part 3
During the first days of the war Ducky organized an ambulance outfit. She devoted herself to nursing and soon, her ambulance unit was one of the most effective in Russia. She frequently visited the front near Warsaw and she occasionally carried out her duties under the enmy's fire". Kirill, for his part, was also in Poland, assigned to the naval department of Admiral Russin, memeber of the staff of Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch, commander-in-chief of the Russian army.
When in August 1915 Nicholas II took the command of tha army and traveled to the front, he left the government in the dreadful hands of Alexandra and her malignant friend Rasputin, who had gained influence in the court because of his strange power to stop the Tsarevitch bleedings. Although Ducky did not get along with the Empress, she tried to persuade her against Rasputin Alexandra angrily responded that Ducky was "medding inmatters which were not of her concern.
In December 1916 Ducky visited Missy in Romania which had at last enter the war at the Allies's side. King Carol had died and now Ferdinand and Missy were King and Queen of Romania. The country was surrounded by enemy nations and Ducky brought her sister medical supplies and provisions. The Romanian Prime Minister Ion Bratianu asked Ducky to intercede for Romania before the Tsar, whose support was of vital for the survival of Romania as a nation. Ducky agreed to talk to Nicholas and when she departed she took with her a letter from Missy to the Tsar, where the Queen of Romania pleaded for help.
But when Ducky arrived to Russia, things were not as she had left them and she could do nothing for her sister's cause.. Rasputin, whose domination of the government was complete, had been murdered by Prince Felix Yusopov, who was married to the Tsar's niece, and by Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, the Tsar's firts cousin. After Rasputin's death, Nicholas and Alexandra completely withdrew form the rest of the family, who had always been against the starets, and at Alexandra's instance, Nicholas severely punished Yusopov and Dimitri. The family wrote a colective letter asking the Tsar's clemency for both princes; Ducky and Kirill's signature appeared at the top of the list. Nicholas nagrily answered that he would alone no one to give him advise and that a murder was always a murder.
On January 18th Ducky returned to Romania. Missy had tried herself to paid a visit to St. Petersburg to ask for help but after receiving the news of the chaosof the Imperial court, Missy's visit was put aside. Ducky had rought with her mores supplies for Romania as well as jackets, boots and shirts for the Romanian soldiers ans sheets, bandages and medicines for the hospitals. She also brought gifts for Missy's family.
Ducky returned to St. Petersburg in the middel of February. Kirill had been appointed commander of the Naval Guards, quartered in St. Petersburg, so he could be with his family for some time. Although publicly loyal to the Tsar, Ducky and Kirill begna to meet in private with other relativeds to dicuss the best way to save the monarchy. But Kirill's mother, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, was being quite indiscreet. She had invited Michael Rodzianko, president of the Duma, to her palace and told him that the Duma must do something th annihilate the Empress. Rodzianko acted as if such conversation had never taken place although he agreed with Marie Pavlovna. But rumours began to spread through the city that a revolution was being planned among the Vladimir circle, and that Ducky and Kirill were at the head of it. Such rumours were not true at all and before the Vladimir circle took any action, the Russian people arose against the Tsar..
For March 1917, the revolution had spread all over St. Petersburg. During this period Ducky discovered she was again pregnant, which woried her becuase of her previous miscarriages and difficult pregnancies, and over all, becuase she was now forty one years old.
On wednesday March 14th, while the anarchy reigned in the capital, Nicholas II was in the general quarters at Stavka and a Provisional Government was formed. The Duma issued a formal order ahich established that all the troops and their commanders officers must show their allegiance to the new Government by marching to the Duma and declaring their loyalty. Kirill's trops, the Naval Guards, were one of the few that hadn't joined the revolt. As their commander, Kirill must subject to the Duma's order. He was in an awkward position since for one side, he wanted to remain loyal to the Tsar, and for the other, if he disobeyed the Duma, his men would find themselves without a leader and would surely join the revolution. From his point of view his duty was to preserve order and to assure that the Tsar could safely return to the capital, even with the sacrifice of his personal pride, so he decided that he must lead his men to the Duma. So on the morning of Wednesday March 14th, 1917 Grand Duke Kirill and his Naval Guards marched to teh Tauride Palace, the seat of the Duma, where he found a chaotic situation that he later described: "Soldiers with unbuttoned tunics and their caps pushed to the back of their heads were shouting rthemselves hoarse. Deputies were yelling at the top of their voices, the palace was in a state of chaos and confussion..." Kirill remained the whole afternoon at the Duma, guarded by his loyal men and late at night he was taken in a private car to his home. He arrived on the early hours of the morning and was received by an anxious Ducky, who embraced him weeping when she saw him. Although she knew how dangerous was her husband's attitude, she was convinced he had done the right thing, although many would considered Kirill as a treator.
