by Theo Aronson
So, while the Tsar, his family and his band of loyal attendants remained under guard in the echoing rooms of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, the Provisional Government considered how best to get them away to safety.
King George V's telegram, although not delivered to the Tsar by the new Russian Foreign Minister, strengthened the Minister's conviction that it must be to England that the imperial family should go. He therefore asked the British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, to approach the British Government on the matter. Buchanan wired the request. Somewhat reluctantly, the British Government agreed to grant asylum to the Tsar. Lloyd George, the Liberal Prime Minister, had the highest regard for the new revolutionary government and it was only because the request had come from them, and not from the Tsar himself, that he granted it.
The decision created a furore. In British left-wing circles, there was an outraged reaction. To many Englishmen, Nicholas II was simply a bloodstained tyrant, whose fall from power had been richly deserved. Why, they wanted to know, should this reactionary autocrat be given asylum in freedom-loving Britain? Even Sir George Buchanan was beginning to have second thoughts. By receiving the Tsar, Britain might alienate the extreme left wing of her Russian ally, he warned.
As the opposition mounted, so did the suspicion grow that the proposal had originated with King George V. It was only too easy to believe that he was behind this scheme to grant asylum to his cousins. This would not be the first time that his close relationship to foreign royalties had landed him in trouble. Already he had been accused of being too well-disposed towards that other controversial pair of first cousins: King Constantine and Queen Sophie of the Hellenes. Strong exception had been taken to the fact that the King had recently entertained two of King Constantine's brothers. Within days of the proposal to grant the Tsar asylum becoming public, the King was receiving abusive letters.
The truth was quite different. From the start the King had doubted the wisdom of his Cabinet's invitation. He was fully alive to the delicacy of the situation. It would be much better, he thought, for the imperial family to take refuge in some neutral country, such as Denmark or Switzerland. His reservations, passed on to his government at the end of March, were politely waved aside. His second letter, ten days later, was more sympathetically received. By now the British government, heeding the public clamour, was changing its mind. Might not France, it wondered, be a more suitable place of refuge? To this suggestion, the British Ambassador in Paris replied in no uncertain terms. 'I do not think that the ex-Emperor and his family would be welcome in France,' he wrote. 'The Empress is not only a Boche by birth but in sentiment. She did all she could to bring about an understanding with Germany. She is regarded as a criminal or a criminal lunatic and the ex-Emperor as a criminal from his weakness and submission to her promptings.'
From that time on, the plan to offer asylum to the imperial family began to die a slow death. The British government could not risk offending the public and the Russian government could not risk offending the Soviet. After the murder of the imperial family, each side denied responsibility for the collapse of the plan. A member of the Provisional government accused the British of withdrawing their offer; the British contradicted the statement.
But whatever the reason, the imperial family remained shut up at Tsarskoe Selo. How much longer they could remain there was another matter. The Provisional government's grip on affairs in Russia was becoming progressively shakier (Lenin had by now arrived back from exile) and once that grip was lost, the imperial family would be in real danger. By August it was decided that they must be secretly moved away from the capital as soon as possible. The Tsar wanted to go to Livadia, his summer residence on the Black Sea (his mother, the Dowager Empress, was there) but the journey was considered too hazardous. Instead, the Minister of Justice, Alexander Kerensky, chose the provincial town of Tobolsk, in western Siberia.
If, during the early days of the revolution, Kerensky had protected the imperial family because he had regarded any show of vengeance unworthy of the new Russia, by now he had developed considerable respect for them. Their behaviour during their captivity had been exemplary. They had had so much to contend with: physical discomfort, humiliation, the loutishness and antagonism of their guards, the frightening uncertainty of their fate. One day had seen them at the pinnacle of power, the next at the mercy of the crude soldiery surrounding their palace. Yet they had remained dignified, uncomplaining, courteous. The children, with the resilience of youth, had to some extent adapted themselves to the changed circumstances, but for the Empress it had not been easy. Convinced of the correctness of her attitude, she had been very embittered by the turn of events. To strangers she appeared haughty and unreconciled.
