land’.24 And perhaps there would be: elections for the new Constituent Assembly had been fixed for November 12 and the resultant Assembly was due to convene on November 28. Whatever Kerensky and his Soviet allies did in the next weeks, their time of arbitrary rule was drawing to a close. The Russian people would decide the future, and there would be a new and elected government, not these men who had made such a botch of affairs in the past months. For years the leading politicians of the day had clamoured that they were best placed to take the country forward, but having been handed the torch by Michael, they had proved incapable of keeping it alight. It was very dispiriting.
Anxious friends urged him to leave at once. There were many Romanovs who had sought sanctuary in the Crimea, where the reach of the Soviet was hardly noticeable, but Michael refused even to think of that. No, he would stay where he was until the future of Russia was settled. After all, he was the architect of those elections: he had made the calling of a constituent assembly a condition of his vesting his powers in the then seemingly promising Provisional Government. He would stick it out in Gatchina until the Assembly decided what was to be. It was his duty. Hope must triumph over experience.
Some of that hope reached the banished Dimitri in Persia. Taken under the wing of the British ambassador in Teheran, and made an honorary officer in the British army, Dimitri received an unexpected letter from Natasha in early October 1917. In his diary he wrote that he was ‘surprised that she suddenly decided to make contact and wrote favourably and touchingly — this might mean that things have taken a little turn for the better in Gatchina’.25.
In fact, they were about to get much worse. On October 25, 1917, Petrograd fell to the Bolsheviks — the men dedicated to creating a Russia in which there could never be either an emperor or a democratic republic. The best Michael could hope for now was to be left in peace as Citizen Romanov.
19. CITIZEN ROMANOV
KERENSKY had blundered badly in arming the Bolsheviks in the face of Kornilov’s advancing columns. He had sacked him as Supreme Commander and placed him under arrest, but in humbling Kornilov he had lost the trust of the other generals. He had made his bed in the extremist camp and he now had to lie on it. Declaring a republic on September 1 had done nothing to win over the workers. That month, there were strikes across Russia, and mass unemployment as industrial plants closed and manufacturing slumped. As Kerensky’s stock fell, that of the Bolsheviks rose. ‘Down with the war’, they cried, a call that was echoed throughout the Petrograd garrison and beyond.
The Bolshevik coup, rumoured for mid-September, came later but when it did come Kerensky had no Savage Division, no Krymov, and no Kornilov to crush it. Kerensky was on his own, as he discovered when the three Cossack divisions he had ordered to the defence of the capital refused ‘to saddle up’.1 The bulk of the Petrograd garrison also refused to rally to him, and for the defence of the Winter Palace — which he had made the centre and symbol of his power — he had to rely on officer cadets and a ‘women’s battalion’.2
At Gatchina, the Bolshevik threat dominated discussion from October 19, when Michael noted that ‘an action… is expected daily’. Five days later he wrote that ‘all bridges in Petrograd are swung apart because of the action expected every moment by the Bolsheviks’. The next day, Monday, October 25, Petrograd fell. ‘The Winter Palace is occupied by the Bolsheviks… The Council of the Republic is dismissed by the Bolsheviks and the military staff of the District is in their hands. There is shooting in some streets. The whole garrison went over to the Bolsheviks… Kerensky has gone to Dno to summon help.’3
The following day he recorded that ‘all power is in the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee. All the banks, ministries are seized. The Winter Palace, which was heavily bombarded was defended by cadets and the Women’s Battalion and many lives were lost. All Cabinet ministers were arrested and are in the Kresty prison. In short, the Bolsheviks have won a complete victory… but for how long?’ 4
Although Petrograd had fallen, Gatchina was still in the hands of loyal government troops, reinforced by artillery and tough-looking Cossacks. The local Bolsheviks fled at the first sight of them. Kerensky, having abandoned the capital, now turned up at Gatchina Palace, defiantly promising a counter-offensive.
Walking about the town, Michael and Natasha were briefly encouraged. There were reports of more troops on their way. Cavalry, guns, and armed soldiers seemed to be everywhere, though there were not yet enough for General Peter Krasnov, commander of the diminished Third Cavalry Corps; even so, he seemed confident.
In his own show of confidence, and as signal to the townspeople that all would be well, Michael and Natasha went to the local cinema, in the evening of Friday, October 27 — two days after Petrograd fell — to see the film
In the event, it would be a disaster. Heavily out-numbered, Krasnov was soundly beaten, retreating with the remnants of his Corps after what would be the only battle between loyal troops and the triumphant Bolsheviks. It was the end for Kerensky, no longer dictator but a hunted man. It was also the end of any hope that Michael had that the Bolshevik uprising would leave him untouched in Gatchina. He had to get out before they came for him.
He still had his Finnish permit for two cars, but how much time had he? On Monday, October 30, Johnson was sent to the palace to find the answer to that. He returned at 11.30 p.m., his face grim. ‘The position of Gatchina is critical,’ he reported.6 It was now or never.
With that, the household began packing valuables, working until 4 a.m. with the ever-practical Natasha ‘sitting down and prising out the precious stones from various Oriental orders’ which Michael had been awarded over the years.7 After a few hours’ sleep they resumed packing and continued doing so for the rest of that day. Michael went out and returned to report that a truce had been declared ‘until midday tomorrow’ — Wednesday, November 1.8 It was going to be touch-and-go.
The plan was that the children and Miss Neame, would leave early in the morning in the Packard, and go to Batova, an estate owned by Natasha’s close friend Nadine Vonlyarlarskaya, sister of the lawyer Vladimir Nabokov, 15 miles to the south of Gatchina. Nadine and her young daughter would go with them, and they would wait there until Michael and Natasha arrived in the second car.
Arriving safely, the car started back to Gatchina to pick up possessions and provisions while the children, Nadine and Miss Neame sat down to breakfast. ‘Suddenly the manageress of the estate came hurriedly in to say that Bolshevik centres were being formed in all surrounding villages; that our car had been seen coming to the house; and that the Commissars intended to arrest the occupants, thinking that they were members of the Provisional Government trying to escape.’9 All telephone lines to the house had already been cut.
Knowing that Michael had to be warned if he was not to fall into the same trap, Nadine quickly saddled a horse and rode off to the local hospital and used their telephone to call him. There was only one line working but she got through to Nikolaevskaya Street. Speaking in English to confuse eavesdroppers she told Michael what had happened. He replied that he would send the Packard back with a message.
The little party waited anxiously all day but it was not until 8 p.m. that the Packard returned, with an armed Bolshevik sitting next to the chauffeur.10
The plan was in ruins. Even before the truce deadline passed, Gatchina had fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and sailors had turned up at Michael’s house and confiscated both the Packard and his Rolls- Royce.11 Their only concession was that, Michael having persuaded the new local Bolshevik commandant Semen Roshal that the children had gone only on a day trip, to permit the Packard to return and bring them home.
At least they still had a home. Kerensky at that moment was a refugee, hiding in a peasant’s cottage. The Provisional Government, born on March 3, was no more.
THREE days later, on Saturday November 4, the Bolshevik commandant Roshal returned to Nikolaevskaya
