Nicholas and Alexandra

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Government Disintegrates

IN the early autumn of 1915, Alexandra Fedorovna had been Empress of Russia for twenty-one years. During this time, she had shown little interest in politics and no personal ambition. Except in defense of Rasputin, she rarely even mentioned government affairs to the Tsar. She scarcely knew her husband’s ministers and, during the first decade of her marriage, held them completely in awe. In 1905, Count Fredericks persuaded her with difficulty to speak to the Tsar on a political matter. When he came back and asked her a second time, Alexandra burst into tears. After her son was born and Rasputin appeared, she intervened when he seemed threatened. Then her power could become formidable: Kokovtsov’s dismissal as Premier was primarily her work. But she remained shy and silent in the presence of the ministers and she still had no experience in government affairs.

All this changed when Nicholas took command of the army. Then the gap he left behind in the civil administration was filled by his wife. It was not a formal regency; rather, it was an almost domestic division of family duties. As such, it was wholly within the tradition of the Russian autocracy. “When the Emperor went to war, of course his wife governed instead of him,” said Grand Duke Alexander, explaining what he considered a natural sequence of events.

That Nicholas regarded her role in this light is clear from his letters. “Think, my wify, will you not come to the assistance of your hubby now that he is absent,” he wrote cheerfully after leaving for Headquarters. “What a pity that you have not been fulfilling this duty long ago or at least during the war.” On September 23, 1916 (O.S.), he said, “Yes, truly, you ought to be my eyes and ears there in the capital while I have to stay here. It rests with you to keep peace and harmony among the Ministers—thereby you do a great service to me and to our country.… I am so happy to think that you have found at last a worthy occupation. Now I shall naturally be calm and at least not worry over internal affairs.” And the next day: “You will really help me a great deal by speaking to the ministers and watching them.” When she felt unsure and apologized for her presumption, he reassured her: “There is nothing to forgive you for, on the contrary, I must be deeply grateful to you for so far advancing this serious matter by your help.”

Once the Tsar had asked for her help, Alexandra threw herself into the task. To “keeping peace and harmony among the ministers” and managing internal affairs, she brought the same intense devotion and narrow stubbornness she had shown in fighting for the life of her son. Lacking experience, she made numerous, outsized mistakes. She groped blindly for people and facts, unable to verify what she was told, often depending on the impressions of a single short interview. As she went along, her self-confidence improved, and it was a personal triumph when in September 1916 she delightedly wrote to the Tsar, “I am no longer the slightest bit shy or afraid of ministers and speak like a waterfall in Russian.”

Rasputin was not only her advisor, he was also her yardstick for measuring other men. “Good” men esteemed Rasputin’s advice and respected him. “Bad” men hated him and made up disgusting stories about him. The work of “good” men would be blessed, and therefore they should be appointed to high office. “Bad” men were sure to fail, and those already in office should be driven out. Alexandra did not particularly care whether a prospective minister had special aptness or expertise for his new role. What mattered was that he be acceptable to the Man of God. It was far more important that he like Rasputin than that he understand anything about munitions or diplomacy or the distribution of food.

Every new candidate for the Council of Ministers was scrutinized and measured in this manner: “He likes our Friend.… He venerates our Friend.… He calls our Friend Father Gregory.… Is he not our Friend’s enemy?” Unlike the Duma, whose very existence she considered a stain on the autocracy, the Empress accepted the Council of Ministers as a legitimate institution. Ministers, appointed by the Tsar and responsible only to him, were necessary to govern the country. What Alexandra could not abide were ministers who opposed the autocratic will. Any sign that a minister disagreed with the Tsar made her suspicious; the thought that ministers and Duma might be working together drove her frantic.

For her, the ideal minister was personified by the aged Prime Minister, Ivan Goremykin. Having stepped down as Prime Minister in 1906 to make way for Stolypin, Goremykin had been restored to power before the outbreak of war. Now seventy-six and in failing health, Goremykin had no illusions about his role. As far back as 1896, Pobedonostsev had written to Nicholas that Goremykin needed a rest, otherwise “he would not last throughout the winter.” Goremykin had repeatedly asked—and been denied—permission to resign. “The Emperor can’t see that the candles have already been lit around my coffin and that the only thing required to complete the ceremony is myself,” he said mournfully.

Nevertheless, Goremykin’s stubborn, old-fashioned views of autocracy and the role of the minister were much too rare and valuable for him to be let go. “I am a man of the old school and an Imperial Command is for me a law,” he declared. “To me, His Majesty is the anointed one, the rightful sovereign. He personifies the whole of Russia. He is forty-seven and it is not just since yesterday that he has been reigning and deciding the fate of the Russian people. When the decision of such a man is made and his course of action is determined, his faithful subjects must accept it whatever may be the consequences. And then let God’s will be fulfilled. These views I have held all my life and with them I shall die.” Not surprisingly, the Empress was delighted with Goremykin, whom she always affectionately called the “Old Man.” “He sees and understands all so clearly and it is a pleasure speaking to him,” she declared.

Just how unique Goremykin and his views of autocracy were became glaringly apparent in the severe ministerial crisis which followed the Tsar’s decision to take command of the army. Of all the ministers, Goremykin alone supported his master’s decision. In vain, he urged them, “I call upon you, gentlemen, in the face of events of extraordinary importance to bow to the will of His Majesty, to lend him your full support in the moment of trial, and to devote all your powers to the service of the Sovereign.” When they refused, he said wearily, “I beg you to inform the Emperor that I am not fitted for my position and that it is necessary to appoint a man of more modern views in my place. I shall be grateful to you for the service.”

Instead, the majority of the ministerial council decided that, as the Tsar refused to heed its advice, there was nothing to do but resign. “It is our duty,” declared Sazonov, the Foreign Minister, “… to tell the Tsar frankly that under existing conditions we cannot govern the country, that we cannot serve conscientiously and that we are doing harm to the country.… The Cabinet cannot perform its functions while it does not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign.” A collective letter of resignation, signed by eight of the thirteen ministers, was addressed to the Tsar. It had no effect whatsoever. Nicholas summoned the ministers to Headquarters and told them that until he saw fit to replace them, they were not permitted to resign.

A few days later, in a letter to Alexandra, he ruminated on the gap between himself and his ministers. “The behavior of some of the Ministers continues to amaze me. After all I told them at that famous evening sitting, I thought they understood … precisely what I thought. What matter—so much the worse for them. They were afraid to close the Duma—it was done. I came away here and replaced N. [Grand Duke Nicholas] in spite of their advice; the people accepted this move as a natural thing and understood it as we did. The proof—numbers of telegrams which I receive from all sides with the most touching expressions. All this shows me clearly one thing: that the Ministers always living in town, know terribly little of what is happening in the country as a whole. Here I can judge correctly the real mood among the various classes of people.… Petrograd and Moscow constitute the only exceptions on the map of the fatherland.”

