DEATH OF THE TSAREVITCH

A VICTIM FROM BIRTH

News was received in London yesterday of the death of the Tsarevitch, although no details are at hand of the manner of his end. It may have been due to neglect, exposure, or all those nameless cruelties in which ruthless Bolsheviks might choose to indulge towards the Heir-apparent of the Throne. Or it may have happened in a more tragic fashion, according to a story which was rife in Paris a few days ago. It was there stated that because the young ALEXIS burst into tears when the news was given him of his father’s murder, one of the officers standing by took out his pistol and deliberately shot him.

At any rate, the Tsarevitch’s death is for all practical purposes a murder, because of all the family of ROMANOFF he was the most fragile and the least likely to be able to endure the savagery of gaolers and the privations of captivity. All the circumstances surrounding his ill-starred life lend themselves to tragedy. There is, first, the ardently expected birth of an heir who is one to carry on the ROMANOFF line, the prayers offered up on his behalf, the joy and the congratulations which attended the fulfilment of Imperialist hopes. Then is heard the laughter of ironic gods. The discovery is made that the Tsarevitch was never likely to enjoy the health vouchsafed to other boys of his age, and there follows the constant agitation of the mother, who saw how slender a hold on life her son possessed; the ceaseless anxiety of the father, prepared to do anything to secure some measure of vitality for his enfeebled offspring.

Probably much that is with difficulty to be explained in the conduct of the Tsar finds its real illustration in his almost passionate longing for the Tsarevitch’s future. Many observers have wondered why NICHOLAS, who was thought to have some inclination to become a Constitutional Monarch – who instituted those negotiations at The Hague which seemed to promise infinite possibilities of a European peace – should have changed so much of his liberal outlook and become more and more a great reactionary autocrat. Perhaps the secret was his desire to pass on his Imperial power absolutely unimpaired to his successor. He would not give up one of his sovereign privileges, because he thought that he held them in trust for the young ALEXIS. He would not listen to the older counsellors, who foresaw only too clearly whither this despotism was tending, and in spite of their advice turned rather to the inferior men round his Court, who would support him in any and every Imperial excess. It is an arguable proposition that NICHOLAS became a despot for the sake of his son, and that all the other aims which a Sovereign should keep before him in the execution of his august task were sacrificed to the interests of an ailing boy.

There is nothing to be said about the Tsarevitch, because he was never given a chance to develop any strong phases of character. As he was the victim of ill-health from his birth onwards, he became a spoilt son, for whom everything was to be done and from whom no unselfish action was to be expected. His mother idolised him, and, as we know, resorted to exceedingly dubious medical advice in the hope of curing him of a persistent malady. So, too, he was the idol of the Tsar, to be encouraged and petted and fostered, if only the kindly fates would accord to him a destiny worthy of his name.

Doubtless to a sensitive boy of thirteen the appalling catastrophe of the Russian Revolution was a blow from which he never recovered. He went with his father first to Mogileff, and afterwards to a castle in the Crimea, with a few rough Bolshevik soldiers to be his attendants, and afterwards his executioners. Then came the crowning tragedy of the Tsar’s murder, when, in fear of a possible revolt, or, at all events, owing to the alarm of a reported Czechoslovak advance, the unfortunate NICHOLAS was shot as a precautionary measure against any reversal of the Bolshevik régime. And, last scene in this melancholy history, the boy himself was regarded as a danger to the Revolutionary State, to be removed at all hazards. His mother and sisters were, or are to be, transported to Switzerland or Spain, and the Tsaritsa, according to a well-authenticated report, has, in the absolute ruin of all her hopes and the destitution of her life, signified her desire to enter a convent.

Whatever views we may take of the recent history of Russia, or the obvious faults and failings of the ROMANOFF dynasty, the history of the Tsarevitch, whose life was a blank, who never enjoyed health, and who finally was destroyed as a common malefactor, must move our pity and our sympathy. During all the events of recent months we have been constantly reminded of the course of the French Revolution, with the obvious analogies suggested between the Terror and the Bolshevik chaos. Thus, too, the fate of the Tsarevitch makes one think of another young princeling, the Dauphin of France, second son of Louis XVI. and MARIE ANTOINETTE. He, too, saw his father condemned and executed by a revolutionary tribunal. In 1792 he was imprisoned in the Temple, and his subsequent fate has never been determined.