"THE GREAT WHITE CZAR."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 90, 1 October 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

"THE GREAT WHITE CZAR."

NICHOLAS 11. OF RISSIA-IN

ANECDOTE.

Nicholas 11., Emperor of all the Russias, is in many ways the most interesting and remarkable of all th* Sovereigns of Europe. Supreme Auto crat of a seventh part of the earth, and of a tenth of its opulation; owner of half a hundred titles of Czar and Prince, Duke, and Lord, he is the most unaffected man who ever wielded a sceptre. Lord of a score or more of palaces, the most splendid in the world, and of a million square miles of land and forests and rich mines, yielding a revenue of £2,000,000 a year, his personal tastes are so simple that, as be himself has said, he could be quite happy on a few hundreds a year. 'To his subjects he is the "great white Czar," "the Lord's Anointed," reverenced as being almost Divine, and yet to the meanest of them all he is " the Little Father," beloved as a brother. The desoendant of a line of giante, ranging in stature to Peter the Great's seven feet, Nicholas ifl, with one exception, the shortest monarch in Europe; and while hi£ father, Alexander 111. was a man of Herculean muscles, who could roll silver platters into tubes and crush horseshoes in the grip of hie mighty fingers, the son is a man of weak, almost frail physique, with not the faintest physical resemblance to the Romanofs who hare precoded him on the Throne.

A RETIRING SOVEREIGN

No Sovereign, indeed, ever came to a Throne with more reluctance than Nicholas, or shrank more from the bu •- den of a crown and the gilded trappings of Royalty. On one occasion, it s said, while returning from the family annual holiday at Copenhagen, the conversation turned upon a difference thai had sprung up between the Danish King and his. Parliament. "Well," exclaimed the Czarevitch, as Nicholas then was, "a King's bed is certainly not one of roses, and, so far as I am concerned, I had a thousand times rather be an obscure country gentleman than evvii the Czar of all the Russias." As there was no escape from the Crown, hi 6 great ambition in these early years was to be, no autocrat, but a democratic King, as the following story proves. On one occasion his English tutor, Mr. Charles Heath, had been reading to his pupil, " The Lady of the Lake." When he came to the stanza in which the Scottish King rides down liom Stirling Castle, and the people greet him with a tumultuous shout, "Long live the Commons' King, King James," the boy exclaimed, with glowing eyes, "The Commons' King! that is what I should like to be."

Many charming tales are told of the Czarevitch's simplicity and unconyentionality—among them the following. Nicholas, says M. Leudet. was never hapiper than when, on Sundays, he and his brothers were allowed to entertain their young friends, and for a delighsful hour or two forget their e*a.iea rank. On these occasions the fun bcame quite riotous. " There was no end to the tricks the hosts and their smad guests played on one another. From end to end of the table there wis coatinuous firing of bread pellets, which were perpetually striking pr>(ire:y roses or landing in royal mouths. Another favourite joke was to jog i neighmour's elbow while he was drinking, or to baptise him with a glassful of wine."

A LOVER OF SIMPLICITY

And although much of the Czarevitch's light-heartedness and love of fun and 'frolic disappeared under the shadow which the Throne on his life, he still retains the simplicity and hatred of ceremonial which marked his hrother, when Czarevitch, of whom the following amusing story in told. " One day," says a Lady of the Russian Court, "the Czarevitch came to bid us good-bye before leaving for Denmark, and when he arose to go, he said, 'Oh, dear, 6tiff collars, stiffer manners, anu stiffest of dress-suits will be the order of the day! How I dislike them! I am so happy here, where I can do as I like.' Whereupon his Imperial Highness glanced at his shoe, in which a slit appeared, and all the company laughed." As Czar, Nicholas cannot well indulge his love of Bohemianism to quite the same extent; but he loves to escape from the splendours of his Petrograd palaces to his villa in the Crimea, or his secluded home in the Peterhof Park, where he can dress as he pleases and lead the simplest of simple lives. Even in the Winter Palace the .oonis he occupies are much more plainly furnished than many a suburban villa, and on all but State occasions he insists that the friends hr ask? to dine with him shall not put on special crotnes. And he is never happier than when he can escape from the network of guards and secret police for a quiet stroll or a ride on a tramcar in the streets of h ; s capital.

