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Born inTsarskoye Selo, Nicholas was the eldest son ofEmperor Alexander III andEmpress Maria Feodorovna. He was educated privately and trained for military service, but was widely considered ill-prepared for the demands of ruling a vast empire. As a constitutional monarch, he resisted political reform and retained autocratic control, despite the establishment of theDuma. His reign saw significant industrial growth and diplomatic engagement, including theHague Conventions and theAnglo-Russian Convention of 1907, but was also marked by domestic unrest, military defeats, and widespread criticism.
Nicholas faced mounting pressure following Russia's defeat in theRusso-Japanese War and the turmoil of the1905 Revolution. His popularity declined further duringWorld War I, as military losses and economic hardship eroded public confidence. In March 1917, theFebruary Revolution forced his abdication, ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule. He and his family were imprisoned by theProvisional Government and later transferred toBolshevik custody. On 17 July 1918, they were executed inYekaterinburg.
Vilified bySoviet historians as a symbol of repression and incompetence, Nicholas has been reassessed more sympathetically inpost-Soviet Russia. He and his family werecanonised aspassion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, following the discovery and reburial of their remains in 1998.
Early life
Birth and family background
Nicholas,unbreeched at two years old, with his mother, Maria Feodorovna, in 1870
Nicholas was christened in theChapel of the Resurrection of theCatherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo on 1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1868 by theconfessor of the imperial family,protopresbyter Vasily Borisovich Bazhanov. His godparents were Emperor Alexander II (his paternal grandfather), Queen Louise of Denmark (his maternal grandmother), Crown PrinceFrederik of Denmark (his maternal uncle), and Grand DuchessElena Pavlovna (his great-great-aunt).[2] The boy received the traditionalRomanov nameNicholas and was named in memory of his father's older brother and mother's firstfiancé, TsesarevichNicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, who had died young in 1865.[3] Informally, he was known as "Nicky" throughout his life.
Emperor Nicholas II of Russia with his physically similar cousin,George V of the United Kingdom (right), wearing German military uniforms in Berlin before the war; 1913
Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin once-removed of Grand DukeNicholas Nikolaevich. To distinguish between them, the Grand Duke was often known within the imperial family as "Nikolasha" and "Nicholas the Tall", while the Tsar was "Nicholas the Short".
Childhood
Grand Duke Nicholas was to have five younger siblings:Alexander (1869–1870),George (1871–1899),Xenia (1875–1960),Michael (1878–1918) andOlga (1882–1960). Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexander's death in 1894. He was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other.[4] In his childhood, Nicholas, his parents and siblings made annual visits to the Danish royal palaces ofFredensborg andBernstorff to visit his grandparents, the king and queen. The visits also served as family reunions, as his mother's siblings would also come from theUnited Kingdom,Germany andGreece with their respective families.[5] It was there in 1883, that he had a flirtation with one of his British first cousins, PrincessVictoria. In 1873, Nicholas also accompanied his parents and younger brother, two-year-old George, on a two-month, semi-official visit to the United Kingdom.[6] In London, Nicholas and his family stayed atMarlborough House, as guests of his "Uncle Bertie" and "Aunt Alix", the Prince and Princess of Wales, where he was spoiled by his uncle.[7]
In February 1880 a group ofnihilist activists exploded a bomb in the dining room of theWinter Palace. The bomb destroyed almost the entire room. No one was hurt. Nicholas's father Alexander III and his family moved to theYelagin Palace onYelagin Island.
Tsesarevich
On 1 March 1881,[e] following theassassination of his grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, by theNarodnaya Volya Nicholas became heir apparent or tsesarevich upon his father's accession as Alexander III. Nicholas and other family members bore witness to Alexander II's death, having been present at theWinter Palace in Saint Petersburg, where he was brought after the attack.[8] For security reasons, the new Tsar and his family relocated their primary residence to theGatchina Palace located 48 kilometres from the city, only entering the capital for ceremonial functions. On such occasions, Alexander III and his family occupied the nearbyAnichkov Palace.[citation needed] The Gatchina Palace had been built forAlexander I's fatherPaul I. Nicholas kept adiary.
Nicholas, colloquially calledNicky by his family, spent much of his vacations with his family in his mother's home countryDenmark and on cruises on the coasts of theGrand Duchy of Finland, especially on Alexander III'sfishing lodge in Langinkoski, built in 1889 on the riverKymi inKotka. In summer time the family lived at theAlexander Palace, at theLivadia Palace in Crimea or sometimes went hunting for deer inŁowicz County in Poland.
Nicholas and his siblings were raised in a Spartan way in an English fashion. They slept in tent bends, rose at 6 and took cold baths, sometimes they were given a warm bath in their mother's bathroom. Breakfast consisted of porridge and black bread, lunch of lamb chops or roast beef with peas and roasted potatoes and tea of bread, butter and jam. Nicholas and his younger brotherGeorge had their own salon, dining room, play room and bedroom, all of which were simply decorated. The only prominent item was an icon surrounded by pearls and jewels.[9]: 61 Because of the happy marriage of Nicholas's parents, he was raised surrounded by love and safety, which was missing in many other royal families.[9]: 61
Nicholas and his brother George shared the same teachers, but studied at adjacent rooms. They followed the course of the academy of the general staff of Russia, and their teachers were valued professors. TheirEnglish teacher Charles Heath, who was Nicholas's favourite teacher,[10] had acted as teacher of their uncle, Grand DukeSergei andPaul. Both brothers spoke and wrote perfect English. Heath inspired them in sport, especially shooting and fly fishing. They spoke fluentFrench as well as passableGerman andDanish.Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Nicholas's teacher of law and history, complained that Nicholas spent all his time in class picking his nose.[citation needed] His home teacher general Danilovich did not ask for much from the tsesarevich, as "the sacrament of coronation will give the ruler all the information he needs."[10]
Neither Nicholas's upbringing nor his nature was suitable for the difficult duties that awaited him as emperor. He had received military education from his teachers, and his taste and interests were similar to other young Russian officers. He had little in the way of intelligent ambition, but he enjoyed physical exercise and the supplies of military life: uniforms, insignia and parades. But he felt uncomfortable in official situations. Even though he had a great deal of charm, he was shy and avoided close contact with his subjects preferring to keep with the privacy of his family.[1] According to his diary he played childish games well past the age of 20.[10]
Nicholas's large father, who could not tolerate weakness, seemed discouraging to Nicholas. Once when Nicholas made a mistake and let a playmate take the blame, Alexander shouted at him: "You are a girl!" Alexander was aware that his son was too childish to take on responsible duties, which he said clearly to minister of financeSergei Witte.[10] Nicholas learnt to obey his father, and as he grew older his father told him to participate in various committees. Nicholas felt political tasks were uninteresting and instead partied with other young officers from thePreobrazhensky, and Hussar Guards from the Romanov family, in restaurants and in the company of young women on the islands in front ofSaint Petersburg. He was especially influenced by his uncle, Grand DukeSergei Alexandrovich Romanov.[10]
Nicholas underwent military training under the instruction of general Gregory Danilovich and was inspired by him and senior procuratorKonstantin Pobedonostsev in aPan-Slavist and even a mystical religious way.[11] Pobedonostsev's teachings caused Nicholas to think that as emperor bythe grace of God he had a sacred duty to upkeep the autocracy and theEastern Orthodox religion.[12]
In 1884, Nicholas's coming-of-age ceremony was held at the Winter Palace, where he pledged his loyalty to his father. Later that year, Nicholas's uncle, Grand DukeSergei Alexandrovich, married PrincessElizabeth, daughter ofLouis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his late wifePrincess Alice of the United Kingdom, and a granddaughter ofQueen Victoria. At the wedding in St. Petersburg, the sixteen-year-old Tsarevich met with and admired the bride's youngest surviving sister, twelve-year-old PrincessAlix. Those feelings of admiration blossomed into love following her visit to St. Petersburg five years later in 1889. Alix had feelings for him in turn. As a devout Lutheran, she was initially reluctant to convert to Russian Orthodoxy to marry Nicholas, but relented.[13]
In October 1890 Nicholas, his younger brother George, and their cousin PrinceGeorge of Greece, set out on aworld tour on the cruiserPamiat Azova, although Grand Duke George fell ill inBombay and was sent home partway through the trip.
Nicholas visitedEgypt,India, Singapore, andSiam (Thailand), receiving honors as a distinguished guest in each country. During his trip throughJapan, Nicholas had a largedragon tattooed on his right forearm by Japanese tattoo artistHori Chiyo.[14] The tattoo process is said to have lasted seven hours.[15][16] Nicholas's cousin George V of the United Kingdom had received a dragon tattoo from Hori inYokohama years before. It was during his visit toOtsu, thatTsuda Sanzō, one of his escorting policemen, swung at the Tsarevich's face with a sabre, an event known as theŌtsu incident. Nicholas was left with a 9 centimeter long scar on the right of his forehead, but his wound was not life-threatening. The incident cut his trip short.[17]
Returning overland to St. Petersburg, he was present at the ceremonies inVladivostok commemorating the beginning of work on theTrans-Siberian Railway. In 1893, Nicholas traveled to London on behalf of his parents to be present at the wedding of his cousin theDuke of York toPrincess Mary of Teck. Queen Victoria was struck by the physical resemblance between the two cousins, and their appearances confused some at the wedding. During this time, Nicholas had an affair with St. Petersburg ballerinaMathilde Kschessinska.[18]
After returning to Saint Petersburg, Nicholas continued his relationship with Mathilde Kschessinska in spite of his father's disapproval. However, the love of Nicholas's life proved to be not Mathilde but instead the young GermanPrincess Alix of Hessen-Darmstadt, the younger sister of Grand DuchessElisabeth Feodorovna, the wife of Nicholas's uncleSergei Alexandrovich. Nicholas had already decided to marry Alix in 1899. The marriage was supported by Nicholas' uncle Sergei and his wife Elisabeth. In 1894 Nicholas openly told Mathilde of his love to his second cousin Alix and that he wished Alix would marry him. The relationship between the tsesarevich and the prima ballerina assoluta ended, and in 1921 Mathilde married Nicholas's cousin,Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia in Paris.
