NICHOLAS II. AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF--THE ARRIVAL OF THE CZAREVITCH AT
G.H.Q.--VISITS TO THE FRONT
(SEPTEMBER--DECEMBER, 1915)
The Grand-Duke Nicholas left G.H.Q. on September 7th, two days after the
arrival of the Czar. He left for the Caucasus, taking with him General
Yanushkevitch, who had been replaced as First Quartermaster-General of
the Russian armies by General Alexeieff a short time before. This
appointment had been very well received by military circles, who had
high hopes of Alexeieff. He it was who had drawn up the plan of campaign
in Galicia in the autumn of 1914, and as Commander of the North-Western
Front he had just given further proof of his military talent. The burden
which was now laid upon his shoulders was a crushing one, for as a
result of the irresistible advance of the Germans the Russian army was
in a very critical position, and the decisions which he had to take were
exceptionally grave. From the outset the Czar gave him an entirely free
hand with regard to the operations, confining himself to covering him
with his authority and taking responsibility for everything he did.
A few days after Nicholas II. took over the Supreme Command the
situation suddenly took a turn for the worse. The Germans, who had
massed large forces north-west of Vilnam, had succeeded in breaking the
Russian front, and their cavalry was operating in the rear of the army
and threatening its communications. On September 18th we seemed on the
verge of a great disaster.
Thanks to the skill of the dispositions which were taken and the
endurance and heroism of the troops, the peril was averted. This was the
last effort of the enemy, who himself had shot his bolt. In the early
days of October the Russians in turn gained a success over the
Austrians, and gradually the immense front became fixed and both sides
went to ground.
This marked the end of the long retreat which had begun in May. In spite
of all their efforts the Germans had not obtained a decision. The
Russian armies had abandoned a large stretch of territory, but they had
everywhere escaped the clutches of their foes.
* * * * *
The Czar returned to Tsarskoïe-Selo on October 6th for a few days, and
it was decided that Alexis Nicolaïevitch should go back with him to
G.H.Q., for he was most anxious to show the Heir to the troops. The
Czarina bowed to this necessity. She realised how greatly the Czar
suffered from loneliness, for at one of the most tragic hours of his
life he was deprived of the presence of his family, his greatest
consolation. She knew what a comfort it would be to have his son with
him. Yet her heart bled at the thought of Alexis leaving her. It was the
first time she had been separated from him, and one can imagine what a
sacrifice it meant to the mother, who never left her child, even for a
few minutes, without wondering anxiously whether she would ever see him
alive again.
We left for Mohileff on October 14th, and the Czarina and the
Grand-Duchesses came to the station to see us off. As I
[Illustration: THE CZAR AND CZAREVITCH ON THE BANKS OF THE DNIEPER.
SUMMER OF 1916.]
[Illustration: THE CZAR AND CZAREVITCH NEAR MOHILEFF. SUMMER OF 1916.
{_Facing page 148._]
was saying good-bye to her, Her Majesty asked me to write every day to
give her news of her son. I promised to carry out her wishes faithfully
the whole time we were away.
The next day we stopped at Riegitza, where the Czar wished to review
some troops which had been withdrawn from the front and were billeted in
the neighbourhood. All these regiments had taken part in the exhausting
campaigns in Galicia and the Carpathians, and their establishment had
been almost entirely renewed two or three times over. But in spite of
the terrible losses they had suffered, they marched past the Czar with a
proud and defiant bearing. Of course, they had been resting behind the
line for several weeks, and had had time to recover from their weariness
and privations. It was the first time that the Czar had passed any of
his troops in review since he had taken over the Command. They now
looked upon him both as their Emperor and Generalissimo. After the
ceremony he mixed with the men and conversed personally with several of
them, asking questions about the severe engagements in which they had
taken part. Alexis Nicolaïevitch was at his father’s heels, listening
intently to the stories of these men, who had so often stared death in
the face. His features, which were always expressive, became quite
strained in the effort not to lose a single word of what the men were
saying. His presence at the Czar’s side greatly interested the soldiers,
and when he had gone they were heard exchanging in a whisper their ideas
about his age, size, looks, etc. But the point that made the greatest
impression upon them was the fact that the Czarevitch was wearing the
uniform of a private soldier, which had nothing to distinguish it from
that of a boy in the service.
On October 16th we arrived at Mohileff, a little White Russian town of a
highly provincial appearance to which the Grand-Duke Nicholas had
transferred G.H.Q. during the great German offensive two months before.
The Czar occupied the house of the Governor, which was situated on the
summit of the steep left bank of the Dnieper. He was on the first floor
in two fairly large rooms, one of which was his study and the other his
bedroom. He had decided that his son should share his room. Alexis
Nicolaïevitch’s camp-bed was accordingly placed next to his father’s. I
myself and some members of the Czar’s military suite were lodged in the
local court-house, which had been converted for use by G.H.Q.
