away from Verdun and prevented the Austrians from exploiting their great victory over the Italians at Caporetto. In August, Rumania, sensing an Allied victory, entered the war against Germany and Austria.
Yet, all this was done at heavy cost to Russia. Through the summer, as Brusilov ground forward, Russian losses reached 1,200,000. As the army moved forward, leaving behind a carpet of dead, it seemed to the Empress and to Rasputin that Russia was choking in her own blood. As early as July 25 (O.S.), she wrote: “Our Friend … finds better one should not advance too obstinately as the losses will be too great.” On August 8 (O.S.): “Our Friend hopes we won’t climb over the Carpathians and try to take them, as he repeats the losses will be too great again.” On September 21 (O.S.), Nicholas wrote: “I told Alexeiev to order Brusilov to stop our hopeless attacks.” Alexandra replied happily, “Our Friend says about the new orders you gave to Brusilov: ‘Very satisfied with Father’s [the Tsar’s] orders, all will be well.’ ”
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But the Empress was now in full cry. On the 25th (O.S.), she wrote: “Oh give your order again to Brusilov— stop this useless slaughter.… Why repeat the madness of the Germans at Verdun. Your plan, so wise [was] approved by our Friend.… Stick to it.… Our generals don’t count the lives any—hardened to losses—and that is sin.” On September 27 (O.S.), two days later, Nicholas finally gave in: “My dear, Brusilov has, on the receipt of my instructions, immediately given order to stop.” As a result, Brusilov’s great offensive ground to a halt. After the war, General Vladimir Gurko, who participated in the operation, wrote, “The weariness of the troops had its effect … but there can be no question that the stoppage of the advance was premature and founded on orders from Headquarters.” The hard-bitten Brusilov responded impatiently, “An offensive without casualties may be staged only during maneuvers; no action at the present time is taken at random and the enemy suffer as heavy losses as we do … but to defeat the enemy or to beat him off, we must suffer losses and they may be considerable.”
By October 1916, with Sturmer and Protopopov occupying the key ministries of the Russian government, the Empress had apparently achieved what she had set out a year before to do. The ministers who signed the collective letter were gone; those in power fawned on Rasputin. “Sturmer and Protopopov both completely believe in our Friend’s wonderful, God-sent wisdom,” she wrote happily.
In fact, the entire arrangement—and with it, all Russia—was beginning to disintegrate. A new governmental scandal loomed up when Manuilov, Sturmer’s private secretary, was arrested for blackmailing a bank. Two episodes put the army’s loyalty in question. In Marseilles, a Russian brigade on its way from Archangel to fight in Greece suddenly mutinied and killed its colonel. French troops intervened and twenty Russian soldiers were executed. Far more serious, two infantry regiments in Petrograd, called out in October to disperse a crowd of striking workers, turned instead and fired on the police. Only when four regiments of Cossacks charged and drove the infantry back to their barracks at lance point was the mutiny subdued. This time, 150 soldiers went to the firing squad.
Worst of all was the growing economic breakdown. Nicholas, more perceptive than the Empress, had seen this coming for months. “Sturmer … is an excellent, honest man,” he wrote in June, “only, it seems to me, he cannot make up his mind to do what is necessary. The gravest and most urgent question just now is the question of fuels and metals—iron and copper for munitions—because with the shortage of metals, the factories cannot produce a sufficient quantity of cartridges and shells. It is the same with the railways.… These affairs are a regular curse.… But it is imperative to act energetically.” In August, he confessed that the load was becoming unbearable. “At times when I turn over in my mind the names of one person and another for appointments, and think how things will go, it seems that my head will burst. The greatest problem now is the question of supplies.…” In September, as Alexandra was urging the appointment of Protopopov: “And whom am I to begin with? All these changes make my head go round. In my opinion, they are too frequent. In any case, they are not good for the internal situation of the country, as each new man brings with him alterations in the administration.” In November: “The eternal question of supplies troubles me most of all … prices are soaring and the people are beginning to starve. It is obvious where this situation may lead the country. Old Sturmer cannot overcome these difficulties.… It is the most damnable problem I have ever come across.”
