Finally Guchkov speaks of the abdication, his voice trembling. When he finishes, Nicholas says calmly, indifferently, with his particular guardsman’s accent: “I have taken the decision, gentlemen, to renounce the throne.… Until three o’clock today I thought I could abdicate in favor of my son, but at that point I changed this decision in favor of my brother Michael. I hope, gentlemen, that you will understand a father’s feelings.”
Rising from the table, he picks up the Duma’s draft manifesto, which Guchkov had brought, and walks out.
While he is gone, Guchkov and Shulgin learn that the tsar is consulting with Dr. Feodorov—who tells him definitively that there is no hope for Alexei’s recovery.
So everything is the way Nicholas himself had wished all along. Michael will rule, and they—Alix and the family—will remain at liberty. For some reason, though, he now feels … not even sadness, but horror!
He returns to the train car and places on the table the text of abdication that he had written that afternoon, typed on telegraph blanks.
“How pitiful the sketch we brought seemed,” recalls Shulgin, “and how noble his parting words.”
THE MANIFESTO
“In these times of great struggle against an external enemy who for nearly three years has been trying to enslave our homeland, the Lord God has seen fit to send down upon Russia yet another difficult trial. Popular domestic upheavals threaten to reflect calamitously on the further conduct of a sustained war. The fate of Russia, the honor of her heroic army, the good of her people, the entire future of our dear Fatherland demand that this war be waged to a victorious conclusion no matter what.… During these decisive days in the life of Russia, we have deemed it a matter of conscience to facilitate for our people the close unity and serried ranks of all our popular forces for the speedy attainment of victory and, in agreement with the Duma, have recognized it as a good to abdicate the Throne of the Russian State and disencumber ourselves of supreme power. Not wishing to part with our beloved son, we transfer our legacy to our brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and bless him on his ascension to the Throne of the Russian State.… We command our brother to rule state affairs in full and inviolable unity with the representatives of the people.… On those principles which they shall establish.… May the Lord God help Russia.”
Although they are touched, they immediately ask him to bend the truth so that no suspicion should arise that the abdication was torn from him: they ask him to put down not the true hour when he signed it but when he himself came to this decision. And he agrees. He signs: “March 2, 15:00”—although by the clock it is already midnight.
Later there is another lie: they propose that the new prime minister, Prince Lvov, be appointed by the sovereign himself. “Ah, Lvov? Well, all right, so be it, Lvov.” He signs that as well. He is doing almost everything mechanically. All his thoughts are at Tsarskoe Selo.
Nicholas’s diary:
“2 March [continuation].… They sent the draft manifesto from Headquarters. In the evening Guchkov and Shulgin arrived from Petrograd. Spoke with them and gave them the signed and revised manifesto. At 1 in the morning left Pskov with the heavy sense of what I had been through. Am surrounded by betrayal, cowardice, and deceit.”
Having signed the manifesto, he could leave immediately for Tsarskoe Selo. To everyone’s surprise, though, he returned to Headquarters, to Mogilev.
It may have been too much for him to see her and the children right after his downfall. He may have wanted to give them time to get used to the situation. Also, he had to say goodbye to the army. There was a war in progress, and he discharged his duties as commander-in-chief to the end.
In the very depths of his soul, though, he may still have held out hope. She might suddenly turn out to be right: loyal troops could rise up and a miracle could happen. He did not want to return to Tsarskoe Selo like this, laid low.
Also, he had to say goodbye to his mother.
On March 3 he returned to Headquarters. No one knew how he should be met or indeed whether he should be met at all. Naturally, though, Alexeyev decided to greet him as usual. His generals formed up in the special pavilion for meeting the tsar’s trains. They waited in silence. Only the sarcastic Sergei Mikhailovich spoke, discussing the conduct of another grand duke, Kirill, “calling things by their proper names.”
The imperial train approached. No one got out. Finally, one of the servants emerged and called to Alexeyev, who disappeared after him into the train car. Everyone waited.