Our time was spent much as follows. Every morning at half-past nine the
Czar called on the General Staff. He usually stayed there until one
o’clock, and I took advantage of his absence to work with Alexis
Nicolaïevitch in his study, which we had been obliged to make our
workroom owing to lack of space. We then took lunch in the main room of
the Governor’s house. Every day there were some thirty guests, which
included General Alexeieff, his principal assistants, the heads of all
the military missions of the Allies, the suite, and a few officers who
were passing through Mohileff. After lunch the Czar dealt with urgent
business and then about three we went for a drive in a car.
When we had proceeded a certain distance from the town we stopped and
went for a walk in the neighbourhood for an hour. One of our favourite
haunts was the pretty pine-wood in the heart of which is the little
village of Saltanovka, where the army of Marshal Davout met the troops
of General Raievsky on July 29th, 1912.[39] On our return the Czar
resumed work while Alexis Nicolaïevitch prepared the lessons for the
next day in his father’s study. One day when I was there as usual the
Czar turned towards me, pen in hand, and interrupted me in my reading to
remark abruptly:
“If anyone had told me that I should one day sign a declaration of war
on Bulgaria I should have called him a lunatic. Yet that day has come.
But I am signing against my will, as I am certain that the Bulgarian
people have been deceived by their king and the partisans of Austria,
and that the majority remain friendly to Russia. Race feeling will soon
revive and they will realise their mistake, but it will be too late
then.”
The incident shows what a simple life we led at G.H.Q., and the intimacy
which was the result of the extraordinary circumstances under which I
was working.
* * * * *
As the Czar was anxious to visit the troops with the Czarevitch, we left
for the front on October 24th. The next day we arrived at Berditcheff,
where General Ivanoff, commanding the South-Western Front, joined our
train. A few hours later we were at Rovno. It was in this town that
General Brussiloff had established his headquarters, and we were to
accompany him to the place where the troops had been assembled. We went
by car, as we had more than twelve miles to cover. As we left the town a
squadron of aeroplanes joined us and escorted us until we saw the long
grey lines of the units massed behind a forest. A minute later we were
among them. The Czar walked down the front of the troops with his son,
and then each unit defiled in turn before him. He then had the officers
and men on whom decorations were to be bestowed called out of the ranks
and gave them the St. George’s Cross.
It was dark before the ceremony was over. On our return the Czar,
having heard from General Ivanoff that there was a casualty station
quite near, decided to visit it at once. We entered a dark forest and
soon perceived a small building feebly lit by the red flames of torches.
The Czar and Alexis Nicolaïevitch entered the house, and the Czar went
up to all the wounded and questioned them in a kindly way. His
unexpected arrival at so late an hour at a spot so close to the front
was the cause of the general astonishment which could be read on every
face. One private soldier, who had just been bandaged and put back in
bed, gazed fixedly at the Czar, and when the latter bent over him he
raised his only sound hand to touch his sovereign’s clothes and satisfy
himself that it was really the Czar who stood before him and not a
ghost. Close behind his father stood Alexis Nicolaïevitch, who was
deeply moved by the groaning he heard and the suffering he felt all
around him.
We rejoined our train and immediately left for the south. When we woke
next morning we were in Galicia. During the night we had crossed the
former Austrian frontier. The Czar was anxious to congratulate the
troops, whose prodigies of valour had enabled them to remain on hostile
soil notwithstanding the dearth of arms and ammunition. We left the
railway at Bogdanovka and gradually mounted the plateau on which units
from all the regiments of General Tcherbatcheff’s army had been
assembled. When the review was over the Czar disregarded the objections
of his suite and visited the Perchersky Regiment, three miles from the
front lines, at a place which enemy artillery fire could have reached.
We then returned to our cars, which we had left in a forest, and went to
General Lechitzsky’s army, which was some thirty miles away. We were
overtaken by darkness on our way back. A thick mist covered the
countryside; we lost our way and twice had to go back. But after many
wanderings we at length struck the railway again, though we were sixteen
miles from the place where we had left our train! Two hours later we
left for G.H.Q.
The Czar brought away a most encouraging impression from his tour of
inspection. It was the first time that he had been in really close
contact with the troops, and he was glad that he had been able to see
with his own eyes, practically in the firing-line, the fine condition of
the regiments and the splendid spirit with which they were inspired.
We returned to Mohileff in the evening of October 27th, and the next
morning Her Majesty and the Grand-Duchesses also arrived at G.H.Q.
During their journey the Czarina and her daughters had stopped at
several towns in the Governments of Tver, Pskoff, and Mohileff, in order
to visit the military hospitals. They stayed three days with us at
Mohileff and then the whole family left for Tsarskoïe-Selo, where the
Czar was to spend several days.
I have somewhat lingered over the first journey which the Czar made with
his son, and to avoid mere repetition I shall confine myself to a short
summary of the visits we paid to the armies in the month of November.
We left Tsarskoïe-Selo on the 9th. On the 10th we were at Reval, where
the Czar visited a flotilla of submarines which had just come in. The
boats were covered with a thick coating of ice, a sparkling shell for
them. There were also two English submarines which had surmounted
enormous difficulties in penetrating into the Baltic, and had already
succeeded in sinking a certain number of German ships. The Czar bestowed
the St. George’s Cross on their commanding officers.
