by JG Hampton
sorely. My life has changed drastically since war was declared. I feel almost like an orphan who has no parents. Papa is away and Mama spends her days at the Catherine Palace with the older pair supervising the war effort. Dragging herself in every evening, she settles down with her anatomy books so that she can pass her nursing test. We spend little time together as a family. Sixteen year old Marie falls in love with every soldier she looks at and they with her. Thank heavens I still have my annoying Anastasia to tease and my spaniel Joy.
7 September 1914, 21 October 1914 - Hooray! Jumping Jehosophat! I'm so excited; I race about like a runaway train. Papa has sent for me. Joy and I leave on the train tomorrow and my trunk is already packed. Oh happy day! My prayers have been answered. Papa thinks that I will make a good sentinel and aide for him. Imagine, no more of Auntie Annya's close scrutiny of my eating habits and her admonitions to remove my elbows from the table and chew with my mouth closed. Women are not allowed at military headquarters. Anastasia is green with envy.
8 September 1914, 21 October 1914 - At the station, I noticed the number of refugees camped around the drinking water. There are homeless children everywhere I look. I made eye contact with a boy about my age who sat in a corner of the station. His clothes were ragged and then he turned his head away and buried his head on his knees, the image of despair. I must tell Mama to do something about these homeless waifs. I will not complain when Mama tells me to eat the crusts on my bread. Mama warned me that death and loneliness stalk the living outside of our palaces. I'm donating my month's allowance for soup for boys.
The elderly are like swarms of locust searching for a stalk of wheat. This must be Uncle Nickolasha's fault.. I'm glad that Papa has replaced him; soon Papa Czar will fix everything. Mama says that Papa's star is rising in the sky and Father Grigory believes that he cannot fail.
9 September 1914, 22 September 1914 - The train rolls along slowly. This is my first real adventure by myself. Of course, I am accompanied by my attendants Nagorny and Demerov and so I am not really alone, but I pretend that I am. I'm eleven years old and feel like a man. Jewish boys become men when they are twelve years of age at their Bar Mitzvahs.
I can't help but feel proud of myself. I am growing up. Wait until I write my other Romanov cousins. Nikita will simply burst from jealousy. Joy is glad to be traveling again and so am I. A change is as good as a vacation.
10 September 1914, 23 September 1914 - The air is brisk and I wrap myself in one of Mama's handmade afghans that she made to keep me comfortable. The train is slow and towards night Nagorny makes me a comfortable bed. Demedov and he sleep nearby so that they can see to my needs. Fall is in the air. The train stops at every small station and loads and unloads soldiers heading for the front. Many one armed men and one legged men are ending their days as soldiers as I'm beginning mine, how ironical.
I hope I fare better than they do. What type of homecoming will these handicapped men be receiving in their villages I wonder? How will they provide for their families? I shudder and am ashamed that I will never have to worry about that. If one is rich, one is never truly handicapped. Nevertheless, the effects of war make one think. I've already lost to death one of my Romanov cousins, one of Auntie Xenia's boys. Why was he taken and not me I ponder?
11 September,1914, 24 September 1914 - As the train travels through the small train stations, babushkas blow kisses and old men take off their hats in respect to the passing Imperial coach with its double headed eagles. Has word spread down the telegraph wire that the czarovitch is journeying to the front or are my countrymen merely showing respect to their czar? I am vain enough to imagine that the attention is all for me. Does it really matter? Papa and I are the same in purpose. Both of us love Russia and its peasants and feel at one with the land and its people.
13 September, 1914, 25 September 1914 - Papa is so happy to see me that he picks me up and whirls me around in the air as if I were a toddler again. He kisses me three times on each cheek, in the Russian way. It is rather embarrassing, but I love it and kiss him back. Papa has missed me and I feel well loved and am not ashamed to display my feelings and either is my Papa.
Joy jumps up on him joyously even though I've trained her not to jump up on people.
"Nyet!" I command her firmly and she puts her tail between her legs and acts like she's sad before jumping right back up on Papa with her paws on his legs and licking him as if he were a savory treat. My dog will not make a good soldier and I probably should have left her home. Maybe she'll learn to follow commands when she sees Papa's other setter dogs following orders. One can only hope.