Though Nicholas was heir-apparent to the throne, his father failed to prepare him for his role as Tsar. He attended meetings of theState Council; however, as his father was only in his forties, it was expected that it would be many years before Nicholas succeeded to the throne.[19]Sergei Witte, Russia's finance minister, saw things differently and suggested to the Tsar that Nicholas be appointed to the Siberian Railway Committee.[20] Alexander argued that Nicholas was not mature enough to take on serious responsibilities, having once stated "Nikki is a good boy, but he has a poet's soul...God help him!" Witte stated that if Nicholas was not introduced to state affairs, he would never be ready to understand them.[20] Alexander's assumptions that he would live a long life and had years to prepare Nicholas for becoming Tsar proved wrong, as by 1894, Alexander's health was failing.[21]
That summer, Nicholas visited Alix and Queen Victoria in England, coinciding with the birth of theDuke andDuchess of York's first child, the futureEdward VIII. Nicholas and Alix attended the christening and were named among the child’s godparents.[22] He later returned to Russia for his sister Xenia’s wedding to Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich ("Sandro").[23]
By autumn, Alexander III was dying. Upon learning he had only weeks to live, he summoned Alix toLivadia Palace.[24] She arrived on 22 October, and the Tsar, in full uniform, urged Nicholas to heed the advice ofSergei Witte. Alexander died ten days later, aged 49, and Nicholas was consecrated that evening as Tsar Nicholas II. The following day, Alix was received into the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Alexandra Feodorovna and the title of Grand Duchess and style ofImperial Highness.[25]
Their wedding took place at theWinter Palace on 26 November 1894, less than a month after Alexander's funeral. Due to the mourning period, the ceremony was modest. Observers reportedly remarked of the new empress: "She came to us from behind the coffin..."[26]
Nicholas II and family in 1904
Nicholas and Alexandra had five children:Olga (b. 15 November 1895),Tatiana (b. 10 June 1897),Maria (b. 26 June 1899), andAnastasia (b. 18 June 1901), and their only son Alexei (b. 12 August 1904), heir to the throne. Alexei suffered fromhaemophilia B, a hereditary illness passed down from Queen Victoria. Other affected relatives includedPrince Leopold,Princess Beatrice's sonsLeopold andMaurice, and Beatrice's grandsonsAlfonso andGonzalo of Spain. Alix's brotherFriedrich and her sisterIrene's sons,Waldemar andHenry of Prussia, also suffered from the disease. Recent research suggests Anastasia was a carrier, thoughasymptomatic.[27]
The imperial couple concealed Alexei's condition until 1912, seeking any possible cure. In 1911,Grigori Rasputin, a Siberian peasant mystic, entered their inner circle. Alexandra believed deeply in his healing abilities, and his influence, despite public perception of him as lecherous and uncivilised, intensified distrust of the monarchy. Rasputin's calming effect on Alexei, achieved partly through hypnosis and partly by avoiding aspirin, which worsened the bleeding, reinforced Alexandra's faith in him.[28] Under her influence, Nicholas increasingly turned to spiritual advisers, especially Rasputin, who eventually gained sway over the imperial couple.[1]
Despite a visit to the United Kingdom in 1893, where he observed theHouse of Commons in debate and was seemingly impressed by the machinery ofconstitutional monarchy, Nicholas turned his back on any notion of giving away any power to elected representatives in Russia. Shortly after he came to thethrone, a deputation of peasants and workers from various towns' local assemblies (zemstvos) came to the Winter Palace proposing court reforms, such as the adoption of a constitutional monarchy,[29] and reform that would improve the political and economic life of the peasantry, in theTver Address.[30][31]
Although the addresses they had sent in beforehand were couched in mild and loyal terms, Nicholas was angry and ignored advice from an Imperial Family Council by saying to them:
... it has come to my knowledge that during the last months there have been heard in some assemblies of the zemstvos the voices of those who have indulged in a senseless dream that the zemstvos be called upon to participate in the government of the country. I want everyone to know that I will devote all my strength to maintain, for the good of the whole nation, the principle of absoluteautocracy, as firmly and as strongly as did my late lamented father.[32]
On 26 May 1896, Nicholas's formalcoronation as Tsar was held inUspensky Cathedral located within theKremlin.[33] The event was of gigantic proportions, and people from all over Russia arrived to witness the coronation of the new emperor. At the coronation, lieutenantCarl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a futurepresident of Finland, was one of the four officers escorting the new emperor.Brown trout from Finland was served for the guests at the coronation.[34][35][36] Nicholas II announced already at the start of his reign that he would use the Russian title of Tsar instead of the western title of Emperor.[26]
Nicholas as Tsesarevich in 1892
In a celebration on 30 May 1896, a large festival with food, free beer and souvenir cups was held inKhodynka Field outside Moscow. Khodynka was chosen as the location as it was the only place near Moscow large enough to hold all of the Moscow citizens.[37] Khodynka was primarily used as a military training ground and the field was uneven with trenches. Before the food and drink was handed out, rumours spread that there would not be enough for everyone. As a result, the crowd rushed to get their share and individuals were tripped and trampled upon, suffocating in the dirt of the field.[38] Of the approximate 100,000 in attendance, it is estimated that 1,389 individuals died[29] and roughly 1,300 were injured.[37] TheKhodynka Tragedy was seen as an ill omen and Nicholas found gaining popular trust difficult from the beginning of his reign. The French ambassador's gala was planned for that night. The Tsar wanted to stay in his chambers and pray for the lives lost, but his uncles believed that his absence at the ball would strain relations with France, particularly the 1894Franco-Russian Alliance. Thus Nicholas attended the party; as a result the mourning populace saw Nicholas as frivolous and uncaring.[citation needed]
During the autumn after the coronation, Nicholas and Alexandra made a tour of Europe. After making visits to the emperor and empress ofAustria-Hungary, the Kaiser of Germany, and Nicholas's Danish grandparents and relatives, Nicholas and Alexandra took possession of their new yacht, theStandart,which had been built in Denmark.[39] From there, they made a journey to Scotland to spend some time with Queen Victoria atBalmoral Castle. While Alexandra enjoyed her reunion with her grandmother, Nicholas complained in a letter to his mother about being forced to go shooting with his uncle, the Prince of Wales, in bad weather, and was suffering from a bad toothache.[40]
Start of reign
When Nicholas II ascended to the throne he had very little experience of governing and he trusted the experience and diplomatic abilities of his mother, the widowed empress Maria Feodorovna, for the first 10 years. Nicholas's wife was also strong-willed, which is thought to have resulted from the fact that Nicholas sought to compensate his own lack of a strong will by governing autocratically. Nicholas was also wary of his own ministers, but was himself unable to govern properly.[41] According toSimon Sebag Montefiore Nicholas spent the first 10 years of his reign listening to his uncles, especially the Grand Duke and Admiral GeneralAlexei Alexandrovich Romanov, whom Nicholas's second cousin, the Grand Duke and naval officerAlexander Mikhailovich would have wanted to fire.[10] Nicholas and the imperial family often spent their summers on the archipelago and coast of Finland. The imperial family sailed to Finland on the imperial yachtStandart.[42]
Right from the start of his reign, Nicholas showed an interest for humanistic ideals. He attended the firstHague Conference in 1893. Because of his poor knowledge of people, his preference of an isolated family life and his weak authority he soon fell into the hands of his reactionary surroundings. The only idea he steadfastly held on was the principle of an autocratic ruler.
Nicholas was a weak emperor. He did better as a father and husband than a ruler of a gigantic, restless realm. He was of average ability and indecisive character, but also modest and frugal. Like his father Alexander III he was very old-fashioned and sought to Russificate everyhing that had been previously westernised, including preferring to use the title of tsar instead of emperor as he thought it sounded more Russian. Nicholas allowed his wife to control him in matters of government, such as choices of people. Because of this, renovations often failed because of one single thing: any renovation would have been contrary to the interests of their children. Especially the crown prince Alexei was important in this regard, and his future interests were not to be endangered.
The first years of Nicholas's reign saw little more than continuation and development of the policy pursued by Alexander III. Nicholas allotted money for theAll-Russia exhibition of 1896. In 1897 restoration of thegold standard by Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance, completed the series of financial reforms, initiated fifteen years earlier. By 1902 the Trans-Siberian Railway was nearing completion; this helped the Russians trade in the Far East but the railway still required huge amounts of work.[citation needed]
During the first ten years of Nicholas II's reign, Russia saw a societal and economic transform, a change from an agrarian society to an industrial one, whose seeds had already been sown during the reign of Nicholas's father Alexander III. During the inspection period from 1880 to 1910 economic growth in Russia was over nine percent per year on average. The old-fashioned legislature, the unsolved question of land ownership afterserfdom had been abolished in 1861 and concentration of economic growth in wealthy metropolitan areas caused conflicts among the growing working class, which theSocialist Revolutionary Party and thecommunists used as a vessel of growth.
Internal politics
Nicholas II on his bike behind theAlexander Palace, in 1913. It was one of his favorite sports, shared with his children.
In addition to Rasputin, Nicholas also had other irresponsible favourites, often men of questionable authenticity, who gave him a twisted image of Russian life, but which was more desolate for him than that described in official reports. He did not trust his ministers, primarily because he felt they were intelligently superior to him and feared they might try to usurp his sovereign rights. His view of his role as an authority was naively simple: he had received his authority from God, to whom alone he was responsible, and his holy duty was to keep his absolute power intact. He lacked the necessary strength of will for one with such a high view of his duty. In doing his duty Nicholas had to undergo a constant battle against himself, suffocating his natural indecisiveness and assuming the mask of confident decisiveness. His devotion to the autocratic dogma was an insufficient replacement for constructive politics which alone would have lengthened his imperial reign.[1]
Empress Alexandra was at one point guided byGrigori Rasputin, which caused the emperor's close circle to fill with sycophants supporting his autocracy. Nicholas's circle of life was different of the world outside the Alexander Palace, and he had no real clue about the real plight of Russia. In his politics, Nicholas sought to continue the line of his father Alexander III, but with significantly less success.
Near the start of World War I Russia was drawing nearer and nearer to arevolution as the workers demanded more rights from the upper class. Nicholas had been raised to believe in his own position as a ruler chosen byGod, and so he felt aparliament demanded by the people was a betrayal of God's trust.
In internal politics Nicholas mostly fell on the conservatism of his father Alexander III. InFinland he was known for his acts of Russification (theFebruary Manifesto), which led to the first period of oppression in Finland. As a result of the 1905 revolution, Nicholas had to submit to renovations. In theOctober Manifesto written by Nicholas's competent prime ministerSergei Witte, a parliament, also known as theDuma, was founded in Russia, and citizens' rights were widened (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly). Nicholas still retained the right toveto the laws made by the Duma and the right to dissolve the parliament, which he also used twice, in 1906 and in 1907. The other renovations were also gradually cancelled, and Nicholas's government slipped back into regression. Witte's successors as prime minister, whose election was influenced by the empress Alexandra and the family's friendGrigori Rasputin, were either incompetent (Ivan Goremykin) or inflexible (Pyotr Stolypin).
Nicholas always believed God chose him to be the tsar and therefore the decisions of the tsar reflected the will of God and could not be disputed. He was convinced that the simple people of Russia understood this and loved him, as demonstrated by the display of affection he perceived when he made public appearances. His old-fashioned belief made for a very stubborn ruler who rejected constitutional limitations on his power. It put the tsar at variance with the emerging political consensus among the Russian elite. It was further belied by the subordinate position of the Church in the bureaucracy. The result was a new distrust between the tsar and the church hierarchy and between those hierarchs and the people. Thereby the tsar's base of support was conflicted.[44]
In 1903, Nicholas threw himself into an ecclesiastical crisis regarding thecanonisation ofSeraphim of Sarov. The previous year, it had been suggested that if he were canonised, the imperial couple would beget a son and heir to throne. While Alexandra demanded in July 1902 that Seraphim be canonised in less than a week, Nicholas demanded that he be canonised within a year. Despite a public outcry, the Church bowed to the intense imperial pressure, declaring Seraphim worthy of canonisation in January 1903. That summer, the imperial family travelled toSarov for the canonisation.[45]
Initiatives in foreign affairs
According to his biographer:
His tolerance if not preference for charlatans and adventurers extended to grave matters of external policy, and his vacillating conduct and erratic decisions aroused misgivings and occasional alarm among his more conventional advisers. Theforeign ministry itself was not a bastion of diplomatic expertise. Patronage and "connections" were the keys to appointment and promotion.[46]
EmperorFranz Joseph I of Austria paid a state visit in April 1897 that was a success. It produced a "gentlemen's agreement" to keep the status quo in the Balkans, and a somewhat similar commitment became applicable toConstantinople and the Straits. The result was years of peace that allowed for rapid economic growth.[47]