SNUB FOR THE SNOBS

In this connection the following ciiar. nctcristic story is told. A few years ago a young officer of an aristocratic regiment so far forget his. dignity as to lide in a public tramcar—a crime for which he was severely lectured by his colonel, who requested him to send in hie resignation. When the Czar heard t«f the incident, he quietly left the Palace, mounted a tramcar for all the world to 6ee, and rode to the hoadquarters of the regiment. " Gentlemen," he said to the astonished officers, "I am your colonel, and have just come from a ride in a tramcar. Do you wish me tc send in my papers?" And tho Czar's simplicity is matched by his kindness and large-hearted tolerance, as is shown by the following samong many similar tories. On hrs accession to the Throne, when a number of students refused to take the oath of allegiance, and as a consequence expected to be sent to Siberia, he said, " If they refuse to be my loyal subject*, let them leave Russia within twentyfour hours, and live elsewhere untrt tl.ey have acquired another nationality; then they may return, if they please, and finish their education. So impressed were the refractory student l ? by the Czar's magnanimity that they imcmdiately consented to take the oath.

A few days later, the Czar had an experience of which he still loves to toll the story. A poor old woman who had heen crushed in the catastrophe of the Hodinflkoye Field, in the mad rush of the crowds to partake of the new Emperor's bounty, lay in the hospital when Nicholas paid a visit to her ward. ''Why were-you in the crowd?" asked one of the nurses. "I wenl in sec- the F.mperor," was the reply. "Then why don't you look at him now?" the nurse said ; " he is here, and standing hy your side." The old woman looked at the insignificant ronn standing hy her bedside, and then turned nway exclaiming indignantly, "Don't tell mo lies! As if T didn't know Emperors are not made like that!"

COURAGEOUS IN DANGER,

But, although the Czar lacks the imposing presence of his ancestors, he has a courage as stout as theirs, as was proved when, during his visit to Japan in 1891, he was furiously attacked with a sword by a fanatical native policeman, and after being wounded twice was only saved from death by his cousin, Prince George of Greece, who struck the would-be assassin down. " It was God," wrote Prince George to his father, " who gave me strength to deal that blow; for had 1 been a little later, the policeman had perhaps cut off Nicky's head. . . . Throughout the whole terrible scene Nicky showed the greatest pluck, and seemed to treat it ail as a joke!" The most romantic chapter in the Czar's life is that which tells the story of his wooing of the beautiful Princess Aiix of Hesse, whom he first met and learned to love when, as a child of four, teen, she paid a visit to her sister, the Grand Duchess Serge of Russia. Never wa6 wooing more idyllic than that of the future Emperor and the goldenhaired Hessian Princess —"the personification of her nickname, "Sunny," as her mother wrote of her loveliest and youngest daughter. "" A charming picture is drawn of their later meeting under the roof of Princess Louis of Battenberg, amid the beauties of the Thames at Walton. " Here, paddling in little wherries, pulling up hack-waters, the future Auwcrat of the Russias humbly pressed his suit. He went to no races, he fled all dissipation, rejected all the well-meant offers to amuse him, and gently surrendered himself to his happiness." But, ideally happy as both were in their love, there was a serious barrier of religion to surmount before their happiness could receive its crown, ancf it was only after many tears and much pleading and pressure that the Princess at last consented to become a member of the Greek Church, and the way to the altar was clear.

How happy this union has proved the world knows. To-day the Czar and his Empress are as truly lovers as in those balycon days of wooing in the Thames back-waters, and to their love has been added a mutual love of their children. Nowhere will you find a family, Roval or plebian, more united and devoted than that of Nicholas 11. "The Czar," the Infanta EulaJie of Spain tells us in her recently published volume, "Court Life from Within," "has more human tenderness than I ever saw in any other man. and this tenderness has its chief expression in hfs adoration of his beautiful wife and devotion to his children. They used 10 make me come with them sometimes to the nursery, where the little Grand Duchesses used to welcome us with shrieks of delight. What games those were! People who think of the Czar as a frowning despot would have been astonished to see a vigorous pillow-nght going on between him and his children !"

Nor would they be less astonished at seeing the "great white Czar" diacing at the Court balls with the yigoi-r and abandon of a schoolboy. " His animation and vivacity," the Infanta iells us, "were simply amazing. I liked lo watch him dance the mazuka, that rushing, almost violent dance that, they say, only a Slav can dance to porfection. It was so obvious tint he keenly enjoyed it."