Once A Grand Duke by Alexander Grand Duke of Russia. Alexander Mikhailovich
threatening note arrived from London. This time the Czar ordered the mobilization of our Baltic fleet. A gesture of supreme courage, considering that the British Navy outnumbered our sea forces by at least five to one. Several weeks passed. London became strangely silent and finally suggested appointing a special commission to settle the Russo-Afghan question.
Europe began to look with different eyes in the direction of Gatchino. The young Russian Czar was obviously a person to be reckoned with.
Provocation number two came from Austria. The Vienna Government objected to our “continuous interference in the zone of influence of the Dual Monarchy,” and the Austrian ambassador in St. Petersburg endeavored to give Alexander III a war scare. At a state dinner in the palace, while seated across the table from the Czar, he began discussing the troublesome Balkan question. The host ignored his remarks. The ambassador grew hotter. He said something about the possibility of Austria mobilizing two or three army corps. Never changing his habitual half-mocking facial expression, Alexander III picked up a silver fork, bent it into a knot, and threw it in the direction of the Austrian ambassador.
“That is what I am going to do to your two or three army corps,” he added quietly.
“We have just two allies in this world,” he used to repeat to his ministers, “our army and our navy. Everybody else will turn on us on a second’s notice.”
He expressed this cynical belief of his in a rather demonstrative form at a dinner given in the honor of the visiting Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and attended by all the foreign ambassadors. Raising his glass to drink the health of the guest, he deemed it advisable to explain his toast in the following words: “I am drinking the health of my friend, Nicholas of Montenegro, who is the only sincere and loyal friend possessed by Russia outside our borders.”
De Giers opened his mouth; the ambassadors turned pale. The London Times next morning spoke of the “most amazing speech made by the Emperor of Russia upsetting all traditions of intercourse between friendly countries.”
While Europe was still debating the consequences of the Koushka incident, the Czar came out with another declaration which made the Government of Her Britannic Majesty question the authenticity of its St. Petersburg ambassador’s dispatch. Ignoring the provisions of the ignominious Peace Treaty of 1855, which forbade Russia’s keeping a battle fleet in the Black Sea, Alexander III decided to launch several modern cruisers right in the same harbor of Sebastopol where the victorious allies had humiliated our country during the Crimean War. He had chosen an extremely opportune moment for his action as with the possible exception of England no European power felt inclined to threaten the Russian Empire. France was bitter against England for the latter’s noncommittal attitude in the war of 1870-1871; Turkey remembered the lesson she received from us in 1877-1878; Austria was being kept in check by Bismarck who dreamed of concluding a Russo-German Alliance. The Iron Chancellor’s project would have, no doubt, become a reality had it not been for the extreme dislike felt by Alexander III for the hysterical young Kaiser. Both the German sovereign and his illustrious Svengali failed to understand the character of the Russian Czar. In the course of their visit to St. Petersburg they behaved in a thoroughly disgusting manner. Kaiser Wilhelm made too many blatant speeches, while Bismarck dared to lecture Alexander III on the art of governing. It ended badly. Bismarck received a terrific calling down. The young Kaiser was simply laughed at. The interview between the two sovereigns had presented to its witnesses an instructive study in contrasts. The Kaiser pacing the floor, gesticulating, raising his voice, and quoting all the stock expressions of the international manipulators; the Czar, cool, reserved, externally amused by Wilhelm’s excitability but internally offended by the cheapness of his methods.
Those of us who lived to see the cataclysm of 1914 are naturally inclined to reproach Alexander III for letting his personal feelings get the better of his richly developed sense of practical politics: how did it happen that this stalwart champion of common sense rejected the propositions of Germany and approved of the perilous pact with France? The explanation is simple. Not counting on the mistakes of his successor and not anticipating to see his empire bled white by the Japanese War and the abortive revolution of 1905, he overestimated our military strength. He believed that the cause of a perpetual peace in Europe would be better served through our extending moral support to the Republic of France and thus warning Germany against any attempts at repeating the adventure of 1870. The possibility of France getting involved in the bitter Anglo-German struggle for commercial supremacy of the world never entered his mind. Had he lived longer he would have rejected indignantly the rôle of a Franco-British steam-roller which was allotted to Russia in 1914.
He wanted peace, a century of uninterrupted peace. Nothing short of an open attack against Russia would have forced him to participate in a war, for the experience of the nineteenth century had taught him that each time we joined this or that party of professional European cock-fighters we shed bitter tears of regret later on. His granduncle Alexander I saved Europe from Napoleon, with the result that we helped to create the powerful states of Germany and Austria right across our border. His grandfather Nicholas I sent our army to Hungary in 1848 to protect the throne of the Hapsburgs against the attacks of the revolutionaries, and was rewarded by seeing the “grateful” Emperor Franz-Joseph standing back of the Allies besieging Sebastopol in 1854. His father Alexander II remained neutral in 1870, keeping good the word given by him to Emperor Wilhelm I, and eight years later Bismarck despoiled us of the fruits of our victory over the Turks.
TWO VIEWS OF THE AY-TODOR ESTATE OF GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER.
CZAR NICHOLAS II WITH GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER IN 1914. GRAND DUCHESS XENIA IS SEATED IN BACK OF GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER
CZAR NICHOLAS II PAYING A VISIT TO GRAND DUKE MICHAEL NICHOLAEVICH (GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER’S FATHER) SHORTLY BEFORE THE LATTER’S DEATH IN 1909
The French, the British, the Germans, the Austrians—they were all alike in their perennial efforts to turn Russia into a weapon for their egotistical combats. Alexander III loathed the whole of Europe. Ever ready to accept its challenges, he made it unmistakably clear, however, that Russia was interested only in that which actually affected the welfare of 150,000,000 Russians.
4
The twenty-six months that elapsed between the assassination of Alexander II and the coronation of Alexander III, were marked by a magic improvement in the internal situation of Russia. The magnificent autocrat of Gatchino had dealt the revolution a severe blow. The majority of the nihilists were caught and punished; the minority went into hiding and exile. “A new deal for the peasants,” proclaimed from the steps of the throne, signified that the Czar understood the necessity of bridging the gap between palace and people. The institute of the “Rural Magistrates” (“Zemsky Nachalnyk”) created in 1882 filled the gap left wide open by the Manifesto of the Liberator of the Serfs. Acting in their capacity of official representatives of the Government, these magistrates assumed an important place in the life of the villages. They provided agricultural advice, they acted as lawyers, they supplied information about the free lands distributed by the Government to willing emigrants in Siberia and Turkestan, they helped the peasants secure loans and market farm products; but most important of all, they became instrumental in exterminating that subconscious anarchism of the Russian village which was molded by the centuries of Tartar oppressors and Moscow head-tax collectors. In order to appreciate the shrewdness of this particular reform of Alexander III, one has to realize that the Russian peasants liked the Czar but hated the state. Unaware of the vital functions fulfilled by the state, they viewed it as a monster that grabbed everything, giving nothing in return. The state demanded its recruits, it extracted its dues, it recited the endless list of its “don’ts,” but it never gave the least bit