Nicholas followed the policies of his father, strengthening the Franco-Russian Alliance and pursuing a policy of general European pacification, which culminated in the famousHague peace conference. This conference, suggested and promoted by Nicholas II, was convened with the view of terminating thearms race, and setting up machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. The results of the conference were less than expected due to the mutual distrust existing between great powers. Nevertheless, the Hague conventions were among the first formal statements of the laws of war.[48][49] Nicholas II became the hero of the dedicated disciples of peace. In 1901 he and the Russian diplomatFriedrich Martens were nominated for theNobel Peace Prize for the initiative to convene the Hague Peace Conference and contributing to its implementation.[50] However historian Dan L. Morrill states that "most scholars" agree that the invitation was "conceived in fear, brought forth in deceit, and swaddled in humanitarian ideals...Not from humanitarianism, not from love for mankind."[51]
A clash between Russia and theEmpire of Japan was almost inevitable by the turn of the 20th century. Russia had expanded in the Far East, and the growth of its settlement and territorial ambitions, as its southward path to theBalkans was frustrated, conflicted with Japan's own territorial ambitions on the Asian mainland. Nicholas pursued an aggressive foreign policy with regards toManchuria andKorea, and strongly supported the scheme for timber concessions in these areas as developed by theBezobrazov group.[53][54]
Before the war in 1901, Nicholas told his brother-in-law PrinceHenry of Prussia "I do not want to seize Korea but under no circumstances can I allow Japan to become firmly established there. That will be a casus belli."[55]
War began in February 1904 with a preemptive Japanese attack on the RussianPacific Fleet inPort Arthur, prior to a formal declaration of war.[53]
With the Russian Far East fleet trapped at Port Arthur, the only other Russian Fleet was theBaltic Fleet; it was half a world away, but the decision was made to send the fleet on a nine-month voyage to the east. The United Kingdom would not allow the Russian navy to use theSuez Canal, due toits alliance with the Empire of Japan, and due to theDogger Bank incident where the Baltic Fleet mistakenly fired on British fishing boats in theNorth Sea. The Baltic Fleet traversed the world to lift the blockade on Port Arthur, but after many misadventures on the way, was nearly annihilated by the Japanese in theBattle of Tsushima.[53] On land theImperial Russian Army experienced logistical problems. While commands and supplies came fromSt. Petersburg, combat took place in east Asian ports with only the Trans-Siberian Railway for transport of supplies as well as troops both ways.[53] The 9,200-kilometre (5,700 mi) rail line between St. Petersburg and Port Arthur was single-track, with no track aroundLake Baikal, allowing only gradual build-up of the forces on the front.Besieged Port Arthur fell to the Japanese, after nine months of resistance.[53]
As Russia faced imminent defeat by the Japanese, the call for peace grew. Nicholas's mother, as well as his cousin Emperor Wilhelm II, urged Nicholas to negotiate for peace. Despite the efforts, Nicholas remained evasive, sending a telegram to the Kaiser on 10 October that it was his intent to keep on fighting until the Japanese were driven from Manchuria.[53] It was not until 27–28 May 1905 and the annihilation of the Russian fleet by the Japanese, that Nicholas finally decided to sue for peace.[56] Nicholas II accepted American mediation, appointing Sergei Witte chief plenipotentiary for the peace talks. The war was ended by the signing of theTreaty of Portsmouth.[53][57][58][59]
Tsar's confidence in victory
Nicholas's stance on the war was so at variance with the obvious facts that many observers were baffled. He saw the war as an easy God-given victory that would raise Russian morale and patriotism. He ignored the financial repercussions of a long-distance war.[60] Rotem Kowner argues that during his visit to Japan in 1891, where Nicholas wasattacked by a Japanese policeman, he regarded the Japanese as small of stature, feminine, weak, and inferior. He ignored reports of the prowess of Japanese soldiers in theFirst Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and reports on the capabilities of theImperial Japanese Navy, as well as negative reports on the lack of readiness of Russian forces.[17]
Before the Japanese attack on Port Arthur, Nicholas held firm to the belief that there would be no war. Despite the onset of the war and the many defeats Russia suffered, Nicholas still believed in, and expected, a final victory, maintaining an image of the racial inferiority and military weakness of the Japanese.[17] Throughout the war, the tsar demonstrated total confidence in Russia's ultimate triumph. His advisors never gave him a clear picture of Russia's weaknesses. Despite the continuous military disasters Nicholas believed victory was near at hand.[citation needed] Losing his navy at Tsushima finally persuaded him to agree to peace negotiations. Even then he insisted on the option of reopening hostilities if peace conditions were unfavorable. He forbade his chief negotiator Count Witte to agree to either indemnity payments or loss of territory. Nicholas remained adamantly opposed to any concessions. Peace was made, but Witte did so by disobeying the tsar and ceding southernSakhalin to Japan.[57][54][better source needed]
TheKishinev newspaperBessarabets, which published antisemitic materials, received funds fromViacheslav Plehve, Minister of the Interior.[61] These publications served to fuel theKishinev pogrom (rioting). The government of Nicholas II formally condemned the rioting and dismissed the regional governor, with the perpetrators arrested and punished by the court.[62] Leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church also condemned antisemitic pogroms. Appeals to the faithful condemning the pogroms were read publicly in all churches of Russia.[63] In private Nicholas expressed his admiration for the mobs, viewing antisemitism as a useful tool for unifying the people behind the government;[64] however in 1911, following the assassination ofPyotr Stolypin by the Jewish revolutionaryDmitry Bogrov, he approved of government efforts to prevent antisemitic pogroms.[65]
Russification of Finland
InFinland, Nicholas had become associated with deeply unpopularRussification measures. These began with theFebruary Manifesto proclaimed by Nicholas II in 1899,[66] which restricted Finland'sautonomy and instigated a period of censorship and political repression.[67]A petition of protest signed by more than 500,000 Finns was collected against the manifesto and delivered to St. Petersburg by a delegation of 500 people, but they were not received by Nicholas. Russification measures were reintroduced in 1908 after a temporary suspension in the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution, and Nicholas received an icy reception when he made his only visit toHelsinki on 10 March 1915.[68][69][70]
On 19 January [O.S. 6 January] 1905 an incident interpreted as an assassination attempt on the Emperor occurred.[71]
A few days prior to what would become known as Bloody Sunday (9 (22) January 1905), priest and labor leaderGeorgy Gapon informed the government of a forthcoming procession to theWinter Palace to hand a workers'petition to the tsar. On Saturday, 8 (21) January, the ministers convened to consider the situation. There was never any thought that the tsar, who had left the capital for Tsarskoye Selo on the advice of the ministers, would actually meet Gapon; the suggestion that some other member of the imperial family receive the petition was rejected.[72]
Finally informed by the Prefect of Police that he lacked the men to pluck Gapon from among his followers and place him under arrest, the newly appointed Minister of the Interior, PrinceSviatopolk-Mirsky, and his colleagues decided to bring additional troops to reinforce the city. That evening Nicholas wrote in his diary, "Troops have been brought from the outskirts to reinforce the garrison. Up to now the workers have been calm. Their number is estimated at 120,000. At the head of their union is a kind of socialist priest named Gapon. Mirsky came this evening to present his report on the measures taken."[72]
On Sunday, 9 (22) January 1905, Gapon began his march. Locking arms, the workersmarched peacefully through the streets. Some carried religious icons and banners, as well as national flags and portraits of the tsar. As they walked, they sang hymns andGod Save The Tsar. At 2pm all of the converging processions were scheduled to arrive at the Winter Palace. There was no single confrontation with the troops. Throughout the city, at bridges on strategic boulevards, the marchers found their way blocked by lines of infantry, backed byCossacks and hussars; and the soldiers opened fire on the crowd.[73]
The official number of victims was 92 dead and several hundred wounded. Gapon vanished and the other leaders of the march were seized. Expelled from the capital, they circulated through the empire, increasing the casualties. As bullets riddled their icons, their banners and their portraits of Nicholas, the people shrieked, "The Tsar will not help us!"[73] Outside Russia, the future British Labour Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald attacked the Tsar, calling him a "blood-stained creature and a common murderer".[74]
That evening Nicholas wrote in his diary:
Difficult day! In St. Petersburg there were serious disturbances due to the desire of workers to get to the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different places of the city, there were many dead and wounded. Lord, how painful and bad![74][75]
His younger sister, Grand DuchessOlga Alexandrovna, wrote afterwards:
Nicky had the police report a few days before. That Saturday he telephoned my mother at the Anitchkov and said that she and I were to leave for Gatchina at once. He and Alicky went to Tsarskoye Selo. Insofar as I remember, my Uncles Vladimir and Nicholas were the only members of the family left in St. Petersburg, but there may have been others. I felt at the time that all those arrangements were hideously wrong. Nicky's ministers and the Chief of Police had it all their way. My mother and I wanted him to stay in St. Petersburg and to face the crowd. I am positive that, for all the ugly mood of some of the workmen, Nicky's appearance would have calmed them. They would have presented their petition and gone back to their homes. But that wretched Epiphany incident[f] had left all the senior officials in a state of panic. They kept on telling Nicky that he had no right to run such a risk, that he owed it to the country to leave the capital, that even with the utmost precautions taken there might always be some loophole left. My mother and I did all we could to persuade him that the ministers' advice was wrong, but Nicky preferred to follow it and he was the first to repent when he heard of the tragic outcome.[78]
From his hiding place Gapon issued a letter, stating "Nicholas Romanov, formerly Tsar and at present soul-murderer of the Russian empire. The innocent blood of workers, their wives and children lies forever between you and the Russian people ... May all the blood which must be spilled fall upon you, you Hangman. I call upon all the socialist parties of Russia to come to an immediate agreement among themselves and bring an armed uprising againstTsarism."[74]
Confronted with growing opposition and after consulting with Witte and Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky, the Tsar issued a reformukase on 25 December 1904 with vague promises.[79] In hopes of cutting the rebellion short, many demonstrators were shot onBloody Sunday (1905) as they tried to march to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov was ordered to take drastic measures to stop the revolutionary activity. Grand DukeSergei was killed in February by a revolutionary's bomb in Moscow as he left the Kremlin. On 3 March the tsar condemned the revolutionaries. Meanwhile, Witte recommended that a manifesto be issued.[80] Schemes of reform would be elaborated byIvan Goremykin and a committee consisting of elected representatives of thezemstvos and municipal councils under the presidency of Witte.[citation needed] In June the battleshipPotemkin, part of theBlack Sea Fleet,mutinied.
Around August/September, after his diplomatic success on ending theRusso-Japanese War, Witte wrote to the Tsar stressing the urgent need for political reforms at home. The Tsar remained quite impassive and indulgent; he spent most of that autumn hunting.[81] With the defeat of Russia by a non-Western power, the prestige and authority of the autocratic regime fell significantly.[82][g] Tsar Nicholas II, taken by surprise by the events, reacted with anger and bewilderment. He wrote to his mother after months of disorder:
It makes me sick to read the news! Nothing but strikes in schools and factories, murdered policemen,Cossacks and soldiers, riots, disorder, mutinies. But the ministers, instead of acting with quick decision, only assemble in council like a lot of frightened hens and cackle about providing united ministerial action... ominous quiet days began, quiet indeed because there was complete order in the streets, but at the same time everybody knew that something was going to happen—the troops were waiting for the signal, but the other side would not begin. One had the same feeling, as before a thunderstorm in summer! Everybody was on edge and extremely nervous and of course, that sort of strain could not go on for long.... We are in the midst of a revolution with an administrative apparatus entirely disorganized, and in this lies the main danger.[83]
In October a railway strike developed into ageneral strike which paralysed the country. In a city without electricity, Witte told Nicholas II "that the country was at the verge of a cataclysmic revolution".[84] The Tsar accepted the draft, hurriedly outlined by Aleksei D.Obolensky.[85][86] TheEmperor and Autocrat of All the Russias was forced to sign theOctober Manifesto agreeing to the establishment of theImperial Duma, and to give up part of his unlimited autocracy. The freedom of religion clause outraged the Church because it allowed people to switch to evangelical Protestantism, which they denounced as heresy.[87]
For the next six months, Witte was theprime minister. According toHarold Williams: "That government was almost paralyzed from the beginning." On 8 November[h] 1905 the tsar appointedDmitri Feodorovich Trepov Master of the Palace (without consulting Witte), and had daily contact with the emperor; his influence at court was paramount. On 14 November,[i]Princess Milica of Montenegro presentedGrigori Rasputin to Tsar Nicholas and his wife (who by then had a hemophiliac son) atPeterhof Palace.[88]
Relationship with the Duma
Silver coin:1 rubleNikolai II_Romanov Dynasty – 1913 – On the obverse of the coin features two rulers: left Emperor Nikolas II in military uniform of the life guards of the 4th infantry regiment of the Imperial family, rightMichael I in Royal robes andMonomakh's Cap. Portraits made in a circular frame around of a Greek ornament.Nicholas II's opening speech before the two chambers of the State Duma in theWinter Palace, 10 May 1906One ruble silver coin of Nicholas II, dated 1898, with the Imperial coat-of-arms on the reverse. The Russian inscription reads: B[ozheyu] M[ilostyu] Nikolay Imperator i Samoderzhets Vse[ya] Ross[ii].[iyskiy]. The English translation is: "By the grace of God, Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias".
