The Emperors: How Europe's Rulers Were Destroyed by the First World War by Gareth Russell

Author:Gareth Russell [Russell, Gareth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2014-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

8

The February Revolution and the Fall of the Russian Monarchy

‘May the Lord God help Russia’

Nicholas II remained at Tsarskoe Selo for two months following Rasputin’s funeral. Those who hoped that he would use that time to rectify the problems in the government were destined for disappointment. Nicholas did nothing but sink further into his malaise. The participation of his cousin and his niece’s husband in the murder of his wife’s spiritual adviser was a terrible blow to his already beleaguered pride. His own family had mounted a kind of rebellion against him when they killed Rasputin, conveying to the entire empire that this was the only way in which Nicholas could be trusted to seek the right advice. Some 3 million Russians had lost their lives as a result of the war, the terrible winter temperatures had heightened the problems of distributing food in the empire’s major cities and as a result bread queues snaked through streets battered by ice and freezing winds.1 Despite how often it is stated and glibly assumed to be true, there was no starvation. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has convincingly demonstrated that ‘the tsarist government’s over-all performance in handling this enormous task of food supply was not as bad as is often argued … no one in the cities starved. The collapse of the mechanism for supplying food actually came after the February Revolution.’2 Still, there were shortages and the rationing of supplies intensified significantly when peasant farmers, worried by inflation, refused to sell their crops to the government. Moving the resources that were available became more difficult because of the damage the weather had inflicted on the railways.

For two years, the monarchy had ignored the Duma. Nicholas had vetoed any kind of deal with its Progressive Bloc and Alexandra’s hostility towards it, as well as her total disregard for its opinions, had been well-advertised by her games of ministerial leapfrog. Nicholas’s brother-in-law, the Grand Duke Alexander, Felix Yussopov’s unhappy father-in-law, went to the Alexander Palace to speak to the imperial couple. Alone of the Romanovs, he had always been friendly towards Alexandra and he and Nicholas had been close friends since childhood. He was shown into their private apartments where Alexandra had been forced to lie down because of her bad back, while Nicholas sat and smoked nearby. The Grand Duke began by telling Alexandra bluntly that although her intentions had been pure, her involvement in affairs of state had harmed her husband rather than helped him. Then he said that although he had always been uneasy at the idea of a constitutional monarchy, he had come to accept that the only way for the Crown to continue to function was to appoint a government that was acceptable to the Duma. In doing so, it would buy back the support of the political class and remove Nicholas from having to accept sole blame for all of the country’s problems.

Alexandra was angered by his change of heart. She told him that he was being ridiculous and that Nicholas was an autocrat who could not be expected to share his powers with a parliament.

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