'I don't understand why people speak ill of me,' she once exclaimed to Kerensky. 'I have always loved Russia from the time I first came here. I have always sympathized with Russia. Why do people think that I am siding with Germany and our enemies? There is nothing German about me. I am English by education and English is my language.'
Only gradually did she adjust herself to the new situation. But adjust herself she did. 'Did you know, Alexandra Fedorovna, I had quite a different idea of you,' admitted a common soldier after he had talked to her in the garden, 'I was mistaken about you.'
Nicholas's behaviour, on the other hand, had been impressive from the start. Everyone, companions and visitors alike, were struck by his calm, his simplicity, his resignation and his charm. Those who had expected to find either a hard-hearted autocrat or a simple-minded weakling were astonished to find an unassuming and sensible gentleman.
It was with considerable relief, therefore, that Kerensky got the family aboard a train bound for Tobolsk on 14 April 1917. How long they would remain there, no one knew. By now, however, the Tsar had come to respect Kerensky as much as Kerensky respected him. 'I have no fear,' said Nicholas on hearing that they were to be sent away. 'We trust you. If you say we must move, it must be. We trust you.'
Others were not quite so sanguine. 'News has reached us that the Tsar and his family have been transported to Tobolsk, no one knows why,' wrote Queen Marie of Romania. 'What are they going to do with my poor Nicky? I am so anxious . . . .'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Fall of Kings
1
The next one to lose her throne was Queen Sophie of the Hellenes.
If, during the first two years of the war, the accusations of pro-Germanism made against Sophie had been groundless, by the beginning of 1917 there was something more to them. Her attitude is understandable. Neutral Greece had suffered no harm at the hands of Germany. On the other hand, she had suffered nothing but harm at the hands of the Entente Powers. The Allies had intentionally and consistently undermined King Constantine's position, they had encouraged Venizelos in his rebellious stand, they had bombed Athens and, when their belligerent tactics had still not forced Greece to abandon her neutrality, they had blockaded the country. In addition they had heaped abuse on the heads of both the King and Queen.
All this had incensed Queen Sophie to the point where she was ready to forget past disagreements with her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and call upon him for help. It was not so much that she had become pro-German as that she had become anti-Entente. Nor was she alone in her attitude. Many Greeks, suffering under the Allied blockade, felt the same way. As Sophie's cousin, King George V of England, so rightly pointed out to his government, a 'kindly' instead of a 'bullying' attitude would probably have induced Greece to join the Allies voluntarily.
But the bullying attitude persisted and by the spring of the year 1917 the Greeks could no longer resist the Allied pressure. They were ready, at last, to abandon their neutrality.
They were not ready, however, to abandon their King. 'The Greeks,' as the Russian Minister informed his government in April, 'are ready for any capitulation, provided that the King is left untouched.'
But the Entente Powers had other ideas. In June a French warship, carrying Se
nator Charles Jonnart, 'High Commissioner of the Protecting Powers of Greece', dropped anchor off Athens. Summoning the Greek Prime Minister aboard, Jonnart presented him with an ultimatum. It demanded the abdication of King Constantine. The King could choose a successor from among his sons, provided it was not Crown Prince George, who was considered to be too closely identified with his father's and mother's 'pro-German' views. Failure to comply with this ultimatum would lead to a full-scale military occupation of Greece and to a second bombardment of Athens.
The King had no choice. Unhappy, disheartened, sick to death of the atmosphere of intrigue and duplicity in which he had been forced to live since the outbreak of war, Constantine agreed to the demand. He was determined that no more blood should be spilt for his sake. To one of his daughters, who begged him not to give way, he answered quietly, 'It is out of the question that I should cause more bloodshed. Don't you understand the meaning of sacrifice?'
