The Last First Family of Russia

0:00 In this book, I've endeavored to bring Nicholas II and his family back to life. My aim is to be absolutely impartial and to preserve complete independence of mind in describing the events of which I have been an eyewitness. So today we're going to be talking about the Romanovs, the last first family of Russia. Specifically Tsar Nicholas II and his lovely wife Alexandra. One of the things that I didn't understand when we first started getting into this, as a lay person, you know, I always thought that 1800s Europe was, well, you had the Russians and they lived in Russia, and you have the Germans, they lived in Germany, you had the UKans and they lived in England.

0:58 But that's that's not exactly the case. These people, Nicholas, was actually related to a bunch of other people in Europe at the time. So tell us, give us a little bit of background about these people, Robin. Well, yes, at the time, the late 1800s, most of them were, a lot of them were related. And Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, was cousins with Kaiser Wilhelm, who was the leader of Germany, and George V of England. And they were more than just cousins, though, because you have close cousins and you know, far cousins. Well, these were close enough to call themselves Nikki and Willie, write each other letters, hang out together.

1:43 And these guys were also, you think about them being these old stately men. Well, they were they were younger, 30s when we're talking about them instead of 40s. So these aren't like ancient old guys hanging out. This is a bunch of younger dudes meeting together and hanging out. Um, and then the guy from England. George Pitt. You've got you've got George. George comes, and there's another picture of him in in Germany, hanging out in Germany with good old cousin Wilhelm, and Nicholas is there, and they're just, you know, they're just all having a good time. And so the context for this is interesting because these guys are leaders of these nations when they led us into one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, which is World War I.

2:30 Yes, these were the leaders of the country. Wilhelm, the leader of Germany, and Nicholas, the czar of Russia, will just a few years after they take these cool pictures and one of them was less than a year. It was less than a year. So they're taking these pictures, and they're like, oh, let's get together and have, you know, a family romp. And then the next year, oh, let's lead our countries against each other in the world war. So that's the setting of the people and the families that we find ourselves at this time. And Nicholas, the girl who he marries, Alexandra, she is actually, she's not from Russia. She is from Germany. And she's related to Queen Victoria.

3:11 Yes, she's Queen Victoria's granddaughter. So when you hear people talk about Victorian England, that's the Queen Victoria that we're talking about. So to say that the family relationships are complicated in this part of the world would be an understatement. And they got that way over a long period of time. The Tsars in Russia reigned over Russia for three centuries, 300 years. And then you have the Prussian kings, and they go back 500 years. So you have these families that are deeply related over many generations, either through blood or marriage. And that's the world that we find ourselves in the late 1800s in Europe.

3:53 So tell us a little bit about Nicholas and Alexander, because their families who were kind of zooming in on Russia a bit. Tell us about who they were. Well, Alexandra was actually she was German. She was born in Hesse on the Rhine. So she was a smaller kingdom, not one that many people really cared about. But Queen Victoria loved her. She was her oldest granddaughter and actually wanted her to marry into the English royal family to marry one of the sons. And in her amazing defense, she said that she saw Edward, who was one of Victoria's son, yeah, was a descendant in England as a cousin. She saw him as a cousin.

4:33 Oh, ouch. Well, you know, he was her first cousin. There's the friend zone, and then there's the family zone. No, it was rough. But Victoria understood. She didn't like it, but she understood. Well, Nicholas, his parents wanted him to marry into a larger kingdom and be able to have alliances that way. But he fell in love with Alexandra, who the family called Alex when they went to her sister's wedding, which is a great way to meet people you might want to marry in Europe at the time. I mean, you're there anyway. So um Alex was only 12 at the time, and Nicholas was 16.

5:19 So they were just kids when they met. They were just kids, but he had a crush on her for years, and no one approved of the marriage. No one thought it was good. Nobody liked the Germans in Russia. His parents were extremely anti-Germanic. And but you know what? Nicholas and Alexandra, they were second cousins, which makes it so much better than the other. So maybe he's not going to be in the first cousin in the other family zone. A further, further cousin. But yes, as he's related to George V and she's related to Victoria. Yeah, it's it's messy, but it's all in there. And he wrote in his diary at the time, quote, It is my dream to one day marry Alex H.

5:59 I have loved her for a long time, but more deeply and strongly since 1889, when she spent six weeks in St. Petersburg. For a long time, I've resisted my true feelings that my dearest dream will come true. End quote. So he fell in love with her in 1884, and then she came and visited her sister, and they hung out for a few weeks, you know. Still, she wasn't even 20 yet or something. They're just young people. Yeah. And but he was desperately in love with her. And I just I want to say that Nicholas was a very prolific writer. Alexandra was too. And um, most of their things are from the alexandrapalace.org website. You can go and search through all of them.

6:41 And so that's where I got the quote if you have tens of hours of times and just feel like reading through their diaries, more power to you. But there is a lot of information on all of the Romanovs on that website. They were able to get married mainly just because his dad got very sick, Nicholas's dad, and realized that Nicholas needed to be married off to secure the line of the Romanovs, and so he allowed them to get married. And this was 1894. Alexandra, who of course, his parents actually really did not want him to marry, was introduced to the Russian public at a very unlucky time. It was, well, at the funeral of his dad, Alexander III.

7:25 That's when it was like, hey, this is the chick I'm marrying, check her out. Right here during the funeral? Yeah, you know, there's like a month long everyone dresses black and mourning period. Okay. Right. But there was like one day during this mourning period where they didn't really have to wear black. And so they got married on that day, which incidentally was also the birthday of Nicholas's mom, who was only uh 47 at the time. But it was her birthday. So this daughter-in-law's getting that she doesn't like, is getting married on her birthday. And and it just it just didn't really uh start out well. And the there's stories of Maria writing to Victoria to complain about her, about Alexandra.

8:08 And it was a big thing at the time when the emperor and empress would walk into court or balls or dances together, and Maria, his mom, insisted on walking with him. Alexandra had to walk behind them. Oh wow, I bet that made for an interesting family. Yeah, great in-law relationships there. And later, this would be, you know, a couple decades later, uh, possibly conspired against Nicholas II to share regency over her grandson Alexi. Uh so the kind of things you would expect from, you know, royal royal families and and all of their intrigue. That's but the coronation happened in 1896, which also was kind of unlucky because word got out that there were gifts and there were food for people that showed up.

8:57 So this was Nicholas's coronation. Yeah, in 1896. They'd been married a couple years, but over 500,000 people showed up to this coronation, and someone passed the word around, hey, there's food and gifts for you. I mean, yeah, you're gonna come for that. So much so that thousands of people were trampled to death. Okay, well that's that's good. Yeah, I know. But Nicholas and Alexandra went to a ball that night anyway, that the French ambassador was holding. The British ambassador did write back to Victoria that Alexandra's face was flushed and she'd been crying, and Alexandra did not want to go to the ball. She thought that they should be with the people and make statements.

9:39 So the next day, they Nicholas and Alexandra paid for the coffins of all these thousands of people that died and went out to see them. But it really didn't sit well with the Russian public that they went ahead and went to a ball the night when literally, like in their courtyard, there were thousands of people that had been trampled. Yeah, that does seem a bit tone deaf. Yeah, which it was. But you know, you don't want to offend the French. Right. Which, but incidentally, that's that was the language of the court in Russia was French. Which is interesting. So you have Alexandra, she speaks German? Yes. So she's and English. She speaks German and English. She's in the Russian court.

10:20 Speaks no Russian. She doesn't speak any Russian. She doesn't speak French. And she doesn't speak French, which is what everybody there. Like I said, the court situation of the aristocracy at this point in time is complicated. She also didn't really like balls and court presentations and stuff. She was not a flamboyant person. Edward Radzinski says in his book, The Last Tsar, The Life and Death of Nicholas, that, quote, the Russian court judged her as devoid of charm, wouldn't, with cold eyes, hold herself as if she'd swallowed a yardstick, end quote. So what you're saying is Alexandra didn't know how to party.

11:00 Right. In fact, one time she complained about a dress that another a girl was wearing to the ball, and the girl told her, Well, you may dress like that in England, but this is how Russians dress. Gotcha. So there was there was a bit of tension there. Yeah, and she was quiet and shy to begin with, and then not speaking the language, she just didn't participate much, and people saw that as her being aloof and not in touch with the court. She never was one to be involved in court life. She thought that the girls were silly and didn't see any reason to engage with them much. She also believed in strongly in authoritarianism and the divine right of kings, which didn't really help anything.

11:45 Queen Victoria wrote to her once telling her you need to get to know the people, be involved with them. This was in response to one of her mother-in-law's letters saying that she was terrible and didn't do anything right. No. But she wrote back, quote, Russia is not England. We do not need to earn the love of the people. The Russian people view their Tsars as divine beings, end quote. This was in Orlando, Fiji's A People's Tragedy. So coincidentally, I I also read in one of the other people that we're going to talk about, that where he was talking about how the peasants, uh, many of them really did think of the Tsar as kind of an extension of the divinity of God.

