What was also reality was that when Michael began the meeting he was to find that everyone addressed him not as ‘Your Imperial Majesty’ but as ‘Your Highness’ — thus, not as Emperor but as Grand Duke. That had been a collective decision before the meeting: that they would signal their determination for his departure by using the title he would use after his abdication, rather than his title before he signed such a manifesto. It was intended as intimidation, and they thought it would also speed up the clock.
Michael made no comment about the form of address, though he could not but note it and understand the reason behind it. The majority of men were not here to support him. Looking around the room he could see that they were exhausted, unshaven, bedraggled and, as Prince Lvov would put it, unable even to think straight any more.2 Kerensky would admit that he himself had been ‘near collapse’. At dawn the previous day he had walked back to his apartment at 29 Tverskaya, and had fallen into bed, lying there for two or three hours in a ‘semi-delirious state’ for that was the only rest he had managed in the past five days.3 Milyukov was so exhausted that he ‘was falling asleep where he sat…He would start, open his eyes, then begin to sleep again’.4
In some cases it was not exhaustion but terror that marked the faces of the men from the Duma. Dread of the Soviet would be the recurring theme of the morning’s discussions, and that fear would be heightened by Kerensky, the only man in the room who could claim to speak for the mob.
Kerensky, a master of the theatrical posture, would convince some there that he also was ‘terrified’ and that at any moment a gang of armed men might break in and murder the new Emperor, if not the rest of them.5
Fear was a weapon, and it was the principal weapon which Rodzyanko would use that morning. As he had done in his wires to Pskov and Mogilev he drew a black picture of the world outside the windows, where civil war loomed and a bloodbath threatened. Although as terrified as anyone else, he would forget that when writing from the safety of his memoirs; he would prefer history to believe that the only man fearing for his life that day at Millionnaya Street was Michael himself.
It was quite clear to us that the Grand Duke would have reigned only a few hours, and that this would have led to colossal bloodshed in the precincts of the capital, which would have degenerated into general civil war. It was clear to us that the Grand Duke would have been killed immediately, together with all adherents, for he had no reliable troops at his disposal then, and could not sustain himself by armed support. The Grand Duke asked me outright whether I could guarantee his life if he acceded to the throne, and I had to answer in the negative. 6
This was self-serving nonsense. Rodzyanko was in no position to guarantee anyone’s life, including his own, and certainly there was never reason for Michael, with Russia’s two highest military honours pinned to his chest, to look to the quaking Rodzyanko for protection. He was better off with the cadets downstairs. However, Rodzyanko lived to write his memoirs and Michael did not.
Milyukov, with Guchkov not yet arrived, was the sole spokesman for those who believed that Rodzyanko and Lvov were leading the government to ultimate ruin, as would prove the case. Rousing himself, he argued that it would be immeasurably more difficult in the long term if the established order was simply abandoned, for in his reasoning the ‘frail craft’ of the self-elected Provisional Government, without a monarch, would soon be sunk ‘in the ocean of national disorder’.7
As he advanced his case the combative Milyukov found himself fighting against a babble of angry voices; all idea of a measured debate had been swept away in a torrent of noisy argument. To latecomer Shulgin, now arrived with Guchkov, ‘Milyukov seemed unwilling, or unable to stop talking…This man, usually so polite and self-controlled, did not let anybody else speak, and interrupted those who tried to answer him.’8
Milyukov would say afterwards that ‘I admitted that my opponents may have been right. Perhaps indeed those present and the Grand Duke himself were in danger. But we were playing for high stakes — for the whole of Russia — and we had to take a risk, however great it was.’9 In his view the better alternative early that morning would have been to confront the Soviet with the new manifesto and to have told them it would make no difference — that they would ensure that Michael endorsed the deal they had already struck and that the Soviet position and that of the mutineers was no different than before.
