Nineteen-fourteen, that year of fate for all the world, but more than
all for my poor country, began its course in Russia, as elsewhere, in
apparent peace and tranquillity. With us, as with other civilized
people, the tragedy of Sarajevo came as a thrill of horror and surmise.
I do not know exactly what we expected to follow that desperate act
committed in a distant province of Austria, but certainly not the
cataclysm of a World War and the ruin of three of the proudest empires
of earth. Very shortly after the assassination of the Austrian heir and
his wife the Emperor had gone to Kronstadt, headquarters of the Baltic
fleet, to meet French and British squadrons then on cruise in Russian
waters.[2] From Kronstadt he proceeded to Krasnoe, near Petrograd, the
great summer central review center of the old Russian Army where the
usual military maneuvers were in progress. Returning to Peterhof, the
Emperor ordered a hasty departure to Finland because, he said, the
political horizon was darkening and he needed a few days of rest and
distraction. We sailed on July 6 (Russian Calendar) and had a quiet
cruise, the last one we were ever destined to enjoy. Not that we
intended it to be our last, for returning to Peterhof, from whence the
Emperor hurried again to the reviews, we left nearly all our luggage on
the yacht. The Empress, however, in one of her fits of melancholy, told
me that she felt that we would never again be together on the
_Standert_.
The political skies were indeed darkening. The Serbian murders and the
unaccountably arrogant attitude of Austria grew in importance every
succeeding day, and for many hours every day the Emperor was closeted in
his study with Grand Duke Nicholas, Foreign Minister Sazonoff and other
Ministers, all of whom urged on the Emperor the imperative duty of
standing by Serbia. During the short intervals of the day when we saw
the Emperor he seemed half dazed by the momentous decision he was called
upon to make. A few days before mobilization I went to lunch at Krasnoe
with a friend whose husband was on the Russian General Staff. In the
middle of luncheon this officer, Count Nosstiz, burst into the room
exclaiming: “Do you know what the Emperor has done? Can you guess what
they have made him do? He has promoted the young men of the Military
Academy to be officers, and he has sent the regiments back to their
casernes to await orders. All the military attachés are telegraphing
their Governments to ask what it means. What can it mean except war?”
From my friend’s house I went almost at once back to Peterhof and
informed the Empress what I had heard. Her amazement was unbounded, and
over and over she repeated that she did not understand, that she could
not imagine under what influence the Emperor had acted. He was still at
the maneuvers, and although I remained late with the Empress I did not
see him that night. The days that followed were full of suspense and
anxiety. I spent most of my time playing tennis--very badly--with the
girls, but from my occasional contacts with the Empress I knew that she
was arguing and pleading against the war which apparently the Emperor
felt to be inevitable. In one short talk I had with him on the subject
he seemed to find a certain comfort in the thought that war always
strengthened national feeling, and in his belief Russia would emerge
from a truly righteous war stronger and better than ever. At this time a
telegram arrived from Rasputine in Siberia, which plainly irritated the
Emperor. Rasputine strongly opposed the war, and predicted that it would
result in the destruction of the Empire. But the Emperor refused to
believe it and resented what was really an almost unprecedented
interference in affairs of state on the part of Rasputine.
I think I have spoken of the Emperor’s aversion to the telephone. Up to
this time none of his studies were ever fitted with telephones, but now
he had wires and instruments installed and spent a great deal of time in
conversations with Ministers and members of the military staff. Then
came the day of mobilization, the same kind of a day of wild excitement,
waving street crowds, weeping women and children, heartrending scenes of
parting, that all the warring countries saw and ever will remember.
After watching hours of these dreadful scenes in the streets of
Peterhof I went to my evening duties with the Empress only to find that
she had remained in absolute ignorance of what had been taking place.
Mobilization! It was not true, she exclaimed. Certainly armies were
moving, but only on the Austrian frontiers. She hurried from the room
and I heard her enter the Emperor’s study. For half an hour the sound of
their excited voices reached my ears. Returning, the Empress dropped on
her couch as one overcome by desperate tidings. “War!” She murmured
breathlessly. “And I knew nothing of it. This is the end of everything.”
I could say nothing. I understood as little as she the incomprehensible
silence of the Emperor at such an hour, and as always, whatever hurt her
hurt me. We sat in silence until eleven when, as usual, the Emperor came
in to tea, but he was distraught and gloomy and the tea hour also passed
in almost complete silence.
