Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (51 page)

Because of all these factors, when Alexandra received a reply at Spala from Rasputin, it was all she needed. Rasputin stated, “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.”
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Telegram in hand, a pale and exhausted Alexandra entered her son’s room and declared “in a calm voice” to the people gathered, “I received a telegram from Father Grigory and it has reassured me completely.”
⁷³⁵
As if it had all been planned, Alexei began to recover almost instantaneously. There was not a single face that was not shocked—and relieved. Olga Alexandrovna recalled how “within an hour my nephew was out of danger.”
⁷³⁶
Although his life was spared, it would be a long time before Alexei was back to normal. It took almost a year before he could walk properly again, and even that was accompanied by a leg brace.

Alexandra was never the same after the Spala episode. In a letter to the bishop of Ripon, she expressed some deeply candid feelings about what her family had just experienced.

I have been so ill again with my heart—the months of phisical [
sic
] & moral strain during our Boy’s illness brought on a collapse—for some years I suffer from the heart & lead the life [of] an invalid most of the time. Thank God our Darling is getting on so well he has grown very much & looks so strong, & we trust before long to see him on his legs again running about.

It was a terrible time we went through, & to see his fearful suffering was heartrending—but he was of an angelical [
sic
] patience & never complaining at being ill, he would only make the sign of the cross & beg God to help him, groaning & moaning from pain. In the Orthodox Church one gives children Holy Communion, so twice we let him have that joy, & the poor thin little face with its big suffering eyes, lit up with blessed happiness as the Priest approached him with the Holy Sacrement [
sic
]. It was such a comfort to us all & we too had the same joy,—
without
trust & faith implicit in God Almighty’s great wisdom & ineffable love, one could not bear the heavy crosses sent one.
⁷³⁷

Those who were detractors of Rasputin were dismayed at the level of credibility the Spala episode brought him. This latest incident solidified indefinitely in Alexandra’s mind the importance of Rasputin to the survival of her son. He was destined by God, she reasoned, to save Alexei’s life. Olga Alexandrovna admitted that “never did my brother or Alicky believe that the man was endowed with any supernatural powers. They saw him as a peasant whose deep faith turned him into an instrument of God to use—but only in the case of Alexis.” She also sharply pointed out, “Alicky suffered terribly from neuralgia and sciatica, but I never heard that the Siberiak helped her.”
⁷³⁸
This was not entirely true. Alexandra and Nicholas did receive temporary relief from their headaches upon first meeting Rasputin.

Dr. Fedorov, one of the most preeminent physicians in Russia, was at an utter loss to explain how Rasputin effected Alexei’s miraculous healing. When discussing the phenomenon, he once admitted that Alexandra could hardly be blamed for believing in the
staretz
. “Rasputin would come in, walk up to the patient, look at him and spit,” he said. “The bleeding would stop in no time.… How could the empress not trust Rasputin after that?”
⁷³⁹
For nearly a century, experts have tried to debunk Rasputin’s abilities. In the words of one historian,

the secret or source of Rasputin’s ability to “cure” the tsarevitch has been examined relentlessly. There appears to be no real consensus as to how he came about his “miracles.” Explanations range from coincidence at Rasputin’s timing to mysterious Tibetan herbs used on the imperial family to palace accomplices effecting his work, and also to his ability to calm the tsarina and so, by extension, Alexei. Then there is the theory that some sort of hypnotic ability might have been the root of his “powers.” Rasputin’s magnetic eyes play a major role in promoting this idea. But there is little doubt that people privy to the imperial family’s troubles were mostly at a loss to explain how the monk from Siberia managed to pull off his conjuring tricks.
⁷⁴⁰

Whatever the explanation may be, Rasputin’s influence with Alexandra Feodorovna was undeniable. In the course of only a few short years, that influence would help destabilize one of the most powerful monarchies in history, with tragic consequences for Alexandra, her family, and Russia.

13
The Gathering Storm 

(May–June 1914)

A
t Hetzendorf, Archduchess Zita enjoyed a measure of tranquility interspersed with public functions and royal duties. As the wife of the heir presumptive and being born of royal blood, she was expected to accompany Franz Joseph on occasions that, had circumstances been different, would have fallen to Franz Ferdinand’s wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg. Zita attended state dinners, her hair coiffed up and covered in diamonds. In her iconic white muslin dress and wide hat, she inspected the troops on the arm of the emperor. On other occasions, with her son in tow, she made visits around Vienna. Wherever she went, Zita’s grace and simplicity charmed the people she met.