As it was, by concealing the manifesto in the hope of buying time, the Duma men looked as if they were hiding something when the Soviet found out anyway about Michael once the manifesto was proclaimed in the city; it made it look as if they were being double-crossed. This in itself was good reason for the Duma men’s anxiety to get back to the Tauride Palace with the abdication, as evidence of their own good faith.
Until that was done, they were at risk. Tereshchenko, now the new finance minister, was one of those who feared the worst Late in the meeting he motioned Shulgin to leave the room for a moment. ‘I can’t go on anymore…I will shoot myself…what’s to be done?’ he moaned.
Shulgin, bewildered by the turnaround in the government’s mood, asked him: ‘Tell me, are there any units we can rely on?’
‘No, no one.’
‘But I saw some sentries downstairs…’
‘That’s only a few people. Kerensky is terrified…he is afraid…any moment someone could break in…there are gangs on the prowl. Oh, Lord!’10
Indeed, it was Kerensky, rather than Rodzyanko, who was now using the threat of Soviet violence to dominate proceedings. In effect their spokesman, his references to the risks of ‘an internal civil war’ appeared more menace than warning. There was also an oblique personal threat to Michael when he raised an arm and cried: ‘I cannot answer for Your Highness’s life’. 11
When Guchkov interrupted him and attempted to support Milyukov, his intervention ‘made Kerensky almost beside himself with passion, and provoked him to a torrent of invective and threats which terrified everyone there’, Paléologue would record next day, after hearing reports of the drama at Millionnaya Street.12
During all this shouting and argument, Michael had sat sprawled in his chair saying nothing. To Kerensky he seemed ‘embarrassed’ by what was going on and ‘to grow more weary and impatient’.13
That was hardly surprising as he listened to these quarrelling and frightened men, and this divided and helpless government. For these past years he had been told by men like these, by Rodzyanko and his ilk, that if granted a responsible ministry then they would know how best to conduct a government worthy of public respect. What he was seeing and hearing now made mockery of those claims. He had also heard quite enough, and saw no point in hearing more.
He rose from his chair and announced that he would like to consider the whole matter privately with just two of men in the room, and that he would then make his decision. The room fell silent. Kerensky stirred uneasily, thinking that Michael would retire with Milyukov and Guchkov, his two principal supporters as Emperor. To his surprise the choice fell on Lvov and Rodzyanko and ‘a weight fell from my shoulders as I thought to myself that if he wants to speak to these two then he has decided to abdicate’.14
The delegates had agreed in advance that they would not support any private meeting, but since the majority believed like Kerensky that such a meeting was now to their advantage, they immediately supported the idea. Milyukov and Guchkov were dismayed, but there was little they could say to prevent it.
In Kerensky’s later account of that meeting he portrayed himself as behaving with restraint and statesmanship, in accordance with the principle that the best history is the one you write yourself. However, it was not the story told next day to Paléologue, probably by Milyukov as foreign minister.
As Michael was moving to the door, Kerensky leapt to his feet and shouted: ‘Promise us not to consult your wife!’ Michael turned and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Aleksandr Fedorovich, my wife isn’t here at the moment, she stayed behind in Gatchina.’15
Michael�
�s choice of Lvov and Rodzyanko for his private meeting did seem, however, to confirm Kerensky’s view that he had decided to abdicate, given that both men had pressed him to do so that morning. Yet there was a more obvious reason for his choosing them: Lvov was prime minister and Rodzyanko was president of the State Duma, and thus they were the leaders of the two groups represented at the meeting, the government and the Duma. Given that, he had his own questions and there was little chance of getting answers to those in the noisy atmosphere of the drawing room. He had no wish to hear more dispute.
What he did want was to hear reassurance that the new Provisional Government was in a position to restore order and continue the war, and that they could ensure that the promised elections for a Constituent Assembly would be going ahead and not blocked by the Soviet, for otherwise then all that had taken place that morning was no more than hot air.
