British Perceptions of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna
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British Perceptions of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna 1894-1918 Claire Theresa McKee UCL PhD I, Claire Theresa McKee confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed: C.T. McKee 1 Abstract Attitudes towards Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna can be characterised by extremes, from hostility to sentimentality. A great deal of what has been written about the imperial couple (in modern times) has been based on official records and with reference to the memoirs of people who knew the tsar and empress. This thesis recognises the importance of these sources in understanding British perceptions of Nicholas and Alexandra but it also examines reactions in a wider variety of material; including mass circulation newspapers, literary journals and private correspondence. These sources reveal a number of the strands which helped form British understanding of the tsar and empress. In particular, perceptions were influenced by internal British politics, by class and by attitudes to the role of the British Empire in world affairs, by British propaganda and by a view of Russia and her society which was at times perceptive and at others antiquated. This thesis seeks to evaluate diverse British views of Nicholas and Alexandra and to consider the reasons behind the sympathetic, the critical, the naïve and the knowledgeable perceptions of the last tsar and empress of Russia. 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements p. 4 Preface p.5 Abbreviations p. 6 Introduction: Sources, Personalities and their World p. 7 Chapter 1: British interaction with Russia and images of Russia, tsars, empresses and consorts 1553-1894 p. 62 Chapter 2: Engagement, Marriage and Coronation 1894-1896 p. 88 Chapter 3: 1904, the Russo-Japanese War p. 132 Chapter 4: The 1905 Revolution p. 169 Chapter 5: The Constitutional Monarchy p. 204 Chapter 6: 1914-1917, War and Abdication p. 248 Chapter 7: March 1917-September 1918, Imprisonment and Death p. 303 Conclusion p. 337 Bibliography p. 349 3 Acknowledgements In writing this thesis I should like to acknowledge the help of Professor Lindsey Hughes who first encouraged me to apply to SSEES UCL and who, despite her very grave illness, continued to meet with me guide and advise me. I should also like to acknowledge the invaluable help and support I have received from Professor Simon Dixon during his tenure as my supervisor. 4 Preface Until February 1918 Russia adhered to the Julian (Old Style) Calendar, which in the nineteenth century ran twelve days, and in the twentieth century thirteen days, behind the Gregorian (New Style) calendar in use in Western Europe. The dates in this thesis are given in the New Style since the sources used are, in the main, British and the perceptions under discussion are those of British commentators. Russian names are spelt in this thesis using a modified version of the Library of Congress Transliteration which retains anglicised versions of well known names, including those of Russian tsars and empresses. In addition, the towns and cities of the Russian empire are referred to by their English names as they were in contemporary correspondence and publications. I have also retained the name of St Petersburg throughout this thesis rather than using Petrograd for name of Russia’s imperial capital after August 1914. Contemporary British sources referred to Nicholas II as both tsar and emperor and to Alexandra Fedorovna as both tsarina and empress. In this thesis I have used the terms tsar 5 and empress to refer to Nicholas and Alexandra. Abbreviations Bagenal: Leeds Russian Archive University of Leeds. Churchill: Archive Centre, Churchill College Cambridge CUL: Cambridge University Library. IWM: Imperial War Museum. Lambeth: Church of England Record Centre. Lords: Lloyd George Papers. Morier: Baliol College Library Special Collections University of Oxford. ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. OSP: Oxford Slavonic Papers. RA: Royal Archives. SEER: Slavonic and East European Review. SSEES: Archive of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies UCL. Shropshire: Shropshire County Archives. Surrey: Surrey History Centre. TNA: The National Archives. 