The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

On arrival at Tsarskoe Selo, General Ivanov found the little town abandoned by its garrison and learned that the Czar’s ministers had been arrested in Petrograd. To try to fight his way into the capital with his understrength battalion would, he concluded, merely lead to useless bloodshed, and so he notified Headquarters. After a rather unsatisfactory consultation with the Czarina, whom he found bewildered by the ingratitude of her husband’s subjects, Ivanov, who like many high-ranking professional soldiers, seemed dutiful but hardly zealous in defending the regime, entrained again with his troops on an aimless ramble among the outer suburbs. For some reason he had not considered it necessary to reinforce the Imperial Family’s guard at the Alexander Palace. The next day the Imperial Escort Regiment, which was responsible for their safety, deserted to the revolution. (The Duma, however, sent delegates to assure their protection.)