Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (58 page)

Anger against the empress began boiling over in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Many viewed her with distrust, thinking she was a German spy. The same way Dona’s mother-in-law was labeled
Die Engländerin
(“the English woman”), so too was Alexandra being slanderously called the
Nemka
(“the German woman”). In the newspapers, she was openly slandered as “Alix Rasputin.” This was a mirror image of the same innuendo that had befallen Queen Victoria during her—platonic—relationship with the Scottish gillie John Brown. The more time the queen had spent with the gillie, the more she was snidely called “Mrs. Brown.” But there was never any notion of eliminating Queen Victoria’s influence in the same way most people wanted Alexandra removed. There was soon talk of her being sent packing to a convent in faraway Siberia or back to Germany like the traitor she supposedly was.

Alexandra’s ultraconservative rule struck an ironic chord. Had Russia and Germany been at peace at the time, she and Dona may have come to respect one another. This tendency to the political Right was something both empresses shared, but in Britain, the tsarina did not win any friends. Public opinion dramatically shifted to the Left over the last two decades, with increasing criticism in the British press of Russia’s autocracy. When Alexandra took the reins of power in 1915–16, many liberal politicians in London cringed. Despite being allies with Russia, the English people held little esteem for Alexandra or Nicholas, who was now being looked upon as a weak failure of an emperor.

Although British opinion was against them, Nicholas and Alexandra maintained cordial ties with the royal family. A number of Romanovs took up residence in England away from the fighting, prompting closer communications on tactical plans between London and Saint Petersburg. In particular, Dowager Empress Marie and Queen Alexandra remained in close contact. “Aunt Alix [Queen Alexandra] wires to say they know for certain that the Germans intend to attack Warsaw this week and she hopes we are aware of it,” Minnie wrote in February 1915.
⁸³⁶
She later wrote to Nicholas II, “I have just had a telegram from aunt Alix who wires in despair that they have lost six battleships. But I do
hope
the German losses are even
heavier
.”
⁸³⁷

Like Mary of England, Dona of Germany, and Zita of Austria, Alexandra of Russia was devoted to caring for wounded soldiers. It was the expected role of a reigning consort during times of war. Similarly to Queen Mary, Tsarina Alexandra was instrumental in taking a leading role in these hospitals. Russia’s attrition rate in the war was extremely high. Mikhail Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, recalled seventeen thousand wounded soldiers being left on a train in Warsaw because there was nowhere for them to go. Many wounded were sent back to Saint Petersburg. The city was incapable of dealing with such a throng of human suffering, leading the tsarina to convert a number of palaces into field hospitals. By 1916, more than eighty-five hospitals in Saint Petersburg were under her aegis.

In the times when Alexei was in good health, Alexandra—with Olga and Tatiana by her side—was a familiar face in many of the hospitals. “To some it may seem unnecessary my doing this, but help is much needed and my hand is useful,” she said.
⁸³⁸
She even went so far as to earn her certification as a Red Cross nurse. “As you know,” she told her friend Princess Marie Bariatinsky, “I am
of
the preacher type. I want to help others in life, to help them to fight their battles and bear their crosses.”
⁸³⁹

The day she graduated after two months of nurse training was arguably the proudest moment of Alexandra’s life. Anna Viroubova recalled, “I think I never saw her happier than on the day, at the end of our two months’ intensive training, she marched at the head of the procession of nurses to receive the red cross and the diploma of a certified war nurse.” Her position as empress did not shield Alexandra from the full horrors of the war. She experienced many of her people’s hardships firsthand. She was seen in the hospitals on a daily basis, dressed in her white nurse’s uniform, going from one ward to the other, comforting the soldiers or praying with them. Her day usually lasted from early morning until midnight. She would see men covered head to toe in burns or with limbs missing. Sometimes she would even assist during surgeries. Anna Viroubova often accompanied Alexandra while she was “assisting in the most difficult operations, taking from the hands of the busy surgeons amputated legs and arms, removing bloody and even vermin-infected dressings, enduring all the sights and smells and agonies of that most dreadful of all places, a military hospital in the midst of war.” It was not uncommon for men who were about to have limbs amputated to be heard crying out, “Tsaritsa! Stand near me. Hold my hand that I may have courage.”
⁸⁴⁰
It was not enough for Alexandra simply to care for the soldiers’ physical needs. She was also deeply concerned about comforting them spiritually, so she made sure that every package bound for soldiers on the front lines included Bibles or copies of the Psalms. In the words of one historian, “she demonstrated the same deep levels of compassion for the sick and wounded that her own mother had shown before during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1.”
⁸⁴¹

The empress took great joy in her work. She wrote to Nicholas at Stavka, “My consolation when I feel very down & wretched is to go to the very ill & try & bring them a ray of light & love.”
⁸⁴²
She later admitted to the bishop of Ripon, “It does one no end of good being with those brave fellows—how resignedly they bear all pain & loss of limbs.”
⁸⁴³
The sad irony of Alexandra Feodorovna’s life was that so few people ever saw this humble, loving side to her. In the public eye, she was all too easily branded a German traitor who shared a bed with Rasputin. These rumors would gain such momentum in the coming years that they were soon to topple the monarchy forever.

