Chapter IX: The Imperial Family in the First Days of the War--Our Journey to Moscow

(AUGUST, 1914)

At the moment when this historic scene was taking place in the Foreign Minister’s room at St. Petersburg, the Czar, the Czarina, and their daughters were attending evensong in the little Alexandria church. I had met the Czar a few hours before, and been much struck by the air of weary exhaustion he wore. The pouches which always appeared under his eyes when he was tired seemed to be markedly larger. He was now praying with all the fervour of his nature that God would avert the war which he felt was imminent and all but inevitable.

His whole being seemed to go out in an expression of simple and confident faith. At his side was the Czarina, whose care-worn face wore that look of suffering I had so often seen at her son’s bedside. She too was praying fervently that night, as if she wished to banish an evil dream....

When the service was over Their Majesties and the Grand-Duchesses returned to Alexandria Cottage. It was almost eight o’clock. Before the Czar came down to dinner he went into his study to read the dispatches which had been brought in his absence. It was thus, from a message from Sazonoff, that he learned of Germany’s declaration of war. He spoke to his Minister on the telephone for a short time and asked him to come down to Alexandria Cottage the moment he could get away.

Meanwhile the Czarina and the Grand-Duchesses were waiting for him in the dining-room. Her Majesty, becoming uneasy at the long delay, had just asked Tatiana Nicolaïevna to fetch her father, when the Czar appeared, looking very pale, and told them that war was declared, in a voice which betrayed his agitation, notwithstanding all his efforts. On learning the news the Czarina began to weep, and the Grand-Duchesses likewise dissolved into tears on seeing their mother’s distress.[30]

At nine o’clock Sazonoff arrived at Alexandria. He was closeted with the Czar for a long time, and the latter also received Sir George Buchanan, the Ambassador of Great Britain, in the course of the evening.

I did not see the Czar again until after lunch the next day, when he came up to kiss the Czarevitch[31] before leaving for the solemn session at the Winter Palace, at which, in accordance with traditional usage, he was to issue a manifesto to his people announcing the war with Germany. He looked even worse than on the previous evening, and his eyes sparkled as if he had the fever. He told me he had just heard that the Germans had entered Luxemburg and attacked French customs houses before war was declared on France.

I will reproduce here some of the notes I made in my diary about this time.

_Monday, August 3rd._--The Czar came up to Alexis Nicolaïevitch’s
room this morning. He was a changed man. Yesterday’s ceremony
resolved itself into an impressive manifestation. When he appeared
on the balcony of the Winter Palace the enormous crowd which had
collected on the square fell on their knees and sang the Russian
National Anthem. The enthusiasm of his people has shown the Czar
that this is unquestionably a national war.

I hear that at the Winter Palace yesterday the Czar took a solemn
oath not to make peace while a single enemy soldier remains on
Russian soil. In taking such an oath before the whole world
Nicholas II. shows the true character of this war. It is a matter
of life and death, a struggle for existence.

The Czarina had a long talk with me this afternoon. She was in a
state of great indignation, as she had just heard that on orders
from the Emperor William II. the Dowager-Empress of Russia had been
prevented from continuing her journey to St. Petersburg and had had
to go from Berlin to Copenhagen.

“Fancy a monarch arresting an Empress! How could he descend to
that? He has absolutely changed since the militarist party, who
hate Russia, have gained the upper hand with him. But I am sure he
has been won over to the war against his will. He’s been dragged
into it by the Crown Prince, who openly assumed the leadership of
the pan-German militarists and seemed to disapprove of his father’s
policy. He has forced his father’s hand.

“I have never liked the Emperor William, if only because he is not
sincere. He is vain and has always played the comedian. He was
always reproaching me with doing nothing for Germany, and has
always done his best to separate Russia and France,[32] though I
never believed it was for the good of Russia. He will never forgive
me this war!

“You know that the Czar received a telegram from him the night
before last. It arrived several hours after the declaration of war,
and demanded ‘an immediate reply, which alone could avert the
terrible disaster.’ He thus tried to deceive the Czar once more,
unless the telegram was kept back at Berlin by those who were bent
on war in any case.”