12:27 He was the king, but he was it was almost really kind of like the medieval concept of the king is being blessed and especially anointed by God. So she was not entirely wrong in that a lot of people did see the Tsar as a divine post. And throughout her life, even till the end, she firmly believed that she was loved by the peasants. Well, and and the thing is, is that maybe she was. I mean, it could be because the peasants probably didn't speak French and they didn't go to court. You know, the fact that she wasn't a party or in the court that probably didn't matter to them as much. Well, and this I have no way to really substantiate it, except that I read it from a primary source of someone who was there in the castle with her uh Sophie, said that actually during the war, when things were starting to look bad, that she would get hundreds of fake letters sent from peasants, that the court would give Alexandra letters from the peasants that weren't that that they weren't able to figure out where actually those letters came from, and which kept her thinking that the peasants all loved her even as things were getting restless on the ground and they didn't know what was going on.

13:35 Well, the peasants might have loved her. They may, I mean, do we know that those letters were fake? Well, I'm saying that that's what Sophie thought they were fake. Yeah, who was she was a lady in waiting. She was good friends with Alexandra. Right. And so, I mean, we should probably introduce Sophie. She's she's a person who we're going to be using some of her some of her book later on. Yes, act actually, um uh we're gonna use two main sources in this podcast. Um, one of them was Sophie Vuxhoven that was a handmaiden to Alexandra for years. She wrote the life and tragedy of Alexandra Fyodorovna. So we'll talk about what she said and go through her story, and also that of the tutor, Pierre Gilliard.

14:18 He was a Swiss tutor that worked with the children for 13 years. He wrote a book, 13 years in the Russian Court. Both of these people stayed with the royal family as far into their captivity, their house arrest, and moved to different places with them as far as they could till the Bolsheviks made them leave. Right. And Pierre actually kept going back to the house a couple times to try to be with them. So these were guys that really they know what the royal family's thinking. Now, these are primary sources, and every primary source has its own bias. Sure. But in this episode, we're going to be looking at everything through the lives of the royal family, and so I think that this is the best way to do that.

15:02 So I just want to read a description that Sophie has of the Empress, just to get an overall picture of how they were seen by their family. Sophie says, quote, the Empress's character was very complex. Love for her husband and children was its dominant trait. She was an ideal wife and mother. Her worst enemies could not deny her this. She was a very womanly woman, not always logically reasonable, but it was a case of conflict between reason and affection. Her intellect was always subordinate to her heart. In her dealings with other people, her idealism often made her find in them the good that her own nature led her to expect.

15:44 Her inherent shyness, which she was never able to conquer, was misunderstood and considered pride. She never acquired the easy outward manner and ready smile that wins the hearts of the public, and her modesty kept her from fighting for the popularity she so ardently desired at heart. She worked incessantly to improve the conditions of the poorer classes, founding schools and hospitals, fighting tenaciously against many difficulties put in her way. All she did in this respect for Russia has never been told, and has, since the revolution, been consistently ignored by all those who have written about her. The Empress adored Russia and the Russian people. No sacrifice could be too great for Russia, even the crown of her husband and her son's inheritance.

16:29 End quote. So that's the view of the Empress that people in the court had, and really just gives a perspective of what she was like. Pierre Gilliard wrote, He came as a tutor when the girls, she had four girls, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and then Alexei was born, and he came as a tutor for the older girls. Now, some of y'all may have heard of Anastasia from a movie that is very near and dear to Generation X's hearts. I have to admit, I I have not seen it. Well, that's just the worst. We have to rectify that. Well, so here's the thing. I may not have seen Anastasia, but I have seen Rasputin, Dark Servant of Destiny, starring Alan Rickman, and let me say it is amazing.

17:20 But may I mean honestly, guys, we're gonna have to compare it. Think of Alan Rickman. This he like seems enthusiastic and excited to be in this role. Like he does, he does a very good job as a Rasputin. Alan Rickman dancing on a table as a Russian. I mean, how can you really beat that? But we'll get to we'll get to Resputin's. We'll get to Rasputin, but um, but Anastasia manch, the 1990 kids movie, which was done by Fox, but now she's very much a Disney princess. Disney has like incorporated her into the Disney princess category. I did not know that. I know, but the best part is that there's a rat in it played by Christopher Lloyd. All right. So maybe we'll have to go uh but yes, so many girls and Generation X people know Anastasia because a lot of people think that she may have escaped at the end.

18:08 So so she had four girls. People were concerned that maybe she wasn't gonna she was not gonna be able to produce a male episode. Oh yeah, they called her all kinds of names in the press. They blamed it on her being German. That German, that German princess only wants to give us girls. Right. Um all kinds of things. But she had a while of popularity after she had her son. Alexi. Who would be the only son that Sarovich is what they called him the next in line. And this changed pretty much everything because Alexi had a disease called hemophilia, where it's a blood disorder where if you get hurt or bumped or anything, it it could be life-threatening because your blood doesn't clot.

18:51 And this was hereditary from well, actually, Queen Victoria had it, and he got it from his mom, and they kept it from the public for as as long as he lived, and because they didn't want anyone to be afraid of you know the legacy of the Tsar and what was going to happen. But it was really hard for her, and she went to lots of people and things to try to get it to try to heal him. Yeah, try try to fix it, try to heal him. And she ended up turning to a Siberian peasant named Russ Buten. But I want to read uh Pierre Gilliard's The Tudors, what he feels she was going through at the time to try to understand why she would follow this mystic uh that was just a peasant.

19:38 You know, he wasn't a monk or a like you know, a priest or a bishop or anything. She had tried, I mean the doctor, she tried everything else. She tried everything. Right. So she she had gone to anybody that she could find to help her kid, and nobody was able to know. I mean, so what else are you going to do? So I'm just I'm gonna read what he said because he can explain it so much better than me. And at this time, when she had Alexi, it was, you know, beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, and there was unrest. There was a lot of stuff happening around this time. Anyway, yes, around this time, anyway, in Russia. But he says that, quote, in those dark days, the consolation was their beloved son, and it had not taken long to discover that the Tsarovich had hemophilia.

20:24 From that moment, the mother's life was simply one dreadful agony. She had already made the acquaintance of that terrible disease. She knew that an uncle, one of her brothers, two of her nephews had died from it. From her childhood, she had heard it spoken of as a dreadful and mysterious thing against which men were powerless. And now her only son, the child she loved more than anything else on earth, was affected. Death would watch him, follow him at every step, and carry him off one day like so many boys in the family. She must fight. She must save him at any cost. It was impossible for science to be impotent. The means must exist, and they must be found.

21:04 Doctors, surgeons, specialists were consulted, but every kind of treatment was tried in vain. When the mother realized that no human aid could save her, her last hope was in God. He alone could perform the miracle, but she must be worthy of his intervention. She was naturally of a pious nature, and she devoted herself wholly to the Orthodox religion with the ardor and determination she brought to everything. Life at court became strict, if not austere. Festivities were issued, and the number of occasions on which the sovereigns had to appear in public was reduced to a minimum. The family gradually became isolated from the court and lived to itself, so to speak.

21:44 Between each of the attacks, however, the boy came back to life, recovered his health, forgot his sufferings, and resumed his fun and games. At these times, it was impossible to credit that he was victim of an implacable disease which might carry him off at any moment. Every time that Tsarina saw him with red cheeks, or heard his merry laugh, or watched his frolics, her heart would fill with an immense hope, and she would say, God has heard me. He has pitied my sorrow at last. Then the disease would suddenly swoop down on the boy, stretch him once more on this bed of pain, and take him to the gates of death. The months passed, the expected miracle did not happen, and the cruel, ruthless attacks followed hard on each other's heels.

22:27 The most fervent prayers hadn't brought the divine revelation so passionately implored. The last hope had failed. A sense of endless despair filled itsarina's soul. It seemed as if the whole world were deserting her. It was then that Rasputin, a simple Siberian peasant, was brought to her, and he said, Believe in the power of my prayers, believe in my help, and your son will live. The mother clung to the hope he gave her as a drowning man seizes an outstretched hand. She believed in him with all the strength that was in her. As a matter of fact, she had been convinced for a long time that the Savior of Russia and the dynasty would come from the people, and she thought that this humble man had been sent by God to save him, who was the hope of the nation.

23:13 The intensity of her faith did the rest, and by a simple process of auto-suggestion, she which was helped by certain perfectly casual coincidences, she persuaded herself that her son's life was in this man's hands. Russ Buten had realized the state of mind of the despairing mother, who was broken down by the strain of her struggle, and seemed to have touched the limit of human suffering. He knew how to extract the fullest advantage from it, and with diabolical cunning, he succeeded in associating his own life, so to speak, with that of the child. End quote. So, I mean, that kind of explains how a mom like would cling to anything.

23:54 Pierre actually met Rasputin at one point, and and I've read a lot of things, and there's no other account I found of someone meeting him and describing him. So I just want to read. In it he uses the word starretz, which is a word like a traveling mystic or a pilgrim or someone involved in the church that wasn't exactly in the church. Um and he's church adjacent. Yeah, well, he's church adjacent, and that he got a lot of people in the church to believe in him and believe in his miracles. And one of them was like a bishop, and then there was a priest who wrote about that he thought that Rasputin was a man of God, and this was the one that introduced him to the royal family, and then wrote about how he couldn't forgive himself for introducing Rasputin into this, but he was able to convince a lot of religious people that he could see signs and perform miracles.