The whole world has read the telegrams sent to Nicholas II by ex-Emperor
William in those beginning days of the war. Their purport seemed to be
sincere and intimate, begging his old friend and relative to stop
mobilization, offering to meet the Emperor for a conference which yet
might keep the peace. Historians of the future will have to decide
whether those tenders were made in good faith or whether they were part
of the sinister diplomacy of that wicked war. Nicholas II did not
believe in their good faith, for he replied that he had no right to stop
mobilization in Russia when German mobilization was already a matter of
fact and that at any hour his frontiers might be crossed by German
troops. After this interval the Emperor seemed to be in better spirits.
War had come indeed, but even war was better than the threat and the
uncertainty of the preceding weeks. The extreme depression of the
Empress, however, continued unrelieved. Up to the last moment she hoped
against hope, and when the German formal declaration of war was
announced she gave way to a perfect passion of weeping, repeating to me
through her tears: “This is the end of everything.” The state visit of
their Majesties to Petrograd soon after the declaration really seemed to
justify the Emperor’s belief that the war would arouse the national
spirit, so long latent, in the Russian people. Never again do I expect
to behold such a sight as the streets of Petrograd presented on that
day. To say that the streets were crowded, thronged, massed, does not
half express it. I do not believe that one single able-bodied person in
the whole city remained at home during the hours spent in the capital by
the Sovereigns. The streets were almost literally impassable, and the
Imperial motor cars, moving at snail’s pace from quay to palace through
that frenzied sea of people, cheering, singing the national hymn,
calling down blessings on the Emperor, was something that will live
forever in the memories of all who witnessed it. The Imperial cortège
was able, thanks to the police, to reach the Winter Palace at last, but
many of the suite were halted by the crowds at the entrance to the great
square in front of the palace and had to enter at a side door opening
from the small garden to the west.
Inside the palace the crowd was relatively as great as that on the
outside. Apparently every man and woman who had the right to appear at
Court were massed in the corridors, the staircases, and the state
apartments. Slowly their Majesties made their way to the great _Salle de
Nicholas_, the largest hall in the palace, and there for several hours
they stood receiving the most extraordinary tokens of homage from
thousands of officials, ministers, and members of the _noblesse_, both
men and women. Te Deums were sung, cheers and acclamations arose, and as
the Emperor and Empress moved slowly through the crowds men and women
threw themselves on their knees, kissing the hands of their Sovereigns
with tears and fervent expressions of loyalty. Standing with others of
the suite in the _Halle de Concert_, I watched this remarkable scene,
and I listened to the historic speech of the Emperor which ended with
the assurance that never would there be an end to Russian military
effort until the last German was expelled from the beloved soil. From
the _Salle de Nicholas_ the Sovereigns passed to a balcony overlooking
the great square. There with the Tsarevitch at their side they faced the
wildly exulting people who with one accord dropped to their knees with
mute gestures of love and obedience. Then as countless flags waved and
dipped there arose from the lips and hearts of that vast assembly the
moving strains of our great hymn: “God Save the Tsar.”
Thus in a passion of renewed love and patriotism began in Russia the war
of 1914. That same day the family returned to Peterhof, the Emperor
almost immediately leaving for the casernes to bid farewell to regiments
leaving for the front. As for the Empress, she became overnight a
changed being. Every bodily ill and weakness forgotten, she began at
once an extensive plan for a system of hospitals and sanitary trains for
the dreadful roll of wounded which she knew must begin with the first
battle. Her projected chain of hospitals and sanitary centers reached
from Petrograd and Moscow to Charkoff and Odessa in the extreme south of
Russia. The center of her personal activity was fixed in a large group
of evacuation hospitals in and around Tsarskoe Selo, and there, after
bidding farewell to my only brother, who immediately left for the
southern front, I joined the Empress. Already her plans were so far
matured that ten sanitary trains, bearing her name and the children’s,
were in active service, and something like eighty-five hospitals were
open, or preparing to open, in Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof, Pavlovsk, Louga,
Sablino, and neighboring towns. The Empress, her two older daughters,
and myself immediately enrolled under a competent woman surgeon, Dr.