The Empress was less interested in finding excuses for ministerial behavior than she was in driving each man who had signed the letter out of office. Thus, the next sixteen months saw a sad parade of dismissals, reshuffles and intrigues. In that time, Russia had four different prime ministers, five ministers of interior, four ministers of agriculture and three ministers of war. “After the middle of 1915,” wrote Florinsky, “the fairly honorable and efficient group who formed the top of the bureaucratic pyramid degenerated into a rapidly changing succession of the appointees of Rasputin. It was an amazing, extravagant, and pitiful spectacle, and one without parallel in the history of civilized nations.”

Two of the signers, Prince Shcherbatov, the Minister of Interior, and Samarin, the Procurator of the Holy Synod (Minister of Religion), went quickly, dismissed without explanation early in October. Krivoshein, the Minister of Agriculture, left in November, and Kharitonov, the State Controller, departed in January. The next to go, in February 1916, was the faithful Goremykin. “The ministers do not wish to work well with old Goremykin … therefore, on my return some changes must take place,” had written Nicholas. At first, the Empress was reluctant. “If in any way you feel he hinders, is an obstacle for you, then you better let him go,” she wrote, “but if you keep him he will do all you order and try to do his best.… To my mind, much better clear out ministers who strike and not change the President who with decent, energetic, well-intentioned … [colleagues] can serve still perfectly well. He only lives and serves you and your country and knows his days are counted and fears not death of age, or by knife or shot.” Rasputin also hated the idea of losing Goremykin: “He cannot bear the idea of the Old Man being sent away, has been worrying and thinking over that question without end. Says he is so very wise and when others make a row … he sits merely with his head down—it is because he understands that today the crowd howls, tomorrow rejoices, that one need not be crushed by the changing waves.”

Nevertheless, in Goremykin’s enfeebled hands, the government had almost ceased to function. His fellow ministers avoided or ignored him. When he appeared in the Duma, the elderly man was greeted by a prolonged hiss which made it impossible for him to speak. The Tsar, the Empress and Goremykin himself understood that the situation could not continue. “I keep wracking my brains over the question of a successor for the Old Man,” wrote Nicholas. Alexandra sadly agreed, and for a while they thought of appointing Alexander Khvostov, the conservative Minister of Justice. An uncle of the singing Minister of Interior, this older Khvostov was one of the ministers who had refused to sign the infamous letter. First, however, Khvostov was to have a visit from Rasputin.

“Our Friend told me to wait about the Old Man until he had seen Uncle Khvostov on Thursday, what impression he will have of him,” Alexandra wrote to the Tsar. “He [Rasputin] is miserable about the dear Old Man, says he is such a righteous man, but he dreads the Duma hissing him and then you will be in an awful position.” The following day, the Empress wrote, “Tomorrow Gregory sees old Khvostov and then I see him in the evening. He wants to tell his impression if a worthy successor to Goremykin.” But Khvostov did not survive the interview; Alexandra wrote indignantly that Rasputin was received “like a petitioner in the ministry.”

The next candidate brought forward, Boris Stürmer, was more successful. Equipped with Goremykin’s arch-conservative instincts while lacking completely the old man’s courage and honesty, Stürmer, then sixty-seven, was an obscure and dismal product of the professional Russian bureaucracy. His family origins were German; his great-uncle, Baron Stürmer, had been Austria’s representative on the guard which sat on St. Helena keeping watch on Napoleon. Stürmer himself, first as Master of Ceremonies at court, then as the reactionary governor of Yaroslav province, had attracted a universally bad reputation. “A man who had left a bad memory wherever he occupied an administrative post,” declared Sazonov. “An utter nonentity,” groaned Rodzianko. “A false and double-faced man,” said Khvostov.

When Stürmer first appeared, Paléologue, who had scarcely heard of him, busied himself for three days gathering information. Then he penned this discouraging portrait: “He … is worse than a mediocrity—third rate intellect, mean spirit, low character, doubtful honesty, no experience and no idea of State business. The most that can be said for him is that he has a rather pretty talent for cunning and flattery.… His appointment becomes intelligible on the supposition that he has been selected solely as a tool; in other words, actually on account of his insignificance and servility.… [He] has been … warmly recommended to the Emperor by Rasputin.”

In fact, Stürmer was first recommended to the Tsar by Rasputin’s friend and protégé Pitirim, who, with Rasputin’s aid, had been named Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in Petrograd. “I begat Pitirim and Pitirim begat Stürmer” was the way Rasputin sardonically put it. Nevertheless, Stürmer’s name was the one that filled the Empress’s letters. “Lovy, I don’t know but I should still think of Stürmer.… Stürmer would do for a time. He very much values Gregory which is a great thing.… Our Friend said about Stürmer to take him for a time at least, as he is such a decided loyal man.”

To the astonishment of Russia and even of the faithful Goremykin, who had no inkling that his wish for retirement was about to be granted, the unknown Stürmer was suddenly named Prime Minister in February 1916. The Duma regarded the appointment as a crushing humiliation, an insult to all of their work and aspirations. There was no doubt that when the new Prime Minister appeared before them, their outrage would exceed anything they had directed at Goremykin. At this point, Rasputin offered an ingenious suggestion. The starets had no love for the Duma, but he understood its usefulness. “Dogs collected to keep other dogs quiet,” he called the members. Under the circumstances, he advised Nicholas to make a placating gesture. “Of course if you could have turned up for a few words, quite unexpected at the Duma … that might change everything,” Alexandra explained the scheme to her husband. Nicholas agreed, and on February 22, 1916, the Tsar appeared in person before the Imperial Duma. The gesture was an overwhelming success. A Te Deum was sung, Nicholas greeted the members as “representatives of the Russian people” and presented the Order of St. Anne to Rodzianko. Although Stürmer was present at the side of the Tsar, his appointment was temporarily forgotten—as Rasputin had cunningly foreseen—amid a storm of cheers.