In his conversations with the two army commanders that morning, Rodzyanko had stressed that the commitment to a constituent assembly ‘does not exclude the possibility of the dynasty returning to power’16, and this is certainly a point he would have made strongly to Michael. Abdication was not the end of the monarchy but a short-term expediency until better times came along.
Convinced by their own arguments, Lvov and Rodzyanko returned to the smoke-filled drawing room, eyed curiously by the others as they took their seats, nodding as if all now was settled.
Michael stayed behind, conferring briefly with Matveev who had spent the morning with his ear pressed to the door of the drawing room. On the face of it the decision had already been made for him: if he abdicated, the war would go on, order would be restored, and democratic vote would determine the shape of its future status; if he stayed Emperor, the present government would collapse, there would be civil war, and the country ruined. Nicholas had given him command of a ship in which the crew had mutinied and the officers had taken to the lifeboats.
It could hardly be a surprise therefore when he walked back into the room and announced that he had decided to follow the advice of the two senior men present. Or words to that effect. Nothing was written down, and afterwards nobody could remember exactly what he said.17 However, those present understood him to mean that he had decided to abdicate the throne, for in the black-and-white world of Petrograd it was a straight choice between stay and go and he was clearly not staying.
There were sighs of relief. Nekrasov fingered the abdication manifesto in his pocket: We by God’s Mercy, Michael II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias…18 After that preamble the rest could be filled in simply enough. It would need a few flourishes, perhaps, to give the required sense of occasion, but essentially ‘abdicate’ was the word that mattered. Allowing five minutes or so for regretful comments and funereal courtesies, Michael’s manifesto could be in the Tauride Palace by lunch-time, with the Soviet obliged to hail their success. By late afternoon it could be posted all over the city. In fact, it would turn out to be rather more complicated than that. Michael was not going to give them ‘abdicate’.
AFTER Michael’s statement the meeting came to a stop. The delegates crowded around him had assumed that the next step would be that Michael would sign their prepared manifesto, but he seemed in no hurry to do anything else for the moment, and had waved that notion aside, saying that he would deal with that after lunch. After lunch? Faces stared at him blankly; however, the call demanding that they settle matters immediately never came, for at that moment, as if on cue, the drawing room door opened and Princess Putyatina emerged on the scene as hostess, inviting anyone who wished to do so to join her in the dining room.19
It was a wholly unexpected development but in their surprise no one seemed able to voice a protest. The delegates looked at each other, unsure what to do, and then realised that there was nothing that could be done about it. About half the men in the drawing room accepted the invitation and shuffled in to sit at the lunch table. They included Prince Lvov, Kerensky, Shulgin, Tereshchenko, and Nekrasov, his unsigned abdication manifesto tucked back in his pocket. Princess Putyatina sat at the head of the table, with Michael at her right hand; Matveev and Johnson were seated together at the end of the table. 20
Rodzyanko and the other ministers and deputies, confused, left the building and went back to the Tauride Palace, their victory delayed. Since the Soviet was still unaware that there was a meeting with Michael, and as yet the returning delegates could not wave his abdication manifesto, there was nothing they could do but keep out of the way and fend off questions.
The impatient Soviet in consequence took their own steps to deal with the issue of Michael and the monarchy by ordering ‘the arrest of the Romanov family’; in Michael’s case this was not to be house arrest but ‘an actual arrest’, which in turn came to mean that ‘he is subjected only to the surveillance of the revolutionary army’.21 A bluff to put pressure on the Duma men to deliver Michael’s abdication and quickly?
Back in Millionnaya Street there seemed no haste to do so at the lunch table. Michael’s greater interest appeared to be in finding out what had happened at Pskov. ‘Tell me’, he asked Shulgin, ‘how did my brother conduct himself?’
‘His Majesty was very pale but at the same time very calm and resigned…amazingly calm.’22
Shulgin then told him the full story, including Nicholas’s reasons for bypassing his son. The whole table listened attentively, for it was the first account any of them had heard of the abdication scene at Pskov. Despite the drama of their own day, what had happened at Pskov had changed everything, and no one thought of interrupting Shulgin as he described the scene in the imperial carriage. Michael made no criticism of his brother and in front of Michael no one else did so either.
