THE GREAT WAR
It is useless to repeat that when the great war broke out no one in
Russia expected it, the Czar least of all. I shall not touch upon the
serious part of this awful drama; I only mention it in so far as it
has to do with the unhappy Empress. She was quite overpowered by it,
and thought it the culminating point of her misfortunes. Apart from
her apprehensions for that Russia whose Sovereign she was, she felt
deeply the fact that she was going to be at war with her own kith and
kin, and with her beloved brother of whom she was so fond. No one
doubted among her surroundings that France and Russia united together
would surely and quickly beat the Germans, but the Czarina knew very
well that whatever the outcome of the struggle she would become one of
its principal victims. She was perfectly aware that the nation which
disliked her so intensely called her the “German” quite openly, and
that she would probably be suspected of favouring the land of her
birth in preference to that of her adoption; she chafed beforehand at
the injustice of the accusation. Everybody noticed her intense emotion
on the day which followed the declaration of hostilities, when, during
the religious ceremony which took place in the Winter Palace, she
stood beside the Czar, and listened to the reading of the manifesto
announcing to the nation that Germany had challenged it to mortal
combat. Before she left Peterhof (where the Court was spending the
summer) for St. Petersburg, I ventured to express to her my hope that
she would have sufficient strength to bear the fatigue and emotions
of the trying day. “I can bear anything now,” she replied. “Since I
did not die yesterday, it seems to me that nothing will ever kill me.”
Momentous words which I was to remember more than once as time went on
and one disaster followed upon another.
When the war broke out the Empress Dowager was in England. She
telegraphed to her daughter-in-law to take her place at the head of the
Red Cross until her return to Russia, and to take the first measures
necessary to ensure its activity. The Czarina was but too willing to
do so, but she encountered unusual opposition and even hostility on
the part of the officials interested in the society, who criticised
all the improvements which she suggested, and even refused to follow
the instructions which she gave them. This, of course, was a source
of bitter mortification to her, and she was but too glad to retire
altogether from the management of the whole affair as soon as her
mother-in-law returned. But this was wrongly interpreted by the public
that said the Sovereign was not interested in the cause of the wounded,
because she disapproved altogether of the war, and would have liked to
see Russia come to an agreement with Germany.
The position of my unfortunate mistress grew more and more difficult
as time went on. At first the triumphant (for so it was called) march
of the Russian troops into Galicia and the capture of Lemberg seemed
to point to a successful campaign, but then came the first reverses,
followed by the great retreat which meant abandoning to the enemy some
of the most fertile provinces of the Russian Empire and the whole of
Poland. The loss of the whole line of fortresses which defended the
Vistula was also an awful blow dealt both to Russia’s might and to
Russia’s welfare as well as prestige. Of course the whole country
waxed indignant at this unexpected series of disasters, and of course
the government was made responsible for them.
The want of foresight on the part of the War Office was attributed to
the general corruption which existed in all Russian administrative
spheres, and also to the partiality of the Czar for certain favourites,
against whom he would never listen to any criticisms and whom he
continued to employ though the whole country had recognised their utter
incapacity.
The Empress knew all these things: she had even been asked more than
once to interfere and to bring them to the notice of the Czar, but
she had always refused to meddle in questions which she felt were
so important that any false step might be accompanied by terrible
consequences. Once during one of the flying visits which the Commander
in Chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas, paid to St. Petersburg from the
front, he had tried to enlist her sympathies in favour of a vast plan
of reform he wanted to bring through, but she was so mistrustful of
him that she had thought it better to do nothing but to declare to
him that she did not think herself competent to offer advice in view
of the general difficulties presented by the situation. She felt
frightened at the persistence with which certain people who were not
over well disposed in her favour wanted to get her mixed up in matters
where the smallest blunder might bring upon her head the wrath of the
whole nation. But at the same time she attempted to do what she had
never tried before, that is, to discuss with her husband the events
of the day and give him the benefit of her opinions, which, though
always moderate, were distinctly in favour of the continuance of the
autocratic system. She once told me that she thought it would be far
more advantageous to the nation if the Duma were permanently prorogued,
at least for as long as hostilities lasted, because she feared for one
thing that its criticisms would destroy the faith of the nation in its
government, and for another, that it would prevent by the discussions
it would be sure to raise the conclusion of a peace favorable to
Russian interests. This peace the Czarina called for with all her
heart, and she would have sacrificed much to see it concluded. This got
to be known, the more so that she never even tried to hide it, and the
rumour arose that she was negotiating the conditions of such a peace
with her German relations. This I do not believe for one moment she
had ever done or wanted to do, but those intent on her destruction
naturally accused her of intriguing in a sense favourable to German
interests. She had unfortunately antagonised every single party in
the country, the aristocracy to begin with, and also the extreme
radicals and socialists who made her responsible for all the measures
of repression which the government had begun to take against them. The
poor woman had become the scapegoat of all the sins of Israel.