That same day Tsar Nicholas IIabdicated in his own name and in the one of his son, the Tsarevithc Alexis. The crown would pass now to the next in line, that was Nicholas's brother, Grand Duke Michael, but he abdicated that same day too. With Nicholas, his son and his brother put aside, Kirill was the heir to the throne, but the Provisional Government had change its mind about continuing with the monarchy and now people wanted a republic.
Kirill was forced to resigned to the command of the Naval Guards, but nevertheless his men remained faithful and they countinued to guard Kirill and Ducky's palace on Glinka Street. Meanwhile, Nicholas, Alexandra and their children had been arrested at the Alexander Palace in Tsarkoe Selo. and the hostility towards any member of the Imperial family increased. It was no easy to find food and many of their relative's houses had been sacked by the revolutionary mob. Although Kirill's men were still guarding the Glinka Palace, Ducky began to get anxious for he daughters' security and for the child she was expecting. She and Kirill decided that the best thing to do was to leave Russia. They tought of Finland as the best possible place to go. Although a territory of the Russian Empire, Finland possesed its own government and constitution, so in a way it would be like being in Russia and not being at the same time. Ducky and Kirill had already been once invited to Haiko, a beautiful estate, near Borgo, a small town on the south coast of Finland, not far away from Helsinki, and now Ducky and her family were longing to be at Haiko again.
It was required a special permit from the Provisional Government to leave for Finland and Kirill and Ducky requested it. After two weeks they received an answer from Alexander Kerenski, one of the leaders of the new Government who admired Kirill's courage and patriotism, informing them that the Provisional Government had allowed them to go to Finland. That same day Kirill had the permit in his hands.
They prepared to leave; they were not allowed to take anything of value, only the most necessary clthes. As their departure was "very quietly arranged" by the Provisional Government, it was decided, in order to avoid any suspicion, that Kirill and his daughters would leave first in a car that would take an indirect route to the train station. Ducky, heavily pregnant, left an hour later in another car, which followed a different route to the station. The officers at the station inspected the family's documents and then Kirill, Ducky and their two girls nervoulsy boarded the train to Finland. They would never return to St.Petersburg again.
They arrived at Haiko in the first days of June, 1917. The stressing moments lived during the passed days had mined Ducky's health; she was now forty one years old and seven months of pregnancy and was suffering from cramps in her legs which caused her to stand with difficulty. After two weeks the family moved to a rented house in Borgo ands on August 30th Ducky gave birth to her baby who was named Vladimir after Kirill's late father. Now with a male heir, it would be easiest for Kirill to claim the Russian. While Ducky was having her baby, the dethroned Tsar and his family were taken from Tsarkoe Selo to Siberia.
But soon the war reached Finland; taking adventage of the chaotic situation in Russia, the Finns declared their independence which led to astruggle between the conservative Whites and the comunist Reds to control the recently independent country. The first hostilities of tghe civil war took place near Haiko and Ducky and her family lived withe the conctant fear of meeting the revolutionaries, added to the difficulty to obtain the essential food.. The RTeds began to capture and shot tha local landowners and some Finnish aristocrats took refuge in Ducky's home, where they remained for three weeks until the Reds discovered them and were themselves forced to flee.
On February 9th 1918 the Finnish Reds made an incursion into Ducky's house but they behaved politely and touched nobody. Once again Kirill's prestige and reputation had saved his family. By the end of FeBruary Krill received an inquiry from the French Government about the safety of he and his family, and offering them to take official charge of their evacuation. Kirill and Ducky gratefully refused; they wanted to remain living within the Russian Empire and to leave Finland would be as a desertion. King Gustaf V of Sweden also offered them his hospitality but they also refused it.
In March 1918, after the Bolshevik government signed the peace with the Central Powers at Brest Litovsk, the civil war in Finland ended with a victor for the Finnish White army. Ducky and Kirill were devasted for the humillating terms the treaty imposed Russia: the lost of Poland, Finland the Baltic states and most of Ukrain. Besides things had not improved for them. Ducky's cousin, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden wrote to a friend about the family's situation in Finland: "I had a letter form Ducky form Finland two days ago begging me to send her some baby food for her eight months old boy; they can get nothing to give him, doesn't it sounds rather awful ? I shall do my bets to help her of course."
