Ficboy
Banned
If there is a Soviet Union or a Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic or whatever it's called much less survive and win the Russian Civil War, it will have a lot of hostile neighbors.Chapter Twelve: The September Revolution
The Russian Revolution began with a loaf of bread.
7 September 1916 started off like any other for the inhabitants of Petrograd. Light snow fell from an iron-grey sky while newspapers yelled about an imminent counterstroke to drive the Germans back to their border. Weary labourers ignored the lies in the paper as they trudged off for another grueling day, while women darted off to the ration queues. And it is one of these women who shall be the focus of our story.
Elenya Veroshenka shivered as the wind tugged at her skirt. She held a wicker basket in one hand and a wad of rubles in the other. The queue to get in the shops stretched on and on, and she pulled out a pen and paper to pass the time. Dear Andrei, she wrote, hope you are well, wherever you are. Censorship prevented her brother from giving his location. Things are not as bad as they might be- we still have enough to eat and enough coal. Elenya shook her head at the bare-faced lie. Half a loaf of bread and a little wilted cabbage wasn’t enough, and she had run out of coal last Tuesday. But she didn’t want to worry her younger brother. Mother, Father, and little Pyotr send their love. You do not need to worry at all. I was relieved to hear that you made it out of that battle in one piece. I do hope you are doing all right, not too cold at nights- if only I had a spare coat I could give you! Every day, I light a candle for your sake. Dear Andrei, I look forward to when this war is over, and you can come back home to be with us again. But grumbling will do us no good. Lots of love, Elenya.
Elenya tucked her letter away as she reached the front of the queue. Simeon’s general store was nice and warm, and she wanted to savour the heat for as long as possible.
“Come on in there, come on in. No use letting the heat out.” Simeon, a tall, weedy man too old for the Army, wagged a finger at Elenya. “Now then, let’s see that ration card. Can’t do too much without it, can I?” Chuckling unpleasantly, Simeon handed her a wrapped loaf. It looked like a rock, hardly worth the exorbitant cost- but it was better than starving. “See you again, my girl.” Elenya nibbled a corner of the bread, but spat it out immediately.
“Sawdust! There’s got to be sawdust in this!” Simeon melted under her glare. “Well, well, there is a war on, don’t you know?” He shrugged. “And my overhead is going up- you can’t get things any more. And I had to make things stretch. What would you have done, eh?”
Anger bubbled inside Elenya. “Charging those prices for… for this? You don’t get it, do you? Some of us have to work, not just sit in the shop counting change. It isn’t so easy for us. Perhaps I ought to find another baker.” Elenya furiously drummed her fingers on the counter. She knew that was unlikely, but it might scare the penny-pinching shopkeeper. “You’re a cheat!”
“Come on”, yelled the woman in the queue behind Elenya, “bring out the good things! We know you have them.” Simeon turned red. “I… I don’t know what any of you mean! Really!”
“Don’t you? You mean to say you eat sawdust with your bread? How did you stay so healthy? My brother’s at the front, fighting and suffering for Russia, while you are a war profiteer, nothing else!”
“How dare you?” Simeon pounded the table, red-faced. “I am as loyal a Russian as you- why, I fought in Manchuria in 1904, and…” Elenya hurled her loaf of black bread at him. Simeon howled and fell to the ground, clutching his nose.
“Come on! Let’s see what he’s really got!” She and a few others smashed the door to the stockroom. There were dozens of good, white loaves there, and plenty of good potatoes and cabbage. The warm, silky bread tasted like a slice of heaven, and Elenya joyfully stashed three loaves and pounds of potatoes in her bag. “Help! Help!”, Simeon cried. “Thievery!”
Damn, Elenya thought, making herself scarce. However, a panic-stricken woman running out of a greengrocer with a bag full of good food was deeply suspicious. People scattered in every direction, trying to make way with their ill-gotten gains. Thumping footsteps behind her set her heart racing...
“Hold it right there!” Elenya ignored the policeman and ran even faster, desperately trying to turn a corner and get home. “Hold it, I said, damn you!” She heard a click and looked over her shoulder in fear. An explosive bang, a moment of searing pain and then… nothing.
