The news of Nicholas’s abdication spread quickly, reaching Tsarskoe Selo in the afternoon of the following day. Alexandra at first refused to believe it: she said that she could not imagine her husband acting in such a hurry. When, in the evening, the rumors were confirmed, she explained that “the Emperor had preferred to abdicate the crown rather than to break the oath which he had made at his coronation to maintain and transfer to his heir the autocracy such as he had inherited from his father.” Then she cried.138
In the context of the political situation of the time, Nicholas’s abdication was anticlimactic, since he had been effectively deposed a few days earlier by Petrograd mobs. But in the broader context of Russian political life, it was an act of the utmost significance. For one, Russia’s political and military officials swore the oath of loyalty to the person of the Tsar. By abdicating, Nicholas absolved them from their oath and their duties. Until and unless Michael assumed the throne, therefore, Russian bureaucrats and officers were left to shift for themselves, without a sovereign authority to obey. Second, since the masses of the Russian population were accustomed to identify the person of the monarch with the state and the government, the withdrawal of the monarch spelled to them the dissolution of the Empire.
Shulgin and Guchkov left for Petrograd, at 3:00 a.m. Before departing, they cabled the contents of the three Imperial documents to the government. The abdication manifesto threw the cabinet into disarray: no one had expected Nicholas to abdicate in favor of his brother. The Provisional Committee, fearing that the release of the manifesto as signed by Nicholas would set off even more violent riots, decided, for the time being, to withhold publication.
The committee spent what was left of the night heatedly debating what to do next. The chief protagonists were Miliukov and Kerensky. Miliukov argued on grounds he had often spelled out, that it was essential to retain the monarchy in some form. Kerensky dissented: whatever the merits of Miliukov’s historic and constitutional argument, in view of the mood of the populace such a course was unfeasible. The cabinet sided with Kerensky. It was agreed as soon as possible to arrange a meeting with Michael to persuade him to renounce the crown. Rodzianko conveyed the news to Alekseev and Ruzskii, requesting them for the time being to keep Nicholas’s abdication manifesto confidential.139
Under different circumstances, Michael might have made a suitable candidate for the role of a constitutional tsar. Born in 1878, from 1899 to 1904 he was the heir apparent. He disqualified himself in 1912 from any future role in this capacity by marrying in Vienna a divorcée without the Tsar’s permission. For this action, his person and property were placed under guardianship; he was prohibited from returning to Russia and dismissed from the army. Nicholas later relented, readmitted him to the country, and allowed his wife, N. S. Vulfert, to assume the title of Countess Brasova. During the war, Michael served in the Caucasus as commander of the Savage Division and the Second Caucasian Corps. He was a gentle, modest person, not much interested in politics, as weak and irresolute as his elder brother. Though he was in Petrograd during the February Revolution, he proved quite useless to the Duma leaders, who sought his help in restoring order.
46. Grand Duke Michael.
At 6 a.m. the Provisional Committee telephoned Michael at the residence of his friend Prince Putianin, where he happened to be staying. He was told of Nicholas’s decision to pass to him the throne and requested to meet with the cabinet. Michael was both surprised and annoyed with his brother for having placed such responsibilities on him without prior consultation. The encounter between Michael and the cabinet was delayed until later in the morning, apparently because the ministers wanted to hear Shulgin and Guchkov’s report on their mission to Pskov. The two, however, were delayed and reached the Putianin residence just as the meeting was about to begin.140
Speaking for the majority of the cabinet, Rodzianko told Michael that if he accepted the crown a violent rising would erupt in a matter of hours and, following it, a civil war. The government, without reliable troops at its disposal, could promise nothing. The question of the monarchy was, therefore, best left to the Constituent Assembly to determine. Kerensky spoke in the same vein. Miliukov presented the dissenting opinion, which only Guchkov supported. Refusal to accept the crown would spell the ruin of Russia, he said in a voice hoarse from days of incessant speaking, and continued:
