THE SPRINGTIDE OF DISCONTENT
The consequences of the Khodinka catastrophe were more tragic even than
could have been conjectured. This terrible event had its effect among
the lower classes--the peasants in particular. They had been content
with their lot during the last years of the former reign. The event gave
ample food also for the underground work of the anarchists, who had
never given up their activity. On the contrary, the party silently
prepared its batteries. The Coronation deputations from the rural
classes returned to their homes dissatisfied with what they had seen,
and discontented with the little attention that had been paid to them.
Among these deputations were people who had been present at the
Coronation of Alexander III., and who remembered the words he had spoken
on that occasion. They had expected something of the same kind, and
their disappointment was intense. Then came that horror of Khodinka
Field. It was altogether to be regretted that it had been hushed up
instead of being made to serve as a pretext for a closer union of the
Sovereign with his subjects. His apparent indifference and icy
impassiveness in presence of this unparalleled disaster had entirely
alienated the affections of his subjects, who were unaware that when the
tragedy first took place he was misinformed as to its gravity.
Unfortunately, his absence of active sympathy with the sufferers during
the days just after the accident accentuated the feeling. Among the
upper classes some further dismay was felt as it became recognised that
the new monarch lacked firmness of character.
One early example of this temperamental weakness created an unpleasant
impression on the public. When the Siberian Railway was quite completed
the question arose in regard to the Department to which the
administration of this important line should be entrusted: should it be
administered by the Finance or the War Ministry?
At that time Count Witte was at the head of the Treasury, whilst General
Kouropatkine was in charge of the Army. Each Minister wanted to control
the railway; each had numerous eloquent arguments in support of his
view; and each had the opportunity to lay these arguments before
Nicholas II. The Emperor at first was quite of opinion that General
Kouropatkine should have the Siberian line under his control, and
accordingly granted his request. When Count Witte came to him the next
day, his report proved to the perplexed Sovereign that the Ministry of
Finance was the proper Department to which the administration of the
railway should be confided; and so his arguments prevailed, with the
consequence that the decision of the day previous was changed. But on
the following morning Kouropatkine returned, and again the scales were
turned in his favour until Witte, with new reasons, once more secured a
decision in favour of his own Department. This sort of thing, so it is
said, went on seventeen times, until at last Count Witte obtained
control of the railway by threatening to resign unless the
administration was entrusted to the Treasury Department.
The dissatisfaction earlier alluded to not only pervaded the lower and
middle classes, but also existed in Society circles, who adversely
criticised the neglect of Court life which had become a characteristic
of the new reign. The semi-seclusion in which Alexandra Feodorovna
lived, though it was not so complete as it became later on, still was
unpleasantly felt in the gay world of the Russian capital. Gradually she
was no longer missed, and her presence, when she deigned to be present
at an entertainment, was felt to be more a bore than an honour. And in
this absence of a Court, Society became lax in its manners and morals,
being certain it would never meet with praise or blame whatever it did.
Nor did the effect end here, for Society, finding no subject for gossip
in the doings and sayings incidental to the Imperial entertainments,
which had played such an important part in the winter season of St.
Petersburg, began to turn its attention elsewhere, and unfortunately
politics became the vogue.
For the first two or three years following the Coronation things went on
more or less as formerly; but later the position of matters in China
following upon the Boxer rebellion began to engross the attention of our
Foreign Office and of certain self-styled political personalities. The
Yalu affair as it developed was seized upon by the press and subjected
to comment of a character neither favourable to the Government nor to
the Imperial Family. Subsequently Russia’s relations with Japan entered
upon a new phase.
No one in Russia had believed in the Yellow Peril. One person alone had
foreseen it, and had he lived it is probable that things might have
taken a different direction. This was the head of our Foreign Office,
Count Muravieff. Unfortunately, he died suddenly at the very moment when
his talents might have found the opportunity for exercise for the
benefit of his country.
Count Muravieff was a curious personality, and he certainly deserves
more than a passing mention. He was the last Russian diplomat of the old
school, that of Nesselrode and Gortschakov, who still believed in
traditions, and who had a political system.
His career, which was very rapid at the end, dragged very slowly at
first. For many years he remained in Paris, merely as an attaché,
although he was the great favourite and personal friend of Prince
Orloff, who took him with him when he was removed to Berlin. There he
soon won for himself the good graces of Prince Bismarck, who grew to
appreciate and know him well when he filled the post of chargé
d’affaires during the long illness of his chief.
Later on he was the right hand of Count Paul Schouvaloff, who, though a
charming and clever man, a diplomat by nature, was not one by education.
Muravieff, on the contrary, was expert in all the _finesses du métier_,
and his consummate tact allowed him to be of the greatest use to the
Ambassador, to whose success in the German capital he contributed
largely. He was a very quiet man, reserved in appearance, but immensely
clever, sarcastic sometimes, and always delighted when he could achieve
some kind of success of which the world in general knew nothing. He
liked to be the hand in the background that pulled the strings, yet
vanity was as unknown to his nature as shrewdness was one of its
principal characteristics. He was a keen observer, and during the years
which he spent in Berlin--which at the time, owing to the immense
personality of Prince Bismarck, was the centre of the politics of the
world--he had carefully studied all the intricacies of international
politics, and had paid special attention to the personality of the
German Chancellor.
He was ambitious, and one of his great dreams was the formation of a
coalition against England, whom he considered as the traditional enemy
of Russia. He hated everything English, and later on, when he came to
lead Russia’s foreign policy, he expressed that hatred by seeking to
destroy English prestige in the Near, as well as in the Far, East,
where, his clear brain guessed, lurked the danger of the future. When
Count Schouvaloff left Berlin, Count Muravieff also said good-bye to the
German capital. He was appointed Russian Minister at the Court of
Copenhagen, a very coveted post at the time, owing to the close ties
that existed between the Royal Family of Denmark and the Imperial House
of Russia.
Whilst there he won for himself the good graces of Queen Louise, and
also the regard of the Empress Marie Feodorovna. But he was the _bête
noire_ of Prince Lobanoff, who had succeeded M. de Giers as Minister for
Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, and the Prince did all he could to
put him aside and to oblige him to retire into private life.
Count Muravieff pretended not to perceive this animosity, and took all
possible care to avoid friction between himself and his chief. However,
he was not successful; indeed, it was said that the decree recalling him
from Copenhagen was ready, and about to be presented for the signature
of the Emperor, when Prince Lobanoff suddenly died and, following the
advice of his mother, Nicholas II. appointed as his successor Count
Muravieff.
In the responsible position which became his, the Count applied all his
energy to uphold Russian prestige abroad. Though he was not favourable
to the French alliance, he submitted to it, and did his best under
circumstances that were not of his choosing, but which he found himself
called upon to justify. He sought to cultivate good relations with
Germany, and one of his favourite dreams was the formation of a
Russo-German alliance directed against England. He did not live to see
it realised.
Count Muravieff’s wife had been a Princess Gagarine, the sister of
Madame Skobeleff, the consort of the “White General.” Though the
last-mentioned union had not been a happy one, the relations between the
Count and his brother-in-law had always remained cordially affectionate.
The two had the same ambitions, and though their aims might have been
different, yet they sympathised with each other and relied upon each
other’s judgments. It was this last circumstance that was in part the
cause of the animosity which divided the Minister for Foreign Affairs
and General Kouropatkine, who held the portfolio of War at that time.
General Kouropatkine had been the head of the staff of the division
commanded by Skobeleff during the Turkish War of 1877-78. In that
capacity he had done very well. The successes of his General had, in a
certain measure, influenced his career, inasmuch as they had been
attributed to the wise dispositions Kouropatkine himself had made.
Kouropatkine was a brave man and a good tactician, but one of those
people that, while very useful in a secondary position, are less
successful in actual leadership. Guided by a first-rate intelligence,
such as that of Skobeleff, Kouropatkine’s best abilities came to the
front, and as the executive of another person’s directions he was
invaluable. But he lacked not only initiative, but also the ability to
accurately balance the pros and cons of any given position in which he
found himself. This explains, not so much his mistakes during the
conduct of the Japanese War, which perhaps were unavoidable, but the
wrong appreciation he had taken of the political circumstances that led
up to it, and especially of the resources of Japan.
General Kouropatkine’s choice as War Minister had been partly due to the
personal liking of the Emperor. Kouropatkine had a certain prestige
among the Army, as indeed had all those who had served under Skobeleff.
As such his choice was bound to be popular, and though it was not
universally approved, yet, all things considered, it was welcomed by the
public.
Kouropatkine soon discovered the hidden resentment which Nicholas II.
nurtured against Japan and the Japanese nation, and he at once became a
firm partisan of an aggressive policy directed against the Government of
the Mikado.
Count Muravieff, shrewder than his colleague, on the contrary,
discouraged these tendencies, with the result that dissensions between
the two Ministers on that important subject became very sharp and did
not always end to the advantage of the Count.
