Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (64 page)

When news of Germany’s resistance reached Paris, Raymond Poincaré brought the negotiations to a screeching halt. The British, who had at one time been interested in talking peace, were no longer on board once Austria expressed resistance to granting Italy unwarranted territorial concessions carved out of present-day Slovenia and Croatia. Prince Sixtus explained Charles’s position on Italy: “The Emperor stated that he was prepared to make [only] the necessary sacrifices to Italy, but that these must be no more than was strictly fair, confined, that was, to territories [that were] Italian in speech and sentiment.”
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The British government became extremely critical of Zita at this time, blaming her for the breakdown of the peace process, similar to the way they vilified Alexandra of Russia. Still latently anti-Catholic, the British foreign ministry accused Zita of scheming and made veiled references to “Bourbon intrigues.” Prince Sixtus staunchly defended his sister’s role.

Legend says that my sister the Empress played a principal part in these negotiations. Too feudal to love intrigue for the pleasure of it, she was content to write me this charming letter as a woman and as a sovereign, begging me to come to Vienna: “Do not let yourself be held by considerations which in ordinary life would be justified. Think of all the unfortunates who live in the hell of the trenches and die there every day by the hundreds, and come!”
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But by June, even Sixtus became frustrated, mostly by Italy’s refusal to participate unless it received most of the Austrian Balkans. Italy’s recalcitrance brought what was left of the peace talks to a standstill. With little accomplished, and without the support of France or Britain, Sixtus gave up on the peace process and returned to his regiment in the Belgian army. By the summer, Emperor Charles and Empress Zita were continuing their labors to find a peaceful end to the war. Russia had begun to cannibalize itself, and there was growing unrest in Germany and Austria. “In World War I Emperor Charles of Austria, King of Hungary, tried desperately to end the bloodshed with a constructive peace,” Archduke Otto wrote decades later of his father’s efforts. “Many are the reasons why he could not succeed. It staggers the imagination if one considers what would have happened had this man of peace been successful in his endeavours.”
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Sadly, the Sixtus Affair would not be successful. On the contrary it would serve to break the foundations of the entire Austro-Hungarian monarchy in just over a year. In the process, Europe’s last imperial remnants would be swept away forever.

19
Hated, Humbled, Rejected
 

(March–November 1917)

O
nce Alexandra’s husband abdicated his throne, there was a heated debate over what would happen to the government in Russia. The Duma had no immediate plans to abolish the monarchy, since they expected young Alexei to be named tsar with a state-appointed regent. But that plan fell through because Nicholas knew that if his son became tsar, he would be separated from his family, and Nicholas was unwilling to let that happen. He could not bear the thought of his close-knit family being broken up. Such a move would devastate Alexandra.

With Alexei taken out of the succession, Nicholas passed the throne directly to his brother Michael, who some royalists hailed as Tsar Michael II. “We have judged it right to abdicate the Throne of the Russian State and to lay down the Supreme Power,” Nicholas declared in his formal abdication. “Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother the Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne.”
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But so unstable was the monarchy’s position now that, upon learning of his accession when he awoke the next morning, Michael declined to take the throne. He renounced his claim in the presence of Mikhail Rodzianko and the Duma officials who had come to his apartment at Gatchina Palace to meet him.

At Tsarskoe Selo, Alexandra was racked with anxiety. The overthrow of the government in Petrograd led to a collapse of the most basic services. Electrical lines were cut, water was shut off, and the railways were blocked. Rumors circulated that mobs of armed soldiers were making their way to Tsarskoe Selo to kill the empress or capture the tsarevitch, neither of whom knew anything of Nicholas’s abdication. In a last-ditch attempt to keep order, the Alexander Palace guard regiment—some fifteen hundred soldiers who had remained staunchly loyal to the Romanovs—blockaded the palace’s courtyard with artillery and snipers. For a sleepless night, they kept their vigil, until it became clear that no armed troops were en route, at least not at the moment. Inside the palace, Alexandra was struggling to maintain her calm veneer. She paced back and forth in her room while she waited to hear any news from her husband. The waiting came to an end late that night when Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s uncle, arrived at the palace with the earth-shattering news. After the meeting, a speechless Alexandra stumbled into another room where her friend Lili Dehn was waiting. Falling lifelessly onto a nearby couch, she cried out, “
Abdiqué!”
A few moments later, she turned to Lili and muttered, “the poor one … all by himself … oh my God, what has happened! And I cannot be near him to comfort him.”
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When the moment finally came, and Alexandra realized her position as Empress of All the Russias was at an end, there was no anger or bitterness. “It’s for the best,” she said. “It’s the will of God. God will make sure that Russia is saved. It’s the only thing that matters.”
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She did not reproach her husband for abdicating but instead was overcome with grief for what he must be feeling in the moment. That night, Alexandra sat down at her desk and penned an emotional letter to her husband, giving him her support.

