WHAT NEVER FELL · MAR 1917 · PETROGRAD
The tsar keeps his throne
In March 1917 a week of bread riots and a garrison mutiny ended three centuries of Romanov rule; the Duma’s president wired the tsar that the last hour had struck, and the tsar called it nonsense and dissolved the Duma instead. This is the timeline where he signs the other paper.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
12 MAR 1917 · STAVKA
Five hundred miles from his capital, in the army headquarters at Mogilev, the Tsar of All the Russias reads a telegram he has already decided to disbelieve. Petrograd has stood a week in bread queues at twenty below, and now the queues have become crowds that do not disperse. Mikhail Rodzianko, president of the Duma, has wired twice: the capital in anarchy, the government paralyzed, the last hour struck; give the country a ministry it can trust. On the desk lie two papers: a decree dissolving the Duma, and the blank telegraph form on which he could grant everything Rodzianko asks. In our timeline he called the telegram nonsense and signed the dissolution.
In the timeline recorded here he reads it a second time, sends for ink, and signs the other paper.
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