IB European History



IB European History

Mr. Mehlbach

Massie Synopsis, Nicholas and Alexandra (1967), Chapter 14

The Spala Incident, 3-5 October 1912

On 7 September 1812, the largest and bloodiest single-day battle of the French invasion of Russia took place at the village of Borodino, west of Moscow. At Borodino the French Grande Armée of Napoléon attacked defensive Russian positions of General Kutuzov. The battle involved more than 250,000 troops and resulted in over 70,000 casualties. The losses on both sides were crippling. The Russians lost 44,000 killed and wounded, one in every three of their men engaged. The French suffered 35,000 men killed or wounded and the death of forty-three generals. About a third of Napoléon's soldiers were killed, wounded, missing or captured. Russian losses, while heavier, could be replaced due to Russia's large population, since Napoleon's campaign took place on Russian soil. The battle itself ended with the disorganized Russian Army out of position and ripe for total annihilation. The shattered state of the French forces and the lack of recognition of the condition of the Russian Army led Napoléon to remain on the battlefield with his army instead of the pursuing and destroying the Russian army. Years later Napoléon commented that his failure to pursue and to destroy the Russian army was the greatest military mistake of his entire career. The battle at Borodino was a pivotal point in the campaign, as it was the last offensive action fought by Napoleon in Russia. By withdrawing, the Russian army preserved its combat strength, eventually allowing them to force the French Grande Armée out of the country in 1813. Since 1812, Russian history teaches Borodino as a grand strategic victory: the Russian army withdrew in good order to live to fight another day. In exile on St. Helena, Napoléon later wrote, “Borodino was the most terrible of any battle we ever fought, in which the French showed themselves worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves to be invincible.”

In September 1912, the Russian government planned massive ceremonies to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Borodino. Russian army engineers had recreated the entire battlefield, rebuilding the famous redoubts, marking the positions of French and Russian artillery batteries, and identifying spots where infantry and cavalry charged. An army of seamstresses recreated tens of thousands of French and Russian uniforms to clothe the Russian army divisions designated to recreate the epic battle. The honored guests of the centenary ceremony were the royal family. In the afternoon of 7 September 1912, Nicholas, mounted on a white horse, rode slowly across the battlefield, which was lined with the regiments that had fought at Borodino. Silent and drawn up in line-of-battle stood the most storied divisions of Russian military history: the élité Pavlovsky Guards Division, the élité Preobrazhensky Guards Division, the élité Semyonovsky Guards Division and the élité Volynsky Guards Division. When Nicholas passed the last regiment, he grabbed the standard of the 3rd Cossack Guards Squadron, and waved the battle flag above his head. The battlefield exploded into a roar of, “Ou-rah! Ou-rah! Ou-rah,” the traditional Russian battle cry. As a climax to the ceremony, an ancient Sergeant, Vasilly Alexevich Voitinuik, said to be 122 years old and a survivor of the famous battle, was led forward and presented to the Czar. Nicholas, deeply moved to tears, warmly grasped the hand of the tottering veteran and congratulated him. Following the ceremony the imperial family boarded a train for the westward journey to the Polish hunting lodge of Spala. At Spala the royal family would ride, hunt, relax and enjoy the clean pine air of the Polish forest. All seemed well. Within six weeks everything would unravel. That autumn, in the depths of the Polish forest, Nicholas and Alexandra were plunged into a crisis that scared both of them forever.

The Czarevich had just turned eight years old. He was wild and all-boy. He was happy, cheerful, mischievous and very, very active. Alexis loved to kid his parents. He pestered his sisters who were also getting older: Olga was seventeen, Tatiana fifteen, Marie thirteen and Anastasia was eleven. The last eighteen months the Czarevich had been so well that the Empress was convinced that God had finally answered her prayers. Because of Alexis’ hemophilia, the Czarevich was not allowed to ride. Instead, Alexis loved to go out in boats to row. On 13 September 1912 Alexis decided to jump over three boats, tied up to the dock. Accidentally he tripped on a rope and fell. An oarlock ground itself into his testicles, lower groin, and into his upper thigh. Dr. Botkin, the doctor for the royal family, examined the bruise and found a small swelling just below the groin. For a week Alexis stayed in bed. The pain and swelling dwindled and Botkin believed that the incident was closed. Alexandra thanked God for His divine intervention. Again, her prayers had been answered.

