Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2018/Op-ed


 * By TomStar81

In May 1894, Emperor Alexander III of Russia passed away, leaving a 26-year old Nicholas II as the heir apparent to the throne of the Russian Empire. Nicholas was to have been instructed in statecraft upon reaching the age of 30, but Alexander III had not survived long enough to pass on his skills and wisdom to his son. As a result the young man somewhat abruptly found that he now had to make all the decisions in the world's largest nation by land mass. Although not trained or skilled for the position he was about to inherit Nicholas appears to have had some sense as to what he wanted from it and his people, and to that end ascended in 1894 as Emperor of All Russia. Shortly after he came to the throne, his people tested the water for Nicholas' willingness to implement governmental reforms by sending a mildly worded letter and a delegation to the palace to negotiate for greater freedoms. However Nicholas wouldn't hear of it, and instead made clear his intention to retain in the most absolute way possible the autocracy his father had left him upon his death.

This act would set Nicholas II up to follow in his father's footsteps. Initially, as Imperialists were inclined to do, he worked with the other "Great Nations" of Europe to advance political and geographical goals - in particular, Nicholas II had played a major role in organizing the Hague Convention of 1899, which would help lay the groundwork for the modern-day Geneva Conventions. Despite these early, limited successes the Russian Empire still lagged sorely behind its European counterparts in a technological and industrial sense, and this lag began to catch up with Russia as Nicholas' reign progressed. In a time when steam trains, gasoline cars, and flying machines were wowing the world in the west, Russia was still making use of horses and wagons, still had a disproportionately large lower-class working demographic and, thanks to an absence of advisors with actual field experience, the Russian monarchs had managed to snuff out most of what was at the time considered the middle class, arguably the most important in post-industrial revolution societies. Nicholas II in particular had a nasty habit of not understanding the ins and outs of Russia's manufacturing, production, agricultural, and commercial businesses or the people that ran them; either due to innocence, misplaced trust in bad advisors, or perhaps a certain naivete in matters of the state Nicholas always seemed to be misguessing, underestimating, or overlooking signs that his Russian Empire was in dire straits. The first sign that Nicholas II's reign was in trouble came when socialist sentiment began spreading across the Empire, fueled in part by personnel affiliated with the Constitutional Democratic Party, Socialist Revolutionary Party, and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. These parties advocated for governmental reforms which upset Nicholas, who was determined to retain the autocracy his father had left him. Despite these efforts to undermine Imperial rule, the Russian Empire remained one of the world's great powers.

Nicholas II's reign began to crumble in 1904-05, when the Empire of Japan had declared and waged war against the Russian Empire. Nicholas II was convinced his country could win the Russo-Japanese War owing to his belief in Russian patriotism and the superiority of his nation to the Japanese. However, following a series of setbacks, humiliating defeats, and a decisive naval victory by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle of Tsushima that all but annihilated the Imperial Russian Navy's blue water fleet, a dumbfounded Nicholas elected to sue for peace, which resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. This loss had a profound effect of the Russian Empire, which was exacerbated on Bloody Sunday, when troops loyal to Nicholas II opened fire on unarmed protestors who had assembled to peacefully protest for the redress of grievances. This action against his own people caused the 1905 Russian Revolution, which in turn led to a very limited number of political reforms reluctantly put in place by Nicholas to appease the people, including the Russian Constitution of 1906 and the establishment of the State Duma, a legislative body for the lower class. At least for the time being, Nicholas II had cut off and quelled a revolution in his empire.

By the time of World War I, the citizens of the Russian Empire had gotten over the 1905 revolution and greeted the conflict with enthusiasm and patriotism, with the defense of Russia's fellow Orthodox Slavs, the Serbs, as the main battle cry. Initially, the Russian army invaded Germany's province of East Prussia and occupied a significant portion of Austrian-controlled Galicia in support of the Serbs. Military reversals and shortages among the civilian population soon soured much of the population. German control of the Baltic Sea and German-Ottoman control of the Black Sea severed Russia from most of its foreign supplies and potential markets. By the middle of 1915, the impact of the war was demoralizing. Food and fuel were in short supply, casualties were increasing, and inflation was mounting. Strikes rose among low-paid factory workers, and there were reports that peasants, who wanted reforms of land ownership, were restless. The Tsar eventually decided to take personal command of the army and moved to the front, leaving Alexandra in charge in the capital. As the government failed to produce supplies, mounting hardship created 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 conscript soldiers. Despite efforts by the British Ambassador Sir George 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 km away at Moghilev, leaving his capital and court open to intrigues and insurrection.

