The war soon centred upon the Crimea, and its historic milestones--Alma, Balaclava, Inkermann, Sevastopol--are well known. It entered upon a second year, 1855, and the Russian people murmured bitterly. Nicholas himself must have felt the sting of many of the criticisms. During the long reign of his censors, when public opinion could not be brought to bear upon the administration, official corruption had increased, and both army and navy were far below the required standard of efficiency. Nicholas had isolated Russia from the west; yet from the west had come every stimulus to the improvement of the Russian forces. He had reversed the policy of Peter and Catherine, and he seemed to be in danger of losing the lands they had taken. A terrible fire of criticism and invective was maintained at St. Petersburg. The censors controlled the press--men circulated their views in manuscript. Nicholas was honest, and it is said that he at times doubted if the policy to which he had devoted his life was sound. But he was stubborn, and he thrust aside all suggestions of peace. In the midst of the struggle he caught a chill which led to pneumonia. He died on March 3rd, 1855. Such was the opening of the last phase of the romance of the Romanoffs. The dynasty is sobered, not merely by the spirit of the age into which it has passed, but by the very impossibility of sustaining its gaieties. No monarch who showered the precious national revenues upon lovers or drinking comrades could long hold the throne in such an age. Insurrection has taken a new form. It is no longer the work of a coterie who would place a new monarch on the throne in order that they, the conspirators, may take the place of the late favourites in the golden rain. A new phrase, the rights of the people, is born, or re-born, in the world. A monarchy by the grace of God must do the work of God, not the work of the devil. Nicholas tries to reconcile the new and the old: the new idea of service and the old idea of autocracy. He will better the lot of the people, not because it is their will, but because it is his divine mission. And in order to protect his scheme he constructs a new machinery of despotism: secret police, and Cossacks, and priests, and censors, and sophists. Against this machinery we have now to see the Russian people bruise and crush their limbs until it and its autocratic makers are destroyed. First, however, one more effort will be made to pose as autocratic dispenser of Justice and Charity. CHAPTER XIV THE TRAGEDY OF ALEXANDER II