Then Nicholas appeared—with a new face: yellow skin stretched across his temples, distinct bags under his eyes. Behind him was Count Fredericks: carefully clean-shaven and erect as always. The tsar (the former tsar now) began his review by greeting each and every one of them as usual.
“3 March. Friday. Slept long and hard. Woke up long past Dvinsk. The day was sunny and freezing.… Read a lot about Julius Caesar. At 8.20 arrived in Mogilev. All the staff officers were on the platform. Received Alexeyev in my car. At 9.30 moved to the house. Alexeyev came with the latest news from Rodzianko. Misha, it turns out, has abdicated. His manifesto ends with a four-line addendum about elections for a Constituent Assembly in 6 months. God knows who gave him the idea of signing such rot! The riots have stopped in Petrograd—if only things would continue like this.”
A new world was drawing near.
The abdication in favor of Michael did not work out. Nor could it have: the new world did not want the Romanovs. The workers nearly dismembered Guchkov when he dared make the announcement about Tsar Michael Romanov.
On March 3, Guchkov and Shulgin were driven by car to obtain the new abdication from Michael. Soldiers lay on the automobile’s front fenders holding bared bayonets.
On February 27, Rodzianko had summoned Michael from Gatchina to Petrograd. At Rodzianko’s request, Michael had got on the phone directly with Headquarters and asked Nicholas to cede to the Duma—to form a government of confidence. Nicholas refused. But Michael did not make it back to Gatchina—the railway was seized by rebels. He spent the night in the Winter Palace and in the morning found himself right in the thick of things. Generals came over from the Admiralty building to the Winter Palace (among them War Minister Belaev) and proposed that Michael head a detachment to save Petrograd. Michael refused. He preferred hiding on Millionnaya Street in the apartment of Prince Putyatin.
In that apartment on Millionnaya Street, the expensive fur coats of Duma figures were tossed down in the entryway (this was still the overthrown regime—soon, very soon, both the fur coats and their owners would disappear).
Michael came in, tall, pale, his face very young. They spoke in turn.
Socialist Revolutionary and Duma member Alexander Kerensky:
“By taking the throne you will not save Russia. I know the mood of the masses. Right now everyone feels intense displeasure at the monarchy. I have no right to conceal the dangers taking power would subject you to personally. I could not vouch for your life.”
Then silence, a long silence. And Michael’s voice, his barely audible voice: “Under these circumstances, I cannot.”
Silence, and almost distinct sobbing.
Michael was crying. It was his fate to end the monarchy. Three hundred years—and it all ended with him.
And Kerensky’s happy shout: “I deeply respect your gesture! As does all Russia.”
The new world sent congratulatory telegrams to Michael Romanov, a congratulatory telegram came even from Turukhansk, where the Bolsheviks were in exile.
Nicholas was living in the governor’s house in Mogilev. Daily he walked to the quarters of the general staff, where Alexeyev reported to him and read agents’ telegrams. As if nothing had happened.
“4 March. Saturday.… Just before 12 went to the platform to meet dear mother arriving from Kiev. Brought her to my place and had lunch with her and our people. Sat and talked for a long time.… Just before 8 went to dine at Mama’s and sat with her ’til 11.”
A new world
was walking around the city: clerks, drivers bedecked with red armbands and ribbons, red cockades on their caps. Endless meetings, speeches by “the freest citizens of the freest country in the world” about “the damn regime.”
Gathered in the train car of the dowager empress, however, were “his people”: Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich (now simply Boris Romanov), Prince Alexander of Oldenburg (now simply Alec), and simply Sergei … and simply Sandro. At the time they still believed that Nikolasha would come soon and take over as commander-in-chief. Alexeyev, the generals—they all wanted him.
But the new world did not. Nikolasha had to refuse. He was already on his way to Headquarters when he was informed in the name of the Provisional Government: “Popular opinion has expressed itself decisively and insistently in opposition to members of the house of Romanov occupying any position whatsoever.… The Provisional Government is convinced that you, in the name of love for your Homeland,” etc. His reply to the telegram did not lack sarcasm: “I am happy once again to prove my love for my Homeland. Of which Russia has yet to have any doubt.”