24:49 So Rasputin came with the endorsement of a bishop? Yeah. Okay. To the royal family. So he didn't just show up outside their door one day and say, Oh, here I am. Like he was he was given an introduction and they said, Hey, this guy. From the the Russian church. Right. So this this guy knows what he's doing, and he can maybe he can pray over for your kid. And he did. Right. Well, I and I need to say here that primary sources, that's one version. There's also a woman from court who wrote that she's the one that introduced Zara to him. So so you don't really know, but the it just shows that, you know, I read several, I read several um instances from the um religious people, monks and things that wrote about him.

25:31 So he was known there. He was known in the court. Um one of his main principles was that in order to forgive sin, you have to experience sin. And and from looking at uh the things that Rasputin has claimed to have been doing around the court, he was he was very much engaged in the uh you know learning about the sins. Oh yeah. He was well known for relieving women of anxiety. Uh-huh. And uh and would actually he went out and was telling everyone about how he got to be with the Empress and stuff, and spent time in the kids' nurseries, and and would sit there and tell the everyone that would listen to him about it and brag about how he was involved in the royal palace.

26:14 And at one point a police officer went to the Tsar and Tsarina and was like, listen, y'all, this is not a great thing that's happening. This guy's a creeper. Yeah, a creeper. And their response was that people of God are persecuted. It's the it's the people persecuting him. It's what it was. Yes, yes. Um but so I just want but I want to read his Gilliard's assessment of Rasputin. Quote, I had not seen this Staretz since I'd been at the palace, when one day I met him in the ante room as I was preparing to go out. I had time to look well at him as he was taking off his cloak. He was very tall, his face emaciated, and he had piercing grey blue eyes under thick, bushy eyebrows.

27:00 His hair was long, and he had a long beard, like a peasant. He was wearing a Russian smock of blue silk drawn in at the waist, baggy black trousers, and high boots. This was our one and only meeting, but it left me with a very uncomfortable feeling. During the few months in which our looks met, I had a distinct impression that I was in the presence of a sinister and evil being. End quote. So Pierre did not think but highly of him. Right. And that's in person. He said that Rasputin was even more dangerous when he wasn't there because his power and stuff was still felt in the palace, except he wasn't there in person.

27:42 There was an example in 1912, the Tsarovich hurt himself in his groin, his between his knee and his leg, or in his leg. Well, his thigh, but some people say it was the knee, some people say it was the groin. But that area he fell in, he hurt and got very, very sick. And evidently they were able to call Rasputin, who was not there at the time, and over the phone he cured the boy. So, you know, it's and and I say, and we say cure, but it wasn't something that everyone believed was actually happening.

28:23 So when we say cure, you're not saying that this disease left him and he was totally fine. It's that whatever problem he was having at the time, the bleeding, slowed down or or stopped. Right. And but he would say things like, don't have the doctor see him. Or it could be that the doctors were giving him aspirin, which, you know, if which which they were, stop giving someone with hemophilia aspirin, then they're more likely to clot. And he would do things as Pierre said, like there was coincidences. Right. But if you're if you if you're a a mom, if you're a family, and this is your your one, your your kid, and uh you don't have anything else to to do, and it seems like, hey, this guy is able to help, then maybe you look the other way when he's being And here's the thing uh like people aren't sure that Nicholas really, really believed in Rasputin.

29:20 Yeah, but uh at one point Alexandra told him something to the effect of if anything happens to Alexi and Rasputin's not here, then you know I'm going to consider you the murderer. So as a dad and a husband, what what are you gonna do? Right. So yeah, you're you're kind of you're kind of stuck there. Yeah, I want to read an example of when Alexi hurt himself, and this is from the tutor that I've talked about. The tutor thought that people hovered around Alexi too much and that he wasn't going to be able to experience the world. He actually thought Alexi was becoming a brat. He probably was.

30:00 Well, he I mean, because they were so worried about him and he always got his way, and and so he suggested that they not have people hovering over him all the time, and that that would help. And so he did that, and well, I'm just I'm gonna read read to you what happened. Quote Everything went well at first, and I was beginning to be easy in my mind when an accident I had so much feared happened without a word of warning. Tsarovich was in the schoolroom, standing on a chair, when he slipped, and then falling hit his right knee against the corner of some piece of furniture. The next day he could not walk. The subcutaneous hemorrhage had progressed, and the swelling which had formed below the knee rapidly swelled down the leg.

30:46 The skin, which was greatly distended, had hardened under the force of the blood, which was pressed on the nerves of the leg and thus caused shooting pains, which grew worse every hour. I was thunderstruck, yet neither the Tsar or Tsarina blamed me in the slightest. So far from it, they seemed to be intent on preventing me from despairing of a task my pupil's malady made so perilous. As if they wished by their example to make me face the inevitable ordeal, and to enlist me as an ally in the struggle they had carried on so long. They associated me in their anxieties with a truly touching kindness. The Tsarina was at her son's side from the first onset of the attack.

31:26 She watched over him, surrounding him with her tender love and care, and trying by a thousand attentions to alleviate his sufferings. The Tsar came the moment he was free. He tried to comfort and amuse the boy, but the pain was stronger than his mother's caresses or his father's stories, and the moans and tears began once more. Every now and then the door opened and one of the Grand Duchesses came in on tiptoe and kissed her little brother, bringing a gust of sweetness and health into the room. For a moment the boy would open his great eyes, round which the malady had already painted black rings, and then almost immediately closed them again. One morning I found the mother at her husband at her son's bedside.

32:10 He had had a very bad night. Dr. Dervinko was anxious as the hemorrhage had not been stopped and his temperature was rising. The inflammation had spread further, and the pain was even worse than the day before. At times the groan ceased, and he murmured the one word mummy, in which he expressed all his sufferings and distress. His mother kissed him on the hair, forehead, eyes, as if the touch of her lips could have relieved the pain and restored some of the life which was leaving him. Think of the tortures of that mother, an impotent witness of her son's martyrdom in those hours of mortal anguish, a mother who knew that she herself was the one cause of his sufferings, and that she had transmitted to him the terrible disease against which human science was powerless.

33:05 Now I understand the secret tragedy of her life. How easy it was to reconstruct the stages of that long Calvary. End quote. And that's just one of the attacks. They were rough. And this was a young boy. He he died when he was 13. So all of these things happened as he was elementary school age. Right kid. And he wanted to be a kid. As Gilead said, he was standing on a school desk. You might think, wow, that's a really stupid thing for someone for hemophilia to do. But I have boys, you know, they do stupid things. That's just part of being a child.

33:47 Yeah. Boys are inherently dangerous. But yeah, I thought that that was just an an important example to see what hemophilia was at the time. It wasn't just, oh well, he's sick in bed. Yeah. Yeah. So he's a regular kid except when he gets a bump or a bruise, and then that bruise is life-threatening. Right. And they and they were keeping this from even the court and the palace and everyone, which created more issues surrounding Rasputin because he would be like, Man, I went into the um the kids' nursery and saw the Empress, and nobody knew why he was going in and out.

34:28 This uh man of ill repute. Right. This this weirdo is uh you know constantly going up and hanging out with the royal family. Uh-huh. Um I mean it's people, the press, everyone is bound to come up with their own conclusions about why this could be happening. Right. And if there is anything that we we get from this time period, it is a huge amount of different accounts and opinions about what's going on. Uh so there's so basically the the people, the court, and the press are having a field day with the royal family.

35:08 Political cartoons were rampant. Oh, I'm sure. And I'm sure they were not entirely flattering. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. So it was a thing. But yes, and so all of this was going on in the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra at the time in the Royal Palace. A whole lot was going on outside of that that we'll get into in other episodes. But it was about this time that uh World War I broke out. And World War I, as we talked about, Willie and Nikki were good friends. Um Nicholas actually wrote to Willie, quote, in this serious moment, I appeal to you to help me. A war has been declared to a weak country. The indignation of Russia shared fully by me is enormous.

35:51 I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure forced upon me and be forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war. To try to avoid such a calamity as a European war, I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far. End quote. Nicholas also recommended that they go to The Hague to get things sorted out. Because, like, no one, well, I mean, people did want to go to war. They had those awesome military uniforms that needed to be used. Right. The war was actually started by one of those freak things in history that happens. Well, so there was a Serbian nationalist movement.

36:32 Serbia wanted to be its own country, and there was a group called the Black Hand. Depending on the various sources you read, it was either, you know, done underhanded by the Serbian government, um, or you know, it was just these teenagers. It's it's whatever sources you you read. Um, but it is interesting that the Otto von Bismarck, who is responsible for like all these treaties that ended up exploding the war before he died, said that a world war would be caused by, quote, some damned thing in the Balkans. Um, end quote. And sure enough. But so so you have the Serbian nationalists and wanting to become their own nation, and Austria-Hungary was the nation that they wanted to go to war with.

37:21 And so when the Franz Duke Archferdinand came to visit, they thought, hey, this would be a great time to throw a bomb at him and kill him. So they had this grand plan, and they were able to throw a bomb that actually went off in the car in front of his. The assassination attempt didn't work. The guys were like, Well, that's the worst, and went off to get drunk. In the meantime, the car with the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife took a detour to try to prevent something like that from happening. When they drove by this bar, one of the Serbian guys just shot him with a gun, killed him.