In the two brief years that Zita and Charles had been married, the couple grew closer together, strengthening their loving bond. They “shared the same deep faith, the same simple tastes, the same love of home and—not so far behind these three in enduring value for a marriage—the same sense of humour.”
⁷⁴¹
Zita’s popularity grew again on January 3, 1914, when she gave birth at Hetzendorf to her second child, a little girl called Adelhaid. Like Alexandra of Russia, Zita considered her family life to be truly blessed. She and her husband passed many hours together in the company of their young children. They took long walks in the parks around Hetzendorf, played games with the children, prayed together, and visited the sick and poor.

So amiable was the young couple that they became frequent companions to Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. Zita and the Duchess of Hohenberg were a study in contrasts. Where Zita was quiet and demure, Sophie was driven and ambitious. But even a decade after her controversial wedding to Franz Ferdinand, tensions over their union remained high. Conservatives labeled the archduke and duchess as pariahs, who held their own little court at their Vienna home, Belvedere Palace. Few high-ranking individuals associated with the couple for fear of earning the emperor’s enmity, but rank never mattered much to Zita or her husband, who enjoyed spending time in the company of “Uncle Franzi” and “Aunt Sophie.” But in the early months of 1914, Zita noticed a change in Uncle Franzi. The normally gregarious archduke became withdrawn and pensive. This change came about when, after a heated audience, the emperor decided to send him and Sophie to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to preside over troop maneuvers in June. On the surface, it should have been just another military exercise, since Franz Ferdinand was the inspector-general of Austria’s armed forces, but “the archduke was gripped by [such] an inexplicable unease about the journey … that he even considered tackling the emperor to have it cancelled.”
⁷⁴²

Franz Ferdinand’s anxiety over the upcoming Bosnia trip was not unfounded. Over the past thirty years, the Balkans, nicknamed the powder keg of Europe, had become a hotbed of revolutionary, antimonarchist sentiments. Countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Albania had fought long, bloody struggles for their freedom from the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century. But now, they found to their horror that Austria-Hungary’s borders were encroaching on their own like a gathering storm. Desperate to never again be oppressed by any foreign power, terrorist groups popped up across the southern Balkans in droves, stretching from Belgrade to Sarajevo. They were determined to liberate the Slavs living under the Habsburgs—approximately 60 percent of Austro-Hungarian subjects were ethnic Slavs. Attacks on royals and government officials became bolder and bolder with each passing year. Imperial gubernators were attacked or even assassinated, buildings were bombed, and demands were made for total Austrian withdrawals from the Balkans.

All this and more was racing through Franz Ferdinand’s mind in the days leading up to the long, hot summer of 1914. In the meantime, he prepared for the worst. In an interview held years later, Zita recalled a particularly tense evening.

At the beginning of May 1914, we were in Vienna and uncle Franz Ferdinand rang up one evening asking us to come over to the Belvedere for supper. It was just a small family meal with the heir-apparent, his wife and children, and ourselves as the only guests.

Everything passed off normally – indeed quite gaily – until after supper, when the Duchess of Hohenberg went to take the children up to bed. After his wife left the room, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand suddenly turned to my husband and said:

“I have something to say but I must say it quickly as I don’t want your aunt to hear anything of this when she comes down.
I shall soon be murdered
. In this desk are papers which concern you. When it happens, take them. They are for you.”

My husband protested: “Surely, you must be joking.” But his uncle replied: “No, I am serious. After all, everything is ready. The crypt in Arstetten is now finished.”

Before anything more could be said, the Duchess reappeared and we all did our best to pass the rest of the evening as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
⁷⁴³

Charles and Zita left Belvedere that night speechless. It was only after they returned home that they discussed in greater detail Franz Ferdinand’s disturbing prophecy. In a later interview, Zita shared her thoughts on what had transpired that night.

Uncle Franz-Ferdinand obviously had reasons for believing what he told us. He had had serious threats from nationalist and anarchist groups. Obviously the police had been informed of them and took them very seriously. To tell the truth, the instigators were known to be inaccessible. They mingled and moved in a half-light, and in the political demi-world, between Turin, Paris, and Scotland. They also haunted Belgrade. It was already known at the time that, if an assassination attempt were committed, the authors of it would only be agents manipulated by a “big brother.”
⁷⁴⁴

Zita’s statement reflects the general mentality of most members of the Habsburg dynasty at this time. The acts of the Nihilists in Russia, the burgeoning terrorism in the Balkans, and the murder of the Portuguese king and crown prince in 1908 showed that acts of violence against royals were on the rise. But it is doubtful anyone, even someone as politically astute as Archduchess Zita, could have predicted what would take place in just a few weeks.

