But as the day went on Nicholas’s equanimity was severely tested, for Rodzianko’s alarmist assessments received confirmation from sources in which he had greater confidence. A cable came from Khabalov to the effect that he could not prevent unauthorized assemblies because the troops were in mutiny and refused to fire on crowds.43 There were several messages from the Empress, in one of which she tersely urged: “Concessions necessary.”44 Grand Duke Michael counseled the dismissal of the cabinet and its replacement by one responsible to the Duma under Prince G. Lvov. He offered himself as Regent.* Golitsyn informed the Tsar at 2 p.m. in the name of the cabinet that the raging mobs were out of control and that the cabinet wished to resign in favor of a Duma ministry, preferably chaired by either Lvov or Rodzianko. He further recommended the imposition of martial law and the appointment of a popular general, with combat experience, to take charge of the capital’s security.45 Nicholas requested Voeikov to contact the Minister of War, Beliaev, for an assessment. Beliaev confirmed that Petrograd had become unmanageable.46 The decisive communication came from Count Paul Benckendorff, the Grand Marshal of the Court, who inquired whether the Tsar wished his wife and children to join him. The children happened to be ill with measles, and since he did not want them to travel, Nicholas decided to return to Tsarskoe: he gave orders to have his train ready for departure that night (February 27–28).47
33. Petrograd crowds burning emblems of the Imperial regime: February 1917.
34. Arrest of a police informer; informers were popularly known as “Pharaons.”
At this juncture Nicholas knew there was serious trouble in the capital city, but he did not yet realize its depth and intensity: like Louis XVI on July 14, 1789, he thought he was facing a rebellion, not a revolution. He believed that the disorder could be quelled by force. This is attested to by two decisions. Rejecting the Prime Minister’s request that he and his colleagues be allowed to turn over the reins of administration to a Duma cabinet, he ordered the cabinet to remain at its post.48 He accepted, however, Golitsyn’s recommendation to appoint a military dictator in charge of Petrograd security. He chose for this role sixty-six-year-old N. I. Ivanov, a general who had distinguished himself in the Galician campaign of 1914 and had long experience in the Corps of Gendarmes. During dinner that night, looking pale, sad, and worried,49 Nicholas drew Ivanov aside for a long talk. Ivanov was to proceed to Tsarskoe Selo at the head of loyal troops to ensure the safety of the Imperial family, and then, as newly-appointed head of the Petrograd Military District, assume command of the regiments ordered from the front to help him. All cabinet ministers were to be subordinated to him.50 At 9 p.m. Alekseev wired General Danilov, the chief of staff of the Northern Front in Pskov, to arrange for the dispatch of two cavalry and two infantry regiments composed of “the most stable [and] reliable” troops led by “bold” officers to join Ivanov.51 Similar orders went out to the headquarters of the Western Front.52 The size of the contingent—eight combat regiments augmented by machine-gun units—indicated that Nicholas and his generals envisaged a major operation to put down the mutiny.
35. Workers toppling the statue of Alexander III in the center of Moscow (1918).
Ivanov alerted the battalion of the Knights of St. George, composed of wounded veterans awarded the Cross of St. George for bravery in combat and assigned in Mogilev to guard headquarters. In conversation with friends, he seemed far from confident of the reliability of his men and the success of his mission.53 His contingent of eight hundred troops left Mogilev by train around 11 a.m., heading for Tsarskoe by the most direct route through Vitebsk and Dno. Ivanov himself followed two hours later.
One will never know whether, had Nicholas acted decisively in the days that followed, Ivanov would have succeeded, because his mission was aborted. But his prospects do not seem to have been as hopeless as the politicians and generals, under the politicians’ influence, seemed to believe. On February 27, only Petrograd was in rebellion: save for some sympathy strikes in Moscow, the rest of the country was quiet. Determined action by disciplined frontline troops might have suppressed a revolt that was still primarily a garrison mutiny. But the plan was given up because the politicians had persuaded themselves—mistakenly, as events were to show—that only the Duma was capable of restoring order. They, in turn, convinced the generals, who brought irresistible pressure to bear on Nicholas to give up power. In fact, when they were finally made, political concessions had the opposite effect of the one intended, transforming the Petrograd garrison mutiny into a national revolution.
