In keeping with the mood of recalling the past, two balls were held at court in February of 1903, historical balls, recalling not the time of Peter the Great but that of his father Tsar Alexis, whose era, the mid-seventeenth century, was of particular interest to Nicky.
Alix applied herself to preparing for the historical ball with that devotion to minutiae – akin to the cataloguing of her lace and the more recent meticulous inventorying of her children’s wardrobes – that was becoming her hallmark. She consulted the director of the Hermitage Museum in the design of all the costumes, and had antique jewellery and clothing brought from the Granovitaia Palace in Moscow for use at the ball. Seamstresses prepared elaborate sarafans for her ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour and others in the imperial household.
Alix’s costume was a marvel of antiquarian reconstruction, if not of comfort. Dressed as Tsar Alexis’s first wife, Tsarina Maria Ilinichna, she wore a sarafan of gold brocade with a silver design inlaid with emeralds, pearls and diamonds. An antique jewelled headdress crowned her head, and from beneath it a white veil fell over her shoulders. Her long bejewelled earrings, so heavy they had to be fastened to her ears with loops of gold wire, glittered in the candlelight. The headdress immobilized her so that she had to sit down for most of the evening, and could not bend her head to eat.7
Nicky was equally magnificent dressed as Tsar Alexis in a rich red caftan thickly embroidered in gold thread, an authentic headdress from Alexis’s time and in his hand a gold staff. Unkind critics remarked that he was too short to look dignified in his finery.
At both historical balls, the great halls and supper tables at the Hermitage and the Winter Palace were awash in velvet gowns and gleaming golden headdresses, colourful ribbons, dangling festoons and flashing sequins. The fur hats of the men, hung with jewels, their bright sashes, their gold-trimmed boots and gleaming sabres, all had the effect of creating a tapestry of the past, brought to life for a few glorious hours.
In that far-off past a respite could be found from the violent dislocations of the present, with its workers’ strikes and assassinations and demonstrations, its omnipresent police, its massacres and pogroms and ominous rumblings of war and the threat of war.
For as the year 1903 opened, the tsar’s government was racked by conflicts. Its strongest and most capable member, the Finance Minister Witte, despised Nicky for his dreamy impracticality and, in Witte’s view, his weak grasp of foreign affairs. Diplomatic disagreements with a militarily formidable Japan, victor over China and aggressor in Korea and elsewhere, were worsening. The Japanese objected to Russian military occupation of the left bank of the Yalu River and, exasperated by the Russians’ intransigence on this issue, eventually turned to England and negotiated an alliance with the government of Edward VII. Pressure was brought to bear on Russia to withdraw its troops from Manchuria, and the Russian ministry gave its guarantees that a withdrawal would be accomplished by early October of 1903.
To Witte and Kuropatkin it was nonetheless evident that the tsar, caught up in a vision of a Russian empire stretching eastwards to the Pacific, was bound to entangle the country in a war with Japan. And it was equally evident that he was bound to bring his vision of an expanded empire into actuality by dangerously unconventional means.
Convinced that he understood far better than his ministers what was best for Russia, Nicky had begun to turn to shady intriguers who convinced him that, if only he gave them enough money, they could deliver foreign territories into his hands. One such enterprising schemer was a cavalry officer named Bezobrasov, who promised to put all of Manchuria and Korea under Russian rule. Financed by two million roubles from the imperial treasury, Bezobrasov installed himself and six hundred mercenaries in the disputed Yalu River region and sent the tsar encouraging reports – reports that no doubt influenced Nicky, when he thought about the guarantees he had given to withdraw Russian troops, to ignore the diplomatic assurances and risk conflict.
Events in the international arena were put aside during the summer of 1903 while Russians celebrated the canonization of Serafim of Sarov, the monk Philippe had urged Alix to pray to for a son. The canonization had gone ahead, and in the last days of July the Diveyevo Convent near Sarov was the scene of a vast gathering of pilgrims, among them many members of the imperial family.
