mother to scurry around for other allies, in vain.
Grand Duke Paul recognised that they had failed when he admitted to Paleologue that ‘the Emperor is more under the Empress’s thumb than ever. She has persuaded him that the hostile movement against her is…nothing more than a conspiracy of the Grand Dukes and a drawing room revolt’.7
She was deluding herself. There were more serious plots afoot. All were intended to bring about the abdication of the Tsar and thereby Alexandra’s removal from the political scene, and the substitution of twelve- year-old Alexis as Emperor, under the Regency of Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich. The question in January 1917 was no longer whether this should be done, but when and by whom.
MICHAEL had returned to Gatchina too late to be consulted about the family petition on behalf of Dimitri, but there was never any doubt about where his sympathy lay. Alexandra had to be removed from any further influence on affairs. Early in the New Year he drove to Tsarskoe Selo to meet his brother, and to press the case for a change of course — as indeed he had pressed him in his warning letter to Nicholas eight weeks earlier and before the crisis which now engulfed him. Nicholas did not attempt to browbeat him, as he had done in dealing with the other members of the family. Instead, he was clearly rattled, not least by the intervention a few days earlier of the British ambassador Sir George Buchanan, speaking informally on behalf of the British government which had given him permission to talk personally to the Tsar, albeit not officially on behalf of London or King George V. Even so, Nicholas was well aware that what Buchanan was saying was what London believed to be the truth. It did not make for a happy interview, as he now confessed to Michael.
Alarmed by the open talk in the capital of an impending palace coup, Buchanan told him that interior minister Protopopov ‘is bringing Russia to the verge of ruin’, that in the event of a revolution, ‘only a small part of the army can be counted on to defend the dynasty’, and that the only safe course now was for the Tsar to ‘break down the barrier that separates you from your people and to regain their confidence.’
Nicholas’s face hardened at that. ‘You tell me that I must regain the confidence of the people. Isn’t it rather for my people to regain my confidence?’8
Buchanan departed in despair. However, the meeting had shaken Nicholas, despite his outward show of disdain. A government minister who met him immediately afterwards found him ‘trembling and distrait’.9 He was still clearly troubled by it all when Michael arrived, for he recounted to him everything that Buchanan had said to him — its own admission that he was not as confident as he pretended to be, though too proud to admit that to anyone other than his brother.
How could Michael help? The answer to that came when he unexpectedly turned up shortly afterwards at the apartment of Mikhail Rodzyanko, the president of the state Duma, on Furshtadtskaya, near the Tauride Palace, home of the Duma.
Rodzyanko was surprised to see him. When they sat down, Michael came straight to the point. ‘I should like to talk to you about what is going on, and to consult you as to what should be done. We understand the situation perfectly.’ In saying ‘we’ he made clear that he meant the Tsar, who did not understand at all, but that in talking to Rodzyanko he was not going behind his back.
Rodzyanko’s response was as frank as the question invited him to be. ‘The entire policy of the government must undergo a radical change. Ministers must be appointed whom the country trusts, not men whose very presence in the government is an insult to public feeling. I am sorry to tell you that this can only be done on condition that the Empress is removed. She exercises a deplorable influence on all appointments, even those in the army. Alexandra Fedorovna is fiercely and universally hated and all circles are clamouring for her removal. While she remains in power, we shall continue on the road to ruin.’
‘Buchanan said the same thing to my brother,’ replied Michael ‘The whole family is aware of her evil influence. She and my brother are surrounded by traitors. All decent people have gone. But things being so, what is to be done?’
‘Your Highness, you, as his only brother, must tell him the whole truth — point out the pernicious results of the Empress’s influence…’
‘Do you think there must be a responsible ministry?’
‘The general demand is only for a strong government…the country’s desire is to see at the head of the Cabinet a man enjoying the confidence of the nation. Such a man would form a ministry responsible to the Tsar… for God’s sake, Your Highness, use your influence to get the Duma summoned, and Alexandra Fedorovna and her set put out of the way.’
