Did President Wilson help murder Nicholas II?

[griffh]

This letter from the late Emperor was written at Peterhof and addressed to his mother in Denmark.

“…You remember, no doubt, those January days…I am going to try to describe the position here as briefly as possible…Petersburg and Moscow were entirely cut off from the interior…  When at various [revolutionary] meetings…it was openly decided to proclaim an armed uprising, and I heard about it, I immediately gave the command of all troops in the Petersburg district to Trepoff…  Trepoff made it quite plain to the populace by his proclamations that any disorder would be ruthlessly put down; and, of course, everybody believed that.  So the ominous quiet days began…  Everybody was on edge and extremely nervous, and, of course, that sort of strain could not go on for long.  Through all those horrible days, I constantly met with Witte.  We very often met in the early morning to part only in the evening, when night fell.  There were only two ways open: to find an energetic soldier and crush the rebellion by sheer force.  There would be time to breathe then but, as likely as not, one would have to use force again in a few months; and that would mean rivers of blood, and in the end we should be where we had started.  I mean to say, government authority would be vindicated, but there would be no positive result and no possibility of progress achieved.  The other way out would be to give the people their civil rights, freedom of speech and the press, also to have all laws confirmed by a State Duma—that, of course, would be a constitution. …My dear Mama, you can’t imagine what I went through before that moment…My only consolation is that such is the will of God, and this grave decision will lead my dear Russia out of the intolerable chaos she has been in for nearly a year.” 

To me these are the words of a man of deep personal integrity struggling to do the highest right; a man who was in deep conflict over upholding the honor of his House and at the same time wanting to free his beloved country from the destructive chaos that threatened to consume his people. 

This valiant young man, in spite of being handicapped by his youth and inexperience (having only recently turned 37 and therefore almost ten years younger than the youngest American President) was the first Russian ruler to have the courage and foresight to complete the momentum started by his grandfather, the Czar Liberator Alexander II, but stalled by his own father, Alexander III. 

Nicholas letter to his mother reveals the deep spiritual ordeal he passed through in order to find the morale courage to go against everything his beloved father had stood for and to go against his own sacred coronation vows.  There is no indication in his deeply moving letter to his mother that he did not know what he was doing or that it took that momentous step in a half-hearted way, or that he did not fully understand that he was changing the character of his own position, that of his House, and that of his government for the betterment of his people.  In a sense he was taking new vows when he signed the Imperial manifesto.   

I don’t find anything in this man’s thoughts that indicate weakness or insincerity.  I know that my point of view is a minority point of view, but I hold to it as I happen to take Nicholas at his word. 

[griffh]

In 1914 America was a third world debtor nation.  It owned its foreign creditors 6 billion (1914) dollars.  It was not the industrial revolution that made the USA as a world power, as it had Great Britain in the mid nineteenth century.  It was armament sales in 1914-1918 that created the USA as a world power and it happened in 4 short years.  I will quote the figures from "The Perils of Prosperity," in another post.  No nation in recorded history had ever gone from a debtor nation to a creditor nation in 4 short years.  This was possible because America had stayed neutral through most of the war.  The nation would continue to base its prosperity on arms sales to the end of the twentieth century, until the last decade when it finally was able to change its financial base because of the commuter chip, though arms sales still play an enormous part in the country present economy. 

By the end of 1918 the USA was a creditor nation with Europe owing it well over 6 billion (1918) dollars.  Some historians say that the 1929 crash occurred because the nation continued to conduct its business after the war as if it was still a debtor nation.  I will quote the Secretary of State's response of disbelief, in another post, when he received that momentous letter from Great Britain in 1918 informing the American government that England was bankrupt and would need a line of credit.  Winston Churchill said that  impact of WWI that it had perhaps halted civilization in Europe for a hundred years.

In 1917 Wilson had already extended a $340 million dollar credit to Kerensky to keep the war effort going.  The line of credit was not exhausted by Kerensky and passed on the Lenin and was used as a bargaining chip to encourage Lenin to continue fighting the war.  It was money that made the President of a former third world country law among the Allies in 1917-18.  It was money that changed the whole nature of the European conflict.  So much money was owed America after WWI that it was estimated that the debt would take until 1956 to be paid off. 

Europe bankrupted itself and committed political and financial suicide first by fighting a war of contrition and secondly by the insane spite of the Versailles treaty that would eventually plunge all of Europe into an enormous welfare state.  And this is not even taking into consideration the impact of WWII.     

