Alexandra (43 page)

The receptions symbolized stability and order. Yet, less than forty-eight hours later, it was clear that disorder was in the ascendant, and stability had become an illusion.

On the morning of March 13, Alix called her lady-in-waiting and told her to quietly pack her bags, taking as little as possible to avoid alarming the other servants. It might be necessary for
the family to leave the palace at short notice, and Alix wanted Sophie to be ready to go with them.

The Grand Marshal of the court, the elderly Count Paul Benckendorff, and the acting guard commander Grooten had been discussing whether or not the empress and her children ought to leave
Tsarskoe Selo for a safer place. Alix was against it, both because the children were so unwell and because for her to flee the palace would look like cowardice. But the question seemed to be
academic, at least for the moment; it was doubtful whether the imperial train would be allowed to come to Tsarskoe Selo, and the train lines were sure to be in rebel hands.

But if they could not leave by train, some other way out might have to be found. Knowing this, Alix passed on the caution to Sophie, and quietly began to collect a few things of her own, relying
on Lili Dehn to take over the task of nursing the children.

‘She could scarcely master her anxiety,’ Sophie wrote, remembering her mistress’s state of mind that morning. Nicky had not come
from Mogilev as
promised. Alix had sent telegrams to him there, but had received no reply – an ominous sign, for in the past he had always replied quickly. Perhaps the revolutionaries had seized him, or were
besieging the army headquarters. Count Apraxin, newly arrived from Petrograd, brought word that no relieving force had reached the city, and that the government, such as it was, had taken refuge in
the Admiralty, protected by a tiny force of loyal troops. The Duma had taken over – illegally, as the tsar had disbanded it – and was attempting to run the country.

Among the palace servants, trepidation began to spread. Many left. Though none dared say it aloud, everyone whispered that the Alexander Palace would be the next likely target of attack by the
revolutionaries. If they could capture the heir to the throne they would strengthen their position many times over. And if they could capture the empress, that hated symbol of moral evil and
corruption, they could take vengeance on her as Grand Duke Dimitri and Felix Yusupov had taken vengeance on Rasputin, endearing themselves to all Russia.

Shortly after midday on March 13, water ceased to flow from the taps in the palace. The rebels had cut off the water supply. Soon the electricity too was cut off. Candles and lanterns were
collected, and water brought from the lake, but the lack of electricity and pure water caused the remaining servants to became even more fearful. What if all food supplies were cut off as well?
Would they be left to starve?

There were more desertions towards evening, more of the household staff melting away into the village or disappearing into the palace park. Then, at about eight in the evening, thousands of
soldiers of the Tsarskoe Selo garrison left their barracks and began a mini-revolution of their own.
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They fired their rifles into the air and
shot out windows in nearby houses. Storming the small prison, they liberated the inmates and, smashing the windows of wine shops, drank their fill before starting to make their way slowly towards
the palace.

That their mood was murderous no one doubted. At the very least, if the most rational among them succeeded in restraining the most violent, the empress and Alexei would be kidnapped and taken
to Petrograd where they would be imprisoned. But to judge from the shouted threats of the men and their continual rifle fire, their wild bawling of revolutionary songs and
their obscene name-calling, rational voices were not likely to prevail. Made brutal by drink and with no one in authority to restrain them, the soldiers seemed likely to overwhelm the palace
defenders, kill the empress and rape her daughters in an orgy of bloodshed and looting.

The palace guard proved loyal. Assembling in the wide courtyard of the palace were three battalions of guardsmen, two squadrons of Cossacks, a company of railway soldiers and a single heavy
field battery, its guns pointing outwards into the empty blackness beyond the tall iron gates.

The defenders knelt in a long line in the snow, another line standing behind them, reserves in the rear. There was no moon, only the faint glow thrown up by the snow and the looming whiteness of
the palace itself, its windows flickering yellow with candlelight. The temperature had dropped sharply; the men’s breath froze in the air as they waited for the mutineers to come closer.

Though the strain on her heart was great, Alix had managed, with the aid of Lili Dehn, who pushed her from behind, to climb the stairs to the second floor of the palace where the
children’s sickrooms were. It was there that she was informed of the mutiny of the garrison.

When the initial shock had passed, she went to Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei and told each of them, keeping her voice as calm as she could, that there would soon be firing very close to
the palace and that they were not to be frightened; the guard would protect them. This done, and without changing out of her white nurse’s uniform, she threw a black cloak over her gown and
went out into the courtyard, accompanied by Count Benckendorff and her daughter Marie.

Alix knew, and the soldiers knew as well, that they were in the minority. Fidelity to the tsar was diminishing; the men were under pressure to join the revolutionaries. They and their families
might well suffer severe punishment for what they now did in defending the palace and its occupants.

Still, Alix trusted in their constancy, and she told them so, walking up and down the long defensive lines with Marie beside her. She trusted in their devotion to the
tsar, she said. She knew that they would not hesitate to defend the tsarevich. She hoped that they would not have to fire their weapons, that a show of force would be enough to turn back the
mutineers.

Meanwhile the disloyal troops of the garrison were coming through the palace parks, weaving in and out among the statuary and pergolas, the grottoes and antique pavilions that ornamented the
gardens. They churned the snow to slush, flattened the bushes and kept up their bursts of gunfire.