Early in November, Nicholas, with Alexis, went to Kiev to inspect hospitals and to visit his mother, who was living away from Petrograd. On this visit, everyone noticed the change that had come over the Tsar. “I was shocked to see … Nicky so pale, thin and tired,” wrote his sister Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who was with her mother in Kiev. “My mother was worried about his excessive quiet.” Gilliard saw the same thing: “He had never seemed to me so worried before. He was usually very self-controlled, but on this occasion he showed himself nervous and irritable, and once or twice he spoke roughly to Alexis Nicolaievich.”
Under the pressure of his dual role as Tsar and Commander-in-Chief, Nicholas’s health and morale were beginning to suffer. Old friends such as Prince Vladimir Orlov had gone, driven away by their disapproval of Rasputin. Even old Count Fredericks managed to remain near the Tsar only by talking about the weather and other inconsequentia. In Kiev, Nicholas had thought to relax from the problems of war and government. Instead, in their first conversation Marie demanded that he dismiss Sturmer and push Rasputin away from the throne.
Although bowed by the cares of his office, Nicholas in Kiev made a graceful Imperial gesture. In the ward of the hospital where his sister worked, “we had a young, wounded deserter, court-martialed and condemned to death,” she wrote. “Two soldiers were guarding him. All of us felt very troubled about him—he looked such a decent boy. The doctor spoke of him to Nicky who at once made for that corner of the ward. I followed him, and I could see the young man was petrified with fear. Nicky put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and asked very quietly why he had deserted. The young man stammered that, having run out of ammunition, he had got frightened, turned and ran. We all waited, our breath held, and Nicky told him that he was free. The next moment the lad scrambled out of bed, fell on the floor, his arms around Nicky’s knees, and sobbed like a child. I believe all of us were in tears.… I have cherished the memory all down the years. I never saw Nicky again.”
While the Tsar was in Kiev, the Duma met and the storm began to break. Party lines no longer mattered: from extreme Right to revolutionary Left, every party opposed the government. Miliukov, the leader of the liberals, made a direct attack on Sturmer and Rasputin, and indirectly attacked the Empress. Sturmer he accused outright of being a German agent. One by one, as he ticked off his charges of inefficiency and corruption against the government, he asked after each accusation, “Is this stupidity or is it treason?” Miliukov was followed by Basil Maklakov, a Right-wing liberal, who declared, “The old regime and the interests of Russia have now parted company.” Quoting from Pushkin, he shouted, “Woe to that country where only the slave and the liar are close to the throne.”
By the time Nicholas had returned from Kiev to Headquarters, the outrage in the Duma could no longer be ignored. With his mother’s pleas ringing in his ears, the Tsar decided to dismiss Sturmer. The Empress was not entirely opposed, but she suggested a holiday rather than dismissal: “Protopopov … [and] our Friend both find for the quiet of the Duma, Sturmer ought to say he is ill and go for a rest for 3 weeks. It’s true … he is really quite unwell and broken by those vile assaults—and being the red flag for that madhouse, it’s better he should disappear a bit.”
Nicholas quickly agreed, and on November 8 (O.S.), he wrote, “All these days I have been thinking of old Sturmer. He, as you say rightly, acts as a red flag, not only to the Duma, but to the whole country, alas. I hear this from all sides; nobody believes in him and everyone is angry because we stand up for him. It is much worse than with Goremykin last year. I reproach him for his excessive prudence and his incapacity for taking on himself the responsibility of making them all work as they should. He is coming here tomorrow. I will give him leave for the present.… As to the future, we shall see; we will talk it over when you come here.”
Rasputin’s suggestion was that Sturmer give up one of his offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to appease the Duma, but not both: “Our Friend says Sturmer can remain still some time as President of Council of Ministers,” Alexandra reminded. But Nicholas, this time, had made up his mind. “I am receiving Sturmer in an hour,” he wrote
