Part 15
When the Czar left Tsarskoye Selo--for the last time, as it turned out, as a powerful, dreaded Sovereign--the Empress had not yet made up her mind as to what she ought to do. She was being urged by Sturmer and Protopopoff to come to a decision in regard to the future of the dynasty, which they declared to her was entirely in her hands; at the same time she lacked the moral courage to put herself boldly at the head of a movement to dethrone her husband. She had not the audacity of Catherine the Great, nor the latter’s unscrupulousness, and, moreover, her mind was so weakened by the superstitious practices in which she had become absorbed that it is to be questioned whether or not she was given a true account of what was going on around her. She was entirely at the mercy of the first determined man who came along, audacious enough to compel her to sing according to his tune. But neither Sturmer nor Protopopoff were clever enough to be that. And they had no political party on whom they could rely to help them execute any plans they might form. They depended for their inspiration on the directions which they received from Berlin. By a lucky accident this inspiration failed them at the very moment they most needed it.
What had happened was this: The Allies had begun to get some inkling as to the intrigue which was going on under the Czar’s own roof, an intrigue in which his wife held the foremost rôle. They contrived to put obstacles in the way of Mr. Protopopoff and of his friends, and to stop for a while the active correspondence which he was carrying on with the German Government _via_ Stockholm. At the same time they arranged matters in such a way that the liberal leaders in the Duma became apprised of the negotiations pending between the Kaiser and his kinswoman at Tsarskoye Selo.
The story of the eventful days which preceded the Revolution have nothing to do with the present book, and I shall refer to them only in so far as they concern the Empress. She was mostly responsible for the rapidity with which rebellion spread and for the unexpected way in which it broke out. Had she remained quiet, it is likely that things might have dragged on for a few weeks, perhaps even for a few months, longer, because no one at this particular moment cared to see a change in the Government. But when it was ascertained that she had become a danger to the nation in general there was no longer any question of a delay, and events had to be forced on in some way or other.
What Sturmer proposed to the Czarina was to provoke a movement against the war in the garrisons of Petrograd and the towns in its neighborhood; this to be further accentuated by false news concerning the Czar, who would be represented as having died suddenly. The Government had at its disposal all the telegraph and telephone wires. It was, therefore, an easy matter to cut off the capital from all communication with the headquarters of the army. In the confusion inseparable from the consternation caused by the news of the Sovereign’s demise it would have been but a matter of a few hours to get the little Grand-Duke Alexis proclaimed Emperor under the Regency of his mother, who would thus have been left free to sign a peace which nothing and no treaty prevented _her_ from concluding. Nicholas would be easily persuaded to accept accomplished facts and most likely would surrender with pleasure, or at least with absolute indifference, a Throne he had never cared for. So they thought that an act of formal abdication would not be difficult to obtain from him.
The country also would not feel sorry to be rid of a Monarch who had never been in possession of its affection or respect, and the army, glad to return to its homes, would most likely rally with alacrity around the Regent and the little Czar. The very fact that it was a woman and a delicate child upon whom the whole burden of an immense responsibility had fallen would predispose public opinion in their favor, and most likely this Palace revolution would end with complete success.
The Empress allowed herself to be won over to the conspiracy, and it was decided to put it into execution about the middle of the month of February. Protopopoff declared that he required that much time to gather together a sufficient number of police agents in Petrograd, without whom he did not dare to risk the adventure. Alexandra Feodorowna assented to everything that was proposed to her. She went about like one in a dream, unconscious of the abominable plot in which she had been induced to participate, thinking only of the time when she would be able at last to renew with her own family and with her own people the tender and intimate relations which the war had forcibly interrupted.
In the mean time the Emperor remained at the front, and if we are to believe all that was subsequently related about his conduct there, he changed considerably his opinion and point of view after having resumed direct contact with his troops. He convinced himself that they were not at all as anxious for peace as he had been led to expect, and that the feelings of the men in regard to Germany were revengeful more than anything else. His generals, and especially Aléxieieff, who was Head of the Staff, kept urging upon him the necessity of preparing a formidable offensive, this time on the Riga front. The General gave him hopes that it would turn out to be a successful one, provided (and this was the one everlasting and burning question) that the War Office sent sufficient ammunition to the front. The Emperor was persuaded that this could be done, but Aléxieieff was not so sanguine, and he started a private inquiry of his own as to what was going on in Petrograd in that respect. The result of it was that he was convinced that the Ministry had lately completely neglected this important item and had spent its time in arresting workmen whom it suspected of harboring democratic opinions, as well as in curtailing the hours of labor at the different factories where ammunition was manufactured. Protopopoff wanted the war to end, and he hoped that in limiting the output of shells and guns he would be able to place the country in such a position that a cessation of hostilities would become unavoidable.
