Queen Victoria, who had watched over Alix and Nicky with so much loving care, was grief-stricken by the news. She noted in her diary, “Poor dear Nicky and darling Alicky. What a terrible load of responsibility and anxiety has been laid upon the poor children!” She concluded in her usually perceptive manner, “I had hoped and trusted they would have many years of comparative quiet and happiness before ascending to this thorny throne.” In a letter to the Empress Frederick, she expressed the same worry: “What a horrible tragedy this is! And what a position for these dear young people. God help them! And now I hear that poor little Alicky goes with them to Saint Petersburg and that the wedding is to take place soon after the funeral. I am quite miserable not to see my darling child again before, here. Where shall I ever see her again?”314
In his grief, the truth of Nicholas’s feelings came out. He sobbingly asked his brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander (“Sandro”), “what am I going to do.… What is going to happen to me … to Alix, to mother, to all of Russia? I am not prepared to be a Tsar. I never wanted to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling. I have no idea of even how to talk to the ministers.”315 The panicked frenzy in the Crimea was quelled by the efforts of Nicky and Alix’s uncle Bertie. According to Nicky’s sister Olga, it was he who “quietly began calming down the tumult that met them on their arrival … The last days at Livadia would have been beyond anyone’s endurance were it not for the presence of the Prince of Wales.”316
At 10:00 a.m. on the day after Alexander III died, Alix converted from Lutheranism into the Russian Orthodox Church. After the set of questions and responses, Alix was given absolution by the priest. He then anointed her with oil on her temples, eyes, nose, lips, ears, hands, and feet. Those spots were then touched by a sponge dipped in holy water. Once the service was over, Alix, Nicholas, and the dowager empress took Holy Communion together. Contrary to her worries, her conversion was remarkably painless. Her sister Ella made it a point to reassure a concerned Queen Victoria that the ceremony was “so beautiful and touching,” and Alexandra looked “very calm.”317 That day, Nicholas issued his first official decree as emperor. He signed an imperial decree that confirmed Alix in her new faith, along with a new name and title. She was now “the truly believing Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna.”318 These were her official Russian names, but to friends and family she would always remain Alix.
The funeral for Alexander III was on a scale never before seen in Russian history. Sixty-one royals, including the kings of Denmark, Serbia, and Greece, made the long journey to Russia to pay their last respects. The Duke of York was summoned at his father’s behest to be a pallbearer at the funeral. It was the first time since their wedding that George and May were separated, and it was a difficult time for them both. To ease his homesickness, George wrote some twenty letters to May in the few weeks he was away. In each of them, he begged her to give him some news from home. In one of his letters to May, George described some of the funeral practices of the Russian court in the days leading up to the funeral: “Every day, after lunch, we had another service at the church. After the service, we all went up to [the] coffin which was open and kissed the Holy Picture which he [Alexander’s body] held in his hand. It gave me a shock when I saw [his] dear face so close to mine when I stooped down. He looks so beautiful and peaceful, but of course he has changed very much. It is a fortnight today.”319 From the Crimea, the tsar’s body made a seventeen-day journey to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan—the largest church in Saint Petersburg—where it was laid to rest after a four-hour ceremony. Tens of thousands of soldiers lined the streets of Saint Petersburg, which were packed with sobbing peasants. The city itself was draped in black, with funeral arches lining the procession route. George wrote to May about the experience of assisting with the emperor’s final interment. “We carried him and lowered him down into the vault,” he wrote, “and it was most impressive and sad, and I shall never forget it. Darling Aunt Minny was so brave and stood the whole time and never broke down once.”320
A week after Alexander III’s body was laid to rest, plans went ahead for Nicholas and Alexandra’s wedding. Under normal circumstances, Alix would have returned to Darmstadt to await the end of the official mourning period for Alexander III before marrying the new tsar. This was changed not out of disrespect for the late tsar but to consolidate Nicholas’s reign. As the new monarch, it was imperative for him to begin his rule with stability and solidarity. The best way he could see that happening was to make Alexandra his wife as quickly as possible. Nicholas was determined that they should be married in the relative privacy at Livadia. His mother agreed, but it was his uncles—Serge and the other brothers of the late emperor—who quashed such a notion. It was the duty of a tsar to marry in the splendor of Saint Petersburg, they insisted. Burly and intimidating like Alexander, Nicky’s uncles were a force to be reckoned with. He relented. Queen Victoria was racked with anxiety over Alexandra’s fate. “Tomorrow morning poor dear Alicky’s fate will be sealed,” she wrote on November 13. “No two people were ever more devoted as she and he are and that is the one consolation I have, for otherwise the dangers and responsibilities fill me with anxiety and I shall constantly be thinking of them with anxiety.… I daily pray for them.”321
