The Romance of the Romanoffs

by Joseph McCabe

It was entirely natural that Russia should spread along its Trans-Siberian line, develop its vast domains in Asia, and seek ice-free ports on the eastern coast. This national ambition was, however, complicated by sordid speculations on the part of men and women who, directly or indirectly, had influence over the Tsar. Revolutionary writers say that the Dowager-Empress herself speculated heavily in Asiatic properties, and at least it may be regarded as certain that the Grand Dukes and adherents of the court sought fortune in that direction. From Siberia these cupidities reached out toward Manchuria and Korea, and had large and vague designs upon helpless China. Russia—so the formula ran—was the heir of Dchingis Khan and Timur. It had a “divine mission” to impose its Kultur upon Asia. The very thin strain of Tatar blood in the veins of Russia was at length discovered to have some value.

The Chino-Japanese War occurred in the first year of the reign of Nicholas II, and the rise of an Asiatic power in the path of Russian ambition caused a momentary concern. Japan must be promptly checked, and at the close of the war Russia bluntly refused to allow Japan to occupy any of the territory it had seized. Germany astutely watched and fostered the dangerous adventure which diverted Russia from Europe to the Far East. Under cover of its supposed protection of China, Russia then established itself in Manchuria, secured (with money borrowed from France and England) a financial hold on China, and in 1898 obtained a long lease of Port Arthur and Talienwan. The cold anger of the Japanese at this piece of perfidy was little disguised, and presently Russia was requested to carry out its promise to evacuate Manchuria. From its new ports, it was plain to all, Russia would spread to Korea. The other European Powers now joined in the protest of Japan, and Russia sought to gain time by long negotiations, while it pressed the development of Port Arthur and Dalny. These devices Japan, in 1904, sternly cut short by making war.

The documentary evidence in regard to those aspects of the Russo-Japanese War which concern us here is in the same unsatisfactory condition as so much of the evidence on which we must rely in this chapter. It awaits the impartial sifting of history. The suppression of truth in Russia throughout the reign of Nicholas II had the inevitable effect of provoking abroad a stream of something more than the truth. Writers and orators of revolutionary parties do not usually make calm and conscientious reflection on the statements they repeat, and in every country of the world the Russian writers found a large public eager to hear sensational stories about the court and the bureaucracy. It is at present entirely impossible to select with any confidence the reliable statements from the mass of legends which were published in Europe and America by the critics of the dynasty. Their fellows in Russia were, we shall see, being butchered in thousands, and were in tens of thousands suffering an agony which they often terminated by suicide; and, on the other hand, many of the chief agents of this bloody system were undoubtedly corrupt adventurers or cynical egoists. In the vast anti-Romanoff literature, therefore, we cannot look for judicious impartiality, and if the reader misses from this chapter many a picturesque legend which he has read in the scorching pages of revolutionary writers he must not be surprised. The history of that appalling reign is still to be written.

As far as the Russo-Japanese War is concerned we need not hesitate to admit three points. The first is that the Tsar, if not some of his ministers, sincerely believed that the little nation of the Far East would never have the audacity to fight mighty Russia; and that Germany encouraged the Russian court in this view. Japan was bluffing, the Tsar was assured, and he might pursue his eastern extension under cover of a hollow and dilatory diplomatic negotiation. The second clear point is that this eastern extension of Russia was very largely due to the corrupt and selfish ambitions of influential individuals. Stories about the investments of the Dowager-Empress or the Grand Dukes or other persons of the Tsar’s circle may or may not be true. There is fair evidence that the speculative fever penetrated the court. In any case the “divine mission” of Russia in the Far East was as hollow a pretence as the divine mission of Germany in the west in 1914. The third established point, and the one of most importance for our purpose, is that members of the imperial family and servants of the reactionary regime made vast sums of money by a corrupt diversion of goods and funds from the purposes of war to their private purses.