Alexandra became worried about her son’s lack of color. She was also beside herself that Alexis was cooped up in the house all day long without sunlight and fresh air. On 20 September 1912, Alexandra decided to take him for a carriage ride. She placed him between herself and her Maid-In-Waiting, Anna Vyrubova. Bouncing and jostling, the carriage set off down the rutted road from Spala. Not long after, Alexis winced and complained about pain in his lower leg and abdomen. Frightened, the Empress ordered the driver to return to Spala immediately. There was over five miles to travel. Every time the carriage jolted, Alexis, pale and contorted, screamed out. Alexandra, now in absolute terror, urged the driver first to hurry, then to go slowly. Anna Vyrubova remembered the ride as “an experience of horror.” By the time Alexis was carried into Spala, he was in writhing pain. That night, a stream of telegrams flew off to St. Petersburg and one by one the doctors began to arrive. The bleeding could not be stopped, and for fear of killing the young boy, no morphine was given. Blood flowed steadily from the torn blood vessels inside the leg, seeping into the lower parts of the groin and the stomach. An enormous hematoma formed causing searing pain. Alexis’ right leg drew up against his chest to find the blood a larger socket to fill, but there came a point where there was no where else for the blood to go. Yet still it flowed. It was the beginning of a nightmare.

Day and night, horrible screams pierced the walls and filled the corridors of Spala. Many in the household stuffed their ears with cotton in order to continue their work. The screams went on for eleven full days and nights. Nobody in the house slept. The Czarina refused to leave her son’s side. She blamed herself for the carriage ride and was consumed with suicidal guilt. Hour after hour, she sat by the bed where the groaning, half-conscious child lay huddled on his side. His face was bloodless his body contorted in horrible pain, eyes with hollow black circles under them, rolled back in his head. The Empress never undressed or went to bed. Day after day the horror went on, a torture so grievous and so horrible that no parent should have to endure. More than once, it seemed like the end had come. At lunch on 3 October 1912, the Czar was handed a note scribbled by the Empress from her place beside Alexis’s bed. Alexis was suffering so horribly, she said, that she knew he was about to die. Pale, but collected, Nicholas made the sign of the cross, left the table, and went to the sickroom. The last sacrament of the Russian Orthodox Church was administered by a priest, and a bulletin was sent to St. Petersburg that night worded so that the one to follow the next morning would announce the death of Alexis Nikolaevich Romanov.

It was on this night 3 October 1912, at the end of hope that Alexandra called on Rasputin. She asked Anna Vyrubova to telegraph him in Polrovskoe, his home in Siberia, begging him to pray for the life of her son. Rasputin immediately telegraphed back, “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.” The next morning, 4 October 1912, Alexandra came down to the drawing room, thin and pale, but she was smiling. “The doctors notice no improvement yet,” she said, “but I am not a bit anxious myself now. During the night I received a telegram from Our Friend, Father Gregory and he has reassured me completely.” A day later, early morning 5 October 1912, the hemorrhage stopped. The boy was exhausted, utterly spent from close to two weeks of unending pain, but alive. The medical specialists at Spala were speechless. Alexandra was told by a blood specialist from St. Petersburg, “The recovery is wholly without explanation from a medical point of view.” From Alexandra’s point of view there was however an explanation: Rasputin had been sent to her and to her family by God. Without Rasputin her son would die. The Spala Incident of 4-5 October firmly solidified Rasputin’s presence in the royal family. From 1912 onward, he was seen as absolutely necessary for the well being of the Czarevich. Rasputin had saved the Czarevich. By doing so, he had condemned the Romanov’s to death in the court of Russian public opinion. The fraudulent starets now stood firmly entrenched behind the Romanov throne.

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