38:02 He's like, Hey, isn't that the car we missed earlier? It's not the one we missed. And so it's just one of those, if they'd kept on the same path, things would be okay. But it I think this is kind of interesting. So they so the Archduke was also young and very impressionable, and was would go and said one of the sources I read said that they put more effort into his visiting with the food and the balls and things than actually anything political or trying to solve anything. You gotta impress the Archduke. Anyway, so the assassination attempt was what sparked everything, mainly because Serbia Russia had a treaty with Serbia.

38:44 Nicholas wanted to be like, yeah, let's just kind of like let them deal with that at The Hague and not involve all of Russia. Right. But they had the treaties. Germany, I mean, you can say a lot about Germany at the time. And we will in the future, I'm sure, spend a lot of time talking about Germany at that time. Right now, we know they had amazing military uh uniforms, and a young guy in charge who wanted to expand territory. Over the course of the last few decades, science had grown scientific. Um, well, I mean, sounds horrible, but different kinds of gases, different ways to kill people. So basically you have all these young guys, they have all these new toys, new weapons, and they haven't had an opportunity to go use them, and they've got all these awesome uniforms.

39:32 So why not a start a small little war that we can all have fun? And you know, we'll be back by wintertime. Absolutely. And like everyone like was excited about I say everyone, not everyone, but people from like the different countries were. The I was reading a diary from the diary archive in Germany and in Mindingen, and the woman, Paula, was writing about how they all went out there and were so excited and Beginning of August that war was starting and it was going to be great. And everyone thought that people would be home by Christmas. Right. No big deal. It's just a quick little, just a quick thing to get out there and try our stuff out. Right, exactly.

40:13 I want to read from Sophie. This was the lady in waiting of the Empress, what happened when the Tsarina found out about war. Quote, on the first of August, the Empress and her daughters waited a long time for the Emperor to come down to dinner. As a rule, he was very punctual, and the Empress felt that something serious must have happened. He was receiving the Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Sanzinov, and the audience seemed to last inordinarily long. When the emperor came, it was with the news that Germany had declared war. At first the Empress could not grasp it. War had been her nightmare.

40:54 She knew the completeness of German organization. She knew that Russia was not prepared for war at the moment, and that England had not yet joined Russia and France. She was in despair. But then, as always, she had the conviction that Russia would win in the end. The moment of the declaration of war set up her wall in her heart between Germany and Russia. She was the empress of Russia, Russia always in the heart and soul. Twenty years have I spent in Russia, half my life, and the happiest, fullest part of it. It is the country of my husband and son. I have lived the life of a happy wife, mother, happy wife and mother in Russia. All my heart is bound to this country.

41:34 My loved, she once said to me during the war. People in Germany do not understand how the Empress came to adopt the Russian standpoint so completely and have become so thoroughly Russian in her views. The reason for it, for her, was intense, passionate love for the emperor. She considered herself as wholly belonging to him. His country was her country, as also his religion had completely become hers. She always gave herself up entirely to those she loved and identified herself with them. End quote. Both she and Pierre go to great lengths to talk about Alexandra and her role and what was going on in World War I.

42:18 In 1915, Nicholas II decided to go lead the troops himself for a variety of factors. But what it meant fundamentally was that Russia's success and failure in World War I was going to be tied to him. And he left Alexandra in charge. Well, as we've talked about, Alexandra was German. The Russians hated the Germans. Because they're at war. Yeah, Germany and Russia were at war. Yep. Alexandra had no political experience, still couldn't speak Russian, and had been left in charge of everything, and still had Rasputin coming around all the time to come hang out with her.

43:00 Right. But it doesn't look good. Oh, it did not look good at all. The extent of how much Rasputin was involved depends on whether you're reading the court or the press or other sort. So it's kind of nebulous, but we know that Ras Putin was involved in firing a bunch of ministers and getting rid of one of the main military generals. So it sounds like when Nicholas left, it kind of left the home front in disarray. Yes. He wasn't there to keep everyone in line. So as he was gone, Alexandra was trying to do the best she could do to basically keep things going. And Rasputin saw an opportunity to move in and start flexing his muscles and doing stuff.

43:44 I mean, something that we'll talk about in later episodes, but at this time is that Russia was just chaotic in general. The peasant serfdom was abolished back in the 1860s, but then there was severe radical backlash from Nicholas's father, Alexander III, on that, and then it was back with Nicholas. So the peasants were kind of like what's going on. There were food shortages, which of course never makes anyone happy. Communism had begun to enter the fold. They'd just gone through the Russo-Japanese War, where they were fighting with Japan and Korea and Manchuria, which Japan won. So there was just a big time of civil unrest that she was left with when he went to the war.

44:26 Right. So one thing we we haven't talked about much is the fact that, you know, you're alluding to, in the background, not only have they had this conflict with Japan, and now they've jumped into World War One, but there have been revolutionary forces at work in Russia. And so there was an event in 1905, Bloody Sunday. And we will talk about that probably in the next episode. But that was a time when a bunch of workers got together and they were they were pressing against the guards. It was just like a regular modern-day protest where you have the guards standing on one line and you have the protesters pushing up against them and jogging for position. And at some point, uh, we don't know exactly who, but somebody somebody shot their shot their guns.

45:12 And some of the people said, Oh, they didn't do anything, they're shooting blanks. And so, you know, the people just kind of rushed up on them more, but they weren't shooting blanks. And in fact, a number of people died there. And so, you know, that at that point that that crowd was dispersed, and there wasn't anything that came out of that directly. However, the revolutionary forces that were behind that were continuing to operate and continuing to try to gain support inside of Russia. And the ideas of the revolutionary forces were that, hey, we don't need a king anymore. What we really need is something new. And so these revolutionaries were um talking to people, they were printing propaganda, they were doing all of the legwork that you would expect revolutionaries to be doing kind of behind the scenes.

46:03 So when Nicholas left left his home to go lead the war in World War One, he kind of left a bit of a power vacuum there, which left also an opportunity. Not only did you have Alexandra trying to tend to everything at home and then dealing with Russ Putin and the court, you also had And worrying about her son constantly. And worrying about her son, who's you know on the on the verge of dying, you also had revolutionaries that had an opening. And so they they were starting to take advantage of it. And mention, and we'll mention it, we'll talk about it more probably in the next episode, but is that there had been a government, like it was an assembly, that was set up after 1905 to placate the people and things, and uh, but which, you know, they were gonna give them rights and do everything, but within two years that had shrunk down and didn't really work out.

46:57 The Duma. The doom, yeah, the Duma, but people didn't, you know, so they'd have this taste, this taste of what things could be like, and then it was taken away, and so you know, all these hopes were there. Yes. There was there were a number of people in the middle classes that have ideas about different things they might want to have their government do, and it didn't look like the czars. Okay. I want to read about what was going on domestically, like while Nicholas was at the front. This is from Sophie again. Quote When the Emperor was away, and he frequently was, reviewing troops and visiting munitions factories, the empress with her daughters and a lady in waiting went on tours of inspection to provincial hospitals.

47:39 These were often long journeys, and although the imperial train was very comfortably fitted up, it was no small undertaking. In nineteen fourteen to nineteen fifteen, the empress visited more towns than ever during all her years in Russia. She wanted to see for herself how things could best be improved, and to show her personal interest in as many wounded as possible. She would have liked to have these two be surprise visits in which she could dispense with ceremony and see things thoroughly, and this was managed several times in Petrograd. But on longer journeys, it was pointed out to the Empress that it would not be fair for some people who might have worked untiringly in the hospitals not to know of her visit, as they might perhaps just happen to be away on the day she came if her visit was a surprise one.

48:24 The thing that the Empress hated most of all was to feel something being hidden from her, and that she was being shown some potinkin villages. One occasion it was evident that she had not wanted to see was that she was not wanted to see a politic a particular hospital in one of the towns she visited. She was told the hospital was too far, that the road was impossible, and there were scarcely any patients in it. The emperor replied that a few would be as much pleased to see her as a number. At last she was told that the bridge on the river was impassable, and as this was an excuse corroborated, she had to give in. She sent her gentlemen to ford the river, should this prove necessary.

49:07 The bridge was under repair, but this was the only story that proved true, and the hospital was not one of the glories of the town. End quote. The Empress also took nursing courses, had her daughters do it, and I mean there's pictures of her working in a hospital in a nurse's uniform. She really felt that it was not the place of the Empress and her daughters to just sit back in the castle. She felt that they needed to be part of the people to help the people. And this their family was not an extravagant family. Alexandra didn't wear a lot of jewels. The girls slept in normal beds.

49:47 One of the things I read said that was flat with no pillow. Uh, you know, I don't I don't know if that absolutely is true, but they they would wear normal dresses, they were not pretentious, and they were taught to not be pretentious, and they would go and they would help in hospitals. And all of those things are true, but it didn't really help still that she was German and had Rasputin and Sophie addresses the lies, some of the lies that were told about her. So she said, during 1916, the political atmosphere in the Capitol and in all the big towns became more and more threatening. The reverses of 1915 had unsettled the public mind and given rise to not a natural anxiety, to a not unnatural anxiety.

50:34 The Russian temperament always fluctuates from extreme optimism to utter pessimism, and now the blackest view of the future was generally taken. The responsibility for all disasters was laid on the government without any allowances being made for the inordinate difficulties of the situation. There was a bitter criticism behind the lines of what was done at the front. The revolutionary organizations, which were lying low, blew on the flame in pursuance of their own ends. They particularly directed their efforts towards encouraging attacks on the sovereign. The revolutionary movement of 1905 had been thwarted, mainly by the people's innate fidelity to the throne. There was nothing in the personal conduct of the emperor that could shake his prestige, so undercurrents began to be directed against the empress in the hope of weakening his position through her.