I
fully
understand yr. action [in abdicating], my own heroe [
sic
]! I
know
that [you] could not sign [anything] against what you swore at yr. coronation. We know each other through & through—need no words—as I live, we shall see you back on yr. throne, brought back by your people, to the glory of your reign. You have saved yr. son’s reign & the country & yr. saintly purity.… I hold you tight, tight in my arms & will never let them touch your shining soul, I kiss, kiss, kiss & bless you & will always understand you.

Wify
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The overthrow of the greatest autocratic dynasty in modern history sent shockwaves across Europe. Queen Marie of Romania was frightened at what was taking place in Russia.

What an hour for that woman [Alexandra] … she who would listen to no one except Rasputin, and separated herself little by little from all members of the family, then from the whole of society, never showing herself any more, shutting herself up either in Tsarskoe or in the Crimea.…

What may her feelings be to-day? How does she bear it, separated, as she is from her husband, he not able to get to her and all her children down with measles. A ghastly situation. I sit and ponder over it and to me it seems tragic and fearful beyond words.
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As Alexandra waited at Tsarskoe Selo for Nicholas to return, she and Lili Dehn spent their time destroying letters, diaries, and other documents that they were afraid would fall into the hands of the revolutionaries. Most of the papers were harmless enough; love letters between Nicholas and Alexandra or correspondences with Queen Victoria, but Alexandra could not take the chance of her personal thoughts being used as propaganda against her family.

At the end of March, soldiers arrived at Tsarskoe Selo with orders from the new, officially named Russian Provisional Government. Alexandra and her children were placed under house arrest. The palace staff was told they could leave immediately and go free or share in the Romanovs’ captivity. In an unseemly display of loathsome cowardice, many of the servants abandoned the helpless Alexandra to her captors. Only Lili Dehn and a handful of loyal servants stayed with the family.

From the day the soldiers arrived, the atmosphere at the Alexander Palace was thick with tension. The occupying soldiers began hurling insults on the former empress. The grand duchesses were still bedridden, and Alexandra had all but locked herself away in her Mauve Boudoir. Her only companion continued to be Lili, who promised the girls she would not leave their mother’s sight. The days waiting for Nicholas were whittled away in quiet prayer and reading, but the nights were insufferably long. Alexandra barely slept. Outside the palace, the sounds of gunfire rang out as drunken soldiers caroused throughout the village grounds. Every so often, Alexandra would pull the drapes aside and look out anxiously, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nicholas returning. From the next room where she slept, Lili could hear her pacing back and forth, the only sound a faint cough brought on by stress and fatigue. The ex-tsarina counted the minutes until her husband returned. It was the last time the couple would ever be separated. They would remain together until the bitter end.

When Nicholas finally reached Tsarskoe Selo, he dejectedly made his way past dozens of angry soldiers who hurled insult after insult upon “Citizen Nicholas Romanov.” In front of his family’s captors, he refused to show any emotion, but when he and Alexandra entered her Mauve Boudoir alone, he fell to the ground, his face bathed in bitter tears. Alexandra took her husband into her arms. Overcome herself, she found it hard to find the words to comfort him. According to Lili Dehn, Alexandra assured Nicholas that “the husband and father [were] of more value in her eyes than the Emperor whose throne she shared.”
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The next few months proved taxing on the former imperial family. They remained under house arrest at the Alexander Palace while the Russian Provisional Government decided what should be done with them. Determined to live normal lives, Nicholas, Alexandra, and their family continued their daily routines when possible. Very much the outdoorsman, Nicholas insisted on physical activity by maintaining the palace grounds himself. Guards were surprised to find the former tsar and autocrat of All the Russias chopping wood and shoveling snow. The guards watching could not help but sneer at Nicholas, “Well, well, Nicolouchka (Little Nicholas), so you are breaking the ice now, are you? Perhaps you’ve drunk enough of our blood? … And in summer, when there’s no more ice—what’ll you do then,
Goloubchik nach
(our darling)? Perhaps you’ll throw a little sand on the walks with a little shovel?”
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Along with his daughters, Nicky—who was now known simply as Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov—planted a vast vegetable garden of beans, turnips, lettuce, squash, and some five hundred heads of cabbage.