Popular opinion. When to the question “What is your name?” one of the grand dukes answered “Romanov,” the clerk said sympathetically: “What an ugly name you have.”
The new rule was beginning—the rule of the victorious crowd, the rule of Nicholas’s former soldiers. The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Those once bold talkers of the Duma and the Provisional Government—how they feared that power now and tried to ingratiate themselves with it.
Once he was back at Tsarskoe Selo Nicholas would observe with a certain malicious pleasure the once terrible orators of the Duma becoming increasingly helpless to do anything about the natural disaster they had provoked.
Alexeyev was negotiating the departure of the tsar’s family. Through Murmansk, it was assumed, to England. Nicholas wanted it all arranged before his return to Alix.
But something else happened. The new world did not want his departure. On March 3, immediately after his abdication, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies passed a decree “On the arrest of Nicholas II and the other members of the Romanov dynasty.”
The Provisional Government was forced to yield, so much did they fear this new world, despite the fact that he had met all their conditions without a murmur and had signed the manifesto.
“The journal of the Provisional Government’s sessions of March 7.
“Considered: The incarceration of the abdicated emperor and his spouse.
“Resolved: To approve the incarceration of the abdicated Emperor Nicholas II and his wife and to remove the abdicated emperor to Tsarskoe Selo.”
Kerensky later explained the reasons for the arrest:
“The extremely agitated state of the soldiers at the rear and the workers. The Petrograd and Moscow garrisons were hostile to Nicholas.… Recall my speech of March 20 at the plenum of the Moscow Soviet—demands for execution were heard then, addressed directly to me. I said I would never take on the role of Marat, that an impartial court would examine Nicholas’s guilt before Russia.”
The Provisional Government had more or less defended him from the Soviets’ arbitrariness. But this arrest “tied the knot later broken in Ekaterinburg” (V. Nabokov, administrator of affairs for the Provisional Government).
True, Alexeyev informed him of what the government had implied: all this was temporary, for purposes of placating the crowd’s fury. A special commission of inquiry was being created—it would prove the tsar’s innocence and the nonsense of the rumors about Alix’s treason. And then—bon voyage—to England!
Nicholas’s diary:
“8 March, Wednesday. Last day in Mogilev. At 10.15 signed a parting decree to the army.”
He wanted good and reconciliation for Russia. That was why he ceded power and asked his people to serve the new government loyally: “I address you for the last time, my ardently loved troops. Do your duty—defend our valorous homeland, obey the Provisional Government, heed your leaders: may God bless you and the great martyr St. George the Conqueror lead you to holy victory.” At that moment Nicholas fell for good in monarchists’ eyes as well.
Meanwhile, no one dared publish the decree—its author was too unpopular.
Nicholas’s diary:
“8 March [continuation].… At 10.30 went to the Guards building, where said goodbye to all the officials of the staff and administration. At home said goodbye to the officers and Cossacks of the Convoy and Mixed Regiment—my heart nearly burst. At 12 went to see Mama in her train car, had lunch with her and her suite, and sat with her ’til 4.30. Said goodbye to her, Sandro, Sergei, Boris, and Alec.”
He was seeing them all for the last time.
“At 4.45 left Mogilev. A touching crowd of people saw me off. Four members of the Duma are accompanying me in my train.… It is hard, painful, and miserable.”
“Accompanying”—his delicate way of noting his arrest.
DIARY OF THE PRISONER
According to the government’s resolution:
1. The family and everyone who remained with them were to be isolated from the outside world.
2. An inside and outside guard was formed.
3. The family was permitted to move about only within the confines of the Alexander Palace.
4. Papers were confiscated from the tsar and tsaritsa, to be handed over to the conduct of the Special Commission of Inquiry.
On March 8, General Kornilov’s automobile drove up to the Alexander Palace. Lavr Kornilov, a distinguished military general—with his peaked martial mustache—left his automobile at the main gates of the palace and was met by the empress’s secretary, Count Apraxin, and taken to see Alix.
“Your Highness, it has most burdensomely fallen upon me to inform you of your arrest.”