51:24 Besides the exploitation of the exaggerated tales of Rasputin's influence, the most was made of the Empress's German origin. Tales of her pro-German sympathies were invented and assiduously spread. Stories were circulated of her desire for a separate piece, rumors which could only gain credence in the public's total ignorance of the Empress's character. This gossip would never have been listened to for a moment had not the whole country's nerves been strained to such a pitch that nothing seemed too wild to be thought possible. I myself was asked in all seriousness whether the Grand Duke of Hesse was not hidden in the cellars of the palace, and after the revolution the whole palace was searched for mythical wireless stations which were supposed to have been used for secret communications with the enemy.

52:10 Needless to say, all these wild allegations were without the slightest foundation, and I mentioned them only to show the state of war nerves that had been reached at the time. The Empress's sympathy with the Allies and all her fidelity to the cause for which Russia was fighting are known to everyone now. Even Radinsko, president of the Duma and one of the Empress's most virulent enemies, says that, quote, the wicked idea of treason on the part of the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna must be rejected once and for all. This charge was absolutely repudiated by the government under Marisov, who was appointed by the provincial government for the purpose of elucidating this matter in the light of documentary evidence.

52:55 End quote. She also says that she believes that some of the Empress's published letters may have been forged at the time and shown to the people. Yes. And she says, quote, it must be said to the shame of the upper classes of Petrograd society that every idle gossiping tale was believed, or at least repeated and spread all over the country till the stories reached the masses who accepted them as facts. When the stories drifted back to the Empress, they distressed her terribly. How could it be said that she was untrue to the country she loved fanatically, the land of her husband and son?

53:37 Russia was to her God's chosen land, holy Russia. Happily for her, she was spared the bitterness of the ever believing of ever believing that the peasants had been poisoned against the revolutionary spirit. The last journey that the Empress took was in December 1916, when she went to Novigrad, a town she had longed to visit on account of its numerous beautiful old churches. Now she had no time to see these, as her visit was mainly to the war hospitals. The governor escorted her around them, and the nobility gave a large tea party in her honor. But it was clear to those who were there that this was no warmth in their welcome, though the empress did not realize it.

54:20 She managed to see some of the old church treasures and the cathedral, and she went also with her daughters to see Prince Joan, to see an old Sterica who was over a hundred years old, and much revered in the town. The old woman greeted her with the words Here is the martyr, Empress Alexandra. Her Majesty did not seem to hear. She received the Sterica's blessing and went away, cheered and comforted, but those who had been with her came back depressed and apprehensive, for they felt the reception was an omen. Yes. Because back in December of nineteen sixteen she was already being referred to as a martyr.

55:02 Really? Yeah. So they everyone knew that things were not going well for her. She and the family were Yeah, but that she was still oblivious to it. She she always was oblivious to it. But it's one so that was the start of December 1916. Um near the end we find out what happens to Rasputin. This is from Sophie, her lady in waiting. Quote, hatred for the man who was supposed to be responsible for all the government's mistakes became a real obsession, even with the generally level-headed people. Rumor spread, not without foundation, that he was visited by all kinds of influential people, ministers like Protopuff and high officials, and that he used to send short, illiterate notes demanding their help.

55:54 These rumors firmly established the belief that in his hidden power, which was further increased by the way in which Rasputin bragged about himself and his influence on all occasions. The feeling against him became so intense that a plot was formed to murder him, in which Perishabik, a member of the Duma, Prince Felix, and the Grand Duke Dmitri, and some others were involved. It was difficult to lure the Sterin into a trap, as, by order of Protopotov, he was constantly guarded by detectives. Prince Felix, a personal acquaintance of Rasputin, undertook the task and invited him to an alleged party at his house on the evening of december twenty ninth, nineteen sixteen.

56:37 The story of the murder has been so often told that there is no need to repeat it. It is enough to say that Rasputin was first offered poisoned wine, the amateur murderers not knowing that for the poison they chose alcohol as an antidote, their victim survived what appeared to be a deadly dose. The prince then took and Periscovic then took the sterets into an adjoining room and, as he was admiring an ancient crucifix, shot him several times in the back. Rasputin's strong frame resisted even this, and when the prince returned to remove his body, he got up and staggered across the room. More shots were fired, this time with effect. The body was taken in a car and thrown into a hole made in the frozen Neva.

57:21 The strength of the current drove the body down under the ice where it was washed ashore some days later. The Suret does not seem to have been dead even when he was thrown into the water, for the cords bound around his body were loosened, and his rigid hand was folded as if making the sign of a cross. When the police came to the prince's house to ask about the firing at the dead of night, they were told that a dog had been shot. The authors of the murder lay low at the time, even some denied any knowledge of it. In spite of the censor, however, the story of the Tsuritz's disappearance got almost immediately into the press and caused a tremendous sensation. Though patriotic feeling was supposed to have been the motive for the murder, it was first indirect blow at the emperor's authority and the first spark of insurrection.

58:08 In short, it was the application of Lynch Law, the taking of law and judgment forcibly into private hands. No inquest was ordered on account of the personalities involved. An imperial order forbade any legal procedure, and the murderers of the Stirrets went unpunished. End quote. So Rasbutin's death hit really hard to Alexandra because at this point she saw that he was the only person who could ever save her son. And as he told her, you know, well, people say several times, he would say things like, He'll be dead in six months, you'll be dead in two years. I read some of the tutor earlier who said that Rasputin just tried so many ways to tie her son's life to him.

58:55 Manipulative. Oh, manipulator. Yes, very much so. And so Alexandra was left with nothing. And she sent note to Nicholas, who was still at the front, and he was a prolific writer. They wrote like over a thousand letters to each other during the war, and his response was not probably what she wanted. You know, comforting and things. It was more like an well, okay. It was a few, it was more sentences than that, but it it did not seem very heartfelt like Nicholas was very upset about Rasputin's death. Nicholas wasn't tossing and turning in the front lines. So well, when we talk about it, um there was an important general who actually refused to go uh to continue working if Rasputin ever showed up at the headquarters.

59:46 And Rasputin uh, you know, really strongly felt that this guy wasn't the right guy and and really wanted him fired. And and it it was a huge ordeal for the army. So Rasputin, not only was he Making his way around the Russian court, it sounds like, and the, you know, the people that were there, he was also interfering with not just politics, but also the military at this point. Oh, yes. And one of my favorite things that I read about this time period, it's it's amazing, y'all, it was um from the French ambassador said that he was sorry to report that the Russian court was run by lunatics. All right. So that's France. I mean, that that's how other countries were seeing them at the time.

1:00:28 Right. Um, and you know, by this time uh Nicholas had tied the fate of the army to himself and was letting, as people saw it, Rasputin get involved. This Siberian peasant who had his own so it was a bit of a scandal. He had his own he had his own things he was looking for. Yeah, his own agenda. There we go. That's what I'm looking for. Yep. So that was that was the end of Rasputin. That's where Alexandra was left at the beginning of 1917. But 1917 is really the year when a lot of things happen. Why don't why don't you tell us what was going on?

1:01:08 So I'm gonna pick up, and this is I'm gonna let Gyard tell us. The Russian calendar was different at this point. So different sources had different dates from the calendar that we used. Russia's now on the same calendar, so when you hear dates and they may not align, just remember that that's a thing. Right, right. So this is March 1917 from Gyard, right by their calendar. Rasputin was no more, and the nation was avenged. A few brave men had taken upon themselves to secure the disappearance of the man who was excricated by one and all. It might have been be hoped that after that explosion of wrath, faction would die down. Unfortunately, it was not so.

1:01:50 On the contrary, the struggle between the Tsar and the Duma became more bitter than ever. The Tsar was convinced that in existing circumstances, all concessions on his part would be regarded as a sign of weakness, which without removing the cause of the discontent which resulted from the miseries and privations of the war could only diminish his authority and possibly accelerate a revolution. So things were still not going well for Nicholas back home. Even though Rasputin was dead, the damage had been done, and the revolutionary forces at work back home in Petrograd in Russia were continuing their were basically pressing their advantage while they had it.

1:02:30 To the extremists on the left, who desired victory, but a victory without a Tsar, he was the obstacle which the revolution would remove. And while the latter were endeavoring to undermine the foundations of the monarchy by intensive propaganda at and behind the front, thus playing Germany's game, the moderate parties adopted that most dangerous and yet characteristically Russian course of doing nothing. They were victims of that slave fatalism which means waiting on events and hoping that some providential force will come and guide them for the public good.

1:03:12 They confined themselves to passive resistance because they failed to realize that in so acting they were paralyzing the nation. The country was suffering. It was tired of the war and anxiously longing for peace. The opposition was growing from day to day, and the storm was threatening, but in spite of everything, Nicholas II hoped that patriotic feeling would carry the day against the pessimism that the trials and worries of the moment made general, and that no one would risk compromising the results of a war which had cost the nation so much by rash and imprudent action. His faith in his army was also unshaking. He knew that the material sent from France and England would be arriving satisfactorily and would improve the conditions under which he had to fight. He had the greatest hopes of the new formations which had been created in the course of the winter.