[Bev]

I want to acknowledge that I read your posts, but I don't have much time today for more than a few comments - I will respond in depth later, this is a very interesting discussion and I am enjoying it.

What is missing from your hypothesis is any evidence to support it - your claim is that Wislon was responsible for the fate of the Romanovs.  There is no evidence to support that claim.  You offer Kennan's ill drawn conclusions, made at a time when the papers and documents pertaining to the administration and their covert activities were still classified.  In later writings Kennan himself said that he was unaware of the administration's actions during the time period.  In my opinion, you're relying on Kennan's earlier suppositions, without considering later historians' work.  (Such as Foglesburg)

Secondly, you're forgetting the one maxim that guides all politics - in the words of Tip O'Neil, "all politics is local."  Wilson's policy pronouncements were meant for a domestic audience, to achieve domestic political goals.  Also, it wasn't until later in his political career, that Wilson sought a third way in U.S. foreign policy.  Up until that time the policy was dominated by Jeffersonians - avoidance of foreign political entanglements by maintaining a distance between the U.S. and especially European nations, while the Hamiltonians dominated economic policy which promoted a deep alliance with Great Britain and a dependence on their military might to maintain global trade (and their financing the protection, I might add, which was a major consideration in our foreign policy.)  America was the junior partner in the alliance and was perfectly content to stay so.  The main drive to enter the war, wasn't ideological, that was for public consumption, the main drive was the fear and chaos the war was creating in our economy. 

Which leads me to this observation - we went from a debtor nation to a creditor nation, not because of our robust arms sales, but because of the withdrawal by foreign governments of private and government investment.  The numbers that truly tell the story of our economic growth, are the PDI and FDI percentages of the GNP.  The total foreign investment in 1914 was 20% of the GNP and by 1918 it was down to 4%.  Part of this astounding turn about in our economy was the fact that we simply confiscated German patent wealth which meant that profit stayed here, and our share of the world agricultural market grew so dramatically because of the depression of agriculture in Europe.  This wasn't seen as such a good development in 1914 - we were dependent on foreign investment from the British and Germans to finance our westward expansion and development of our industries.  It wasn't until after 1918, that the realization of our global market share was completely dominant.  (Just as after WW II, it created an artificial growth that was never quite realistic, once Europe was back into industrial and agricultural production maximums.)

Best wishes,
Bev

[AGRBear]

A side note which should be remembered.

After Nicholas II abdicated, the Duma was the govt but only for a short period of time.  The Provisional Govt. took the reigns and started to pass all kinds of new laws which were directly related to the rights of the individuals.  The time period between the Provional Govt. and the Oct/Nov Revolution was the only period of time in Russian history where the Russians had gained many many rights as individuals.

On one of the old threads I listed some of the important rights gained.  I'd find them but  I'm getting ready for 25 people for dinner tonight so I don't have time to look today but I'lll find it when I get a chance and list them.

The reason they are important is because this is the New Russia Wilson heard about when news reached him about the Revolution.

When the Oct. / Nov. Revolution occured,  everything started to change.

There is a thread I started which talks about the American troops which Wilson sent to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. 

Curious One's grandfather, who was born in Russia,  and who had migrated to USA, ended up back in Russia as part of the evacuation of troops and Russian citizens.  Her grandfather knew people like Pres. Wilson, Sidney Reilly and others.

Since I haven't read the books being discussed by Bev and the others,  from what I know,  at a quick read, Bev seems to be more in tune to the politics at that particular time.

 I can't agree is that "Wilson was not interested in Nicholas II fate" because I think he was.  The USA was more invovled in some of  the rescue plots of Nicholas II than recorded in books.  From what I understand,  there are  documents which exist which talk about clandestine activities.  I've not seen them personally but people I trust have seen them.  Evidently, as it was told to me, there were American agents active in Ekaterinburg in July of 1918.

Since I'm not a student of Wilson,  I can't really add anything new, accept this reminder:  Wilson did send agents and  troops into Russia to fight the Bolsheviks.