A report to the Emperor, in which the situation such as it presented itself was exposed with great details, was brought to him by the Staff. As usual, it left him unmoved. He merely said that he would give orders to the War Office to take henceforward its orders from the Commander-in-chief of the Armies in the Field, meaning himself, but he refused to blame Protopopoff or to hear anything concerning the appointment of a liberal and responsible Cabinet from whom the Duma could require accounts. He did not mean to lessen his own prerogatives by the merest fraction, and he still thought that Russia might hold its own against her formidable foes without arms, provisions, shells, or big guns, and in general without means of defense capable of stopping the progress of the invaders in their triumphal march through his Empire.
The commanders of the different fronts held a consultation, and one of them, whose name I cannot mention at the present moment, first suggested the idea that it would not be a bad thing to try and bring about a military conspiracy which would overthrow the weak Monarch whom it was impossible to bring to take a sane view of the position in which the army found itself placed. Another general suggested that such an upheaval would only bring to the foreground the personality of the Empress, who would insist on being consulted in all matters in which the welfare of her son might be concerned. And no one wanted Alexandra Feodorowna to be raised to a position in which her voice might come to exercise an influence of any kind on the destinies of the country. It was by far preferable to let Nicholas II. remain where he was, and try to persuade him to allow the Staff, instead of the Cabinet, to have the last word to say in all questions connected with the national defense.
This secret, or rather not secret, conference, because its purport became known on the very same day it took place, thus accomplished nothing. In the mean while the object of its deliberations was communicated to the Ministry in Petrograd, and Protopopoff triumphantly informed the Empress of the fact that it had come to almost the same conclusions which he and his friends had arrived at long before. It was necessary to change the person of the Sovereign. He carefully refrained, however, from acquainting her with the knowledge of the opposition that the idea of a Regency had provoked.
It is a curious but certain fact that at this very time large sums of money were distributed to the troops quartered in Petrograd, Tsarskoye Selo, Peterhof, and Gatschina by unknown people in the name of the Empress. The latter declared, later on, when questioned on the subject by the Provisional Government, that she had known nothing about it; certainly it had not been her money which had been scattered about with such reckless generosity. I believe that in saying so she spoke the absolute truth. But then the question arises, by whose orders was this money thrown into the arena of the battle-field, where the fate of a nation and of a dynasty was about to be decided? Some people have declared that it was Protopopoff together with Sturmer who had hit upon the idea of making Alexandra Feodorowna popular among the army by appearances of a generosity with which no one had credited her before. But against this theory comes the probability that if either of the above-mentioned gentlemen had been able to draw from the Treasury several millions of rubles to be applied to secret purposes, they would have begun by putting them into their own pockets and trusting to the future and to Providence for the success of any enterprise they embarked upon. Therefore the question arises again as to the origin of this money which was circulated with such a generous hand among the regiments considered as likely to lend themselves to a Palace revolution in favor of the delicate little boy who was the sole Heir to all the glory and the splendor of the Romanoffs.
I think that very few people, among those who knew how vital was Germany’s interest at this particular moment to see a peace concluded, will doubt whence came these funds. They were certainly spent to favor the appointment of the Czarina as Regent of the Russian Empire. Who had procured them for the benefit of a vast conspiracy, the object of which was to deliver Russia, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of her formidable neighbor and enemy?
On the other hand, the liberal parties, now thoroughly awakened to the dangers of the situation, were also working earnestly toward the defeat of the plans conceived by Messrs. Sturmer, Protopopoff & Co. Several meetings of the leaders of the different factions in the Duma took place at the Tauride Palace, but none seemed to come to anything serious in the way of a revolution, which had been by that time recognized as absolutely inevitable.
The Cabinet saw this hesitation, and would undoubtedly have struck a serious blow at its adversaries if, just at the time, the children of the Empress had not sickened from the measles in a serious form. The mother forgot all her political intrigues in her anxiety; the plot about to be executed had perforce to be put off until a more favorable day. It must be here remarked that the Czar, when he heard about his son’s and daughters’ illness, telegraphed to his wife asking her whether she wished him to come back to Tsarskoye Selo. This did not suit in the least the people who were only waiting for a favorable opportunity to dethrone their Sovereign. Alexandra Feodorowna was easily persuaded to oppose herself to this desire of her husband and to wire back to him not to return. By a singular coincidence the presence of Nicholas II. at Tsarskoye Selo, which would without doubt have given quite another coloring to events which were going to happen within a few days, was desired neither by his friends nor by his foes nor even by his family. They all of them knew that something terrible was about to take place, but they also felt that, for the sake of everybody, it would be better he should be absent.
