The Imperial Tea Party

by Frances Welch

  The sorrowful conclusion of Alix’s letter to Madgie, written at the end of her visit to Balmoral, had proven strangely prescient. ‘It has been such a very short stay and I leave dear kind grandmama with a heavy heart. Who knows when we may meet again and where.’

  Nicky wrote a sympathetic letter to Uncle Bertie, stressing his high hopes for continuing goodwill between the Russians and the British. He described how ‘at home’ he had felt in Britain: ‘She [the Queen] was so remarkably kind and touching towards me since the first time I ever saw her… I felt quite at home when I lived at Windsor and later in Scotland… I am quite sure that with your help, dear Bertie, the friendly relations between our two countries shall become still closer than in the past, notwithstanding occasional slight frictions in the Far East. May the new century bring England and Russia together for their mutual interests and for the general peace of the world.’

  With all Nicky’s and Uncle Bertie’s good intentions, Anglo-Russian relations would be sorely tested over the next few years. At one point, the Tsar, doubtless prompted by one of his ministers, decided to write to his uncle criticising Britain’s role in the Boer War. The war had begun before Victoria’s death and ended in 1902: ‘A small people are desperately defending their country, a part of their land is devastated, their families locked together in camps, their farms burnt… it looks more like a war of extermination.’ Bertie beat down his timorous nephew, raging against an: ‘incessant storm of obloquy and misrepresentation which has been directed against England from every part of the continent… I do not know whether you are aware that the war was begun… by the Boers and was unprovoked by any single act, on the part of England, of which the Boers, according to international law, had any right to complain.’ There was no reply.

  Though this early skirmish was swiftly resolved, it exposed ominous fissures in the relationship between the new King and the Tsar, not least a disparity in their authority. Writing his ill-judged letter, Nicky seems to have forgotten just how sharp his uncle could be. It could additionally have been argued that he was in no position to be speaking up for the little guy.

  In April 1902, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin selected London as the best place to print and distribute his subversive pamphlet, Iskra (Spark). Seventeen issues were duly published under the auspices of one of Britain’s pioneering marxists, Harry Quelch, who ran a printing press in Clerkenwell Green: the building still exists as the Marx Memorial Library.

  Lenin and his wife, Krupskaya, lived in London for just over a year, in Holford Square, Pentonville. They took pains to cover their tracks, living under aliases, as Mr and Mrs Richter, and employing invisible ink and elaborate code words in their correspondence. These code words included ‘handkerchiefs’ for passports while ‘brewing beer’ and ‘warm fur’ served for the titles of various illegal books.

  The ‘Richters’ may have been paranoid about security, but they were also determined to see the sights. Or, as Krupskaya wrote: ‘We began to look around this citadel of capitalism with curiosity.’ Lenin took a particular shine to the Reading Room of the British Museum, writing to the director to ask for access, claiming he: ‘came from Russia to study the land question’. He included a reference from a Mr Mitchell and closed his letter with: ‘Believe me, Sir, to be yours faithfully, Jacob Richter.’

  There were visits to Regents Park Zoo and expeditions to the country. As Lenin wrote: ‘Nadia [Krupskaya] and I have often been out locally in search of “real countryside” and have found it.’ After Krupskaya’s mother arrived, the trio enjoyed a picnic. ‘We took sandwiches with us instead of lunch,’ Lenin wrote, ‘and spent the whole of one Sunday “ins grune” [“in the countryside”]… We are the only people among the comrades here who are exploring every bit of the surrounding country.’

  The only low point seems to have been the English food: as Krupskaya complained, ‘We found that all those ox-tails, skates fried in fat and indigestible cakes were not made for Russian stomachs.’

  It was during these months that Lenin first met Leon Trotsky, at the couple’s flat. Lenin had summoned him from his Siberian exile and Trotsky duly arrived at dawn, one morning of October 1902. He spoke no English and carried virtually nothing but Lenin’s address scribbled on a piece of paper. He appeared at the couple’s front door, having successfully commandeered a cab: Krupskaya paid the fare.

