Andrew Cook - To Kill Rasputin

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

But information was not enough. Tsar Nicholas was incapable of taking focused, decisive action without getting the go-ahead from his wife. He did have some strategic and logistic understanding, because he and his family between them controlled most of the country’s resources and knew how much this war was costing to run. He now knew that, for Russian commanders at the front, getting munitions was like pulling teeth.

In November of 1915 the Tsar met Buchanan, and

…made an earnest appeal to His Majesty’s Government to supply the Russian army with rifles. If only they would do so he could, he said, place 800,000 men in his field at once, and strike a crushing blow at the Germans… I could hold out no hope of our being able to supply rifles on so large a scale… I also pointed out that, apart from the question of supply, there was also that of delivery, and that if Russia was ever to receive from abroad the war material in which she was so deficient, drastic steps would have to be taken to expedite the construction of the Murman railway. The Emperor agreed that the work of construction ought to be placed under the control of some energetic and competent official, but he did not approve of the candidate whom I had ventured to suggest for the post. 26

David Lloyd George, the energetic Minister of Munitions, was ensuring that Britain’s manufacture and supply of arms was at last cranking into top gear. He was all for supporting the Russians by sending guns and tanks but clearly recognised that this was going to be of minimal effect unless the political paralysis that was engulfing Russia was addressed. It is clear from Lloyd George’s papers that he was coming to the view that unless Russia’s internal crisis was resolved the outlook was bleak, not only for Russia herself but for Britain and France, who would be left to stand alone in the event of a Russian collapse. It is also clear that Lloyd George was not relying totally on official channels to keep him informed of news and developments in Russia. Days after Buchanan’s audience with the Tsar, he received a personal letter from Sir Ian Malcolm, the Conservative MP for Croydon, who was at the time in Petrograd on an unofficial fact-finding mission. Staying at the Astoria Hotel, Malcolm made his views clear to Lloyd George in no uncertain terms:

The Emperor and family and Court have not a single friend. It is said they have made every possible mistake… when the Revolution comes – that is what it is openly called – comes, I am told that at least half the army is so enraged at the massacre of their fellows, consequent on the lack of munitions, that they will side with the rebellion. 27

Back in Russia, Buchanan was experiencing impatience with what was starting to look like high-level sabotage by the politicians who had paid Rasputin to get them their jobs. Sturmer, for instance, a placeman of Rasputin’s and known German sympathiser, was in charge of the Russian Ministry of Ways and Communications, which included railways. The railway between Petrograd and Alexandrovsk (Murmansk, in winter the only ice-free port) was imperative for the distribution of munitions and supplies but was taking forever to complete. Time and again, the Tsarina and Rasputin would persuade the Tsar to put someone useless in charge of an important government department, only to have the Allies get frustrated by inadequate Russian performance and insist that this person be removed. The Tsar would profess agreement with everything but usually he did nothing. Both he and his wife had a financial interest in the cosy relationship with Rasputin.

It seems barely credible that such a fabulously wealthy Romanov should take money in return for favours, but this is what appears to have been going on. The Extraordinary Commission that examined the death of Rasputin during the spring and summer of 1917 took depositions from Vyrubova and scores of others, and wanted to know what had become of Rasputin’s money. Had there been half a dozen wads of cash under the bed, they could have been stolen. But over recent years hundreds of thousands of roubles had been passed to him in exchange for favours. Had Vyrubova received money from him? She pleaded poverty, but how had she paid for a hospital and a church at Tsarskoye Selo? She said that she had used 20,000 roubles of her 100,000-rouble insurance payout from a railway accident. This was an unconvincingly small sum and she knew it. Gradually, another story emerged. The money from petitioners was apportioned, a small cut to Rasputin, some to Vyrubova and the Infirmary, and the rest to ‘the Empress’s institutions’. At one point the going rate was 1,000 roubles.