Chapter 122: The Tsar

On the morning of New Year's Day 1917 (December 19, 1916 in the Russian calendar), the Russian Empress Alexandra? Fyodorovna, together with the Crown Prince and the four princesses, stood melancholy on the platform of the railway station at Tsarskoye (the Tsar's residence about 30 kilometers south of Petrograd – author's note) to welcome Tsar Nicholas II back from his base camp of Mogilev. The morning before, at a military meeting at the base camp seven or eight hundred kilometers away from the capital, the Tsar had received a telegram from Tsarskoye Village, and from the words of the telegram, he had already felt the deep horror in the Empress's heart: "Rasputin was assassinated - found in the water. Pray together for him in his memory. May God forgive us. Alexandra. ”

"If I die after the nobility, after my death, the Romanov dynasty will collapse within three months......"

In the lavishly decorated Russian royal style train on the railway in the forest, Nicholas II put down the telegram in his hand when he remembered the prophecy that Rasputin had made in his letter to him half a month earlier.

"How so?"

Nicholas II couldn't figure out why those nobles would brutally kill a monk, even with their own hands, as a tsar, even in order to maintain his rule, he rarely killed those revolutionaries who tried to overthrow the Russian Empire, but those nobles did not hesitate to kill Rasputin extremely cruelly.

At this time, despite his anger, Nicholas II's mind was constantly thinking about the prophecies that this "holy fool" who could foretell the heavens.

Three years ago, the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, by Princip, a young Serbian. Then Austria-Hungary broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia and declared war on the outbreak of world war, Russia, as the leader of the Slavic nation, naturally supported Serbia, which was also a Slavic nation, and announced a general mobilization throughout Russia, which caused German protests, and then Germany declared war on Tsarist Russia under the pretext that Tsarist Russia refused to stop the general mobilization. The war was fought on one side by the Entente powers such as Britain, France, and Russia, and on the other side by the Allied powers such as Germany and Austria-Hungary.

For Russia, war is Russia's way of being, and since Kievan Rus' wars, wars of expansion and anti-slavery and aggression have been throughout Russian history. The war created the authority of the tsar, and also forged the stoic and divided spiritual world of the Russian nation. In the tradition of war thinking of Russian monarchs, war, victory, are logical and final, and can endure everything, including great defeat, for this. In modern times, this linear path of historical logic has been followed by "revolutions" that touched the imperial system: the defeat in the Crimean War in 1856 led to the Great Reform of 1861, and the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 led to the Revolution of 1905......

The First World War was first raging, and a strong patriotic fervor was set off in Russia, and the revolution miraculously ended in every city of the country. The day after receiving the German declaration of war, Nicholas II, in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 5,000, swore an oath to the statue of the Virgin Kazan: "As long as there is an enemy on Russian soil, we will not declare peace." ”

This is the rhetoric of Alexander I in 1812 against Napoleon's invasion. In St. Petersburg, people stormed the German embassy, ultra-conservatives and ultra-liberals shook hands, and Tsar Nicholas II changed the name of the Westernized capital to a typical Russian name - Petrograd.

At that time, it was believed that the war would be won in a short time, and the public even raised a large sum of money to reward the first Russian soldier to enter Berlin, and the government confidently prepared only three months of war guarantees. When countless young adults packed their bags and rushed to the front, in the face of this scene, Nicholas II once said with great confidence: ...,

"Now, I'm confident about the future."

When everyone was fanatical about the war, Rasputin, the "holy fool" who could foreshadow the heavens, actually opposed the war. At that time, he was recuperating from his wounds in the field, and upon learning of the Tsar's decision to declare war on Germany, he immediately sent several urgent telegrams to Nicholas II, in which he said:

"Your Majesty must not start a war. Russia will be destroyed in the war, and the royal family will perish in the flames of war until there is not one left. ”

When Nicholas II, who was on the rise, saw the telegram, he tore it to shreds and spit it on it to dispel the bad luck. Rasputin, knowing that the Tsar would not accept his opinion, sent for a handwritten note:

"Russia is shrouded in a haze, O monarch, don't be biased towards war maniacs. The war will ruin everything in Russia. ”

But in the end, the course of the war made Rasputin unfortunate that the Russian army only held out outside the territory for a short time, and the offensive and defensive sides changed their roles, and the battle line was transferred to Russian territory. Due to backward weapons and equipment and insufficient preparation for logistics supply, the Russian army suffered heavy losses in the first year of the war, with continuous losses on the front line and more than half of the army.