  Trotsky later recalled Lenin giving him a tour of the London sights, highlighting ‘their’ (the capitalists’) Westminster Abbey. The pair may well have visited the Old Red Lion Pub in Islington, where various Communist factions would meet upstairs; Lenin would sometimes ask the landlord to remove the pub’s dumb waiter so that he could listen in from a safe distance below.

  In 1903, following pogroms in Russia, there were protests in London against the Tsar. It was claimed that the anti-Semitic Tsar had encouraged the pogroms, then delayed taking steps to restore order. During two days of turmoil, 49 Jews were killed and hundreds injured. Protesters marched from Mile End to a rally in Hyde Park, where the aristocratic Russian revolutionary Prince Kropotkin gave speeches and was held aloft by the crowd.

  Meanwhile, from early 1904 to late 1905, Russia was embroiled in a war against Japan. This, too, created problems between Russia and Britain, as the British sided with the Japanese. Indeed Britain was sometimes criticised by the Russians for promoting the original hostilities.

  In October 1904, in what became known as the Dogger Bank incident, the Russian fleet opened fire on British trawlers in the North Sea. Disoriented in the fog, they had mistaken the boats for enemy vessels, and killed three British sailors. The King was eventually obliged to weigh in, calming British politicians and extracting an agreement from Russia to pay compensation. The Liberal politician, Charles Carrington, who had given such a vivid description of Bertie in his Russian uniform, later paid tribute to the King’s skilful manoeuvres, recalling: ‘the anxious time he [Bertie] went through, over the Russian shelling of our fishing fleet. He saw at once that it was a mistake and not a question of war; but he seems to have had a good deal of trouble in keeping ministers quiet.’

  The war had consequences at the imperial court, as one of the English nurses refused to toe the Russian party line. The Tsarina had taken on the 36-year-old Miss Eager in 1899, to look after her new-born third daughter, Maria. An Irish Protestant, Margaretta Eager was immediately captivated by the orthodox rituals, particularly the baby’s christening. Little Maria was dipped in the font three times, she wrote, after which: ‘the hair was cut in four places in the form of a cross. What was cut off was rolled in wax and thrown into the font… according to Russian superstition the good or evil future of the child’s life depends on whether the hair sinks or swims.’ She described her relief as the auguries went well: ‘Maria’s hair… all sank at once, so there is no need for alarm concerning her future.’

  The new English nurse was ‘mad about politics’, noted the Tsar’s disapproving sister, Olga: along with the Irish Orchie, Miss Eager was normally referred to as English. The nanny’s obsession with the Crimean War created no difficulties. The Tsar and Tsarina may not have appreciated Granny’s Crimean War trophies, but they were content to let Miss Eager visit graves at Sevastopol. As she wrote: ‘We passed through the famous quarries where the English lay entrenched and so much desperate fighting took place.’

  Nor were there objections to Miss Eager’s further fixation with the more recent Dreyfus case; though the Tsar’s sister Olga recalled one dramatic lapse, when her obsession overtook her sense of responsibility: ‘Once she even forgot that Maria was in her bath, and started discussing the [Dreyfus] case with a friend. Maria, naked and dripping, scrambled out of the bath and started running up and down the palace corridor. Fortunately I arrived just at that moment, picked her up, and carried her back to Miss Eager, who was still talking about Dreyfus!’

  The real difficulties began when the nanny started taking the Japanese side against the Russians. She was horrified to hear the four-year-old Maria
berating ‘horrid little people’ who ‘destroyed our poor little ships and drowned our sailors.’ As Miss Eager wrote, it was: ‘very sad to witness the wrathful, vindictive spirit that the war raised in my little charges’. She instructed all four Grand Duchesses to stop cursing the Japanese. Olga, now eight years old, was suitably chastened : ‘I didn’t know that the Japs were people like ourselves. I thought they were only like monkeys.’

