Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

by Robert K. Massie

  “Why should this stern test be denied to Nicholas II? He had made many mistakes, what ruler has not? He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability, of merciful disposition, upheld in all his daily life by his faith in God. But the brunt of supreme decisions centered upon him. At the summit where all problems are reduced to Yea or Nay, where events transcend the faculties of man and where all is inscrutable, he had to give the answers. His was the function of the compass needle. War or no war? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratise or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These were the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honor from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the munitionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Brusilov; the Russian entry upon the campaign of 1917, unconquered, stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.

  “He is about to be struck down. A dark hand, gloved at first in folly, now intervenes. Exit Tsar. Deliver him and all he loved to wounds and death. Belittle his efforts, asperse his conduct, insult his memory; but pause then to tell us who else was found capable. Who or what could guide the Russian state? Men gifted and daring; men ambitious and fierce, spirits audacious and commanding—of these there were no lack. But none could answer the few plain questions on which the life and fame of Russia turned.”

  Inevitably, members of the Imperial family greeted news of the Tsar’s abdication with dismay. Some, thinking only of the awkwardness of their own situation, leaped to attack. “Nicky must have lost his mind,” wrote Grand Duke Alexander. “Since when does a sovereign abdicate because of a shortage of bread and partial disorders in his capital?… He had an army of fifteen million men at his disposal. The whole thing … seemed ludicrous.”

  Far more widely criticized was Nicholas’s decision to sign away the rights of his son. Shulgin and Guchkov, both strong monarchists, were surprised by the change from Alexis to Michael. They knew it would make trouble, but in the emotion of the moment on the train, they bowed to a “father’s feelings.” Among the legalistic, bureaucratic classes whose main concern was to obey whatever government was properly legal, and among the devout monarchists, faithful to tradition, who might have rallied to the legitimate heir, the change created consternation. “The immediate accession of the Tsarevich was the only means of stopping the Revolution,” declared Nicholas Basily, an official at Headquarters, who had drafted the first abdication document and been shocked to see the switch from son to brother. “In the first place, the young Alexis Nicolaievich would have had the law on his side. He would also have benefited by the sympathetic feeling of the nation and army towards him.”

  Even those who had served Nicholas long and faithfully failed to completely understand that the Tsar was also the father of a delicate twelve-year-old boy. Sazonov, who had been Nicholas’s Minister of Foreign Affairs for some years, spoke of the matter to Paléologue. “I needn’t tell you of my love for the Emperor and with what devotion I have served him,” he said with tears in his eyes. “But as long as I live, I shall never forgive him for abdicating for his son. He had no shadow of right to do so. Is there a body of law in the world which allows the rights of a minor to be abandoned? And what’s to be said when those rights are the most sacred and august on earth? Fancy destroying a three-hundred-year-old dynasty, and the stupendous work of Peter the Great, Catherine II and Alexander I. What a tragedy! What a disaster!”

  With Nicholas and Alexis both removed, Michael now was Tsar. There was an old Russian legend that when Tsar Michael II sat on the throne, Russia would win her eternal goal, Constantinople. There had been no tsar named Michael since the founder of the Romanov dynasty; Nicholas’s younger brother, therefore, would be Michael II. There were other propitious omens. Britain and France, which always before had blocked Russia’s advance to the south, now were her allies, and had promised Constantinople as a prize of victory. If Michael took the throne and the Allies won the war, the ancient legend might at last be fulfilled.

  As it happened, the reign of the new Tsar Michael was ludicrously brief. The news burst upon him at Gatchina in a telegram from his older brother: “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 Headquarters where hope to come back shortly to Tsarskoe Selo. Fervently pray God to help you and our country. Nicky.”

