The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II (24 page)

With that, Nicholas had the confirmation he needed to decide that he had sufficient cause for removing Alexis from the succession — contrary to the
Fundamental Laws
which bound all emperors. No one had a copy of these at Pskov but nevertheless Guchkov and Shulgin recognised the problem they faced, and retired to discuss it all with Ruzsky and his generals. Could an emperor change the laws of succession laid down in the past? After all, Nicholas was an autocrat and what one Tsar ordained perhaps another could set aside, a view which it seemed Nicholas had adopted. None of them could say with certainty that he was wrong.

Someone wondered if Michael’s marriage to a commoner was a problem? They had no idea, but there was mention that Alexander II had married a commoner, though he was already then Emperor and she was his second wife.
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As the minutes ticked by the group came to the view that they had no choice but to accept the manifesto as it stood. Every hour counted and neither Guchkov nor Shulgin relished the idea of returning empty-handed to Petrograd, of lamely going back to the Duma to discuss whether a double abdication was acceptable. As things stood they reckoned they had no choice: they would have to accept Alexis being bypassed, and Michael as Emperor. Filing back into the saloon they told Nicholas that they had agreed to his terms.

An abdication manifesto had been drafted earlier at
Stavka
and wired down to Pskov and it was this which Nicholas took into his study for amendment and signature. The original text drafted at Mogilev had been elegantly written, and the changes made by Nicholas in no way diminished the style. Beginning with a declaration about the need to continue the war ‘to a victorious end’ and ‘the duty to draw Our people into a close union,’ the remaining text, with the removal of Alexis, now read:

We have judged it right to abdicate the Throne of the Russian state and to lay down the Supreme Power. Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother Grand Michael Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne of the Russian state...In the name of Our Dearly beloved native land, WE call upon all true sons of the Fatherland to fulfil their sacred duty to It by their obedience to the Tsar at this difficult time of national ordeal and to help Him, together with the people’s representatives, to lead the Russian state onto the path of victory, prosperity and glory...’

A sealed copy of the abdication was handed over to Guchkov and another to Ruzsky for transmission to the army commands and to Petrograd and other key centres, including the garrison headquarters at Tsarskoe Selo.

It was then 11.40 p.m. but it was agreed that the manifesto should be timed as of three o’clock that afternoon — as stated on the draft sent from the
Stavka
when Nicholas had first decided to abdicate, albeit with Alexis as his successor.

It was also agreed that Nicholas should issue two other edicts, one naming Prince Lvov as prime minister of the new government, — the two delegates knew that had already been decided in Petrograd — and the other reappointing Grand Duke Nicholas in his place as Supreme Commander.

To give them legality, both were antedated to 2 p.m. when he was still Tsar.
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It would have been better law if Nicholas had done the same in renouncing his son’s claim to the throne on the grounds of ill-health citing independent medical evidence — the court physician was there to do that — and separating it from his own abdication. That said, it would have been better politics not to have done it at all.

But it was too late for any such comments. Just after midnight, when Guchkov and Shulgin, with their precious signed manifesto, amending the first, headed back to the capital the text of that second manifesto was being broadcast overnight to the world at large.

And with that, Nicholas left Pskov and headed back to Mogilev, the headquarters he had left with such confidence just 44 hours earlier. Throughout the formalities he had given no sign of distress. Guchkov was so astonished by the ‘simple, matter-of-fact way in which the business was concluded that I even wondered whether we were dealing with a normal person’. Even with a person of ‘the most iron control, of well-nigh unequalled self-control, one might have expected some show of emotion...but nothing of the sort’.
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Others would also remark on his composure. ‘He renounced the throne as simply as if he were turning over command of a cavalry squadron,’ said one of his aides.
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Within himself, however, he was anything but calm. When he set off back to Mogilev, he went to his diary and revealed his private agony: ‘At one o’ clock this morning I left Pskov with a heart that is heavy over what has just happened. All around me there is nothing but treason, cowardice, and deceit!’
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As always, everyone was to blame but himself.

AS news reached the Tauride Palace in the early hours of Friday morning that Nicholas had removed both himself and his son from the throne, panic set in amongst the Duma leaders. The deal which they had thought settled with the Soviet had depended in great degree on the continuity of the legal order, and that the new Tsar would be a harmless boy.

Even so, the prospect of Michael as Regent had alarmed the mutineers more than it had frightened the political elements in the Soviet. Milyukov might try to persuade them that he was only ‘a stupid man’, but among the soldiery what was better known about him was that he had earned the two highest awards in the Russian army, and was a noted battlefield commander. They did not need to wonder what he would think about soldiers who killed their own officers. Talk of a general amnesty did little to reassure them when they thought he was to be Regent. When they found out that he was not that, but Emperor, the deal with the Soviets was not likely to survive the day.

When Milyukov had earlier gone to the Catherine Hall and a made a speech about the programme of the new government, before the issue had been finally settled with the Soviet, there had been protests when he announced the intention that Nicholas would be replaced by his son, with Michael as Regent. ‘But that’s the old dynasty’, came cries from the crowd.