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"Clearly, the people of our great empire have spoken. I have judged that my presence as Emperor is no longer advantageous to Russia, and in this time of national exertion, we cannot afford even the slightest conflict or deviation if it can be prevented. Therefore, I announce my abdication as Tsar of All the Russias. My brother, the Grand Duke Michael, is to succeed me. May God bless him, and may this be the start of a long and glorious future for the Russian people."
-Tsar Nicholas II's Act of Abdication, 15 September 1916.
"Down with the oppressive regime of Nicholas! Long live the workers! As leader of the Central Worker's Group, I hereby declare the freedom of the people of Petrograd!"
-Julius Martov, 15 September 1916.
"Today, we remember Elenya Veroshenka's death as the beginning of a long struggle in Russia, on our path towards a new, more peaceful place in the world. It has been a century since Tsar Nicholas' regime was overthrown, and the Motherland has come a long way since then. And I have every confidence that we will go even further in the next century."
-Russian president Dimitry Ershonogov in a speech before laying a wreath on the spot where Elenya Veroshenka was killed, on 7 September 2016. He would make a much grander speech on Revolution Day a week later.
Russian police killed four elderly ladies on 7 September. This earned them a mild reprimand from their superiors, and they expected nothing serious to come of it. Elenya Veroshenka’s funeral took place at a local Orthodox church on the ninth, and everyone hoped it would be a low-profile affair.
They were soon to have their hopes dashed.
Elenya’s funeral drew some 200 people, over ten times the number expected. Plenty of Petrograders, unhappy at their conditions, wanted to pay their respects. Her brother Andrei was home on compassionate leave, and after the funeral muttered to a few friends that he’d “like to get the bastard who killed my sister.” He had an Army knife with him and went off searching for the policeman with a few others. That night, they found the man and threw his body in a ditch. The police brutally searched for the murderer, arresting and killing innocents, but Andrei was nowhere to be found. The crackdown brought plenty of grumbling amongst the workers of Petrograd. A second, larger protest took place on the tenth in front of the mayor’s mansion, with almost four thousand people yelling about everything from Elenya’s murder to the economic conditions, while the capital’s factory workers staged strikes in solidarity. As Vladimir Lenin was later to quip, the people of Petrograd were a tinderbox, and Elenya Veroshenka’s murder lit the fuse. The mayor was understandably panicked and called out the town garrison. Clashes began at 11:20 and lasted for the better part of an hour- sixty civilians died and a further 220 were wounded. By now, the Tsar was fully aware of what was going on, but he was unconcerned. The people loved their emperor; this was just the work of a few radicals. In a week’s time, the whole thing would blow over.
Of course, things didn’t play out that way.
When word got out of what had happened in Petrograd, widespread unrest broke out in other Russian cities. Everyone was hungry, tired, grieving for their lost loved ones, and more than a few had sharp questions. If the Army could butcher old ladies and brutally massacre peaceful demonstrators, why couldn’t it win the war? If the Tsar’s government was so bloody wonderful, why were bread and coal so expensive? Seizing upon the moment to demand better conditions, workers in Moscow went on strike, and before too long, a general strike paralysed the Russian Empire’s second city. The Muscovite police and Army garrison had no more political sense than their counterparts in the capital, and attempts to get the workers back by force quickly turned into bloody riots… and the pattern repeated itself in Kiev, Smolensk, and even distant Vladivostok.
Tsar Nicholas’ regime was coming apart.
