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

by Robert K. Massie

  The debate that followed was waged with passionate intensity. Miliukov, Guchkov and Shulgin pleaded that Michael had no right to evade the throne. They argued that the monarchy was the single unifying force in Russia, without which Russia would be destroyed. With equal force and conviction on the other side, Rodzianko and Kerensky threatened that if a new tsar took the throne against the people’s will, a new torrent of revolution would be released. The first victim, they predicted, would be Michael himself. “He asked me point-blank whether I could vouch for his life if he accepted the crown,” Rodzianko wrote later, “and I was compelled to answer in the negative because there was no armed force I could rely on.”

  Kerensky was even more vehement than Rodzianko. Knowing the fury that the proclamation of a new tsar would rouse in the Soviet, he declared, “In any case, I cannot answer for the life of Your Highness.” Michael asked for a few minutes to think the matter over and left the room with Rodzianko and Prince Lvov. Five minutes later, he returned and announced, “I have decided to abdicate.” He added that he would accept the throne later only if invited to do so by a constituent assembly.

  Kerensky was overjoyed. “Monseigneur, you are the noblest of men,” he shouted. The second deed of abdication was typed out on the desk of a children’s schoolroom in the house next door, and Michael signed it.

  Three hundred and four years after a shy sixteen-year-old boy had reluctantly accepted the throne at the plea of the Russian nation, his descendant, also named Michael, had given it back. The Romanov dynasty was swept away.

  Although it was the defection of his trusted generals which ultimately swung his decision to abdication, Nicholas could not abandon the throne without saying goodbye to the army. In Pskov, immediately after signing the abdication, Nicholas applied for permission to return to Headquarters. The Provisional Government agreed without hesitation. Nicholas was not hostile but submissive; at Headquarters, Alexeiev was with them; at all the battlefronts, the commanding generals had united to urge the abdication. The likelihood that Nicholas would suddenly change his mind, revoke his abdication, rally his troops and march on the capital simply did not exist.

  As the train approached Mogilev, Alexeiev sent Basily to meet the Tsar. “He was absolutely calm, but it shocked me to see him with a haggard look and hollow eyes,” Basily wrote of his former sovereign. “… I took the liberty of saying that we at the Stavka were greatly distressed because he had not transferred his crown to the Tsarevich. He answered quietly: ‘I cannot be separated from my son.’ A few minutes later dinner was served. It was a melancholy meal. All of us felt our hearts bursting; we couldn’t eat or drink. Yet the Emperor retained wonderful self-control and asked me several questions about the men who form the Provisional Government; but he was wearing a rather low collar and I could see that he was continually choking down his emotion.”

  In Mogilev, Alexeiev met the train at the station and drove with the Tsar in an open car back to the governor’s house. Sitting down at his desk, Nicholas drafted as an Order of the Day his farewell to the army:

  “My dearly beloved troops,” he wrote, “I address you for the last time. Since my abdication, for myself and my son, from the throne of Russia, the power has passed to the Provisional Government, which has arisen on the initiative of the Imperial Duma…. Submit yourselves to the Provisional Government, obey your commanders…. May the Lord God bless you and may the Holy Martyr and Conqueror St. George lead you to victory.” Sadly, the message never reached the troops. Forwarded for approval to Petrograd, it was suppressed by the same Provisional Government which Nicholas was so loyally recommending. The Soviet, sitting under the same roof of the Tauride Palace, had let it be known that it did not favor the issuance of Orders of the Day by deposed monarchs.

  During these last five days in Mogilev, Nicholas exhibited the same steady restraint and self-control which he had been taught since boyhood. At a ceremonial farewell arranged by Alexeiev, the main hall of the house was packed with officers of the Headquarters staff. Nicholas, appearing at the front of the crowded room, quietly thanked the officers for their loyalty, begged them to forget all feuds and lead the army and Russia to victory. His modesty made a vivid impression; when he had finished, the room burst into loud cheers and most of those present wept openly. But none spoke up to urge him to change his mind, and Nicholas quietly bowed and left.