With Stürmer installed at the top, the Empress, urged on by Rasputin, continued to weed among the ministerial ranks. Her next major target was Polivanov, the Minister of War. The Empress had never liked him. “Forgive me,” she had written the Tsar when Polivanov was appointed, “but I don’t like the choice of Minister of War Polivanov. Is he not our Friend’s enemy?” In the short time since he replaced the indolent Sukhomlinov, the brusque, efficient Polivanov had worked wonders in training and equipping the army. It was primarily due to his efforts that the beaten Russian army of 1915 was able to recover and launch the great offensive of 1916. Nevertheless, Polivanov was marked, not only by his rough refusal to have anything to do with Rasputin, but also by his eagerness to work closely with the Duma in obtaining maximum support for his army program. In the end, Polivanov’s doom was sealed when he discovered that Rasputin had been supplied by Stürmer with four high-powered War Office cars too fast to be followed by the police when he set off for one of his steamy nocturnal haunts. Polivanov sternly objected, and soon Alexandra was writing to Nicholas, “Get rid of Polivanov … any honest man better than him.… Remember about Polivanov.… Lovy, don’t dawdle, make up your mind, it’s far too serious.” On March 25, Polivanov fell. “Oh, the relief! Now I shall sleep well,” she said when she heard the news. Others were appalled. Polivanov was “undoubtedly the ablest military organizer in Russia and his dismissal was a disaster,” wrote Knox. General Shuvaiev, Polivanov’s successor, Knox described as “a nice old man, quite straight and honest. He had no knowledge of his work, but his devotion to the Emperor was such that if the door were to open and His Majesty were to come into the room and ask him to throw himself out of the window, he would do so at once.”

The next to go was Sazonov, the Foreign Minister. A brother-in-law of Stolypin, Sazonov was a cultivated man of liberal background and a close friend of both Buchanan and Paléologue. He had been Foreign Minister since 1910 and was completely trusted both by the Tsar and by the Allied governments. Nevertheless, since his signing of the ministerial letter, Alexandra had wanted him removed. She suspected, rightly, that along with his friendship with England and France, he also wanted a responsible government in Russia; both, she believed, would undermine the autocratic Russia she hoped to pass along to her son. Through the winter, she kept up a barrage at “long-nosed Sazonov … Sazonov is such a pancake.” Then, in March 1916, she wrote to Nicholas, “Wish you could think of a good successor to Sazonov—need not be a diplomat. So as … to see we are not later sat upon by England and that when questions of ultimate peace come we should be firm. Old Goremykin and Stürmer always disapproved of him as he is such a coward towards Europe and a parliamentarist—and that would be Russia’s ruin.”

Sazonov’s downfall came in July 1916, and was actually precipitated by the question of autonomy for Poland. At the outbreak of war, Russia had promised a virtually independent, united Polish kingdom, linked to Russia only in the person of the Tsar. The Poles were enthusiastic, and on first entering Galicia, Russian troops were welcomed as liberators. Military defeat and the loss of most Polish territory in 1915 had delayed action on the pledge, at the same time encouraging those Russian conservatives who resisted its enactment, fearing that autonomy for one part of the empire would stimulate other provinces to seek the same thing. Alexandra, spurred by Rasputin, argued that “Baby’s future rights” were challenged. Nevertheless, Sazonov, backed by Britain and France, continued to insist.

On July 12, Sazonov saw Nicholas at Headquarters. “The Emperor has entirely adopted my views.… I won all along the line,” he reported jubilantly to Buchanan and Paléologue. In enormous good humor, the Foreign Minister left for a Finnish holiday during which he planned to draft an Imperial proclamation on Poland. Meanwhile, both Stürmer and the Empress hurried to Headquarters, and while he was still in Finland, Sazonov was abruptly dismissed. Appalled, Buchanan and Paléologue pleaded that the dismissal be set aside. Failing, Buchanan then boldly asked the Tsar’s permission to have King George V grant the fallen minister a British court decoration in recognition of his services to the alliance. Nicholas agreed and was genuinely pleased that Sazonov, whom he liked and had dealt with shabbily, was receiving the honor.

Sazanov’s replacement at the Foreign Ministry was none other than Stürmer, who took on the office in addition to the Premiership. The appointment was a further hideous shock to Buchanan and Paléologue, who would now be dealing daily on an intimate professional level with Russia’s new Foreign Minister. Each Ambassador reacted in character: Buchanan stiffly wrote London that “I can never hope to have confidential relations with a man on whose word no reliance can be placed.” Paléologue, after an interview, confided to his diary, “His [Stürmer’s] look, sharp and honeyed, furtive and blinking, is the very expression of hypocrisy … he emits an intolerable odor of falseness. In his bonhomie and his affected politeness one feels that he is low, intriguing, and treacherous.”^*

The key ministry in troubled times was not Foreign Affairs or even the presidency of the ministerial council. It was the Ministry of Interior, which was responsible for the preservation of law and order. Under this office came the police, the secret police, informers and counterespionage—all the devices which, as a regime grows more unpopular, become all the more necessary to its preservation. In October 1916, the Tsar suddenly appointed to this critical post the Vice-President of the Duma, Alexander Protopopov. The choice was a disaster, yet, ironically, Nicholas made it at least in part as a gesture to Rodzianko and the Duma.

Alexander Protopopov was sixty-four, a small, sleek man with white hair, a mustache and bright black eyes. In his native Simbirsk, the Volga town which also gave Russia Kerensky and Lenin, Protopopov’s social position was far higher than that of either of his famous fellow townsmen. His father was a nobleman and landowner who also owned a large textile factory; the son went to cadet cavalry school, studied law and became a director of his father’s factory. An important local personage, he was elected to the Duma, where, although he showed little political distinction, his smooth and ingratiating air made him thoroughly popular. “He was handsome, elegant, captivating in a drawing room, moderately liberal and always pleasant.… There was a slightly cunning air about him but this seemed very innocent and goodnatured,” wrote Kerensky, who also sat in the Fourth Duma.

Protopopov’s charm and his membership in the large, moderately liberal Octobrist Party saw him repeatedly elected to the Duma vice-presidency. Rodzianko, as President, respected his deputy’s abilities. In June 1916 he suggested to Nicholas that Protopopov would make a good minister. “For the post [of Minister of Trade] he proposed his tovarish Protopopov,” Nicholas wrote to Alexandra, adding, “I have an idea that our Friend mentioned him [Protopopov] on some occasion.” But no changes were made at that time, and Protopopov remained as the second man in the Duma. In this capacity, he led a delegation of Duma members on good-will visits to England and France in July 1916; on the way home, he stopped at Stockholm and had a mysterious talk with a Swedish financier known to be close to the German Embassy. Upon arriving in Russia, he traveled to Headquarters to make an official call on the Tsar. “Yesterday I met a man I like very much, Protopopov, Vice President of the State Duma,” Nicholas wrote. “He traveled abroad with members of the Duma and told me much of interest.”

