His most obvious defect was his inability to form his own judgement; it was this trait which made his Generals contemptuous of him.17
Back in 1905 only Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaivich, the most famous of Tsar Nicholas’s uncles, had been able to persuade him to sign the October Manifesto and grant a constitution. The Grand Duke was older, more belligerent, and a lot taller; he was six feet six, and his physical presence alone carried authority. And the soldiers respected him, so the Tsar had made him Supreme Commander of the Russian Armies at the start of hostilities in August 1914.
Russia had been bound by treaty to join France and Britain and its old enemy Japan (the Allies) in fighting the expansionist Germans, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later, the Turks (the Central Powers).18 So the Tsar had had to go to war; a Romanov could not break his word. Unfortunately, Russia was unprepared for war in any respect other than manpower. They began with a massive 102 regular land divisions (each of between 12,000 and 20,000 men), where the British began with six. At the very beginning Grand Duke Nikolai, with 1.6 million men at his disposal, sent several divisions to East Prussia, thus gallantly diverting German forces from France and Belgium. The German army was better supplied and vastly better prepared for war than the Russian rabble, and although Russia probably saved the British and French from an ignominious rout, the Russians were easily outmanoeuvred, and tens of thousands killed. This was the battle of Tannenberg, and a great deal of outmoded but useful matériel was gained from it by the Germans.
Before the end of 1914 Turkey had joined the Central Powers. So in 1915, besides trying to defend its western borders, Russia had to prevent Turkey from grabbing the oil fields of Azerbaijan or shoving Russia out of the way right across Central Asia and sneaking into British India. (Persia remained nominally neutral, but unfriendly.) At Grand Duke Nikolai’s request, the British and French deflected Turkish aggression by opening the Dardanelles campaign, which failed.
The Russians were beaten steadily backwards in the west. Morale sank as the German front advanced east along a line approaching Riga in the north, and south to Czernowitz on the border with Romania. Around 750,000 Russians were captured in the summer of 1915 alone. Lines of defence simply crumbled. In Petrograd, Stopford confided to his diary:
It will indeed be a tragedy if the enemy comes here, with all the factories and powderies and cannonries. At Riga there is sixty million pounds’ worth of timber, and more than double that value here.19
At Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar wrung his hands and did nothing. He and his family were self-contained to the point of isolation. From the Tsarina, he received a constant chiding stream of advice, usually presented as the thoughts and insights of their spiritual advisor, Rasputin. Society, liberal and otherwise, was appalled. Rasputin helpfully offered to come to the Stavka to give Grand Duke Nikolai the benefit of his wisdom. He got a telegram by return.
Do come! I shall hang you.
It was never a good idea to offend Rasputin. Already the Tsarina could not invite her beloved advisor to the Alexander Palace, because her husband knew that Uncle Nikolai would find out about it and kick up a row; but this was the final straw. On 28 August 1915, Albert Stopford, dining with the usual clutch of Grand Dukes, heard that Nikolai Nikolaivich was likely to be relieved of his command.20 He informed Buchanan on 1 September.
On 5 September 1915 the news broke decisively: the Tsar in person was to take over as Supreme Commander. Grand Duchess Vladimir, rushing to her palace with this information, was late for dinner. (‘No Romanov is ever late for dinner,’ commented Stopford, appalled.) Forty minutes after her delayed arrival, suppressing his pique and ‘eating my lukewarm potage St-Germain’21 among an assortment of Romanovs, he found them dreadfully despondent. Unlike the Tsar, many of these nobles understood only too well the cost of military mistakes. They had seen the wrecked lives of the poor at first hand and they feared an uprising that might threaten the survival of the monarchy. They were aware of the hostile intelligentsia, whose criticisms they abhorred as inspired by alien ideas. Also, they could feel an icy blast from the German approach in the west, and they did not trust the soldiers, sailors or poorly fed people in the streets to cling to the Allied cause.
We all expect the Germans here sooner or later. Till Riga falls no one will know whether their objectif is Petrograd or Moscow; if Petrograd, their fleet could co-operate with them. The major part of the artillery and munition factories are here.
On the other hand… the winter begins in about 6 weeks’ time… If they come here, will there be a revolution? The fear is the people might rise and make peace to stop the German advance, feeling that the Romanovs have had their chance and been found wanting.22
A separate peace, the British estimated, would release 350,000 German soldiers to fight on the Western Front: it would mean almost inevitable defeat. Refusing to submit to despair, Sir George Buchanan did his best to make the Tsarina reconsider the Tsar’s position.
I took advantage… of an audience which I had early in September [1915] with the Empress to tell Her Majesty that I shared the apprehensions with which the Emperor’s decision was viewed by the Council of Ministers. Not only, I said, would His Majesty have to bear the whole responsibility for any fresh disaster that might befall his armies, but he would, by combining the duties of Commander-in-Chief with those of an autocratic ruler of a great Empire, be undertaking a task beyond the strength of any single man. The Empress at once protested, saying that the Emperor ought to have assumed the command from the very first and that, now that his army had suffered so severely, his proper place was with his troops. ‘I have no patience,’ she continued, ‘with Ministers who try to prevent him doing his duty. The situation requires firmness. The Emperor, unfortunately, is weak; but I am not, and I intend to be firm.23
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaivich was despatched to defend Russia from the Turks in the Caucasus. Tsar Nicholas gritted his teeth and left Tsarskoye Selo to run the war from the Stavka at Moghilev. This, while several hundred miles from any front line, was distant from Petrograd and people said that Rasputin had got the Tsar out of the way in order to better influence policy through the Tsarina. The Tsarina showed Rasputin the maps and plans that her weak little husband had showed her; it was tantamount to treason. In intimate suppers in palaces and restaurants all over the capital and beyond, Grand Dukes and Duchesses began to talk about direct action.
A plot was hatched by the Grand Dukes and several members of the aristocracy to remove the Tsarina from power and force her to retire to a convent. Rasputin was to be sent back to Siberia, the Tsar deposed and the Tsarevich placed on the throne. Everyone plotted, even the generals. As for the British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, his dealings with radical elements caused him to be accused by many Russians of secretly working for the Revolution.24
Nothing came of it, perhaps because at first things did not seem to be turning out too badly. In October of 1915 Grand Duchess Vladimir volunteered brighter news. Stopford wrote home that she
told me she found the Emperor – who had been to see her – quite a changed man, and with quite a different face. He now, for the first time in his life, knows everything, and hears the truth direct. Nikolai Nikolaivich never wanted to know anything, and of what he did know he only told the Emperor so little that it was hardly worth his hearing.25