Under pressure from the attempted1905 Russian Revolution, on 5 August of that year Nicholas II issued a manifesto about the convocation of theState Duma, known as theBulygin Duma, initially thought to be an advisory organ. In the October Manifesto, the Tsar pledged to introduce basic civil liberties, provide for broad participation in the State Duma, and endow the Duma with legislative and oversight powers. He was determined, however, to preserve his autocracy even in the context of reform. This was signalled in the text of the1906 constitution. He was described as the supreme autocrat, and retained sweeping executive powers, also in church affairs. His cabinet ministers were not allowed to interfere with nor assist one another; they were responsible only to him.[citation needed]
Nicholas's relations with the Duma were poor.[89][90] The First Duma, with a majority ofKadets, almost immediately came into conflict with him. Scarcely had the 524 members sat down at theTauride Palace when they formulated an 'Address to the Throne'. It demandeduniversal suffrage, radical land reform, the release of allpolitical prisoners and the dismissal of ministers appointed by the Tsar in favour of ministers acceptable to the Duma.[91] Grand Duchess Olga, Nicholas's sister, later wrote:
There was such gloom at Tsarskoye Selo. I did not understand anything about politics. I just felt everything was going wrong with the country and all of us. The October Constitution did not seem to satisfy anyone. I went with my mother to the first Duma. I remember the large group of deputies from among peasants and factory people. The peasants looked sullen. But the workmen were worse: they looked as though they hated us. I remember the distress inAlicky's eyes.[78]
Minister of the Court CountVladimir Frederiks commented, "The Deputies, they give one the impression of a gang of criminals who are only waiting for the signal to throw themselves upon the ministers and cut their throats. I will never again set foot among those people."[92] The Dowager Empress noticed "incomprehensible hatred."[92]
Although Nicholas initially had a good relationship with his prime minister, Sergei Witte, Alexandra distrusted him as he had instigated an investigation of Grigori Rasputin and, as the political situation deteriorated, Nicholas dissolved the Duma. The Duma was populated withradicals, many of whom wished to push through legislation that would abolish private property ownership, among other things.[citation needed] Witte, unable to grasp the seemingly insurmountable problems of reforming Russia and the monarchy, wrote to Nicholas on 14 April 1906 resigning his office (however, other accounts have said that Witte was forced to resign by the emperor). Nicholas was not ungracious to Witte and an ImperialRescript was published on 22 April creating Witte a Knight of theOrder of Saint Alexander Nevsky with diamonds (the last two words were written in the emperor's own hand, followed by "I remain unalterably well-disposed to you and sincerely grateful, for ever more Nicholas.").[citation needed]
A second Duma met for the first time in February 1907. The leftist parties—including theSocial Democrats and theSocialist Revolutionaries, who had boycotted the First Duma—had won 200 seats in the Second, more than a third of the membership. Again Nicholas waited impatiently to rid himself of the Duma. In two letters to his mother he let his bitterness flow:
A grotesque deputation is coming from England to see liberal members of the Duma.Uncle Bertie informed us that they were very sorry but were unable to take action to stop their coming. Their famous "liberty", of course. How angry they would be if a deputation went from us to the Irish to wish them success in their struggle against their government.[93]
A little while later he further wrote:
All would be well if everything said in the Duma remained within its walls. Every word spoken, however, comes out in the next day's papers which are avidly read by everyone. In many places the populace is getting restive again. They begin to talk about land once more and are waiting to see what the Duma is going to say on the question. I am getting telegrams from everywhere, petitioning me to order a dissolution, but it is too early for that. One has to let them do something manifestly stupid or mean and then—slap! And they are gone![94]
Nicholas II, Stolypin and theJewish delegation during the Tsar's visit toKiev in 1911
After the Second Duma resulted in similar problems, the new prime ministerPyotr Stolypin (whom Witte described as "reactionary")[citation needed] unilaterally dissolved it, and changed the electoral laws to allow for future Dumas to have a more conservative content, and to be dominated by the liberal-conservativeOctobrist Party ofAlexander Guchkov. Stolypin, a skilful politician, had ambitious plans for reform. These included making loans available to the lower classes to enable them to buy land, with the intent of forming a farming class loyal to the crown. Nevertheless, when the Duma remained hostile, Stolypin had no qualms about invoking Article 87 of theFundamental Laws, which empowered the tsar to issue 'urgent and extraordinary' emergency decrees 'during the recess of the State Duma'. Stolypin's most famous legislative act, the change in peasant land tenure, was promulgated under Article 87.[94]
The third Duma remained an independent body. This time the members proceeded cautiously. Instead of hurling themselves at the government, opposing parties within the Duma worked to develop the body as a whole. In the classic manner of the British Parliament, the Duma reached for power grasping for the national purse strings. The Duma had the right to question ministers behind closed doors as to their proposed expenditures. These sessions, endorsed by Stolypin, were educational for both sides, and, in time, mutual antagonism was replaced by mutual respect. Even the sensitive area of military expenditure, where the October Manifesto clearly had reserved decisions to the throne, a Duma commission began to operate. Composed of aggressive patriots no less anxious than Nicholas to restore the fallen honour of Russian arms, the Duma commission frequently recommended expenditures even larger than those proposed.[citation needed]
With the passage of time, Nicholas also began to have confidence in the Duma. "This Duma cannot be reproached with an attempt to seize power and there is no need at all to quarrel with it," he said to Stolypin in 1909.[95] Nevertheless, Stolypin's plans were undercut by conservatives at court. Although the tsar at first supported him, he finally sided with the arch critics.[96] Reactionaries such as PrinceVladimir Nikolayevich Orlov never tired of telling the tsar that the very existence of the Duma was a blot on the autocracy. Stolypin, they whispered, was a traitor and secret revolutionary who was conniving with the Duma to steal the prerogatives assigned the tsar by God. Witte also engaged in constant intrigue against Stolypin. Although Stolypin had had nothing to do with Witte's fall, Witte blamed him. Stolypin had unwittingly angered the tsaritsa. He had ordered an investigation into Rasputin and presented it to the tsar, who read it but did nothing. Stolypin, on his own authority, ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg. Alexandra protested vehemently but Nicholas refused to overrule his prime minister,[97] who had more influence with the emperor.[citation needed]
By the time of Stolypin's assassination in September 1911, Stolypin had grown weary of the burdens of office. For a man who preferred clear decisive action, working with a sovereign who believed in fatalism and mysticism was frustrating. As an example, Nicholas once returned a document unsigned with the note:
Despite most convincing arguments in favour of adopting a positive decision in this matter, an inner voice keeps on insisting more and more that I do not accept responsibility for it. So far my conscience has not deceived me. Therefore I intend in this case to follow its dictates. I know that you, too, believe that 'a Tsar's heart is in God's hands.' Let it be so. For all laws established by me I bear a great responsibility before God, and I am ready to answer for my decision at any time.[97]
Alexandra, believing that Stolypin had severed the bonds that her son depended on for life, hated the prime minister.[97] In March 1911, in a fit of anger stating that he no longer commanded the imperial confidence, Stolypin asked to be relieved of his office. Two years earlier when Stolypin had casually mentioned resigning to Nicholas he was informed: "This is not a question of confidence or lack of it. It is my will. Remember that we live in Russia, not abroad...and therefore I shall not consider the possibility of any resignation."[98] He was assassinated in September 1911.
In 1912, a fourth Duma was elected with almost the same membership as the third. "The Duma started too fast. Now it is slower, but better, and more lasting", stated Nicholas to SirBernard Pares.[95]
TheFirst World War developed badly for Russia. By late 1916, Romanov family desperation reached the point thatGrand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, younger brother of Alexander III and the Tsar's only surviving uncle, was deputed to beg Nicholas to grant a constitution and a government responsible to the Duma. Nicholas sternly and adamantly refused, reproaching his uncle for asking him to break his coronation oath to maintain autocratic power for his successors. In the Duma on 2 December 1916,Vladimir Purishkevich, a fervent patriot, monarchist and war worker, denounced the dark forces which surrounded the throne in a thunderous two-hour speech which was tumultuously applauded. "Revolution threatens," he warned, "and an obscure peasant shall govern Russia no longer!".[99]
Tsarevich Alexei's illness and Rasputin
Alexei in 1913
Further complicating domestic matters was the matter of the succession. Alexandra bore Nicholas four daughters, Grand DuchessOlga in 1895, Grand DuchessTatiana in 1897, Grand DuchessMaria in 1899, and Grand DuchessAnastasia in 1901, before their sonAlexei was born on 12 August 1904. The young heir was afflicted withHemophilia B, a hereditary disease that prevents blood from clotting properly, which at that time was untreatable and usually led to an untimely death. As a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Alexandra carried the samegene mutation that afflicted several of the major European royal houses, such asPrussia and Spain. Hemophilia, therefore, became known as "the royal disease". Through Alexandra, the disease had passed on to her son. As all of Nicholas and Alexandra's daughters were assassinated with their parents and brother in Yekaterinburg in 1918, it is not known whether any of them inherited the gene ascarriers.[citation needed]
Before Rasputin's arrival, the tsarina and the tsar had consulted numerous mystics, charlatans, "holy fools", and miracle workers. The royal behavior was not some odd aberration, but a deliberate retreat from the secular social and economic forces of his time—an act of faith and vote of confidence in a spiritual past. They had set themselves up for the greatest spiritual advisor and manipulator in Russian history.[100]
Because of the fragility of the autocracy at this time, Nicholas and Alexandra chose to keep secret Alexei's condition. Even within the household, many were unaware of the exact nature of the tsesarevich's illness. At first Alexandra turned to Russian doctors and medics to treat Alexei; however, their treatments generally failed, and Alexandra increasingly turned tomystics and holy men (orstarets as they were called in Russian). One of these starets, an illiterate Siberian named Grigori Rasputin, gained amazing success. Rasputin's influence over Empress Alexandra, and consequently the tsar himself, grew even stronger after 1912 when the tsesarevich nearly died from an injury. His bleeding grew steadily worse as doctors despaired, and priests administered theLast Sacrament. In desperation, Alexandra called upon Rasputin, to which he replied, "God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much."[101] The hemorrhage stopped the very next day and the boy began to recover. Alexandra took this as a sign that Rasputin was astarets and that God was with him; for the rest of her life she would fervently defend him and turn her wrath against anyone who dared to question him.[citation needed]
European affairs
Nicholas II and his son Alexei aboard the Imperial yachtStandart, during KingEdward VII's state visit to Russia inReval, 1908
In 1907, to end longstanding controversies over central Asia, Russia and the United Kingdom signed theAnglo-Russian Convention that resolved most of the problems generated for decades byThe Great Game.[102] The UK had already entered into theEntente Cordiale with France in 1904, and the Anglo-Russian Convention led to the formation of theTriple Entente.
The following year, in May 1908, Nicholas and Alexandra's shared "Uncle Bertie" and "Aunt Alix", Britain's King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, made astate visit to Russia, being the first reigning British monarchs to do so. However, they did not set foot on Russian soil. Instead, they stayed aboard their yachts, meeting off the coast of modern-dayTallinn.[citation needed] The purpose of this three-day meeting was to sign contracts of political and military assistance between the United Kingdom and Russia. With the foreign ministers of both countries present, a contract about changes in Macedonia and the weakening of the Ottoman Empire was signed.[103][104] This meeting ignited theYoung Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire.
Later that year, Nicholas was taken off guard by the news that his foreign minister,Alexander Izvolsky, had entered into a secret agreement with the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, CountAlois von Aehrenthal, agreeing that, in exchange for Russian naval access to theDardanelles and theBosporus Strait, Russia would not oppose the Austrian annexation ofBosnia and Herzegovina, a revision of the 1878Treaty of Berlin. When Austria-Hungary did annex this territory that October, it precipitated theBosnian Crisis. When Russia protested about the annexation, the Austrians threatened to leak secret communications between Izvolsky and Aehrenthal, prompting Nicholas to complain in a letter to Emperor Franz Joseph, about a breach of confidence.[citation needed] In 1909, in the wake of the Anglo-Russian convention, the Russian imperial family made a visit to England, staying on theIsle of Wight forCowes Week.
On 5 July 1912 a meeting was held inPaldiski between Nicholas II and the German emperor Wilhelm II.[105] Wilhelm II was aboard the shipHohenzollern II, escorted by the battlecruiserMoltke. A lunch for fifty people was held at the Paldiskiroadstead on Nicholas II's yachtStandart, where negotiations about the political situation in Europe were held. These negotiations failed to stop the approaching World War I.