Alexandra was unable to move around as freely as her husband. Her fragile health completely collapsed. Her dark hair became filled with gray. Her face, once praised as the most beautiful in all of Europe, had aged well beyond its forty-five years. Her heart trouble and the pain in her back, legs, and head meant she could barely walk. The woman who had once ruled a sixth of the world’s landmass was now confined to a wheelchair most of the time. But Nicholas and their daughters happily pushed her around the village grounds. On some afternoons, when the weather was pleasant enough, Alexandra sat outdoors with one of her daughters or her lady-in-waiting, Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden. It was on one such afternoon that a particularly vulgar guard sat next to Alexandra, accusing her of hating Russia. Her calm, rational answers to the soldier’s accusations began disarming him. The conversation eventually turned to matters of politics, religion, and family. The guard was especially surprised to learn that, despite being born German, the former empress was a Russian “with all her heart.” When the officer on duty arrived, the guard stood to his feet. Taking her hand, he said, “Do you know, Alexandra Feodorovna, I had quite a different idea of you? I was mistaken about you.”
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The captivity at Tsarskoe Selo lasted six long months. During that time, the Romanovs were forced to endure repeated interrogations from Alexander Kerensky, the justice minister of the Russian Provisional Government. One of his first acts at the palace was to have Lili Dehn, the last of Alexandra’s friends, sent back to Petrograd. “I am the Procurator-General, Kerensky,” he told Nicholas and Alexandra upon meeting them in the palace’s schoolroom. “The queen of England asks for news of the ex-tsarina.”
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It was the first time Alexandra had been addressed that way, prompting her face to turn red. She told Kerensky that, as usual, her heart was troubling her. He then spent hours questioning her about her political agenda. After a grueling interview, Kerensky admitted to Nicholas, “your wife does not lie.”
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He was also forced to admit, “I had imagined her differently. She is very sympathetic. She is an admirable mother. What courage, what dignity, what intelligence and how beautiful she is!”
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The fate of the former imperial family was brought up around the time of Kerensky’s visit. One of the first foreign requests for the Romanovs’ freedom came from Wilhelm and Dona. Though Russia and Germany were technically enemies, Wilhelm offered his cousin and her family exile in Berlin. Wilhelm later said, “I ordered my Chancellor to try and get in touch with the Kerensky government by neutral channels, informing him that if a hair of the Russian Imperial family’s head should be injured, I would hold him personally responsible if I should have the possibility of doing so.”
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But Alexandra could never forgive Wilhelm his failings, and she could never give up her antipathy for all things German. When she was told of the possibility of escaping to Germany, she was indignant, saying, “after what they have done to the Tsar, I would rather die in Russia than be saved by the Germans.”
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When the plan failed, Wilhelm admitted, “The blood of the unhappy Tsar is not at
my door
; not on
my hands
.”
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Another possibility that presented itself was sending the family to England. After all, King George V and Nicholas were first cousins through their mothers. George and Alexandra were first cousins, since both were grandchildren of Queen Victoria. King George and Queen Mary were “deeply distressed” by the Romanovs’ situation, and working through their prime minister, David Lloyd George, they made overtures to invite the imperial family to spend the rest of their days in Britain.
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But this plan was doomed from the start. Public opposition began to take hold in England. The government was deeply concerned over who would be paying the family’s bills. Although previous Romanovs had been known for their exorbitant spending, there was a misconception that Alexandra and her family were the same way. In reality, they were among the most frugal, down-to-earth royals Europe had known in recent years. The British government ultimately insisted that if the Romanovs wanted to come to England, it was up to Alexander Kerensky, the newly appointed prime minister of the Russian Provisional Government, to cover their expenses.