Two coronations and two emperors – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
2016 marks the
anniversary of two coronations: Tsar Nicholas II’s in 1896 and Charles IV’s in
1916. Both were the last rulers of their empire, and both were kind-hearted,
simple and deeply religious. Just because they are the last, historians and
people tend to believe that they were “bad rulers”, not having the
qualifications their “Great” ancestors and predecessors had and not being able
to preserve their empire and protect the monarchy.
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| Source: Wikimedia Commons. |
I don’t share these
opinions. During the reign of Nicholas II, modernisation got under way in
Russia – slowly, but inevitably, and had the revolutionists let it evolving and
emerging, eventually it would have turned Russia into a modern, developed
state. Instead they got a humiliating peace treaty, a civil war, the Red Terror,
the Soviet Union, and a dictator far worse than the Tsar and who is responsible
for the death of tens of millions during the Great Famine in Ukraine.
I’m planning (really just planning, as it’s still in an idea-phase and
I don’t know whether I’ll have time to do it) something special for the
commemoration of the 1916 coronation in December. And today, 26 May, the day on
which Nicholas II was crowned as Emperor of All Russia in 1896, let me cite the
words of Winston Churchill as a commemoration of Nicholas II and his reign.
“It is the shallow
fashion of these times to dismiss the Tsarist regime as a purblind, corrupt,
incompetent tyranny. But a survey of its thirty months' war with Germany and
Austria should correct these loose impressions and expose the dominant facts.
We may measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the battering it had
endured, by the disasters it had survived, by the inexhaustible forces it had
developed, and by the recovery it had made. In the governments of states, when
great events are afoot, the leader of the nation, whoever he be, is held
accountable for failure and vindicated by success. No matter who wrought the
toil, who planned the struggle, to the supreme responsible authority belongs
the blame or credit.
Why should this stern test be denied to Nicholas II? He had made many mistakes, what ruler has not? He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability, of merciful disposition, upheld in all his daily life by his faith in God. But the brunt of supreme decisions centred upon him. At the summit where all problems are reduced to Yea or Nay, where events transcend the faculties of man and where all is inscrutable, he had to give the answers. His was the function of the compass needle. War or no war? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratise or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These were the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honour from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the munitionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Brusilov; the Russian entry upon the campaign of 1917, unconquered, stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.
He is about to be struck down. A dark hand, gloved at first in folly, now intervenes. Exit Tsar. Deliver him and all he loved to wounds and death. Belittle his efforts, asperse his conduct, insult his memory; but pause then to tell us who else was found capable. Who or what could guide the Russian State? Men gifted and daring; men ambitious and fierce, spirits audacious and commanding - of these there were no lack. But none could answer the few plain questions on which the life and fame of Russia turned.”
Why should this stern test be denied to Nicholas II? He had made many mistakes, what ruler has not? He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability, of merciful disposition, upheld in all his daily life by his faith in God. But the brunt of supreme decisions centred upon him. At the summit where all problems are reduced to Yea or Nay, where events transcend the faculties of man and where all is inscrutable, he had to give the answers. His was the function of the compass needle. War or no war? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratise or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These were the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honour from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the munitionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Brusilov; the Russian entry upon the campaign of 1917, unconquered, stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.
He is about to be struck down. A dark hand, gloved at first in folly, now intervenes. Exit Tsar. Deliver him and all he loved to wounds and death. Belittle his efforts, asperse his conduct, insult his memory; but pause then to tell us who else was found capable. Who or what could guide the Russian State? Men gifted and daring; men ambitious and fierce, spirits audacious and commanding - of these there were no lack. But none could answer the few plain questions on which the life and fame of Russia turned.”
Alla
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