Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

The War Years
St. Petersburg 1914 – 1917
All through early August patriotic spirits ran high. The Russian army had crossed the
German border near Eydtkuhnen and was pushing into East Prussia.
Alexandra thought of the Bredows. Like Helena’s parents, who had fled their estate
eastwards, the Bredows would flee west. What would become of their house and fields?
By mid August a great battle near Soldau-Tannenberg in East Prussia was in progress.
The churches were crowded with worshippers. Alexandra had a terrifying recurrence of her
vision of a year ago.
The general euphoria suddenly collapsed, when the rumors of a terrible defeat turned
into certainty. Two weeks after the battle, the high command reluctantly admitted the loss of
one-hundred-thousand men, dead, missing, or taken prisoners by the Germans, and fiftythousand
wounded.
By the fall of 1914 the Russian armies had lost another hundred-thousand men in the
retreat from East Prussia. The Germans were advancing on the Baltics, the Austrians in the
south.
Refugees and wounded poured into St. Petersburg. All medical practitioners in town
were pressed into emergency service. Alexandra and Helena were fortunate, they were
allowed to work side by side in the hospital where they had trained. They worked in shifts. It
was good to be close to each other, their job was gruesome. Many of the young men brought
from the front were in dreadful condition, many died under their hands. But this horrible work
kept Alexandra from brooding. Every day demanded all of her. After a ten-hour shift she
returned home exhausted.
To detract from the East Prussian defeat the Emperor declared a Holy War to recapture
Constantinople from the Turkish Infidels. Alexandra’s worries about her parents grew, but Tiflis
remained peaceful. The Ottoman Empire was so shaky that Russian troops soon occupied
large parts of Eastern Anatolia.
At the same time the city government decided to change the "German" name St.
Petersburg, which Peter the Great had given his foundation, to Petrograd.
In April, Otto was working on his homework, an enormous explosion blew out all
windows in their apartment. Elizabeth found Otto lying dazed and covered with glass on the
living room floor. He was unharmed. Wild speculations of a German bombardment ran through
the city. Reality was worse than that, an explosion in a large munitions factory in Petrograd had
destroyed the weapons reserves of the army. By summer 1915 only every third Russian soldier
had a weapon and had to ration his ammunition.
As the extent of the military defeat in East Prussia became evident, the Emperor
demoted the arrogant chief of staff of the Western Army, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, and
sent him as Viceroy to Tiflis. Vorontsev was dismissed. Jordania carefully watched this change
of guard and for the first time discussed an armed uprising against Russia with the inner circle
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