After Kornilov’s departure Alix called in Lieutenant Zborovsky of the Convoy. Her words were worthy of the moment.
“Beginning with me, we are all going to have to submit to fate. I knew General Kornilov before. He is a knight, and I am at peace now for my children.”
(Exactly one year later, in March 1918, Kornilov would perish on the field of battle in the Civil War. His corpse would be dug out of its grave and burned by the Red victors on the outskirts of Ekaterinoslav.)
The surrender of posts at Tsarskoe Selo was set for 4:00 P.M. His Imperial Highness’s Convoy had to quit the palace. The tragic play continued: they acted out the parting scene wonderfully, the empress and the Convoy. She gave them small icons and gifts from the family. Accepting an icon, each officer dropped to one knee. Then she led Lieutenant Zborovsky into a darkened room—to say goodbye to the sick grand duchesses (Marie too had fallen ill by that time). Zborovsky bowed low to the tsar’s daughters, but he thought they seemed bewildered. No, they still did not know everything.
The empress gathered her “people” and suite in a hall. “Anyone who does not leave the palace by four o’clock this afternoon will be considered under arrest,” she told them. “The sovereign is arriving tomorrow morning.”
The hardest of all now remained: to tell them. She told her daughters herself. It was a dreadful conversation. “Mama was grieving, and I was crying, too.… But later we all tried to smile at tea,” Marie told Anya.
Gilliard took on the task of informing his pupil.
“You know, Alexei Nikolaevich, your father does not want to be emperor any longer.”
The boy looked at him with astonishment, trying to read what was happening on his face.
“He is awfully tired and he has had many difficulties of late.”
“Oh, yes! Mama told me that they stopped his train when he wanted to come here, but father will be emperor again, won’t he, later on?”
Gilliard explained that the sovereign had abdicated in favor of Michael, but Uncle Michael had refused the throne.
“In that case, who will be emperor?”
“Now—no one.”
Alexei flushed furiously and said nothin
g for a long time, but did not ask about himself. Then he said: “In that case, if there is not going to be a tsar anymore, who is going to rule Russia?”
This question seemed naive and childish to the good Swiss, but millions of others, too, were asking: Who will be tsar? The new tsar in a country that had always had tsars.
The revolution could not wipe out autocracy because it was in the people’s blood. And he would come again—a new tsar. A revolutionary tsar. But a tsar.
“If there is not going to be a tsar anymore, who is going to rule Russia?”
At four o’clock the revolutionary soldiers replaced the Tsar’s Convoy. But they were not protecting the family; they were guarding it. Lieutenant Zborovsky looked on with horror at this new sentry with their red ribbons. The world had fallen apart. “We had it … we had it … and now it is gone. This is something savage … incomprehensible.” So he wrote in his diary.
Alix’s first night under arrest, the last night before the arrival of the overthrown emperor.
A cruel frost, and the snow in the Tsarskoe Selo park sparkling under the moon. In the nighttime silence, Lili Dehn went downstairs with a blanket and linens to the boudoir next to the empress’s bedroom. The grand duchesses had asked her not to leave Alix alone.
Alix, with enthusiasm, made Lili’s bed on the couch: “Oh, Lili, Russian ladies don’t know how to make their own beds. When I was a girl, my grandmother showed me how it is done.”
The bed “in the style of Queen Victoria” was ready; she had played the role of concerned mistress. Alix left her bedroom door open so Lili “would not be lonely.” Both were left alone with their thoughts in the moonlit rooms. Neither slept. Lili listened to the empress’s coughing and a new sound: the steps of the sentry in the hallway—back and forth, back and forth.
On March 9, at eleven o’clock in the morning, automobiles drove out of the palace garage to the station—to the imperial pavilion. The train pulled in, and Nicholas emerged wearing a Caucasian fur cap and soldier’s greatcoat, his yellow skin taut across his temples. Behind him the members of his suite began to jump off the train and run away down the platform. Not looking back—they fled. This was not only the effect of banal fear. This was the first demonstration of the camarilla’s true attitude toward Nicholas.
The Last Tsar Page 23