the Tsar to remove his epaulets in order to avoid a hostile demonstration by the soldiers. At first it seemed as though the Tsar would refuse but after exchanging a look and a few words with the Empress, he recovered his self control and yielded for the sake of his family. He continued nevertheless to wear epaulets in his room and when he went out, concealed them from the soldiers under a Caucasian cloak.”
To the faithful Kobylinsky, the affair of the epaulets seemed a final blow. “I felt I could bear it no more,” he said. “I knew that I had absolutely lost all control of the men and I fully realized my impotence. I … begged the Emperor to receive me … and I said to him, Tour Majesty, all authority is fast slipping out of my hands.… I cannot be useful to you any more, so I wish to resign.… My nerves are strained. I am exhausted.’ The Emperor put his arm on my shoulder, his eyes filled with tears. He replied: ‘I implore you to remain. Eugene Stepanovich, remain for my sake, for the sake of my wife and for the sake of my children. You must stand by us.’ … Then he embraced me.… I resolved to remain.”
Kobylinsky’s decision was fortunate, for on February 8, the Soldiers’ Committee decided that Pankratov and Nikolsky must reign. Simultaneously, the Bolshevik government issued an order demobilizing all older soldiers of the Imperial Army. “All the old soldiers (the most friendly) are to leave us,” Gilliard wrote in his diary on February 13. “The Tsar seems very depressed at this prospect; the change may have disastrous results for us.” Two days later, he added: “A certain number of soldiers have already left. They came secretly to take leave of the Tsar and his family.”
Their effort to say goodbye to the men of the 4th Regiment of Sharpshooters cost the family heavily. In January, amid the heavy snows, Nicholas and his family had begun to pile up a “snow mountain” in the courtyard. For ten days they worked, shoveling snow and carrying water from the kitchen to pour on the snow and freeze it into a small toboggan run. Everybody helped—Dolgoruky, Gilliard, the servants and even members of the guard. Often they had to run from the kitchen to pour the water before it froze solid in the bucket. When it was finished, the children were delighted. A number of wild games were developed by Alexis, Anastasia and Marie, involving pell-mell racing down the slide and tumbling and wrestling in the snow, all accompanied by shrieks of laughter. Then, early in March, Nicholas and Alexandra used the hill to stand on in order to see over the stockade and watch the departure of the 4th Regiment. The Soldiers’ Committee immediately declared that the Tsar and the Empress, exposed in this manner, might be shot from the street, an event for which they would be held responsible. The committee ordered that the hill be demolished. The following day, Gilliard wrote in his diary, “The soldiers with a hang-dog look, began to destroy the snow mountain with picks. The children are disconsolate.”
The new guards sent from the regimental depots at Tsarskoe Selo were younger men, strongly affected by the currents of revolutionary excitement. Many enjoyed offering little insults to the captives. On a pair of swings used by the Grand Duchesses, they carved obscene words into the wooden seats. Alexis spotted them first, but before he could study them Nicholas arrived and removed the seats. Thereafter, the soldiers amused themselves by drawing lewd pictures and inscriptions on the fence where the girls could not avoid seeing them.
Through the winter, Kobylinsky’s increasing difficulty with the soldiers had stemmed as much from problems of pay as those of politics. He had arrived in Tobolsk entrusted by the Provisional Government with a large sum of money out of which to pay the expenses of the Tsar’s table and household. The soldiers were to be paid from separate funds to be forwarded later. When the Provisional Government was replaced by the Bolsheviks, the sums promised by Kerensky stopped coming and Kobylinsky had to pay the soldiers from his original sum. When it was gone, he and General Tatishchev twice visited the local District Commissioner and each time borrowed fifteen thousand roubles. Meanwhile, in Petrograd, Count Benckendorff visited government offices pleading for money to maintain the Tsar and his family. As news of the Tsar’s circumstances spread, offers of money began to flow in. One foreign ambassador anonymously offered enough to keep the Tsar’s household for six months. A prominent Russian quietly offered even more. Eventually, Benckendorff collected two hundred thousand roubles, which was sent to Tobolsk. Unhappily, it fell into other hands and never reached the Imperial family.
