The Last Tsar - Chapter Three The Birth of the Heir

Chapter Three
The Birth of the Heir

'On August 12th 1904, took place the event which, more than anything else, determined the whole later course of Russian history. On that day was at last born the heir to the throne, long expected and fervently prayed for.'

There was one black spot in the cloudless happy married lives of the Tsar and Tsarina. It was that the Empress did not give birth to a son, the heir to the throne. On 12th August 1904, ten years after their marriage, the Empress, at last, gave birth to a son, Tsarvitch Alexis. In spite of a disastrous war with Japan, the birth of the Tsarvitch brought tremendous joy to his parents. Alas! Within less than six weeks, their joy and happiness vanished. He was discovered to be haemophiliac (the blood does not clot).

The Tsar wrote in his diary - 'Our little Alexia's navel was bleeding without any reason. We called the doctor, who bandaged him tightly. Thank God, after that bleeding was stopped and his healthy looking features took away our fear. It is terrible to live with these fears and anxieties for the rest of our lives.'

Professor Pierre Gilliard, the tutor of Tsarvitch, recalled - 'I knew Alexis Nicholavich was a prey to a disease but what sort of disease I had no idea. Like every child he was mischievous. When he was a little boy, his nanny used to bring him to his sister's classroom and interrupted his sisters' lessons. He would not go until he was carried away. For some time he could not be seen. Every time he disappeared, the Palace was smitten with depression. His sisters tried in vein to conceal their anxieties. Being asked why they were looking sad, they only answered - 'Tsarvitch Alexis is not well.'

The family moved to Spala, the hunting lodge of the Imperial family in Poland, in September 1912 where Tsarvitch was about to die from a fall. In Spala the Tsarina asked Gilliard to give lessons to her son. 'To my great surprise I found that Alexis Nicholavitch could not walk. He was carried to the classroom by two giant sailors, called Nagorny and Drevenko (not connected with Dr. Drevenko, who was the specialist of haemophilia). I gave him lessons for a few days. He became very ill and was bedridden again. But his disease was always kept in strict secret. Only the household of the Palace knew about it. The illness of the Tsarvitch cast its shadow over the whole of the concluding period of Tsar Nicholas II's reign and can explain it. Without appearing to be, it was one of the main causes of his fall, for it made possible the phenomenon of Rasputin and resulted in the fatal isolation of the Sovereigns, who lived in a world apart, wholly absorbed in a tragic anxiety which had to be concealed from all eyes.' - Gilliard.

'The Empress refused to surrender to fate. She talked incessantly of the ignorance of the physicians. She turned towards religion and her prayers were tainted with a certain hysteria. The stage was ready for the appearance of a miracle worker. She tried to wrench from God what modern science denied her. Sitting on a cold floor in the dark chapel by a lamp, she prayed day and night, begging the same thing: the good health of her very sick son.' - Grand Duke Alexander.

The suffering of the Tsarvitch from haemophilia led his distraught mother to turn to Rasputin, the mystic healer, for help. Rasputin's presence near the throne, his influence on the Empress, and through her on the Government, brought the downfall of the Russian monarchy.' - R.K. Massie.

As he grew up, Alexis's parents explained everything to him about his fatal disease. Sometimes he understood and tried to compromise with it. Sometimes he could not.

'Mama, can I play tennis?' Alexis asked his mother. 'Alexis, dear, you know you cannot', answered his mother.

Pausing a few minutes he asked again - 'Can I have a bicycle, mama?'

'Dear, you know you can't have', answered the Tsarina.

Then the boy burst into tears. 'Why everybody got everything, I got nothing.' Sometimes he rebelled against constant over-protection. The deprivation from which Alexis was suffering was covered up by his parents with superb, exotic, magnificent toys, imported form abroad. Most of them were operated by electrics. There were great railways with passengers (dolls) inside, stations, buildings, bridges, tunnels, battalions of tin soldiers, models of towns with church towers, domes, floating models of ships, factories with doll workers, mines with miners ascending and descending. All the toys were mechanically operated.