16
Apocalypse Rising
 

(January–December 1916)

A
fter thirty years of marriage and two years of war, Emperor Wilhelm II found himself relying on his wife more than ever. The strain of the war, combined with the marginalized role of a figurehead he was expected to play, was beginning to erode the turgid emperor. As he began a plunge into personal crisis, it was Dona who continued to be the strength behind the throne. She buttressed as many problems for her husband as possible. In public, Wilhelm propagated the myth of a powerful, confident
paterfamilias
, with Dona in the role of the
kleines hausfrau
. The truth was somewhat different. Behind the emperor’s verbose facade was a man plagued by insecurities and prone to emotional instability. Conversely, Dona, having weathered her fair share of emotional storms in life, became his rock. Gone were the days of her acrimonious fits of hysteria or jealousy. In supporting her husband during the war, she found a new raison d’être that tapped into a wellspring of strength and fortitude.

In her efforts to make Wilhelm’s burden as light as possible, Dona kept in regular contact with his ministers. A letter she once wrote to her mother’s cousin Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, who had served as German chancellor from 1894 to 1900, encapsulates Dona’s lifelong effort to shore up her husband.

If you[,] dear Prince[,] are willing to help the emperor along … I am certain that everything will turn out all right. I have always wanted the emperor to have older more experienced friends who would help here and there with a calm word or good advice. For despite his exceptional gifts—I as his wife say this with pride, there probably is at present no other monarch in Europe as gifted as he—he is still [relatively] young, and in his youth one is apt to act spontaneously.… You may be surprised about my frankness, but I know I can rely on your discretion.
⁸⁴⁴

In another letter, she expressed similar feelings: “You know that I do not meddle in politics, but if I see how difficult the ministers are sometimes making things for the emperor, I cannot help trying to smooth things out.”
⁸⁴⁵

On an international scale, Wilhelm became a symbol of monstrous villainy. He alone was blamed for the war. Never mind that Franz Joseph of Austria had actually started the war. Never mind that Wilhelm had rushed to stop the outbreak of hostilities. The culpability was declared to be his alone. From London to Saint Petersburg, he was accused of ordering the indiscriminate killing of women and children in Belgium. Even within Germany, he began receiving criticism for leading the empire into a war that was requiring too much money, taking too long, and costing too many lives. It was a different story for Dona. The empress continued to represent to all her people the paragon of German womanhood. Princess Catherine Radziwill observed that Dona “was thoroughly German in everything she did, from the manner in which she pinned her hat upon her head to the serious interest she took in all matters connected with the welfare of Germany, and particularly that of the poorer classes.”
⁸⁴⁶
She was perhaps best summed up with the expression
kinder, kuche, kirche
(“children, kitchen, church”)—a devotion to her family, her home, and her religion. Crown Prince Willy paid tribute to his mother: “I say with ardent pride: she is the very pattern of a German wife whose best characteristics are seen in the fulfilment [
sic
] of her duties as wife and mother.”
⁸⁴⁷
And in the words of another contemporary, “Every housewife, every mother, looks to her as to a model, knows that she is satisfied to excel in her purely domestic duties, and that she does not strive to render herself superior to her sex by intellectual brilliancy and scientific attainments.”
⁸⁴⁸

The task of keeping a simple domestic routine for her family in Berlin was an onerous one for Dona as the war continued without any visible sign of a conclusion. She spent her evenings by the fire, knitting clothes for soldiers, making arrangements to care for the wounded or the widowed, or taking tea with her ladies. On the occasions when her husband returned from Spa, she worked to entertain him and his entourage. But even those instances were becoming few and far between. As much as Wilhelm loved his wife and valued her calming influence, it was no secret that he preferred to spend his leisure hours in the company of men—soldiers, ministers, or other princes. “In the Kaiser’s militarily dominated, ultra-chauvinist Second Reich, a Prussian soldier’s life was built around male bonding and the Spartan ideal of soldierly companionship,” wrote one author. “Women were generally considered to be useful for breeding, cooking and polishing a chap’s spurs: for real friendship, one looked to one’s fellow officers.”
⁸⁴⁹
This was largely due to the “dissatisfaction that the Emperor feels in the narrow circle of his home.” Despite Dona’s best efforts, “the presence the Empress and her
entourage
imposes on him make him uncomfortable.”
⁸⁵⁰
This dichotomy Wilhelm experienced in his relationship with his wife was not a luxury he could afford much longer. Necessity would soon force him to rely on Augusta Victoria like never before.

As the leader of Germany, Wilhelm II served as head of state and commander in chief of armed forces belonging to the empire’s twenty-five constituent states. By this point in the war, however, Dona was adept enough to notice that a shift in Germany’s power base had occurred. Wilhelm seemed to have less influence in military matters than ever. When a series of attacks backfired that the emperor planned, governing authority began to move into the hands of his chief of the general staff Paul von Hindenburg and his deputy Erich Ludendorff, two men who had assisted in planning the successful Battle of Tannenberg. Germany was transitioning from a federated empire to a military dictatorship under Hindenburg and Ludendorff. To secure their hold on the civilian government, the two men threatened to resign unless Wilhelm forced Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, his chancellor, to resign. With his generals taking control, Wilhelm II began to lose his grip on reality. His famously quixotic moods became almost unstable. Dona watched anxiously from one day to the next as her husband alternated between a sense of total despair and deluded dreams of victory over the Entente.