All of the ingredients necessary for Protopopov’s elevation to the Ministry now were present: he had charmed the Tsar with his manner, he had been recommended as a solid worker by Rodzianko and, most important of all, he had the sweeping endorsement of Rasputin and therefore of the Empress. Protopopov’s acquaintance with Rasputin stretched back over several years. The prospective Minister was not in good health. He suffered from a disease variously described as progressive paralysis of the spine or advanced syphilis, depending on the informant’s feelings about Protopopov. When doctors were unable to help, Protopopov went to Badmayev, a quackish Siberian herb doctor then fashionable in Petrograd. Badmayev knew Rasputin, and Protopopov, who was fascinated by mysticism and the occult, was introduced into an outer ring of the starets’s circle. Now, struck by the news that Nicholas was pleased by his amiable protégé, Rasputin seized the initiative and began proposing that Protopopov be named Minister of Interior.

“Gregory earnestly begs you to name Protopopov,” Alexandra wrote in September. “He likes our Friend for at least 4 years and that says much for a man.” Two days later, she repeated: “Please take Protopopov as Minister of Interior. As he is one of the Duma, it will make a great effect and shut their mouths.” Nicholas balked and chided his wife for accepting every one of Rasputin’s whims: “This Protopopov is a good man.… Rodzianko has for a long time suggested him for the post of Minister of Trade. [But] I must consider this question as it has taken me completely by surprise. Our Friend’s opinions of people are sometimes very strange as you know yourself—therefore this must be thought out very carefully.” Nevertheless, a few days later the Tsar gave in and telegraphed, “It shall be done.” In a letter, he added, “God grant that Protopopov may turn out to be the man of whom we are now in need.” Overjoyed, the Empress wrote back, “God bless your new choice of Protopopov. Our Friend says you have done a very wise act in naming him.”

The appointment caused a sensation. In the Duma, Protopopov’s acceptance of office under Stürmer was regarded as a scandalous betrayal. When an old friend in the Duma bluntly told the new Minister that his appointment was a scandal and that he ought to resign immediately, Protopopov, bubbling with excitement over his promotion, replied candidly, “How can you ask me to resign? All my life it was my dream to be a vice-governor and here I am a minister.”

Rodzianko was angriest of all. Shaking with rage, he confronted the turncoat and lambasted him for his treachery. When, in servile tones, Protopopov explained, “I hope I shall succeed in bringing about some changes,” Rodzianko replied scornfully, “You haven’t sufficient strength for the fight and will never dare to speak outright to the Emperor.” Soon afterward, Protopopov returned to Rodzianko, hinting that, with his help, the Duma President might be appointed Premier and Foreign Minister in place of Stürmer. Rodzianko, fully aware that neither Nicholas nor Alexandra would dream of such an appointment, stated his terms: “I alone shall have the power to choose the Ministers … the Empress must remain … at Livadia until the end of the war.” Hastily, Protopopov suggested that Rodzianko speak to the Empress herself.

Once he was in office, Protopopov’s behavior became wholly eccentric. Although a minister, he kept his seat in the Duma and appeared at meetings wearing the uniform of a general of gendarmes, to which, as head of the police, he was entitled. Beside his desk he kept an icon which he addressed as a person. “He helps me do everything; everything I do is by His advice,” Protopopov explained to Kerensky, indicating the icon. Even more astonishing was the sudden transformation of Protopopov the Duma liberal into Protopopov the arch-reactionary. He was determined to become the savior of tsarism and Orthodox Russia. Not only was he not afraid of revolution; he hoped to provoke it in order to crush it by force. At meetings, Rodzianko wrote, “he rolled his eyes repeatedly, in a kind of unnatural ecstasy. ‘I feel that I shall save Russia. I feel that I alone can save her.’ ”

In addition to controlling the police, Protopopov also assumed responsibility for the most critical problem facing Russia, the organization of food supplies. The idea was Rasputin’s. Not without logic, he proposed that authority should be transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture, which was floundering, to the Ministry of Interior, which had the police to enforce its orders. Seizing the idea, the Empress issued the transfer command herself. It was the only episode in which Alexandra did not bother first to get the Tsar’s approval. “Forgive me for what I have done—but I had to—our Friend said it was absolutely necessary,” she wrote. “Stürmer sends you by this messenger a new paper to sign giving the whole food supply at once to the Minister of Interior.… I had to take this step upon myself as Gregory says Protopopov will have all in his hands … and by that will save Russia.… Forgive me, but I had to take this responsibility for your sweet sake.” Nicholas acquiesced, and thereby, as Russia moved into the critical winter of 1916–1917, both the police and the food supply remained in the trembling, ineffectual hands of Alexander Protopopov.

Although her informal mandate from Nicholas was only to oversee internal affairs, Alexandra also began to trespass on the area of military operations. “Sweet Angel,” she wrote in November 1915, “long to ask you heaps about your plans concerning Rumania. Our Friend is so anxious to know.” That same month: “Our Friend was afraid that, if we had not a big army to pass through Rumania, we might be caught in a trap from behind.”

With supreme self-confidence, Rasputin soon passed from asking questions about the army to transmitting instructions as to the timing and location of Russian attacks. His inspiration, he told the Empress, had come to him in dreams while he slept: “Now before I forget, I must give you a message from our Friend prompted by what he saw in the night,” she wrote in November 1915. “He begs you to order that one should advance near Riga, says it is necessary, otherwise the Germans will settle down so firmly through all the winter that it will cost endless bloodshed and trouble to make them move … he says this is just now the most essential thing and begs you seriously to order ours to advance, he says we can and we must, and I was to write to you at once.”

In June 1916: “Our Friend sends his blessing to the whole orthodox army. He begs we should not yet strongly advance in the north because he says if our successes continue being good in the south, they will themselves retreat in the north, or advance and then their losses will be very great—if we begin there, our losses will be very heavy. He says this is … [his] advice.”

At Headquarters, General Alexeiev was less than charmed to hear of this new interest in the army. “I told Alexeiev how interested you were in military affairs and of those details you asked for in your last letter,” Nicholas wrote on June 7, 1916 (O.S.). “He [Alexeiev] smiled and listened silently.” Alexeiev’s silence concealed his worry over the possible leakage of his plans. After the abdication, he explained, “When the Empress’s papers were examined, she was found to be in possession of a map indicating in detail the disposition of the troops along the entire front. Only two copies were prepared of this map, one for the Emperor and one for myself. I was very painfully impressed. God knows who may have made use of this map.”