_Tuesday, August 4th._--Germany has declared war on France and I
hear that Switzerland also has mobilised. I have been to the
Legation to get the orders for my ultimate departure.

_Wednesday, August 5th._--I met the Czar in the park. He told me
with immense pleasure that, as a result of the violation of the
neutrality of Belgium, England has joined the great cause. The
neutrality of Italy seems assured as well.

We have already won a great diplomatic victory. Military victory
will follow, and, thanks to the help of England, it will come
sooner than we think. The Germans have against them the whole of
Europe, with the exception of Austria. Their insolence and
despotism have at last been too much even for their allies. Look at
the Italians!

This evening I had another long talk with the Czarina, who will
not hear of my leaving for Switzerland.

“It’s ridiculous! You will never get there. All communications are
interrupted.”

I told her that an arrangement had been made between the French
Embassy and the Swiss Legation, and that we should all go home
together _via_ the Dardanelles.

“The trouble is that, if you have some chance--it’s a very small
one--of getting home, you will have _no_ chance of getting back
here before the end of the war. As Switzerland will not fight, you
will be at home doing nothing.”

At that moment Dr. Derevenko entered the room. In his hand he held
an evening paper announcing the violation of Swiss neutrality by
Germany.

“Again! They must be crazy, mad!” cried the Czarina. “They have
absolutely lost their heads!”

Realising she could not keep me now, she abandoned her resistance
and began to speak kindly of my relations, who will be without news
of me for some considerable time.

“I myself have no news of my brother,” she added. “Where is he? In
Belgium or on the French front? I shiver to think that the Emperor
William may avenge himself against me by sending him to the Russian
front. He is quite capable of such monstrous behaviour! What a
horrible war this is! What evil and suffering it means!... What
will become of Germany? What humiliation, what a downfall is in
store for her? And all for the sins of the Hohenzollerns--their
idiotic pride and insatiable ambition. Whatever has happened to
the Germany of my childhood? I have such happy and poetic memories
of my early years in Darmstadt and the good friends I had there.
But on my later visits Germany seemed to me a changed country--a
country I did not know and had never known.... I had no community
of thought or feeling with anyone except the old friends of days
gone by. Prussia has meant Germany’s ruin. The German people have
been deceived. Feelings of hatred and revenge which are quite
foreign to their nature have been instilled into them. It will be a
terrible, monstrous struggle, and humanity is about to pass through
ghastly sufferings....”

_Thursday, August 6th._--I went into the town this morning. The
violation of the neutrality of Switzerland is not confirmed and
seems most improbable. It is impossible to travel _via_ the
Dardanelles. Our departure is thus postponed, and we cannot say
when it will take place. This uncertainty makes me anxious.

_Sunday, August 9th._--The Czar has had another long talk with me
to-day. As before, he expressed himself with a confidence and
frankness which can only be explained by the exceptional
circumstances through which we are passing. Neither he nor the
Czarina ever used to discuss political or personal questions with
me. But the amazing events of the last few days, and the fact that
I have been so intimately associated with their troubles and
anxieties, have drawn me closer to them, and for the time being the
conventional barriers of etiquette and Court usage have fallen.

The Czar first spoke to me about the solemn session of the Duma on
the previous day. He told me how

{_Facing page 110._]

tremendously pleased he had been with its resolute and dignified
attitude and its fervent patriotism.

“The Duma was in every way worthy of the occasion. It expressed the
real will of the nation, for the whole of Russia smarts under the
insults heaped upon it by Germany. I have the greatest confidence
in the future now.... Speaking personally, I have done everything
in my power to avert this war, and I am ready to make any
concessions consistent with our dignity and national honour. You
cannot imagine how glad I am that all the uncertainty is over, for
I have never been through so terrible a time as the days preceding
the outbreak of war. I am sure that there will now be a national
uprising in Russia like that of the great war of 1812.”

_Wednesday, August 12th._--It is Alexis Nicolaïevitch’s birthday.
He is ten to-day.

_Friday, August 14th._--The Grand-Duke Nicholas Nicolaïevitch,[33]
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies, has left for the front.
Before leaving Peterhof he came to Alexandria to give the Czar the
first trophy of the war, a machine-gun captured from the Germans in
one of the skirmishes which have marked the commencement of
operations on the East Prussian frontier.