After that, conversation was polite, with no mention of the reason for their all being there, until lunch was finished and Princess Putyatina rose from the table and withdrew. The delegates then looked at Michael, waiting for the moment when he would formally provide his abdication; Nekrasov fingered again the manifesto in his pocket.
Matveev, having sat throughout lunch in silence, then asserted himself, asking Nekrasov to let him see what he had written down. Nekrasov handed it over, and Matveev read through it, then returned it with the air of a man who had found it wanting.
Nekrasov glanced down at the paper: he had no experience of drafting a manifesto of this kind; had he missed something? This Matveev did not seem to be quite the nonentity they had taken him for when he was acting as doorman. His manner was that of advisor, acting for Michael, not servant.
That became clear in moments after Michael suggested that Matveev ‘should help set down in proper form what had taken place’.23 Oh dear, he was a lawyer. He was also trouble, for nodding towards Nekrasov, Matveev announced to the table that in order to prepare a proper manifesto for Michael’s signature they would first need to have a copy of the original abdication manifesto signed by Nicholas, as well as a copy of the Fundamental Laws.
An embarrassed Prince Lvov knew from Shulgin that he had handed the manifesto over at the Warsaw station to some man from the transport ministry, but no one at the table had any idea what had happened to it thereafter — that it was actually still hidden under a pile of old magazines in the office of Bublikov, the transport commissioner. As for the Code of Laws — where could they get a copy of those?
The lunch table was now in disarray, any thought of a quick exit with a signed manifesto now abandoned. Somehow the lawyers were going to have to take over and since Michael had his own in Matveev they were going to need one themselves. The man they settled on was Vladimir Nabokov, and Prince Lvov volunteered to call him. For Michael he was a welcome choice: for Nabokov’s sister Nadine was one of Natasha’s closest friends, and her daughter was a playmate of Michael’s seven-year-old son George.24
Prince Lvov first tried Nabokov’s office in the General staff building, and then his home; he was not there either but his wife offered to trace him, which she did promptly. He was at another of his offices, a
nd he promised to leave immediately.
With that, Kerensky and the Duma men other than Lvov and Shulgin, decided to return to the Tauride Palace. There was nothing they could do here, and it was clearly going to be a long afternoon. Assured by Prince Lvov that they would be told as soon as the manifesto had been signed, they left looking rather more subdued than when arriving so confidently almost six hours earlier. They were not sure how it had happened, but somehow Michael now seemed to be in charge.
At almost that very moment a telegram was sent to Michael from Sirotino, a railway station some 275 miles from Pskov. Nicholas, having ‘awoken far beyond Dvinsk,’25 had suddenly remembered that he had neglected to mention to his brother that he was the new Emperor. He hastily scribbled out a telegram, despatched at 2.56 p.m. and addressed to ‘Imperial Majesty Petrograd’. It read: To His Majesty the Emperor Michael: Recent events have forced me to decide irrevocably to take this extreme step. Forgive me if it grieves you and also for no warning — there was no time. Shall always remain a faithful and devoted brother. Now returning to HQ where hope to come back shortly to Tsarskoe Selo. Fervently pray God to help you and our country. Your Nicky.26
As so often during the past days, Nicholas had acted when it was too late to matter. However, at least it was delivered, unlike the last telegram sent to him, and returned Address Unknown.
THERE were no cabs or cars available to Vladimir Nabokov, but hurrying along the crowded Nevsky Prospekt he reached Millionnaya Street just before 3 p.m. After briefing him on the events of that morning, Prince Lvov explained that ‘the draft of the Act had been outlined by Nekrasov, but the effort was incomplete and not entirely satisfactory, and since everyone was dreadfully tired… they requested that I undertake the task’.27
The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II Page 19