Behind the veil at the Russian court

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

When his father was murdered, and the Grand Duke Vladimir saw his eldest brother, who in the schoolroom had always been under his influence, step to the Throne, he at first imagined he could go on leading him, and become thus in reality the first man in the Empire. He less than anyone expected that Alexander III. would suddenly develop a spirit of independence and shake off the bonds of diffidence. In the first moment of confusion, after Alexander II. was brought back dying to the Winter Palace, the Grand Duke Vladimir assumed a certain authority and issued directions concerning the immediate swearing-in to the new Sovereign of the troops of the St. Petersburg garrison, of whom he was the commander; he retained his presence of mind in that trying hour to a remarkable degree, whilst his brother, overcome by the sudden burden so unexpectedly thrown upon his shoulders, sat quite overwhelmed and unable to think of anything else but grief for his father’s death.

A change soon occurred, however. On the evening of that same eventful March 1st, Alexander III. returned to the Anitchkov Palace—where he continued to reside until the end of his life—in an open sledge, with the young Empress sitting by his side, and without any escort. An immense and respectful crowd greeted him and lined the whole way. Scarcely a shout was raised, and a grim earnestness pervaded this first meeting of the new Tsar and his people, but there were few dry eyes among those who watched the scene.

At the Anitchkov Palace all his household was waiting for him in the hall, and an old valet, who had attended the Tsar from his babyhood, presented him with the traditional bread and salt which is always offered in Russia upon such occasions, and asked him in a few broken words to be the “Little Father” of his people. Alexander’s blue eyes kindled with a hitherto unknown light, and he gravely replied, “Yes, I will try to be the father of my people.”

The very next day he started upon that task. When he appeared in the chapel of the Winter Palace, and stood in front of his brothers, he did so with all the air of a Sovereign of long standing, and not of one of yesterday, and he issued his orders with a quietness and comprehension of what he wanted that astonished everyone, and no one more so than the Grand Duke Vladimir.

The Grand Duke endeavoured to resist this unexpected independence of Alexander III., and even went so far as to oppose him in certain dispositions he had made. The Emperor looked at him, and merely said, “I want this done in the way I have said.” That was all; but from that moment none of the Grand Dukes attempted to contest the will of the Emperor.

In a measure, that will was opposed to them. The young Sovereign had been witness during the war of 1877 of many abuses and mistakes committed by his uncles, and he had made up his mind to raise a barrier between the Grand Dukes and the affairs of the State. He held the Oriental idea that the younger members of every Royal House are the first to dispute its authority and rise in rebellion against it, so he decided to keep his relations strictly in their place, and to make them feel that they had above them an authority it was not wise to thwart.

This infuriated the members of the Imperial Family, but none more so than the Grand Duke Vladimir and his wife, who from that moment started a policy of opposition to the Government, and especially to the Sovereign and his wife, to whose influence they ascribed the many unpleasantnesses that became their portion. The first of these was the issue of a new Family Statute which considerably reduced the rights and income of the relations of the Emperor—one of the first acts of his reign.

The Grand Duchess Vladimir, by birth a princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was thoroughly German in tastes, and entirely devoted to German interests. She was not popular in Russia, partly on account of her having refused to enter the Greek Church, as until then had been the rule for all princesses who married into the Imperial Family. At the present day the matter would not be deemed of importance, but in 1874, when the Empress Marie Alexandrovna was still alive, the question was a burning one.

The Grand Duke Alexis was a very different man from his brother. A bon vivant, fond of cards, wine, and women, he had nevertheless more tenue, more earnestness, and especially a greater indifference to the actions of others. In his early youth he had fallen in love with the daughter of his father’s tutor, and he had married her in defiance of the Emperor’s orders, though the marriage was subsequently annulled. The Grand Duke, however, did not again contract the marriage tie.

At the outbreak of the Japanese War the Grand Duke Alexis was Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, an appointment he received from his brother the late Emperor, and it was publicly said that he had no control whatever over the department of which he was head. Though it is certain that carelessness may be imputed to him, he cannot, I think, be held altogether liable for the disaster of Tsushima. His hands also had been tied, and the Navy, like the Army, was no more ready in 1904 than it had been ten years earlier, at the time of the Emperor Alexander’s death.