The days were extremely hot, the roads dry and dusty in July 1903. The few thin clouds that floated in the sky were obscured by a film of brown that rose above the roadways to a height of twenty or thirty feet, and as the slow procession of pilgrims made its way towards the monastery the sound of coughing was constant among them.
They came in a great stream, nearly all of them on foot, nearly all of them poor peasants in thick dark tunics and bast shoes, the women’s faces shrouded by headscarves. They carried icons of Serafim, baskets of food, sacks with offerings to lay before the shrine. Sometimes they sang as they walked along, though in the hottest part of the day it took all their energy to keep walking, wary of the mounted Cossacks and police who rode among them, vigilant for stragglers or subversives.
Many among the pilgrims limped, some were carried on litters. Amputees swung themselves along on crutches. Mothers carried sick children in their arms, fathers supported the elderly. They had come dozens, even hundreds, of miles to kiss the relics of the holy Serafim, who had cured so many thousands both in his lifetime and after his death. They were weary, but ‘full of fervour and expectation’, as one of them wrote.
They knew the story of St Serafim, how he had gone as a monk to live in a cottage deep in the forest, keeping to himself and fasting, purifying himself in his solitude for fifteen years, comforted only by the wild animals who sought him out and brought him food. How he had been attacked by robbers and nearly killed, and how the Virgin Mary had come to him in a vision and healed his wounds. And how, after this signal instance of grace, Serafim had become a starets, receiving all those who came to him and healing them and advising them, giving to them freely from his own divine gifts.
Serafim’s miracles were too many to count. Those who kissed his shrine, or bathed in the holy pool where he had bathed, rose up renewed. He straightened crooked limbs, restored sight, made the barren fertile and gave vigour to the old and weak. Now he had been declared a saint by order of the Holy Synod, and his remains were to be taken from his modest grave in the churchyard and interred in the new cathedral built for them. His canonization confirmed Serafim’s holiness, the pilgrims believed, and redoubled his healing powers.
And so they streamed towards the monastery day after day, coming from as far away as the Caucasus and Siberia, entire families, almost entire villages, with here and there a priest, a town councillor stiff and hot in his black suit, babies crying, old men praying, hands lifted heavenwards, the entire massed community orderly in its onward march, under the fierce sun.
In the midst of the vast procession rode the troikas of the imperial family, greeted, as they passed through each village, by crowds of brightly costumed peasants crying ‘Little Father!’ as Nicky and Alix alighted to talk with them. The heartfelt adoration of the peasants was reassuring; they surged forwards and kissed the tsar’s hands, his clothing, making of him a living icon. ‘It was too moving for words,’ Nicky’s sister Olga wrote. ‘Nicky was just batushka tsar, Little Father, to all these people.’8
The imperials were much sought-after, yet as they resumed their journey they melted into the sea of humanity, pilgrims among the pilgrims, seeking the blessing of Serafim like all the others. Alix had come with particular faith and devotion, intending to carry out Philippe’s advice that she bathe in Serafim’s pool – and perhaps also to seek a cure for the terrible headaches that had begun to afflict her, and for her sciatic pain. She was only thirty-one, but her pregnancies had taxed her body, making her thick-waisted and at times short of breath. Her fervour was as great, her attitude as humble and reverent, as those of the peasants as the vast crowd reached the pine wood at Sarov and turned into the narrow path t
hat led to the convent.
Three days of ceremonies marked the canonization of Saint Serafim. His disinterred relics were placed in a golden coffin and borne on the shoulders of the tsar, his Uncle Serge and his cousins around the grounds of the cathedral, then brought inside to be displayed in front of the chancel in the presence of the Metropolitan Antony of Petersburg and the bishops of Kazan and Tambov and other prelates.
The hushed silence inside the immense golden-domed cathedral was full of hope as, with the utmost reverence, the sick began to come forwards to kiss the saint’s relics, murmuring prayers, as the choir sang quietly in the background. The huge congregation watched, expecting miracles, whispering to one another that a cure had already been experienced, while the saint’s coffin was carried around the church.
One by one the afflicted came, or were brought forward, some so feeble they could barely shuffle past the coffin, each reaching down to place a kiss on the gilded wood.