At a meeting of the crown council, the King explained that he, Queen Sophie and their children had decided to leave the country. While neither he nor Crown Prince George would sign any act of abdication, the royal power would go to his second son, the twenty-three-year-old Prince Alexander. That same afternoon, the new King took the oath of allegiance at a sad little ceremony in the ballroom of the palace. Just over four years had passed since King Constantine, at the height of his popularity and surrounded by gorgeously robed clergy and beaming Ministers had taken his oath; now only four people – Constantine, Alexander, the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Athens, who had been smuggled in by a back door – were present.
The ceremony concluded, King Constantine and his family prepared to leave. But an extraordinary thing happened to prevent them from doing so.
The news (which was meant to have been secret) that the King was to leave Greece had spread rapidly through the city. In their thousands the people had trooped to the palace. The building was now surrounded by a vast multitude, determined that the King should not go. 'One by one they took up the cry,' reports the King's brother, Prince Christopher, 'that age-old lament in a minor key with which the Greeks proclaim death or disaster.' Nothing would disperse the mob. Closer and closer to the palace they pressed, all the time shouting, 'He shall not go! He shall not go!' When, at length, King Constantine, Queen Sophie and their children emerged to enter the waiting cars, people flung themselves to the road to prevent the cars from moving forward. The royal party was obliged to return indoors. Each time they made for the cars the same thing happened.
All night the crowd surged about the palace. In the morning they were still there, as vociferous as ever. In desperation King Constantine issued a proclamation. 'Bowing to necessity, and fulfilling my duty towards Greece, I am leaving my beloved country . . .' it explained. 'I appeal to you, if you love God, your country and myself, to submit without disturbance.'
But the crowd would not listen. Under the blaze of the summer sun, their lamentations were turning to hysteria; there were cries that it would be better to kill the King than to let him leave Greece. Finally, the desperately worried family decided on a ruse to get away. Word was spread among the crowd that the King was going to leave by an obscure back gate and the cars were driven round there. In the meantime, other cars were drawn up in the thickly wooded grounds of the Old Palace, which stood alongside. With the attention of the crowd focused on the back of the palace, the royal family slipped out of the front entrance, dashed across a road, pushed through a gate in the railings surrounding the Old Palace grounds and flung themselves into the waiting cars. Queen Sophie, falling behind, was lifted under the arms by two of her brothers-in-law and dumped unceremoniously into her seat. They were only just in time for, as the cars pulled away, the crowd came thundering into the grounds.
The family drove to Tatoi where things took on a less frenetic tone. But even here the King and Queen were besieged by loyalists, all begging them not to leave. Bewildered and tearful, the new King, Alexander I, came to take leave of his family. Alexander was a handsome young man, tall, well-built and dashing, but he was not especially bright nor in any way equipped for the task which had been thrust upon him. This, indeed, is why Venizelos and the Allies had insisted that Crown Prince George be excluded from the succession. Not only had Prince George been trained for kingship but he was a young man of considerable ability; as such, he might prove too independent for Venizelos's liking. Alexander, on the other hand, would be a puppet king.
King Constantine gave Alexander what advice he could, impressing on the young man that he was merely an interim king and that the throne rightly belonged to his father and then his elder brother. To all this Alexander listened and agreed.
When King Constantine had finished, King Alexander broached a more intimate subject. It concerned his secret engagement. Women, and fast cars, were Alexander's passion and he had fallen deeply in love with Aspasia Manos, the daughter of one of his father's equerries. He now asked for permission to marry her. King Constantine was not unsympathetic but he made his son promise that he would not do so until after the war. To this the complaisant Alexander agreed.
Switzerland had been decided upon as the place of exile (King George V had 'strongly disapproved' of the choice of the Isle of Wight) and the royal family left Greece the following day. Despite the fact that they sailed from a small fishing port, the scenes were hardly less feverish than they had been in Athens. Again the royal party had to fight their way through a great crowd and, as they were ferried out to their yacht, Sphakteria, scores of people waded into the water, shouting, 'You will come back!'
'Yes,' shouted the King in return, 'be sure I shall come!'