  Alone in his room, he said goodbye to the foreign military observers. General Hanbury-Williams found Nicholas in a khaki uniform, looking tired and pale, with large black lines under his eyes. He smiled and got up from his desk to join his guest on the sofa. “He said that he had meant to carry out … [reforms],” wrote Hanbury-Williams, “but that matters had advanced so quickly and it was too late. The proposal that the Tsarevich should take his place with a regent he could not accept as he could not bear the separation from his only son, and he knew that the Empress would feel the same. He … hoped that he would not have to leave Russia. He did not see that there would be any objection to his going to the Crimea … and if not, he would sooner go to England than anywhere…. He … added that the right thing to do was to support the present Government, as that was the best way to keep Russia in the alliance to conclude the war…. He feared the revolution would ruin the armies…. As I said ‘Goodbye’ … he turned to me and added: ‘Remember, nothing matters but beating Germany.’”

  The change in his status was tactfully concealed by the continuing personal courtesy with which he was treated. It appeared, nevertheless, in the little matters of procedure and ceremony which are the visible trappings of power. On the morning following his last meeting with the staff, the same officers assembled to take the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government. While Nicholas sat alone in his room, his suite, the staff and the troops of his escort lined up outside the house and pronounced the new oath in an audible chorus. In the prayers that followed, for the first time in hundreds of years the names of the Tsar and the Imperial family were omitted. The town of Mogilev greeted the abdication with noisy celebrations. At night, the town was illuminated and excited crowds stayed up shouting in the streets. From the windows of the local city hall, just opposite Nicholas’s window, two large red flags were draped. One by one, as the days moved along, the officers of the suite began removing the Tsar’s initials from their epaulets and cutting away the golden shoulder knots which marked them as aides-de-camp. Nicholas reacted gracefully to this melancholy sight: on March 21, Alexeiev telegraphed Brusilov: “The deposed Emperor understands and has given permission to remove initials and shoulder knots immediately.”

  On the second day of Nicholas’s stay at Headquarters, his mother, the Dowager Empress, arrived from her home in Kiev. “The news of Nicky’s abdication came like a thunderbolt,” wrote the Tsar’s sister Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who was with her mother in Kiev. “We were stunned. My mother was in a terrible state. She kept telling me it was the greatest humiliation of her life…. She blamed poor Alicky for … everything.” In Mogilev, the Dowager Empress’s train was brought to the Imperial platform and a few minutes later Nicholas drove up in his automobile. He said good morning to the two Cossacks standing at the entrance to Marie’s car and went inside. For two hours, mother and son were alone. Then Grand Duke Alexander, who had accompanied Marie, entered the car. He found the Dowager Empress collapsed in a chair, sobbing aloud, while Nicholas stood smoking quietly and staring at his feet.

  For three days, Marie remained in Mogilev, living aboard her train. She and Nicholas spent most of their time together, going for long drives in the afternoon and dining together every evening. It was the son who comforted the mother. Marie, always gay, witty, brilliant, decisive and totally in control of her emotions, had lost the regal bearing which was her emblem; for once she was frightened, ashamed and miserable. It was Nicholas, the son she had always lectured on behavior, who carefully steered his mother back toward courage and self-control.

  While at Mogilev, Nicholas had only the sca
ntiest communication with his family at Tsarskoe Selo. Anxious to return to them as soon as possible, he applied for permission to the Provisional Government, which again had no objections. In Petrograd, however, the position of the Imperial family had deteriorated. Rumors circulated through the city that Nicholas had returned to Headquarters to lead the army against the revolution or to “let the Germans in.” Newspapers were filled with garish accounts of the sexual relationship of Rasputin and the Empress, along with stories detailing the Empress’s “treason.” On March 20, therefore, primarily to assure their own safety, the Provisional Government resolved “to deprive the deposed emperor and his consort of their liberty.” The Empress was to be arrested at Tsarskoe Selo on March 21. That same day, Nicholas was to be arrested at Mogilev and then, escorted by four commissioners sent by the Government, brought back to his family at Tsarskoe Selo.