Although the Tsar thought it quite natural to admit his wife to military secrets, he did not want them passed to Rasputin. Repeatedly, after giving her a number of military details, he would write, “I beg you, my love, do not communicate these details to anyone. I have written them only for you.… I beg you, keep it to yourself, not a single soul must know of it.” Almost as frequently, Alexandra ignored her husband’s request and told Rasputin. “He won’t mention it to a soul,” she assured Nicholas, “but I had to ask his blessing for your decision.”

Rasputin’s intervention in military affairs appeared most conspicuously during the great Russian offensive of 1916. Following Polivanov’s miracles in supply and manpower, wrought during the winter of 1915–1916, the Russian army erupted in June 1916 with a heavy attack on the Austrians in Galicia. The Austrian line sagged and broke. Brusilov, the Russian commander, inflicted a million casualties, took 400,000 prisoners, pulled 18 German divisions away from Verdun and prevented the Austrians from exploiting their great victory over the Italians at Caporetto. In August, Rumania, sensing an Allied victory, entered the war against Germany and Austria.

Yet, all this was done at heavy cost to Russia. Through the summer, as Brusilov ground forward, Russian losses reached 1,200,000. As the army moved forward, leaving behind a carpet of dead, it seemed to the Empress and to Rasputin that Russia was choking in her own blood. As early as July 25 (O.S.), she wrote: “Our Friend … finds better one should not advance too obstinately as the losses will be too great.” On August 8 (O.S.): “Our Friend hopes we won’t climb over the Carpathians and try to take them, as he repeats the losses will be too great again.” On September 21 (O.S.), Nicholas wrote: “I told Alexeiev to order Brusilov to stop our hopeless attacks.” Alexandra replied happily, “Our Friend says about the new orders you gave to Brusilov: ‘Very satisfied with Father’s [the Tsar’s] orders, all will be well.’ ”

Meanwhile, at Stavka, Alexeiev had discussed the operation with the Tsar, and even as the Empress was congratulating herself, Nicholas was writing: “Alexeiev has asked permission to continue the attack … and I have permitted it.” Surprised, Alexandra responded: “Our Friend is much put out that Brusilov has not listened to your order to stop the advance—says you were inspired from above to give that order … and God would bless it. Now he says again useless losses.” On the 24th (O.S.), Nicholas wrote, “I have only just received your telegram in which you inform me that our Friend is very disturbed about my plan not being carried out.” Carefully, he explained that an additional army had been massed which “doubles our forces … and gives hope for the possibility of success. That is why … I gave my consent.” He added that the decision, “from a military point of view is quite correct,” and implored, “these details are for you only—I beg you, my dear. Tell him [Rasputin] only ‘Papa has ordered that sensible measures be taken.’ ”

But the Empress was now in full cry. On the 25th (O.S.), she wrote: “Oh give your order again to Brusilov—stop this useless slaughter.… Why repeat the madness of the Germans at Verdun. Your plan, so wise [was] approved by our Friend.… Stick to it.… Our generals don’t count the lives any—hardened to losses—and that is sin.” On September 27 (O.S.), two days later, Nicholas finally gave in: “My dear, Brusilov has, on the receipt of my instructions, immediately given order to stop.” As a result, Brusilov’s great offensive ground to a halt. After the war, General Vladimir Gurko, who participated in the operation, wrote, “The weariness of the troops had its effect … but there can be no question that the stoppage of the advance was premature and founded on orders from Headquarters.” The hard-bitten Brusilov responded impatiently, “An offensive without casualties may be staged only during maneuvers; no action at the present time is taken at random and the enemy suffer as heavy losses as we do … but to defeat the enemy or to beat him off, we must suffer losses and they may be considerable.”

By October 1916, with Stürmer and Protopopov occupying the key ministries of the Russian government, the Empress had apparently achieved what she had set out a year before to do. The ministers who signed the collective letter were gone; those in power fawned on Rasputin. “Stürmer and Protopopov both completely believe in our Friend’s wonderful, God-sent wisdom,” she wrote happily.

In fact, the entire arrangement—and with it, all Russia—was beginning to disintegrate. A new governmental scandal loomed up when Manuilov, Stürmer’s private secretary, was arrested for blackmailing a bank. Two episodes put the army’s loyalty in question. In Marseilles, a Russian brigade on its way from Archangel to fight in Greece suddenly mutinied and killed its colonel. French troops intervened and twenty Russian soldiers were executed. Far more serious, two infantry regiments in Petrograd, called out in October to disperse a crowd of striking workers, turned instead and fired on the police. Only when four regiments of Cossacks charged and drove the infantry back to their barracks at lance point was the mutiny subdued. This time, 150 soldiers went to the firing squad.

Worst of all was the growing economic breakdown. Nicholas, more perceptive than the Empress, had seen this coming for months. “Stürmer … is an excellent, honest man,” he wrote in June, “only, it seems to me, he cannot make up his mind to do what is necessary. The gravest and most urgent question just now is the question of fuels and metals—iron and copper for munitions—because with the shortage of metals, the factories cannot produce a sufficient quantity of cartridges and shells. It is the same with the railways.… These affairs are a regular curse.… But it is imperative to act energetically.” In August, he confessed that the load was becoming unbearable. “At times when I turn over in my mind the names of one person and another for appointments, and think how things will go, it seems that my head will burst. The greatest problem now is the question of supplies.…” In September, as Alexandra was urging the appointment of Protopopov: “And whom am I to begin with? All these changes make my head go round. In my opinion, they are too frequent. In any case, they are not good for the internal situation of the country, as each new man brings with him alterations in the administration.” In November: “The eternal question of supplies troubles me most of all … prices are soaring and the people are beginning to starve. It is obvious where this situation may lead the country. Old Stürmer cannot overcome these difficulties.… It is the most damnable problem I have ever come across.”

Early in November, Nicholas, with Alexis, went to Kiev to inspect hospitals and to visit his mother, who was living away from Petrograd. On this visit, everyone noticed the change that had come over the Tsar. “I was shocked to see … Nicky so pale, thin and tired,” wrote his sister Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who was with her mother in Kiev. “My mother was worried about his excessive quiet.” Gilliard saw the same thing: “He had never seemed to me so worried before. He was usually very self-controlled, but on this occasion he showed himself nervous and irritable, and once or twice he spoke roughly to Alexis Nicolaievich.”

