Whither the Great War?
The direction of the Great War?
In Yekaterinburg, men and women of every age and all the defenders were staring at me—Grand Duchess Anastasia, the princess. They looked as though they wanted something from me. I had to answer that silent demand.
“If we lose here, the red plague will swallow all of Russia.”
In truth, even if I fell the civil war would drag on for some time. But at least in this moment I needed to sharpen the sense of crisis. Losing here would mean becoming slaves to the Bolshevik regime.
“They will build their so-called earthly paradise with nothing but empty words, and in that paradise there will be no freedom, no respect—nothing at all for any of you.”
They deify the figure they call the General Secretary and are brainwashed into believing that under his guidance anything is possible. Of course, that path might be righteous. Reforming the nation under the Secretary’s leadership and creating a country for the workers could be a worthy goal. But the Russian Empire could have done the same. Had Stolypin not been assassinated, the possibility had been real. The Duma existed, and workers would soon have found their voice. Instead that butcher Stalin purged every rival to secure his own power and left the army crippled. The result was not a workers’ state but a single dictator’s authoritarian realm. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed and was reborn as the Russian Federation, the old Soviet rot remained. In the world I came from, the Russian leader poisoned his enemies with tea, ruled with a fabricated 140 percent approval rating, and then invaded Ukraine. At the very least, I had to prevent that future from repeating.
“Therefore we must fight. We will fight those rootless barbarians and we will win. I will not abandon you.”
At the Russian princess’s declaration a spark kindled in every soldier’s eyes. The trembling had vanished. Even the Czech Legion seemed moved; they watched me in silence.
I could not know how far my words would reach. Some among the defenders might still be thinking it would be wiser to hand the princess over. So I had to show them my sincerity with my own body. A girl smaller than any of them lifted a rifle and stepped forward. She walked proudly to the trench, lifted her head above the parapet, and aimed her Mosin-Nagant at the Bolshevik lines.
“I will fight too!”
“Me too! I will fight!”
“I served in the Imperial Army. I will follow the Grand Duchess!”
They were now the proud army of a restored empire. One by one the hesitant soldiers filled the trenches.
The red plague rolled toward us like a sea. The Czechoslovak Legion checked the machine guns mounted along the line.
Come, then. Reds. I will kill every last one of you. For the sake of my own future.
To Ataman Pyotr Krasnov of the Don Cossacks,
My father and mother, my brothers and sisters, have been murdered by the Bolsheviks. Their bodies were desecrated beyond recognition. I cannot share the same sky with such creatures. I will not lay down my arms until every last one of them is dead.
Join me. Fight the Bolsheviks at my side.
After the war—whether we restore the Russian Empire, found a democratic republic, a federation, or a united states—let us decide together.
— Grand Duchess Anastasia
Pyotr Krasnov, Ataman of the Don Cossacks and leader of the German-backed Don Republic, read the letter with a furrowed brow. He had once written directly to Wilhelm II and won recognition for his republic’s status. Now this.
“Was the princess always this courageous?” he muttered. “Even the Bolsheviks… to execute the entire Tsar’s family without a trial.” The casual desecration of the bodies only confirmed they were rootless savages. That he had once sworn them even a false oath of loyalty left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Yet the letter’s deeper offer was intriguing. By suggesting they settle the final shape of Russia—empire, republic, federation, or united states—after victory, Anastasia was in effect promising that the Don Republic could survive as an autonomous member within a larger Russian framework. The republic had been founded to fight the Bolsheviks anyway. Whether the princess restored the monarchy or they forged some compromise later made little difference. The mere fact that she had sent such a proposal meant she recognized his sphere of influence.
The additional note about letting the Duma choose any form of government so long as the Bolsheviks were crushed first was especially tempting.
“The Bolshevik corpses hanging on crosses in Yekaterinburg suggest she has her reasons,” his aide remarked.
The anti-Bolshevik forces were indeed too fragmented. Krasnov had already been pressured by Anton Denikin to subordinate his troops, and he knew he would later lose the Ataman election and flee to Germany. This letter offered a better path.
“This message can hardly have come to us alone.”
“It was delivered by the Czechoslovak Legion, sir.”
“Those men would not have joined the Bolsheviks. So they have thrown in with the princess. With the Czech Legion at her back she possesses real legitimacy.”
Krasnov folded the letter. The scales were tipping.