During our next day at Riga, which formed a kind of advanced bastion in
the German lines, we spent several hours with the splendid regiments of
Siberian Rifles, which were regarded as some of the finest troops in the
Russian army. Their bearing was magnificent, as they marched past before
the Czar, answering his salute with the traditional phrase: “Happy to
serve Your Imperial Majesty,” followed by a tremendous round of cheers.
A few days later we were at Tiraspol, a little town sixty miles north of
Odessa, where the Czar reviewed units from the army of General
Tcherbatcheff. After the ceremony the Czar, desiring to know for himself
what losses the troops had suffered, asked their commanding officers to
order all men who had been in the ranks since the beginning of the
campaign to raise their hands. The order was given, and but a very few
hands were lifted above those thousands of heads. There were whole
companies in which not a man moved. The incident made a very great
impression on Alexis Nicolaïevitch. It was the first time that reality
had brought home to him the horrors of war in so direct a fashion.
The next day, November 22nd, we went to Reni, a small town on the Danube
on the Rumanian frontier. An immense quantity of supplies had been
collected there, for it was a base for the river steamers which were
engaged in taking food, arms and ammunition to the unfortunate Serbians
whom the treachery of Bulgaria had just exposed to an Austro-German
invasion.
The following day, near Balta in Podolia, the Czar inspected the famous
division of Caucasian cavalry whose regiments had won new laurels in the
recent campaign. Among other units were the Kuban and Terek Cossacks,
perched high in the saddle
[Illustration: THE CZAR AND THE CZAREVITCH AT A RELIGIOUS SERVICE AT
G.H.Q., MOHILEFF.
{_Facing page 154._]
and wearing the huge fur caps which make them look so fierce. As we
started to return, the whole mass of cavalry suddenly moved forward,
took station on both sides of the road, broke into a gallop, tearing up
the hills, sweeping down the banks of ravines, clearing all obstacles,
and thus escorted us to the station in a terrific charge in which men
and animals crashed together on the ground while above the _mêlée_ rose
the raucous yells of the Caucasian mountaineers. It was a spectacle at
once magnificent and terrible which revealed all the savage instincts of
this primitive race.
We did not return to G.H.Q. until November 26th, after having visited
practically the whole of the immense front from the Baltic to the Black
Sea.
* * * * *
On December 10th we heard that the Czar was intending to visit the
regiments of the Guard which were then on the frontier of Galicia. On
the morning of our departure, Thursday, December 16th, Alexis
Nicolaïevitch, who had caught cold the previous day and was suffering
from a heavy catarrh in the head, began to bleed at the nose as a result
of sneezing violently. I summoned Professor Fiodrof,[40] but he could
not entirely stop the bleeding. In spite of this accident we started
off, as all preparations had been made for the arrival of the Czar.
During the night the boy got worse. His temperature had gone up and he
was getting weaker. At three o’clock in the morning Professor Fiodrof,
alarmed at his responsibilities, decided to have the Czar roused and ask
him to return to Mohileff, where he could attend to the Czarevitch under
more favourable conditions.
The next morning we were on our way back to G.H.Q., but the boy’s state
was so alarming that it was decided to take him back to Tsarskoïe-Selo.
The Czar called on the General Staff and spent two hours with General
Alexeieff. Then he joined us and we started off at once. Our journey was
particularly harrowing, as the patient’s strength was failing rapidly.
We had to have the train stopped several times to be able to change the
plugs. Alexis Nicolaïevitch was supported in bed by his sailor Nagorny
(he could not be allowed to lie full length), and twice in the night he
swooned away and I thought the end had come.
Towards morning there was a slight improvement, however, and the
hæmorrhage lessened. At last we reached Tsarskoïe-Selo. It was eleven
o’clock. The Czarina, who had been torn with anguish and anxiety, was on
the platform with the Grand-Duchesses. With infinite care the invalid
was taken to the palace. The doctors ultimately succeeded in cauterizing
the scar which had formed at the spot where a little blood-vessel had
burst. Once more the Czarina attributed the improvement in her son’s
condition that morning to the prayers of Rasputin, and she remained
convinced that the boy had been saved thanks to his intervention.
The Czar stayed several days with us, but he was anxious to get away as
he was wishful to take advantage of the comparative stagnation at the
front to visit the troops and get into the closest possible touch with
them.
His journeys to the front had been a great success. His presence had
everywhere aroused immense enthusiasm, not only among the men but also
among the peasants, who swarmed in from the country round whenever his
train stopped, in the hope of catching a glimpse of their sovereign.
The Czar was certain that his efforts would tend to revive feelings of
patriotism and personal loyalty in the nation and the army. His recent
experiences persuaded him that he had succeeded, and those who went with
him thought the same. Was it an illusion? He who denies its truth can
know little of the Russian people, and cannot have the slightest idea
how deep-rooted was monarchical sentiment in the _moujik_.