On 28 June 1914Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to theAustro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb inSarajevo, who opposed Austria-Hungary'sannexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. War was avoidable, but leaders, diplomats and nineteenth-century alliances created a climate for large-scale conflict. The concept ofPan-Slavism and shared religion created public sympathy between Russia andSerbia. Territorial conflict created rivalries betweenGermany and France, between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and so alliance networks developed across Europe. TheTriple Entente andTriple Alliance networks were set before the war. Nicholas wanted neither to abandon Serbia to the ultimatum of Austria-Hungary, nor provoke a general war. In letters exchanged withWilhelm of Germany (the "Willy–Nicky correspondence") the two proclaimed their desire for peace, and attempted to get the other to back down. Nicholas desired that Russia's mobilization be only against Austria-Hungary, in the hopes of preventing war with Germany.[citation needed]
On 25 July 1914, at his council of ministers, Nicholas decided to intervene in the Austro-Serbian conflict, a step toward general war. He put the army on "alert"[109] on 25 July. Although this was not general mobilization, it threatened the German and Austro-Hungarian borders and looked like preparation for war.[109] However, his army had no contingency plans for partial mobilization, and on 30 July 1914 Nicholas took the fateful step of confirming the order for general mobilization, despite being counselled against it.[citation needed]
On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia. On 29 July 1914, Nicholas sent a telegram to Wilhelm with the suggestion to submit the Austro-Serbian problem to theHague Conference. Wilhelm did not address the question of the Hague Conference in his reply.[110][111] Count Witte told the French ambassador,Maurice Paléologue that from Russia's point of view the war was madness, Slav solidarity was nonsense and Russia could hope for nothing from the war.[112] On 30 July, Russia ordered general mobilization, but still maintained it would not attack if peace talks began. Germany, reacting to the discovery of partial mobilization ordered on 25 July, announced its pre-mobilization posture. Germany requested Russia demobilize within the next twelve hours.[113] In Saint Petersburg, at 7 pm, with the ultimatum to Russia having expired, the German ambassador met with the Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Sazonov, asked if Russia would reconsider, and then delivered the note accepting Russia's war challenge and declaring war on 1 August. Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and its ally France on 3 August.[114] On 6 August, Franz Joseph signed the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Russia.[citation needed]
Nicholas II in 1914
The outbreak of war found Russia grossly unprepared. Russia and her allies placed their faith inher army, the famous 'Russian steamroller'.[115] Its pre-war regular strength was 1,400,000; mobilization added 3,100,000 reserves and millions more stood ready behind them. In other respects, however, Russia was unprepared. Germany had ten times as much railway track per square mile, and whereas Russian soldiers travelled an average of 1,290 kilometres (800 mi) to reach the front, German soldiers traveled a quarter of that. Russian heavy industry was too small to equip the massive armies the Tsar could raise, and her reserves of munitions were small; while theImperial German Army in 1914 was better equipped than any other, the Russians were short on artillery pieces, shells, motorized transports, and even boots. With theBaltic Sea barred by German U-boats and the Dardanelles by the guns of Germany's ally, theOttoman Empire, Russia initially could receive help only viaArchangel, which was frozen in winter, or viaVladivostok, which was over 6,400 kilometres (4,000 mi) from the front. By 1915, a railway was built north fromPetrozavodsk to the Kola Gulf and this connection laid the foundation of the ice-free port ofMurmansk. The Russian High Command was weakened by the contempt betweenVladimir Sukhomlinov, theMinister of War, and incompetent Grand DukeNicholas Nikolayevich who commanded the armies in the field.[116] In spite of all this, an immediate attack was ordered against the German province ofEast Prussia. The Germans defeated the Russians, and theBattle of Tannenberg, where a Russian army was annihilated, cast an ominous shadow over Russia's future. Russia had great success against theAustro-Hungarian andOttoman armies, but never succeeded against the German Army. In September 1914, to relieve pressure on France, the Russians were forced to halt a successful offensive against Austria-Hungary inGalicia to attack German-held Silesia.[117]
A war of attrition set in on theEastern Front, where the Russians faced the combined forces of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, and suffered staggering losses. GeneralAnton Denikin wrote, "The German heavy artillery swept away whole lines of trenches, and their defenders with them...There was nothing with which we could reply. Our regiments, although completely exhausted, were beating off one attack after another by bayonet ... Blood flowed unendingly, the ranks became thinner and thinner...The number of graves multiplied."[118] On 5 August, with the Russian army in retreat,Warsaw fell. Defeat bred disorder at home. At first, the targets were German, and in June shops, bakeries, factories, private houses and country estates belonging to people with German names were looted and burned.[citation needed] The mobs then turned on the government, declaring the empress should be shut up in a convent, the tsar deposed and Rasputin hanged. Nicholas was not deaf to these discontents. An emergency session of the Duma was summoned and a Special Defense Council established, its members drawn from the Duma and the tsar's ministers.[citation needed]
Supreme commander Nicholas II, chief of staffAlekseyev (right)
In July 1915, KingChristian X ofDenmark, first cousin of the tsar, sentHans Niels Andersen to Tsarskoye Selo with an offer to act as a mediator. He made trips between London, Berlin andPetrograd and in July saw the Dowager EmpressMaria Feodorovna. Andersen told her they should conclude peace. Nicholas turned down Christian's offer of mediation, as he felt it would be a betrayal for Russia to form a separate peace treaty with theCentral Powers when its allies Britain and France were still fighting.[119]
GeneralAlexei Polivanov replaced Sukhomlinov asMinister of War, which failed to improve the situation.[115] In the aftermath of theGreat Retreat and loss of theKingdom of Poland, Nicholas assumed the role of commander-in-chief after dismissing his cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich, in September 1915. This was a mistake, as the tsar became personally associated with continuing losses at the front. He was away at the remote HQ atMogilev, far from direct governance of the empire, and when revolution broke out in Petrograd he was unable to halt it. In reality the move was symbolic, since important military decisions were made by his chief of staff, GeneralMikhail Alekseyev, and Nicholas did little more than review troops, inspectfield hospitals, and preside over military luncheons.[120]
The Duma was still calling for political reforms, and unrest continued throughout the war. Cut off from public opinion, Nicholas could not see the dynasty was tottering. With Nicholas at the front, domestic issues and control of the capital were left with his wife. However, Alexandra's relationship with Grigori Rasputin, and her German background, discredited the dynasty's authority. Nicholas had been repeatedly warned about the destructive influence of Rasputin but failed to remove him. Rumors and accusations about Alexandra and Rasputin appeared; Alexandra was even accused of harboring treasonous sympathies towards Germany. Anger at Nicholas's failure to act and the damage Rasputin's influence was doing to Russia's war effort and the monarchy led to Rasputin's murder by nobles, led by PrinceFelix Yusupov and Grand DukeDmitri Pavlovich, a cousin of the tsar, on Saturday 17 December 1916 (O.S.) / 30 December 1916 (N.S.).[citation needed]
Collapse
Nicholas with members of theStavka at Mogilev in April 1916
As the government failed to produce supplies, mounting hardship resulted in massive riots and rebellions. With Nicholas away at the front from 1915 through 1916, authority appeared to collapse and the capital was left in the hands of strikers and mutineering soldiers. Despite efforts by the British Ambassador SirGeorge Buchanan to warn the Tsar that he should grant constitutional reforms to fend off revolution, Nicholas continued to bury himself away at the Staff HQ (Stavka) 600 kilometres (400 mi) away at Mogilev, leaving his capital and court open to intrigues and insurrection.[121]
Ideologically the tsar's greatest support came from the right-wing monarchists, who had recently gained strength. However they were increasingly alienated by the tsar's support of Stolypin's Westernizing reforms taken early in the Revolution of 1905 and especially by the political power the tsar had bestowed on Rasputin.[122]
By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total collapse of morale. An estimated 1.7 million Russian soldierswere killed in World War I.[123] The sense of failure and imminent disaster was everywhere. The army had taken 15 million men from the farms and food prices had soared. An egg cost four times what it had in 1914, butter five times as much. The severe winter dealt the railways, overburdened by emergency shipments of coal and supplies, a crippling blow.[121]
Russia entered the war with 20,000 locomotives; by 1917, 9,000 were in service, while the number of serviceable railway wagons had dwindled from half a million to 170,000. In February 1917, 1,200 locomotives burst their boilers and nearly 60,000 wagons were immobilized. In Petrograd, supplies of flour and fuel had all but disappeared.[121] War-timeprohibition of alcohol was enacted by Nicholas to boost patriotism and productivity, but instead damaged the funding of the war, due to the treasury now being deprived of alcohol taxes.[124]
On 23 February 1917 in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to break into shops and bakeries to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted "Down with the German woman! Down withProtopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!"[121]
Police shot at the populace which incited riots. The troops in the capital were poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime, with the bulk of the tsar's loyalists away fighting World War I. In contrast, the soldiers in Petrograd were angry, full of revolutionary fervor and sided with the populace.[125]
The tsar's Cabinet begged Nicholas to return to the capital and offered to resign completely. The tsar, 800 kilometres (500 mi) away, misinformed by the Minister of the Interior Alexander Protopopov that the situation was under control, ordered that firm steps be taken against the demonstrators. For this task, the Petrograd garrison was quite unsuitable. The cream of the old regular army had been destroyed in Poland and Galicia. In Petrograd, 170,000 recruits, country boys or older men from the working-class suburbs of the capital itself, were available under the command of officers at the front and cadets not yet graduated from the military academies. The units in the capital, although many bore the names of famousImperial Guard regiments, were in reality rear or reserve battalions of these regiments, the regular units being away at the front. Many units, lacking both officers and rifles, had never undergone formal training.[125]
GeneralKhabalov attempted to put the tsar's instructions into effect on the morning of Sunday, 11 March 1917. Despite huge posters ordering people to keep off the streets, vast crowds gathered and were only dispersed after some 200 had been shot dead, though a company of theVolhynian Regiment fired into the air rather than into the mob, and a company of thePavlovsky Life Guards shot the officer who gave the command to open fire. Nicholas, informed of the situation byMikhail Rodzianko, ordered reinforcements to the capital and suspended the Duma.[125] However, it was too late.
On 12 March, the Volhynian Regiment mutinied and was quickly followed by theSemenovsky, theIzmailovsky, theLithuanian and even the legendaryPreobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, the oldest and staunchest regiment founded byPeter the Great. The arsenal was pillaged and the Ministry of the Interior, Military Government building, police headquarters, Law Courts and a score of police buildings were set on fire. By noon, thePeter and Paul Fortress, with its heavy artillery, was in the hands of the insurgents. By nightfall, 60,000 soldiers had joined the revolution.[125]
Order broke down and Prime MinisterNikolai Golitsyn resigned; members of the Duma and theSoviet formed aProvisional Government to try to restore order. They issued a demand that Nicholas must abdicate. Faced with this demand, which was echoed by his generals, deprived of loyal troops, with his family firmly in the hands of the Provisional Government, and fearful of unleashing civil war and opening the way for German conquest, Nicholas had little choice but to submit.[citation needed]
On these pivotal days on the road of the destiny of Russia it is our duty to do everything we can for the good of the people to gather our strength and to unite our ranks to achieve a quick victory. For this reason do we, Nicholas II, in understanding with the Duma of the state, see that is best to abdicate from the throne of Russia and to surrender the supreme power. As we are unwilling to part ways with our son do we surrender the hereditary right to the throne to the grand duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and give him our blessing as he will rise onto the throne of the empire of Russia.[126]
The losses ofWorld War I and the fall of the economy, the workers going on strikes and the political agitation and rioting eventually led to the outbreak of theFebruary Revolution in Saint Petersburg in March 1917. After the divisions and cossacks at the city garrison had sided with the revolution emperor Nicholas II was left without a choice.
As Nicholas was returning on a train from theMogilevStavka on 15 March 1917 he got a telegram toPskov fromMikhail Rodzianko, the head of the Duma and fromMikhail Alekseyev, the chief of staff, demanding him to abdicate in favour of his sonAlexei. As Nicholas realised the seriousness of the situation he agreed that abdication would be the best solution for the Russia he loved and the continuation of the empire.
Nicholas first abdicated in favor of Alexei, but a few hours later changed his mind after advice from doctors that Alexei would not live long enough while separated from his parents, who would be forced into exile. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand DukeMichael, as the next Emperor of all the Russias. He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government.
Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and Michael's deferment of accepting the throne brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty's rule to an end. The fall ofTsarist autocracy[89][90] brought joy to liberals and socialists in Britain and France. The United States was thefirst foreign government to recognize the Provisional government. In Russia, the announcement of the tsar's abdication was greeted with many emotions, including delight, relief, fear, anger and confusion.[128]
Possibility of exile
Both the Provisional Government and Nicholas wanted the royal family to go into exile following his abdication, with the United Kingdom being the preferred option.[129] The British government reluctantly offered the familyasylum on 19 March 1917, although it was suggested that it would be better for the Romanovs to go to a neutral country. News of the offer provoked uproar from theLabour Party and manyLiberals, and the British ambassador,George Buchanan, advised the government that the extreme left would use the ex-tsar's presence "as an excuse for rousing public opinion against us".[130] The Liberal Prime Minister,David Lloyd George, preferred that the family went to a neutral country, and wanted the offer to be announced as at the request of the Russian government.[131] The offer of asylum was withdrawn in April following objections by KingGeorge V, who, acting on the advice of his secretary,Lord Stamfordham, was worried that Nicholas's presence might provoke an uprising like the previous year'sEaster Rising inIreland. However, later the king defied his secretary and went to the Romanov memorial service at the Russian Church in London.[132] In the early summer of 1917, the Russian government approached the British government on the issue of asylum and was informed the offer had been withdrawn due to the considerations of British internal politics.[133]
The French government declined to accept the Romanovs in view of increasing unrest on the Western Front and on the home front as a result of the ongoing war with Germany.[134][135] The British ambassador in Paris,Francis Bertie, advised theForeign Secretary that the Romanovs would be unwelcome in France as the ex-empress was regarded as pro-German.[130]
Even if an offer of asylum had been forthcoming, there would have been other obstacles to be overcome. The Provisional Government only remained in power through an uneasy alliance with thePetrograd Soviet, an arrangement known as "TheDual power". An initial plan to send the imperial family to the northern port ofMurmansk had to be abandoned when it was realised that the railway workers and the soldiers guarding them were loyal to the Petrograd Soviet, which opposed the escape of the tsar; a later proposal to send the Romanovs to a neutral port in theBaltic Sea via theGrand Duchy of Finland faced similar difficulties.[136]
Imprisonment
Nicholas II under guard in the grounds atTsarskoye Selo in the summer of 1917
Tsarskoye Selo
After the abdication of Nicholas II, theRussian Provisional Government protected the imperial family. On 20 March 1917, the Provisional Government decreed that the imperial family should be held underhouse arrest in theAlexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Nicholas joined the rest of the family there two days later, having traveled from the wartime headquarters atMogilev.[137] The family had total privacy inside the palace and they could do gardening while the guards were present, but walks in the grounds were strictly regulated and they could not leave the area.[138][139]
Members of their domestic staff were allowed to stay if they wished and culinary standards were maintained.[140] ColonelEugene Kobylinsky was appointed to command the military garrison at Tsarskoye Selo,[141] which increasingly had to be done through negotiation with the committees orsoviets elected by the soldiers.[142] During his imprisonment Nicholas readThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion to his family.[143]
The Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk, where the Romanov family was held in captivity between August 1917 and April 1918Nicholas and Alexei sawing wood at Tobolsk in late 1917; a favourite pastime
Tobolsk
That summer, the failure of theKerensky Offensive against Austro-Hungarian and German forces in Galicia led to anti-government rioting in Petrograd, known as theJuly Days. The government feared that further disturbances in the city could easily reach Tsarskoye Selo and it was decided to move the imperial family to a safer location.[144]Alexander Kerensky, who had taken over as prime minister, selected the town ofTobolsk inWestern Siberia, since it was remote from any large city and 150 miles (240 km) from the nearest rail station.[145] Some sources state that there was an intention to send the family abroad in the spring of 1918 via Japan,[146] but more recent work suggests that this was just a Bolshevik rumour.[147] The family left the Alexander Palace late on 13 August, reachedTyumen by rail four days later and then by two river ferries finally reached Tobolsk on 19 August.[148] There they lived in the formerGovernor's Mansion in considerable comfort. The family were even allowed to walk to church on Sundays.