Between 1918 and 1919 a massacre of Romanovs at the hands of the Bolsheviks spread all over Russia. Ducky and Kirill, with great concern, gradually learned of the murderers of tmany of their relatives: Nicholas II and his family were all shot at Ekatirinburg in Siberia; Nicholas's brother, Grand Duke Michael was executed at Pern; Empress Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, along with Grand Duke Serge Mijhailovitch, three sons of Grand Duke Konstantine Konstantinovitch, Joahnn, Konstantine and Igor, and a son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch, Prince Vladimir Paley, were thrown alive into a deep mine shaft at Alapayevsk; four Grand Dukes, Paul, Nicholas Mijhailovitch, George Mijhailovitch and Dimitri Konstamntinovitch were executed in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.
England was Russia's only hope but in November 1918 British Prime Minister David Lloyd George opposed to any British intervention in Russia. Ducky and Kirill couldn't believe it and on Jnauary 29, 1919 Ducky wrote a letterto her cousin, the British King George V, with whom ahe had a devoted frienship since the years in Malta:
My Dear George:
Though neither Kirill or I have the slightest wish or intention of playing a political part, I have been asked to lay before you once more the fee,ings of all true Russians and to give you an exact picture of the desperate conditions in Petersburg. I undertook to do so, having the possibility of writing to you unoffically in the hope that it may acelerate the sending of help. That this cry for help would remain unanswered we still refuse to believe it, in spite of the news that has just reached us, that England , ignoring France's willingness to assit us, has definitevely refused all help to her former true ally, Russia..... It is possible that great political men shuch as Engalnd has at the head of her Government, fail to realize that the Bolsheviks do not represent the democracy of Russia and that they are not socialist....that thaey are nothing but the scum of the Earth profiting of a momentary madnness, to maintain their power by a reign of terror against which all humanity and civilization would cry aloud. This proposal of dealing with the Bolsheviks will eventually lead to one of the largest political mistakes ever made by any country...If you could but send us sufficient food transports to feed this army and the population of Petersburg for a few weeks, the military operations could start inmediately...The remaining supplies of food are entirely in the hands of the Bolsheviks and not allowed to reach any of teh population not belonging to the Bolshevik organization...all former offciers and officials are thrown into prisson and force into Bolshevik service by drastic meassures such as shooting off their entire families...Is England, who has ever been the front to raise an indignant protest against cruelty, oppresison ans tyranny, now going to remain, not only ompassive onlooker, bub by her trying to recognizing the Bolsheviks as a government ?....."
King George recieved the letter some weeks later and on March 13th, 1913 he answered Ducky:
"...There is no truth in teh news which reached you -that while France was willing, England refused to assit Russia-, on the contrary, we have been anxious to do our utmost help...we are appalled at and outrage by their (the Bolsheviks') revolting cries and realize that they are daily becoming an international danger...our desire and intention is to send food and munitions to those who are resistant to the Bolsheviks, and before your letter was written effect had been given to certain degree, to carry out those intentions... There unfortunately a serious obsatcle in the defficiency of ships, which ncreases the difficulty of carrying out our wishes...Please remember that nothing can be done except through concentred action of the Entente powers, which, in itself, constitute a serious element of delay and I just add that the lack of any united action of the Russian people themselves, adds to the complexity of a problemn which seems the almost insoluble."
Ducky didn't know exactly which interpretation to give her cousin's letter, but she realized that England had a strong anti-Romanov sentiment and that democratic Egland had always diliked the authocratic Russian Monarchy. Queen Victoria had once expressed that the Russian "absolute auticracy was wrong and was bound to en in tears".
Anyway, Ducky did another attemot to get some help fro her British cousin but King George never responded to her second letter. By the summer of 1919, Ducky had finnally given up her hopes that her couisn would help Russia and she became permanently alienated from England.
In the autumn of 1919, Ducky, Kirill and their children packed their things and went to Munich, where they met Ducky's mother, the Duchess of Coburg, in a deplorable state. She had lost her fortune at the hands of the Bolsheviks and the duchy of Coburg, as the whole German Empire and tteh lesser German states had collapsed at the end of the war and the Duchess had lost her home. She was worn out by suffering and had lost a great deal of weight. Ducky and Kirill arranged for her to live at the Waldhaus, a rustic annex to the luxurios Dolder Grand Hotel; it was all what they could afford since they had no money either.
Kirill's mother, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, was in a worse condition. During the revolution she had refuged at the Red Cross Hospital in the Caucasus along with her son Andrei and his mistress, the primma ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska. After much difficulties she could reach the port of Novorossisk at the Black Sea, from where she was sent by the White army to Constantinople on an Italian ship. Then she boarded a boat to Venice and then she finnally arrived to Switzerland where she met Kirill. He couldn't even recognized his mother; she was also worn out by suffering, lean and white haired. She was sent for recuperation to the spa of Contrexeville, near Nancy, where she died in Agust 1920. Two months later Ducky's mother died too, of a a heart attack during sleep.
VICTORIA MELITA
