The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) (12 page)

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fell seriously ill with what was at first put down to a severe case of influenza and then diagnosed as ‘an abdominal typhus peculiar to

the Crimea’, although the foreign press widely referred to it as

typhoid fever.50 Its onset provoked widespread concern for Nicholas,

at a time when Russia was viewed as an important international

power during the hostilities of the Boer War in Africa and the Boxer

Rebellion in China.

Many papers referred to the tsar’s supposed delicate health and

that he appeared to have suffered from attacks of vertigo and severe

headaches in the previous three years.51 The reality was that despite being a heavy smoker, Nicholas in general enjoyed very good health

and was extremely physically active. The attack of typhoid while

serious was not ultimately life-threatening, but in all he was confined to bed for five weeks, suffering at times from agonizing pain in his

back and legs and becoming very thin and weak. Despite her preg-

nancy, Alexandra had from the first taken exclusive control of his

nursing and proved an exceptionally capable sickbed nurse. Aside

from the loyal help of Mariya Baryatinskaya, she allowed virtually

nobody near her precious husband and demonstrated ‘a very strong

will’. She also ‘made the most of the fact that she found herself

alone with the Czar in such an emergency’, vetting any urgent

documents regarding affairs of state and ‘with exquisite tact . . .

know[ing] how to keep from the Czar all that might have caused

him excitement or worry’.52

Nicholas was flattered by his wife’s excessive care: ‘My darling

Alix nursed and looked after me like the best of sisters of mercy. I

can’t describe what she was for me during my illness. May God

bless her.’53 The girls meanwhile were sent away from the palace,

for fear of infection, and lodged at the house of one of the imperial entourage who had daughters of his own. Alexandra insisted on

having them brought to the palace every day, ‘to a place where she

could see them through a window, and looked at them for some

time to convince herself that they were in perfect health’. Beyond

the sickroom, however, the spectre of a Russian throne without a

male heir once more rose, provoking considerable concern about

what would happen should Nicholas die.

Back in 1797, Emperor Paul I had regularized the transfer of

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power in Russia by abandoning the old law of primogeniture and

setting down clear rules on a male-only line of succession. This had

been done in an attempt to avoid palace coups of the kind that had

brought the mother he hated, Catherine the Great, to power.54 Until

now, with previous tsars having plenty of sons, there had been no

reason to seek changes to the Fundamental Laws on the succession.

Even though Olga was not yet five years old, neither Nicholas nor

Alexandra wished his brother, twenty-one-year-old Grand Duke

Mikhail, to accede to the throne in preference to their own daughter

or the child Alexandra was carrying. She certainly was distraught at

the prospect; her baby might well be a boy, and she insisted that

she be nominated regent in anticipation of that and until her son

came of age. Although desperately ill, Nicholas was consulted and

sided with his wife. His minister of finance, Count Witte, held a

meeting with other ministers in Yalta; they all agreed that there was no precedent in Russian law that allowed a pregnant tsaritsa to rule

in hopes of eventually producing a son, and it was decided that if

the tsar died, they would swear an oath of allegiance to Mikhail as

tsar.55 Should Alexandra’s baby turn out to be a boy, Witte was

confident that Mikhail would renounce the throne in his nephew’s

favour.

In the aftermath of his illness, Nicholas remained mindful of

protecting his eldest daughter’s dynastic interests, and instructed

government ministers to draft a decree to the effect that Olga would

succeed to the throne if he should die without a son and heir.56 The

impact on Alexandra of this debate over the succession was profound;

psychologically, it marked the onset of a creeping paranoia that the

throne might be wrested from her yet-to-be-born son by plotters

in court circles and it further alienated her from the rest of the

Romanov family, whom she mistrusted. In one thing she was fiercely

resolute: she would defend the Russian throne for her future son,

at
absolutely any
cost.

While their parents had both been hidden from view for weeks,

the three Romanov sisters had been seen a great deal in and around

Yalta that autumn. ‘Nothing can be prettier’, wrote a local corre-

spondent, ‘than the three little girls in the carriage, chattering and asking questions, and bowing when passers-by take their hats off to

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them’, adding somewhat mischievously that ‘the smallest Princess

is living proof of the inefficiency of Professor Schenk’s theories’.57

For some time the girls continued to be the only public face of the

Russian imperial family and according to press reports were extraor-

dinarily unspoilt, thanks to the tsaritsa’s principle that her children should be ‘brought up without any extreme or special consideration

on account of their high position and imperial birth’. They were

always modestly dressed in ‘cheap, white dresses, short English

stockings and plain, light shoes’; the temperature in their rooms was

‘always kept moderate’ and they went out into the fresh air even in

the coldest of weather. ‘All useless, heavy etiquette and luxury are

forbidden.’ The tsar and tsaritsa often went to see their children in the nursery; but even stranger and contrary to normal royal protocol, the correspondent reported with incredulity that ‘the august parents

play with their daughters as mortal parents usually do’.58

The two older girls were already developing very clear and

different personalities. Olga was ‘very kind hearted and of noble

character’. She spoke Russian and English fluently, was talented at

music and already a good pianist. Although she and Tatiana had a

little English donkey, the tsar had recently indulged Olga’s request

to ride side saddle ‘as grown up people do’, after she had admired

the Cossack members of the Tsar’s Escort. ‘Charming Tatiana’,

meanwhile, was ‘of a gay and lively temperament, and always quick

and playful in her movements’. Both were very attached to their

baby sister.59 No doubt they were, but Nicholas had already noted

that Maria, who was now toddling, ‘falls often, because her elder

sisters push her about and when one does not watch them they are

altogether inclined to treat her very roughly’. He was pleased to

report to his mother that Miss Eagar was doing an excellent job:

‘In the nursery all runs smoothly between nurse and the other girls,

– it is real paradise in comparison with the dismal past.’60

With Nicholas’s doctors insisting he take a long convalescence

in the Crimea, it was 9 January 1901 before the family left a beau-

tiful, balmy Yalta in the
Shtandart
. At Sevastopol where they disembarked for the imperial train to St Petersburg, Nicholas and

Alexandra received the news that Queen Victoria, whose health had

been failing for some time, had died at Osborne on 22 January (NS).

