CHAPTER VIII

THE SPRINGTIDE OF DISCONTENT

The consequences of the Khodinka catastrophe were more tragic even than could have been conjectured. This terrible event had its effect among the lower classes--the peasants in particular. They had been content with their lot during the last years of the former reign. The event gave ample food also for the underground work of the anarchists, who had never given up their activity. On the contrary, the party silently prepared its batteries. The Coronation deputations from the rural classes returned to their homes dissatisfied with what they had seen, and discontented with the little attention that had been paid to them. Among these deputations were people who had been present at the Coronation of Alexander III., and who remembered the words he had spoken on that occasion. They had expected something of the same kind, and their disappointment was intense. Then came that horror of Khodinka Field. It was altogether to be regretted that it had been hushed up instead of being made to serve as a pretext for a closer union of the Sovereign with his subjects. His apparent indifference and icy impassiveness in presence of this unparalleled disaster had entirely alienated the affections of his subjects, who were unaware that when the tragedy first took place he was misinformed as to its gravity. Unfortunately, his absence of active sympathy with the sufferers during the days just after the accident accentuated the feeling. Among the upper classes some further dismay was felt as it became recognised that the new monarch lacked firmness of character.

One early example of this temperamental weakness created an unpleasant impression on the public. When the Siberian Railway was quite completed the question arose in regard to the Department to which the administration of this important line should be entrusted: should it be administered by the Finance or the War Ministry?

At that time Count Witte was at the head of the Treasury, whilst General Kouropatkine was in charge of the Army. Each Minister wanted to control the railway; each had numerous eloquent arguments in support of his view; and each had the opportunity to lay these arguments before Nicholas II. The Emperor at first was quite of opinion that General Kouropatkine should have the Siberian line under his control, and accordingly granted his request. When Count Witte came to him the next day, his report proved to the perplexed Sovereign that the Ministry of Finance was the proper Department to which the administration of the railway should be confided; and so his arguments prevailed, with the consequence that the decision of the day previous was changed. But on the following morning Kouropatkine returned, and again the scales were turned in his favour until Witte, with new reasons, once more secured a decision in favour of his own Department. This sort of thing, so it is said, went on seventeen times, until at last Count Witte obtained control of the railway by threatening to resign unless the administration was entrusted to the Treasury Department.

The dissatisfaction earlier alluded to not only pervaded the lower and middle classes, but also existed in Society circles, who adversely criticised the neglect of Court life which had become a characteristic of the new reign. The semi-seclusion in which Alexandra Feodorovna lived, though it was not so complete as it became later on, still was unpleasantly felt in the gay world of the Russian capital. Gradually she was no longer missed, and her presence, when she deigned to be present at an entertainment, was felt to be more a bore than an honour. And in this absence of a Court, Society became lax in its manners and morals, being certain it would never meet with praise or blame whatever it did. Nor did the effect end here, for Society, finding no subject for gossip in the doings and sayings incidental to the Imperial entertainments, which had played such an important part in the winter season of St. Petersburg, began to turn its attention elsewhere, and unfortunately politics became the vogue.

For the first two or three years following the Coronation things went on more or less as formerly; but later the position of matters in China following upon the Boxer rebellion began to engross the attention of our Foreign Office and of certain self-styled political personalities. The Yalu affair as it developed was seized upon by the press and subjected to comment of a character neither favourable to the Government nor to the Imperial Family. Subsequently Russia’s relations with Japan entered upon a new phase.

No one in Russia had believed in the Yellow Peril. One person alone had foreseen it, and had he lived it is probable that things might have taken a different direction. This was the head of our Foreign Office, Count Muravieff. Unfortunately, he died suddenly at the very moment when his talents might have found the opportunity for exercise for the benefit of his country.

Count Muravieff was a curious personality, and he certainly deserves more than a passing mention. He was the last Russian diplomat of the old school, that of Nesselrode and Gortschakov, who still believed in traditions, and who had a political system.

His career, which was very rapid at the end, dragged very slowly at first. For many years he remained in Paris, merely as an attaché, although he was the great favourite and personal friend of Prince Orloff, who took him with him when he was removed to Berlin. There he soon won for himself the good graces of Prince Bismarck, who grew to appreciate and know him well when he filled the post of chargé d’affaires during the long illness of his chief.