  On March 21, the Tsar, knowing that he was to become a prisoner, had lunch alone with his mother. At three p.m., the express from Petrograd arrived, bearing the government envoys. At a quarter to four, the delegation, accompanied by Alexeiev, arrived to claim the Tsar. Nicholas stood up and tenderly kissed his mother goodbye. Neither could guess the future; both hoped that they would soon be reunited either in the Crimea or in England. Nevertheless, Marie cried unrestrainedly. Nicholas left her car, walked across the platform and entered the drawing-room car of his own train, which stood on the adjacent track. Whistles blew, there was a lurch and the Tsar’s train started to move. Nicholas, standing at the window, smiled and waved his hand; Marie, still in tears, made the sign of the cross. A few minutes later, when his train was only a blur of smoke on the northern horizon, her car rolled out of the station headed southwest for Kiev. Neither could know it at the time, but the proud Empress and her quiet eldest son were never to meet again.

  On the platform a few minutes before, as the Tsar’s train was leaving, Alexeiev and other officers of the Headquarters staff had stood at attention as the train bearing their former sovereign departed. As the car carrying the Tsar moved past him, Alexeiev saluted. A second later, as the last car of the same train, bearing the representatives of the Duma, rolled by, Alexeiev took off his cap and made a deep bow.

  29

  The Empress Alone

  At Ten a.m. on Monday, March 12, a telephone rang in the Petrograd house of the Empress’s friend Lili Dehn. Lili, still in bed, got up to answer. It was the Empress. “I want you to come to Tsarskoe Selo by the ten-forty-five train,” said Alexandra. “It’s a lovely morning. We’ll go for a run in the car. You can see the girls and Anna and return to Petrograd at four p.m…. I’ll be at the station.”

  With only forty-five minutes to catch her train, Lili dressed rapidly, snatching her gloves, rings and a bracelet, and rushed to the station. She managed to scramble aboard the train just as it was leaving the platform.

  It was a superb winter morning. The sky was a rich blue and the sun sparkled on the deep drifts of white snow. True to her word, the Empress was waiting at the Tsarskoe Selo station. “How is it in Petrograd?” she asked anxiously. “I hear things are serious.” Lili replied that the general strike had made things inconvenient, but that she herself had seen nothing alarming. Still troubled, the Empress stopped the car on the way to the palace to question a captain of the marine Garde Equipage. The captain smiled. “There is no danger, Your Majesty,” he said.

  Over the weekend, Alexandra had paid less attention than usual to events in Petrograd. From Protopopov and others, she had heard that there had been disturbances and that in places the police had had difficulty in calming and dispersing the crowds. Soothingly, Protopopov had assured her that matters were under control. In any case, the Empress had little time to worry about street disorders. At the palace, she faced an urgent family crisis.

  Three of her children had come down with the measles. A week before, a group of young military cadets had come to the palace to play with the Tsarevich. One of these boys arrived with a flushed face and spent the afternoon coughing. The following day, the Empress learned that he had measles. Then, on Thursday, March 8, just after the Tsar’s train had departed for Mogilev, both Olga and Alexis had developed a rash and high fever.

  The disease spread quickly. Olga and Alexis were followed to bed by Tatiana and Anna Vyrubova. The Empress, in her white Red Cross uniform, nursed the invalids herself. “She spent all the succeeding days between her children’s rooms and mine,” wrote Anna Vyrubova. “Half-conscious, I felt gratefully her capable hands arranging my pillows, smoothing my burning forehead, and holding to my lips medicines and cooling drinks.” Despite her efforts, the patients grew worse. On the night of March 12, Olga had a temperature of 103 degrees, Tatiana 102 and both Anna and Alexis 104.

  It was during Lili Dehn’s visit that the Empress learned that the Petrograd soldiery had joined the mob. Lili was upstairs, sitting in a darkened room with the ill Grand Duchesses; Alexandra had gone to talk to two officers of the palace guard. When the Empress returned, she beckoned Lili into another room: “Lili,” she said, breathlessly, “it is very bad…. The Litovsky Regiment has mutinied, murdered the officers and left barracks; the Volinsky Regiment has followed suit. I can’t understand it. I’ll never believe in the possibility of revolution…. I’m sure that the trouble is confined to Petrograd alone.”

