[37] By a ukase of August 31st, 1914, the Czar had decreed that St. Petersburg should henceforth be called Petrograd.
[38] It was the same sentiment which made him say to an officer of his suite after his abdication: “Just to think that, now I am Czar no longer, they won’t even let me fight for my country!” The words reveal the very depths of his soul.
[39] The French army in its march on Moscow occupied Mohileff on July 19th, and Marshal Davout lived for several days in the same house which the Czar and Czarevitch had made their quarters.
[40] Professor Fiodrof accompanied the Czar on all his journeys after the latter took over the supreme command. Dr. Botkin and Dr. Derevenko had remained behind at Tsarskoïe-Selo.
[41] I should like to record a slight incident at the beginning of spring when the Czar was at Tsarskoïe-Selo between his visits to the front. It illustrates the kind of feelings the Czar entertained for Germany and tried to instil into his son. The Czarevitch was playing in the park that day, and the Czar and the Grand-Duchesses were also there. He slipped behind his youngest sister, who had not seen him coming, and threw a huge snowball at her. His father had witnessed the act. He called the boy to him and talked to him severely. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Alexis! You’re behaving like a German, to attack anyone from behind when they can’t defend themselves. It’s horrid and cowardly. Leave that sort of behaviour to the Germans!”
[42] I was able to ascertain this for myself at the end of 1915. At the house of some friends one day I met a young officer whose political opinions were favourable to the Court. He told us with intense indignation that on the Czarina’s orders someone had taken gifts and money to the German officers being treated at the same hospital as he had been in. This envoy had not even entered the rooms occupied by the Russian officers. Astonished at his story, I asked for details. An enquiry was ordered. It completely confirmed the story I had been told, but it was impossible to trace the individual who had succeeded, by the use of forged papers, in making the authorities believe he had an official mission. Pure chance had brought me into contact with one of the many provocations organised by German spies with German money.
[43] At the time I am writing I find what I have said fully confirmed in the following passage from an article by M. Paleologue, French Ambassador at Petrograd: La Russie des Tsars pendant la Grande Guerre (Revue des Deux Mondes of March 15th, 1921):
“I have several times heard the Czarina charged with having preserved sympathies, predilections, and a warm corner for Germany when she was on the throne. The unfortunate woman in no way merited these strictures, which she knew of and made her so unhappy. Alexandra Feodorovna was German neither in spirit nor in sentiment. She never was.”
Further on he says:
“Her education, bringing-up, her intellectual and moral outlook were entirely English. She was English in appearance and bearing, in a certain element of reserve and Puritanism, in the intractable and militant austerity of her conscience, and, lastly, in many of her personal habits. In any case, that was all that was left of her Western origin. The basis of her character had become entirely Russian. In spite of the hostile legend which was growing up round her name, I did not doubt her patriotism. She had a fervent love of Russia.”