Under the pressure of his dual role as Tsar and Commander-in-Chief, Nicholas’s health and morale were beginning to suffer. Old friends such as Prince Vladimir Orlov had gone, driven away by their disapproval of Rasputin. Even old Count Fredericks managed to remain near the Tsar only by talking about the weather and other inconsequentia. In Kiev, Nicholas had thought to relax from the problems of war and government. Instead, in their first conversation Marie demanded that he dismiss Stürmer and push Rasputin away from the throne.

Although bowed by the cares of his office, Nicholas in Kiev made a graceful Imperial gesture. In the ward of the hospital where his sister worked, “we had a young, wounded deserter, court-martialed and condemned to death,” she wrote. “Two soldiers were guarding him. All of us felt very troubled about him—he looked such a decent boy. The doctor spoke of him to Nicky who at once made for that corner of the ward. I followed him, and I could see the young man was petrified with fear. Nicky put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and asked very quietly why he had deserted. The young man stammered that, having run out of ammunition, he had got frightened, turned and ran. We all waited, our breath held, and Nicky told him that he was free. The next moment the lad scrambled out of bed, fell on the floor, his arms around Nicky’s knees, and sobbed like a child. I believe all of us were in tears.… I have cherished the memory all down the years. I never saw Nicky again.”

While the Tsar was in Kiev, the Duma met and the storm began to break. Party lines no longer mattered: from extreme Right to revolutionary Left, every party opposed the government. Miliukov, the leader of the liberals, made a direct attack on Stürmer and Rasputin, and indirectly attacked the Empress. Stürmer he accused outright of being a German agent. One by one, as he ticked off his charges of inefficiency and corruption against the government, he asked after each accusation, “Is this stupidity or is it treason?” Miliukov was followed by Basil Maklakov, a Right-wing liberal, who declared, “The old regime and the interests of Russia have now parted company.” Quoting from Pushkin, he shouted, “Woe to that country where only the slave and the liar are close to the throne.”

By the time Nicholas had returned from Kiev to Headquarters, the outrage in the Duma could no longer be ignored. With his mother’s pleas ringing in his ears, the Tsar decided to dismiss Stürmer. The Empress was not entirely opposed, but she suggested a holiday rather than dismissal: “Protopopov … [and] our Friend both find for the quiet of the Duma, Stürmer ought to say he is ill and go for a rest for 3 weeks. It’s true … he is really quite unwell and broken by those vile assaults—and being the red flag for that madhouse, it’s better he should disappear a bit.”

Nicholas quickly agreed, and on November 8 (O.S.), he wrote, “All these days I have been thinking of old Stürmer. He, as you say rightly, acts as a red flag, not only to the Duma, but to the whole country, alas. I hear this from all sides; nobody believes in him and everyone is angry because we stand up for him. It is much worse than with Goremykin last year. I reproach him for his excessive prudence and his incapacity for taking on himself the responsibility of making them all work as they should. He is coming here tomorrow. I will give him leave for the present.… As to the future, we shall see; we will talk it over when you come here.”

Rasputin’s suggestion was that Stürmer give up one of his offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to appease the Duma, but not both: “Our Friend says Stürmer can remain still some time as President of Council of Ministers,” Alexandra reminded. But Nicholas, this time, had made up his mind. “I am receiving Stürmer in an hour,” he wrote on November 9 (O.S.), “and shall insist on his taking leave. Alas, I am afraid he will have to go altogether [i.e., give up the presidency of the Council of Ministers as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs]—nobody has confidence in him. I remember even Buchanan telling me at our last meeting the English consuls in their reports predict serious disturbances if he remains. And every day I hear more and more about it.”

The Empress was surprised at the Tsar’s decision. “It gave me a painful shock you also take away from him the Council of Ministers. I had a big lump in my throat—such a devoted, honest, sure man.… I regret because he likes our Friend and was so right in that way. Trepov [the new Premier], I personally do not like and can never have the same feeling for him as to old Goremykin and Stürmer—they were of the good old sort … those two loved me and came for every question that worried them, so as not to disturb you—this one [Trepov] I, alas, doubt caring for me and if he does not trust me and our Friend, things will be difficult. I too told Stürmer to tell him how to behave about Gregory and to safeguard him always.”

But Alexander Trepov, the new Prime Minister, already had decided how he would behave about Gregory. A former Minister of Communications, builder of the newly completed Murmansk railroad, Trepov was at once a conservative monarchist and a stern enemy of Rasputin. He was determined to purge the government of Rasputin’s influence. As a first important step, he meant to evict Protopopov, Rasputin’s instrument. On accepting appointment to the premiership, he had won the Tsar’s promise that Protopopov would be dismissed. “I am sorry for Protopopov,” Nicholas wrote Alexandra, explaining his decision. “He is a good, honest man, but he jumps from one idea to another, and cannot make up his mind on anything. I noticed that from the beginning. They say that a few years ago he was not quite normal after a certain illness.… It is risky to leave the Ministry of Interior in such hands in these times.” Then, anticipating her reaction, he added significantly, “Only I beg, do not drag Our Friend into this. The responsibility is with me, and therefore I wish to be free in my choice.”

On hearing that both Stürmer and Protopopov were to be eliminated, Alexandra became desperate: “Forgive me, dear, believe me—I entreat you don’t go and change Protopopov now, he will be alright, give him the chance to get the food supply into his hands and, I assure you, all will go [well].… Oh, Lovy, you can trust me. I may not be clever enough—but I have a strong feeling and that helps more than the brain often. Don’t change anybody until we meet, I entreat you, let’s speak it over quietly together.…”

The next day, Alexandra’s letter rose in pitch: “Lovy, my angel … don’t change Protopopov. I had a long talk with him yesterday—the man is as sane as anyone … he is quiet and calm and utterly devoted which one can, alas, say of but few and he will succeed—already things are going better.… Change nobody now, otherwise the Duma will think it’s their doing and that they have succeeded in clearing everybody out.… Darling, remember that it does not lie in the man Protopopov or x.y.z. but it’s the question of monarchy and your prestige now, which must not be shattered in the time of the Duma. Don’t think they will stop at him, but will make all others leave who are devoted to you one by one—and then ourselves. Remember … the Tsar rules and not the Duma. Forgive my again writing but I am fighting for your reign and Baby’s future.”

Two days later, the Empress arrived at Headquarters on a visit already planned. Together, in the privacy of their room, they wrestled out the problem of Protopopov; the Empress won—and Protopopov remained in office. Nevertheless, the trial of strength was not easy for either of them. In Nicholas’s letter bidding farewell to the Empress at the end of her visit, there is evidence of the tension. It is, in fact, the only evidence in the whole of their correspondence of a serious personal quarrel. “Yes,” wrote the Tsar, “those days spent together were difficult, but only thanks to you have I spent them more or less calmly. You were so strong and steadfast—I admire you more than I can say. Forgive me if I was moody or unrestrained—sometime’s one’s temper must come out!… now I firmly believe that the most painful is behind us and that it will not be hard as it was before. And henceforth I intend to become sharp and bitter.… Sleep sweetly and calmly.”