The Tsar had always lived in his own world, willfully blinding himself to twentieth-century politics. When he looked back on his family’s history, Nicholas saw three hundred years of absolute monarchy, and that it was 1916 was irrelevant. Nicholas believed that his family’s mission from God to rule could never change. Autocracy was nothing new in Russia, but most of Nicholas’ predecessors knew enough to not be too reactionary. But in the Tsar’s golden cocoon, not only was he invincible, so was Russia. The Russo-Japanese War had resulted from Japanese treachery, while he pinned the humiliating peace on the failure of his diplomats. Nicholas honestly believed that the 1905 revolution had come about by accident and despised the fact that the revolutionaries had forced him to establish a parliament- God’s agent needed no one’s approval to rule! Nicholas also believed in the bottom of his heart that the people loved him. He viewed the Russian populace with a kind of affectionate condescension, comparing the relationship to a father’s love for his small children. Thus, when he met with his advisers on 13 September, he scoffed at the idea that Russia was in real trouble. Prime Minister Boris Sturmer (1) told Nicholas that the police and Army couldn’t crush the protests and bring an end to the strikes everywhere, and thus Nicholas would have to make concessions. He advised the Tsar that publicly addressing the protesters would be enough to douse the fire, buying time for anti-corruption measures to be put in place. He should try officers accused of violent suppression of protests and take steps to increase the well-being of the populace. Sturmer knew that the Tsar had a tendency to listen to whichever minister had his ear at the moment, and hoped that if he could persuade his sovereign to address the people, this locking himself into a course of reform. Nicholas was almost convinced… before Sturmer suggested that an armistice might strengthen the Russian state.
Tsar Nicholas blew his stack. He was not, under any circumstances, going to surrender to the Germans! He was Supreme Commander of the Russian army, and for him to conclude a cease-fire would be a betrayal of the millions of his countrymen who died in service to the Motherland. And besides, Sturmer was of German descent! There was only one reason a man with a German surname was telling the Russian tsar to conclude a peace- because he was a traitor! The Tsar flat-out called his Prime Minister an enemy agent, before sacking him on the spot. He retired to his quarters to compose a speech and let it be known that he would address the protestors from a balcony of the Winter Palace at three PM.
He was about to shoot himself in the foot in the worst way imaginable.
Petrograd proletarians: a fraction of the crowd gathered to hear Tsar Nicholas' speech of 14 September.
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A great crowd of Petrograders from all walks of life- some 100,000- gathered to hear their sovereign speak in the mid-afternoon of 14 September. Many of them genuinely revered him and expected him to play the role of the benevolent ruler addressing his people’s grievances. Instead, he arrived sixteen minutes late, with his wife and court favourite Grigori Rasputin on either side. If the people looked up to the Tsar, they hated the people he was literally surrounding himself with. His wife Alexandra Feodorovna was not only a German, she had become infamous for living on the high hog at the people’s expense, diverting much money into balls and banquets… and remaining in communication with her relatives in Hesse, if popular rumour was to be believed. The people whispered that Rasputin was a practitioner of black magic and an enemy agent, who had the emperor under his control through devilish means. In reality, he was a Siberian mystic and con artist whose ability to heal the sickly Crown Prince endeared him to Nicholas… but the people didn’t know that. If the Tsar harmed his cause by keeping poor company, he wrecked it the moment he opened his mouth.
“Loyal subjects of Petrograd!
For two long years, our beloved Motherland has been at war. German and Austrian aggression threatens our very existence, and the imperialists in Berlin and Vienna seek to reduce our glorious state to nothingness. Aided by their puppets in Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Romania, they have caused our allies to seek peace. I harbour no ill-will against the French or British for their decision and wish them the very best. Yet, as God chose my illustrious ancestor Ivan three hundred years ago, so He has called me to lead you, my children. Thus, we shall fight on to victory.
Now, it has been brought to my notice that some of you are imperfectly satisfied with the conditions in our fair city. Let me say this to you: every morsel of bread you do not eat, every lump of coal you do not throw on the fire, is being given to the men at the front, who risk their lives day after day for your Tsar. So, take pride in your sufferings, hold your head up with every privation. Never let your loyalty to orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality waver! Do not be like the godless warmongers in Berlin or the traitors running rampant in our streets. My courtiers on either side of me stand firm in our commitment to glory, and I expect you to do the same. Never will I concede on the moral nature of my government, nor will I ever toss a scrap to the forces of anarchy and chaos. Together, subjects, we shall hold our heads high and push through to the glorious end, in the name of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality, God, and the Tsar!”
