According to his diary, Nicholas slept soundly the night that followed the signing of the abdication manifesto. He arrived in Mogilev on March 3 in the evening to learn from Alekseev that his brother had renounced the crown and left the fate of the monarchy up to the Constituent Assembly. “God knows who talked him into signing such rot,” he noted. He now drafted yet another abdication manifesto in which he transferred the crown to his son. Alekseev decided not to inform the government of Nicholas’s latest change of mind. He subsequently entrusted the document to General Denikin for safekeeping.196
The following day, Nicholas sent Prime Minister Lvov a list of requests. He asked to be allowed to proceed to Tsarskoe with his suite and to remain there until the children recovered, following which he wished to take up residence in Port Romanov on the Murmansk coast. Once the war was over, he wanted to retire to the Crimean resort of Livadia. In a coded message to headquarters, the Provisional Government approved these requests.197
Because the ex-Tsar threatened to become a major issue of contention between the government and the Soviet, the cabinet soon decided that it would be politically more expedient to have Nicholas and family out of the country. In the first week of March, it sounded out the British, Danish, and Swiss governments about the possibility of asylum for the Imperial family. On March 8/21, Miliukov told the British Ambassador that he was “most anxious that the Emperor should leave Russia at once” and would be grateful if Britain offered him asylum, with the proviso that Nicholas “would not be allowed to leave England during the war.”198 Britain hesitated at first but on March 9/22 the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, cabled to the British Embassy in Petrograd:
After further consideration it has been decided that it would be better for the Emperor to come to England during the war rather than to a country contiguous to Germany. Apprehension is felt lest, through the influence of the Empress, the residence of the Emperor in Denmark or Switzerland might become a focus of intrigue, and that in the hands of disaffected Russian Generals the Emperor might become the possible head of a counter-revolution. This would be to play into the hands of Germany, and a risk that must be avoided at all costs.199
This offer, formally conveyed to the Provisional Government on March 13, was reinforced by a personal message from King George V to Nicholas in which he assured him of his undying friendship and extended the invitation to settle in England.*
The government’s plans regarding the Imperial family failed to take into account the feelings of the socialist intellectuals, who feared that once abroad the ex-Tsar would become the center of counterrevolutionary plots. For this reason, they preferred to keep him at home and under their control. As noted, on March 3 the Ispolkom voted to arrest Nicholas and his family. The government promptly capitulated to this demand. On March 7 it announced that the Imperial family would be placed under detention at Tsarskoe, and dispatched to Mogilev four deputies to escort Nicholas home. On March 8, having learned of the negotiations with Britain, the Ispolkom voted again to arrest Nicholas and his family, confiscate their property, and deprive them of citizenship. To prevent Nicholas’s departure for England, it resolved to send its own people to Tsarskoe to ensure that the Imperial family was securely guarded.200
While these developments were taking place, Nicholas was in Mogilev taking leave of the army. On March 8, he wrote a farewell letter to the armed forces in which he urged them to fight until victory and “obey the Provisional Government.”201 Alekseev forwarded this document to Petrograd, but Guchkov, acting on instructions from the cabinet, which probably feared antagonizing the Ispolkom, ordered it withheld.202 Later that morning, Nicholas bade goodbye to the officers. He walked up to each and embraced him. Nearly everyone was in tears. When the strain became too great Nicholas bowed and withdrew. “My heart nearly burst,” he wrote in the diary.203 At 4:45 p.m. he boarded his train, without the two inseparable companions, Voeikov and Fredericks, whom he had to dismiss at the request of Alekseev. Before departure, Alekseev informed him he was under arrest.204