  Michael, now thirty-nine, was wholly unprepared for this abrupt transformation. Before the birth of the Tsarevich, he had for six years been Heir to the Throne. During Alexis’s periods of illness, he had faced the possibility of becoming Heir again. But he had never dreamed that both his brother and his nephew would be removed simultaneously and that, with the arrival of a telegram, he would suddenly find himself Tsar. Michael was no coward; he had won the St. George Cross commanding troops in the Carpathians. Nor was he politically insensitive: watching the disintegration of the government earlier that winter, he had come to Rodzianko to see what he could do to help. But he was not a bold, decisive man with extraordinary energies and will power, and it was a man of this character who was required. Nevertheless, taking leave of his wife, now beside herself with excitement at the prospect of becoming the consort of an emperor, Michael traveled from Gatchina into Petrograd to make his historic decision.

  In Petrograd, the anti-monarchical tide was running strong. Even as Guchkov and Shulgin were in Pskov obtaining Nicholas’s abdication, the Soviet had decided that replacing one tsar with another was not enough. “No more Romanovs! We want a Republic!” became their cry. Guchkov and Shulgin, returning to Petrograd with the document of abdication, were invited to address the railway workers at the station. Shulgin, believing it would please them to hear of Nicholas’s abdication, fervently shouted, “Long live the Emperor Michael!” To his horror, the workers were outraged. Closing the doors, they attempted to seize both Guchkov and Shulgin, who barely managed to slip away to a waiting automobile. From the station, the two delegates drove straight to a private house where the new government was meeting. Rodzianko was present, and in an armchair at the head of the table, waiting to hear the advice of the men who would become his ministers if he accepted the throne, sat Michael.

  The debate that followed was waged with passionate intensity. Miliukov, Guchkov and Shulgin pleaded that Michael had no right to evade the throne. They argued that the monarchy was the single unifying force in Russia, without which Russia would be destroyed. With equal force and conviction on the other side, Rodzianko and Kerensky threatened that if a new tsar took the throne against the people’s will, a new torrent of revolution would be released. The first victim, they predicted, would be Michael himself. “He asked me point-blank whether I could vouch for his life if he accepted the crown,” Rodzianko wrote later, “and I was compelled to answer in the negative because there was no armed force I could rely on.”

  Kerensky was even more vehement than Rodzianko. Knowing the fury that the proclamation of a new tsar would rouse in the Soviet, he declared, “In any case, I cannot answer for the life of Your Highness.” Michael asked for a few minutes to think the matter over and left the room with Rodzianko and Prince Lvov. Five minutes later, he returned and announced, “I have decided to abdicate.” He added that he would accept the throne later only if invited to do so by a constituent assembly.

  Kerensky was overjoyed. “Monseigneur, you are the noblest of men,” he shouted. The second deed of abdication was typed out on the desk of a children’s schoolroom in the house next door, and Michael signed it.

  Three hundred and four years after a shy sixteen-year-old boy had reluctantly accepted the throne at the plea of the Russian nation, his descendant,
also named Michael, had given it back. The Romanov dynasty was swept away.

  Although it was the defection of his trusted generals which ultimately swung his decision to abdication, Nicholas could not abandon the throne without saying goodbye to the army. In Pskov, immediately after signing the abdication, Nicholas applied for permission to return to Headquarters. The Provisional Government agreed without hesitation. Nicholas was not hostile but submissive; at Headquarters, Alexeiev was with them; at all the battlefronts, the commanding generals had united to urge the abdication. The likelihood that Nicholas would suddenly change his mind, revoke his abdication, rally his troops and march on the capital simply did not exist.

  As the train approached Mogilev, Alexeiev sent Basily to meet the Tsar. “He was absolutely calm, but it shocked me to see him with a haggard look and hollow eyes,” Basily wrote of his former sovereign. “… I took the liberty of saying that we at the Stavka were greatly distressed because he had not transferred his crown to the Tsarevich. He answered quietly: ‘I cannot be separated from my son.’ A few minutes later dinner was served. It was a melancholy meal. All of us felt our hearts bursting; we couldn’t eat or drink. Yet the Emperor retained wonderful self-control and asked me several questions about the men who form the Provisional Government; but he was wearing a rather low collar and I could see that he was continually choking down his emotion.”