A brass band struck up ‘God Save the Tsar’, and the people listened in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then they started yelling. They’d hoped for their sovereign to address their woes and promise concrete action, and instead they got a lot of condescending, patronising rubbish. With a hundred thousand men booing him and yelling inflammatory things, the Tsar panicked and ordered his men to break the crowd up… the first bullet flew five seconds later. Once people thought the guards were trying to massacre them, they fought back. Bricks and gunshots pummeled the soldiers, who fought back with bayonets. Just as the Tsar decided it was an opportune moment to flee, his wife let out a shriek. Tsarina Alexandra clutched at her chest, her face pale, blood oozing from her fingers, before falling to the ground. As the horrified Tsar watched, the crowd trampled on her body, leaving it scarcely recognisable. Now, there was a full-scale battle raging just outside the Winter Palace, with the enraged mob hell-bent on breaking in. More workers were streaming in from the city, and the Petrograd garrison was setting up barricades in the streets. Meanwhile, the remnants of the royal family fled with Rasputin to the road leading to the imperial estate at Tsarskoe Selo.
The September Revolution of 1916 was well and truly on.
Nicholas reached Tsarskoe Selo at close to six PM. He correctly gambled that the guards on his estate would be reliable. They let him in and gave him some horrible news: the Petrograd garrison was mutinying. Men were throwing down their arms and siding with the rioters, and it looked as though the insurgents in the city would soon crush the loyalists. Nicholas’ brother Grand Duke Michael was fighting back to little avail. But worst of all, the men added in hushed whispers, no one could guarantee the reliability of the Tsarskoe Selo garrison. Mourning for his lost wife, bitter over the loss of his throne, and fearful for his safety and that of his family… the wonder is not that he didn’t sleep a wink, but that he didn’t commit suicide. His brother Michael reached the estate at five AM, having lost the battle for Petrograd and fled in the night. The two had a heart-to-heart, brotherly chat as soon as they met. Events of the past day had convinced the liberal Grand Duke that the only way this could end well was if Nicholas abdicated. Nicholas loathed hearing this, but the situation was a great deal clearer now than it had been the previous day. Nicholas knew that while his political career was dead in the water, his son might still rule one day… and when that day came, he would naturally lean on his father for advice…. And besides, losing one’s head to the mob wasn’t how Nicholas wanted to go. Thus, on 15 September 1916 at six AM, Nicholas II handwrote an act of abdication while eating a bowl of kasha for breakfast- it’s preserved in the Moscow National Museum to this day, complete with a century-old stain. He went to inform Alexei of what he had done; the boy was receiving treatment from Rasputin and was too ill and too in shock over losing his mother to take much notice. Tsar Michael II (2) then headed back to the capital, naively determined to work out a peaceful ending to this mess now that he was in power.
A photograph of Tsar Michael II taken shortly before the outbreak of the Great War
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He was far too late.
With the help of some mutinous army units, the workers had seized control of most of Petrograd by midday. In the Winter Palace, everyone was trying to figure out what to do next. None of them knew about Nicholas’ abdication, nor of the whereabouts of the royal family. There were also disturbing reports that mutinies were tearing through the Army. Rumours- thankfully ficticious- swirled that the Germans would arrive in days. The Central Worker’s Group, a left-wing labour organisation from before the war, had assumed broad control over the uprising. This left Julius Martov, the CWG’s leader, as the most powerful man in the city. At nine AM, while Tsar Michael was racing to the capital, Martov met with Prince Georgi Lvov, a senior figure in the Duma. The meeting was a frosty one, as Martov held most of the cards, yet couldn’t afford to split with Lvov. As a Menshevik, he believed in a broad, progressive front for change, and genuinely wanted Lvov and the empire’s bourgeois-liberals on board. However, Lvov was a liberal, not a radical, and feared some of Julius Martov’s allies. Thus, the seeds of discord were sewn from the very beginning. However, the two established a modus vivendi, and settled on two key points: the need to seek an armistice with the enemy (3), and the need to strengthen their position and prevent the Tsar- who they still thought was Nicholas, not Michael- from crushing them. They agreed to send one of their number for a cease-fire as soon as possible. No sooner had they agreed on this then a breathless messenger burst in- Grand Duke Michael was on the road to Petrograd! No one knew that he was at the head of but a few men; both Martov and Lvov assumed he was leading a counterrevolutionary army. Trustworthy army units went to beat off what they assumed to be a massive attack… they were pleasantly surprised to find Michael with just a handful of Tsarskoe Selo guards accompanying him. When the two bumped into each other at ten in the morning, the terrified Tsar fled back to Tsarskoe Selo on horseback, his retinue fighting a delaying action.