According to Rodzyanko this interview lasted for more than an hour. ‘The Grand Duke agreed with everything and promised to help…’10 Rodzyanko’s wife thought Michael was there ‘on some mysterious mission, I think he was sent secretly by his brother’. But she reported to a relative that ‘he knows and understands everything, and listened attentively to all that was said and promised to prevail upon the Emperor to see [my husband]’. When Nicholas then did agree to meet Rodzyanko, she wrote that ‘it is more than likely that the audience was granted after Michael Aleksandrovich’s expositions.’11
That meeting between the Tsar and the Duma president came on Saturday January 7 in Nicholas’s study at Tsarskoe Selo. Rodzyanko spoke frankly about the mood of the country, the disastrous influence of the Empress, and the mistakes which now threatened to plunge Russia into anarchy. His message was blunt: unless he agreed to grant concessions and to remove Alexandra from politics, he faced disaster. ‘Your Majesty, do not compel the people to choose between you and the good of the country.’
The Tsar pressed his head with his hands and said, ‘Is it possible that for 22 years I tried to act for the best, and that for 22 years it was all a mistake?’ Rodzyanko did not flinch from his answer. ‘Yes, Your Majesty, for 22 years you have followed the wrong course.’12
But if Rodzyanko hoped for a new start he was to be disappointed. Once he had bowed and set off to return to the capital, Nicholas went on as before. Nothing was to be done, nothing would change. The Tsar would retreat to his army headquarters in distant Mogilev leaving Alexandra in their Tsarskoe Selo palace to deal with ministers who did whatever she demanded.
There was little more immediately that Michael could do, for on January 19 he departed back to the front line. Three days later he was in Kiev, and on his way to the south-western headquarters of his 2nd Cavalry Corps. His new appointment, effective as of January 29, was that of Inspector General of Cavalry, but before taking up the post he needed to hand over his Corps formally and to make his farewells to the divisions, brigades and regiments. Over the next days he travelled the front line by sleigh, inspecting trenches and outposts. He thanked ‘the riflemen for their service, tasted the food, inspected the wooden barracks of the lower-ranking men, and then went to a hut for a bite to eat.’13 After the atmosphere in Petrograd it was almost a relief to him to be at the front line and he enjoyed his tour. He found nothing in his Corps to suggest that morale was low, or that the ferment in the capital had affected his troops. As before, when he had left the Savage Division ten months earlier, they cheered him, played trumpet farewells, sang songs, gave him tea and looked sorry to see him go, he noted in his diary.14 What he also noted was that he had been spared making a speech, as he did when departing the Savage Division. Doing so, he lamented, ‘must have taken at least three years of my life. I am always so frightfully nervous, but I pulled myself together and spoke loudly, slowly, and clearly.’
Yet politics could not be kept at bay. Before returning to Gatchina he went to say goodbye to his commander-in-chief Brusilov at his headquarters in Kamenets-Podolsky, arriving there on Wednesday, February 1.
‘I was very fond of him’. Brusilov recalled, ‘for he was an absolutely honourable and upright man, taking no sides and lending himself to no intrigues…he shunned every kind of gossip, whether connected with the services or with family matters. As a soldier he was an excellent leader and an unassuming and conscientious worker.’15
As the two men said farewell on February 1, Brusilov thought the situation too serious for just polite talk. ‘I expounded most earnestly…the need for immediate and drastic reforms… begging him to explain all this to the Tsar and to lend my views his personal support.’ Michael promised to do so, but cautioned that ‘my brother has time and time again had warnings and entreaties of this kind from every quarter, but he is the slave of influence and pressure that no one is in a position to overcome.’16 He meant the Empress.
The two men shook hands, and Michael set off home next day. It was a slow journey. ‘We are moving with a delay of 3 hours, probably because of snowdrifts. I say “probably”, as you can never know the real cause of happenings. But the truth is that everything is in complete disorder everywhere.’17