And in the silence of his study at Potsdam the Kaiser was secretly discounting this Russian Revolution which he saw quite clearly was approaching with quickening strides. He knew what he was about, and little did it matter to him if those whom he had used as pawns in the difficult game he had been playing would perish or not in the storm which his efforts had contributed to let loose.
XXV
THE NATION WANTS YOUR HEAD
I feel personally sure--and others who were in Petrograd at the time of the fall of the Romanoffs told me the same thing--that in this whole history of the overthrow of one of the most formidable powers the world had ever known there are yet details which we do not know. In fact, no one knows them, but perhaps they will be explained to us later on. The catastrophe occurred with such startling rapidity that even those who were the most concerned in it were hardly able to realize its importance, even while recognizing its seriousness.
There is also another curious feature connected with the tragedy. All its principal actors, the men who were really instrumental in bringing about the change which transformed Russia from an autocratic--the most autocratic Government in the world, in fact--into a democratic Republic disappeared before even their task was done. It was the Duma in the person of its president, Mr. Rodzianko, it was the zemstwos who had taken up the cause of the liberal movement from the very beginning of the war, who really were responsible for the abdication of Nicholas II. And yet the Duma disappeared, melted into space with an unbelievable rapidity; Mr. Rodzianko has hardly been heard of since the activity of the zemstwos was suddenly interrupted.
How did all this happen? Who was responsible for the chaos into which Russia is plunged at the present moment? It is next to impossible to say to-day, though one may easily guess. All that the world knows is that chaos has supervened, and that, thanks to this chaos, Germans have once more re-entered Petrograd, by the back door, perhaps, but still re-entered it, and what does this detail matter to them! What they wanted was only to get there again; the rest would adjust itself as time went on, and the general confusion became even more complete than it was at the beginning.
Another feature in this extraordinary Revolution was the swiftness with which the country accepted it and accommodated itself to its consequences. In the space of a few hours the portraits of the Czar had disappeared from all public places, the Imperial arms, wherever these had graced a shop or concern of some kind, had followed suit. Ushers in the former Imperial theaters had discarded their liveries, sentinels at the Winter Palace had been removed, and the Red flag had taken the place of the Romanoff standard on top of the Imperial Residence. All this had been performed quietly, joyously, and in a perfectly orderly manner. It seemed almost as if people had been prepared for a long time for what was to come and had practised beforehand the various manifestations of their joy to which they gave vent as soon as it became known that the Guard regiments quartered in the capital had gone over to the Duma and sworn allegiance to Mr. Rodzianko, its president.
Of the war there was no longer any question. It seemed to be forgotten in the excitement of the hour, and somehow a general impression prevailed that, once the Czar had been overturned, peace was but a question of days. By one of those strange anomalies such as happen so often in life, the Czar had been accused of wishing to bring this peace about; yet when he was no longer there the world rejoiced at the thought that peace would surely be concluded before any unreasonable quantity of water had run through the Neva. It is also a singular feature of this singular time that while Petrograd was in the throes of revolution, while Ministers with Mr. Protopopoff at their head were being arrested and transferred to the fortress, the Czar at headquarters and the Empress at Tsarskoye Selo did not in the least suspect what was taking place in the capital. It was said later that the Grand-Duke Paul had forced his way into the apartments of Alexandra Feodorowna and had acquainted her with the details of the upheaval which was to carry away her Throne.
I can hardly bring myself to believe this. For one thing, no one in the Imperial Family cared sufficiently for the Czarina to take the trouble to warn her of any peril in which she might find herself. And then she had not been upon good terms with the Grand-Duke Paul in particular; it is to be questioned if she would, in view of the fact that it was his son who had helped to slay Raspoutine, have consented to receive him in general. I think it far more likely that it was only through the indiscretion of some of her attendants that the Empress heard of what was taking place. It is probable her first thought was that her friends had been working in her behalf, and that the insurrectionary movement which was shaking Petrograd was distinctly in her favor; that its aim was to make out of her the Regent of the Russian Empire.