In October 1917, however, theBolsheviks seized power from Kerensky's Provisional Government; Nicholas followed the events in October with interest but not yet with alarm.Boris Soloviev, the husband ofMaria Rasputin, attempted to organize a rescue with monarchical factions, but it came to nothing. Rumors persist that Soloviev was working for the Bolsheviks or the Germans, or both.[149] Separate preparations for a rescue byNikolai Yevgenyevich Markov were frustrated by Soloviev's ineffectual activities.[150] Nicholas continued to underestimateLenin's importance. In the meantime he and his family occupied themselves with reading books, exercising and playing games; Nicholas particularly enjoyed chopping firewood.[151] However, in January 1918, the guard detachment's committee grew more assertive, restricting the hours that the family could spend in the grounds and banning them from walking to church on a Sunday as they had done since October.[152] In a later incident, the soldiers tore theepaulettes from Kobylinsky's uniform, and he asked Nicholas not to wear his uniform outside for fear of provoking a similar event.[153]
In February 1918, theCouncil of People's Commissars (abbreviated to "Sovnarkom") in Moscow, the new capital, announced that the state subsidy for the family would be drastically reduced, starting on 1 March. This meant parting with twelve devoted servants and giving up butter and coffee as luxuries, even though Nicholas added to the funds from his own resources.[154] Walks outside the house were also limited.
Nicholas and Alexandra were appalled by news of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk, whereby Russia agreed to give up Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, most of Belarus, Ukraine, the Crimea, most of the Caucasus, and small parts of Russia proper including areas aroundPskov andRostov-on-Don.[155] What kept the family's spirits up was the belief that help was at hand.[156] The Romanovs believed that various plots were underway to break them out of captivity and smuggle them to safety. The Western Allies lost interest in the fate of the Romanovs after Russia left the war. The German government wanted the monarchy restored in Russia to crush the Bolsheviks and maintain good relations with the Central Powers.[157]
The situation in Tobolsk changed for the worse on 26 March, when 250 ill-disciplinedRed Guards arrived from the regional capital,Omsk. Not to be outdone, the soviet inYekaterinburg, the capital of the neighbouringUral region, sent 400 Red Guards to exert their influence on the town.[158] Disturbances between these rival groups and the lack of funds to pay the guard detachment caused them to send a delegation to Moscow to plead their case. The result was that Sovnarkom appointed their owncommissar to take charge of Tobolsk and remove the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg, with the intention of eventually bringing Nicholas to ashow trial in Moscow.[159] The man selected wasVasily Yakovlev, a veteran Bolshevik.[160] Recruiting a body of loyal menen route, Yakovlev arrived in Tobolsk on 22 April; he imposed his authority on the competing Red Guards factions, paid-off anddemobilized the guard detachment, and placed further restrictions on the Romanovs.[161] The next day, Yakovlev informed Kobylinsky that Nicholas was to be transferred to Yekaterinburg. Alexei was too ill to travel, so Alexandra elected to go with Nicholas along with Maria, while the other daughters would remain at Tobolsk until they were able to make the journey.[162]
In Tobolsk the family sewed jewels onto their corsets, undershirts, belts and hats. The buttons on their summer outfits were replaced with diamonds and jewels were sewn into Alexei's undergarments and the hat of his uniform. The diamond-studded undergarments of three of the girls weighed two kilograms in total.[10]
After Alexei had recovered he and the rest of the family were also taken to Yekaterinburg on steam ship and train in late May 1918. During the journey drunken guards harassed the girls. The ladies-in-waiting, Alexei'sSwiss home teacher Pierre Gilliard and teacher Charles Sidney Gibbes, as well as the rest of the entourage, were left at the station platform and told they were free to go.
Yekaterinburg
At 3 am on 25 April, the three Romanovs, their retinue, and the escort of Yakovlev's detachment, left Tobolsk in a convoy of nineteentarantasses (four-wheeled carriages), as the river was still partly frozen which prevented the use of the ferry.[163] After an arduous journey which included two overnight stops, fording rivers, frequent changes of horses and a foiled plot by the Yekaterinburg Red Guards to abduct and kill the prisoners, the party arrived at Tyumen and boarded a requisitioned train. Yakovlev was able to communicate securely with Moscow by means of aHughes'teleprinter and obtained agreement to change their destination toOmsk, where it was thought that the leadership were less likely to harm the Romanovs.[164] Leaving Tyumen early on 28 April, the train left towards Yekaterinburg, but quickly changed direction towards Omsk. This led the Yekaterinburg leaders to believe that Yakovlev was a traitor who was trying to take Nicholas to exile by way ofVladivostok; telegraph messages were sent, two thousand armed men were mobilized and a train was dispatched to arrest Yakovlev and the Romanovs. The Romanovs' train was halted at Omsk station and after a frantic exchange of cables with Moscow, it was agreed that they should go to Yekaterinburg in return for a guarantee of safety for the imperial family; they finally arrived there on the morning of 30 April.[165]
They were imprisoned in the two-storyIpatiev House, the home of the military engineer Nikolay Nikolayevich Ipatiev, which ominously became referred to as the "house of special purpose". Here the Romanovs were kept under even stricter conditions; they were only allowed to speak Russian, their cameras were confiscated, their belongings were inspected and taken to locked storage and their retinue was further reduced.[166] The windows were painted shut, visits outside were limited and the house was surrounded with a tall fence. The family was not allowed to go to church or receive guests, and also forbidden from reading newspapers or writing letters. Food portions were limited.
As time passed, the guards became more sympathetic towards the prisoners, after which the Bolshevik government replaced the guards with new ones. The new guards were members of the notoriousCheka secret police. Six of them wereBulgarian andHungarian prisoners-of-war, who were used for the dirty work. According to Robert K. Massie the imperial family knew their fate when these men arrived. The cold, professional behaviour of the guards plainly showed them to beexecutioners.
Following allegations of pilfering from the royal household,Yakov Yurovsky, a former member of theCheka secret police, was appointed to command the guard detachment, a number of whom were replaced with trusted Latvian members of the Yekaterinburg "special-service detachment".[167] The remaining Romanovs left Tobolsk by river steamer on 20 May and arrived in Yekaterinburg three days later.[168] By the first weeks of June, the Bolsheviks were becoming alarmed by theRevolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, whose forces were approaching the city from the east. This prompted a wave of executions and murders of those in the region who were believed to becounter-revolutionaries, including Grand Duke Michael, who was murdered inPerm on 13 June.[169]
Although the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow still intended to bring Nicholas to trial, as the military situation deteriorated,Leon Trotsky andYakov Sverdlov began to publicly equivocate about the possible fate of the former tsar.[170] On 16 July, the Yekaterinburg leadership informed Yurovsky that it had been decided to murder the Romanovs as soon as approval arrived from Moscow, because the Czechs were expected to reach the city imminently. A coded telegram arrived in Moscow from Yekaterinburg that evening; after Lenin and Sverdlov had conferred a reply was sent, although no trace of that document has ever been found. In the meantime, Yurovsky had organized his firing squad and they waited through the night at the Ipatiev House for the signal to act.[171]
Nicholas with his family (left to right): Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.Livadia Palace, 1913.
There are several accounts of what happened and historians have not agreed on a solid, confirmed scope of events. According to the account of Bolshevik officerYakov Yurovsky (the chief executioner), in the early hours of 17 July 1918,[58][59] the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, got dressed, and were led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house. The pretext for this move was the family's safety, i.e. that anti-Bolshevik forces were approaching Yekaterinburg, and the house might be fired upon.[172] The prisoners were told that Moscow wanted a photograph of them as proof of their wellbeing. They were assembled, but instead of a photographer, a group of armed guards arrived.[173]
Present with Nicholas, Alexandra and their children were their doctor and three of their servants, who had voluntarily chosen to remain with the family: the Tsar's personal physicianEugene Botkin, his wife's maidAnna Demidova, and the family's chef,Ivan Kharitonov, and footman,Alexei Trupp. A firing squad had been assembled and was waiting in an adjoining room, composed of seven Communist soldiers from Central Europe, and three local Bolsheviks, all under the command of Yurovsky.[172][174] The executioners had agreed beforehand who would shoot whom - Nicholas II belonged to Pyotr Yermakov and the empress Alexandra belonged to Yurovsky.[175]
Nicholas was carrying his son. When the family arrived in the basement, the former tsar asked if chairs could be brought in for his wife and son to sit on. Yurovsky ordered two chairs brought in, and when the empress and the heir were seated, the executioners filed into the room. Yurovsky announced to them that the Ural Soviet of Workers' Deputies had decided to murder them. A stunned Nicholas asked, "What? What did you say?" and turned toward his family. Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and Nicholas said, according toPeter Ermakov, "You know not what you do."
The executioners drew handguns and began shooting; Nicholas was the first to die. Yurovsky took credit afterwards for firing the first shot that killed the tsar, but his protege—Grigory Nikulin—said years later thatMikhail Medvedev had fired the shot that killed Nicholas. "He fired the first shot. He killed the Tsar," he said in 1964 in a tape-recorded statement for the radio.[176] Nicholas was shot several times in the chest (sometimes erroneously said to have been shot in his head, but his skull bore no bullet wounds when it was discovered in 1991). Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets.[177] They were then stabbed with bayonets and finally shot at close range in their heads.[178]
An announcement from the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers' and Peasants' Government emphasized that conspiracies had been exposed to free the ex-tsar, that counter-revolutionary forces were pressing in on Soviet Russian territory, and that the ex-tsar was guilty of unforgivable crimes against the nation.[179]
In view of the enemy's proximity to Yekaterinburg and the exposure by the Cheka of a seriousWhite Guard plot with the goal of abducting the former tsar and his family… In light of the approach of counterrevolutionary bands toward the Red capital of the Urals and the possibility of the crowned executioner escaping trial by the people (a plot among the White Guards to try to abduct him and his family was exposed and the compromising documents will be published), the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, fulfilling the will of the Revolution, resolved to shoot the former Tsar, Nikolai Romanov, who is guilty of countless, bloody, violent acts against the Russian people.[180]
Commissar[181]Peter Ermakov claimed to have been the chief of the guards at the Ipatiev House.[182][183] Yermakov's description about the execution and disposal of the bodies is completely different from that of captain Yurovsky. Yermakov claimed to have burned the bodies at theFour brothers mining area on top of a pile of logs so thoroughly that not even a piece of a fingernail would have remained. Yermakov also claimed to have thrown the ashes from on top of a truck bed into a storm wind so that they would be scattered onto the fields and into the forest.[184][185] Moscow announced only that Nicholas had been executed and the family had been evacuated to a safe place.[186] After that, Moscow denied knowing anything about the whereabouts of the family for eight years.[187]
The bodies were driven on a truck[188]: 285 to nearby woodland, searched and burned. The remains were soaked in acid and finally thrown down a disusedmine shaft.[189][139] Attempts at collapsing the mine shaft with explosives failed, and so the naked bodies were dug back up on the following night and buried along the forest road on the place where the car sank at the "Meadow of pigs". The bodies were only found in 1978.[139][188]: 283
On the following day, other members of the Romanov family including Grand DuchessElizabeth Feodorovna, the empress's sister, who were being held in a school atAlapayevsk, were taken to another mine shaft and thrown in alive, except for Grand DukeSergei Mikhailovich who was shot when he tried to resist.[190]
In 1977Boris Yeltsin, the first secretary of the Sverlovsk communist party had the Ipatiev House demolished with bulldozers on orders from the politburo, as Soviet leaders feared the place would turn into a memorial site for people supporting imperial rule.Yuri Andropov, the leader of the KGB had suggested demolishing the house because otherwise it could become "a target of severe attention - in the counter-Soviet circles in the west".[10] In 2000 a church called theChurch on Blood was built on the site. It is one of the largest churches in Russia and the icon inside it is one of the most expensive in the world. The church building has two separate church halls of which the lower hall has been sanctified to the imperial family.[191]
Identification
The Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, (later Sverdlovsk) in 1928Yekaterinburg's "Church on the Blood", built on the spot where the Ipatiev House once stood
In 1979, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, three of their daughters, and those of four non-family members killed with them, were discovered nearSverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) by amateur archaeologistAlexander Avdonin.[192][193] DirectorGeli Ryabov from Moscow received a report written by Yurovsky about the burial place of the bodies from Yurovsky's son, vice admiral Alexander Yurovsky. The report included a detailed specification of the burial site at theMeadow of pigs in Koptyak. This burial site was discovered by Ryabov and Avdonin in 1978.
