IT would not have been human on the part of the Empress Alexandra if she had not felt deeply aggrieved at the war which had so unexpectedly broken out between the country of her birth and that of her adoption. She had never really become a Russian at heart and her sympathies had remained exclusively German all through her married life. Apart from this, she had experienced from the intercourse which she had kept up with her own family the only pleasure which she had frankly enjoyed since the Crown of the Russian Czarinas had been put upon her head. She dearly loved her two sisters, the Princess Victoria of Battenberg and the Princess Irene of Prussia, far more, indeed, than she did her other one, the Grand-Duchess Elisabeth, whom she considered more or less as a rival and whom in the secret of her heart she could not forgive for having won in Russia a popularity which had always been denied to her own self.

Then there was her brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, with whom she had remained in correspondence, who paid her frequent visits in Tsarskoye Selo; there was also her cousin, the Kaiser, who had been the first person to point out to her the responsibilities which were inseparable from the exalted position she occupied as Empress of All the Russias, who had applied himself to persuade her that she had great political talents, and that she could undoubtedly, if she only wished it, become a most important factor in European politics. Strange to say, though she had been brought up partly in England, though her mother had been an English Princess, though she was the grandchild of Queen Victoria, she intensely disliked everything that was English, and had for English customs, English ambitions, and English politics the same hatred which characterized William II. Perhaps this common aversion was one of the reasons why they had always got on so well together, and why they had been able to be of so much use to each other. At all events, the fact that it existed in an equal degree in both of them had drawn them together, and at last, after she had contrived to eliminate the influence of her anti-German mother-in-law, Alexandra Feodorowna had been able to give herself up body and soul to the task of drawing together her husband and her own kindred. She had tried to persuade the former that the only means to insure the prosperity and the welfare of the Russian Empire in the future consisted in a closer union with Germany, with whom there existed absolutely no reason to quarrel, because there were no interests capable of clashing between the two people. She had represented to the weak-minded Nicholas that Russia had obtained from France all that she could hope to get, and that the latter had become weary of always being called upon to invest money in Russian bonds without any return being made for her generosity.

Nicholas II. had always detested republics, and though he had been made much of during his visits to Paris, which he had thoroughly enjoyed, he yet had never felt quite at home amid the Republican society he had been called upon to get acquainted with; in the secret of his heart he despised all French political men, whom he considered as much inferior to himself. But a natural inclination to dissimulation, which he carried so far that many people called it by quite another name, had made him carefully conceal the real state of his feelings in regard to his French ally. It is, however, quite certain that if the war had not broken out the Franco-Russian alliance would have died a natural death. As things occurred, it was for a short space of time to appear more complete than ever; this was not the merit of Nicholas, but the result of the honesty which the French Government brought to bear in all that happened in 1914. In Russian Court circles, which were all of them, more or less, given up to Germany, the news that the country was going to war was received with consternation, and there were many people who declared that it was a shame for Russia to be drawn into a struggle which was essentially a personal quarrel between France and Germany, with which she had nothing to do.

At first and before the anti-German feeling became fierce in St. Petersburg, the Empress, in spite of political complications, remained in private correspondence with her brother, and through him with the Kaiser, to whom she promised that she would spare no efforts to induce the Czar to conclude peace as soon as it became practicable. She had never been able to form an idea of the power which public opinion, especially in times of national danger, can exercise over a nation. She imagined that the authority wielded by the Crown would be sufficient to put an end to any manifestations of sympathy in regard to France on the part of the Russian people. She therefore felt confident that the struggle which had just begun would not last long, and that Russia could come out of it, if not with flying colors, at least without any serious losses.

No one during those early days of the war admitted for one moment the possibility that Warsaw and the line of fortresses which defended the Russian frontier on the side of the Niemen could fall into the hands of the enemy; all that the Empress expected was a defeat of the Russian armies which would not seriously compromise their prestige, but at the same time convince the country that an advantageous peace was, after all, the best way of getting out of a situation where all the time one adversary had either willingly or unwillingly misunderstood the good intentions of the other.