The trials Dona was faced with became too much for the fifty-eight-year-old empress. Emotionally, she may have had a wellspring of fortitude to draw on, but physically, she began to suffer. Like Alexandra of Russia, Dona’s health was worsening with each passing year. She was weak, had trouble walking or standing for any length of time, and suffered from worsening heart disease. She did everything she could to take her mind off her failing health. One of the ways she coped was by keeping a close eye on her children. Her sons followed in the tradition of the Prussian royal family, and each took up commissions in the military. Unfortunately, the princes possessed little combat expertise. Shortly after the war began, Auwi’s poor judgment led to a serious automobile crash. His driver was killed, and both of the prince’s legs were each fractured in twelve places.

Crown Prince Willy had become famous for his blundering command decisions. He expended nearly a million soldiers trying to capture the fortress at Verdun, which ultimately failed and resulted in a French victory. In the ensuing aftermath, Willy was captured by Russian troops. Knowing that Dona would be desperate for news of her son, Alexandra took the time to send her a personal note. Sent through the tsarina’s cousin Crown Princess Margaret in neutral Sweden, she assured Dona “that her son was safe and well.” When Alexandra told Nicholas about the letter, she admitted it was only the act of “a mother pitying another mother.”
⁸⁵¹
The crown prince was later released into the custody of the German military.

In watching over her children, Dona was always especially concerned for her youngest son, Prince Joachim. Much to his father’s resentment, Joachim had always been a sickly, weak-willed child who frequently clung to the empress. Dona worried about him in much the same way Tsarina Alexandra fretted over Alexei. But as he grew older, the emotionally volatile Joachim chafed under his mother’s constant presence and sought his own independence. His first step was joining the military. His second step was getting married. He developed a friendship with Prince Eduard of Anhalt, who commanded a Prussian cavalry regiment on the Belgian front. It was a propitious meeting, because Eduard’s daughter Princess Marie-Augusta was looking for a husband. It did not take Joachim long to propose to this attractive, young princess. The match was something of a throwback to older, arranged marriages—Joachim was twenty-five, and Marie-Augusta had just turned eighteen. Earning a brief reprieve in his duties for his wedding, Joachim returned to Berlin in March 1916, along with the Anhalts and his family. The ceremony at Bellevue was a simple Lutheran service with only a few guests. Dona beamed with pride, but the emperor was noticeably absent. Wilhelm argued that his duties at Spa were too pressing for him to return home for a “simple wedding.” Both Joachim and Dona were deeply hurt by Wilhelm’s effrontery, but they did not let it ruin the day. In their article about the wedding, the London
Times
conspicuously noted that the “Emperor William was not present.”
⁸⁵²

Along with visiting soldiers and working to improve morale, the queen of England was resolute that her own household should be in order. This took several forms. It was vitally important to the king and queen that their family be actively involved in the war effort. On the home front, Princess Mary made her own rounds to hospitals and factories. She spearheaded a campaign to support British servicemen and their families. For Christmas 1914, she developed the Princess Mary’s Christmas Gift Fund, which sent more than £100,000 in gifts to soldiers and sailors that year.

Economizing within the monarchy was a top priority. The queen believed it was of the utmost importance to do away with all royal extravagance. This was partly prompted by a food shortage in England. German submarines had succeeded in destroying supply lines to Great Britain, cutting it off from continental help. With little option left, food began to be rationed. The queen anticipated this latest hardship long before it began. She instituted a rationing system for all the royal residences months before the crisis unfolded. She personally planted and harvested her own vegetables at her country estate, Frogmore, near Windsor Great Park. “Over and above the vision,” said one of Mary’s friends, “the Queen acutely felt the horrors and hardships of the soldiers in the trenches, and, at all times deprecating extravagance, even comfort now seemed to her almost criminal.”
⁸⁵³

In the queen’s personal wartime economy, frivolous expenses were the first things on the list to go. This came somewhat naturally to the queen who, since her family’s humiliating exile to Florence in 1883, had learned to develop parsimonious spending habits when money was in short supply. At Buckingham Palace, the king and queen cut the heat to almost every room in the building. Their hot water supply was rationed, meaning George could only have a hot bath once a week. The rest of the time, he and Mary bathed in cold water. Meals were another place where the king and queen saved money. Mutton replaced lamb, pink blancmange was consumed instead of mousses and sorbets, and alcohol was strictly prohibited—though this one vice the social elite were unwilling to give up. Thanks to the royal family’s budgeting, the king and queen were able to return £100,000 to the national treasury. The queen’s willingness to share in her people’s hardships, combined with the fact that she easily mixed with people of all classes, made her almost as iconic as Queen Victoria.