Nicholas II takes supreme command

On 5 September 1915 (23 August by the Julian calendar) Tsar Nicholas II arrived at the headquarters, the Stavka, near Mogilev and himself assumed supreme command of the Russian army. He replaced Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who had been commander-in-chief since the beginning of the war. The new commander-in-chief’s chief of staff was General Mikhail Alekseyev, until then commander of the Western Front.

In his order to the army and navy the Tsar announced: “Today I have taken command of all the land and sea forces in the theatre of war. With firm faith in the grace of God and with unshakeable confidence in final victory, we shall fulfil our sacred duty of defending the Fatherland to the end and shall not disgrace the Russian land.” According to the Tsar’s diary, he signed the order and the rescript to the Grand Duke the following day, but dated them 23 August.

A decision against everyone

The Tsar had wanted to command the army himself since the beginning of the war, but in 1914 his ministers had talked him out of it. In the summer of 1915 the situation changed. The army had been retreating since May, Russia had lost Galicia, the Kingdom of Poland and part of Lithuania, and in August Kovno had fallen, as had Brest-Litovsk. The Stavka had to leave Baranovichi and on 21 August moved to Mogilev. Nicholas II believed that in the hour of trial his place was with the army. Many historians also point to the influence of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grigori Rasputin. Both distrusted the Grand Duke, who enjoyed enormous popularity and whose staff interfered in the affairs of the civil administration.

On 19 August (6 August by the Julian calendar) the Minister of War, Alexei Polivanov, breaking secrecy, informed the Council of Ministers that the Tsar had decided to remove the Grand Duke and take command himself. According to the notes of the government’s meetings, the news caused enormous agitation among the ministers. A few days later the Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Krivoshein, warned that in the mood then prevailing in the country, a change of commander-in-chief would be “not a spark but a whole candle thrown into a powder magazine”. Much of public opinion thought the same. The Moscow City Duma sent the Tsar a telegram expressing confidence in the Grand Duke.

The letter of the eight ministers

On the evening of 2 September at Tsarskoye Selo the Tsar presided over a meeting of the Council of Ministers that lasted until half past eleven at night. The ministers failed to persuade him. The next day eight of them, including the Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov, the Finance Minister Pyotr Bark, Krivoshein and the Interior Minister Prince Nikolai Shcherbatov, signed a collective letter to the monarch. In it they begged him not to change the commander-in-chief and not to leave the capital, because his decision “threatens, in our deepest conviction, Russia, you and your dynasty with grave consequences”. They ended by stating that in such conditions they were losing faith that they could serve the Tsar and the fatherland usefully. The letter was not signed by the Prime Minister, Ivan Goremykin, who sided with the monarch.

The Tsar remained unbending. On 4 September at the Winter Palace he opened the first meeting of the new Special Council for the supply of the army, and in the evening he said goodbye to his family and left for the Stavka. In his diary he wrote: “May the Lord God bless my journey and my decision!” The same day deputies of most of the factions of the State Duma signed the agreement from which the Progressive Bloc emerged, demanding a government that enjoyed the confidence of the public.

Alekseyev at the Stavka

At half past three in the afternoon of 5 September the Tsar’s train reached the Stavka. “Nikolasha was waiting for me. After talking with him, I received Gen. Alekseyev and his first report. All went well!” noted Nicholas II, calling the Grand Duke by his family diminutive. Along with the Grand Duke went his chief of staff, General Nikolai Yanushkevich, and soon afterwards the Quartermaster-General, Yuri Danilov. Nicholas Nikolaevich became Viceroy of the Caucasus and commander of the army there.

The Tsar had no experience of commanding large formations, and the actual direction of operations rested with Alekseyev. The British chronology of the war notes that although formally he was only chief of staff, in practice he performed the duties of commander-in-chief. He was one of the ablest Russian generals, and throughout the summer he had directed the army’s retreat from Poland. Already in August his former front had been divided in two: the Northern, under General Nikolai Ruzsky, and the Western, which Alekseyev commanded until his move to the Stavka; after him it was taken over by General Alexei Evert.

The change at the Stavka did not immediately stop the German offensive, but in the autumn of 1915 the front in the east gradually stabilised. The ministers’ warnings proved accurate, however. From then on the Tsar was personally responsible for every defeat, and he spent most of his time in Mogilev, far from the capital. In Petrograd the influence of the Empress and Rasputin over appointments grew. That same autumn the Tsar got rid of several of the ministers who had signed the letter, including Shcherbatov and Krivoshein.