Dismissal of Sazonov

On 20 July 1916 (7 July by the Julian calendar) Tsar Nicholas II signed at Headquarters in Mogilev a rescript dismissing the foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov. Sazonov had directed Russian diplomacy since 1910, throughout the whole of the war. His place was taken by the prime minister, Boris Stürmer, who also kept the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers. Sazonov, who was then resting in Finland, learnt of his dismissal the next day, 21 July, and the press announced it officially on Sunday 23 July. The British chronology of the war records the change under 22 July.

The Polish question

The immediate cause of Sazonov’s fall was the Polish question. Since the start of the war the minister had argued that Russia should win over the Poles with broad self-government. In August 1914 Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, in his proclamation to the Poles, had promised the unification of the Polish lands under the Tsar’s sceptre, but the promise long remained without substance, and in the summer of 1915 the Germans and Austrians occupied the whole of the Kingdom of Poland, including Warsaw. Sazonov feared that the Central Powers would themselves proclaim some form of Polish statehood and win the Poles over to their side.

In the first half of July 1916 the Tsar summoned the ministers to Headquarters to settle the question of Polish autonomy. According to the French ambassador Maurice Paléologue and the British ambassador George Buchanan, in whom Sazonov confided after his return on 13 July, the minister had won the argument all along the line, despite the opposition of Stürmer and other conservatives. The Tsar instructed him to prepare a manifesto. Under Sazonov’s plan the Kingdom of Poland was to have an imperial viceroy, its own council of ministers and a two-chamber diet, as well as full administrative power, except for the army, diplomacy, customs, common finances and strategic railways, which would remain in the hands of the imperial authorities. The Polish lands of the Austrian and Prussian partitions were in future to be joined to the Kingdom. The satisfied minister left for a short rest in Finland.

The intrigue

In his absence Stürmer returned to Mogilev and, as Buchanan wrote, found it easier to persuade the Tsar in private conversation than at a meeting of the Council of Ministers. According to both ambassadors he was backed by the Tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna, who could not forgive Sazonov for having opposed in 1915 the Tsar’s assumption of the supreme command and for having demanded the dismissal of the prime minister Goremykin. Sazonov also made no secret of his dislike of Grigori Rasputin, who according to Paléologue had been repeating for several weeks that he had “had enough of Sazonov”. The minister was also accused of being unable to work with Stürmer and of getting on too well with the Duma. Supporters of Russian autocracy believed that autonomy for the Poles would be a dangerous precedent.

When on 19 and 20 July the deputy foreign minister Anatoly Neratov warned the French and British ambassadors that the ukase was already prepared, both took an unusual step. Buchanan sent a personal telegram to the Tsar through the British military representative at Headquarters, and he and Paléologue asked the Minister of the Court to persuade the monarch to change his decision. According to Buchanan the telegram was delivered, but the Tsarina had meanwhile arrived unexpectedly in Mogilev and the minister’s fate was sealed. The Tsar replied that Sazonov was utterly exhausted and that his decision was irrevocable. In the rescript he thanked him for his many years of service and explained that the minister had himself asked to be relieved on account of health worn down by work.

Reactions

Officially the change was not to affect foreign policy. Neratov assured the ambassadors, on the Tsar’s express instructions, that Russia’s course would remain the same. Even so, in Petrograd and in the Allied capitals the dismissal caused consternation. Sazonov was regarded as the guarantor of Russia’s loyalty to the Entente; only on 3 July he had signed the agreement on the Far East with Japan, and difficult negotiations with Romania were under way. Stürmer, with his German surname and his reputation as a man of the court camarilla, aroused distrust. Paléologue noted that the first reaction was “a wave of astonishment and indignation”, and the leaders of the Progressive Bloc in the Duma regarded the change as a challenge thrown down to public opinion. The British foreign secretary, Edward Grey, fully approved of Buchanan’s unauthorised step, and George V soon conferred on Sazonov the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

Stürmer, who since March had also headed the Ministry of the Interior, handed it over to the previous minister of justice, Alexander Khvostov. The manifesto on Polish autonomy was never published. A few months later, on 5 November 1916, it was Germany and Austria-Hungary that proclaimed a Kingdom of Poland in the occupied lands, as Sazonov had feared. Stürmer himself remained in power only until November 1916.