The wedding took place on the cold, gray morning of November 14, 1894, at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. At 8:00 a.m., a twenty-one-gun salute was fired across the Neva River, signaling the start of the nuptial procession. Nicholas II, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, made the mile-and-a-half journey to the Winter Palace from his mother’s home, the Anichkov Palace. Behind the tsar and his uncle were a dozen state carriages transporting the various guests, including the king and queen of Denmark, the king and queen of Greece, the Grand Duke of Hesse, the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, the Princess of Wales, the crown prince and princess of Romania, and numerous other princes and princesses. “The list of the palace procession does not give a full idea of the scene,” wrote one witness. “Representatives of many nationalities were present in the halls [of the Winter Palace]. These consisted of Turks, Japanese, Chinese, Parsees, Bohkarians, and men of all colors and diversified garbs.”322
Alexandra arrived at the Winter Palace separately from the guests. She had been staying with Ella at her palace but traveled to the palace that morning with the dowager empress. Their arrival was met with genuine exuberance from the people who had packed the streets. Inside the palace, she was dressed for her wedding by the women of the Russian imperial family, the Princess of Wales, and the dowager empress. The beautiful gold mirror Alexandra stood in front of was used by every Russian grand duchess on her wedding day. Her wedding gown properly befitted an empress. Made from cloth of silver, it included a double ermine-lined mantle. Over her shoulders rested a brocade of white silk trimmed with strawberry velvet and a gold inlay. Her jewelry was equally dazzling. Atop her head sat the sparkling nuptial crown surrounded by sweet-scented orange blossoms brought from Poland. Most special of all was the ring she wore on one of her fingers, which was a gift from Queen Victoria.
“I don’t think I can move,” Alexandra muttered at one point. “I’m pinned to the ground.”
“Yes, I know how heavy it all is,” the dowager empress told her. “But I’m afraid it’s only one of the lesser weights that need to be borne by a Russian empress.”323
During the dressing, a ceremonial catastrophe almost took place when the court hairdresser—the only person prescribed by imperial etiquette who could fasten the bride’s crown upon her head—was over an hour late, having been denied entry to the palace by police. Rumors quickly spread that something was amiss. They were only silenced when, finally, a resplendent Alexandra emerged from her dressing room.
Walking side by side with Minnie and followed by the Romanov women and the imperial courtesans, Alexandra made her way to the green Malachite Hall where the tsar was waiting. It was Nicholas II’s first major public appearance as tsar, and he showed signs of nervousness.
He trembled with anticipation in his red Hussar uniform knowing that—in just a few short hours—his darling Alexandra would be his wife. Alexandra wrote to her sister Ella that day, “One day in deepest mourning lamenting a beloved one, the next in smartest clothes being married. There cannot be a greater contrast, but it drew us more together, if possible.”324
Once the bride and groom arrived, the entire imperial court assembled in the hall for the procession to the chapel. “The gentlemen of the court were all in gala uniform,” reported the New York Times, “and the ladies were dressed in court costume of strawberry color, trimmed with velvet of a similar shade, with long trains, and wearing long white veils.”325 The first member of the wedding procession to enter the chapel after the 150 Gentlemen of the Chamber was Empress Marie Feodorovna, on the arm of her father, King Christian IX of Denmark. It was a bittersweet day for Minnie, who was also celebrating her forty-seventh birthday. Alexandra was not unsympathetic toward her mother-in-law’s plight. She later described to Queen Victoria that “poor Aunt Minnie is alone. She is an angel of kindness and is more touching and brave than I can say.”326 After Minnie and Christian IX entered, Nicholas and Alexandra followed them, arm in arm, walking under an honor guard with sabers high in the air. When the entire procession filed into the chapel, the ceremony began. It was an exotic, almost mystic service conducted by the metropolitan of Saint Petersburg, the Holy Synod, and the clergy of the court. As the bride and groom held lighted candles at the altar, an estimated eight thousand guests watched them in silent awe.
