Emperor Nicholas I of Russia

“ The Emperor Nicholas was fond of choosing as his ministers and advisers men who were not likely to oppose any of his measures. The incompetency of his ministry was notorious both in Russia and other countries. When his successor, Alexander II., ascended the throne, he was asked why he did not retain the ministry of Nicholas instead of choosing a new one. He replied, "My father was a man of such transcendent ability that he could afford to surround himself with incompetent men; I feel my weakness, and must have the best talent in the Empire to assist me." ”

“ At the death-bed of his father, Nicholas was betrothed to a princess of the House of Hesse, whose mother was Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria. Upon her marriage this Anglo-German princess was compelled to make a public renunciation of her own faith, and to accept that of her imperial consort—the orthodox faith of Russia. The personal traits of the Emperor seem so exemplary that, if he fails to meet the heroic needs of the hour, the world is disposed not to reproach him, but rather to feel pity for the young ruler who has had thrust upon him such an insoluble problem. ”

“ The Emperor Nicholas, during his reign, was supposed to have some ninety millions of the human family subject to his sway. With a standing army of a million of men, two hundred thousand of whom were cavalry, he possessed power unequaled by that of any other single kingdom on the globe. In the recent struggle at Sevastopol all the energies of England, France and Turkey were expended against Russia alone, and yet it was long doubtful whose banners would be victorious. ”

“ The Emperor was a splendid-looking man, tall and straight as a pine stem, and handsome withal; there was perhaps but a single man in all Russia who was his superior in manly bearing and in stately presence, and that was his younger brother and successor, Nicholas, who had not his equal in Europe.
"Oh, he is splendid!" murmured Vera Demidof, gazing in wonder and admiration—"what a man! Oh, the sight of him makes me proud to be Russian after all!"
"Ha! it is good to hear you praise something which is not French. ”

“ Russia, moreover, was the one power which all western Europe had cause to dread. Ever since the Empress Catherine II., the encroachments and territorial aggrandizement of this great military empire had been going on. The Emperor Nicholas was the most powerful sovereign of the world, having a million of men under arms, ready to obey his nod, with no check whatever on his imperial will. ”

“ Feebleness of body reminds me that Death is shaking his arrow over me, but surely my mind remains unclouded. Am I really living in the enlightened nineteenth century? And if so, am I on the free soil of America, or in barbarous Russia, and a subject of the Emperor Nicholas? ”

“ All now depends on the Emperor Nicholas himself. If he adheres to his determination not to advance beyond the Principalities, time will be afforded for negotiations, and some expedient may be found for enabling him to recede without discredit, and without danger to his own prestige at home. The French and English feel alike on this point, and are conscious that the Emperor has gone too far to recede. He is pushed on by an ardent and fanatical party in Russia, and is not entirely his own master. ”

“ If they could have mustered a single statesman amongst ’em who had pluck enough to tell Russia at the outset that if she laid hands on Turkey we should have considered it an ultimatum, there would never have been any war at all—the Emperor Nicholas confessed as much on his death-bed. ”

“ Was it not in the Emperor Nicholas's time that the present social ideas originated? Is there any republic in the world which has carried out such great reforms as those of Alexander II? I regard autocracy in Russia as the result of our history, which cannot and ought not to be abolished so long as tens of millions desire nothing else. I deem unjust, unwise and useless the presumption to interfere with the wishes of a great nation. Every Russian desiring to carry out reforms should do so under the shelter of the autocratic power. Has autocracy prevented Poushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, etc. ”

“ I give a translation of this document which, by its nobility and the burning patriotism in every line, compelled the admiration of even the Czar’s enemies:
The Act of Abdication of the Czar Nicholas II.
By the grace of God, We, Nicholas II., Emperor of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand-Duke of Finland, etc., etc.... to all Our faithful subjects make known:
In these days of terrible struggle against the external enemy who has been trying for three years to impose his will upon Our Fatherland, God has willed that Russia should be faced with a new and formidable trial. ”

“ As soon as the news of the revolution in Paris reached Russia, the absolute ruler of that vast empire mobilized his armies, "so that, if circumstances should demand it, the tide of Anarchy Russia stems revolution could be dammed." After the abortive revolt at Cracow, Czar Nicholas issued an imperial manifesto, closing with a quotation from Isaiah: "Listen, ye heathen, and submit, for with us is God." When the spirit of revolt spread to Moldavia and Wallachia, Emperor Nicholas without further ado despatched a Russian army corps across the Pruth. ”

“ Just as in earlier days Christians and Christianity had proved too weak to conquer their hereditary enemies, so now were Russian theocracy, Russian Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationalism, compelled to capitulate to "degenerate Europe."
Orthodoxy, the essential basis of theocracy, was, indeed, in evil case if judged by its power over the Orthodox emperor-pope. Nicholas, like his brother Alexander, failed to fiind adequate consolation in the official creed. ”

“ Go where you will, there is a country house belonging either to the Emperor, the Empress, some grand-duchess or other, nephew or grandchild of Nicholas the Czar. They almost seem to have descended in some hailstorm, they lie so thickly on the ground. The expense [14] of supporting them must be almost equal to that incurred by the “million of men,” the mighty boast of the Russian nation, which is not yet enlightened enough to perceive who pays for them all. ”

“ The Czar here was in the wrong. In the war on the Danube the Turks had been victorious. He insisted, however, that they should sue for peace, as if they were prostrate in defeat. On the other hand, the Four Powers proposed terms which did not imply that victory or defeat rested with either belligerent. The only defence that can be made for the obstinacy of the Emperor Nicholas in thus refusing to cross the golden bridge of{580} honourable retreat built for him by the Powers is, that the War Party in Russia was as rabid as the War Party in England. ”