AGRBear

[grandduchessella]

Very interesting discussion, indeed and conducted by those more 'in the know' than myself. I will only had some sites I came across after reading this discussion that some may or may not find interesting:

Woodrow Wilson and Bolshevism (written in 1943):
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol04/no04/phelan.htm

America's Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920 by David Fogelsong: "A well-researched account of the dilemma faced by Woodrow Wilson in fashioning a policy toward the Bolshevik Revolution. "
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807849588/104-7271879-8739117?v=glance&n=283155

The legacies of Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations in Russia - Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations by Alexander Khodnev
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2393/is_n1_v158/ai_17162651

 RE-EVALUATION OF THE VERSAILLES PEACE By William R. Keylor (from the Quarterly Journal of the Great War Society )
http://www.worldwar1.com/tgws/rel007.htm

One can make of them what one will. 

[grandduchessella]

a single term American political egg-head such as Wilson

Just a small correction, Wilson was a two term (1913-1921) political egg-head. 

He is one of my least favorites as he was the hated enemy of my favorite US President, Thedore Roosevelt, but he was, for better or worse, elected twice. 

[Guinastasia]

That and he was a violent racist.

I will say though, that at least when he heard of the murder of the Imperial Family, he cancelled an important public dinner, or speech, and was incredibly alarmed by the Bolshies.

Still was a jerk, though.

[gugussey]

Interesting, too, that early in 1918 Prince George Lvov, now "an kindly, impotent old man" traveled across Siberia, through Honolulu  and San Francisco (where he met with Pss. Lyuba Lobanov Rostovsky, former maid of honor to Empress Alexandra) to Washington where he met with a harried President Wilson to plead the Romanov cause.  He came away "a broken man".

Landfield-Harper Correspondence:  Regenstein Library University of Chicago

[griffh]

Grandduchessella, thank you and I humbly stand corrected.  I am being rather atrocious, aren't I, by calling President Wilson an egghead.  But on the bright side I am so glad that you love Teddy.  Apparently so did Nicholas II,  I have just finished reading the wonderful memoirs of George von Lengerke Meyer, Teddy Roosevelts American Ambassador to Russia from 1905-1907.  Von Lengerke Meyer established a wonderful rapport with Nicholas II, I think, in part because they were both gentlement, but also because of the Emperor's great respect for President Roosevelt.  And of course Alice R, the only American not married to a European title to appear in Court circulars.   Von Lengerke Meyer was also closely connected to Kaiser Wilhelm, who did his part to encourage Nicholas to take advantage of the peace conference.  Meyer vividly protrays how he was able to convince Nicholas II to allow Roosevelt to help bring a peaceful conclusion to the Russo-Japanese war, even in spite of the American press's admiration for Japan.  

By the way there is a website devoted to the peace conference in Portsmouth, NH.  They say that it was the first example of a peace conference in which the popluation took part and worked to show no favoritism between the Russian or Japanese representatives and did everything they could to create a convival atmosphere.  

Anyway George von Lengerke Meyer was recalled from Russia, only because of his appointment as Post Master General of Unitied States and his departure was genuinely mourned by Nicholas II.  

I guess one of the reasons I was so negatively struck by Wilson's ignorance and indifference to Russia seven years later and the unexplained actions of his Ambassador to Russia, Mr. Mayre in 1916, came in part from having just finished reading von Lengerke Meyer memoirs. Meyer seemed to understand Nicholas' particular approach to problem solving and knew how to encourage and help him, without being unaware of the lack of confidence that often plauged the late Emperor.  

Anyway I totally adore Teddy Roosevelt's response to Wilson's "Fourteen Points," which had to be based on Roosevelt far greater knowledge of Russia and Nicholas II.  Wilson's remarks must have seemed infantile and absurd to Roosevelt.  His response follows:

"Our allies and our enemies and Mr. Wilson himself should understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority whatever to speak for the American people at this time.  His leadership has just been emphatically repudiated by them.  The newly elected Congress comes far nearer than Mr. Wilson to having a right to speak the purposes of the American people at this moment.  Mr. Wilson and his Fourteen Points and his four supplementary points and his five complementary points and his utterances every which way have ceased to have any shadow of the right to be accepted as expressive of the will of the American people."

Here, here, Teddy!!!  Oh boy, Grandduchessella wait until I reveal the Americans that Wilson unleashed on Russia and how their activities compromised even Wilson's deluded vision for world peace.  World peace?  Hello, Queen Victoria had already achieved the longest period of world peace through British diplomacy since Ceasar.  As for Wilson's achievements, sorry, or as they say in show business, "Next."  