As Anastasia had foreseen, the news of the Romanov executions swept across Europe. Reformed Bolsheviks pardoned by both Anton Denikin and Anastasia had spread the story with ruthless efficiency. Far earlier than in the original timeline, and in far more vivid detail, the great powers learned exactly what manner of rootless monsters the Bolsheviks were.
Even in the midst of the Great War the atrocity sent shockwaves through every capital.
“The entire Tsar’s family butchered? Without so much as a trial?”
“How could such a horror occur!”
“They burned the bodies and scattered the ashes, they say.”
“Ground the bones to powder and drank them in their tea!”
“Heaven preserve us!”
Faster than in any history, the surviving princess’s own testimony gave the tale undeniable weight. Monarchist Germany and Austria-Hungary, even constitutional Britain, were thrown into turmoil. The savagery surpassed even the French Revolution. While no one denied that the Romanovs had helped ruin their own nation, summary execution followed by grotesque mutilation was something else entirely. Rumors of exaggeration circulated, yet the single surviving witness being a princess lent the story chilling credibility.
The Entente could not ignore it. Britain in particular was shaken. Unlike France, which had beheaded its king, or America, which had never had one, Britain still possessed a living monarch whose symbolic power stretched across the oceans. The rival Tsar’s family—central to the Great Game—had been wiped out in the most barbaric fashion. The reaction in London was immediate.
“Lenin is that vicious?”
“The Bolsheviks are beyond negotiation!”
“After we finish hammering Germany, then what?”
The Entente had been pressing the Germans hard after the Second Battle of the Marne. Victory seemed within reach. Then came this horror in the east. The Russian Civil War itself was one thing; the casual extermination of an entire imperial house was another. If such a precedent were allowed, what would anti-war factions do at home? The Bolsheviks denied everything and parroted that the stories were lies, yet these were the same men who had already abandoned the war.
And the princess was sharpening her sword of vengeance.
“Continuous revolution,” one minister read aloud from fresh intelligence. “They intend to begin in Russia, then spark revolts across a war-weakened Europe and paint the continent red.”
The room fell silent.
“We should support the princess.”
“While we are still fighting Germany?”
“Would you rather let Germany survive?”
“Looking at events, that young princess may achieve more than we expect.”
“But read their plan! They mean to seed every major power with agents and ignite revolution the moment the guns fall silent!”
“Mr. Gallipoli, calm yourself.”
“Step outside and say that, you bastard!”
This was the war to end all wars. American aid had finally given the Entente the upper hand, yet the butcher’s bill had been enormous. If a greedy, barbaric Bolshevik Russia turned its eyes on an exhausted Europe afterward, the consequences could be catastrophic. True, the Bolsheviks had lost Ukraine, Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, and more; they would need years to stabilize. Yet their greatest weapon had never been armies—it was agitation. They had toppled Nicholas II not by superior force but by exploiting his weakness and the people’s despair. The spark had already been lit. Anti-war sentiment was rising everywhere. If the people rose in earnest, even the British Empire might tremble.
“At the very least we should make contact with Princess Anastasia. She is on the front line; Kolchak is not.”
“And Germany?”
“We must defeat Germany, but if the red plague takes root there after the armistice, what then? Germany is closer to Russia than we are, and the Bolsheviks have already slaughtered an innocent Tsar, his son, and his daughters.”
A communist Germany would mean the Kaiser’s family would fare no better. Russian Revolution Season Two would follow at once.
“We will press Germany and still commit what strength we can to Russia.”
“We barely hold the advantage thanks to America. Can we afford to split our effort?”
“Then have Japan support us.”
“Socialist agitation is already growing at home. Contact with the princess must come first. Send an envoy at once.”
The Entente powers resolved to reach out to Anastasia without delay.
Meanwhile, in the heart of the Central Powers, Kaiser Wilhelm II felt the same chill.
“So Niki died like that…”
The two emperors had been cousins as well as fellow monarchs. The news turned Wilhelm’s blood to ice. According to the reports, Nicholas had been forced to watch his limbs torn apart while his wife was raped and murdered before his eyes. The heir Alexei was burned alive. The princesses suffered violation and then bayonet wounds; the final indignities were too vile to repeat. Nicholas himself had wept tears of blood as he died.
Wilhelm had sent Lenin to Russia himself. Now the monster he unleashed threatened to devour every crowned head in Europe. With defeat looming on the Western Front, the Kaiser could not shake the vision of his own Empress and beloved daughter Louise suffering the same fate. The Hohenzollerns might yet share the Romanovs’ end.
He stared at the map of the fronts, the telegram still trembling in his hand.
Is this truly the time for war?