‘Oh, what misery, what illnesses we saw, and what faith!’ Ella wrote. ‘It seemed as if we were living in Christ’s time . . . Oh, how they prayed, how they cried, these poor mothers with their sick children and, thank God, how many were cured! We had the blessing of seeing a little dumb girl speak, but how her mother prayed for her!’9
The extraordinary spectacle went on for nearly four hours, as the congregation stood in wonder, weeping from the extreme strain and overcome with holy feeling. Madmen were led forward, shrieking and howling, some writhing so violently that it took several people to control them. When they touched the shrine, however, their inhuman cries subsided, their tortured limbs seemed to relax.10
Waves of awe passed through the onlookers with each cure, or perceived cure. Held in the grip of the miraculous, convinced beyond any doubt that they were witnessing marvels, the faithful prayed and continued to come forward, until at last the metropolitan brought the service to an end.
On the final evening of the ceremonies, in the gathering dusk, Nicky and Alix, Minnie, Olga, Ella and the others made their way in twos and threes down to the holy pool of Serafim and stepped into the freezing water. They were in a unique frame of mind, beyond doubt, beyond ordinary thought. They had seen with their own eyes the dumb speak and the paralyzed walk.11 They knew, with all the fervour of belief, that St Serafim could heal them.
And Alix was certain, as she bathed in the holy waters, that her prayers for a son would be answered. She came out of the pool and knelt by the nearby shrine, thanking the saint for the baby he would give her. Then quietly, their identities cloaked by the darkness, the imperials made their way back to the convent.
‘Truly,’ Nicky wrote in his diary that night, ‘God works miracles through his saints.12 Great is his ineffable mercy towards dear Russia, this manifestation of the Lord’s grace towards us all brings inexpressible comfort. In you we put our trust, Lord; we shall never be confounded.’
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The first word to arrive in Petersburg about the Japanese attack on Port Arthur came from a Russian commercial agent, who sent a telegram warning the navy that the Russian squadron protecting the immense, decaying fort on the Liaodong Peninsula in north China, at the mouth of the harbour adjacent to Peking, was being decimated.
There had been no declaration of war. The Japanese fleet under Vice-Admiral Togo had sent torpedo boats to attack the Russian warships at night, severely damaging the Tsarevich, Retvizan and Pallada and leaving a number of other vessels with ruptured hulls and torn rigging.
Phones rang, telegrams went out across the continent. The news was startling. Was it possible that tiny but bellicose Japan could have the daring to take on the entire Russian empire, with its population of a hundred million and more, its million-man army and its large battle fleet? Japan of the delicate fans and fragile cherry blossoms, of the geishas in their wispy houses? The disparity between the two countries was almost too great to be comprehended – and besides, the Russians, despite the tinge of the Asiatic in their culture, belonged to Europe; they were Christian, civilized, Caucasian. They belonged to the dominant bloc, the superior force in the world. The Japanese were unchristian, to the Russians uncivilized (though their culture was, paradoxically, much admired by Europeans), non-white. For such a nation to even think of challenging a European empire was unsettling to the natural order of things – or so it seemed to Europeans in the winter of 1904.
When he heard the news of the Japanese attack the Russian Interior Minister Plehve was gratified. There was nothing like a war to stimulate patriotism, to subdue anti-government feeling and revolutionary activity. Let the conflict go forwards, he advised, but let it be brief, and overwhelmingly victorious for the tsar and his empire. That should stop the mouths of the critics for awhile.
Kuropatkin, on the other hand, was worried. He knew from secret reports that the fortress of Port Arthur was far from being the impregnable bastion Russians supposed it to be. Its garrison was weak and short of ammunition, its old walls crumbling from years of neglect. And the ships that rode at anchor in the harbour were also in disrepair, some of them too unseaworthy to risk manoeuvres, most of them under the command of mediocre officers. No wonder the Japanese had been able to cripple three of them so easily. Most of all Kuropatkin worried about supplying the army in the event of a full-scale conflict. The Trans-Siberian Railway, which when built would connect Petersburg with Vladivostok, was at least a year away from being completed; in the meantime there was no efficient way to send supplies and reinforcements to the Russian garrison.