  This sort of subversion of the official line could not be allowed to continue; in October 1904, Miss Eager was fired. The birth of the Tsarevich, Alexis, four months previously, had brought the issue to a head. That Miss Eager might corrupt the little Grand Duchesses was bad enough; but it was unthinkable that she might influence a future tsar. Nicky wrote in his diary: ‘After many weeks of wavering Alix, strongly supported by myself and Princess Galitzine, at last decided to dismiss the Englishwoman, the children’s nurse Miss Eager… this has caused trouble and dissension enough.’

  Miss Eager (on the left) and Orchie (in black, on the right) with a nursery maid and three of the little Grand Duchesses in 1900

  Always claiming she left of her own volition, for ‘private and personal reasons’, Miss Eager was horrified to read British press reports of an English nurse dismissed for stealing papers from the Tsar’s study. She wrote furiously to The Times: ‘I now write, as I am the only English nurse who has lately left Russia, to emphatically deny the truth of the story… so far from being ignominiously dismissed, I received from the Empress a handsome money present, and a pension for my life was settled upon me. At Christmas I was the recipient of letters, cards and gifts from the Empress and the imperial children.’

  Miss Eager’s nursing credentials were not in question and she had definitely retained the affection of at least some of her charges. But her portrayal of herself as a favourite of the Empress was stretching the truth, as, of course, was her claim to be English: she was born in Limerick, the daughter of a prison governor.

  Incidentally, the first Miss Coster, who was still working for the Tsar’s sister, Xenia, did not share Miss Eager’s sympathies for the Japanese. Her seven charges never forgot her endless threats to ‘get the Japs’ on to them.

  Two years after Miss Eager’s departure, Orchie also returned to England, where she died and was buried in Forest Gate, Essex. The Tsarina was sorrowful but philosophical: ‘I miss my dear old Orchie so much, as you can imagine. But her sufferings are over now and one could not wish it otherwise.’

  In her will, Orchie left ‘Nana’, the English nurse of the Tsar’s sister Olga, an easy chair.

  In 1905, London was selected as the venue for the first Bolshevik congress. Fifty delegates spoke at different locations over four weeks, including Anatoly Lunacharsky, the future Soviet commissar of enlightenment. The congress was held four months after Bloody Sunday, during which the Tsar’s soldiers killed or wounded 1,000 peaceful demonstrators in St Petersburg. After the killings, newspaper reporters had besieged Prince Kropotkin’s house in Bromley, hoping for an interview. He was ill and refused to come to the door, eventually sending out a note saying: ‘Down with the Romanovs!’

  True to British form, visiting speakers at the congress had no fear of being interrupted on security grounds. When supporters of the Russian Social Democrat Labour Party, RSDLP, gathered at the premises of a Communist club, at 107 Charlotte Street, nobody seems to have questioned their claim to be members of an angling club. At one point, a police detective was ordered to eavesdrop on a meeting of anarchists at the Crown and Woolpack pub, in St John Street. He successfully hid in a cupboard, but found himself unable to pass on any information. As he reported: ‘The meeting was conducted all in Russian and I know nothing of this language so am unable to report the subjects they discussed.’ At some point, during 1905, Lenin was attacked by a mob during a lecture. In the ensuing confusion, he was rescued by Special Branch officers who assumed he was a police spy.

  The following year, in the summer of 1906, the Tsar sought a return visit from the British royals. The reasons behind the invitation were not entirely straightforward. Russia needed to stabilise her finances by borrowing money, and the Prime Minister, Count Sergei Witte, believed that banks would be more inclined to lend if they felt Russia was on friendly terms with Britain. Bertie recognised the ploy and didn’t like it: ‘Witte’s object is that by my going I should enable him to float a loan. What an extraordinary idea! And one that does not appeal to me in any way…’

  Indeed, at this particular point, Bertie was not inclined to agree to any sort of meeting with his nephew. The Dogger Bank incident and the Russo-Japanese conflict had created difficulties between the two countries. But the main problem had been Russian’s ongoing political turmoil. Outbreaks of violence would continue up to the inauguration of Russia’s first parliament, the Duma, towards the end of 1906.