In his report, Yurovsky mentions having burned the bodies of the lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova and tsarevich Alexei near the gravesite. According to experts, it is not possible to burn a body in a forest in a little less than five hours, which was the time Yurovsky had available to burn the bodies. For this reason, searching for the bodies continued.[194][195] The Americans also tried to search for the two missing bodies in the 1990s by using a device utilising sound waves, but did not find them, as the ground had been too badly stirred.[196]
In 1989, Ryabov published the location of the secret gravesite of the Romanov family in the magazineRodina (Russian for "Homeland"). By suggestion from Avdonin, Ryabov actually published a location almost a kilometre away from the real gravesite. One day before the issue ofRodina was published in Sverdlovsk, heavy machinery vehicles appeared in the forest, starting to dig in the ground at the false location Ryabov had announced and transported all loose ground away. "KGB", said Avdonin.[197]
In 1989 Ryabov tried to contact presidentMikhail Gorbachev to ask for help at a government level, so the issue could be handled in a proper matter. Gorbachev did not reply.[198] With Gorbachev's inaction, Ryabov decided to give an interview to the liberal magazineMoskovskiye Novost, published on 10 April 1989. The next day, many notable western newspapers announced that in 1979, the Soviet direct Geli Ryabov had found the bones of the imperial family in a swamp near Sverdlovsk.[198]
Ryabov also wrote to QueenElizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who was related to the Romanovs both directly and through her husbandPrince Philip, asking her to use her influence so the imperial family could be buried in a Christian way. The queen did not reply.[199]
The nine bodies in the grave were dug up in July 1991 with permission from presidentBoris Yeltsin[200] and identified with DNA tests two years later. During the third day of the opening of the grave a dramatic fact became apparent - the grave was missing the skeletons of Alexei and one woman.[201][202]
In January 1998, the remains excavated from underneath the dirt road near Yekaterinburg were officially identified as those of Nicholas II and his family, excluding one daughter (either Maria or Anastasia) and Alexei. The identifications—including comparisons to a living relative, performed by separate Russian, British and American scientists usingDNA analysis—concur and were found to be conclusive.[203][204][205][206]
In July 2007, the amateur historian Sergei Plotnikov discovered bones near Yekaterinburg belonging to a boy and young woman, located about 70 metres from where the rest of the family had been buried.[207] The remains included 7 teeth and 44 pieces of bone, ranging from a few millimetres to a few centimetres in size.[188]: 289, 296 Three teeth with silver-amalgam fillings and 29 pieces of bone were thought to have belonged to Alexei.[208] The remains were confirmed to have belonged to the imperial family with threeDNA tests, whose samples were taken from the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, Alix's sisterElisabeth Feodorovna, Alexander II and Alexander III.[207][209][210][10] In addition to the DNA tests, Alexei's almost completely burned corpse and the high-qualitysilver-amalgam fillings in the remaining teeth, which were similar to the fillings of the rest of the family, were used ascircumstantial evidence.[208]
Prosecutors reopened the investigation into the deaths of the imperial family[211] and, in April 2008, DNA tests performed by an American laboratory proved that bone fragments exhumed in the Ural Mountains belonged to two children of Nicholas II, Alexei and a daughter.[212] That same day it was announced by Russian authorities that remains from the entire family had been recovered.[212][213]
On 1 October 2008, theSupreme Court of Russia ruled that Nicholas II and his family were victims of political persecution and should be rehabilitated.[214][215] In March 2009, results of the DNA testing were published, confirming that the two bodies discovered in 2007 were those of Alexei and one of his sisters.[216]
According to Finnish diplomat and historianMax Jakobson, the director of the Soviet institute for military history, generalDmitri Volkogonov (1928 - 1995) has proven in his biography about Vladimir Lenin that emperor Nicholas II and his family were murdered by a decision of Lenin and his closest men in Moscow.[217][218]: 82 In the 2000s an official investigation was conducted in Russia trying to find out whetherVladimir Lenin andYakov Sverdlov had been guilty of giving the order to execute the Romanov family.[219] The investigation found no trustworthy evidence that either Lenin or Sverdlov would have given the order. The investigation was stopped in early 2011.[219][220][221]
In late 2015, at the insistence of the Russian Orthodox Church,[222] Russian investigators exhumed the bodies of Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, for additional DNA testing,[223] which confirmed that the bones were of the couple.[224][225][226]
Funeral
After the DNA testing of 1998, the remains of the tsar and his immediate family were interred atSt. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, on 17 July 1998, on the eightieth anniversary of their assassination.[227][188]: 287, 289, 293 The ceremony was attended by Russian presidentBoris Yeltsin, who gave a very amicable, although clearly Russo-nationalistic speech at the funeral where he said, "Today is a historic day for Russia. For many years, we kept quiet about this monstrous crime, but the truth has to be spoken."[228][188]: 295
In 1981, Nicholas and his immediate family wererecognised asmartyredsaints by theRussian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.[230] On 14 August 2000, they were recognised by thesynod of theRussian Orthodox Church. This time they were not named as martyrs, since their deaths did not result immediately from their Christian faith; instead, they were canonized aspassion bearers.[231] According to a statement by the Moscow synod, they were glorified as saints for the following reasons:
In the last Orthodox Russian monarch and members of his family we see people who sincerely strove to incarnate in their lives the commands of the Gospel. In the suffering borne by the Royal Family in prison with humility, patience, and meekness, and in their martyrs' deaths in Yekaterinburg in the night of 17 July 1918 was revealed the light of the faith of Christ that conquers evil.[citation needed]
However, Nicholas' canonization was controversial. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was split on the issue back in 1981, some members suggesting that the emperor was a weak ruler and had failed to thwart the rise of the Bolsheviks. It was pointed out by one priest that martyrdom in the Russian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with the martyr's personal actions but is instead related to why he or she was killed.[232]
The Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia rejected the family's classification as martyrs because they were not killed on account of their religious faith. Religious leaders in both churches also had objections to canonising the tsar's family because they perceived him as a weak emperor whose incompetence led to the revolution and the suffering of his people and made him partially responsible for his own assassination and those of his wife, children and servants. For these opponents, the fact that the tsar was, in private life, a kind man and a good husband and father or a leader who showed genuine concern for the peasantry did not override his poor governance of Russia.[232]
The Russian Orthodox Church does not recognise the remains that were found in 1991 and identified with DNA tests in the west as belonging to the imperial family or their servants.[207] The Orthodox Church stands by Peter Ermakov's 1930 account that the bodies were burned and the traces of the crime went away in smoke.[233] In 2004 the Japanese Tatsuo Nagani argued that the bones found in 1991 do not belong to the Romanov family or their servants.[234] The Finnish professor and forensic dentistHelena Ranta has studied the teeth of the skull claimed to have belonged to Nicholas. In 1995 Ranta assumed that the skull did not belong to Nicholas. Ranta demanded a DNA test to be made of the skull but the Russians declined this.[235] The Orthodox Church of Russia wanted to exhume the bodies that had already been buried so it could be confirmed whether they really were Nicholas II, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia.[236]
Despite the original opposition, the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia ultimately recognised the family as "passion bearers",[l] or people who met their deaths with Christian humility. Since the late 20th century, believers have attributed healing from illnesses or conversion to the Orthodox Church to their prayers to the children of Nicholas, Maria and Alexei, as well as to the rest of the family.[237][238]
There exist two types of icons of the imperial family. In one type they are dressed in Medieval clothes, in the other they are dressed in clothes they wore in the early 20th century. In the Medieval-type icons Nicholas wears a fur-lined crown ofVladimir II Monomakh and the coronation clothes of the era of the first Romanovs. In reality, Nicholas never wore the tsar's crown, as it had fallen out of use already at the time ofPeter the Great. According to Robert K. Massie, Nicholas would have wanted to take the crown back to use, but the court protocol did not allow it.
TheKarlovc synod, which possesses the Nikolai Sokolov investigation committee's material and findings, such as jewellery, buttons, pieces of clothing and badges, the severed finger of theempress and the collar ofAnastasia's pet Spaniel Jimmy,[26] canonised the members of the imperial family already in 1960.
Legacy
Contemporary evaluations of Nicholas portrayed him as a well-meaning but indecisive leader, whose actions as monarch were heavily influenced by his advisors. Historian Raymond Esthus states:
The contemporary assessments of Nicholas are remarkably uniform. He was described as shy, charming, gentle in disposition, fearful of controversy, indecisive, indulgent to his relatives, and deeply devoted to his family. Aleksandr Mosolov, who headed his Court Chancellery for sixteen years, wrote that Nicholas, though intelligent and well-educated, never adopted a definite, energetic attitude and loathed making a decision in the presence of others. Sergei Witte, who served Nicholas and his father for eleven years as Minister of Finance, commented that the tsar was a well-intentioned child, but his actions were entirely dependent upon the character of his counselors, most of whom were bad.[54]
During theSoviet period, Nicholas II's legacy was widely criticised within Russia, although discussion was heavily influenced bystate propaganda, which described him as a bloodthirsty tyrant.[239] Pavel Bykov, who wrote the first full account of the downfall of the tsar for the new Soviet government, denounced Nicholas as a "tyrant, who paid with his life for the age-old repression and arbitrary rule of his ancestors over the Russian people, over the impoverished and blood-soaked country". Soviet-era historians described Nicholas II as unfit for rule, arguing that he had a weak will and was manipulated by adventurist forces. He was also criticised for fanning nationalism and chauvinism, and his regime was condemned for its extensive use of the army, police, and courts to destroy the revolutionary movement. During his reign, Nicholas had become known as "Nicholas the Bloody" for his role in theKhodynka Tragedy and the suppression of the 1905 Revolution.[239][240]
The majority view among historians is that Nicholas was a well-intentioned yet poor ruler who proved incapable of handling the challenges facing his nation.[241][54][242][243] For most of the 20th century, Nicholas was generally considered by historians to have been incompetent at the colossal task of ruling the enormous Russian Empire, although the influence of Soviet propaganda on general opinion must be considered.[242]Barbara Tuchman provides a damning evaluation of his reign in her 1962 bookThe Guns of August, describing his sole focus as sovereign as being "to preserve intact the absolute monarchy bequeathed to him by his father", and writing that, "lacking the intellect, energy or training for his job", Nicholas "fell back on personal favorites, whim, simple mulishness, and other devices of the empty-headed autocrat ... when a telegram was brought to him announcing the annihilation of the Russian fleet at Tsushima, he read it, stuffed it in his pocket, and went on playing tennis".[244]
HistorianRobert K. Massie provides a similar indictment of his incompetence, although he emphasises Nicholas' personal morality, describing him as a tragic figure:
... there still are those who for political or other reasons continue to insist that Nicholas was "Bloody Nicholas". Most commonly, he is described as shallow, weak, stupid—a one-dimensional figure presiding feebly over the last days of a corrupt and crumbling system. This, certainly, is the prevailing public image of the last Tsar. Historians admit that Nicholas was a "good man"—the historical evidence of personal charm, gentleness, love of family, deep religious faith and strong Russian patriotism is too overwhelming to be denied—but they argue that personal factors are irrelevant; what matters is that Nicholas was a bad tsar .... Essentially, the tragedy of Nicholas II was that he appeared in the wrong place in history.[245]
Following thecollapse of the Soviet Union, present-day Russian historians give Nicholas a more positive assessment, particularly when evaluating the reforms made by the Russian state during his reign.[246]
Emperor Nicholas II Land in a 1915 map of the Russian Empire. At the time it was believed that what is now Severnaya Zemlya was a single landmass.Imperialregalia of the Russian Empire. On the left is the fur-linedMonomakh's Cap used as the original coronation crown.
