The armed services had always held a special place in Nicholas’s heart, and it was the advice of his military chiefs which now persuaded him to abdicate. If on the morning of 1 March Alexeev had considered the appointment of a Duma government sufficient to calm the capital, by the morning of the 2nd he had become convinced that nothing less than the Tsar’s abdication would be necessary. During the small hours of the morning, while Nicholas tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep, General Ruzsky conversed with Rodzianko in Petrograd through the Hughes Apparatus and learned from him that the capital was in such a state of chaos that only an act of abdication would be enough to satisfy the crowds. Alexeev was stunned by what he read from the transcripts of their conversation. At 9 a.m. he cabled Pskov with orders to wake the Tsar at once — ‘ignoring all etiquette’ — and to inform him of the contents of the Ruzsky–Rodzianko tapes. It was now clear to him and the other generals at Stavka that Nicholas had no choice but to follow Rodzianko’s advice. But he knew the Tsar well enough to realize that he would not agree to abdicate unless urged to do so by his leading generals. Sending a circular telegram to the Front Commanders with a summary of the situation, he asked them to reply to Pskov in line with his view that Nicholas should step down in favour of his son in order to save the army, the war campaign, the nation and the dynasty.48
At 10 a.m. Ruzsky came to the Tsar’s railway car and handed him the transcripts of his conversation with Rodzianko. Nicholas read them, stood up and looked out of the window. There was a dreadful silence. At last, he returned to his desk, and quietly spoke of his conviction ‘that he had been born for misfortune’. The night before, as he lay in his bed, he had come to realize that it was too late for concessions. ‘If it is necessary that I should abdicate for the good of Russia, then I am ready for it,’ he said. ‘But I am afraid that the people will not understand it.’ A few minutes later Alexeev’s telegram arrived. Ruzsky read it aloud to the Tsar and suggested postponing any decision until he had seen what the other commanders had to say. Nicholas adjourned for lunch. What else could he do? He was a man of habit.
By half-past two the telegrams from the commanders had arrived and Ruzsky was summoned back to the Emperor’s car. Nicholas smoked incessantly as he read the cables. All of them agreed with Alexeev on the need for his abdication. Brusilov, who had long been convinced of the damage caused by the Tsar to the army, declared outright that it was now the only way to restore order in the rear and continue the war. The Grand Duke Nikolai implored his nephew ‘on his knees’ to give up the crown. When he had finished reading Nicholas asked the opinions of his three attendant generals on the imperial train. It was the same. There was a moment of silence before Nicholas spoke. ‘I have made up my mind. I have decided to abdicate from the throne in favour of my son Alexei.’ He crossed himself, the generals also made the sign of the cross, and then he withdrew to his cabin.49
Many of those who were with him on the imperial train were struck by the Tsar’s strange lack of emotion during this ordeal. Right to the end he kept up his stiff Edwardian manners and impeccable sense of decorum. Having made the crucial decision to abdicate, he went for his afternoon walk and appeared in the buffet car as usual for evening tea. Not a word was said of the day’s events. His courtiers carried on with the normal small-talk on the weather, while liveried servants went round the table pouring tea as if nothing had happened. ‘The Tsar sat peacefully and calm,’ recalled one of his aides-de-camp. ‘He kept up conversation and only his eyes, which were sad, thoughtful and staring into the distance, and his nervous movements when he took a cigarette, betrayed his inner disturbance.’50