Alexandra, sending her husband back to the front, could not help being pleased with her great triumph. Over the following days, a torrent of exhortation poured from her pen: “I am fully convinced that great and beautiful times are coming for your reign and Russia … we must give a strong country to Baby, and dare not be weak for his sake, else he will have a yet harder reign, setting our faults right and drawing the reins in tightly which you let loose. You have to suffer for faults in the reigns of your predecessors and God knows what hardships are yours. Let our legacy be a lighter one for Alexei. He has a strong will and mind of his own, don’t let things slip through your fingers and make him build all over again. Be firm … one wants to feel your hand—how long, years, people have told me the same ‘Russia loves to feel the whip’—it’s their nature—tender love and then the iron hand to punish and guide. How I wish I could pour my will into your veins.… Be Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Emperor Paul—crush them all under you—now don’t you laugh, naughty one.”

Nicholas took these exhortations calmly. With a touch of acid, he replied: “My dear, Tender thanks for the severe scolding. I read it with a smile, because you speak to me as though I was a child.… Your ‘poor little weak-willed’ hubby, Nicky.” The immediate loser, however, was Trepov. Having failed to eliminate Protopopov, he tried to resign himself. Nicholas, freshly spurred by his wife’s letters, refused, telling him sternly, “Alexander Fedorovich, I order you to carry out your duties with the colleagues I have thought fit to give you.” Trepov, desperate, tried another way. He sent his brother-in-law, Mosolov, to call on Rasputin and offer him a handsome bribe. Rasputin was to get a house in Petrograd, all living expenses and a paid bodyguard, plus the equivalent of $95,000, if he would arrange Protopopov’s dismissal and then himself quit any further interference in government. As a sop, Trepov offered Rasputin a continued free hand with the clergy. Rasputin, already wielding immense power and having little use for wealth, simply laughed.

By the autumn of 1916, Petrograd society mingled a deep loathing of Rasputin with a blithe indifference to the war. At the Astoria and the Europa, the two best hotels in Petrograd, the crowds drinking champagne in bars and salons included many officers who should have been at the front; now there was no disgrace in taking extended leave and shirking the trenches. Late in September, the season began when society appeared at the Maryinsky Theatre to watch Karsavina dance in Sylvia and The Water Lily. Paléologue, taking his seat in the sumptuous blue-and-gold hall, was struck by the unreality of the scene: “From the stalls to the back row of the highest circle, I could see nothing but a sea of cheery, smiling faces … sinister visions of war … vanished as if by magic the moment the orchestra struck up.” Through the autumn, the splendid evenings continued. At the Narodny Dom, the matchless basso Fedor Chaliapin sang his great roles, Boris Godunov and Don Quixote. At the Maryinsky, a series of gorgeous ballets, Nuits Egyptiennes, Islamey and Eros, wrapped the audience in fairy tales and enchantment. Mathilde Kschessinska, the prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Ballet, danced her famous role in Pharaoh’s Daughter. In the treetops high above the ballerina’s head, a twelve-year-old student playing the part of a monkey jumped from branch to branch while Kschessinska tried to shoot him down with a bow and arrow. After the performance on December 6, the student, George Balanchine, was taken to the Imperial box to be presented to the Tsar and the Empress. Nicholas gave the boy a gentle smile, patted him on the shoulder and handed him a silver box filled with chocolates.^*

To most of Russia, however, the Empress was an object of contempt and hatred. The German-spy mania was now flowering to its fullest, ugliest growth. Most Russians firmly believed in the existence of a secret pro-German cabal which was systematically betraying them from the top. The Tsar was not included in its supposed membership; whenever the subject of reconciliation with Germany came up, Nicholas always said bluntly that those who said he would make peace separately from his allies or while German soldiers stood on Russian land were traitors. But the unpopular Empress, along with Stürmer, a reactionary with a German name, and Protopopov, who had met a German agent in Stockholm, were widely and loudly accused. After the abdication, the entire Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo was searched for the clandestine wireless stations through which these plotters were supposed to have been in secret communication with the enemy.

Rasputin, everyone assumed, was a paid German spy. In all the years since 1916, however, no evidence of any kind has ever been offered from either the German or the Russian side that this was so. On balance, it seems unlikely. For the same reason that Rasputin rejected Trepov’s bribe, he would have refused money. No foreigner could offer him more power than he already possessed; besides, he disliked foreigners, especially the English and Germans. What is more likely is that Rasputin was used and drained of the information he acquired by others who were German agents. In this sense, Kerensky argues, “it would have been inexplicable if the German General Staff had not made use of him [Rasputin].” It was not difficult to infiltrate Rasputin’s circle. He hated the war and did not avoid people who spoke against it. His entourage already was filled with so wide a variety of people, many of them shady and disreputable, that a few additional faces would scarcely have been noticed. Rasputin was loud and boastful; all an agent would have had to do was sit and listen carefully.

There is some evidence that this is exactly what happened. Every Wednesday night, Rasputin was invited to dinner by Manus, a Petrograd banker. A number of charming and attractive ladies always were on hand. Everybody drank a great deal and Rasputin talked indiscriminately. Manus, Rasputin’s host for these evenings, was openly in favor of reconciliation with Germany. Paléologue, whose own local intelligence service was efficient, believed that Manus was the leading German agent in Russia.

On far flimsier evidence, the Empress was accused of treason. When Alexandra sent prayerbooks to wounded German officers in Russian hospitals, it was taken as evidence of collusion. Knox, at the front, met a Russian artillery general who shrugged his shoulders and said, “What can we do? We have Germans everywhere. The Empress is a German.” Even at Headquarters, Admiral Nilov, the Tsar’s devoted flag captain, cursed the Empress in violent language. “I cannot believe she is a traitoress,” he cried, “but it is evident she is in sympathy with them.”