14 September, 1914 26 September 1914 - The troops are standing in precision straight lines for Papa's inspection. They look magnificent and I feel the awe and respect that they feel for Papa and his czarovitch. They are overwhelmed at being inspected personally by the Czar and his son.
Papa was right about taking control. Even if he is not a military man, he will learn and no doubt he'll be inspired from on high with all of his soldiers praying for both of us. Mama has sent several icons with me which have been blessed by our rasputin and then there was the cross which appeared in the sky above one of the villages which is still being talked about by the troops and all over Russia. Certainly that is a good omen.
I am given a small white horse to ride, a smaller version of Papa's white stallion. Together we make an impressive team. Our soldiers will long remember the appearance we make. Grandmama was simply wrong.
15 September, 1914, ,27 September1914 - The day was fine though the air was crisp. In the mansion Papa has commandeered to use as command center, Papa had placed a cot next to his and we reveled in our companionship. We both wrote side by side in our diaries and I wrote a letter to Mama and we both signed it. Papa enclosed a leaf tinged with red in the envelope for Mama and then kissed the envelope so that I know it was sealed with a kiss after applying sealing wax. No one would be viewing their correspondence. Papa listened to my prayers and then he turned off the lights. I've never felt so healthy. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow. Papa sleeps without a pillow as was his custom since childhood, but I was allowed the luxury of one filled with feathers.
A soldier's life appealed to both of us. The food was plain, but there was plenty. I thought of the starving children I'd seen as I ate a second bowl of soup. Tomorrow I would write to Mama that soup kitchens must be set up in some of the villages and that she could have my monthly allowance for soup for the orphans. After all, future soldiers must be fed.
16 September, 1914, 28 September 1914 - For awhile, things had improved when Papa arrived. The front had changed location. The Germans stopped their insane rapid drive northwards. From all indications, the enemy will not be arriving in Petrogad by December. The fall of Warsaw had slowed their pace. However, several of our bravest regiments had been completely wiped out and Papa was obliged to make changes in the military hierarchy. He fired Sukhomlinov after listening to his military advisers and tried to make wise changes. Always asking himself what his Papa would do in the situation, he then tried to determine what the consequences of his orders would be before he acted since lives were at stake. The blood flow and demise of the soldiers must be stopped and for a while it was staunched.
17 September, 1914, 29 September 1914, Telegrams from the front arrive daily. Thank heavens that I don't recognize the names of the wounded. I love our devoted officers I've met on our yaught, The Standardt, and would be devastated if any of their names appeared on the lists of the dead. However, I relish the fact that some of Uncle Willy's six sons have already been captured. Am I more a Russian more than I am beholden to my relatives? Perhaps I'll turn into Ivan the terrible after all. Nonetheless, Papa feels as I do. We confided our honest feelings to each other as we laid on our cots both of us feel little remorse that the German Kaiser's six sons have been imprisoned. After all, Kaiser Wilhelm orchestrated this madness.
Papa says that my Russian blood is stronger than the blood of my German relat
ives, because I am to be the czar and that this is only right. This helps me realize that I am not a ghoul after all. However, I can't help but realize that Mama is fretting over the capture of my German cousins and has probably notified her neutral cousins to tell Cousin Willy's wife that they will be cared for by the Russians and that they don't need to worry that they will be mutilated.
I visited some German prisoners of war and they all were surprised that their nose and ears hadn't been cut off yet by the savage Russians. I said that Papa and I were gentlemen and didn't kick men who were down on their luck. Could we expect the same treatment from vile Germans? We were soon to find out as Russian regiments were killed cold-bloodedly by heartless German infantrymen rather than taken as prisoners.
20 September, 1914, 3 October 1914 - My sister Olga wrote Papa a letter telling him that she has sold her pearl necklace that she finally completed on her eighteenth birthday and that she gave the money to the relief fund. I remember that she received a pearl every year for her birthday and Christmas so that she would finally have a complete necklace to wear at her coming out ball. It had taken her years to save