  In Mogilev, Alexeiev met the train at the station and drove with the Tsar in an open car back to the governor’s house. Sitting down at his desk, Nicholas drafted as an Order of the Day his farewell to the army:

  “My dearly beloved troops,” he wrote, “I address you for the last time. Since my abdication, for myself and my son, from the throne of Russia, the power has passed to the Provisional Government, which has arisen on the initiative of the Imperial Duma.… Submit yourselves to the Provisional Government, obey your commanders.… May the Lord God bless you and may the Holy Martyr and Conqueror St. George lead you to victory.” Sadly, the message never reached the troops. Forwarded for approval to Petrograd, it was suppressed by the same Provisional Government which Nicholas was so loyally recommending. The Soviet, sitting under the same roof of the Tauride Palace, had let it be known that it did not favor the issuance of Orders of the Day by deposed monarchs.

  During these last five days in Mogilev, Nicholas exhibited the same steady restraint and self-control which he had been taught since boyhood. At a ceremonial farewell arranged by Alexeiev, the main hall of the house was packed with officers of the Headquarters staff. Nicholas, appearing at the front of the crowded room, quietly thanked the officers for their loyalty, begged them to forget all feuds and lead the army and Russia to victory. His modesty made a vivid impression; when he had finished, the room burst into loud cheers and most of those present wept openly. But none spoke up to urge him to change his mind, and Nicholas quietly bowed and left.

  Alone in his room, he said goodbye to the foreign military observers. General Hanbury-Williams found Nicholas in a khaki uniform, looking tired and pale, with large black lines under his eyes. He smiled and got up from his desk to join his guest on the sofa. “He said that he had meant to carry out … [reforms],” wrote Hanbury-Williams, “but that matters had advanced so quickly and it was too late. The proposal that the Tsarevich should take his place with a regent he could not accept as he could not bear the separation from his only son, and he knew that the Empress would feel the same. He … hoped that he would not have to leave Russia. He did not see that there would be any objection to his going to the Crimea … and if not, he would sooner go to England than anywhere.… He … added that the right thing to do was to support the present Government, as that was the best way to keep Russia in the alliance to conclude the war.… He feared the revolution would ruin the armies.… As I said ‘Goodbye’ … he turned to me and added: ‘Remember, nothing matters but beating Germany.’ ”

  The change in his status was tactfully concealed by the continuing personal courtesy with which he was treated. It appeared, nevertheless, in the little matters of procedure and ceremony which are the visible trappings of power. On the morning following his last meeting with the staff, the same officers assembled to take the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government. While Nicholas sat alone in his room, his suite, the staff and the troops of his escort lined up outside the house and pronounced the new oath in an audible chorus. In the prayers that followed, for the first time in hundreds of years the names of the Tsar and the Imperial family were omitted. The town of Mogilev greeted the abdication with noisy celebrations. At night, the town was illuminated and excited crowds stayed up shouting in the streets. From the windows of the local city hall, just opposite Nicholas’s window, two large red flags were draped. One by one, as the days moved along, the officers of the suite began removing the Tsar’s initials from their epaulets and cutting away the golden shoulder knots which marked them as aides-de-camp. Nicholas reacted gracefully to this melancholy sight: on March 21, Alexeiev telegraphed Brusilov: “The deposed Emperor understands and has given permission to remove initials and shoulder knots immediately.”

  On the second day of Nicholas’s stay at Headquarters, his mother, the Dowager Empress, arrived from her home in Kiev. “The news of Nicky’s abdication came like a thunderbolt,” wrote the Tsar’s sister Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who was with her mother in Kiev. “We were stunned. My mother was in a terrible state. She kept telling me it was the greatest humiliation of her life.… She blamed poor Alicky for … everything.” In Mogilev, the Dowager Empress’s train was brought to the Imperial platform and a few minutes later Nicholas drove up in his automobile. He said good morning to the two Cossacks standing at the entrance to Marie’s car and went inside. For two hours, mother and son were alone. Then Grand Duke Alexander, who had accompanied Marie, entered the car. He found the Dowager Empress collapsed in a chair, sobbing aloud, while Nicholas stood smoking quietly and staring at his feet.