Later on he was the right hand of Count Paul Schouvaloff, who, though a charming and clever man, a diplomat by nature, was not one by education. Muravieff, on the contrary, was expert in all the _finesses du métier_, and his consummate tact allowed him to be of the greatest use to the Ambassador, to whose success in the German capital he contributed largely. He was a very quiet man, reserved in appearance, but immensely clever, sarcastic sometimes, and always delighted when he could achieve some kind of success of which the world in general knew nothing. He liked to be the hand in the background that pulled the strings, yet vanity was as unknown to his nature as shrewdness was one of its principal characteristics. He was a keen observer, and during the years which he spent in Berlin--which at the time, owing to the immense personality of Prince Bismarck, was the centre of the politics of the world--he had carefully studied all the intricacies of international politics, and had paid special attention to the personality of the German Chancellor.

He was ambitious, and one of his great dreams was the formation of a coalition against England, whom he considered as the traditional enemy of Russia. He hated everything English, and later on, when he came to lead Russia’s foreign policy, he expressed that hatred by seeking to destroy English prestige in the Near, as well as in the Far, East, where, his clear brain guessed, lurked the danger of the future. When Count Schouvaloff left Berlin, Count Muravieff also said good-bye to the German capital. He was appointed Russian Minister at the Court of Copenhagen, a very coveted post at the time, owing to the close ties that existed between the Royal Family of Denmark and the Imperial House of Russia.

Whilst there he won for himself the good graces of Queen Louise, and also the regard of the Empress Marie Feodorovna. But he was the _bête noire_ of Prince Lobanoff, who had succeeded M. de Giers as Minister for Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, and the Prince did all he could to put him aside and to oblige him to retire into private life.

Count Muravieff pretended not to perceive this animosity, and took all possible care to avoid friction between himself and his chief. However, he was not successful; indeed, it was said that the decree recalling him from Copenhagen was ready, and about to be presented for the signature of the Emperor, when Prince Lobanoff suddenly died and, following the advice of his mother, Nicholas II. appointed as his successor Count Muravieff.

In the responsible position which became his, the Count applied all his energy to uphold Russian prestige abroad. Though he was not favourable to the French alliance, he submitted to it, and did his best under circumstances that were not of his choosing, but which he found himself called upon to justify. He sought to cultivate good relations with Germany, and one of his favourite dreams was the formation of a Russo-German alliance directed against England. He did not live to see it realised.

Count Muravieff’s wife had been a Princess Gagarine, the sister of Madame Skobeleff, the consort of the “White General.” Though the last-mentioned union had not been a happy one, the relations between the Count and his brother-in-law had always remained cordially affectionate. The two had the same ambitions, and though their aims might have been different, yet they sympathised with each other and relied upon each other’s judgments. It was this last circumstance that was in part the cause of the animosity which divided the Minister for Foreign Affairs and General Kouropatkine, who held the portfolio of War at that time.

General Kouropatkine had been the head of the staff of the division commanded by Skobeleff during the Turkish War of 1877-78. In that capacity he had done very well. The successes of his General had, in a certain measure, influenced his career, inasmuch as they had been attributed to the wise dispositions Kouropatkine himself had made. Kouropatkine was a brave man and a good tactician, but one of those people that, while very useful in a secondary position, are less successful in actual leadership. Guided by a first-rate intelligence, such as that of Skobeleff, Kouropatkine’s best abilities came to the front, and as the executive of another person’s directions he was invaluable. But he lacked not only initiative, but also the ability to accurately balance the pros and cons of any given position in which he found himself. This explains, not so much his mistakes during the conduct of the Japanese War, which perhaps were unavoidable, but the wrong appreciation he had taken of the political circumstances that led up to it, and especially of the resources of Japan.

General Kouropatkine’s choice as War Minister had been partly due to the personal liking of the Emperor. Kouropatkine had a certain prestige among the Army, as indeed had all those who had served under Skobeleff. As such his choice was bound to be popular, and though it was not universally approved, yet, all things considered, it was welcomed by the public.

Kouropatkine soon discovered the hidden resentment which Nicholas II. nurtured against Japan and the Japanese nation, and he at once became a firm partisan of an aggressive policy directed against the Government of the Mikado.

Count Muravieff, shrewder than his colleague, on the contrary, discouraged these tendencies, with the result that dissensions between the two Ministers on that important subject became very sharp and did not always end to the advantage of the Count.