Nevertheless she fought bravely against these terrible odds, and she
applied herself to give to the Czar some of the energy which he lacked,
and of which perhaps she possessed too much. It was then that she
paid different visits to the Front, a thing which she had never been
allowed to do whilst the Grand Duke Nicholas was commander in chief,
and she tried to cheer up her husband, and to encourage him in the
new responsibilities which he had assumed when he had dismissed his
uncle and taken upon himself the functions of Commander in Chief of
the Army. He had been forced into his decision by the general wish of
the public, who were dissatisfied with the Grand Duke Nicholas, and
hoped that the presence of the Sovereign at the head of his troops
would infuse courage into the hearts of the latter and induce them to
make every effort against the foe. But the troops were not to blame
for the reverses which had overtaken them; the lack of ammunitions was
the cause of the evil, and this could not be remedied by any commander
in chief, but would have required a thorough and radical reform in the
whole administration of the War Office.
There existed no one in Russia powerful enough to enforce this reform.
In the circumstances in which the country found itself placed, it would
have required the energy and the iron will of a Peter the Great to
overcome the obstacles standing in the way of any reforms of a sweeping
nature, and Russia had for sovereign Nicholas II., the weakest that had
ever carried the sceptre of the Romanoffs.
During these anxious days the Empress took to confiding in me and
sometimes called me to her side, generally during the night when she
could not sleep and was haunted by all kinds of fears in regard to the
future. She told me then that she felt persuaded a revolution would
follow upon the war, and that this time it would be a serious one
which would require considerable energy before it would be suppressed.
The idea that it might eventually prove successful never entered her
mind, and I have often wondered at her utter blindness in this matter.
But she felt so convinced that the greater part of Russia was still
attached to the principles embodied in an all-powerful autocracy that
no one was taken more unawares than herself by the promptitude with
which the Russian nation accepted the overthrow of the dynasty. And
yet she had been told often enough that this dynasty was in danger if
it did not decide to make concession to public opinion that clamoured
for a change. She still nursed illusions, and she honestly believed
that her personal efforts in favour of wounded and disabled soldiers
had made her popular with the army, that it felt grateful to her and to
the Czar, and that it would not allow them to be harmed. She liked to
relate anecdotes tending to prove this, and whenever she returned to
Czarskoi Selo from one of the frequent visits she made to the Front,
after the Emperor had assumed the supreme command, she liked to call
me to her side and relate to me all that she had seen whilst there,
and how the wounded whom she had visited had thanked her for her
kindness towards them, not knowing that their thanks had been uttered
in obedience of a command and had never proceeded from the heart of
those who had uttered them. There had come, however, one fatal day
when, instead of the cheers to which she had been used, the Empress
was received with a dead silence by the troops when she accompanied
her husband to a review of regiments about to be sent to the fighting
Front. This was the first time that such a thing had happened to her,
and the poor Czarina was so upset by this proof that she had lost the
affection of her soldiers that she declared she would no longer show
herself among them. Of course her friends tried to cheer her up, and to
explain to her that this had been a pure accident, but the impression
had been produced, and its effects were to be lasting ones. The first
two years of the war dragged on, and sometimes I wondered whether my
beloved mistress would ever live to see the end of this awful conflict.
She was getting weaker and weaker and her nerves were so entirely
destroyed that all those who still cared for her were getting quite
alarmed on her account. The Emperor alone seemed quite unconcerned and
failed to notice the great change that had come over his wife. He
imagined that she was anxious about the war, but did not dream that her
health was getting worse every day and that she had lost the energy
she had been endowed with before, in the hopeless struggle she was
fighting against forces which were bound to overcome her in the long
run. All her former vivacity had left her. She had become sweeter than
she had ever been, even during her first years of married life, and
she accepted with gratitude every small service one rendered her. The
haughty pride with which she had in former times met any unpleasantness
that occurred to her had disappeared. She had become resigned to
everything that might befall her, but her great anxiety was for her
husband and children, especially the former, against whom she dreaded
an attempt at assassination whenever he was at the Front. During the
sleepless nights which had become her portion she fancied all kinds of
evils, and then she would proceed to the telephone which put her in
direct communication with head-quarters and speak with the aide-de-camp
on duty, asking for news of the Emperor. I do not think that she ever
obtained more than an hour or two of repose in the twenty-four, and
sometimes, when considering this, I did not, as I had previously,
blame the Princess Dondoukoff for administering to her opiates destined
to give her some rest. All this constituted a terrible state of things,
but still it was nothing in comparison with what was to follow, and
the unfortunate Czarina was soon to drink to the very dregs the cup of
sorrow that had been destined for her.