CHARACTER OF THE LATE CZAR

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 15 November 1918, Page 1

CHARACTER OF THE LATE CZAR

SIR G. BUC OX_HI3 VIRTUES

AND MISTAKES. Sir George Buchanan, Ambassador at presiding at a. dinner of the Uritish Russia Club in London recently said: 1 am not golnc; to pronounce a Timolol oration on the, fall of the Russian autocracy, for I had no sympathy with a political system that constituted an almost insuperable barrier to that close understanding between the British and Russian peoples ivbich it has been my £reat embition to bring about. If I had to" write the epitaph of the old regime. I should say that it fell self-condemned, through Jts innate weakness and incapacity. On the other hand, the news of the judicial murder 01 the late Emneror has been so misrepresented in cinema fiW and in sensational accounts of the events -which preceded the Revolution that I feel constrained to correct the t-rroneous impressions which have thus been created about a man whose sufferings in captivity and whose tragic death will, if I mistake not. meet with more pity and pvmpathv at the bar of history than they have" ev*ked Mherio. Like our o—n sovereigns of the 17th and 18th centuries, he cannot reasonably be judged by the standard of modern British political ideas.' He had inherited all the traditions of the strictest autocracy; he had its principles instilled into him from his earliest youth—and when he ascended the throne ho acted under the mistaken belief that it was his duty to maintain it intact, Uior.gh neither his'personal tastes nor character fitted Wirn j or the role of an autocratic ruler. He loved his country, and he sincerely desired the happiness of his people, but" it cannot be denied that his Government. as administored by reactionary Ministers with the active collaboration <if th'e secret police was oppressive. He was not, however, a blood-sudring tyrani. such as the Bolsheviks have represented him; nor was he guilty of crimes such as they have committed in the name of liberty* When ho rejected the German ultimatum the nation was with him to a man, and both at Petrograd and Moscow the people fell on their knees as he read the .war manifesto. But when, shortly before the Kevolntion, I reminded him of this when I besought him to go to the Duma and win back his people to his side, when I begged him not to listen to those who were advising him to maintain reactionary and incompetent Ministers in power, when I urged him io dismiss Protopopoff. and to appoint a Government that would command the confidence of the Duma and the nation, he replied that he never allowed anyone k> influence him in the choice of Ins .Ministers. He must consequentlv bear the for their sins of commission and omission. But I must say this : that he always allowed me to speak with absolute frankness, and then when once he had pledged his word on any of foreign policy he never went back on it. It is. moreover.-, absolutely untrue that he ever contemplated makinV a separate, peace with Germany, and, up to the very day of his abdication, he was 1 determined to stand by his Allies, as when, in the autumn of 1914, he made that, diversion in East Prussia which relieved the German pressure on Paris at the cost of some 200,(X)0 of his best troops. He was always the true friend and loy.-l

?!ly of this country, and I know as a ia< tthat- when in the summer ot 1916 -151 attempt was made by the German Emperor to seduce him by arguments based on mutual dynastic interests he categorically refused. He -would, moreover, never have consented to receive back his lost crown from Germap hands, and this, perhaps, accounts for the fact that- the Emperor William nover raised a finger to save him.