One day a quarrel took place in presence of Nicholas II. between the two
men, and Muravieff insisted upon proper preparations being made in
regard to the war which he felt would be inevitable, saying that the
enemy whom it was proposed to fight was by no means so despicable as was
thought. Also that, especially considering the enormous distance between
the two countries, no precautions ought to be neglected. To this
Kouropatkine made the obvious reply that it was evident that the Count,
not having been a soldier, could not judge of the situation, since with
the facilities which the completion of the Siberian Railway would put at
the disposal of Russia, a victory of its troops was a foregone
conclusion. He added that he was so sure of what he was saying that he
would not even advise the Emperor to send the best troops so far, as
those already stationed in Siberia would be more than sufficient for the
work that had to be done.
Muravieff controlled himself with difficulty, and when he returned home
he was almost beside himself with grief and rage. He retired to his own
room, giving orders not to be disturbed, and there he was found dead a
few hours later.
General Kouropatkine thereafter found himself with a free field before
him.
A few years, however, dragged on before the war broke out. Count
Muravieff had been replaced by Count Lamsdorff, an inoffensive man, who
was the victim of a situation not of his own making. In the meanwhile,
General Kouropatkine started on that journey to Japan, whence he
returned with more illusions than ever; and in St. Petersburg, as well
as in the rest of Russia, the dissatisfaction against the existing order
of things grew and grew. Everybody felt that a change of some kind ought
to take place, that a corrective should be applied to the generally
prevailing uneasiness. People who thought themselves wise, statesmen who
believed themselves to be infallible, all combined to bring about a
catastrophe such as Russia had not known before, one that was to wound
the nation in its most sensitive spot--the disdain for that yellow race
which already had once been its master, and whose pride and power it
believed it had crushed for ever, on that far-off day when the
triumphant troops of Dmitry Donskoy had driven the Tatar hordes back to
the plains of Asia.
One man alone, Count Witte, had done all that was in his power to
prevent the outbreak of hostilities with Japan. That shrewd Minister
knew well that in the conditions in which Russia found itself at the
moment, a war, even a victorious one, would have consequences which it
was difficult to foresee. He, therefore, tried to persuade General
Kouropatkine to give up his warlike plans. But the latter, with the war
party at his back, overruled the Count. They told the Emperor that the
country’s honour was at stake, and that it was impossible to go back;
that, besides, the victory was as certain as anything could be certain
in this world; that the Army was prepared; and that at the first sight
of Russian regiments the Japanese troops would fly in disorder; that the
whole campaign would be a military promenade and nothing else. And when
at last Witte applied to the good sense of Nicholas II. and asked him
point-blank what advantages he hoped to gain by a war which might still
be avoided, and which ought to be avoided, even at some sacrifice of
pride, and _amour propre_, the Emperor is credited with the reply, “Why
avoid it? It is time to give some amusement to the nation” (“_Il est
temps donner des distractions au pays_”).
It was under that impression that the Japanese campaign began. No one
believed in its danger, but a good many people who shared the conviction
that it would end in victory for the Russian troops, were, nevertheless,
uneasy as to the consequences of a war breaking out at a time when
internal affairs were not in thorough harmony. The public mind, in
short, began to feel vaguely that dark clouds were appearing on the
horizon, and that a storm of unusual gravity was brewing which would
bring destruction along with it.
The Emperor alone remained calm and immovable, fully assured of victory,
so it was said, because the spiritualistic mediums who constituted his
most intimate society had all prophesied that he would win laurels such
as no Russian monarch had ever won before. His immediate surroundings
were jubilant also, and sculptured busts of himself were presented in
great pomp to General Kouropatkine, who had begged for permission to
lead personally the army at whose head he stood to victory and fame. The
chauvinist press exulted; the _Novoie Vremia_ even began to anticipate
the day when festivities on a hitherto unknown scale would signalise
the return of the troops from the plains of Manchuria laden with spoils.
Some ladies who wanted to ingratiate themselves into the Imperial
favour, worked at banners and flags, destined to reward the gallant
heroes who were being sent to the front with such hurrahs and such
enthusiasm--enthusiasm which, nevertheless, did not go beyond the small
circle of people who courted the good graces of those in power. But
outside those circles the war was not popular, and the soldier sent to
fight so far away from hearth and home marched without any other feeling
than that of dread and apprehension as to the fate that awaited him in
those distant plains whither he was ordered to go. Slowly the distant
clouds which I have mentioned were getting nearer, appearing darker and
darker as they approached; indeed, trouble was at hand, and,
unfortunately, those who knew it was coming were powerless to avert it.
The Sovereign had spoken, and he had to be obeyed, even by the people
who, in the dark, were preparing the day when they should attempt to
destroy both his Person and his Throne.