The knowledge of these facts came to thoughtful people in Russia as the ignominious campaign dragged on from month to month. Public opinion, startled by the success of what they had been taught to regard as a tribe of “monkeys” against their great army, looked for hidden reasons of Russia’s failure, and they were brought to light. It was known that aristocratic officers gambled and rioted in the Asiatic towns; it was known that trained regiments of the regular army were kept at home to coerce Russia while crowds of reservists were hurried out to meet the deadly Japanese fire; it was known that the large sums extorted from the people for the prosecution of the war were to a great extent diverted; it was known that Count de Witte and Count Lamsdorff had tried to avert war, and that Manchurian affairs had then been entrusted to a favourite of the palace-clique, Admiral Alexieff. Before the war was half over the revolution was again aflame in Russia, and it grew daily.

We are told by writers who seem to have had the confidence of the revolutionaries that the complete suppression of overt criticism by Alexander III and his son had led to the formation of a new and very powerful secret movement. It had branches in all parts of Russia, and it is said to have had as many as three million members in the year 1904. Twelve men of distinguished ability directed its propaganda, and many wealthy Russians, disgusted at or injured by the atrocious system which Nicholas II maintained, devoted their whole fortunes to its work. Many of the stories told of its secret action are melodramatic and improbable, but it cannot be doubted that a vast and well-organised movement existed, not unlike the secret republican organisation which was then being formed in Portugal. The Russian movement, however, was not definitely republican. It aimed at converting the Tsar, under pressure of his people, to constitutional views. It resented and despised the turbulent movements of the students and Socialists, and it countenanced assassination only in very grave and carefully-selected cases. We are told that its agents repeatedly placed on the Tsar’s desk letters in which the situation was fully described and Nicholas was urged to make peace with his people by granting a constitution and casting off the influence of the Dowager-Empress.

The early agitation was crushed with the customary brutality. One of the most repulsive adventurers of the time, Plehve, had become Minister of the Interior, and under his genial lead the police and magistrates fell upon every suspicion of revolt. Over the greater part of Russia the protection of civil law had been virtually suspended since 1881. Under what was called “The Regulation for Reinforced Protection” suspects might be at any time arrested and imprisoned, journals suppressed, the civil courts entirely ignored. In the year 1903 nearly 400 men and women had been arrested under this barbarous system, and it was estimated that there were already more than 100,000 in the jails of Russia and in Siberia. The work had continued, however, and the revolutionaries boast that in the very year before the war, the year when they seemed to be feeblest, they circulated two million pamphlets among the Russian people. As the agitation grew with the war, Plehve retorted with increased savagery; and on July 28th (1904), he was, in spite of his extraordinary precautions, assassinated. The murderer, Sazonoff, was sentenced only to twenty years’ imprisonment, and Nicholas reduced this to fourteen years. The revolutionaries claim that they warned the Tsar that he answered with his life for the life of Sazonoff. It was, at all events, made plain to the Tsar by the press of Europe that his system of ruling was regarded as barbarous.

A more moderate man, or one who claimed at least to have some sympathy with liberalism, Prince Sviatopolk-Mirski, was put in charge of the ministry of the interior, and the struggle passed to a new phase. On November 19th the police of St. Petersburg permitted a large meeting of members of the provincial Zemstvos, and a deputation of these was allowed to see Prince Mirski. They demanded free parliamentary institutions and manhood suffrage, and the Prince undertook to lay their demands before the Tsar. It is reported that the Dowager-Empress, the Grand Dukes, and the reactionary ministers violently opposed any concession, and we must assume both that they would be consulted and that they would give this advice. The Tsar was nervous and timorous, physically and mentally unequal to the great burden which now lay upon him. On December 12th he issued a ukase in which he promised reforms, but he described the demands of the representatives of the Zemstvos as “inadmissible” and inconsistent with “the fundamental laws of the Empire.” The bulk of his people were, he said, “true to the old foundations of the State-organisation,” and he would protect them from the intrigues of agitators.

The battle continued. A great meeting at St. Petersburg was addressed openly by writers and scholars of distinction, and amongst the crowd the cry “Down with the Autocracy” was heard. Petitions and demands for representative institutions rained upon the Tsar from all classes of his subjects. Strikes and riots filled the daily press. On January 9th the notorious Father Gapon led 300,000 workers to the Winter Palace, to lay their grievances before the “Little Father,” and before evening the snows of St. Petersburg were stained with the blood of thousands. There were spurts of revolt at Kichineff, Odessa, Moscow, and even Kronstadt.