[grandduchessella]

By the way there is a website devoted to the peace conference in Portsmouth, NH.  They say that it was the first example of a peace conference in which the popluation took part and worked to show no favoritism between the Russian or Japanese representatives and did everything they could to create a convival atmosphere.  

I actually found that site when I was helping my husband research the Russo-Japanese War for Naval Command and War Staff course he was taking--even though he's Air Force. An interesting site.

The one thing that makes me want to throttle TR is that his disillusionment with his hand-picked successor, Taft, and probably some ego, led him to mount a 3rd party challenge in 1912. It split the Republican vote and led to Wilson's first election.  (It also led to the death of his close friend and aide, Maj Archibald Butt, who also served in the same capacity for Taft. He was so mentally and physically stressed by the tension between the two he went on vacation in Europe. He booked passage back on the Titanic and went down with the ship.  )

Anyway, back on topic, I can't wait to read more of what you have to say about Wilson. 

[Guinastasia]

The only thing I dislike of Teddy were his actions in Latin America-the whole thing was disgusting-I hate colonialism. 

However, I also think he was rather progressive for his time. 

[griffh]

Bev, Granduchessella and AGRBear, please forgive the smarty pants tone of my last email.  I am such an arrogant fool at times.  I am so grateful for all that I am learning from you and I shall certainly buy the book on America’s intervention.  I still planning to share in a future post a brief description of the men Wilson sent to Russia as it is really a remarkable diverse group of men who honestly were impossible to control and whose political sympathies ranged the entire gamut from the Cadets to the Communists probably while the secret plans for the intervention were forming.  I wholly agree that Kennan had no knowledge of the secret plans for intervention.  I have a wonderful memoir by Captain Marion Aten, D.F.C. and Arthur Orrmont, “Last Train Over Rostov Bridge,” written by two men who actually took part in the intervention.  And I look forward to reading the new book on it and seeing how it expands on information not available to Kennan.  Thanks Grandduchessella for the websites on Wilson and the Amazon link to order the book on the intervention.

Bev I also totally agree with your careful and much more thorough analysis of America's astonishing rise to power as a creditor nation.  I believe that added to wartime profits made from American agriculture, there was also the lesser known wartime market for medical supplies and medicine.  The fledgling pharmaceutical industry was also enriched by the war. 

But I do not agree that the America steel manufactures did not make their fortune during the war.  Perhaps you can point me to some book that will correct my statement.  I remember so distinctly in the late 1980’s when the President of a 50 million dollar industry, I know that is a very small industry, but none the less, the President of the company was perplexed about his continued prosperity when the steel industry was showing losses.  He told me that he had always been able to judge the prosperity of the times by watching the price of steel and that he was perplexed until he realized that the new indicator of prosperity was based on the watching value of the computer chip and that steel no longer measured American prosperity or the lack of it.  Maybe you can help clarify that for me.     

I do agree that the American dollar was only beginning to have a political impact on European politics during the period of 1917-1918, but non-the-less it was there and it was used as a bargaining chip.  I also agree that it was not just the tomfoolery of the Versailles Peace treaty with its impossible financial burdens that the British brain-trust demanded of German and that backfired so hideously, but that it was also American’s refusal to alter their import/export policies that brought that compounded Europe’s financial ruin and brought on the country’s own financial devastation in the opening years of the third decade of the last century.     

William E. Leuchtenburg’s, “The Perils of Prosperity,” supports what you have said Bev and I am in full agreement.  Leuchtenburg states:  “By 1929 the national income of the United States was greater than that of Great Britian, Germany, Francem Canada, Japan and seventeen other countries combined.  The war had produced a revolutionary change in the world economy.  In 1914 the United States was a debtor nation; American citizens owned foreign investors nearly three billion dollars [not 6 as I had mistakenly quoted, sorry about that!].  (continued in next post)

[griffh]

Leuchtenburg continues: "By the end of 1919 the United States was a creditor nation, with foreigners owing American investors nearly three billion dollars.  In addition, the United States had loaned over ten billion dollars to foreign countries, mostly to carry on the war, in part for postwar construction.  These figures represent one of those great shifts in power that occurs but rarely in the history of nations.