She was consequently working along this line when Raspoutine returned to Tsarskoye Selo. He did this as soon as the doctors had pronounced him fit to travel. She began once more to pray with him and to ask him to put her again into communication with that other world where she imagined that Colonel Orloff was waiting to advise her as to what she ought to do in regard to the war and to the necessity of putting an end to it as soon as possible. But while she believed that none outside the few people she had admitted into her confidence—one of whom was Anna Wyrubewa, and another Sturmer, who was later on to play such an important part in the tragedy of her fall—could guess what she was about, Sazonoff began to suspect that it was due to her influence that the Emperor was no longer so amenable to the advice which he ventured to offer. It was partly to put an obstacle in the way of any independent act of the Sovereign that might have been interpreted as not quite loyal in regard to Russia’s Allies, that he had suggested the drawing up of the document known by the name of the Treaty of London, in which the Allied Powers engaged themselves not to conclude any individual or separate peace with Germany. He thought, and others did the same, that this would prove the best means to hold together the Entente without exposing it to mutual suspicion. He concluded this pact of his own authority, only acquainting the Czar with what he had done after it had become an accomplished fact.

Nicholas understood for once the significance of his Minister’s bold action, but he could not disavow it; therefore he had to make the best of it. But he refrained from telling the Empress of this new complication which would surely interfere with her hopes of a prompt peace, and it was through a letter from her brother that she heard at last what had taken place in London. Her wrath was intense, the more so that her German relatives blamed her for a thing she had known nothing about and for which they tried to make her responsible. Alexandra Feodorowna had never understood what self-control meant, and she gave public vent to her indignation, accusing Sazonoff of having betrayed his Imperial Master’s confidence, and vowing that he would be made to repent for this piece of audacity.

The Empress was still smarting under the sense of her personal defeat in a struggle against the people who were trying to control Russian politics and to lead them in a road she strongly objected taking, when the news of the defeat of the Russian army at Tannenberg came like a thunderbolt out of the blue, to stir up all the patriotic feelings of the Russian nation and to put an end to any idea of peace which may have existed in some timorous minds. The Empress had perforce to appear to share the general indignation against the ruthless conduct of Germany, and she had to acknowledge her momentary helplessness to speak what she considered to be the language of reason, and to try to persuade her subjects that it would be to their advantage to abandon their Allies to their fate, and to apply themselves to withdraw their own pawns out of the game.

In these days of suspense Raspoutine turned out to be the greatest comfort in the world to her. For one thing, he made it possible for her to begin again seeking in Berlin inspirations as to the course of conduct she ought to pursue. Thanks to him, Mr. Manassavitch-Maniuloff was persuaded to undertake a journey abroad, during which he was to see the leading political men in Europe and to ascertain their views on the subject of the conduct of the war in general, as well as of its chances of success. Ostensibly it was a newspaper on which he was assistant editor, the Nowoie WrÉmia, that sent him on this perilous mission. In reality, he started as the agent of the Empress, and he saw several German officials in Stockholm, as well as in Copenhagen, where he spent a few days. He proceeded to London and to Paris, only to lend coloring to what otherwise would have been an impossible trip. When he returned to Russia he brought along with him a whole program drawn out by the Kaiser, which Alexandra Feodorowna proceeded at once to execute.

But here again she found obstacles in her path, the principal of which was the stubbornness of the Grand-Duke Nicholas, who, in spite of the fact that he had to acknowledge that Russia had neither guns nor ammunition in sufficient quantity to be able to hold her own against the hordes of William II., yet refused to consider his country as beaten. The Grand Duke was popular in the army. The fact that it began to be known that he represented at Court the Russian party, in opposition to the hated Empress, who was supposed to head the German one, gave him considerable prestige. When the Czar had consulted him as to what ought to be done, he had replied:

“Do anything you like except conclude peace, because if you do I shall be the first one to lead the army against you, and to compel you to go on with the struggle.”

Nicholas had repeated to the Czarina the threat of his cousin, and this had been sufficient to incense the latter, even more than she had been before, against a man whom she considered, perhaps not quite without reason, as her most formidable enemy.

Nevertheless, she tried to persuade him to change his mind, and made an appeal to his feelings of humanity, asking him whether it was right to go on with a war in which hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers had already fallen, which would probably entail more sacrifices in the future than the country could afford. She spoke eloquently, but the Grand Duke remained unmoved, and at last Alexandra Feodorowna, worn out by the supreme effort which she had made, gave way to her uncontrollable grief, exclaiming in her deep distress:

“My country, my poor country, must I forsake thee?”

Nicholas Nicholaievitch turned round and said, with a withering contempt:

“To what country do you allude, Madam—to Russia or to Germany?”

The Empress jumped up, her eyes blazing with rage. She rang the bell, and told the lady in waiting who came in response to her call:

“Show the Grand Duke out. He must never be allowed to enter this room any more.”

And Nicholas Nicholaievitch never did so again.