  Nevertheless, as the day wore on, the news got worse. The Empress tried to telephone the Tsar and was unable to get through. “But I have wired him, asking him to return immediately. He’ll be here on Wednesday morning [the 14th],” she said. Alexander Taneyev, Anna Vyrubova’s father, arrived puffing and footsore, his face crimson with excitement and anger. “Petrograd is in the hands of the mob,” he declared. “They are stopping all cars. They commandeered mine, and I’ve had to walk every step of the way.”

  That night, rather than attempt to return to the capital under these conditions, Lili decided to remain at the palace. So that she could stay in the private family wing where there were no extra bedrooms, a couch was arranged for her in the red drawing room. There, while the Empress talked with Count Benckendorff, the elderly Grand Marshal of the Court and senior court official at the palace, Lili and Anastasia sat on the red carpet and assembled jigsaw puzzles. When the Empress returned from her conference with Benckendorff, she sent her daughter to bed and said to Lili, “I don’t want the girls to know anything until it is impossible to keep the truth from them, but people are drinking to excess, and there is indiscriminate shooting in the streets. Oh, Lili, what a blessing that we have here the most devoted troops. There is the Garde Equipage; they are all our personal friends.”

  That night, a message arrived from Rodzianko, now the chairman of the Temporary Committee of the Duma, warning that the Empress and her children were in danger and should leave Tsarskoe Selo as soon as possible. On his own initiative, Benckendorff withheld this message from the Empress and instead communicated it to Mogilev, asking the Tsar for instructions. Nicholas telegraphed that a train should be made ready for his family, but that his wife should not be told until the following morning. Meanwhile, he himself was leaving Mogilev and would arrive in Tsarskoe Selo early on the morning of the 14th.

  On Tuesday, March 13, a fresh blizzard swept down from a gray sky, and an icy wind howled dismally outside the palace windows. The Empress was up early, taking café au lait in the sickroom with Olga and Tatiana. From Petrograd, the news was grim: the mob had swept all before it, and General Khabalov with his 1,500 men holding the Winter Palace constituted the only tsarist island in the entire city. Benckendorff informed the Empress of his previous night’s conversations: Rodzianko’s warning and appeal, and the Tsar’s command that a train be prepared for her. The train itself was already only a hope; on telephoning the Petrograd yards, the palace staff had learned that it was doubtful that workers would roll out a train for any member of the Imperial family.

  As it happened, this obstructionism became irrelevant. Alexandra refused to go. To Rodzianko and the Duma commit
tee, as Benckendorff transmitted her message, she declared that she would never leave by herself and, “owing to the state of her children’s health, especially that of the Heir Apparent, departure with them was completely out of the question.” Rodzianko, more alarmed than ever at the rising pitch of revolutionary fever all around him, argued with Benckendorff, saying “when a house is burning the invalids are the first to be taken out,” but Alexandra’s mind was made up. At 11:30 that morning, Benckendorff was informed by railway officials that within two hours all railway lines would be cut, and that if there was any idea of leaving Tsarskoe Selo they should do so at once. Knowing the Empress’s mind, the Count did not even bother to give her this message. At four in the afternoon, Dr. Derevenko returned to the palace from visiting hospitals in Tsarskoe Selo village. He brought with him the news that the entire network of railways around Petrograd was in the hands of the revolutionaries. “We could not leave,” wrote Gilliard, “and it was highly improbable that the Tsar would be able to reach us.”

  Even before that day was over, it seemed that Alexandra’s decision would lead to calamity. From Petrograd, on a sudden inspiration, a crowd of mutinous soldiers set off by truck for Tsarskoe Selo. Their plan, shouted gleefully from truck to truck, was to seize “the German woman” and her son and bring them back to the capital. Arriving in the village of Tsarskoe Selo, they became distracted and began smashing into wine shops, looting and drinking. At the Alexander Palace, where the sounds of shooting and cheering were plainly heard, the size of the crowd was magnified by rumor. “Lili,” the Empress said, “they say that a hostile crowd of three hundred thousand is marching on the palace. We shall not be, must not be afraid. Everything is in the hands of God. Tomorrow the Emperor is sure to come. I know that when he does, all will be well.”