Gedroiz, as student nurses, spending two hours of every afternoon under
theoretical instruction, and the entire hours of the morning in ward
work in the hospitals. For the benefit of those who imagine that the
work of a royal nurse is more or less in the nature of play I will
describe the average routine of one of those mornings in which I was
privileged to assist the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand
Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, the two last-named girls of nineteen and
seventeen. Please remember that we were then only nurses in training.
Arriving at the hospital shortly after nine in the morning we went
directly to the receiving wards where the men were brought in after
having first-aid treatment in the trenches and field hospitals. They
had traveled far and were usually disgustingly dirty as well as
blood-stained and suffering. Our hands scrubbed in antiseptic solutions
we began the work of washing, cleaning, and bandaging maimed bodies,
mangled faces, blinded eyes, all the indescribable mutilations of what
is called civilized warfare. These we did under the orders and the
direction of trained nurses who had the skill to do the things our lack
of experience prevented us from doing. As we became accustomed to the
work, and as both the Empress and Tatiana had extraordinary ability as
nurses, we were given more important work. I speak of the Empress and
Tatiana especially because Olga within two months was almost too
exhausted and too unnerved to continue, and my abilities proved to be
more in the executive and organizing than in the nursing end of hospital
work. I have seen the Empress of Russia in the operating room of a
hospital holding ether cones, handling sterilized instruments, assisting
in the most difficult operations, taking from the hands of the busy
surgeons amputated legs and arms, removing bloody and even
vermin-infected dressings, enduring all the sights and smells and
agonies of that most dreadful of all places, a military hospital in the
midst of war. She did her work with the humility and the gentle
tirelessness of one dedicated by God to a life of ministration. Tatiana
was almost as skillful and quite as devoted as her mother, and
complained only that on account of her youth she was spared some of the
more trying cases. The Empress was spared nothing, nor did she wish to
be. I think I never saw her happier than on the day, at the end of our
two months’ intensive training, she marched at the head of the
procession of nurses to receive the red cross and the diploma of a
certificated war nurse.
From that time on our days were literally devoted to toil. We rose at
seven in the morning and very often it was an hour or two after midnight
before we sought our beds. The Empress, after a morning in the operating
room of one hospital, snatched a hasty luncheon and spent the rest of
the day in a round of inspection of other hospitals. Every morning early
I met her in the little Church of Our Lady of Znamenie, where we went
for prayers, driving afterwards to the hospitals. On the days when the
sanitary trains arrived with their ghastly loads of wounded we often
worked from nine until three without stopping for food or rest. The
Empress literally shirked nothing. Sometimes when an unfortunate soldier
was told by the surgeons that he must suffer an amputation or undergo an
operation which might be fatal, he turned in his bed calling out her
name in anguished appeal. “Tsaritsa! Stand near me. Hold my hand that I
may have courage.” Were the man an officer or a simple peasant boy she
always answered the appeal. With her arm under his head she would speak
words of comfort and encouragement, praying with him while preparations
for the operation were in progress, her own hands assisting in the
merciful work of anesthesia. The men idolized her, watched for her
coming, reached out bandaged hands to touch her as she passed, smiling
happily as she bent over their pillows. Even the dying smiled as she
knelt beside their beds murmuring last words of prayer and consolation.
In the last days of November, 1914, the Empress left Tsarskoe Selo for
an informal inspection of hospitals within the radius of her especially
chosen district. Dressed in the gray uniform of a nursing sister,
accompanied by her older daughters, myself, and a small suite, she went
to towns surrounding Tsarskoe Selo and southward as far as Pskoff, staff
headquarters, where the younger Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna was a
hospital nurse. From there she proceeded to Vilna, Kovno, and Grodno, in
which city she met the Emperor and with him went on to Dvinsk. The
enthusiasm and affection with which the Empress was met in all these
places and in stations along the route beggars description. A hundred
incidents of the journey crowd my memory, each one worth the telling had
I space to include them in this narrative. I remember, for example, the
remarkable scene in the big fortress of Kovno, where acres of hospital
beds were assembled and where the tall figure of the Empress, moving
through those interminable aisles, was greeted like the visit of an
angel. I never recall that journey without remembering the hospital at
Grodno, where a gallant young officer lay dying of his wounds. Hearing
that the Empress was on her way to the hospital, he rallied unexpectedly
and declared to his nurses that he was determined to live until she
came. Sheer will power kept life in the man’s body until the Empress
arrived, and when, at the door of the hospital, she was told of his
dying wish to see her she hurried first to his bedside, kneeling beside
it and receiving his last smile, his last gasping words of greeting and
farewell.
