her car rolled out of the station headed southwest for Kiev. Neither could know it at the time, but the proud Empress and her quiet eldest son were never to meet again.
On the platform a few minutes before, as the Tsar’s train was leaving, Alexeiev and other officers of the Headquarters staff had stood at attention as the train bearing their former sovereign departed. As the car carrying the Tsar moved past him, Alexeiev saluted. A second later, as the last car of the same train, bearing the representatives of the Duma, rolled by, Alexeiev took off his cap and made a deep bow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AT TEN A.M. on Monday, March 12, a telephone rang in the Petrograd house of the Empress’s friend Lili Dehn. Lili, still in bed, got up to answer. It was the Empress. “I want you to come to Tsarskoe Selo by the ten- forty-five train,” said Alexandra. “It’s a lovely morning. We’ll go for a run in the car. You can see the girls and Anna and return to Petrograd at four p.m.… I’ll be at the station.”
With only forty-five minutes to catch her train, Lili dressed rapidly, snatching her gloves, rings and a bracelet, and rushed to the station. She managed to scramble aboard the train just as it was leaving the platform.
It was a superb winter morning. The sky was a rich blue and the sun sparkled on the deep drifts of white snow. True to her word, the Empress was waiting at the Tsarskoe Selo station. “How is it in Petrograd?” she asked anxiously. “I hear things are serious.” Lili replied that the general strike had made things inconvenient, but that she herself had seen nothing alarming. Still troubled, the Empress stopped the car on the way to the palace to question a captain of the marine
Over the weekend, Alexandra had paid less attention than usual to events in Petrograd. From Protopopov and others, she had heard that there had been disturbances and that in places the police had had difficulty in calming and dispersing the crowds. Soothingly, Protopopov had assured her that matters were under control. In any case, the Empress had little time to worry about street disorders. At the palace, she faced an urgent family crisis.
Three of her children had come down with the measles. A week before, a group of young military cadets had come to the palace to play with the Tsarevich. One of these boys arrived with a flushed face and spent the afternoon coughing. The following day, the Empress learned that he had measles. Then, on Thursday, March 8, just after the Tsar’s train had departed for Mogilev, both Olga and Alexis had developed a rash and high fever.
The disease spread quickly. Olga and Alexis were followed to bed by Tatiana and Anna Vyrubova. The Empress, in her white Red Cross uniform, nursed the invalids herself. “She spent all the succeeding days between her children’s rooms and mine,” wrote Anna Vyrubova. “Half-conscious, I felt gratefully her capable hands arranging my pillows, smoothing my burning forehead, and holding to my lips medicines and cooling drinks.” Despite her efforts, the patients grew worse. On the night of March 12, Olga had a temperature of 103 degrees, Tatiana 102 and both Anna and Alexis 104.
It was during Lili Dehn’s visit that the Empress learned that the Petrograd soldiery had joined the mob. Lili was upstairs, sitting in a darkened room with the ill Grand Duchesses; Alexandra had gone to talk to two officers of the palace guard. When the Empress returned, she beckoned Lili into another room: “Lili,” she said, breathlessly, “it is
Nevertheless, as the day wore on, the news got worse. The Empress tried to telephone the Tsar and was unable to get through. “But I have wired him, asking him to return immediately. He’ll be here on Wednesday morning [the 14th],” she said. Alexander Taneyev, Anna Vyrubova’s father, arrived puffing and footsore, his face crimson with excitement and anger. “Petrograd is in the hands of the mob,” he declared. “They are stopping all cars. They commandeered mine, and I’ve had to walk every step of the way.”
That night, rather than attempt to return to the capital under these conditions, Lili decided to remain at the palace. So that she could stay in the private family wing where there were no extra bedrooms, a couch was arranged for her in the red drawing room. There, while the Empress talked with Count Benckendorff, the elderly Grand Marshal of the Court and senior court official at the palace, Lili and Anastasia sat on the red carpet and assembled jigsaw puzzles. When the Empress returned from her conference with Benckendorff, she sent her daughter to bed and said to Lili, “I don’t want the girls to know anything until it is impossible to keep the truth from them, but people are drinking to excess, and there is indiscriminate shooting in the streets. Oh, Lili, what a blessing that we have here the most devoted troops. There is the
That night, a message arrived from Rodzianko, now the chairman of the Temporary Committee of the Duma, warning that the Empress and her children were in danger and should leave Tsarskoe Selo as soon as possible. On his own initiative, Benckendorff withheld this message from the Empress and instead communicated it to Mogilev, asking the Tsar for instructions. Nicholas telegraphed that a train should be made ready for his family, but that his wife should not be told until the following morning. Meanwhile, he himself was leaving Mogilev and would arrive in Tsarskoe Selo early on the morning of the 14th.
On Tuesday, March 13, a fresh blizzard swept down from a gray sky, and an icy wind howled dismally outside the palace windows. The Empress was up early, taking
As it happened, this obstructionism became irrelevant. Alexandra refused to go. To Rodzianko and the Duma committee, as Benckendorff transmitted her message, she declared that she would never leave by herself and, “owing to the state of her children’s health, especially that of the Heir Apparent, departure with them was completely out of the question.” Rodzianko, more alarmed than ever at the rising pitch of revolutionary fever all around him, argued with Benckendorff, saying “when a house is burning the invalids are the first to be taken out,” but Alexandra’s mind was made up. At 11:30 that morning, Benckendorff was informed by railway officials that within two hours all railway lines would be cut, and that if there was any idea of leaving Tsarskoe Selo they should do so at once. Knowing the Empress’s mind, the Count did not even bother to give her this message. At four in the afternoon, Dr. Derevenko returned to the palace from visiting hospitals in Tsarskoe Selo village. He brought with him the news that the entire network of railways around Petrograd was in the hands of the revolutionaries. “We could not leave,” wrote Gilliard, “and it was highly improbable that the Tsar would be able to reach us.”
Even before that day was over, it seemed that Alexandra’s decision would lead to calamity. From Petrograd, on a sudden inspiration, a crowd of mutinous soldiers set off by truck for Tsarskoe Selo. Their plan, shouted gleefully from truck to truck, was to seize “the German woman” and her son and bring them back to the capital. Arriving in the village of Tsarskoe Selo, they became distracted and began smashing into wine shops, looting and drinking. At the Alexander Palace, where the sounds of shooting and cheering were plainly heard, the size of the crowd was magnified by rumor. “Lili,” the Empress said, “they say that a hostile crowd of three hundred thousand is marching on the palace. We shall not be, must not be afraid. Everything is in the hands of God. Tomorrow the Emperor is sure to come. I know that when he does, all will be well.”
The Alexander Palace was not completely defenseless. That morning, before the arrival of the mutineers, Count Benckendorff had ordered a battalion of the
The night was spent awaiting an attack. At nine p.m. a telephone call advised that the rebels were on their