In the spring, there were unmistakable signs that instability was sweeping Europe. Over the past decade, the facade of royalty’s immutability had been stripped away, prompting its enemies to strike. In Germany, the growing power of the Socialists and other Leftist parties in the Reichstag were decisive blows against the Hohenzollern monarchy. Although Empress Augusta Victoria remained above reproach in the eyes of her people, the emperor had become an object of scorn, ridicule, and even resentment. It was a similar story in Russia, where the Duma, now nearing its tenth anniversary, was failing in its mission to bring reform to the tsarist empire. Nicholas II had dissolved and reformed the parliamentary body a frustrating four times, stalemating the democratic process. Russia was also paralyzed with thousands of workers’ strikes from Ukraine to Siberia. At the Lena goldfields in northeast Siberia, soldiers shot and killed some five hundred miners who had gone on strike to protest their working conditions: sixteen hour days, an accident rate of seven out of every ten workers, and food that was usually rotten or inadequate. Despite its alliance with Britain, episodes like the Lena Massacre inflamed the British people’s resentment toward the Russian autocracy, embodied by Nicholas II and Alexandra.

Britain was not immune from the seeds of discontent. The king was dejected that he was being forced to confront separatist causes in his own dominions. In May 1912, the Liberals in the House of Commons struck a blow against the British Empire by putting forth a home rule bill for Ireland. The ebbing Conservatives pressured the king to veto the bill, something not done by an English monarch since 1708. In the end, the indecisive and timid George chose not to interfere. “Whatever I do I shall offend half the population,” he scribbled in a memo. “No Sovereign has even been in such a position.”
⁷⁴⁵
Although he chose not to interfere in the elected process, George was a committed imperialist who, perhaps even more than his father, was determined to preserve the British Empire as it existed during Queen Victoria’s reign. This was something he shared with Wilhelm II and Nicholas II: a commitment to passing onto his son the same empire that was passed on to him. Although the English throne was the most stable in Europe, Britain’s once-great overseas empire was beginning to dwindle. Irish home rule, rising Indian independence movements, and self-determination for Canada and Australia were evidence of this.

To combat his feelings of vulnerability on the throne, King George followed his father’s example by looking for good international relations to be fostered between monarchs. This proved difficult when it came to Britain’s ally, France. Being a republic for nearly half a century, it was the bastion of democracy in Europe, free from monarchical constraints. “France is, and always will remain, Britain’s greatest danger,” said Lord Salisbury as early as 1867.
⁷⁴⁶
It was also a sore point in French republican pride that almost every deposed French dynasty since 1848 had sought refuge in England. Eighty-eight-year-old Empress Eugénie was still living quietly in the English countryside. With Germany’s growing antagonism toward Britain, it was more imperative than ever that George and Mary strengthen their bonds with France. To that end, in April 1914, they took a much-anticipated trip to Paris. It was the first foreign city that the king and queen visited since their accession.

The Anglo-French relationship was one of the oldest rivalries in Europe. This was unchanged for centuries until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited France as guests of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in 1855. The visit was a lukewarm success at best, but when the gregarious Edward VII returned in 1903, it changed everything. After a series of effusive speeches and official engagements, Edward became a smash hit and was cheered with cries of “
Vive le Roi! Vive l’Angleterre!
”
⁷⁴⁷
When President Émile Loubet of France visited London a few months later, he was greeted just as enthusiastically. The friendship that Edward VII established with France led to the grand alliance, the Entente Cordiale of 1904, uniting England and France for the first time in history, thanks to the diplomatic efforts of Lord Landsdowne and Paul Cambon.

When George and Mary arrived in Paris, they were an instant sensation. There were crowds “milling round the carriage.… Wonderful reception & crowds of people.… Crowds in the street in spite of late hour.… Crowds in the streets both coming and going,” were some of the entries Mary made in her diary. She added that all this enthusiasm “shows that the French people wish to be on good terms with us.”
⁷⁴⁸
According to the French people, in the queen’s eyes they saw “the prettiest frankness” and insisted that “her smile was full of a delicate kindness and sincerity.” The Parisians, ever conscious of the latest fashions and styles, were full of praise for her wardrobe: “The whiteness of the aigrettes beneath her hat exactly suited the gracious face beneath.”
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The queen knew “how to wear with grace and dignity the dresses of gold, silver, and silk which Court etiquette insists upon; but her heart is not in vain outward show.”
⁷⁵⁰
For their final night in Paris, a gala party was held at the Elysée Palace topped off by an emotional speech from the French president, Raymond Poincaré.