Nicholas II

Tsar Nicholas II (May 6, 1868 - July 16,1918) was the last Emperor (or Tsar) of Russia and of the Romanov Dynasty. He ruled from November 1, 1894 until his abdication on March 15, 1917, and was killed with his family in 1918.

The son of Tsar Alexander III and Tsarina Marie Romanova (born Princess Dagmar of Denmark), he was the grandson of Queen Victoria of England through his mother, and of Tsar Alexander II through his father. He was first cousin to Kaiser William II of Germany.

Married in 1894 to Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt (henceforth Tsarina Alexandra Romanov), he was father to Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia, and Tsarevich Alexis.

Nicholas assumed the throne in 1894, on the death of his father. He had not been well prepared to rule, his father having been more concerned about finding him a good wife than in involving him in the details of state. His engagement to Princess Alice only slightly preceeded his father's death, and his wedding to came very shortly after the last ceremony of his father's funeral. He then faced the task of being autocrat of Russia in a time of major turmoil - a turmoil which would continue well beyond his death.

He relied heavily on the advice of his cousin, Kaiser William - advice which was not so much in his own best interest as in that of "cousin Willy", who hoped in particular to prevent closer relations between Russia and Britain. An ill-conceived war with Japan (1904-1905) cost Russia dearly, but fear of a wider conflagration contributed ironically to the very Anglo-Russian Entente which William feared.

In addition to a tumultuous international situation, Nicholas also faced deep domestic difficulties. His grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, had been assassinated by a bomb set by revolutionaries, and voices of change were growing louder, ranging from those who would democratize the existing system to those who sought its complete overthrow. Defeat by Japan emboldened the regime's internal opponents, unleashing the 1905 Revolution during which strikes and local uprisings forced Nicholas to concede an indirectly-elected national assembly or Duma.

Further complicating domestic matters was the matter of succession. Alexandra bore him four daughters before their son, Alexis, was born on August 12, 1904. The young tsarevich proved to be afflicted with hemophilia, which, at that time was virtually untreatable and usually led to untimely death. With the fragility the autocracy was experiencing at this time, the Tsar and Tsaritsa chose to not divulge Alexis' condition to anyone outside the royal household.

In desperation, Alexandra sought help from a wandering mystic known as Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin seemed to be able to help when Alexis was suffering from internal bleeding, and Alexandra became increasingly dependent on Rasputin and his advice (which she accepted as coming directly from God through him).

The outbreak of war with Germany on August 1, 1914, found Russia grossly unprepared, and an early advance ended in staggering Russian losses. Nicholas felt it his duty to lead his army directly, assuming the role of commander-in-chief (September 1915) following the loss of the Russian-ruled part of Poland. His efforts to oversee the operations of the war left domestic issues essentially in the hands of Alexandra. But Nicholas did not understand (since he had little input from the common people) how suspicious the common people were of his wife, both because she was German by birth and because of her affiliation with Rasputin, who was widely seen as a lecherous charlatan and a harmful influence on state policy. Rasputin's death at the hands of a group of nobles (December 1916) removed "our friend" from the court, but came too late to restore the dynasty's fortunes.

Mounting national hardship and the army's failure to maintain the temporary military success of June 1916 led to renewed strikes and riots in the following winter. After the "February Revolution" of March 1917 (February in the existing Russian calendar) Nicholas abdicated in favor of his brother, Michael, who abdicated after a matter of hours, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.

Nicholas, Alexandra, and their five children remained in the royal residence with decreasing staff until they were moved to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917, an effort by the struggling Kerensky government to keep them safer than was possible in Tsarskoe Selo. They remained there until after the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 (the "October Revolution"), but were moved to Soviet-controlled Ekaterinburg, and were killed in the basement of the house they had been imprisoned on July 16 (or 17), 1918. Their bodies were destroyed, with the remains thrown down an abandoned mine shaft. The remains were eventually found, and DNA evidence indicated that Nicholas's daughter the Grand Duchess Anastasia died along with the rest of her family, setting to rest longstanding rumors that she had somehow survived and escaped.