_Saturday, August 15th._--I was told last night that my return to
Switzerland has been officially excused. I am told this is the
result of the action M. Sazonoff has taken at Berne at Her
Majesty’s suggestion. In any case, it is more and more doubtful
whether the Swiss will be able to get away.

The Imperial family is to go on the 17th to Moscow where the Czar
will observe the traditional custom and ask the blessing of God on
himself and his people in the tragic hours through which the
country is passing.

_Monday, August 17th._--The arrival of Their Majesties at Moscow
has been one of the most impressive and moving sights I have ever
seen in my life.

After the customary reception at the station we went in a long file
of carriages towards the Kremlin. An enormous crowd had collected
in the squares and in the streets, climbed on the roofs of the
shops, into the branches of trees. They swarmed in the shop windows
and filled the balconies and windows of the houses. While all the
bells of the churches were ringing as if they would never stop,
from those thousands of throats poured that wonderful Russian
National Anthem, so overwhelming with its religious grandeur and
pent emotion, in which the faith of a whole race is embodied:

“God save the Czar!
Mighty and powerful, let him reign for our glory,
For the confusion of our enemies, the orthodox Czar.
God save the Czar!”

On the steps of the churches, through the great doorways of which
one could see the light of the candles burning before the
reliquaries, the priests in vestments, and holding their great
crucifixes in both hands, blessed the Czar as he passed. The hymn
stopped, and then began again, rising like a prayer with a mighty
and majestic rhythm:

“God save the Czar!”

The procession arrived at the Iberian Gate.[34] The Czar got out of
his carriage and, in accordance with custom, entered the chapel to
kiss the miraculous image of the Virgin of Iberia. He came out,
walked a little way, and then stopped, high above the immense
multitude. His face was grave and composed. He stood motionless to
hear the voice of his people. He seemed to be in silent communion
with them. Once again he could hear the great heart of Russia
beating....

He then turned again towards the chapel, crossed himself, put on
his cap, and slowly walked to his carriage, which disappeared under
the old gate and went towards the Kremlin.

* * * * *

Alexis Nicolaïevitch is complaining a good deal of his leg again
to-night. Will he be able to walk to-morrow or will he have to be
carried when Their Majesties go to the Cathedral? The Czar and
Czarina are in despair. The boy was not able to be present at the
ceremony in the Winter Palace. It is always the same when he is
supposed to appear in public. You can be practically certain that
some complication will prevent it. Fate seems to pursue him.

_Tuesday, August 18th._--When Alexis Nicolaïevitch found he could
not walk this morning he was in a terrible state. Their Majesties
have decided that he shall be present at the ceremony all the same.
He will be carried by one of the Czar’s cossacks. But it is a
dreadful disappointment to the parents, who do not wish the idea
to gain ground among the people that the Heir to the Throne is an
invalid.

At eleven o’clock, when the Czar appeared at the top of the Red
Staircase, the huge crowd in the square gave him a magnificent
reception. He came down slowly, with the Czarina on his arm, and at
the head of a long procession slowly crossed the bridge connecting
the palace with the Cathedral of the Assumption and entered the
church amid a frantic outburst of cheering from the crowd. The
Metropolitan Bishops of Kiev, St. Petersburg, and Moscow and the
high dignitaries of the Orthodox clergy were present. When Mass was
over, the members of the Imperial family in turn approached the
holy relics and kissed them. Then they knelt at the tombs of the
patriarchs. Afterwards they went to the Monastery of Miracles to
pray at the tomb of St. Alexis.

Long after Their Majesties had returned to the palace the crowd
continued to collect in the square in the hope of seeing them
again. Even when we came out several hours later there were still
hundreds of peasants outside the palace.

_Thursday, August 20th._--Popular enthusiasm is waxing from day to
day. It seems as if the people of Moscow are so proud of having
their Czar with them, and so anxious to keep him as long as
possible, that they mean to hold him here by manifest proofs of
their affection. The manifestations are increasingly spontaneous,
enthusiastic, and expressive.