1:03:54 He was certain that his army would be ready in the spring to join in the great offensive of the Allies, which would deal Germany her death blow and thus save Russia. A few weeks more and victory would be his. So that was where Nicholas was, sitting on the front. He was looking at the situation. He realized that things back home were rough, but things up with the front were all they were having setbacks there as well. But he was hopeful. He had hope in his army, he had hope in his people. He knew that they were getting resupplied and reinforced, and he was really hoping that you know when spring came they were going to be able to make a difference and turn the tide and things would start looking up for him. So he was optimistic. But things back home continued to deteriorate.

1:04:37 So I'm going to pick up with about the same time, March 1917, what was going on in the palace with Alexandra, and then what happened when Alexandra came out. So I'm going to start with Sophie, and then I'll tell you, but I'm going to pick up part of the way where Gilliard starts talking about it, just so you get the whole picture of what was going on. So this is Sophie. Quote On the evening of March 13th, the Tsarco Silo garrison, which had until then refused to join the rebels, left their barracks and marched out, firing their rifles into the air at the houses as they passed by. They first went to the local prison, the doors that they threw open to the delight of its inmates.

1:05:20 These were mostly thieves, as no more serious offenders were kept in a prison near the imperial residence. Thence they looted the neighborhood wine shops, thoroughly roused, and most of them drunk, several thousands of them started for the Alexander Palace. They intended to seize the Empress in the air and take them to the revolutionary headquarters staff at Petrograd. The wild firing that went on gave the alarm to the palace guards. These consisted of two battalions of a combined regiment, one battalion of the naval guards, it's 1,000 strong, two quadrons of Cossacks of the Escort, one company of the 1st Railway Regiment, and one heavy field battery from Pavsloks, under the command of Count Rampinder.

1:06:05 It fell to me again to bring the news of the mutiny of the troops to the Empress. She was in the sick rooms. When I came upstairs, I was just crossing the corridor. She was quite alive to the danger, but most painfully surprised at hearing of the garrison, on whose loyalty we had all counted, had mutinied. She went at once to the children to tell them of the maneuvers that were going on, so that they should not be frightened by any sound of firing. She then asked me to call the gentlemen and came down to discuss the situation with Count Apraxine and General Ressing. The Empress could not bear the idea of fighting on her account and begged the troops defending the palace should not in any way provoke their assailants, so not a single shot was fired by the palace guards.

1:06:50 She threw a black fur coat over her nurse's dress and, accompanied by the Grand Duchess Marie and by Count Beckensdorf, went out herself to speak to the guard the soldiers of the guards. She went into the courtyard and all through the palace basement where the men came in turns to warm themselves, telling the soldiers how fully she trusted in their fidelity to the emperor, and how well she knew that if we if need arose they would defend the air, and she hoped that no blood should need to be shed. The scene was unforgettable. It was dark, except for a faint light thrown up from the snow, reflected on the polished barrels of the rifles. The troops were lined up in battle order in the courtyard, the first line kneeling in the snow, the others standing behind, their rifles in readiness for a sudden attack.

1:07:39 The figures of the Empress and her daughter passed like dark shadows from line to line. The white palace, looming a ghostly mass in the background. Firing near from nearby sounds in wild gusts, the mutinous troops had reached the so-called Chinese village, near the big palace. The Cossack patrols reported that they would not venture further, as they had heard the immense forces were amassed in the palace courtyard, and that machine guns were stationed on the roof. Neither of these rumors were true, but they served the purpose of the moment, for the mutineers decided that they would not attack the palace in the morning. Inside the palace, the night was passed in great anxiety.

1:08:19 Firing was heard at intervals, and the Cossacks reported that an armored train manned by rebel troops from Petrograd was moving up and down the line between the capital and imperial station at Sarko Tilo. It was rumored that the rebels were anxious to get possession of the Empress and her children and to hold them hostages in case things went against them, while further rumors said that they had sworn to murder the Empress. End quote. So that's what was going on with the army outside. Nicholas heard that some things were happening and decided that he he needed to head home. Obviously, things back home were falling apart. So he got on a train and started the ride back home so that he could deal with the situation as it was unfolding.

1:09:04 I'm going to be reading from Pierre as he has an account of how things go down. Quote At first, we had no idea of the scale of the events which had occurred at Petrograd. Yet, after Saturday, March the 10th, General Alexiev and some officers of the suite had tried to open his eyes and persuade him to grant the liberties the nation demanded immediately. But once more, Nicholas II was deceived by the intentionally incomplete and inaccurate statements of a few ignorant individuals in his suite who would not take their advice. By the 12th, it was impossible to conceal the truce from the Tsar any longer. He understood that extraordinary measures were required and decided to return home at once.

1:09:46 The imperial train left Molhiv on the night of the 12th, but on arriving at the station of Malhal Vichera, 24 hours later, it was ascertained that the station of Tolzno, 30 miles south of Petrograd, was in the hands of the insurgents, and that it was impossible to get back home. There was nothing for it but to turn back. The Tsar decided to go to General Rusky, commander in chief of the Northern Front. He arrived there on the evening of the 14th. When the general told him the latest developments in Petrograd, the Tsar instructed him to inform by telephone that he was ready to make every concession if the Duma thought that it would tranquilize the nation. The reply came It is too late. Was it really so?

1:10:27 The revolutionary movement was confined to Petrograd and suburbs. In spite of propaganda, the still enjoyed considerable prestige in the army, and his authority with the peasants was intact. Would not the grant of a constitution and the help of the Duma have been enough to restore Nicholas II the popularity he had enjoyed at the beginning of the war? The reply of the Duma left the Tsar with the alternative of abdicating or marching on Petrograd with the troops which remained faithful to him. The latter would mean civil war in the presence of the enemy. Nicholas II did not hesitate, and on the morning of the fifteenth, he handed General Rusky a telegram informing the president of the Duma that he intended to abdicate in favor of his son. A few hours later, he summoned Professor Fiederoff in his carriage and said, Tell me frankly, is Alexis' malady incurable?

1:11:16 Professor Fiedaroff, fully realizing the importance of what he was going to say, answered. Science teaches us, sire, that it is an incurable disease. Yet those who are afflicted with it sometimes reach an old age. Still, Alexis Nikolaevitch is at the mercy of an accident. The Tsar hung his head and sadly murmured. That's just what the Tsarina told me. Well, if that is the case, and Alexis can never serve his country as I should like him to, we will have the right to keep him to ourselves. His mind was made up. When the representatives of the provisional government and the Duma arrived from Petrograd that evening, he handed them the act of abdication he had drawn up beforehand, in which he renounced for himself and his son the throne of Russia, in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch.

1:12:00 I give a translation of this document, which, by its nobility and the burning patriotism in every line, compelled the admiration of even the Tsar's enemies. By the grace of God, we, Nicholas II, Emperor of all the Russians, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., to all our faithful subjects make known. In these days of terrible struggle among the external enemy who has been trying for three years to impose his will upon our fatherland, God has willed that Russia should be faced with a new and formidable trial. Troubles at home threaten to have a fatal effect on the ultimate course of this hard fought war. The destinies of Russia, the honor of our heroic army, the welfare of the people, and the whole future of our dear country demand that the war should be carried to a victorious conclusion at any price.

1:12:45 Our cruel foe is making his supreme effort, and the moment is at hand when which our valiant army, in concert with our glorious allies, will overthrow him once and for all. In these days, which are decisive for the existence of Russia, we think we should follow the voice of our conscience, which by facilitating the closest cooperation of our people and the organization of its resources for the speedy realization of victory. For these reasons, in accordance with the Duma of the Empire, we think it our duty to abdicate the crown and lay down the supreme power. Not desiring to be separated from our beloved son, we bequeath our brother heritage on our brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, and give him our blessing. We abjure him, together in perfect accord with the representatives of the nations sitting in the legislative institutions, and to take a sacred oath in the name of the beloved fatherland.

1:13:34 We appeal to all the loyal sons of the country, imploring them to fulfill their patriotic and holy duty of obeying the Tsar in this sad times of national trial. We ask to help them with the representatives of the nation to guide the Russian state into the path of prosperity and glory. God help Russia. The Tsar had fallen. Germany was on the point of winning her greatest victory, but the fruits might still escape her. They would have escaped if her intelligent section of the nation had recovered itself in time and had gathered around the Grand Duke Michael, who, being by his brother's desire, the act of abdication, said so in his terms, was to be a constitutional sovereign in the full sense of the word. Nothing prevented so desirable a consummation for Russia, was not yet in the presence of one of those great popular movements which defy all hope and hurl nations into the Gulf of the Unknown.

1:14:21 The revolution had been exclusively the work of the Petrograd population, the majority of which would not have hesitated to rally around the new ruler if the provisional government and the Duma had set the example. The army, which was still a well disciplined body, represented a serious force. As for the great bulk of the nation, it had not the slightest idea that anything had passed. This last chance of averting the catastrophe was lost through thirst for power and fear of the extremists. The day after the Tsar's abdication, Grand Duke Michael, acting on the advice of all, save two of the members of the provisional government, renounced the throne in turn and resigned to a constituent assembly the task of deciding what the future form of government should be. The irreparable step had been taken.

