The theatrical outburst, predictably, was left to Kerensky. ‘Believe me,’ he cried out, ‘that we will carry the precious vessel of your authority to the Constituent Assembly without spilling a drop of blood’.38 In fact, he would spill it all, but that no one could then foresee.
IT was only after the delegation returned to the Tauride Palace that the arguments began over the meaning of the manifesto. At Millionnaya Street there had been no time to study it. Professor Lomonosov had turned up from the transport ministry, belatedly bringing with him the original Nicholas manifesto hidden there; the intention was that it be published jointly with Michael’s. But should these be presented as Acts of two Emperors? Since the word ‘abdicate’ was missing from Michael’s, how was his manifesto to be described?
Because it was a political rather than a legal document, at midnight there was still no clear answer to the question of whether Michael had refused the crown or had abdicated, though no attention seems to have been paid to the point that he had done neither.
‘Foaming at the mouth, Milyukov and Nabokov tried to prove that the abdication of Michael could only have legal meaning if it was recognised that he had been Emperor.’39 It was not until 2 a.m. that agreement was reached — that he was Emperor — and Nabokov set about the final form in which the manifesto would appear, in the form judged best to appease the Soviet. At 3.50 a.m. it was taken away to the printers.40
Michael, the country would be told, having succeeded to the imperial throne after Nicholas’s abdication, had in turn abdicated. He had been Emperor, and was Emperor no more. That was simple. People could understand that, and one of them that evening was his brother in Mogilev.
He was just settling down after his return from Pskov when Alekseev came in with Rodzyanko’s wired version of what had happened in Millionnaya Street. Afterwards, Nicholas wrote in his diary:
Misha, it appears, has abdicated. His manifesto ends up by kowtowing to the Constituent Assembly, whose elections will take place in six months. God knows who gave him the idea of signing such rubbish.41
Given the wreckage which he had mindlessly left behind him and the impossible position in which he had placed his brother, his effrontery had an epic quality about it. Certainly, when he said much the same to his brother-in-law Sandro a few days later, Sandro confessed himself to be ‘speechless’.42
But what, finally, did Michael wearily say himself of that day as he prepared to retire to his makeshift bed? His diary entry for that Friday, March 3, was breathtaking in its brevity.
At 6 a.m. we were woken up by the telephone. It was a message from the new Minister of Justice Kerensky. It stated that the complete Council of Ministers would come to see me in an hour’s time. But actually they arrived only at half-past nine a.m…43
And that was all, from the man who had woken up that morning thinking he was Regent, and went to bed having been proclaimed Emperor.
16. RETREAT TO GATCHINA
MICHAEL left Millionnaya Street next morning, Saturday March 4, at eleven o’ clock, the first time he had set foot outside the apartment for four days. The previous afternoon, while waiting for the final draft of his manifesto, he had sent off a courier with a hastily-pencilled note to Natasha to tell her that he expected to return next morning. ‘Awfully busy and extremely exhausted,’ he had scribbled. ‘Will tell you many interesting things. I kiss you tenderly. All yours, Misha.’1
There was certainly no point in remaining in Petrograd. He had no further role to play, and was not likely to have one until and if a constituent assembly decided to support a constitutional monarchy, and that could not be for several months hence. The new government had its mandate, and needed no more. In essence, Russia now had a caretaker government and a caretaker emperor in a caretaker monarchy.
As Michael left the apartment and stepped out on to the landing, the first sight to greet him was as a surprising as it was agreeable. Lining the staircase leading down to the street was a guard of honour made up of the officers and cadets stationed in the building. There was an order to present arms and as Michael, saluting, walked down the stairs and outside into his waiting car, a cry of ‘Long Live Russia’.2
But what might follow? Would there be hostile demonstrations at the station, agitators demanding his arrest, as the Soviet executive had done only yesterday? Michael’s manifesto, or rather the gloss the Provisional Government had put on it, was sufficient to strike out the Soviet threats against Michael, though not against his brother; passions were calmed and instead, Michael found himself going home in something akin to triumph.
Followed by another car filled with armed cadets, he and Johnson were driven off to board a special train arranged for them at the Baltic station. Joined by General Yuzefovich, his old chief of staff, he stepped out of his car and into a station ‘overcrowded with soldiers…everywhere were machine-guns and boxes of ammunition’. Flanked by his armed escort he walked to his waiting train and to another reception of the kind he had not expected. ‘A military detachment was lined up by my carriage and I greeted them, and a gathered crowd cheered me.’3
The scene at the Baltic station, with saluting mutineers and applauding bystanders, was not without its irony. Here was its own evidence that the manifesto drafted at Millionnaya Street had served its purpose, at least in the short term. His ‘abdication’ — perception being nine-tenths of politics — had put an end to the revolution. Now Michael was being hailed, not hunted, and if Lvov, Kerensky and the others had been present at his departure, it would have given them immense satisfaction. ‘It seems that order in general is being established’, he would write that night in his diary.4
The previous evening, in explanation of his manifesto, he had told Princess Putyatina that it would ‘calm the passions of the populace, make the soldiers and workers who had mutinied see reason, and re-establish the shattered discipline of the army.’5 He said much the same on his return to Gatchina on Saturday afternoon. Bimbo’s brother George, still taking refuge in Nikolaevskaya Street, wrote afterwards that Michael feared that if he were to reign as Emperor ‘without knowing the wishes of the country, matters will never calm down’.6
For the moment, however, he was simply glad to be home and away from the madness of Petrograd. It was hard to credit everything that had happened since he had set off for the capital only five days earlier, when his brother was Emperor and Supreme Commander in Mogilev, and he had gone to the Marie Palace to discuss what could be done with a government that had vanished that same night. Five days? It seemed a lifetime.
Inevitably Natasha, thrilled to have him back safely, would pour scorn on Nicholas. The excuse so often had been that he was doing Alexandra’s bidding, but she had not been at Pskov and had no hand in the decision to bypass Baby. How could he have been so stupid, so selfish, so blind to the consequences? There was no answer to that, and never would be. How different everything would have been — for the wider world, as it turned out, not just Russia — if Michael had come home that weekend as Regent, not as the newspapers were announcing, as ex-Emperor. Natasha could clench her fists in rage, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Nicholas had ruined the Romanovs and in ruining them had ruined Russia.