The two-hour ceremony went off perfectly and was concluded with yet another gun salute, this time numbering 301 shots, shortly before 1:00 p.m. George sent Queen Victoria a glowing report.
Dear Alicky looked quite lovely at the Wedding … she went through it all with so much modesty but was so graceful and dignified at the same time, she certainly made a most excellent impression … I do think Nicky is a very lucky man to have got such a lovely and charming wife … I must say I never [saw] two people more in love with each other or happier than they are. When they drove from the Winter Palace after the wedding they got a tremendous reception and ovation from the large crowds in the streets, the cheering was more hearty and reminded me of England.327
George did not forget to send a report to May. “I think Nicky is a very lucky man,” he wrote. “I told them both that I could not wish them more than that they should be as happy as you and I are together. Was that right?”328
Queen Victoria’s thoughts were on Russia and Alexandra that day. In the evening, the queen gave a banquet at Windsor Castle in honor of the new tsarina. Alexandra’s new position instantly made her one of the most powerful women in the world, which filled her grandmother with a sense of awe: “How I thought of darling Alicky, and how impossible it seemed that gentle little simple Alicky should be the great Empress of Russia!”329 Charlotte Knollys, wife of the private secretary to the British royal family, felt the same as Queen Victoria, but hers was of a much more scathing opinion: “What a change! A little scrubby Hessian Princess—not even a Royal Highness & now the Empress of the largest Empire in Europe!”330 Knollys’s comment seems more an insult to Alexandra than actually attacking the House of Hesse, since Hessian and other low-ranking German royals had been supplying Russian empresses for over a century.
The day after the new tsar and tsarina were married, people were still talking about the wedding. In Saint Petersburg, some forty thousand soldiers took off their hats simultaneously as a sign of respect. When they appeared in public, both Nicholas and Alexandra strained under the weight of so many onlookers. It was a painful experience for the painfully shy Alexandra, who recorded that she felt like a bird in a cage. Some of the people, many of whom were superstitious because of the nature of the Russian Orthodox faith, began to distrust their new empress. “She comes to us behind a coffin,” they murmured.331
In the days and weeks that followed, the newlyweds were busy answering messages of congratulations. It took nearly a week for them to escape for anything close to a honeymoon. They managed to spend four days at Tsarskoe Selo (“the tsar’s village”) fifteen miles outside Saint Petersburg. One of the most magical places in Europe, Tsarskoe Selo was its own imperial town filled with gardens, palaces, and parks. It was eighteen miles in circumference and dotted by lakes, forests, and other creations. It contained “a collection of boats of all nations, varying from a Chinese sampan to an English light four-oar; from a Venetian gondola to a Brazilian catamaran.”332 It was also one of the most state-of-the-art locations in all of Russia. Guarded by a garrison of five thousand soldiers, it possessed “the only town-wide electrical system in the country, the first railway, a telegraph and radio station, and the most advanced water and sewage system in the whole of Russia.” By contrast, “Most Russian villages had no running water or drains.”333 When in residence at Tsarskoe Selo, Nicholas and Alexandra stayed in one of two enormous buildings: the Catherine Palace, built in 1752 by the Empress Elizabeth; and the Alexander Palace, constructed by Catherine the Great in 1792. The tsarina took a liking to the heavily colonnaded Alexander Palace and truly made it her own, decorating it with English chintz. Most of the furniture itself was ordered from Maples in London. Outside of Windsor and Balmoral, the Alexander Palace was the happiest home Alexandra would ever know.