6 Introduction: Sources, Personalities and their World Since the demise of imperial Russia a vast library of books has been published on the subject of the fall of the Romanov dynasty. In the more serious studies historians have naturally concentrated on Russian responses to the last tsar and empress and on their attempts to deal with the crises they faced.1 Historians who have made a study of Britain’s political relations with Russia during this period, most notably Michael Hughes and Keith Neilson, have analysed the workings of the British diplomatic service, the variety of British attitudes towards Russia, the means by which these were formed, and the role these opinions played in an international context.2 More widely, as we shall discuss in Chapter One, Anthony Cross has revealed the web of Russo-British commercial, artistic and cultural interaction. The vicissitudes of Russo-British relations and the manifestations of political debate within Russia provide key markers and form a framework to our discussion. However, this thesis differs significantly from what has been written hitherto since we have sought to focus more specifically on British attitudes towards Nicholas and Alexandra as ordinary people in extraordinary roles: as autocrat, as a military leader, as husband and 1 Andrew M. Verner, The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution (Princeton, 1990), Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power, From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II (vol. 2), (Princeton, 2000), Dominic Lieven, Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias (London, 1993), Lindsey Hughes, The Romanovs: Ruling Russia 1613-1917(London, 2008), M.D. Steinberg, and V.M. Khrustalev, (eds.), The Fall of the Romanovs: political dreams and personal struggles in a time of revolution (London, 1995). 2 See, for example, Michael Hughes, Inside the Enigma: British Officials in Russia, 1900-1939 (London, 1997). Michael Hughes, Diplomacy before the Russian Revolution: Britain, Russia and the Old Diplomacy 1894-1917(Basingstoke, 2000). Keith Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and Russia 1894- 1917 (Oxford, 1995). 7 wife, as parents, as royal kinsfolk and as heirs to Russia’s past, often viewed through the prism of centuries of British impressions of a despotic, Asiatic and exotic regime. In addition, for many British commentators the role of monarch in the political and public life of the nation, as head of state and as a ‘celebrity’ provided an example against commentators could reflect on Nicholas and Alexandra’s roles as tsar and empress. For British observers of Russian affairs Nicholas was simultaneously self-effacing and he was stubborn, he was both a reforming tsar and a determined autocratic, he was weak and he was all powerful. The tsar was at once a peacemaker and a warmonger. By the same token Alexandra was a helpmate and an evil influence, she was of English descent and pro-German, she was well educated and narrow minded and she was more autocratic than the most absolutist Romanov ruler. It was said that the mass of their subjects loved the imperial couple and that the bonds of unity had been broken on Bloody Sunday. Journalists and others who met with Nicholas and Alexandra in one palace or another reported that the imperial couple lived a simple existence yet others bemoaned the luxury and extravagance of the Russian court. For the purpose of analysing those who commented on the imperial couple, and who formed British perceptions of the tsar and empress, we have divided them into four categories. The first includes members of the British royal family. The attitude of individual British monarchs towards the imperial couple as kinsmen, as human-beings and as rulers of a rival empire was reflected in the British public’s perceptions of the tsar and empress. 8 The second group whose opinions we consider is formed of British diplomats and members of the government who interpreted and reacted to the tsar’s political decisions. The perceptions of these men were affected by factors ranging from the views of the government they represented to their education and their position in British society. The third group is made up of a variety of authors and journalists whose ranks include popular writers, political activists. As we shall discuss their views ranged from the vitriolic to the adulatory as some propagandised in the tsar’s favour and others actively campaigned against his regime. The fourth group consists of travellers, tourists and expatriates whose work and curiosity took them to Russia. The boundaries between members of group two to four are not concrete. They sometimes overlap, so that members of one may have features of another. As Keith Neilson has noted, those whose profession or employment took them to Russia such as ‘businessmen, journalists, novelists and financiers […] often knew each other’.3 As a result, although they did not necessarily form a homogeneous community, the world they inhabited was a relatively small one where insider news, gossip and views might play an unseen part in informing perceptions of Nicholas and Alexandra. In order to represent a mixture of views we have used a variety of materials published and unpublished, public and private. They include newspapers and periodicals held at the British Newspaper Library and in the periodical collections housed in Senate House Library and the London Library. In the chapters concerning Nicholas and Alexandra’s wedding, their visit to the Isle of Wight as well as the Dogger Bank Incident we discuss 3 Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar, p. 106. 9 the responses of the local press.