Alexis] slipped behind his youngest sister, who had not seen him coming, and threw a huge snowball at her,” wrote Gilliard. “His father … called the boy to him and talked to him severely: ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Alexis! You’re behaving like a German to attack anyone from behind when they can’t defend themselves. It’s horrid and cowardly. Leave that sort of behavior to the Germans!’”
In May 1916, six months after Alexis was stricken, the Empress reluctantly allowed him to return to Headquarters. He was promoted from private to corporal. “He is very proud of his stripes and more mischievous than ever,” reported Hanbury-Williams. “At lunch the Tsarevich pushed all the cups, bread, toast, menus, etc. which he could get hold of across to me and then called the attention of his father to count all the pieces I had.”
On December 20, 1916, the Tsarevich paid his last visit to Army Headquarters. A few days later, he was to leave for Tsarskoe Selo for the winter; before spring, revolution would sweep his father off the throne. On that night, General Hanbury-Williams received word from England that his eldest son, an officer with the British army in France, had died as a result of wounds. As the General sat alone with his grief in his tiny, barren room, the door quietly opened. It was Alexis, saying, “Papa told me to come to sit with you as he thought you might feel lonely tonight.”
22
“Poor Fellows, They Are Ready to Give Their Lives for a Smile”
Victory on the Marne and disaster at Tannenberg tended to dim the result of a third great battle fought in the opening weeks of war. Even as Rennenkampf’s Cossacks rode through East Prussian barnyards, the main mass of the Austro-Hungarian army, one million strong, launched itself north from Galicia intending to amputate Poland from Russia. Within less than three weeks, the Russians had stopped and smashed these invaders. Four Austro-Hungarian armies were routed, two hundred thousand prisoners and Lemberg, the capital of the province, were taken, and Russian cavalry crossed the Carpathians to ride out onto the great Danube plain toward Budapest and Vienna. In terror, hinting that it might be forced to a separate peace, the Austrian government appealed to Berlin for help.
The German General Staff ordered Hindenburg to rush reinforcements. On September 14, 1914, two German army corps headed south from East Prussia; four days later, Hindenburg raised the rescue force by two additional army corps and a cavalry division. Even this help might not have been enough if the Russian offensive had not suddenly halted of its own accord. The source of this command—inexplicable and keenly frustrating to front-line generals who sensed a chance to knock Austria-Hungary out of the war—was Paris. On September 14, Paléologue received a telegram from his government. “It instructs me to impress on the Russian government that it is essential for the Russian armies to press home their direct offensive against Germany,” he wrote. “[We are] afraid that our Allies may have had their heads turned by their relatively easy successes in Galicia and may neglect the German front in order to concentrate on forcing their way to Vienna.” On the Tsar’s command, to accommodate the wishes of his ally, the triumphant Russians began receding from the Carpathians. Two of the four Russian armies in Galicia were shifted north to begin a fruitless attack on German Silesia. Again, Russia had made a gallant and expensive gesture toward her hard-pressed ally. But it represented a gross violation of sound military strategy as nicely expressed by the old Russian proverb: “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either.” Russia’s chance to crush Austria-Hungary at the outset was lost.
In the early battles of 1914, the Russians learned that the Austrians were a far weaker foe than the Germans. Fighting Austrians soon came to be considered almost unworthy by Russian officers. Knox discovered this feeling among twenty young subalterns just posted from artillery school: “The poor boys were keen as mustard and told me that their one fear was lest they might be employed till the end of the war against the Austrians and never have a dash at the Prussians.”
The Russians also discovered on every battlefield that dash and bravery were not enough. The Russian cavalry, carrying long lances and swinging sabers, rode exuberantly to meet the Prussian Uhlans and Austrian Hussars. The Russian infantry, wielding vicious four-edged bayonets, willingly attacked whatever positions their officers indicated. But where those positions were defended by superior artillery and plentiful machine guns, the charging Russian ranks were scythed like rows of wheat. By the end of 1914, after only five months of war, one million Russians—one quarter of the army—had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
Among the officers, the ratio of loss was far higher. Unlike German and Austrian officers, who took sensible precautions, Russian officers considered it cowardly to take cover. Attacking in the face of murderous enemy fire, the officers made their men crawl forward on the ground while they themselves stood erect and walked into the enemy bullets. The famous Preobrajensky Guard Regiment lost 48 of its 70 officers; the 18th Division had only 40 of its original 370 officers. “These people play at war,” said Knox sadly.
To make good these losses, three thousand military cadets were commissioned early and sent to the front. Fifteen thousand university students, originally deferred from military service, were ordered to take fou
r months of military training and become lieutenants. Orders were given to curb the flamboyant, wasteful bravery of young officers. “Remember what I am going to say to you,” said the Tsar on October 1, 1914, addressing a company of cadets promoted to lieutenant. “I have not the slightest doubt of your courage and bravery, but I need your lives, because useless losses in the officer corps may lead to serious consequences. I am sure that every one of you will give his life willingly when it becomes necessary, but do it only in cases of exceptional emergency. In other words, I am asking you to care for yourselves.”
Despite their sacrifices, the Russians began the war as a gentlemanly undertaking. Captured enemy officers were not questioned; it was considered improper to ask a brother officer to inform on his compatriots. In time, the relentlessness of the German combative spirit was to alter these generous feelings. One German officer, being carried wounded from the battlefield, drew his revolver and shot his stretcher bearers. Later, the Tsar was to write, “We take no prisoners where the enemy uses explosive bullets.”
Much of the power and resilience of the Russian army lay in its religious faith. Knox was enormously impressed by the simple, unquestioning belief, permeating all ranks, that prayer would lead to victory. In an underground hut near the front, he once listened to a Russian general discussing tactics with a group of Russian officers. “Then,” wrote Knox, “in the simplest possible way, without any hypocritical flourish … he added, ‘You must always remember, too, the value of prayer—with prayer you can do anything.’ So sudden a transition from professional technicalities to simple primary truths seemed incongruous, and gave me almost a shock, but was taken quite naturally by the officers crowding around, with serious, bearded faces, in the little dugout. This religious belief is a power in the Russian army.”
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Tragic, Compelling Story of the Last Tsar and his Family Page 39