Alexis and I drive out in a car every morning. As a rule we go to
the Monks’ Hill, from which there is a magnificent view of the
valley of the Moskova and the city of the Czars. It was from this
spot that Napoleon gazed on Moscow before entering it on September
14th, 1812. It is certainly a marvellous view. In the foreground,
at the foot of the hill, is the Monastery of Novo-Dievitchy, with
its fortified _enceinte_ and sixteen castellated towers. A little
further back is the Holy City, with its four hundred and fifty
churches, its palaces and parks, its monasteries with their
crenellated walls, its gilded cupolas and innumerable domes of
brilliant colours and strange shapes.

As we were coming back from our usual drive this morning, so dense
was the crowd that the chauffeur was obliged to stop in one of the
rather narrow streets in the Yakimanskaïa quarter. The crowd
consisted of humble folk and peasants from the district who had
come into the city to shop or in the hope of seeing the Czar. All
at once there was a loud shout: “The Heir!... The Heir!...” The
crowd surged towards us, surrounded us, and came up so close that
our way was blocked, and we, so to speak, found ourselves prisoners
of these _moujiks_, workmen and shopkeepers who struggled and
fought, shouted, gesticulated, and behaved like lunatics in order
to get a better view of the Czarevitch. By degrees some of the
women and children grew bolder, mounted the steps of the car,
thrust their arms over the doors, and when they succeeded in
touching the boy they yelled out triumphantly: “I’ve touched
him!... I’ve touched the Heir!...”

Alexis Nicolaïevitch, frightened at these exuberant demonstrations,
was sitting far back in the car. He was very pale, startled by this
sudden popular manifestation, which was taking extravagant forms
which were quite novel to him. He recovered himself, however, when
he saw the kindly smiles of the crowd, but he remained embarrassed
at the attention bestowed upon him, not knowing what to say or do.

Personally, I was speculating, not without considerable anxiety,
how all this would end, for I knew that no police regulations are
issued for the Czarevitch’s drives as neither the time nor the
route can be fixed beforehand. I began to fear that we might meet
with some accident in the middle of this unruly crowd swarming
round us.

To my relief two huge _gorodovy_ (policemen) came up, puffing and
blowing, shouting and storming. The crowd displayed the
unquestioning and resigned obedience of the _moujik_. It began to
waver, then slowly drifted away. I then told Derevenko, who was
following in another car, to go ahead, and by degrees we succeeded
in getting clear.

_Friday, August 21st._--Their Majesties, before returning to
Tsarskoïe-Selo, decided to visit the Troïtsa Monastery, the most
celebrated sanctuary in Russia after the world-famed _Laure_ of
Kiev. The train took us as far as the little station of Serghievo,
from which we reached the monastery by car. Perched on a hill, it
would be taken for a fortified city from a distance if the
bright-coloured towers and gilded domes of its thirteen churches
did not betray its true purpose. In the course of its history this
rampart of Orthodoxy has had to resist some formidable assaults,
the most famous being the sixteen months’ siege by an army of
thirty thousand Poles at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

This monastery, like Moscow and the towns of the Upper Volga, is a
spot where the past seems ever present. It calls up visions of the
Russia of the boyarin, the Grand-Dukes of Moscow, and the first
Czars, and vividly explains the historical evolution of the Russian
people.

The Imperial family were present at a _Te Deum_ and knelt before
the relics of St. Sergius, the founder of the monastery. The
Archimandrite then handed the Czar an icon painted in a fragment of
the coffin of the saint, one of the most revered in Russia. In
olden times this image always accompanied the Czars on their
campaigns. On the Czar’s orders it is being sent to General
Headquarters and placed in the “field chapel” of the
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies.

The Czar, Czarina, and their children visited the little church of
Saint Nicon and then stayed a few minutes in the ancient residence
of the patriarchs. As time was pressing, we had to abandon the idea
of visiting the hermitage of Gethsemane, which is a little distance
from the monastery. In accordance with a practice still frequently
observed in Russia, certain hermits still have themselves shut up
here in subterranean walled cells. They live in prayer and fasting
to the end of their days, completely isolated from the world, and
the slit through which their food is passed is their sole means of
communication with their fellow-men.

The Imperial family bade the Archimandrite farewell and left the
monastery, accompanied by a crowd of monks who swarmed round the
cars.