7
“Only Give Me a Chance”
(1895–1901)
Tsarina Alexandra’s private life in Russia was filled with contentment. She and Nicholas enjoyed a love-filled marriage overflowing with passion. They constantly wrote love notes to one another. In Alexandra’s diary, Nicky poured out his feelings: “Ever more and more, stronger and deeper, grow my love and devotion, and my longing for you. Never can I thank God enough for the treasure he has given me for my VERY OWN—and to be called yours, darling, what happiness can be greater? … No more separations. At last united, bound for life, and when this life is ended we meet again in the other world to remain together for all eternity. Yours, yours!”334 Alexandra was just as head over heels. “I can assure you that I never thought one could be as happy as I am now,” she wrote to her brother-in-law Prince Louis of Battenberg. For the first time since her mother died, Alexandra felt loved and secure, as if all the sorrows of the past were washed away at her wedding. She admitted this to Louis: “life is so different to what it was in the past—though there may be many difficulties, and all is not easy when one comes first into a new country and has to speak another language yet in time I hope I shall be of some help and use.”335
The love Nicholas and Alexandra shared soon expanded to include their first child. In November 1895, the tsarina went into labor at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. So anticipated had this birth been that a bevy of doctors and nurses waited on the empress, including the court accoucheur, Professor Ott, and the imperial chief surgeon, Dr. Girsh. The delivery was an agonizing one, largely due to the fact that the baby was a number of weeks late, and Alexandra was a slim woman with tiny hips. At one point, the doctors gave Nicholas the horrifying news that they may lose both mother and child without direct intervention. After sixteen hours of labor, a cesarean section was successfully performed. A healthy ten-pound baby girl was delivered, who was named Olga Nicholaievna. A sense of disappointment swept through Saint Petersburg when the 101-cannon salute signaled the birth of a daughter. Sons were more highly prized than daughters, since women had been ineligible to rule Russia since Catherine the Great. She was so loathed by her son, Paul I, that he changed the law so that no woman could ever rule unless all other male members of the dynasty, from great uncles to third cousins, were dead. This did not dampen Nicky and Alexandra’s spirits. Princess Maud of Wales, the couple’s mutual cousin, wrote, “Nicky is now a happy father, but it is a pity it was not a boy!”336
There was a general excitement in Britain over the birth, since Olga was a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria. It was hoped Olga’s birth would lead to better relations between Great Bri
tain and Russia. The Daily Telegraph wrote that Olga’s arrival was “received with much friendly interest in this country, where all that concerns the present and future of Russia is the subject of intelligent and sympathetic appreciation.”337 Few were surprised when Queen Victoria was asked to be the godmother. Alexandra’s recovery was incredibly slow, and many in Russia did not expect her to survive. To the surprise of many, she rallied and was soon able to enjoy her new daughter. “You can imagine our intense happiness now that we have such a precious little being of our own to care for and look after,” Alexandra wrote to one of her sisters.338
In autocratic Russia, the accession of a new tsar was a deeply significant event that impacted all facets of society, including politics, religion, and foreign affairs. There was nothing greater to cement the unitary nature of the tsar with all aspects of Russian life than the coronation. It was the sort of event that Alexandra had always dreaded. The thought that she was to play such a public role in the spectacle undoubtedly preyed upon her fears. When the time came, she and Nicholas set off on the four-hundred-mile journey to the city of Moscow. If Saint Petersburg—founded in 1703 by Peter the Great—was Russia’s link to its future with Europe, Moscow was its tie to the past. The city’s iconic onion-domed buildings framed a cityscape of churches, palaces, and other ornately designed buildings decorated in mosaics of red, blue, and gold. In the backdrop, the mighty Kremlin complex was a silent reminder of the power of the Orthodox Church and the state. The coronation would bind the new sovereigns to the people in a most religious way, cementing the idea of Nicholas as the Batiushka Tsar, but signs of the already emerging gulf between Alexandra and the Russian people were evident when the imperial family made its ceremonial entrance into Moscow. The tsarina rode alone in her own carriage behind her husband and mother-in-law. Nicholas was greeted with cheers; Minnie received shouts of hurrah; but when Alexandra came through, a hush fell over the crowds, reducing her to tears. “Silence—an ominous silence,” wrote one of her biographers. “Not open jeering, or insults, but the quiet of rejection.”339 One witness to the early days of Nicholas II’s reign wrote that his wife “was not born to be Empress of one of the largest countries on the face of the earth.”340
Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires Page 18