When he reached the estate a little after lunchtime, the Tsar told Nicholas and his family what had happened. The mad revolutionaries had tried to kill him; surely, they would be here any minute! Tsar Michael announced his intention to flee south to the town of Veliky Novgorod, which had avoided revolutionary action. From there, he hoped to broadcast to the troops that he was alive and in power, and to send envoys to the Central Powers requesting a peace treaty; there, at least, he had more sense than his brother. Nicholas was unhappy about this, but agreed to come, fearful for his life. At a quarter to ten, Tsar Michael, Nicholas, his son Alexei and his four daughters, climbed into the back of a wagon, travelling disguised as peasants; Nicholas reluctantly shaved his beard before setting off. The party was delayed, however. The Tsar wanted to leave a decoy for when the revolutionaries inevitably reached the hunting grounds, and since he didn’t want to condemn his innocent nieces or nephew to the mob, he settled on Rasputin (whom he despised anyhow). Nicholas was furious, telling his brother that “to kill Rasputin is to kill my son!”, but Tsar Michael was adamant. Two guards tied the “healer” to a chair and gagged him. At one PM, the royal party set off for Veliky Novgorod. Twenty minutes later, the small force sent to repel Tsar Michael’s “assault on Petrograd” arrived at the deserted estate. They looted it thoroughly and found Rasputin. He had his gag removed, but was not freed from the chair. It wasn’t every day that the revolutionaries captured one of Nicholas’ right-hand men, and they were going to torture every scrap of information they could out of him. Rasputin, coward that he was, told everything. Nicholas had abdicated, leaving his brother as Tsar, and they were heading off to rally support at Veliky Novgorod. Judging by the number of men they had, Rasputin said, they wouldn’t stand a chance. The revolutionaries thanked Rasputin for his time and blew his brains out. One of them found a telephone in the estate and contacted Julius Martov, telling him everything.
The Tsarist party reached Veliky Novgorod shortly after three. The loyalist commander of the city had imposed martial law, and Tsar Michael safely revealed his identity; the commander didn’t believe him until Nicholas confirmed that it was true. After changing his clothes, Michael strode confidently to the town hall; Nicholas and the children went to the finest hotel room in town. The Tsar stated that he wanted to work with Prince Lvov in reforming Russia and hoped only for peace. He offered an amnesty to anyone willing to lay down their arms and accept him as a constitutional monarch, and promised an end to the war. (4) News of this reached Petrograd by the end of the day, and Lvov was forced to consider. He and the new Tsar were both liberals, and both wanted an end to the war. Tsar Michael hadn’t mentioned Julius Martov in his speech, but it seemed a safe bet that he wasn’t a closet Menshevik. If it were up to him, Prince Lvov would be all too happy to betray Martov and walk down the liberal path, subservient to the Tsar. The trouble was that that would mean getting rid of Julius Martov and the Central Worker’s Group, and that if he tried and failed, they would kill him. Trapped between a rock and a hard place, Lvov chose caution. At six-forty PM, he met with Julius Martov and informed him that he’d received correspondence from Michael… now Tsar Michael. He was going as a “representative of the people” to speak with the Tsarists, hoping to avoid further bloodshed. Martov was deeply suspicious, but eventually gave his consent. Thus, Prince Lvov set off for Veliky Novgorod at eight PM, and arrived two hours later, accompanied by a platoon of bodyguards. When he arrived, soldiers disarmed his guards and led him into an audience with Tsar Michael. The Russian emperor, who twenty-four hours ago had been nothing more than a grand duke watching his brother give an awful speech, seemed sorrowful as he met Prince Lvov. The danger to Russia, he emphasised, was too great for infighting. If Lvov would defect to the government side, the Tsar would happily become a constitutional monarch with Lvov as prime minister. Speaking from his heart, Tsar Michael said that he would be not only willing but eager to make peace and hold a constitutional convention. Lvov accepted after a bit of vacillating. Julius Martov offered Marxist revolution, while Tsar Michael offered a Russia built around liberal, bourgeois values and a cushy job for him personally. Plus, the Tsar’s men with guns were right there, while Martov’s weren’t. It was close to midnight, but the two men got to work drafting a proclamation to the troops, calling on them to remain loyal. Veliky Novgorod’s printers were woken up at two AM and told to produce as many copies as humanly possible within two hours. At four AM, officers woke the- understandably terrified- postmaster, ordering him to send these leaflets to the front as fast as possible.