After one very fatiguing day our train passed a sanitary train of the
Union of Zemstvos moving south. The Empress, who should have been
resting in bed at the time, ordered her train stopped that she might
visit, to the surprise and delight of the doctors, this splendidly
equipped rolling hospital. Another surprise visit was to the estate of
Prince Tichkevitch, whose family supported on their own lands a very
efficient hospital unit. It was impossible to avoid noticing how in the
towns visited by the Empress, dressed as a simple sister of mercy, the
love of the people was most manifest. In Grodno, Dvinsk, and other
cities where she appeared with the Emperor there was plenty of
enthusiasm, but on those occasions etiquette obliged her to lay aside
her uniform and to dress as the wife of the Emperor. Much better the
people loved her when she went among them in her nurse’s dress, their
devoted friend and sister. Etiquette forgotten, they crowded around her,
talked to her freely, claimed her as their own.
Soon after returning from this visit of inspection the Empress
accompanied by Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, General Racine,
Commander of the Palace Guards, a maid of honor and myself, set off on a
journey to Moscow, where to my extreme sorrow and dismay I perceived for
the first time unmistakable evidences of a spreading intrigue against
the Imperial Family. At the station in Moscow the Empress was met by her
sister, the Grand Duchess Serge and the latter’s intimate friend and the
executive of her convent, Mme. Gardieve. Welcome from the people there
was none, as General Djounkovsky, Governor of Moscow, had announced,
without any authority whatsoever, that the Empress was in the city
incognito and did not wish to meet anyone. In consequence of this order
we drove to the Kremlin through almost empty streets. Nevertheless the
Empress began at once the inspection of hospitals, accompanied by
General Racine and her maid of honor, Baroness Boukshoevden, daughter of
the Russian Ambassador in Denmark. During our stay in Moscow I was not
as constantly with the Empress as usual, our rooms in the Kremlin being
far apart. However, General Odoevsky, the fine old Governor of the
Kremlin, installed a telephone between our rooms, and on her free
evenings the Empress often summoned me to sit with her in her dressing
room, hung with light blue draperies and looking out over the river and
the ancient roofs of Moscow. I lunched and dined with others of the
suite in an old part of the immense palace known as the Granovita
Palata, and here occurred one night a disagreeable scene in which
General Racine, in the presence of the whole company, administered a
stinging rebuke to General Djounkovsky, Governor of Moscow, for his
responsibility for the cold welcome accorded her Majesty. The Governor
turned very pale but made no answer to the accusation of General Racine.
Already my mind was in a tumult of trouble, more and more conscious of
the atmosphere of intrigue, plots, and conspiracies, the end of which I
could not see. In the coldness of the Grand Duchess Serge, in my
childhood such a friend to me and to my family, her chilly refusal to
listen to her sister’s denial of preposterous tales of the political
influence exerted by Rasputine, by the general animosity towards myself,
I began dimly to realize that there was a plot to strike at her Majesty
through Rasputine and myself. There was absolutely nothing I could do,
and I had to watch with tearless grief the breach between the sisters
grow wider and deeper until their association was robbed of most of its
old intimacy. I knew well enough, or I was convinced that I knew, that
the dismissed maid of honor, Mlle. Tutcheff, was at the bottom of the
whole affair, her family being among the most prominent in Moscow. But I
could say nothing, do nothing.