1:15:01 The removal of the Tsar had left in the minds of the masses a gaping void it was impossible for them to fill. They were left to their own devices, a rudderless ship at the mercy of the waves, and searching for an ideal, some article of faith which might replace what they had lost. They found nothing but chaos around them. To finish her work of destruction, Germany had only give Lenin and his disciples a plentiful supply of money and let them loose on Russia. Lenin and his friends never dreamed of talking to the peasants about a democratic republic or a constituent assembly. They knew it would have been a waste of breath. As up to date prophets, they came to preach the holy war to try to draw those untutored millions by the attraction of a creed in which the finest teaching of Christ goes hand in hand with the worst sophisms.

1:15:56 So he's back in the palace with the Tsarina, and he says, quote, the day of the fifteenth passed in an oppressive suspense. At 3 30 AM the next morning, doctor Botkin was called to the telephone by a member of the provisional government who asked him for news of Alexis Nogovich. We heard subsequently that a report of his death had been circulating in the city. The Tsarina's ordeal was continued the next day. It was three days since she had any news of the Tsar, and it forced her in action made her anguish all the more poignant. Towards the end of the afternoon, the news of the Tsar's abdication reached the palace. The Tsarina refused to believe it, asserting it was a cannard.

1:16:39 But soon afterwards the Duke Grand Duke Paul arrived to confirm it. She still refused to believe it, and it was only after hearing all the details that he gave her Majesty that she yielded to the evidence. The Tsar had abdicated at Piskoff the previous evening in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael. The Tsarina's despair almost defied imagination, but her great courage did not desert her. I saw her in Alex Nagolovich's room. Her face was terrible to see, but with a strength of will which was almost superhuman, she had forced herself to come to the children's room, as usual, so that the young invalids, who knew nothing of what happened since the Tsar had left for GHQ, should suspect nothing.

1:17:22 Late at night we heard the Grand Duke Michael had renounced the throne, and that the fate of Russia was to be settled by the Constitute Assembly. The next morning I found the Tsarina in Alexei's room. She was calm but very pale. She looked much thinner and ever so much older in the last few days. In the afternoon, her Majesty received a telegram from the Tsar, in which he tried to calm her fears, and told her that he was at Molahef, pending the imminent arrival of the Dowinger Empress. Three days passed. At half past ten in the morning on the twenty first, her Majesty summoned me and told me that General Korniloff had been sent by the provisional government to inform her, and that the Tsar and herself were under arrest, and that all those who did not wish to be kept in close confinement must leave the palace before four o'clock.

1:18:11 I replied that I decided to stay with them. The Tsar's coming back tomorrow. Alexis must be told everything. Will you do it? I'm gonna tell the girls myself. It was easy to see how she suffered when she thought of the grief of the Grand Duchesses on hearing of their father had abdicated. They were ill, and the news might make them worse. I went to Alexis's room and told him that the Tsar would be returning from Mahil the next morning and would never go back there again. Why? Your father does not want to be commander-in-chief anymore. He was greatly moved at this, as he was very fond of going to GHQ. After a moment or two, I added, You know, your father does not want to be Tsar anymore, Alexis Nikolavich.

1:18:56 He looked at me in astonishment, trying to read in my face what had happened. What? Why? He is very tired, and he's had a lot of trouble lately. Oh yes. Mother told me they stopped his train when he wanted to come here. But won't Papa be Tsar again afterwards? Then I told him that the Tsar had abdicated in favor of Grand Duke Michael, who had now renounced the throne. But who's gonna be Tsar then? I don't know. Perhaps nobody now. Not a single word about himself, not a single allusion to his rights as heir. He was very red and agitated. There was silence. Then he said, But if there isn't a Tsar, who's gonna govern Russia?

1:19:40 I explained that a provisional government had been formed and that it would govern the state until the Constitute Assembly met, when his uncle Michael would perhaps mount the throne. Once again I was struck by the modesty of the boy. At four o'clock, the doors of the palace were closed. We were prisoners. The composite regiment had Been relieved by a regiment from the garrison, Tsarkisillo. And the soldiers on sentry duty were there not to protect us but to keep guard over us. End quote. So that was Pierre telling Alexi that he wasn't going to get to be Tsar anymore. That's how he found out about the abdication and that he wasn't going to be Tsar of Russia.

1:20:25 After that, the Imperial family was moved to various places as prisoners. Pierre and Sophie, who have been reading a lot of her things throughout, both tried to stay with him as long as possible. He said that on our arrival at May 22nd, we were taken at once under strong escort to a special train to take us to Ecaterinburg. Just as I was getting into the train with my pupil, I was separated from him and put in a fourth class carriage, guarded by sentries like the others. We reached Ecaterinburg in the night, the train being stopped at some distance from the station. About nine o'clock the next morning, several carriages were drawn up alongside our train, and I saw four men go towards the children's carriage.

1:21:10 A few minutes passed, and then Nagorney, the sailor attached to Alexis, passed by my window, carrying the sick boy in his arms. Behind him came the Duchesses, loaded with valets and small personal belongings. I tried to get out, but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana came last, carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown fillet. It was raining, I saw her feet sink in the mud at every step. Nagorni tried to come to her assistance, he was roughly pushed back by one of the commissaries. A few minutes later the carriages drove off with the children in the direction of the town.

1:21:51 How little I suspected that I was never to see them again, after so many years among them. I was convinced that they would come back and fetch us, that we would be united without delay. But the hours passed. Our train was shunned back to the station, and then I saw General Chatkeff, Countess Hendrikov, and Schneider being taken away. A little later it was the turn of the Tsarina's valet, the chef, troop, the footman, and a kitchen boy of fourteen. With the exception of Volkov, who managed to escape later, and the little boy whose life was spared, not one of those who were let off that day were destined to escape alive from the hands of the Bolsheviks.

1:22:33 We were kept waiting. What was happening? Why didn't they come for us too? We gave ourselves up to all sorts of hypotheses when, about five o'clock, Commissar Rodinov, who had come to Toblocks to fetch us, entered our carriage and told us we were not wanted and we were free. Free? What was this? We were to be separated from the others? Then all was over. The excitement that had sustained us up till now gave place to deep depression. What was to be done? What was to be the next move? We were overwhelmed. Even today, I cannot understand what prompted the Bolsheviks to this decision to save our lives.

1:23:14 Why, for instance, should Countess Hendrikov be taken to prison while Baronx de Buskehaven, also a lady in waiting with the Tsarina, was allowed to go free. Why they and not ourselves? Was there some confusion of names or functions? A mystery. End quote. The only other person he talks about that survived the ordeal is Sophie, the one, the other person's book that I've been reading along this time. So Pierre and Sophie did not they didn't go with the rest of the way with them. Well, no, Pierre actually tried to go to the house like two or three times where they were kept, and they turned him away and told him he wasn't allowed to go.

1:23:54 But it was just it's very interesting, you know, his whole, you know, why did they save us too? And then interestingly, these are the only two accounts that you know you can really find that are written about the family and what was going on in the castle. Because everybody else wasn't there to write about it. Right. But I want to read or talk some about what Sophie says about the impact of the revolution when it hit where the Tsar and his family were. And basically, oh I'm gonna read, this is just short, quote, in November, the news of the Bolshevik revolution on November 7th reached Toblux. It was so far away that it produced no change.

1:24:36 The officials of the provincial government, including the governor, remained at their posts. The banks were opened, the law courts continued to work, Moscow was ignored, and while the money lasted, Toblux ruled itself. End quote. She also talks about even further on, when funds ceased. She says, quote, after January, new difficulties arose for the imperial family, matters of which they'd never thought now forced themselves to notice. Up until this time, the government had paid for upkeep of the establishment. When the first provincial government was replaced by the Bolsheviks, funds ceased to come to Petrograd, and Koblensky, who was in charge of them, had difficulty in providing the pay of his men.

1:25:21 In order to supply the wants of the household and signed bills in their own names, but the merchants were becoming anxious and the shops were reluctant to give further credit. End quote. So as time went on and the royal family was imprisoned, funding ran out, it was, well, we might as well take them out. There was no one to pay for them or anything. Closer to time, the White Army, who was fighting the communist, was getting close to the town, and there were fears that the family would be saved and rescued. In fact, Sophie writes about it. She said that, quote, it was evident that the Soviets were terrified of the ideas of their prisoners escaping.

1:26:05 Alas, this was impossible, for who was there to help them? The soldiers became more and more neglectful. In the Empress's diary, july tenth, she notes that for a couple days they did not bring them their meals at all, and that the family had to live on meager supplies, mostly macaroni, that the cook had brought from Toblonx in May. The next day she hailed with joy some eggs brought by the nuns for baby. She's referring to Alexi when she says for baby, but only enough to put in his soup for six days. The Grand Duchesses helped with the housework, they washed and ironed the linen, mended their clothes, washed up the plates, and took turns in reading too and amusing their brother.

1:26:49 They seemed to have taken part in the cooking too, and on one occasion to have helped in baking bread, probably with some flour brought by the nuns. Sometimes the guards seemed to have ordered the Grand Duchesses to play piano for their amusement. The guard room was so near the sitting room that, with open doors, the men could hear the music well from their quarters. The Empress seemed to have been physically very alien all this time, and she lay fully dressed on her bed for most of the day. The emperor was also ill in June and was laid up for several days with fever and kidney trouble. These illnesses caused great complications when they were all living at such close quarters, and when there was so much difficulty in getting medicine and suitable food.

