Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 41

Because of his ill health King Peter, for a long time, delegated authority to his son Alexander for the purpose of government.

Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia, who abdicated in June, 1917, was born May 18, 1868, and succeeded his father, Emperor Alexander III, on November 1, 1894. He married Princess Alexandra Alice, daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and has four daughters and one son: Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia and Alexis.

The family is descended in the female line from Michael Romanof, first elected Czar in 1613, and, in the male line, from Duke Karl Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp. As the result of intermarriages and connections with the royal houses of Germany, they are practically Germans by blood.

It was in fact the German influence, which is said to have been the immediate cause of the revolt in the great country.

The revolution may be said to have had its inception when a small group of men opposed to the German influence at court a.s.sa.s.sinated the monk Gregory Rasputin, who had a great influence over the Czar.

A REACTIONARY CABINET INSTALLED.

Czar Nicholas in anger dismissed Premier Trepoff and installed a thoroughly reactionary Cabinet. Trepoff had been in office only a short time, having followed M. Sturmer, who had bitterly fought the Duma. It had been commonly reported that the real power in the Russian Government after Sturmer went out was in the hands of the Minister of the Interior, M. Protopopoff. Sturmer had been called to the premiers.h.i.+p to succeed M.

Goremykin, who was in office when the war began.

The fact that Michael Rodzianko, president of the Duma and one of the leading advocates of liberalization of the Government, was named as the chief figure in the provisional government, showed that the movement is in the hands of the same forces which had demanded the overthrow of the bureaucracy and a more energetic prosecution of the war.

There were many changes in the Russian Government during the war, although the censors.h.i.+p was enforced so rigidly that the significance of the rapid s.h.i.+fts was apparent. Vague reports reached the outside world of high councilors of State who were obstructing instead of a.s.sisting the work of carrying on the war, and the strength of German influence at Petrograd. The most conspicuous case of this sort was that of General Soukhomlinoff, former Minister of War, who was dismissed from office and imprisoned as a result of charges of criminal negligence and high treason.

M. Sazonoff, Russia's Foreign Minister at the beginning of the war and an ardent believer in the prosecution of the war, was deposed early in the reactionary regime and sent as envoy to London. It was suggested that the motive for this was not to honor an anti-German, but to get him out of Russia.

MEMBERS OF THE RUSSIAN CABINET.

The members of the Russian Cabinet, as announced for the Provisional Government, were:

Prince Georges E. Lvov, well known as president of the Zemstvos' Union, Prime Minister.

Alexander J. Guchkoff, Minister of the Interior.

Paul Milukoff, well known as a Const.i.tutional Democrat leader, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

M. Pokrovski, Minister of Finance.

General Manikovski, chief of the Artillery Department, War Minister.

M. Savitch, Minister of Marine.

M. Maklakoff, Minister of Justice.

M. Kovalevski, Minister of Education.

M. Nekrasoff, Minister of Railways.

M. Konovaloff, Moscow merchant, Minister of Commerce and Industry.

M. Rodischneff, Secretary for Finland.

M. Kerenski, Minister without portfolio.

The executive committee of the Imperial Duma, as the provisional Government styles itself, is composed of twelve members, under M.

Rodzianko, including two Socialists, two Conservatives, three Moderates, five Const.i.tutional Democrats and Progressives.

Constantine I, King of Greece, who abdicated in favor of his son, Prince Alexander, on June 11, 1917, under pressure from the Allied countries, was born in 1868. His father, King George, was a.s.sa.s.sinated at Salonica on March 18, 1913. The abdication of King Constantine in June, 1917, was due to his opposition to the forces in the government which desired to join the Allies in the war against Germany. The influence in favor of the Germans in the royal family of Greece was Queen Sophia, a sister of the Kaiser.

For a time Constantine was a veritable idol in Greece. In 1896 when his country was drifting into war with Turkey, he sounded a warning that the Greek army was unprepared for a campaign. The infantry was armed with condemned French rifles; the cartridges were 15 years old; there was no cavalry; the artillery was obsolete, and the officers few. When the country went to war despite his warning, the result was a disastrous defeat. A similar situation developed when King George tried to oppose the popular clamor for the annexation of Crete. The King knew that Turkey was waiting for another opportunity to crush Greece, and there was a second uprising.

CONSTANTINE BECOMES AN IDOL.

Constantine had been in command of the military forces, and King George was obliged to dismiss him as Generalissimo. In the Balkan war of 1912, however, when he led an army of 10,000 Greeks to the capture of Salonica, causing 30,000 Turks to lay down arms, he became an idol. On ascending the throne, it was said that he aimed to restore the grandeur of the ancient h.e.l.lenic Empire, and that he was a firm believer in the old national prophecy that, under the reign of a "Constantine and a Sophia," the Eastern Empire would be rejuvenated and the cross restored on Saint Sophia in Constantinople, supplanting the Crescent of the Turk.

In fact, after the Balkan war, when Greece added a section of Turkish territory to her domain, and the islands of Crete were annexed, King Constantine hoisted the ancient h.e.l.lenic flag over the fort.