In Tobolsk, meanwhile, the captives were living on credit which soon began to wear thin. Just as the cook announced that he was no longer welcome or trusted in the local stores, a strongly monarchist Tobolsk merchant advanced another twenty thousand roubles. Finally, the matter was settled by a telegram which announced that, as of March 1, “Nicholas Romanov and his family must be put on soldier’s rations and that each member of the family will receive 600 roubles per month drawn from the interest of their personal estate.” As the family consisted of seven, that meant 4,200 roubles a month to support the entire household. Nicholas, facing the novel task of drawing up a family budget, asked for help. “The Tsar said jokingly that since everyone is appointing committees, he is going to appoint one to look after the welfare of his own community,” said Gilliard. “It is to consist of General Tatishchev, Prince Dolgoruky, and myself. We held a ‘sitting’ this afternoon and came to the conclusion that the personnel must be reduced. This is a wrench; we shall have to dismiss ten servants, several of whom have their families with them in Tobolsk. When we informed Their Majesties we could see the grief it caused them. They must part with servants whose very devotion will reduce them to beggary.”
The new self-imposed regime was harsh. As of the following morning, butter and coffee were excluded as luxuries. Soon, the townspeople, hearing of the situation, began to send packages of eggs, sweetmeats and delicacies which the Empress referred to as little “gifts from Heaven.” Musing over the nature of the Russian people, she wrote, “The strange thing about the Russian character is that it can so suddenly change to evil, cruelty and unreason and as suddenly change back again.”
At times, it seemed to the exiles in Tobolsk that they were living on a separate planet—remote, forgotten, beyond all help. “To-day is Carnival Sunday,” wrote Gilliard on March 17. “Everyone is merry. The sledges pass to and fro under our windows; sound of bells, mouth-organs, and singing.… The children wistfully watch the fun.… Their Majesties still cherish hope that among their loyal friends some may be found to attempt their release. Never was the situation more favourable for escape, for there is as yet no representative of the Bolshevik Government at Tobolsk. With the complicity of Colonel Kobylinsky, already on our side, it would be easy to trick the insolent but careless vigilance of our guards. All that is required is the organized and resolute efforts of a few bold spirits outside.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE idea of escape grew slowly inside the governor’s house. At first, it had scarcely seemed necessary. Had not Kerensky promised the safety of the Imperial family? Had he not assured them that Tobolsk was intended only as a winter refuge? “From there,” Kerensky wrote later, “we thought it would be possible in the spring of 1918 to send them abroad after all, via Japan. Fate decided otherwise.”
Despite Kerensky’s promises, even before the Bolshevik Revolution there were Russians who were secretly planning to liberate the Imperial family. Both in Moscow and in Petrograd, strong monarchist organizations with substantial funds were anxious to attempt a rescue. The problem was not money but planning, coordination and, above all, clarity of purpose. Nicholas himself raised one serious obstacle whenever the question of escape was mentioned: he insisted that the family not be separated from one another. This increased the logistical problem: an escape involving a number of women and a handicapped boy could not be improvised. It would require horses, food and loyal soldiery. If it was to take place in summer, it would need carriages and boats; if it was planned for winter, there would have to be sledges and possibly a train.
Soon after the Imperial family arrived in Tobolsk, a number of monarchist organizations began sending agents to Siberia. Former officers using assumed names stepped off the train in Tyumen and strode onto the river steamers bound for Tobolsk. Mysterious visitors with fine-combed beards and precise Petrograd accents mingled with the well-to-do merchants and shopkeepers of Tobolsk. They made veiled remarks and vague promises about the Imperial family, then quietly disappeared, accomplishing nothing. It was easy at first to establish contact with the Imperial family. Servants and members of the suite passed freely in and out of the governor’s house, carrying letters, messages and gifts. Only when the couriers attempted deception did the guards object. The clumsiest of these cases, involved Mlle. Margaret Khitrivo, a friend and maid-of-honor of young Grand Duchess Olga. In Petrograd, this girl decided on her own to share the family’s imprisonment. She traveled openly to Tobolsk, carrying a thick wad of letters to the family concealed in a pillow. Upon arrival, she was searched and the letters came tumbling out. They were harmless, but the guards were angered, and thereafter access to the governor’s house