But, having spent themselves in mayhem, they were beginning to falter. It was after midnight, too dark for them to see across the broad lawns, formal gardens and lakes that separated them from
the Alexander Palace, but they had heard that the palace courtyard was full of soldiers, in numbers greater than their own, and that there were gunners on the roof waiting to mow them down as soon
as they came within range. Having come as far as the cluster of houses and pavilions known as the Chinese Village, they halted; they would wait until morning before deciding whether or not to
proceed.

They had decided to wait, but no one in the Alexander Palace knew this, and the soldiers, staff and family spent the entirety of that long, bitterly cold night expecting an assault. Believing
the empress to be the principal target, the few remaining household members slept on sofas outside her bedroom, along with two of the tsar’s aides who had managed, despite considerable danger
and mostly on foot, to make their way to Tsarskoe Selo from Petrograd.

Alix herself hardly slept that night, shuttling between the sickrooms and the sitting room, her footsteps echoing in the empty dark rooms in between. The palace felt all but deserted, save for
the soldiers who came and went from the guardroom and the few remaining gentlemen of the staff who patrolled the corridors.

At last morning came, and the threat of immediate assault abated. The mutinous troops from the Tsarskoe Selo garrison were no longer poised to attack the palace; instead they joined with
revolutionary
forces from Petrograd which had been brought in by train during the night in great numbers. Now a much enlarged body of troops siding with the
revolutionaries surrounded the palace, held in check for the time being but able, at any time, to overwhelm its defenders.

That day and the next, March 14 and 15, no one within the Alexander Palace knew what to expect. Fragments of news, much of it unreliable, reached them but there was still no word from Nicky, and
Alix’s worry about him increased.

She continued to nurse her children, who were growing more and more ill. Tatiana could not hear at all out of her abscessed ears, Anastasia too was developing abscesses and Marie, who had come
down with double pneumonia, had such a high fever that Dr Botkin thought she might die.
⁷

Alix smoked, prayed, looked after her sick daughters and son, and now and then snatched an hour or two of sleep. Her face took on a haggard look; she could no longer disguise her weariness.

Day by day, her worries were expanding. Her husband’s silence (Was he safe? Had he been imprisoned or even killed by the revolutionaries?), her children’s increasing debility, with
Marie desperately, perhaps fatally ill, the capital in rebel hands and the government in complete disarray, her own life under threat: she was close to complete exhaustion.

Then, on March 16, came the most shocking news of all.

Leaflets distributed in Petrograd and brought to Tsarskoe Selo by the few servants who returned to their posts announced the abdication of the tsar.

He had signed the instrument of abdication at Pskov, while aboard the imperial train, the leaflets said. He was tsar no longer.

When Count Benckendorff came to Alix to confirm this painful news, she could not at first believe it. ‘She could not imagine he had taken such a step so hurriedly,’ the count wrote,
‘especially since he knew Alexei was so ill.’

But Alexei’s illness no longer mattered, dynastically, for the tsar had abdicated not only on behalf of himself but on behalf of his son. He had given up the throne so that his brother
Michael could rule,
and so that Russia, governed by a firmer hand, could rally and win the war.

But the swift rush of events had not ended there. When Michael was told of his brother’s abdication, and informed that he was now tsar, he was deeply troubled. His accession had been
brought about under duress; it was the revolutionaries, and not his subjects, who had made him tsar. He saw the virtue of serving as a figurehead, a force for stability. Yet if the people did not
want him – and the people, at least those in the capital, seemed to be against the monarchy – then his accession might lead to renewed violence, increased instability. He and other
family members might well be killed. He decided to abdicate in his turn.
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Three hundred years of Romanov rule had come to an end. Loyalties maintained over centuries now had no clearly defined focus. Though often criticized and belittled, the tsar had been loved. He
had been, to a degree realized only after his abdication, a sacred figure, venerated not so much for himself but for the tradition, the patriotic feelings, of which he was the natural focus. And
now the throne was empty.

Officers of the palace guard wept openly as the news of the abdication spread. ‘Consternation was general,’ Count Benckendorff wrote.
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The tsar had been their anchor. Protecting him and his family had been their mission in life. Knowing that he was now just an ordinary man, at the head of an ordinary family,
they felt lost, adrift, and inconsolably sad.

Members of the household came forwards to assure Alix that, even though she was no longer empress, they were and would remain loyal to her.

They found her in her daughters’ schoolroom, where she had taken refuge in solitude. ‘She was deadly pale and supported herself with one hand on the schoolroom table.’ When
Sophie came up to her, the two women embraced, Sophie ‘murmuring some broken words of affection’, Alix kissing her lady-in-waiting. Count Benckendorff took Alix’s hand,
‘tears running down his usually immobile face’.

‘It is for the best,’ Alix said, speaking in French for Benckendorff’s benefit. ‘It is God’s will. May God grant that this saves Russia.
That’s all that matters.’
¹⁰

The marshal and the lady-in-waiting left her there in the schoolroom, collapsing into a chair, crying and covering her face with her hands.

Like the soldiers of the guard, she too was adrift. The purpose that had sustained her during the war years, to serve as her husband’s prop and support in the work of ruling, to bolster
his will with hers, had fallen away. She had given her all to the enormous task of being his strength: her failing health, what remained of her vigour, her staunch faith. Now that task was at an
end.

The task, the ruler, the throne itself had been swept away, swiftly and finally, and an important part of her had been swept away with them, leaving only confusion, bewilderment and a crushing
sense of loss.

T
he provisional government, created by the Duma deputies who continued to meet, though the Duma itself had been dissolved, was now the ruling
authority in Russia – ruling by virtue of its own self-declared sovereignty, in the absence of a tsar.