Thank, you very much, Sarushka, for Stavks's pictures..... But I don't understand, What is Stavka(Palace?)in Mogilev, and when Nicholas and Alexis were there?
Nena : In Russian « stavka » means military headquarters and isn’t a actual geographical place. It is located wherever headquarters are established. At the beginning of the War the Headquarters for the Supreme Commander of the Russsian armies (Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich) were at Baranovichi, a railway hub in the Province of Minsk.
As Major-General Handbury-Williams recalls in his memoirs (
http://www.alexanderpalace.org/hanbury/ )
« The headquarters were located in various trains drawn up on the sandy soil of some pine forests amid scenery not unlike that of Aldershot.
A few adjacent huts served as workshops for the staff, but we of the Allied military missions were located in the same train as the Commander-in-Chief the Grand Duke Nicholas. We 'messed' in his dining-car. When the Emperor came down his train was drawn up on a special siding a little farther from ours, and in the pine forest, but near enough to be reached in two minutes' walk.
We remained at this place (going off individually at times to see the armies) till the late summer of 1915, when the retreat before the advancing enemy made us shift our quarters to Mohileff. »
In September 1915, Nicholas II assumed supreme command himself. At Moghilev he took residence at the Governor’s Mansion while the General Staff was located in the adjacent building, the former Tribunal.
So : from August 1914 to August 1915 : Stavka was at Baranovichi. After August 1915: Moghilev (in today's Belarus, on the bank of the Dnieper river).
The Tsar made frequent trips to Stavka. After he became Supreme Commander he went there more often and stayed longer. Beginning mid-October 1915, when Alexis was well enough he went along, accompanied by his teachers. The rest of the I.F. occasionnaly made some brief visits.