Alexandra’s support of Rasputin seemed to confirm the worst. Most people took it for granted that the connection was sexual. In society drawing rooms, municipal council meetings, trade-union conferences and in the trenches, the Empress was openly described as Rasputin’s mistress. Alexeiev even mentioned the prevalence of this gossip to the Tsar, warning him that censorship of the soldiers’ letters revealed that they were writing continuously of his wife and Rasputin. As these rumors flew and feeling against Alexandra rose higher, many of the outward signs of respect in her presence were discarded. In the summer and fall of 1916, in hospital wards she was treated by some surgeons and wounded officers with careless disrespect and sometimes with open rudeness. Behind her back, she was referred to everywhere simply as Nemka (the German woman), just as the hated Marie Antoinette had been known to the people of France as L’Autrichienne (the Austrian woman). The Tsar’s brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander, trying at this time to locate the source of some of these “incomprehensible libels” on the Empress, talked to a member of the Duma. Bitingly, the member asked, “If the young Tsarina is such a great Russian patriot, why does she tolerate the presence of that drunken beast who is openly seen around the capital in the company of German spies and sympathizers?” Try as he could, the Grand Duke could not supply an answer.

By the end of 1916, some form of change at the top was regarded as inevitable in Russia. Many still hoped that the change could be made without violence, that the monarchy could be modified to make the government responsive to the nation. Others felt that if the dynasty was to be preserved, it had to be brutally purged. One group of officers revealed to Kerensky their plan to “bomb the Tsar’s motorcar from an aeroplane at a particular point on its route.” A famous fighter pilot, Captain Kostenko, plotted to nose-dive his plane into the Imperial car. There were rumors that General Alexeiev was plotting with Guchkov to force the Tsar to send the Empress to the Crimea. Alexeiev, however, came down with a high fever, and it was he who went to the Crimea to rest and recover in the sun.

The growing peril was obvious to other members of the Imperial family. In November, after his return from Kiev, the Tsar received a visit from his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, a well-known historian who was President of the Imperial Historical Society. The Grand Duke, a wealthy man-about-town and a habitué of Petrograd clubs, was an outspoken liberal; already he had written the Tsar a number of letters stressing the importance of broadening the government’s support in the Duma. At Headquarters, he had a long talk with Nicholas and then handed the Tsar a letter. The Tsar, believing that he already had fully understood his cousin’s views, forwarded the letter to the Empress without reading it. To her horror, Alexandra found in the letter a direct and scathing accusation against herself: “You trust her, that is quite natural,” the Grand Duke had written to the Tsar. “Still what she tells you is not the truth; she is only repeating what has been cleverly suggested to her. If you are not able to remove this influence from her, at least protect yourself.” Indignantly, the Empress wrote to her husband, “I read Nicholas’s [letter] and am utterly disgusted … it becomes next to high treason.”

Despite this setback, the family persisted. At a meeting of all the members in and near Petrograd, Grand Duke Paul, the Tsar’s only surviving uncle, was chosen to go to the Tsar and ask that he grant a constitution. On December 16, Paul had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra and made his request. Nicholas refused, saying that he had sworn at his coronation to deliver his autocratic power intact to his son. While he was speaking, the Empress looked at Paul and silently shook her head. Then the Grand Duke talked openly of the damaging influence of Rasputin. This time, Nicholas remained silent, calmly smoking his cigarette, while the Empress earnestly defended Rasputin, declaring that in his own time every prophet was damned.

The most poignant of all the warning visits was that of Grand Duchess Elizabeth. Dressed in the gray-and-white robes of her religious order, Ella came from Moscow especially to speak to her younger sister about Rasputin. At the mention of his name, the Empress’s face grew cold. She was sorry, she said, to find her sister accepting the “lies” told about Father Gregory; if that was all she had to discuss, her visit might as well end immediately. Desperate, the Grand Duchess persisted, whereupon the Empress cut off the conversation, rose and ordered a carriage to take her sister to the station.

“Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come,” said Ella sadly as she prepared to leave.

“Yes,” said Alexandra. On this cold note, the sisters parted. It was their last meeting.

On one matter, grand dukes, generals and members of the Duma all agreed: Rasputin had to be removed. The question was how. On December 2, a stinging public denunciation was delivered by Vladimir Purishkevich in the Duma. Then in his fifties, a man of sparkling intelligence and wit, the writer of brilliantly satiric political verse, Purishkevich was an orator of such renown that when he rose to speak the entire Duma, including his enemies, beamed in anticipation of what they were about to hear. Politically, Purishkevich was on the extreme Right, the most ardent monarchist in the Duma. He believed in absolute autocracy and rigid orthodoxy, in the Tsar Autocrat as the emissary of God. A fervent patriot, Purishkevich had thrown himself into war work, going to the front to organize a system of relief for the wounded and personally administrating a Red Cross train which traveled back and forth from Petrograd to the front. Invited to dine with the Tsar at Headquarters, Purishkevich had left a highly favorable impression: “wonderful energy and a remarkable organizer,” wrote Nicholas.

Devoted to the monarchy, Purishkevich stood before the Duma and for two hours thundered his denunciation of the “dark forces” which were destroying the dynasty. “It requires only the recommendation of Rasputin to raise the most abject citizen to high office,” he cried. Then in a ringing finale which brought his audience to a tumultuous standing ovation, he roared a challenge at the ministers who sat before him. “If you are truly loyal, if the glory of Russia, her mighty future which is closely bound up with the brightness of the name of the Tsar mean anything to you, then on your feet, you Ministers. Be off to Headquarters and throw yourselves at the feet of the Tsar. Have the courage to tell him that the multitude is threatening in its wrath. Revolution threatens and an obscure moujik shall govern Russia no longer.”

Amid the storm of cheers which rolled through the Tauride Palace when Purishkevich had finished, a slender young man sitting in the visitors’ box remained utterly silent. Staring at him, another visitor noticed that Prince Felix Yussoupov had turned pale and was trembling.

^* Buchanan and Paléologue, as representatives of Russia’s allies, were naturally the preeminent members of the Petrograd diplomatic corps, but American representation was unusually and unnecessarily weak due to President Wilson’s appointment of nonprofessionals to the post. From 1914 to 1916, the U.S. Ambassador was George T. Marye, a San Franciscan who had little contact or interest in Russia and got most of his information from the newspapers he received from Paris. At his farewell audience with the Tsar, Marye mentioned that he hoped that after the war American businessmen would flock to invest in Russia. “Russia needed American energy, American money and the Americans who engaged in business in Russia would find the field immensely profitable. No one, of course, is in business for his health—the Emperor smiled slightly as I indulged in this somewhat homely expression,” reported Marye. Marye’s successor was David R. Francis, a wealthy businessman and former Governor of Missouri who arrived in Russia with a portable cuspidor with a foot-operated lid.

^* Fifty years later, struggling to convey his strong impression of the Empress, Balanchine said, “Beautiful, beautiful—like Grace Kelly.”