The climax in Grecian affairs was precipitated when Turkey entered the great World War on the side of Germany. The question of intervention on the part of Greece arose, and King Constantine insisted on strict neutrality being observed. The cabinet, headed by Premier Venizelos, which was for war on the side of the Allies, tendered its resignation.

When the operations began against the Dardanelles the Government believed that the time had come for Greece to enter the war. The King refused to countenance the plan, arguing that the sending of forces to the Dardanelles would dangerously weaken the Greek defences on the Bulgarian frontier. Queen Sophia was regarded as bitterly opposed to the country joining the Allies, and was reported to have threatened several times to leave the country.

The criticism directed against Constantine was severe because, under the terms of the treaty made in the Balkan war, Greece was committed to ally herself with Servia if that country were attacked by another power.

Austria did invade Servia, but Constantine a.s.serted that the treaty applied only to an attack by another Balkan nation.

ACCUSED OF EVASION.

The occupation by troops of the Entente Powers of a part of Macedonia, and the seizure of Salonica as their base, involved the King of Greece in a long series of clashes with the Entente commanders, and he was accused of evasion and attempting to gain time in the interests of Germany. A temporary understanding was obtained, but meantime the provisional government, headed by Venizelos, had been growing in strength, and obtained the recognition of the Entente Powers.

The Allies laid an embargo on the supplies of Greece, and Constantine was denounced by the people of Crete and other territory, who demanded his dethronement. This was the situation, in a general way, which led to his abdication and his retirement to Berlin, with the Queen, in the summer of 1917.

Alexander, who succeeded his father, was a second son, born August 1, 1893. He was a captain in the First Regiment, artillery, in the Greek army.

Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, who threw the weight of his country with the Allies, repudiating the treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary which established what was known as the Triple Entente, was born in 1869, the only son of King Humbert, second King of United Italy, who was murdered at Monza, in July, 1900. Victor Emmanuel married Princess Elena, daughter of Nicholas, King of Montenegro, and has four children: Princess Yolanda, Princess Mafalda; Prince Humbert, heir-apparent, and Princess Giovanna. The mother of King Emmanuel--Dowager Queen Margherita--is a daughter of the later Prince Ferdinand of Savoy.

TRAGEDY THE PATHWAY TO THRONE.

Charles I, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was born in 1887 and succeeded his grand uncle, Francis Joseph I, in November, 1916. His way to the throne lay through tragedy, for he came into the crown immediately through the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir-apparent, and his morganatic wife Countess Sophie Chotek, in Bosnia, and which crime was the signal for the war. Nor would Charles have been ent.i.tled to succeed to the throne but for the fact that the Archduke Rudolf, heir-apparent to the throne, committed suicide in 1889.

The right of succession went with his death to the second brother of the then Emperor Francis Joseph, or Archduke Charles Louis, father of the a.s.sa.s.sinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand. It pa.s.sed then after the tragedies to Archduke Otto, brother of Francis Ferdinand, Charles I being the son of the Archduke Otto. The young Emperor married Princess Zita of Bourbon Parma in 1911. She is the daughter of Duke Robert of Parma, and sister of the first wife of Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The Emperor has four children: Francis Joseph Otto, Adelaide Marie, Robert Charles Ludwig and Felix Frederic August.

Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Czar, is son of the late Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and late Princess Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of King Louis Philippe. He was born in 1861 and succeeded Prince Alexander, who abdicated. He married Marie Louise, daughter of Robert of Parma, and after her death married Princess Eleanore of Reuss-Kostritz. There are four children by the first marriage: Prince Boris, heir-apparent; Prince Cyril, Princess Eudoxia, Princess Nadejda.

Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, was born May 17, 1886, his father, King Alfonso XII, having died nearly six months previous to his birth. Maria Christina, mother of the heir to the Spanish throne, was an Austrian princess. In 1906 King Alfonso XIII married the English Princess Victoria Eugenie, daughter of the late Henry of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice, a daughter of the late Queen Victoria.

KING ALFONSO'S SONS.

King Alfonso XIII has four sons: Alfonso, Prince of the Asturias, heir to the Spanish throne; Prince Jaime, who is deaf and dumb; Prince Juan, and Prince Gonzalo. There are two daughters, Princess Beatrice, and Princess Maria Christina.

The King's sisters were Maria de las Mercedes, who married Prince Carlos of Bourbon, in February, 1901, and died in 1904, and Infanta Maria Teresa, who died suddenly from the effects of childbirth. She was the wife of Prince Ferdinand, who afterward remarried Dona Maria Luisa Pie de Concha, who was created d.u.c.h.ess of Talavera de la Reina, and given the courtesy t.i.tle of Highness by Alfonso. Don Carlos, who was born in 1848, and was the pretender to the Spanish throne, was a second cousin to the King. He died in 1909, leaving a son, Prince Jamie, born in 1870, and who is the present pretender, and four daughters.

The Spanish reigning family are the Bourbons, descendants of King Louis XIV of France.