‘Yes, gentlemen, that’s the old dynasty, which you may not like and which I may not like, but…we cannot leave unanswered the question of the form of government. We have in mind a constitutional monarchy…but if we stop to quarrel about it now…Russia will drift into civil war, and we shall have a ruined country.’
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That evening as word spread that Michael was to be Regent, a frightened Rodzyanko, ‘accompanied by a handful of officers who reeked of alcohol’ came running up to Milyukov. ‘In a quavering voice,’ recalled Milyukov, a shaken Rodzyanko ‘repeated their assertions that after what I had said about the dynasty they could not go back to their units. They demand that I retract what I had said. This I could not do, but on seeing the behaviour of Rodzyanko, who knew that I had spoken not only in my own name but in the name of the Progressive Bloc as a whole, I decided to issue a statement saying that I had expressed only my personal view.’
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The officers went in fear of retribution, but fear worked two ways and Rodzyanko was certainly one of those who was as scared of the revolution as the revolution was scared of the monarchy. Later, Milyukov would describe him as being in ‘a blue funk’ and this would become a significant factor in the next hours, for Rodzyanko would be the first to crumble when the news came, early in the morning, that Michael had become Emperor.

The Duma Committee as a whole had been willing to back Milyukov when they believed that Alexis would succeed to the throne, for that transfer of power was lawful and more importantly it faced the Soviet with the problem of waging war on a child. Little Alexis could not be compelled to abdicate because he was too young to sign anything, and they could be sure that Michael would never sign such a manifesto on his behalf. Alexis was also likely to attract the sympathy of the sentimental, God-fearing peasant soldiers, wavering between loyalty and rebellion, who so far had stayed in their barracks.

As written, the manifesto removed that advantage; furthermore it created confusion in the ranks of those who had been prepared to defend the lawful transfer of power, since in turn that would underpin their own claims to be the lawful government. The authority of the Duma men had been based in great degree on the continuity of the accepted order — and with a stroke of his pen Nicholas had swept that away.

Now it was the Duma men who saw their necks at stake. Fear is infectious and it was fear Rodzyanko spread through the Duma deputies and into the new government. No one was anxious to admit that, of course, and instead they thought up better reasons for their change of heart.

One easy excuse was Michael’s morganatic marriage to a woman ‘well known for her political intrigues’; another was that ‘he had never been interested in affairs of state’ — though that could hardly matter, given that it might be held an advantage in a constitutional monarchy where the Emperor was required not to interfere.

Even the republican Kerensky recognised them ‘as irrelevant arguments’
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; the real issue for the new government was whether it stood by the monarchy or caved into the Soviet. The test was courage, and there was not much of that about in those early hours.

Milyukov was one of the few who did not lose his head, arguing that ‘what mattered was not who should be Tsar, but that there should be a Tsar’.
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However, their nerves rattled by Rodzyanko, the abdication manifesto was seized upon as excuse for abandoning the very case which the Duma Committee had argued so strenuously with the Soviet. Kerensky, hearing his own case being made for him, thought that ‘the decision of Nicholas II had really cut the Gordian knot.’ Everyone on his side of the political divide ‘felt with great relief that once the lawful and rightful succession had been broken, the immediate question of the dynasty had been settled’.
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Nicholas had done for the Soviet what the Soviet did not dare to do on its own.

But that was later when all was known. The immediate imperative for the Duma men was to keep the manifesto secret until they had time to think what to do for the best. Could publication of the manifesto itself be stopped before it was too late? Rodzyanko was among those who desperately hoped so, and he drove off to the war ministry to wire Pskov and ask Ruzsky to hold up general distribution of it. It was 5 a.m. when Rodzyanko’s tape, its own testimony to his blind panic, stuttered over the direct wire.

It is extremely important that the manifesto…should not be published until I advise you of it…it is with great difficulty that we managed to restraint the revolutionary movement with more or less bearable limits, but the situation is as yet far from settled and civil war is quite possible. Perhaps they would reconcile themselves to the Regency of the Grand Duke…but his accession as Emperor would be completely unacceptable…A mutiny of soldiers has flared up, the like of which I have not seen…little by little the troops were brought to order during the night, but the proclamation of Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich would pour oil onto the fire and a merciless extermination of everything that can be exterminated would start...
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An hour later he was sending the same message to Alekseev at
Stavka
. Alekseev, who had already sent out the abdication manifesto, was disturbed by his wire conversation with Rodzyanko, and at 7 a.m. he sent out his views to his other army commanders that ‘there is no frankness or sincerity in the communications of Rodzyanko’ and that ‘there is no unity within the State Duma and the Temporary Committee’.
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Alekseev suspected that it was the Soviet which was dictating affairs in the capital. His response was to propose that the army should demand that the manifesto as written be implemented and that there should be a meeting of all army commanders to ‘establish unanimity in all circumstances and in any eventuality’.

At the Tauride Palace, the new government knew that it could not delay much longer its meeting with Michael — whether he was Emperor or whether they could somehow return him to Regent. Everyone knew where he was. As they waited for Rodzyanko to return from his wire talks, Kerensky picked up a copy of the Petrograd telephone directory, flicked through the pages and ran his finger down the column to the name of Princess Putyatina. Her number was 1-58-48. A few moments later, at 5.55 a.m., the telephone rang in 12 Millionnaya Street.
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THERE was never any chance of keeping secret the succession of Michael as Emperor. In the four hours which had elapsed between the first telegraphed despatches from Pskov and the desperate call from Rodzyanko, the news had spread out not only to the army but to cities across Russia. At first light, thousands of troops in frontline units were swearing an oath of allegiance to Emperor Michael II, and in the Fourth Cavalry Division General Krasnov announced the succession to ‘an enormous cheer’; over the next two days he decorated soldiers with the Cross of St George in the name of His Majesty Emperor Michael.
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