Estimates of Nicholas II's personal wealth have been exaggerated. As Emperor of All The Russias, and anautocrat, the resources under his command were virtually incalculable. However, the vast majority of this was owned by the state ascrown property; the Romanov family'spersonal wealth was only a fraction of this. As monarch, the income of Nicholas was 24 milliongold roubles per annum: this derived from a yearly allowance from the treasury, and from the profits of crown farmland.[285] From this income, he had to fund staff, the upkeep of imperial palaces and imperial theatres, annuities for the royal family, pensions, bequests, and other outgoings. "Before the end of the year, the Tsar was usually penniless; sometimes he reached this embarrassing state by autumn".[285] According to the Grand Marshal of the Court, Count Paul Benckendorff, the family's total financial resources amounted to between 12.5 and 17.5 million roubles.[286] As a comparison, Prince Felix Yusupov estimated his family's worth in real estate holdings alone as amounting to 50 million gold roubles.[287]
The mystery and rumours surrounding the finances of the Romanov Dynasty during the early 20th century were addressed at length in the 1932 memoir of Nicholas II's brother-in-law (and first-cousin once-removed) Grand Duke Alexander Michailovich"Once a Grand Duke".[288] Grand Duke Alexander noted that the income of the Russian Emperor prior to the First World War was derived from three main sources:
An annual governmental appropriate for the Imperial Family, amounting to 11 million gold roubles (410,000troy oz ofgold, which he noted equated to just under $6 million);
Proceeds from the exploitation of the Estates belonging to the Imperial Family (referred to as the "oodely"), which Grand Duke Alexander states were valued at $50 million, but produced a relatively low annual return of approximately $1–$2 million; and
Interest from deposits kept abroad in English and German banks.[288]: 156
Grand Duke Alexander estimated that the aggregate annual income of the Russian Emperor prior to the First World War was $10–$12 million in total. In addition to these sources of income, the 'frozen' assets of the Dynasty (which took the form of a hoard of jewels, gemstones etc) was worth an estimated $80 million in the early 20th century. From this annual income, the Emperor was required to maintain the costs of the Imperial Court, multiple residences, as well as the annual allowances which members of the Imperial Family were entitled to:
$100,000 annually to each of the Grand Dukes;
A dowry of $500,000 to each Grand Duchess upon her marriage;
A settlement of $500,000 at birth to each Prince or Princess of the Imperial Blood (great-grandchildren in the male-line of each Emperor) which precluded these individuals from any further financial entitlement.[288]: 158
Other sources suggest that the annuity paid to each Grand Duke was 280,000 roubles,[289] whilst Grand Duchesses received an annuity of 50,000 roubles from birth, increased to 100,000 roubles in adulthood, and that a one-off 1,000,000 rouble payment was made to all Grand Duchessesand Grand Dukes when they married.[290] Variations in the figures cited regarding the incomes of the Russian Imperial Family are likely further compounded by based changes in exchange rates during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the approximate exchange rate of ₽2:$1 and ₽10:£1 in the late 19th century fell to ₽3:$1 and ₽15:£1 from 1914 to 1917.[291][292]
Grand Duke Alexander also claimed that the oft-cited private fortune of £20,000,000 which the Tsars had invested in London Merchant Banks had been depleted during the First World War. This fortune, reportedly kept in London since the reign of Alexander II,"had been entirely spent to support the hospitals and various other charities patronized by the imperial family during the war (1915 - 1917)."[288]: 155
Furthermore, he alleged that in 1914 an"overcareful Minister of the Imperial Court, acting against the orders of the Czar,"[288]: 162 had transferred the sums held from the annual allowances paid to Emperor Nicholas II's five children to Berlin, amounting to some 7,000,000 roubles; as a result, this part of the Romanov Family's wealth was lost in the rampant German currency inflation in the early 1920's.[288]: 162
Alternative figures regarding the payments which Nicholas II was required to make to the extended Imperial Family are listed in a number of contemporary sources; the 1912 edition of theSvod Zakonov (the Russian Empire’s official Digest of Laws) reprints the revised Statute on the Imperial Family which was approved on 2/14 July 1886. This defines who qualified for titles and how support was structured.[293] The Brockhaus & Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890s), a standard Russian reference work, summarizes the administrative stipend scales then in force for imperial children and grandchildren.[294][295] These sources are examined in Mikhail Dolbilov’s 2023 peer-reviewed study"Managing the Ruling House: Royals, Bureaucrats, and the Emergence of the 1886 Statute on the Imperial Family of the Russian Empire", which offers a detailed examination of the post-1886 financial provisions for the Imperial Family, with reference to the 1886“Norms of financing” (RGIA) section.[296][297] These sources provide the following data on the annuities and financial entitlements of the wider Romanov Family during the period from 1886 to 1917:
Financial Entitlements for Members of the Russian Imperial Family after 1886
Annuity increased to ₽150,000 per year; and granted a one-off lump sum of ₽1,000,000.[296]
Annuity increased to ₽200,000 per year, plus a separate ₽40,000 annuity granted to their wife, who also received one-time grants of ₽100,000 (from Emperor) and ₽50,000 (from husband). The widow of the son of an Emperor would continue to receive ₽40,000 annually (reduced to one-third of this amount if residing abroad during their widowhood, and ceasing to be paid if she remarried).[295][296]
Annuity increased to ₽150,000 per year; and granted a one-off lump-sum of ₽600,000.[296]
No increase in individual annuity, but a separate annuity of ₽20,000 was paid to their wife, who also would receive one-time grants of ₽100,000 (from Emperor) and ₽50,000 (from husband). The widow of the grandson of an Emperor would continue to receive ₽20,000 annually (reduced to one-third of this amount if residing abroad during their widowhood, and ceasing to be paid if she remarried).[295][296]
Male-line Granddaughters of an Emperor (Grand Duchesses)
^1 March 1881 in theJulian calendar then in use in Russia, which is the same day as 13 March 1881 in theGregorian calendar used elsewhere at that time.
^During the traditional Blessing of the Waters on the Neva River on January 6 (19),grapeshot loaded in a cannon firing a salute landed near the Emperor.[76][77]
^This was especially true among the illiterate peasantry or 'dark masses' who although they followed their own (almost pagan) rituals, had until this point held complete naive faith in the Tsar.[82]
^Высочайше утверждённый церемониал о святом крещении его императорскаго высочества государя великаго князя Николая Александровича // Русский инвалид [The Highest Approved Ceremonial of the Holy Baptism of His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich] (in Russian). 1868. p. 1.
^Bing, Edward J., ed. (1937).The letters of Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie: being confidential correspondence between Nicholas II, last of the Tsars, and his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. London: Nicholson and Watson.
^Van Der Kiste, John (2003).The Romanovs: 1818–1959. Sutton Publishing. p. 151.
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^Morrill, Dan L. (1974). "Nicholas II and the Call for the First Hague Conference".Journal of Modern History.46 (2):296–313.doi:10.1086/241209.JSTOR1877523., quoting p. 297
^abMacMillan, Margaret (2014).The Road to 1914: The War That Ended Peace. Random House Trade Paperbacks. p. 176.ISBN978-0-8129-8066-0.
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^Микушина, Татьяна; Иванова, О.; Ильина, Е., eds. (29 May 2018).Empoeror Nicholas II: a Via DolorosaИмператор Николай II. Крестный Путь (in Russian). Litres. p. 1838.ISBN978-5-04-116826-1. Retrieved11 April 2025.Three days earlier an incident occurred which was interpreted as an attempted assassination of the Emperor. On 6 January during theEpiphany ceremony of the Blessing of the Holy Water on the Neva a salute was fired from thePeter and Paul Fortress, in which one of the cannons fired a live round in the direction of the Monarch. The shot broke windows in the Winter Palace [...].Тремя днями ранее произошло событие, которое было расценено как покушение на императора. 6 января во время крещенского водосвятия на Неве в Петропавловской крепости произвели салют, при котором одна из пушек выстрелила боевым зарядом в сторону государя. Выстрел картечью поразил окна Зимнего дворца [...].
^Dillon, E.J. (January–June 1905). Shaw, Albert (ed.)."The Doom of Russian Autocracy".The American Monthly Review of Reviews. Vol. 31. New York: The Review of Reviews Company. pp. 303–08.Archived from the original on 15 September 2024. Retrieved28 June 2024 – via Google Books.
^abVorres, Ian (1985)The Last Grand Duchess, London, Finedawn Publishers, p. 121
^Williams, Harold (2012). Gallanar, J. M. (ed.).Shadow of Democracy; Dispatches from Russia: 1905 Revolution. Lulu.com. pp. 11, 22.ISBN978-1-3003-6356-9.
^Klein, Ira (1971). "The Anglo-Russian Convention and the Problem of Central Asia, 1907–1914".Journal of British Studies.11 (1):126–47.doi:10.1086/385621.JSTOR175041.S2CID145507675.
^Robinson, Paul (2013). "A Study of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich as Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, 1914–1915".Historian.75 (3):475–498.doi:10.1111/hisn.12013.JSTOR24456116.
^Hall, Coryne (2006).Little Mother of Russia: A Biography of Empress Marie Fedorovna (1847-1928). Holmes and Meier. p. 264.ISBN0-8419-1422-2.OL8237430M.
^Massie, Robert K. (2012),Nicholas and Alexandra: The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. New York, The Modern Library, p. 433.ISBN0679645616. Accessed 19 November 2016. Originally published in 1967 by Artheneum (United States) asNicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia.ISBN978-0-679-64561-0.
^abNicholas & Alexandra – The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia, Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998,ISBN1861540388[page needed]
^Lähteenmäki, Maria; Troberg, Martti: "Eurooppa etsii suuntaa: Viimeisen keisarin kohtalo",Kronikka 8, p. 13. Helsinki: Edita Prima OY, 2004.ISBN951-37-4060-9
^"Трагедия на Ходынском поле" [The tragedy on the Khodynka Field].ИМПЕРАТОР НИКОЛАЙ II. Omsk State University.Archived from the original on 1 November 2004. Retrieved5 July 2016.Сергей Александрович с тех пор получил в народе титул "князя Ходынского", а Николай II стал именоваться «Кровавым». [Sergei Aleksandrovich was thenceforth called the "Prince of Khodynka" amongst the people, while Nicholas II known as called "Nicholas the Bloody".]
^Bille-Hansen, A. C.; Holck, Harald, eds. (1912) [1st pub. 1801].Statshaandbog for Kongeriget Danmark for Aaret 1912 [State Manual of the Kingdom of Denmark for the Year 1912](PDF). Kongelig Dansk Hof- og Statskalender (in Danish). Copenhagen: J.H. Schultz A.-S. Universitetsbogtrykkeri. pp. 3, 6.Archived(PDF) from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved16 September 2019 – viada:DIS Danmark.
^M. & B. Wattel. (2009).Les Grand'Croix de la Légion d'honneur de 1805 à nos jours. Titulaires français et étrangers. Paris: Archives & Culture. p. 516.ISBN978-2-35077-135-9.
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^Großherzoglich Hessische Ordensliste (in German), Darmstadt: Staatsverlag, 1914, pp. 3, 5,archived from the original on 6 September 2021, retrieved14 October 2021 – via hathitrust.org
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Letters of Czar Nicholas and Empress Marie Ed. Edward J. Bing. London: 1937
Letters of the Czar to the Czaritsa, 1914–1917 Trans. from Russian translations from the original English. E. L. Hynes. London and New York: 1929
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The Secret Letters of the Last Czar: Being the Confidential Correspondence between Nicholas II and his Mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Ed. Edward J. Bing. New York and Toronto: 1938
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Gilliard, Pierre (1921).Thirteen Years at the Russian Court: A Personal Record of the Last Years and Death of the Tsar Nicholas II, and His Family. New York: G. H. Doran.ISBN978-0-598-75546-9.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
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