With great relief we saw our train leave Moscow for a round of visits in
surrounding territory, and here again the enthusiasm with which the
people welcomed the Empress was unbounded. In the town of Toula, for
example, and a little farther on in Orel, the people were so tumultuous
in their greeting, they crowded so closely around their adored Empress,
that our party could scarcely make our way to church and hospital. Once,
following the Empress out of a church, carrying in my hands an ikon
which had been presented to her, I was fairly overthrown by the crowding
multitude and fell halfway down the high flight of steps before friendly
hands could get me to my feet. I did not mind this, being only too
rejoiced at evidences of love and devotion which the simple people of
Russia felt for their Empress. In one town where there were no modern
carriages she was dragged along in an old coach of state such as a
medieval bishop might have used, the coach being quite covered with
flowers and branches. In the town of Charkoff hundreds of students met
the train bearing aloft portraits of her Majesty. In the small town of
Belgorod, where the Empress wished to stop in order to visit a very
sacred monastery, I shall never forget the joy with which the sleepy
ischvostiks hurried through the darkness of the night to drive us the
three or four versts from the railway to the monastery. Nor can I forget
the arrival at the monastery, the sudden flare of lights as the monks
hastened out to meet and greet their Sovereign Empress. These were the
people, the plain people of Russia, and the difference between them and
the plotting officials we had left behind in Moscow was a sad and a
terrible contrast.
On December 6 (Russian Calendar), the birthday of the Emperor, we met
his train at Voronezh, where our parties joined in visits to Tambov,
Riasan, and other towns where the people gave their Majesties wonderful
greetings. In Tambov the Emperor and Empress visited and had tea with a
charming woman of advanced age, Mme. Alexandra Narishkin, friend of
Alexander III and of many distinguished men of her time. Mme. Narishkin,
horrible to relate, was afterwards murdered by the Bolsheviki, neither
her liberal mind nor her long services to her country, and especially to
her humble friends in Tambov, sparing her from the blood lust of the
destroyers of Russia.
The journey of their Majesties terminated at Moscow, where the younger
children of the family awaited them. I can still see the slim, erect
figure of Alexei standing at salute on the station platform, and the
rosy, eager faces of Marie and Anastasie welcoming their parents after
their long separation. The united family drove to the Kremlin, this
time not quite so inhospitably received. In the days following the
Moscow hospitals and military organizations were visited in turn, and we
included in these visits out of town activities of the Moscow Zemstvo
(county council), canteens, etc. In one of these centers our host was
Prince Lvoff, afterwards active in demanding the abdication of the Tsar,
and I remember with what deference he received their Majesties, and the
especial attention he paid to the Tsarevitch, whose autograph he begged
for the visitors’ book. Before we left Moscow the Empress paid two
visits, one to the old Countess Apraxin, sister of the former first lady
in waiting, Princess Galatzine and, with the Emperor, to the
Metropolitan Makari, a good man, but mercilessly persecuted during the
Revolution.
There was one small but significant incident which happened after our
return to Tsarskoe Selo, near the end of the year 1914. It failed of its
intended effect, but had it not failed it might have had a far-reaching
influence on world events at that time. Looking back on it now, I
sometimes wonder exactly what lay back of the plot, and who was
responsible for its inception. One evening late in the year I received a
visit from two war nurses lately released from a German prison where
they had been taken with a portion of a captured Russian regiment. In
much perturbation of spirit these nurses told me of a third nurse who
had been captured and imprisoned with them. This woman they had come to
distrust as she had been accorded many special favors by the Germans.
She had been given good food and even champagne, and when the nurses
were released she alone was conveyed to the frontier in a motor car, the
others going on foot. While in prison this woman had boasted that she
expected to be received by the Emperor, to whom she proposed to present
the flag of the captured regiment. The other nurses declared that in
their opinion his Majesty should be warned of the woman’s dubious
character.
Hardly knowing what to think of such an extraordinary story, I thought
it my duty to lay the matter before General Voyeikoff, Chief Commander
of the Palace Guards, and when I learned from him that the Emperor had
consented to receive the nurse I begged that the woman be investigated
before being allowed to enter the palace. The Emperor showed some
vexation, but he consented. When General Voyeikoff examined the woman
she made a display of great frankness, handing him a revolver which she
said it had been necessary for her to carry at the front. General
Voyeikoff, thinking it strange that the weapon had not been taken away
from her by the Germans, immediately ordered a search of her effects. In
the handbag which she would certainly have carried with her to the
palace were found two more loaded revolvers. The woman was, of course,
arrested, and although I cannot explain why, her arrest caused great
indignation among certain members of the aristocracy who previously had
received her at their homes. The whole onus of her arrest was placed on
me, although the Emperor declared his belief that she was a German spy
sent to assassinate him. That she was a spy I have never doubted, but in
my own mind I have never even tried to guess from whence she came.