From Yalta to Malta

Frances Welch’s The Russian Court At Sea: The Voyage Of HMS Marlborough, April 1919 was published by Short Books. It tells the story of the evacuation of Maria Feodorovna and members of the Romanov family from the Crimea. Welch’s sources of information are the diaries of passengers and crew members.

Maria Feodorovna was the widow of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and daughter of King Christian VII of Denmark. She had converted to the Russian Orthodox faith prior to her marriage to Alexander; on that occasion she also adopted the name of Maria Feodorovna. She was the mother of Tsar Nicolas II and aunt to King George V.

While Welch centred her book on the Dowager Empress, her main source of information was the diary of Francis Pridham; he was first lieutenant on the Marlborough and was handed the unenviable task of purser of ship not equipped for Imperial guests. Suddenly, his ship was awash with Imperial Highnesses and Grand Dukes and Duchesses by the score, and he had somehow to sort out the mess. He must have spent sleepless hours over it to be able to keep up a diary.

The task was certainly not made any easier by the collected eminence thrust upon him. The Dowager Empress had left Russia under protest and on condition that loyal subjects would be evacuated at the same time with her. It was therefore a whole flotilla of ships that left the port of Yalta in the wake of the Marlborough. The collected Romanov family members might have been related, but they were certainly not friends.

Maria Feodorovna had upheld a fierce, acrimonious, and quite petty dispute with her neighbour on the Crimea: Grand Duke Nicolas Romanov.  Now they had to travel on the same ship, together with Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov who had been heavily implicated in Rasputin’s murder. All these people and the many on the other ships owed their life only to the Dowager Empress and her ultimatum.

The command to rescue her had come from King George V; but the real instigator of the mission had been his mother Queen Alexandra who wanted her sister rescued at all cost. King George wouldn’t have moved a finger without that. He had left his cousin Tsar Nicolas II to the mob, rather than help him or his family, afraid that anti-monarchical feelings could swap into Britain. Cravenly, he later tried to blame Prime Minister Lloyd George for that decision.

The book recounts the sea journey from Yalta to Malta; at the end of which, the reader has gained a detailed picture of a highly dysfunctional family. I also ended up admiring the stubborn, biased, brave, and fiercely patriotic Dowager Empress with her unshakable belief that the accounts of the murder of Tsar Nicolas II and his family were untrue.

For those who don’t have the family tree of the Romanovs imprinted on their brains (and quite frankly, who does?), the book starts off with a list of the characters appearing in the book. Keep it handy for whenever you get lost in the family tangle, it’s most useful.

Related articles
Royal In-laws Aren’t Always What They Seem, Either
Queen Mum: The Official Biography
Astrid, Queen of The Belgians (1905-1935)
Working Monarchies in Europe