It has been said that Nicholas was not cruel and the blame for the bloody deeds in his reign was laid to his ministers. Indeed, there is something in his face that is kindly and makes a very good first impression. But those who knew him better had learned to distrust that smile. When the Emperor was most gracious to one of his ministers it was a sign that his resignation would be called for the next day. In this respect Nicholas II was like Alexander I. The following story tells something of the real character of the man who had the lives of millions of people at his mercy. The committee appointed by the Duma to take charge of the papers of the Tsar found that many important documents of state, such as reports from the commanders-in-chief, ministers, and others, he had never read, and some he had not even looked at. They did, however, come across a notebook which had been carefully kept and guarded. On opening it they noted that Nicholas, with his own hand, wrote down the names of those revolutionists who, in 1905-06, were executed, the kind of execution, and other such details. [FN: This story was told to the writer by a member of the committee.] That interested him, but matters of state he left to his time servers, to his hysterical wife, yes, to Grigory Rasputin, a dirty, ignorant, and licentious peasant, until the country blushed with shame and it became a saying, "Now we have Grigory I [Rasputin] as tsar." The present war was declared by the Tsar but the people approved it because they hoped that the defeat of Germany would mean the defeat of the German reactionary influence in Russia, especially about the court, and a closer union with democratic England and France. I was present at the capital at the time that the war broke out and heard the cheers when the Emperor made the declaration. It seemed as if Nicholas by coming out against Germany had redeemed himself in the eyes of his people who were willing to wipe out the past, and give him another chance. During the first months of the war he was as popular as during the first weeks of his reign. It was not like the Japanese war when the soldiers refused service; in this German war, the men called to colors went without a murmur, they hoped that something good would come out of it. Offers of help from individuals as well as commercial and civic bodies poured in on the Government. The ministers said that everything was ready, that in a few months the Russians would be in Berlin. At first, all went well, but soon news came of the catastrophe in eastern Prussia, of the traitorous acts of the Minister of War, of the campaign in the Carpathians where the Russians were slaughtered like sheep because they had no guns, no ammunition, and no supplies. Again the poor people were betrayed and a cry of horror and vengeance went up as on January 9, 1905, Bloody Sunday. The Tsar would probably have been overthrown there and then had it not been for the war and the hatred of Germany. The