But Nicholas would not yield. He retired to his private car, where he remained for twenty minutes, in the course of which he revised the abdication manifesto so as to designate Michael his successor. At Guchkov and Shulgin’s request he inserted a phrase asking his brother to take an oath to work in “union” with the legislature. The time was 11:50 p.m., but Nicholas had the document read 3:05 p.m., when he had made the original decision, to avoid giving the impression he had surrendered the throne under the Duma’s pressure.
HEADQUARTERS Copies to all Commanders
To the Chief of Staff
In the days of the great struggle against the external enemy, who has striven for nearly three years to enslave our homeland, the Lord God has willed to subject Russia to yet another heavy trial. The popular disturbances which have broken out threaten to have a calamitous effect on the further conduct of the hard-fought war. The fate of Russia, the honor of our heroic army, the welfare of the people, the whole future of our beloved Fatherland demand that the war be brought at all costs to a victorious conclusion. The cruel foe exerts his last efforts and the time is near when our valiant army, together with our glorious allies, will decisively overcome him. In these decisive days in Russia’s life, WE have deemed it our duty in conscience to OUR nation to draw closer together and to unite all the national forces for the speediest attainment of victory. In agreement with the State Duma, WE have acknowledged it as beneficial to renounce the throne of the Russian state and lay down Supreme authority. Not wishing to separate OURSELVES from OUR beloved SON, WE hand over OUR succession to OUR Brother, the Grand Duke MICHAEL ALEK-SANDROVICH, and give Him OUR BLESSING to ascend the throne of the Russian State. We command OUR Brother to conduct the affairs of state in complete and inviolate union with the representatives of the nation in the legislative institutions on such principles as they will establish, and to swear to this an inviolate oath. In the name of OUR deeply beloved homeland, WE call on all true sons of the Fatherland to fulfill their sacred duty to It by obeying the Tsar in the difficult moment of national trials and to help HIM, together with the representatives of the people, lead the Russian State to victory, prosperity, and glory. May the Lord God help Russia.
Pskov, 2 March 1917
15 hours 5 minutes Nicholas
[Correct]
The Minister of the Imperial Household,
Vladimir Borisovich, Count Fredericks135
Two features of this historic document, which ended the three-hundred-year-old reign of the Romanovs, call for comment. One is that the abdication instrument was addressed, not to the Duma and its Provisional Committee, the de facto government of Russia, but to the chief of staff of the armed forces, General Alekseev. Apparently, in Nicholas’s eyes the army command was the one remaining bearer of sovereignty. The second feature, which would be repeated in Nicholas’s farewell address to the armed forces on March 7, was his acknowledgment that Russia was now a constitutional monarchy in the full sense of the word: the abdication instrument provided for the Duma to determine the new constitutional order and the role of the Crown in it.
While a copy of the abdication manifesto was being drawn up for the Duma deputies to take to Petrograd, Nicholas at their request wrote by hand two instructions to the Senate. In one, he appointed Prince Lvov Chairman of the Council of Ministers: this had the effect of legitimizing the Provisional Committee. According to Guchkov, after agreeing to Lvov’s appointment, Nicholas asked what service rank he held. When Guchkov responded that he did not know, Nicholas smiled;136 he found it difficult to conceive that a private person, without status on the Table of Ranks, could chair the cabinet. In the other instruction, he appointed Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich his successor as Commander in Chief.137 Although the actual time was midnight, both documents were dated 2 p.m., in order to precede the abdication.
This done, Nicholas told Shulgin that he intended to spend several days at headquarters, then visit his mother in Kiev, following which he would rejoin the family at Tsarskoe Selo, staying there until the children had recovered from measles.* The three documents were dispatched to Mogilev by courier for immediate release. Then the Imperial train departed for the same destination. In his diary, Nicholas wrote: “Left Pskov at 1 a.m. with oppressive feelings about events. All around treason and cowardice and deception.” The next day, en route to headquarters, he read “a great deal about Julius Caesar.”