  For three days, Marie remained in Mogilev, living aboard her train. She and Nicholas spent most of their time together, going for long drives in the afternoon and dining together every evening. It was the son who comforted the mother. Marie, always gay, witty, brilliant, decisive and totally in control of her emotions, had lost the regal bearing which was her emblem; for once she was frightened, ashamed and miserable. It was Nicholas, the son she had always lectured on behavior, who carefully steered his mother back toward courage and self-control.

  While at Mogilev, Nicholas had only the scantiest communication with his family at Tsarskoe Selo. Anxious to return to them as soon as possible, he applied for permission to the Provisional Government, which again had no objections. In Petrograd, however, the position of the Imperial family had deteriorated. Rumors circulated through the city that Nicholas had returned to Headquarters to lead the army against the revolution or to “let the Germans in.” Newspapers were filled with garish accounts of the sexual relationship of Rasputin and the Empress, along with stories detailing the Empress’s “treason.” On March 20, therefore, primarily to assure their own safety, the Provisional Government resolved “to deprive the deposed emperor and his consort of their liberty.” The Empress was to be arrested at Tsarskoe Selo on March 21. That same day, Nicholas was to be arrested at Mogilev and then, escorted by four commissioners sent by the Government, brought back to his family at Tsarskoe Selo.

  On March 21, the Tsar, knowing that he was to become a prisoner, had lunch alone with his mother. At three p.m., the express from Petrograd arrived, bearing the government envoys. At a quarter to four, the delegation, accompanied by Alexeiev, arrived to claim the Tsar. Nicholas stood up and tenderly kissed his mother goodbye. Neither could guess the future; both hoped that they would soon be reunited either in the Crimea or in England. Nevertheless, Marie cried unrestrainedly. Nicholas left her car, walked across the platform and entered the drawing-room car of his own train, which stood on the adjacent track. Whistles blew, there was a lurch and the Tsar’s train s
tarted to move. Nicholas, standing at the window, smiled and waved his hand; Marie, still in tears, made the sign of the cross. A few minutes later, when his train was only a blur of smoke on the northern horizon, her car rolled out of the station headed southwest for Kiev. Neither could know it at the time, but the proud Empress and her quiet eldest son were never to meet again.

  On the platform a few minutes before, as the Tsar’s train was leaving, Alexeiev and other officers of the Headquarters staff had stood at attention as the train bearing their former sovereign departed. As the car carrying the Tsar moved past him, Alexeiev saluted. A second later, as the last car of the same train, bearing the representatives of the Duma, rolled by, Alexeiev took off his cap and made a deep bow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Empress Alone

  AT TEN A.M. on Monday, March 12, a telephone rang in the Petrograd house of the Empress’s friend Lili Dehn. Lili, still in bed, got up to answer. It was the Empress. “I want you to come to Tsarskoe Selo by the ten-forty-five train,” said Alexandra. “It’s a lovely morning. We’ll go for a run in the car. You can see the girls and Anna and return to Petrograd at four p.m.… I’ll be at the station.”

  With only forty-five minutes to catch her train, Lili dressed rapidly, snatching her gloves, rings and a bracelet, and rushed to the station. She managed to scramble aboard the train just as it was leaving the platform.

  It was a superb winter morning. The sky was a rich blue and the sun sparkled on the deep drifts of white snow. True to her word, the Empress was waiting at the Tsarskoe Selo station. “How is it in Petrograd?” she asked anxiously. “I hear things are serious.” Lili replied that the general strike had made things inconvenient, but that she herself had seen nothing alarming. Still troubled, the Empress stopped the car on the way to the palace to question a captain of the marine Garde Equipage. The captain smiled. “There is no danger, Your Majesty,” he said.