On 24 April 1918 Yakovlev informed Kobylinski about the latest instructions from Moscow: the emperor and his family were to be moved from Tobolsk – without delay. This was shocking news for Kobylinski, who exclaimed: ‘But what about Alexei Nikolaevich? He can’t travel. He’s ill!’ Yakovlev cut him short: ‘Look, the whole thing comes down to this. I spoke on the direct line to the Central Executive Committee. The order is to leave the entire family here but to transfer the former Sovereign.’ With that, he asked Kobylinski to accompany him to a discussion with Nicholas next day after breakfast. Tatishchev told Nicholas of the scheduled meeting.1
Nicholas and Alexandra stood waiting for Yakovlev next day at the appointed time. Yakovlev behaved with courtesy, even bowing to Nicholas. But he ignored Alexandra: he obviously had important things on his mind. His message to the imperial couple shocked both of them: ‘I have to tell you that I am the extraordinary plenipotentiary of the Central Executive Committee in Moscow, and my powers consist in my duty to take the entire family away from here. But because Alexei Nikolaevich is ill, I have received a follow-up order to depart with you alone.’2 Nicholas lost patience and exclaimed: ‘I’m not going anywhere!’ Yakovlev dealt coolly with the challenge and explained the facts of life to the man who was his prisoner:
I ask you not to act like this. I have to fulfil my instructions. If you refuse to travel, I must either use force or else give up the task that has been laid upon me. In that instance they could send someone else who is a lot less humane than myself. You can remain calm. I answer with my own head for your life. If you don’t wish to travel alone, you can travel with whomever you want. Make ready. We’ll be departing tomorrow at four [in the morning].
With that he bowed again, turned and left. Nicholas gestured to Kobylinski to return to them after seeing Yakovlev out of the building: he needed to talk about how to deal with the new order. When Kobylinski returned, he found Nicholas and Alexandra in deep discussion with Dolgorukov and Tatishchev.3
Nicholas took a solitary walk in the grounds for a full hour while he considered his options. Alexandra grew frantic. As a mother she wanted to stay behind with her sick son, but as a wife she felt an equal obligation to Nicholas. She found it impossible to sit down despite her frailty and talked intensely with her daughter Tatyana and Pierre Gilliard. At times, though, she held a conversation with herself as if they were not present. She cried out: ‘This is the first time in my life that I completely don’t know how to behave.’ She was tormented by the thought of what would happen to Nicholas if he were to leave alone. She felt sure that the Bolsheviks would put pressure on him to sign an endorsement of the Brest-Litovsk treaty – she speculated that they would threaten to harm the rest of the family if he resisted. She paced around her room, trying to make up her mind. Tatyana and Gilliard implored her to decide. In the end she could stand it no longer and came to the only solution that she could abide. ‘Well, it’s decided,’ she said. ‘My duty is to go with him. I can’t let him go alone. And you will look after Alexei here.’4
When Nicholas returned to the building, she told him: ‘I’m going with you. I shan’t let you go alone.’ He was not going to stop her if she was determined to go on the journey. As Gilliard was to record, Nicholas’s reply was brief and simple: ‘It’s your decision.’ They then switched to English, presumably to avoid letting the Swiss tutor know what they were saying.5
Nicholas asked Kobylinski where it was that Yakovlev was planning to take him. Kobylinski said that hints had been dropped about Moscow – this tallied with Yakovlev’s remark that he expected the trip to take four to five days. The Romanovs and their entourage had been expecting this for some weeks. Kobylinski added the reassuring comment that Yakovlev hoped to return to Tobolsk within a fortnight and pick up the rest of the imperial family. The exact arrangements for travel agitated Nicholas less than how the Bolshevik leadership intended to treat him at the as yet to be disclosed destination: ‘Well, what they want is for me to endorse the Brest-Litovsk treaty. But I’d rather cut off my own hand than do that!’ Alexandra agreed. She repeated what she had decided, adding that her presence was crucial to her husband’s capacity to face down the Bolsheviks: ‘I too shall make the trip. Without me, they’ll compel him to do anything just as they compelled him once before!’ She was referring to what had happened in the February Revolution, which in fact had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. Looking back at the circumstances of Nicholas’s abdication, she continued to hold Mikhail Rodzyanko particularly responsible for having broken her husband’s resolve to stay on the throne.6