  The King wrote a letter explaining his reluctance, comparing himself favourably to the German Kaiser: ‘I honestly confess that I can see no particular object in visiting the Emperor in Russia this year. The country is in a very unsettled state and will, I fear, not improve for some time to come. I hardly think that the country at home [England] would much approve of my going there for a while. I have no desire to play the part of the German Emperor, who always meddles in other people’s business. What advice could I possibly give the [Russian] Emperor as to the management of his country? What right have I to do so, even if he were to listen to me, which I much doubt…’

  There was a broader feeling, among government officials, that a Russo-British meeting could prove politically expedient. But Bertie was not to be swayed, at that point, even by his Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. Six days after the King had written, Grey wrote to the King’s private secretary insisting that, if there was no more bloodshed inside Russia, the King should agree to a meeting in the Baltic: ‘An entente with Russia… is the thing most to be desired in our foreign policy. It will complete and strengthen the entente with France and add very much to the comfort and strength of our position. But it all depends upon the Tsar and he depends on the King.’

  There had been awkwardnesses on both sides. The Tsar had, on one occasion recently, vetoed a visit that the Royal Navy was due to pay to Kronstadt. He had been worried, not least, by the prospect of ‘free’ English sailors mixing with his own restless fleet.

  However, in autumn 1906, the King showed a change of heart. Curiously, this seems to have been brought about by his fascination with Russia’s charismatic Foreign Minister, Alexander Izvolsky. In October 1906, he sent an urgent telegraph to the permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Charles Hardinge: ‘The great Izvolsky is at Paris… I would give anything to see him.’

  The great Izvolsky, then aged 50, was known for his stylishly curled moustaches, lorgnette and white spats. He was described by Robert K. Massie as: ‘an archetype of the Old World professional diplomat. A plumpish, dandified man, he wore a pearl pin in his white waistcoat… and always trailed a faint touch of violet eau de cologne.’

  Izvolsky, equally keen to meet the King, rushed, forthwith, to Buckingham Palace. Charles Hardinge later paid tribute to the pair’s contribution towards creating an entente. He insisted that they: ‘helped materially to smooth the path of the negotiations then in progress for an agreement with Russia’.

  The culmination of these negotiations was the signing of an Anglo-Russian agreement, on 31st August 1907. The convention that the British Ambassador, Sir Arthur Nicolson, put forward had nothing to do with Europe. But it indicated a rapprochement and was a sign to Europe that Russia was moving forward under an Anglo-French banner. The King took no part in the actual drafting of the agreement, but he was kept informed of the details and gave regular signals of approval.

  That same year, Joseph Stalin came to London for an RSDLP congress, chaired by a full 300 delegates. Meetings were held at the Brotherton Church on Southgate Road, and the Socialist Club, on Fulbourne Street, Whitechapel. Lenin returned to London for the congre
ss, taking another participant, Maxim Gorky, on a tour of his beloved British Museum. He would have been glad of the opportunity to prise Gorky away from his rooms at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square. He was convinced that his comrade’s health was being compromised by the hotel’s damp.

  After leaving London, Lenin made frequent return trips. In May 1908, he was lodging, briefly, at 21 Tavistock Place while working at the British Library, carrying out research for his book: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

  Kropotkin never lost his negative view of British politics, retaining his: ‘conviction that a revolution was impossible in England’. Lenin expressed similar doubts to Trotsky: ‘The English proletariat has in itself many revolutionary and Socialist elements but they are all mixed up with conservatism, with religion and prejudices, and there seems to be no way in which these elements can come to the top.’

  But up to 25,000 protesters had attended the demonstration against the pogrom in 1903, and Socialist churches in England were definitely in the ascendant. In 1908, there were about 50 such churches, each with 300 to 500 congregants. At one point, Lenin took Trotsky to a Socialist church service, probably at the Seven Sisters Church, on the Seven Sisters Road. According to Trotsky the congregation sang: ‘Almighty God, put an end to all kings and rich men.’

  REVAL

  If God heard the Socialists’ prayers, He showed little sign of responding. In June 1908 Tsar Nicholas met Edward VII at Reval (now Tallinn), the first visit of a British sovereign to Russia. Kings and rich men were in abundance and most were, apparently, in good health.

  The route to Reval