It would be difficult, otherwise, to understand her apathy in the presence of this overwhelming catastrophe, or the resistance which she opposed to the advice which the few attendants who were still faithful to her and who had remained at Tsarskoye Selo, gave to her--to telegraph immediately to the Czar to return home. Up to the last minute she refused to do so, saying that she felt quite capable of resisting the mob in case it chose to invade the Imperial Residence. And at last it was not she, but the officer in command of the troops quartered in the town, who took it upon himself to inform General Woyeikoff, head of the Okhrana, or personal police service of the Czar, that it was high time for the Sovereign to return home, as he could no longer guarantee the safety of the Empress and of her children. All the regiments under his orders had gone over to the enemy.
Alexandra Feodorowna was waiting the whole time for Protopopoff and Sturmer; she was only wondering why they were so long in coming to her. When at last she was informed that they had been arrested by the mob and taken to the fortress, whither they had sent so many innocent people, she began to realize that things were not going so smoothly as she had fondly imagined, that something quite out of the common had taken place. Then she remembered certain words which Raspoutine had told her: so long as he was at her side no harm would befall her, but that, if he were once removed, misfortune upon misfortune would crowd on the House of Romanoff and sweep away the Crown to which she had become so attached.
In that acute moment when there flashed across her mind this prediction of a man in whom she had seen a Prophet of the Almighty, and the Empress realized the tragedy of her destiny, all the courage of which she had boasted earlier fell flat to the ground. She no longer thought of struggling against an implacable fate, and a complete indifference as to her possible future took the place of her previous energy and determination. The game was lost, absolutely lost, and she had better confess herself beaten before any more harm was done.
News of her husband’s abdication reached her, and did not even rouse her sentiments of revolt at a piece of weakness which, under different circumstances, would have brought on one of those hysterical attacks to which she had been subject. She understood that she was alone, quite alone with the burden of her past sins and mistakes. She accepted with stoical resignation the decrees of Destiny. Not one single feeling of pity for the miserable Monarch for whose fall she was so responsible, or for the children about to lose a glorious inheritance, moved her heart. She was thinking the whole time of the dead man who had loved her and of the murdered adventurer who had comforted her in the hours of her greatest moral agony.
Nothing seemed to make any impression on her blurred mind--not even the angry crowd when it appeared in the courtyard of the Palace where she was still staying, carrying before it great banners upon which were written the ominous words:
“Give us the head of Alexandra Feodorowna! We want the head of that German woman, Alexandra Feodorowna!”
When asked to leave the window and not to appear before this multitude clamoring for her blood, she merely shrugged her shoulders and remained where she was. She certainly was not courageous, but she did not lack bravery--the bravery born of fatalism or of indifference, which renders those who are endowed with it impassible before danger, because they fail to realize its importance or its imminence. This woman is a historical riddle which only history will be able to unravel, but not so soon as one imagines, because it is likely that she has not yet come to the end of her sinister and mischievous career.
While the life of his wife was threatened, while his Ministers were imprisoned, and while the nation was preparing to claim his abdication, Nicholas II., at Mohilew, where headquarters were stationed, remained just as indifferent to the convulsions which were shaking his country as the Empress watching by the bedside of her sick children. He also did not understand; he also failed to realize that what was taking place in Petrograd was the first act of a big game the stakes of which might easily come to be his own head and those of his family. The thought of Louis XVI. never once crossed his mind. At least it is allowed one to suppose so, because, when some officers of his suite remarked to him that the rebellion (the news of which had by that time reached him) bore many traits of resemblance to the premonitory riots that had heralded the introduction of the Terror in France, he simply replied:
“Oh, it is not at all the same thing. Russians are not Frenchmen--and the Romanoffs are not the Bourbons.”
The Czar might at this early stage of the Revolution have returned to Tsarskoye Selo if he had only energetically insisted upon doing so. But he spent three days in complete indecision, and when at last he made up his mind to go home it was too late. By that time General Aléxieieff had been won over to the cause of the Duma, which was supposed to represent the only responsible authority in Russia; he put every possible obstacle in his way, going so far as to interfere with the arrangements made by General Woyeikoff for the departure of the Imperial train. It seems also that he sent telegrams asking for this train to be either stopped or at least delayed on its way.
No one at this stage wished Nicholas II. to go back to Petrograd, where it was feared his presence would prevent, if not stop, the establishment of the new Government; a useless fear, because, even if he had reached his former capital, he would never have found sufficient courage or energy to fight against an adverse fate or to do aught else but submit to the will of the multitude eager for his fall. The man who signed without one word of protest an abdication against which his whole soul ought to have protested, such a man was not to be feared, he could only be despised.