One day a quarrel took place in presence of Nicholas II. between the two men, and Muravieff insisted upon proper preparations being made in regard to the war which he felt would be inevitable, saying that the enemy whom it was proposed to fight was by no means so despicable as was thought. Also that, especially considering the enormous distance between the two countries, no precautions ought to be neglected. To this Kouropatkine made the obvious reply that it was evident that the Count, not having been a soldier, could not judge of the situation, since with the facilities which the completion of the Siberian Railway would put at the disposal of Russia, a victory of its troops was a foregone conclusion. He added that he was so sure of what he was saying that he would not even advise the Emperor to send the best troops so far, as those already stationed in Siberia would be more than sufficient for the work that had to be done.

Muravieff controlled himself with difficulty, and when he returned home he was almost beside himself with grief and rage. He retired to his own room, giving orders not to be disturbed, and there he was found dead a few hours later.

General Kouropatkine thereafter found himself with a free field before him.

A few years, however, dragged on before the war broke out. Count Muravieff had been replaced by Count Lamsdorff, an inoffensive man, who was the victim of a situation not of his own making. In the meanwhile, General Kouropatkine started on that journey to Japan, whence he returned with more illusions than ever; and in St. Petersburg, as well as in the rest of Russia, the dissatisfaction against the existing order of things grew and grew. Everybody felt that a change of some kind ought to take place, that a corrective should be applied to the generally prevailing uneasiness. People who thought themselves wise, statesmen who believed themselves to be infallible, all combined to bring about a catastrophe such as Russia had not known before, one that was to wound the nation in its most sensitive spot--the disdain for that yellow race which already had once been its master, and whose pride and power it believed it had crushed for ever, on that far-off day when the triumphant troops of Dmitry Donskoy had driven the Tatar hordes back to the plains of Asia.

One man alone, Count Witte, had done all that was in his power to prevent the outbreak of hostilities with Japan. That shrewd Minister knew well that in the conditions in which Russia found itself at the moment, a war, even a victorious one, would have consequences which it was difficult to foresee. He, therefore, tried to persuade General Kouropatkine to give up his warlike plans. But the latter, with the war party at his back, overruled the Count. They told the Emperor that the country’s honour was at stake, and that it was impossible to go back; that, besides, the victory was as certain as anything could be certain in this world; that the Army was prepared; and that at the first sight of Russian regiments the Japanese troops would fly in disorder; that the whole campaign would be a military promenade and nothing else. And when at last Witte applied to the good sense of Nicholas II. and asked him point-blank what advantages he hoped to gain by a war which might still be avoided, and which ought to be avoided, even at some sacrifice of pride, and _amour propre_, the Emperor is credited with the reply, “Why avoid it? It is time to give some amusement to the nation” (“_Il est temps donner des distractions au pays_”).

It was under that impression that the Japanese campaign began. No one believed in its danger, but a good many people who shared the conviction that it would end in victory for the Russian troops, were, nevertheless, uneasy as to the consequences of a war breaking out at a time when internal affairs were not in thorough harmony. The public mind, in short, began to feel vaguely that dark clouds were appearing on the horizon, and that a storm of unusual gravity was brewing which would bring destruction along with it.

The Emperor alone remained calm and immovable, fully assured of victory, so it was said, because the spiritualistic mediums who constituted his most intimate society had all prophesied that he would win laurels such as no Russian monarch had ever won before. His immediate surroundings were jubilant also, and sculptured busts of himself were presented in great pomp to General Kouropatkine, who had begged for permission to lead personally the army at whose head he stood to victory and fame. The chauvinist press exulted; the _Novoie Vremia_ even began to anticipate the day when festivities on a hitherto unknown scale would signalise the return of the troops from the plains of Manchuria laden with spoils. Some ladies who wanted to ingratiate themselves into the Imperial favour, worked at banners and flags, destined to reward the gallant heroes who were being sent to the front with such hurrahs and such enthusiasm--enthusiasm which, nevertheless, did not go beyond the small circle of people who courted the good graces of those in power. But outside those circles the war was not popular, and the soldier sent to fight so far away from hearth and home marched without any other feeling than that of dread and apprehension as to the fate that awaited him in those distant plains whither he was ordered to go. Slowly the distant clouds which I have mentioned were getting nearer, appearing darker and darker as they approached; indeed, trouble was at hand, and, unfortunately, those who knew it was coming were powerless to avert it. The Sovereign had spoken, and he had to be obeyed, even by the people who, in the dark, were preparing the day when they should attempt to destroy both his Person and his Throne.