“ Considerable excitement is beginning in Russia, but it is true to say that the health of the Emperor Nicholas is very bad. He has an eruption at the knee-joints which makes it difficult for him to walk, and the want of exercise consequently increases the sluggishness of the liver to which he is subject; in short, his health gives cause for anxiety.
Berlin, March 2, 1848.—Since February 28 the most frightful news has arrived every hour with despairing rapidity. To-day a rumour is in circulation which seems to indicate a tendency to a counter-revolution at Paris ”

“ In 1826 he accompanied his uncle, the duke of Devonshire, to Russia, to attend the coronation of the tsar Nicholas, and became a great favourite in society at St Petersburg. At the general election of the same year he was returned to parliament as member for the family borough of Morpeth. In one of his earliest speeches he undertook, 341 at the risk of forfeiting the good opinion of the Liberal party, the defence of the Russian emperor against severe attacks made on him in reference to the suppression of the Polish insurrection of 1830. ”

“ Nicholas II did not believe in their good faith, for he replied that he had no right to stop mobilization in Russia when German mobilization was already a matter of fact and that at any hour his frontiers might be crossed by German troops. After this interval{106} the Emperor seemed to be in better spirits. War had come indeed, but even war was better than the threat and the uncertainty of the preceding weeks. The extreme depression of the Empress, however, continued unrelieved. ”

“ The task of reform would not have been easy for anyone; and was quite beyond the powers of Nicholas II. The fault was partly due, it is said, to the fact that the early education of the Emperor was never that of a child who had, in perspective, the heavy task of governing a great empire, but mainly in the man himself.
Russia needed an intelligent, energetic ruler, full of action and decision, and not this victim of an invincible obstinacy, often a symptom of crass stupidity. ”

“ It remained therefore to subjugate only that portion of the Caucasus not included in the territories adjacent to these two roads, and lying the larger portion of it south of the Kuban, and the smaller south of the Terek.
Nicholas accordingly sent his proclamations into the mountains saying, "Russia has conquered France, put her sons to death, and made captives of her daughters. England will never give any aid to the Circassians, because she depends on Russia for her daily bread. There are only two powers in the universe—God in heaven, and the emperor on earth! ”

“ As one who knows Russia, who has traversed the Empire from Virballen to the Pacific coast, and who has met personally both the ex-Emperor and his consort, as well as many of the persons herein mentioned, I confess that I myself have often been astounded when examining the mass of documents which this dirty Siberian peasant—the convicted horse-stealer who rose to be the secret adviser of Nicholas II—had happily secreted in the safe in his cellar in the Gorokhovaya, in Petrograd, so that the real truth of his traitorous dealings with the Kaiser might be chronicled in history. ”

“ He acquiesced in this, and I then went on to say that the Emperor Nicholas had before him an opportunity to do more good and make a nobler reputation than any other czar had ever done, not excepting Alexander II with his emancipation of the serfs; that I had thought very seriously of writing, at the close of the conference, to M. Pobedonostzeff, presenting to him the reasons why Russia might well make a practical beginning of disarmament by dismissing to their homes, or placing on public works, say two hundred thousand of her soldiers ”

“ He went to Paris, however, after the emperor's abdication, saw the king make his entry, and was presented to Louis XVIII. On that occasion he ‘saw, and never saw again, the handsome youth who was destined to hold the reins of empire in Russia, to keep all Europe in alarm for thirty years, and to close a proud career under the pressure of a disastrous war.’ He met, for the first and last time, his lifelong enemy, the Czar Nicholas. ”

“ To this I replied that if this was the Tsar's attitude he must make his military preparations conform to it without delay. The Tsar said nothing.
At all events, I sought to utilize Tsar Nicholas II's worry at the growing power of Japan to the advantage of Germany and general European culture. Russia, despite siding with Japan, was the first nation to collapse among all those participating in the war. ”

“ The iron reaction of the then Emperor Nicholas I. made independent political activity an impossibility. But the horrible and degrading conditions of serfdom which existed at that time, and which cast a blight upon the energy and dignity of the Russian nation, nourished feelings of grief and indignation in the noblest minds of the educated classes, and, unable to struggle for their principles in the field of practical politics, they strove towards abstract idealism. They devoted their energies to philosophy, literature, and art. ”

“ I hear that at the Winter Palace yesterday the Czar took a solemn oath not to make peace while a single enemy soldier remains on Russian soil. In taking such an oath before the whole world Nicholas II. shows the true character of this war. It is a matter of life and death, a struggle for existence.
The Czarina had a long talk with me this afternoon. She was in a state of great indignation, as she had just heard that on orders from the Emperor William II. the Dowager-Empress of Russia had been prevented from continuing her journey to St. Petersburg and had had to go from Berlin to Copenhagen. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the Emperor Nicholas, while he was, in common with the other powers, professing to desire the preservation of Ottoman integrity, had secretly resolved not to leave the Eastern Question to posterity, but to crown his own reign by its solution in a way favorable to Russia. His position was a very strong one. By the Treaty of 1841 his headship as protector of Eastern Christendom had been acknowledged. Austria was now bound to him irrevocably by the tie of gratitude, and Prussia by close family ties and by sympathy. It was only necessary to win over England. ”

“ But her capricious and violent son overturned this order of things and again reduced the nobility to a condition of dependence and even degradation, from which it had not yet recovered in the days of Nicholas I. For these reasons the nobility of Russia is not characterized by the proud bearing and firm demeanor which are the attributes of the aristocracy of Western Europe. A parvenu, who has, by an act of slavish submission, won the Emperor's favor, may be ennobled, and he thenceforth holds his head as high as the greatest. No one of these is regarded as more important than his neighbor. ”