‘God be with us!’ Nicky wrote in his diary on the night he heard the news of the attack. He had known that the Japanese ambassador had taken his leave of Petersburg two days earlier, after six months of unsuccessful deliberations and ten failed attempts to draft an agreement over territorial rights. He was aware, for Kuropatkin had told him, that the Japanese actually had many more fighting men in the region than the Russians had, and that their troops were better trained and better equipped. Yet he had not anticipated this sudden, treacherous attack.
More shocks arrived in the following days. Port Arthur came under bombardment. Seven more Russian ships were sunk or heavily damaged. The Japanese had mined the harbour, preventing what remained of the Russian squadron from escaping. And Japanese torpedo craft were attempting to run the gauntlet of the fortress guns and land troops ashore.
Public sentiment was aroused, there were patriotic delegations and mass demonstrations. Crowds cheered and sang ‘God Save the Tsar’. Every man who possessed one put on his military uniform, even if he had seen no active service in decades, and wore it every day, parading through the streets of Petersburg as if in anticipation of a military review. Money poured into the treasury to support the war effort, millions of rubles contributed by the nobility, wealthy industrialists, bankers and traders.
But no amount of money could suddenly awaken the dormant, under-prepared troops and crews, or make proficient the incompetent commanders. There was no forceful Russian counter-attack. Instead, the flagship, the Petropavlovsk, was sunk with six hundred men aboard, including Admiral Makarov, and another battleship was badly damaged. And, with the navy unable to offer much resistance, the Japanese began bringing tens of thousands of their troops ashore. Opinion in Petersburg, which had dismissed the Japanese venture as ultimately futile, now began to take the threat to Russian interests more seriously.
The empress’s first response to the outbreak of conflict was to reinvigorate her charitable guild, Help Through Handwork, and to move it into larger rooms in the Winter Palace. Now instead of making clothing for the poor she and her ladies sewed bandages and warm clothes and knitted stockings for the soldiers. The workshop became a collecting point for medical supplies and other necessities to be readied for shipment eastward into Siberia. Hundreds of women volunteered to sew and knit and pack boxes, and Alix appointed her maid of honour Princess Obolensky (‘Litty’) to oversee the workshop. (‘She has such a clear, practical brain and good memory,’ Alix wrote to her siste
r Victoria.)
Each morning after she had heard her children’s prayers, dressed, and eaten breakfast, Alix gathered her sewing things and, preceded by an attendant, entered the workshop where she looked over what had been produced the day before, talked to the volunteers and discussed the present day’s efforts with Litty and the Robes Mistress Princess Galitzine, who also had a supervisory role.
‘There is no end of work to be done, but it is a great comfort to be able to help one’s poor sufferers a little,’ Alix wrote. ‘All work hard. Litty manages it splendidly . . . We work for the army hospitals (apart from the Red Cross) and for the well who need clothes, tobacco . . . and then we furnish military trains.’’1 Alix and her group could not supply garments or goods to the Red Cross, for that was among Minnie’s charities, and any contribution the empress’s workshop made would have been considered a trespass on the dowager empress’s prerogatives.
The work and its urgency, the daily ritual associated with it gave Alix a welcome sense of purpose and direction, but the outbreak of war depressed her and brought on severe migraines; though she encouraged Nicky and reassured him that ‘God and our dear Friend [Philippe] will help us’, the strain she was under showed in her pallor, the hours she spent weeping alone in her room, her attacks of flu and her ‘air of suffering’.2
‘She had always been very delicate,’ Mouchanow wrote, ‘and developed violent nervous headaches which totally prostrated her and confined her to her bed in a dark room, sometimes for two or three days at a time. These attacks left her terribly weak, and she would require care and quiet to get over them.’3 Nothing could be done for her when her headaches were at their worst. No one could go near her, not even the children, for her senses were so acutely attuned during these attacks that the slightest sound, even the sound of a footfall in the next room, could redouble her pain.
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