1:27:30 Still, not a word of complaint was ever heard. In her diaries, the Empress only mentions the daily happenings without any comment. She speaks of the blessings of having had the church services for the first time on may twenty fourth. They had asked for this at Easter, but it had been refused. A priest from the neighboring church was sent for by the commandant and officiated with a deacon, but they were not allowed to approach the imperial family. The Grand Duchesses sang in response. Church service was again allowed july fourteenth. All looked very sad and dejected, and by this time the young girls did not sing. The priest was the last reliable person to see the Imperial family. End quote.

1:28:11 So that's the last we have of the Imperial family while they were alive. That last section with the priest was the last person who saw them alive. And then just a couple days later, they were taken to the basement of the house where they were staying and executed. Everybody? Except the little dog. But um Gileard went back, Pierre went back through and did his own investigation into the deaths because he could not believe that the kids would have been killed, or maybe the Tsar was, but definitely not them. So this is his account after the fact, after they were dead, and he went and he tried to go through and look through the house at first, but it was closed off and everything.

1:28:59 So when it was open, which was a couple weeks later, he went in to examine it. Interestingly, the Russian people were not told about the death of the Tsar until several days after they had killed him. In this time, there had been plenty of time for the house to be cleaned up, you know, any vestiges left of the family gotten rid of, bodies to have been taken and put wherever. But he went and he says, quote, on July 20th, the whites, as the anti-Bolshevik forces were called, captured Tiananmen. A few days later, the papers published a reproduction of the proclamation that had been placarded in the streets of Ikaterinburg, announcing that the sentence of death passed on the Extar Nicholas Romanoff had been carried out on the night of july sixteenth, seventeenth, and that the Tsarina and her children had been removed to a place of safety.

1:29:55 At last, on july twenty fifth, Ikaterinburg fell in its turn. Hardly was communication reestablished, which took a long time as the permanent way had suffered severely, when Mr. Gibbs and I hastened to the town to search for the Imperial family and those of our companions who had remained in Ikaterinburg. Two days after my arrival, I made my first entry into Patif's house. I went through the first floor rooms, which had served as the prison. They were in an indescribable state of disorder. It was evident that every effort had been made to get rid of any traces of the recent occupants. Heaps of ashes had been raked out of the stoves. Among them were a quantity of small articles half burnt, such as toothbrushes, hairpins, buttons, etc., in the midst of which I found the end of a hairbrush on the brown ivory, of which could still be seen the initials of the Tsarina AF.

1:30:47 It was true if it was true that the prisoners had been sent away, they must have been removed just as they were, without any of their most essential articles of toilet. I then noticed the wall and the embassure of the windows of their Majesty's room, the Empress's favorite charm, the swastika, which she put up everywhere to ward off ill luck. She had drawn it in pencil and added underneath the date, seventeenth, thirtieth, April, the day of their incarceration in the house. The same symbol, but without the date, was drawn on wallpaper, on level with the bed, occupied doubtless by her or Alexis. By my own search, but my own search served no purpose.

1:31:29 I could not find the slightest cute clue to their fate. I went down to the bottom floor, the greater part of which was below the level of the ground. It was an intense emotion that I entered the room, in which perhaps I was still in doubt, they had met their death. Its appearance was sinister beyond expression. The only light filtered through a barred window at the height of a man's head. The walls and floor showed numerous traces of bullets and bayonet scars. The first glance showed there was an odious crime that had been perpetrated there, and that several people had been done to death. But who? How? I became convinced that the Tsar had perished, and granting that, I could not believe that Tsarina had survived him. At Toblox, when the commissary came to take away the Tsar, I had seen her throw herself in where danger seemed to her the greatest.

1:32:16 I had seen her broken hearted, after hours of mental torture, torn desperately between her feelings as a wife and mother, abandon her sick boy to follow her husband, whose life seemed in danger? Yes, it was possible they might have died together, the victims of these brutes. But the children, they too massacred? I could not believe it. My whole being revolted at the idea. And yet everything proved that there had been many victims. Well, then during the following days I continued my investigations into Caterinburg and its suburbs, the monastery, everywhere I could hope to find the slightest clue. I saw Father Stroganoff, who had been the last to conduct the religious service in the house on the fourteenth, two days before the night of terror.

1:33:00 He too, alas, had very little hope. The inquiry proceeded very slowly. It was begun in extremely difficult circumstances, for between july seventeenth and twenty fifth, the Bolshevik commissaries had time to efface nearly every trace of their crime. Immediately after the taking of Ikaterinburg by the whites, the military authorities had surrounded the house with a guard and a judicial inquiry had been opened, but the threads had been so skillfully entangled that it was very difficult to sort them out. The most important deposition was some of the peasants from the village of Koptaki, twenty verts south of Ikaterinburg. They came to give evidence that on the night of july sixteenth through seventeenth, the Bolsheviks had occupied a clearing in the forest near the village, where they had remained for several days.

1:33:48 They brought with them objects which they had found near the shaft of an abounded mine, not far from which could be traced seeing traces of a large fire. Some officers visited the clearing and found other objects which, like the first, were recognized as having belonged to the imperial family. End quote. So that's what Pierre saw when he went to go do his own search after the family had died. Or Alexi and he had escaped.

1:34:28 And he would be called in to go see if those people were the actual. Nicholas or Nicholas isn't wife, yeah. Right. But it seems like that was probably not the case. And so then later on, we find out, and this was just a few years ago, they exhumed the area down at the mineshaft and found the bodies. So not all the bodies that were found afterwards, and so there was skepticism.

1:35:11 There were stories out there. Oh, well, the children escaped, maybe some of the children got out of Russia. And at least a couple times people were able to go to the press and try to convince everyone that they were there was one that was at Tsarovich, which Pierre went to go meet and they introduced him, and the boy refused to speak French to him. Pierre was, well, he was Swiss, but he was the French tutor and knew that the child knew French, but the child absolutely refused to respond in French at all and wouldn't give a reason why he wouldn't speak French. It was not him. And there was another woman who was actually pretty famous. She went by Anya and was in a mental hospital.

1:35:53 Well, initially she, I think she had typhus or tuberculosis or something, and he went to go see her and see if that was Anastasia. And then stories came out that he came out of her room saying, poor Anastasia, to see her in such a state. He vehemently denied ever saying that. And yeah, it's just like, I can't guarantee that it is not her, but it isn't her. And they ended up doing a DNA test on her in like 1995, and it turned out she was a crazy Polish person. And well, you know, they did the DNA test, but it wasn't until like 2008, around that, like 2008, 2009 or something, that they found the last two bodies.

1:36:36 Right. So the Imperial family, we know, perished at that point in time. And they they disposed of them down that mineshaft. But because nobody really knew for sure, there were rumors and impostors and things for years, decades afterwards. Right. And the last thing I want to read is the introduction to the book that Pierre wrote when he was telling this whole story of the family, because he never really meant to, but he said, quote, in September 1920, after staying three years in Siberia, I was able to return to Europe. My mind was still full of the poignant drama which I had been closely associated, but I was also still deeply impressed by the wonderful serenity and flaming faith of those who had been its victims.

1:37:22 Cut off from communication with the rest of the world for many months, I was unfamiliar with the recent publications on the subject of Tsar Nicholas and his family. I was not slow to discover, though, that some of these works revealed a painful anxiety for accuracy, and their authors endeavored to rely on serious records, although the information they gave us was often erroneous or incomplete so far as the imperial family was concerned. The majority of them were simply a tissue of absurdities and falsehoods. In other words, vulgar outpourings exploiting the most unworthy calumnies. I was simply appalled to read some of them, but my indignation was far greater when I realized to my amazement that they'd been accepted by the general public.

1:38:05 To rehabilitate the moral character of the Russian sovereigns was a duty. A duty called for by honesty and justice. I decided at once to attempt the task. What I'm endeavoring to describe is the drama of a lifetime, a drama I, at first, suspected under the brilliant exterior of a magnificent court, and then realized personally, during our captivity, when circumstances brought me into intimate contact with the sovereigns. The Caterinberg drama was, in fact, nothing but the fulfillment of a remorseless destiny, the climax of one of the most moving tragedies humanity has known. In the following pages I'll try to show its nature and trace its melancholy stages.

1:38:47 There were few who suspected the secret sorrow, yet it was of vital importance from an historical point of view. The illness of the Tsarovic was that cast the shadow over the whole of the concluding period of Tsar Nicholas II's reign, and alone can explain it. Without appearing to be, it was one of the main causes of his fall, for it had made possible the phenomenon of Rasputin and resulted in the fatal isolation of the sovereigns who lived a world apart, wholly absorbed in a tragic anxiety which had to be concealed from all eyes. In this book, I've endeavored to bring Nicholas II and his family back to life. My aim is to be absolutely impartial and to preserve complete independence of mind in describing the events of which I have been an eyewitness.

1:39:33 It may be that in my search for truth I have presented their political enemies with new weapons against them, but I greatly hope that this book will reveal them as they really were, for it was not the glamour of their imperial dignity which drew me to them, but their nobility of mind and the wonderful moral grandeur they displayed through all their sufferings.