The September Revolution hadn’t affected the front too much. In the inevitable chaos of retreat, the common foot soldier scarcely knew which town his battalion was coming up on next, let alone the blow-by-blow details of regime change in Petrograd. In the days following the murder of Elenya Veroshenka, some of the men had a vague sense that things were wrong in the capital, but few made much of it. Censorship kept the news of 14 and 15 September well away from the men at the front… not that they would’ve made much sense of it, considering that the principal actors were operating in a confused mess more often than not! (4) As for the generals, they knew well that Nicholas’ regime was on its last legs. Privately, many of them were sympathetic to the goal of modernisation, considering Nicholas an incompetent buffoon. They were informed at their headquarters that Nicholas was fleeing Petrograd a few hours after the fact, but by the end of 15 September, they had no idea that he had abdicated, nor did many of them have the faintest bloody idea who this “Julius Martov” chap was. Thus, when they received orders from a “Tsar Michael II” in Veliky Novgorod to expect a cease-fire in a few days, many generals shook their heads and downed a glass of vodka. Slowly, it became apparent that they weren’t dreaming, and after a few telephone calls, they gradually figured things out piece by piece. Nicholas must’ve abdicated- or worse, been killed- if his brother was now Tsar… but why was the message coming from Veliky Novgorod? And why did it have Prince Lvov’s signature on it? If the new emperor wasn’t sending messages of this importance from the capital, especially considering that there had been major disturbances there… then Petrograd must be out of his control. And of course, they had to figure all this out while trying to push back the Germans. Nevertheless, everyone kept a reasonably cool head. The men were informed that Nicholas had abdicated in favour of his brother, but the generals deliberately left the details vague- there was no mention of a potential armistice, or that the message had come from Veliky Novgorod.
In Petrograd, Julius Martov was furious. He should have known that that bourgeois scum (amongst other epithets) Prince Lvov was no good! Now that he was united with Tsar Michael, he could cause real damage. Martov didn’t know how many men the Tsar had at his disposal, but it was certainly more than the handful of revolutionary troops and armed workers in Petrograd. He couldn’t count of help from insurgents elsewhere- not only were they too far away, they had their own leaders. Thus, it was essential for him to use everything in Petrograd he could. At eleven AM on the 16th, Martov declared that the “treasonous Lvov seeks only to collaborate with the Tsar to crush your freedoms!” He announced the establishment of the Petrograd Worker’s Army and told them to be ready for battle.
Emblem used by the ill-fated, short-lived Petrograd Worker's Army.
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Sticking a fancy title on the garrison of Petrograd and some armed rabble wouldn’t do anything for their fighting ability; they were as coarse and untrained as men could get. Meanwhile, Tsar Michael and Prince Lvov were cobbling together whatever loyalist units they could find; since nothing could be spared from the front, men were mostly scraped up from garrisons. These were of course Imperial Russian troops, with all the associated supply and command problems, but the enemy was in no better shape. After a week, on 23 September, the march on Petrograd began. While some units of the Petrograd Worker’s Army fought furiously, most saw which way the wind was blowing. Many were disgruntled factory workers who had no problem chucking bricks at Nicholas after… that condescending excuse for a speech, but who would not throw their lives away for Julius Martov’s sake, especially not when the new Tsar looked to be a reasonably liberal man. Martov slipped away for Norway via Finland- itself simmering on the edge of rebellion- and by the end of the 24th, Petrograd was under Tsar Michael’s control, bringing an end to the September Revolution. Elsewhere, the uprisings fizzled out. Escorted by his armed guards, the Tsar entered the Winter Palace first thing in the morning on 25 September. Looters had thoroughly ransacked the place, carrying off priceless artifacts and reducing it to a shell of its former glory. However, just as he was walking into his old bedchamber, the Tsar heard a great crash, then another, then another. That could mean only one thing…
...the Germans were shelling Petrograd.