Alexandra agreed that the Bolshevik plan was to force Nicholas to endorse the treaty. She told Volkov the valet: ‘I’m leaving Alexei Nikolaevich, so look after him here. I’ve made up my mind and have to share my fate with the Sovereign.’7 Yakovlev’s ultimatum arrived at a time when young Alexei’s legs were giving him much pain. He cried and cried, calling for his mother. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she contemplated leaving him behind. Volkov had never seen her in such a condition.8 It was only the need to prepare for the trip that kept her from falling apart. She also had to put on a brave face in front of her daughters – Tatyana in particular was in a terrible state and squeezed her hands in fright.9 When Maria Tutelberg expressed sympathy, Alexandra replied: ‘Don’t exaggerate my grief, Tutels. This is the heaviest moment for me. You know what my Son means to me. I have to choose between my son and my husband. But I’ve made my decision and it’s necessary to be firm. I must leave the boy and share life or death with my husband.’10
Yakovlev could scarcely believe what he witnessed in Alexandra that day. He knew from observation and hearsay how devoted she was to her sick son, and yet suddenly she was planning to abandon him to the care of others. What had happened to her maternal instinct?11 Her political reasoning made no greater sense. Yakovlev’s party had nearly torn itself apart over Brest-Litovsk. Lenin had forced the treaty down his party’s throat and the last thing he was now likely to do was to reopen the discussion by seeking an endorsement from the detested former emperor.
Over at the Kornilov house, Yakovlev asked Kobylinski: ‘Who is going to be travelling?’ He at last conceded that Nicholas could take whomever he wanted with him. The sole restriction would be on the baggage load.12 Kobylinski hurried back to Freedom House, where Tatishchev told him what had been decided. Nicholas wished to take Alexandra and their daughter Maria on the journey along with Evgeni Botkin, Dolgorukov, the valet Terenti Chemodurov, Ivan Sednëv and Anna Demidova. Kobylinski hurried over again to Yakovlev, who said: ‘It’s all the same to me!’ The important thing for Yakovlev was to get going.13 His impatience was understandable. Despite his enquiries, it was still the case that nobody could tell him where Zaslavski was or who was with him. Yakovlev was a man of action and wanted to complete the transfer of Nicholas to the Urals capital before any Uralite could stop him. With his usual steadiness he calculated that a swift departure from Tobolsk would wrong-foot those like Zaslavski who might try to thwart him. He pressed everyone in his team to get themselves ready for the journey.
Yakovlev sought last-minute clarity from Moscow about its requirements. A message came through from I. A. Teodorovich in the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets giving permission for just ‘the main part’ to be transferred to Ekaterinburg. (Teodorovich, writing in guarded language in case his cable fell into unapproved hands, was endorsing Yakovlev’s plan to depart with Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria.) This still left Yakovlev with some concerns, and he asked for information about the Urals leadership. He wanted to know whether it was true that Goloshchëkin had recalled Zaslavski.14
On Yakovlev’s orders, Kobylinski assembled the guard detachment to announce the plan on terms of strict secrecy. Yakovlev himself addressed the gathering. Accentuating his distaste for the Romanovs, he referred to Nicholas as ‘the former Tsar’. He assured the soldiers that Alexei’s illness genuinely prevented the family as a whole from travelling. This was why he was taking Nicholas, Alexandra and one of their daughters in the first party, to be followed by the other Romanovs as soon as Alexei was fit enough. Yakovlev, knowing that some soldiers might object, gave warning that anyone refusing to obey orders was liable to be shot. He announced that he had asked Kobylinski to draw up a list of suitable soldiers for the armed escort. There had already been complaints that Kobylinski had included the officers Nabokov and Matveev. Could this be some kind of trick to damage the revolutionary cause? Yakovlev dismissed any such thought – after all, Matveev too was a Bolshevik and a promotee from the soldiers’ ranks. He had made his decision and now he expected total compliance.15