'The whole bank,' says Prince Christopher, 'was lined with men and women waving frantically to that solitary figure standing alone in the stern of the boat with his eyes fixed on the shores of his beloved Greece. And when at length the yacht carried him out of sight and their voices calling to him to come back could no longer be heard across the water, they turned away and went sorrowfully home to Athens.'
The scene on the Sphakteria was no less sorrowful. The King was visibly dejected, the children in tears. Only Queen Sophie, who in her youth had given way so readily to tears, kept her emotions under control. 'As gold tried in the fire comes out brighter and purer still,' her mother, the Empress Frederick, had said to her twenty years before, 'so those who are noble show their grandest qualities in misfortune.' Dry-eyed and straight-backed, this cruelly misunderstood daughter of a cruelly misunderstood mother watched the shores of her husband's kingdom fade and disappear from sight.
2
King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania were deeply disturbed by the news of the Russian revolution. With the greater part of Romania in enemy hands, the little Romanian army was utterly dependent on Russian support; without it, Romania's brave resistance would crumble in a day. Its other allies, Britain and France, were in no position to help; heavily engaged on the Western Front, they were not even able to send the promised munitions to their embattled Romanian ally. It was thus with considerable foreboding that the Romanian sovereigns followed the course of the Russian upheaval.
But for the moment, all was well. Russia fought on. And, lest a similar revolutionary spirit manifest itself in Romania, King Ferdinand, egged on by the astute Queen Marie, made his troops a promise: after the war, Romanian land was to be more fairly divided among all its peoples. The aristocratic landowners might have been incensed but this timely declaration may well have kept the troops loyal to their sovereigns in the difficult months ahead.
For suddenly, difficulties came thick and fast. In July 1917 Russia, spurred on by huge loans from its anxious allies, launched another offensive. Initially successful, it developed into a débâcle. By the middle of the month, the Russians were falling back everywhere. It was not known how much longer the Romanians, fighting bravely on Russia's disintegrating flank, could hold out. At Romanian headquarters, everything was confusion. There was talk of evacuating Jassy, of fall
ing back into Russia, everyone was packing. Queen Marie, usually so buoyant, so optimistic, was plunged into black despair. Yet she would not hear of moving to safety. 'The King has sworn to me,' she wrote, 'that whatever happens I shall be allowed to remain with him in the army on Romanian ground to its last possible limit. Nothing will induce me to go off as many are trying to persuade me to do.'
Outwardly confident, she continued her manifold duties. In the searing heat of summer, she went jolting over dusty roads to spend hours in the hospitals, on the parade grounds and in the trenches. Within sound of the guns and sometimes within sight of the enemy, she moved encouragingly among the men. 'Looking into the eyes of their Queen,' she says, 'they had sworn to stand up like a wall to defend the last scrap of Romanian territory which was still ours. Many a dying soldier whispered to me with his last breath that it was for me that he was fighting, for was I not his home, his mother, his belief and his hope?'
Be that as it may, it was going to take more than the soldiers' admiration for their indomitable Queen to save the situation. The Romanians were staunch enough but the Russians were becoming daily more unreliable. In their hundreds of thousands, they were deserting from the front. Before the year was out the Russian Provisional Government had fallen and power had passed to the Bolsheviks. To consolidate his still precarious hold on the country, Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, needed peace at any price. By the middle of December 1917, an armistice had been signed between Russia and Germany.
A telegram from Marie's cousin, King George V, offering her family asylum in Britain, merely underlined the desperateness of the Romanian situation. Emphasizing it still more vividly was the visit of her other cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to the conquered part of Romania. In a gesture at once triumphant and respectful, the Kaiser laid wreaths on the tombs of his Hohenzollern relations, King Carol and Queen Elizabeth. It was ironic, thought Nando, that der Onkel, who had always longed for a visit from the illustrious Kaiser, should receive one only after he was dead and his country invaded. 'I have always imagined, wrote Marie sourly, 'that the imperial wreath must have lain heavily on Uncle's tomb.'
