In response to pleas from the Italians, who came under heavy Austrian pressure in the Trentino, the Russian operation was advanced to May 22/June 4. It began with an intense one-day bombardment, following which the Russians charged Austrian trenches north of Lemberg. As it unfolded, the offensive extended along a front 300 kilometers wide, from Pinsk to the Romanian border. The Austrians were caught napping: believing the Russians incapable of further offensive operations, they had drained the front to support their operation against the Italians. The Russians took 300,000 prisoners and killed and wounded possibly double that number. Austria-Hungary stood on the verge of collapse, from which she was saved, once again, by the Germans, who transferred fifteen divisions from the west to help her.
The Russian advance continued for ten weeks, after which it ran out of steam. It neither conquered much territory nor altered significantly the strategic position on the Eastern Front, but it did shatter the morale of the Austro-Hungarian army beyond repair: for the rest of the war, the Austrian armies had to be meshed with and reinforced by German units. The 1916 offensive marked the emergence of a fresh spirit in the Russian army, as officers with strategic insight and technical knowledge began to replace commanders who owed their posts to seniority and political patronage.
By departing for the front, Nicholas lost direct contact with the political situation in the capital. Much of his information on conditions there came from Alexandra, who did not understand much of politics to begin with and had a personal interest in persuading him that everything was under control. He was unaware of the grumbling in the cities and the mounting economic problems. He was, nevertheless, nervous and ill at ease. The outward composure which never left him was deceiving: the French Ambassador learned in November 1916 that the Tsar was suffering from insomnia, depression, and anxiety, for which Alexandra supplied sedatives prepared by a friend of Rasputin’s, the Tibetan healer P. A. Badmaev, believed to contain hashish.21
The Tsar’s absence left a great deal of power in the hands of Alexandra, who thought herself much more capable of handling the obstreperous opposition. She sent him reassuring letters:
Do not fear for what remains behind—one must be severe & stop all at once. Lovy, I am here, dont laugh at silly old wify, but she has “trousers” on unseen, & I can get the old man to come & keep him up to be energetic—whenever I can be of the smallest use, tell me what to do—use me—at such a time God will give me the strength to help you—because our souls are fighting for the right against the evil. It is all much deeper than appears to the eye—we, who have been taught to look at all from another side, see what the struggle here really is & means—you showing your mastery, proving yourself the Autocrat without wh[om] Russia cannot exist. Had you given in now in these different questions, they would have dragged out yet more of you. Being firm is the only saving—I know what it costs you, & have & do suffer hideously for you, forgive me, I beseech you, my Angel, for having left you no peace & worried you so much—but I too well know y[ou]r marvelously gentle character—& you had to shake it off this time, had to win your fight alone against all. It will be a glorious page in y[ou]r reign & Russian history the story of these weeks & days—& God, who is just & near you—will save your country & throne through your firmness.*
In the final year and a half of the monarchy, Alexandra had much to say about who would and would not be a minister and how domestic policies would be conducted. She was heard to boast of being the first woman in Russia since Catherine II to receive ministers—an idea which could have been planted in her mind by Rasputin, who liked to compare her with Catherine.22 It is only now that Rasputin began to influence policies. He communicated with the Empress daily by telephone, visited her occasionally, and maintained indirect contact through her only intimate friend, Anna Vyrubova. Rasputin and Alexandra led Russia toward disaster by their refusal to acknowledge political and economic realities and blind insistence on the principle of autocracy.