Kobylinski assumed that Yakovlev aimed to get away before anyone in the Tobolsk Soviet leadership knew what had happened. The problem was that the troops in the existing guard detachment were unhappy with the plan unless they themselves supplied the escort. Yakovlev felt that he could manage better with his own men from Ufa. But he offered to take Matveev, Lukin and others of revolutionary solidity with him. He aimed to reassure everyone that he was not planning any kind of betrayal.16
The weather was an important factor. Winter was giving way to spring and the northern rivers were starting to melt. Ice was yielding to mud, but the process had only just begun, which meant that horses and carriages, rather than the steamship, would be required to reach the railway at Tyumen.17 Whichever mode of transport was used, there could be political complications, for Yakovlev could certainly not assume that he would have no trouble in reaching even the outskirts of Tobolsk with the three Romanovs. He therefore sent his Ufa Bolshevik comrade D. M. Chudinov into town to seek guarantees from the Soviet leadership that nothing untoward was being plotted. Chudinov’s other duty was to collect a large number of tarantasses for the cortège – he managed to procure nineteen of them.18 He also arranged for the drivers to be paid by the mile. Invoice forms were taken, to be given to them en route.19
Frantic preparations were made in Freedom House as the servant Fëdor Gorshkov packed four suitcases for the emperor.20 The three Romanovs prepared for the worst and decided to take camp beds, too.21
The imperial family dined alone on the eve of the emperor’s departure while the retinue had their meal separately. Everyone was sad and depressed.22 But the Romanovs had been brought up to show durability in times of adversity. The Soviet authorities could impose whatever conditions they liked and the family would accept the inevitable. With Yakovlev’s agreement, the emperor and empress would be accompanied by Dolgorukov, Dr Evgeni Botkin, the emperor’s valet Terenti Chemodurov, the empress’s maid Anna Demidova and Ivan Sednëv. Yakovlev had also granted the request for the Grand Duchess Maria to accompany her parents. Demidova spoke of her own fears: ‘Oh! Mr Gibbes, I am so frightened of the Bolsheviks, I don’t know what they will do to us.’ Tea was served to all the residents at 11 p.m. It was like a wake. Little was said. There was no pretence at gaiety. Yakovlev then announced that the party would leave under cover of darkness. The retinue went back downstairs to wait for orders, which were finally delivered in the dead of night at 3 a.m. Nicholas and Alexandra descended the stairs and there followed a painful parting with Alexei and the other children. Alexandra and Maria preceded Nicholas. The moment of departure had arrived.23
Disagreement flared when Yakovlev indicated that he wanted Nicholas and Alexandra to occupy separate vehicles. Whereas Nicholas had no objection to travelling in a carriage with Yakovlev, Alexandra was horrified at the idea of sitting next to Pavel Matveev. An empress, even an ex-empress, disliked physical proximity to an ill-kempt trooper. She demanded that her daughter should sit by her side. Yakovlev gave way, seeing no point in further dispute. Dolgorukov sat with Botkin, and Chemodurov with Sednëv. Yakovlev moved Matveev to a seat next to Demidova.24 Looking across at Nicholas, he asked why he was only wearing a greatcoat. Some of the retainers reacted as if questioning Nicholas in this way was an insufferable breach of etiquette – their pomposity was extraordinary. But Yakovlev was sensibly concerned about the cold conditions. Nicholas replied that this was what he always wore for a journey, which Yakovlev thought to be downright silly. Yakovlev called over to the tsarevich’s valet Ivanov: ‘Bring him something.’ Ivanov, however, was used to more decorous forms of address in relation to Nicholas; he asked Yakovlev who it was that he meant. Yakovlev pointed at Nicholas and exclaimed: ‘What do you mean, who? I mean him!’ This at last elicited the necessary action as Ivanov went to fetch a blanket for the former Tsar of All Russia to sit on.25