This only highlighted the emergency facing Michael’s regime. Literally as soon as the shelling stopped, he met with the man he had picked for Foreign Minister during his time in Veliky Novgorod: Pavel Milyukov. Tsar Michael instructed Milyukov to contact the Central Powers and arrange for a cease-fire as soon as possible. Prince Lvov- whose election to the Prime Ministership would come in due course- concurred with his sovereign, and Milyukov was sending cables to the Russian embassy in Sweden by ten AM. By the end of the day, he had received good news: the Germans were amiable to a cease-fire. When he asked how soon they could be there, the ambassador in Stockholm rang back- he could have peace in three days if the Tsar wanted it. An hour later, he was on the express train to Stockholm with his interpreter, briefcase full of diplomatic documents in hand.
None other than Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff were waiting for him at the German embassy two days later. Naturally, both were in an arrogant mood, gloating that Michael would inevitably do an even worse job than Nicholas. Consummate diplomat that he was, Milyukov took it all in stride. Hindenburg and Ludendorff naturally did most of the talking, speaking for the Austro-Hungarians and Romanians, who were also present. The Central Powers would keep all the land they’d conquered, and the Russian army would have to demobilise immediately. This would leave them defenceless should the Germans decide they wanted more land. The rest of Bessarabia was to come under immediate Romanian occupation. As for the Russian Navy, the remnants of the Baltic Fleet were to put into Konigsberg, Danzig, and Stettin, while the Black Sea Fleet was to sail to Constantinople. Biting his lip, Miyukov signed the Stockholm Armistice, ending the Great War at eleven-thirty AM on 28 September 1916. The last man to die in the fighting was German private Theodor Krafft, killed in Estonia seven minutes before Milyukov signed.
It had only been three weeks since Elenya Veroshenka’s death.
While the German populace celebrated wildly, Tsar Michael set about trying to consolidate his regime. The events of the past few weeks had shown that he was vulnerable to attacks from the left, but there were also furious nationalists to worry about. If the general in charge of Petrograd tried to get revenge for losing the war, there were plenty of ways he could go about it. Of course, if Michael’s regime couldn’t appease the workers, they could topple him as they had his brother. (5) The new Tsar would also have to appease liberal burgeious elements as personified by Prince Lvov, and that would most likely require a constitutional convention… which the masses might try to get their foot in the door for. Inflation was running rampant and the country was just one poor harvest away from famine. Michael also knew that Russia would remember him as the idiot who signed away Russia’s western provinces, but he much preferred that to being the idiot who saw German boots marching in Petrograd. So, while Tsar Michael II had an abundance of worries as October 1916 came along, he was looking in the wrong places…
...after all, what could the return of an expatriate from Switzerland with a goatee and a newsboy cap have to do with anything?
Comments?
- His being of German descent didn’t endear him to the Tsar.
- Henceforth, “the Tsar” refers to Michael. I know that OTL, he refused to take power until a new constitution was established. Here, he agrees to take power, since Russia’s in even more dire straits than OTL’s February 1917. It bends plausibility a little, I know, but I think it’s necessary for the update to flow smoothly.
- Right now, the Russian military situation is roughly analogous to what it was following the Kerensky Offensive IOTL, except there haven’t been widespread mutinies. Thus, the need to end the war is a lot more pressing for everyone.
- The men are too busy fighting for their lives to set up soldier’s committees right now.
- Now living in a much less fancy townhouse in Petrograd under armed protection.