The defeat in the war made Nicholas II miserable, and Rasputin's prophecy terrified Nicholas II, who tried to "correct" his mistakes, and with the support of Rasputin and the Empress, he dismissed his uncle Nicholas last August? Grand Duke Nikolayevich held the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, personally served as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, sat in the Mogilev base camp, and handed over the state affairs to the Empress who remained in Tsarskoye Village.

Empress Alexandra was in charge of state affairs, government and social affairs, while taking care of her children and encouraging her husband. Nicholas II, who was on the front, was fond of Alexandra and wrote to the Empress:

"Think, my beloved wife, will you not come to your dear husband and help him?"

The next day he wrote:

"If you take care of those ministers, you're helping me."

Alexandra, as the empress, will naturally follow his wishes. And beside her, there are people who "pray" day and night. This man was Rasputin, and with his encouragement, the empress was no longer as helpless in front of the ministers as before, and the German princess spoke Russian fluently like "a waterfall in Russia."

During the Tsar's stay at the front camp, the Empress asked Rasputin "everything he must ask". Rasputin constantly conveyed his every move, even his hiccups, coughs, and dreams to the Empress as mysterious revelations, and Alexandra conveyed these "revelations" to the Tsar without any ground.

During the Tsar's one-and-a-half-year stay at the base camp, the Empress conveyed 150 suggestions, warnings, and requests to the Tsar's Rasputin. In a letter, the Empress told her husband that Rasputin was coughing because of the Greek question, and that "our friend is very anxious and therefore asks you to call the King of Serbia about the situation that has arisen in the southeast...... A piece of his handwriting is attached, and you refer to the drafting of your own telegram, the central meaning of which I would like to express in my own words. ”

No one could have imagined that Tsar Nicholas II, who had been educated for 15 years by professors at top universities in Russia and Western Europe, would actually use the Siberian peasant's graffiti note as a guide to Balkan strategy.

During the war, under the de facto dominance of Rasputin, the Russian government rotated about twenty ministers and several prime ministers, and the empress could not do without Rasputin, and Nicholas II also famously said:

"I'd rather have a Rasputine than 10 hysterical episodes a day."

But now?

Rasputin is dead!

Nicholas II, who was at the base camp of the train, after receiving a telegram from the Empress, fell into an unprecedented panic because of Rasputin's prophecy!

"If I die after the nobility, after my death, the Romanov dynasty will collapse in three months......" ...,

Recalling Rasputin's extremely accurate predictions, for the first time Nicholas II did not have a shred of confidence in the future. It was necessary to rush back to Petrograd by special train, his wife needed comfort, and his children, all needed comfort, of course, could there be some conspiracy behind this incident?

Before leaving the base camp, the chief of the general staff of the base camp, Alekseev, saw a telegram from the head of the Security Service, Colonel Globachev, at the same time, which said: Rasputin was killed in Yusupov's house on the evening of December 16 (Russian calendar). Participating in the murder were: "Yusupov, Pliskevich and Grand Duke Pavlovich (the head of the security service was not aware at the time that there were two other conspirators: Lieutenant Sukhotin and the military doctor Lazavelt). Someone threw him into the water. A policeman stumbled upon the sleeve of Father Rasputin's beaver fur coat frozen in the hole in the ice, and dragged his body up. ”

Finally, the train entered the train station, and at the train station, Queen Alexandra got on the train, and Queen Alexandra, whose eyes were red, hurried into her husband's arms as soon as she saw her husband's return.

"Alright, I'm back! There will be no problem! ”

At this time, on the way back to Tsarskoye from the station, Empress Alexandra looked at the Tsar and said with some excitement.

"The reason why the royal family wants to assassinate Rasputin is actually to carry out a palace coup d'état in the future! Overthrow your domination of Russia! Looking at her husband, the queen said:

"What are they going to do? They will get rid of you and send me to the seminary. ”

"Oh......"

Despite his anger, Nikolai did not show any emotion, only replied lightly, and then said.

"Now, we should bury Rasputin!"

In the afternoon, the Tsar's entire family, with the exception of his eldest daughter, Olga, attended Rasputin's funeral. At the suggestion of the Empress, the Rasputin cemetery was temporarily placed behind a garden not far from Tsarskoye and a wooden chapel was erected on the burial mound. Alexandra placed a bouquet of white flowers on the cemetery, along with two other things: a statue of Rasputin, with the names of herself, her husband, and her children; The other is a letter that reads:

"Bless me, dear martyrs, so that I may be blessed on the sad and miserable path that I will have to walk in the future. Don't forget us when you pray in heaven, Alexandra. ”

When she placed the white flowers on the cemetery, Alexandra's face turned pale and she was about to cry, but she tried her best to control herself, and listened to Father Vasily's requiem prayer -

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