Ruzskii reported to Nicholas at 10:45 a.m. bearing the tapes of his conversation with Rodzianko. Nicholas read them in silence. Having finished, he went to the window of his railway car and stood motionless, looking out. When he turned around, he said that he would consider Rodzianko’s recommendation. He added that he thought the people would not understand such a move, that the Old Believers would not forgive him for betraying the coronation oath and the Cossacks for abandoning the front.118 He affirmed
his strong conviction that he had been born for misfortune, that he brought Russia great misfortune. He said that he had realized clearly the night before that no manifesto [about the Duma ministry] would be of help.… “If it is necessary, for Russia’s welfare, that I step aside, I am prepared to do so.”119
At this point, Ruzskii was handed the cable from Alekseev requesting his opinion of Alekseev’s recommendation that Nicholas abdicate. Ruzskii read the message aloud to the Tsar.120
Around 2 p.m., Pskov was in receipt of the army commanders’ responses to Alekseev’s cable. All agreed with Alekseev. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich begged the Tsar “on his knees” to give up the crown to save Russia and the dynasty. General A. E. Evert, who commanded the Western Front, and General A. A. Brusilov, in charge of the Southwestern Front, concurred. General V. V. Sakharov of the Romanian Front thought the Provisional Government “a gang of bandits” but he, too, saw no way of avoiding abdication.*
Ruzskii called on Nicholas again, between 2 and 3:00 p.m., accompanied by Generals Iu. N. Danilov and S. S. Savvich and bearing the cables from Nikolai Nikolaevich and the other front commanders.121 After perusing them, Nicholas requested the three generals to state their frank opinion. They responded, with much emotion, that in their view, too, the Tsar had no choice but to step down. After a moment of silence, Nicholas crossed himself and said that he was prepared to do so. The generals also made the sign of the cross. Nicholas then retired, reappearing a quarter of an hour later (at 3:05 p.m.) with two messages that he had written by hand on telegraphic blanks, one addressed to Rodzianko, the other to Alekseev. The first read:
There is no sacrifice that I would not make for the sake of the true well-being and salvation of our Mother Russia. For that reason, I am prepared to renounce the throne in favor of My Son, with the understanding that He will remain with Me until attaining maturity, and that My Brother, Michael Aleksandrovich, will serve as Regent.122
The cable to Alekseev was essentially the same except that it made no mention of the regency.123
Nicholas requested headquarters to draft an abdication manifesto. Alekseev entrusted the task to Basily. Drawing on the Code of Laws, Basily drafted the text, which at 7:40 p.m. was wired to Pskov for the Tsar’s signature.124
All the evidence indicates that Nicholas abdicated from patriotic motives: the wish to spare Russia a humiliating defeat and to save her armed forces from disintegration. The argument which swayed him was the unanimous opinion of the commanders of the disparate fronts, especially the cable from Nikolai Nikolaevich.* No less significant is the fact that Nicholas carried on talks about his abdication, not with the Duma and its Provisional Government, but with General Alekseev, as if to emphasize that he was abdicating to the armed forces and at their request. If Nicholas’s foremost concern had been with preserving his throne he would have quickly made peace with Germany and used front-line troops to crush the rebellion in Petrograd and Moscow. He chose instead, to give up the crown to save the front.
Although Nicholas showed no emotion throughout this ordeal, abdication was for him an immense sacrifice: not because he craved either the substance of power or its trappings—the one he thought a heavy burden, the other a tedious imposition—but because he felt that by this action he was betraying his oath to God and country.125
His trials were not yet over. At the very instant when he was signing the pledge to abdicate, in Petrograd two delegates from the Provisional Committee, Shulgin and Guchkov, were boarding a special train bound for Pskov. They carried their own draft of an abdication manifesto, hoping to extract from Nicholas what, unknown to them, he had already conceded. They were sent by the Provisional Committee, which had decided the preceding night that it required the Tsar’s abdication to begin functioning. The hope of the government was that by acting swiftly it could present the country with a new tsar, the child Alexis, before the Soviet proclaimed Russia a republic.