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When they arrived back to a grey and gloomy St Petersburg, the

Russian court season was immediately cancelled and the entire

imperial household went into mourning. As Alexandra was now four

months pregnant, the doctors would not allow her to travel to

England for the funeral. Instead she attended a memorial service

for her grandmother at the English Church in the capital, supported

by Nicholas, where, much to everyone’s surprise, she openly wept.

It was the first and only time many saw the tsaritsa give public

display to her feelings.61

The loss of her beloved grandmama was profound but fortunately

Alexandra remained well during this fourth pregnancy. Grand Duke

Konstantin thought she was looking ‘very beautiful’ when he saw

her in February and what is more she was feeling ‘wonderful, unlike

the other occasions’. For this reason, the grand duke noted in his

diary, ‘everyone is anxiously hoping that this time it will be a son’.

But such preoccupations were forgotten in May when five-year-old

Olga contracted typhoid at Peterhof.62 ‘She is separated from her

sibling upstairs in the only empty room . . . but under the roof it

is pretty hot’, Alexandra told a friend. ‘I spend most of the day with her; the stairs are tiring in my present condition.’ Olga was ill for five weeks and became very pale and thin; her long blonde hair had

to be cut short because the illness had started to make it fall out.

‘She loves to have me with her, and for as long as I am on my feet,

it is a delight to sit with her’, Alexandra added, for ‘to see a sick child really hurts and my heart weeps – God watch over her’.63 So

changed was Olga by the illness that when Tatiana was taken in to

see her sister she did not recognize her and wept.

When Madame Günst arrived at Peterhof in preparation for the

fourth baby, she became concerned that the tsaritsa’s exertions

looking after Olga might trigger a premature birth and she called

in the doctors.64 But all was well. At 3 a.m. on 5 June, Alexandra

went into labour at the Lower Dacha. It was very quick this time;

three hours later, and without complications, she gave birth to a

large, 11½ lb (5.2 kg) baby girl. Nicholas had little time to register any disappointment. It all happened so quickly, before the household

were up and about, giving himself and Alexandra ‘a feeling of peace

and seclusion’.65 They gave their new daughter the name Anastasia,

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from the Greek
anastasis
,
meaning ‘resurrection’; in Russian Orthodox usage the name was linked to the fourth-century martyr St Anastasia

who had succoured Christians imprisoned for their faith and was

known as the ‘breaker of chains’. In honour of this Nicholas ordered

an amnesty for students imprisoned in St Petersburg and Moscow

for rioting the previous winter.66 Anastasia was not a traditional

Russian imperial name but in naming her thus the tsar and tsaritsa

were perhaps expressing a profoundly held belief that God would

answer their prayers and that the Russian monarchy might yet be

resurrected – by the birth of a son.

The Russian people and the imperial family were, however,

extremely despondent; as US diplomat’s wife Rebecca Insley

observed, the arrival of Anastasia had ‘created such indescribable

agitation in a nation clamouring for a boy’.67 ‘My God! What a

disappointment! . . . a fourth girl!’ exclaimed Grand Duchess Xenia.

‘Forgive us Lord, if we all felt disappointment instead of joy; we

were so hoping for a boy, and it’s a fourth daughter’, echoed Grand

Duke Konstantin.68 ‘Illuminations, but Disappointment’ ran the

headlines of the
Daily Mail
in London on 19 June (NS). ‘There is much rejoicing, although there is a popular undercurrent of disappointment, for a son had been most keenly hoped for.’ The news-

paper could not but offer commiserations: ‘the legitimate hopes of

the Czar and Czarina have so far been cruelly frustrated, whatever

may be their private parental feelings towards their four little daughters . . . [who] had been born into an expectant world with distressing regularity’.69 In Russia the response was once again heavy with

superstitious resentment, as the French diplomat Maurice Paléologue

reported: ‘We said so, didn’t we! The German, the
nemka
, has the evil eye. Thanks to her nefarious influence our Emperor is doomed

to catastrophe.’70

In the face of so much negativity, and determined to show how

proud he was of his fourth daughter, Nicholas ordered the fullest

possible pageantry at her christening in August, which followed the

same format as those for her sisters, and after which ‘the cannon

boomed all the way from Peterhof back to the capital’. Later Nicholas entertained his illustrious guests to lunch, during which they ‘went

up to the supposedly happy father to present their felicitations’.

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Rebecca Insley reported that for once the tsar seemed unable to

conceal his dismay, for, when he turned to one of the ambassadors,

he was heard to say with a sad smile – ‘We must try again!’71

Three months later, Nicholas and Alexandra visited the new

French president, Emile Loubet, at Compiègne, leaving the girls at

Kiel in the care of Alexandra’s sister Irene. The security surrounding them was intense: the town swarmed with French police who were