For three hundred years the American people had been dependent on European capital.  The American Revolution was in part a struggle between British lenders and American borrowers; in the nineteenth century it was the stream of European capital into the United States that built the American railway system.  The three centuries the country had balanced its trade by exporting more than it imported, and American economy was geared to creating an export surplus—largely of farm products like cotton and wheat—and selling it abroad.  The shift in the war wiped out the basis for the export surplus and demanded Herculean effort to redredge the channels of world trade.

Britain had maintained its position as the creditor nation of the world by the drastic method of sacrificing it agriculture, in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and maintaining a policy of free trade.  This expedient had unfortunate social results within Britain, but it was the only policy consonant with its position as a creditor nation.  As the new creditor nation, the United States, had little alternative save to adopt the British method.  Yet no American government would have dreamed of sacrificing American agriculture.  The administration would have given even less thought to banking the fires of American industry.  It was the misfortune of the world and, ironically, a curse to the United States that the American economy was too well balanced to let the nation play the role of a creditor.  The new lending creditor nation of the world was a country for whom foreign transactions were, relatively speaking, an insignificant element in its economy.  Under the circumstances, the boldest, most imaginative kind of leadership was required to prevent world trade from being paralyzed and to avert an economic disaster that would have terrible political and social consequences.

Instead, the United States under Harding and Coolidge mad an exceptionally difficult situation far worse.  If the United States was to function as a creditor nation, it had to import more than it exported.  But the country moved in precisely the opposite direction.”

[Guinastasia]

griffh, depends on which steel manufactorers you're talking about.  The steel industry in the US was centered around the Western Pennsylvania area, especially in my home town of Pittsburgh-had it had been prospering long before the first WW.

[griffh]

Hey Guinstasia, thank you that is great point, thank you.  By-the-by, AGRbear have a wonderful dinner party!!!  I just wanted to take a moment and document the third world status of America prior to the Great War.  The first quote is from the prologue of Wyn Craig Wade’s book, “The Titanic, End of a Dream,” that catches a picture of mid-nineteenth century American industry accomplishments.  Wade starts by describing the impact of Prince Albert’s great accomplishment, the Great Exhibition of 1851, and how it symbolized the wealth and power that had come to Britain through the Industrial Revolution.  Wade quotes the Times description of the opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen in the Crystal Palace in 1851, thus: 

“In a building that could easily have accommodated twice as many, twenty-five-thousand persons, so it is computed, were arranged in order round the throne of our SOVEREIGN.  Around them, amidst them, and over their heads was displayed all that was useful or beautiful in nature or in art.  Above them rose a glittering arch far more lofty and spacious than the vaults of even our noblest cathedrals….Some were most reminded of that day when all ages and climes shall be gathered round the throne of their MAKER.”

Now we may ask, “How many of those useful and beautiful inventions of science and art were of American origin?”  Wade describes mid-century America’s contributions by quoting Punch magazine in 1851 who noticed that, “…the entire east end of the Crystal Palace had been set aside for the Americans, “but what was our astonishment, on arriving there, to find that their contribution to the world’s industry consists of as yet a few wineglasses, a square or two of soap, and a pair of salt cellars!”  Wade adds, “Even when a few more items were added, without doubt the most interesting and influential “product” of the United States proved to be it minstrel show, which, like the palace’s giant steam engine, went into gyrations on the hour.”


That is so hard for Americans to take.  Wade does say that the Civil War increased the United States natural resources tenfold.  However if you read the reviews of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, European inventions predominated the exhibition.  American reaction to the early air flow devices shown in the fair was that they blew the ladies bustle about in the most jarring manner.  Typewriters, automatic canning machines from Germany, etc, were all equally jarring to the American sensibilities.  However there was one object that the American public loved and that was a whistle made out of a pig’s tale.  I am not joking. 

And in terms of the medical world of America and nursing, the medical historian, Richard Ludmerer’s recent book, The Art of Healing, reveals nineteenth century American medical practice and medical education as barbaric compared with Europe, and I mean barbaric.  Even the Harvard medical school could not administer entrance exams because of the poor literacy of the medical students.  Ludmerer paints a truly shocking picture that did not change even after the sterling example of Florence Nightingale.  If you have ever been told that there was any kind of real nursing in the American Civil war, read Ludmerer’s book.  Again it was during WWI with its demands for medical supplies, doctors and nurses that caused reforms which reorganized the entire medical education and the medical and industry in America by adapting Henry Ford’s factory system..