By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total and utter collapse. On 23 February in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to start to break shop windows to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted "Down with the German woman! Down with Protopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!" Police started to shoot at the populace from rooftops, which incited riots. The troops in the capital were by this time poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime, and as a result they began to side with the populace.

The Tsar's Cabinet begged Nicholas to return to the capital and offered to resign completely. Some 500 miles away the Tsar, misinformed by the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Protopopov, that the situation was under control, ordered that firm steps be taken against the demonstrators. General Khabalov 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 the Volinsky Regiment fired into the air rather than into the mob and a company of the Pavlovsky Life Guards shot the officer who gave the command to open fire. Nicholas, informed of the situation by Rodzianko, ordered reinforcements to the capital and suspended the Duma, however at this point it was too late.

On 12 March 1917, the Volinsky Regiment mutinied and was quickly followed by the Semenovsky, the Ismailovsky, the Litovsky and even the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, the oldest and staunchest regiment founded by Peter the Great. In Petrograd, 170,000 recruits, country boys or older men from the working-class suburbs of the capital itself remained to keep control under the command of wounded officers invalided from the front and cadets from the military academies. While the units in the capital bore the names of famous Imperial Guard regiments, they were in reality rear or reserve battalions of these regiments whose regular forces were away at the front. Many units, lacking both officers and rifles, had never undergone formal training. The arsenal was pillaged, the Ministry of the Interior, Military Government building, police headquarters, the Law Courts and a score of police buildings were put to the torch. By noon, the fortress of Peter and Paul, with its heavy artillery, was in the hands of the insurgents. By nightfall, 60,000 soldiers had joined the revolution.

With no faith or confidence in the Emperor, and with order broken down across the Russian Empire, members of the Duma and the Soviet formed a Provisional 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. He thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all the Russians. With this blow the Russian Empire was irreversibly compromised. Grand Duke 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.

Meanwhile, members of the Duma and the Soviet formed the Provisional Government to try to restore order to the nation. This transitional period came as welcome development initially, as the people were finally working on a government in which in the Czar and his family would not be a key part. However, as is the case with all transitional periods, the elements that worked together cooperatively to beat the greater threat broke off into independent fiefdoms when that threat was neutralized. Here, in Russia, the people who had stood so firmly together to oust the Czar would break into smaller units with their own goals and agendas, and more importantly their own ideas about what the government they were going to create should look like.

The Provisional Government at the time was composed of two large factions and a small, distant third faction that collectively brought three different ideas to the table concerning the future of the Russian Government. The smallest of these factions advocated for a return of the Czar to the throne so as to restore the Russian Empire, while the largest two factions (broadly) advocated for turning Russia into a constitutional republic or a socialist state. Hampered by hardliners on both the left and the right, the Provisional Government attempted to find some sort of middle ground between the factions that would leave all relevant groups content at least with the role their groups could play in this future government. However, the provisional government struggled to gain traction in its efforts to move forward in the months following the abdication. It was forced to accept the resignation of the foreign affairs minister over his statements in support of continuing the war and then had to ride out a another massive uprising backed by the Bolsheviks who were again being led by Vladimir Lenin, who at the time was denouncing attempts made by the Provisional Government to reconcile with the republic-leaning faction then working with the socialists in the Duma. Amid growing frustration in the ranks of the Bolsheviks, Lenin suggested an armed uprising to test the Provisional Government and its resolve. This uprising was eventually put down by the Provisional Government, but the government's success here help to stabilize Russia for the time being. In the aftermath of this attempt the Provisional Government formed a new cabinet in an attempt to press forward with the creation of a new Russian state, but the members of the cabinet had underestimated the importance of a swift move towards a new government, and in early November the Bolsheviks successfully overthrew the Provisional Government, paving the way for a socialist state to be created in Russia.

Meanwhile, the deposed Nicholas II, now held as a citizen along with the rest of the imperial family, were taken to Tobolsk, then to Yekaterinburg, where they were interned at the Ipatiev House. During this time the guards began to whittle away at the family's privileges, depriving Nicholas of the use of ceremonial paraphernalia, reducing the family to soldiers' rations which eliminated coffee and butter, micromanaging the time they had to themselves, and severely restricting contact to the outside world. The guards had also taken the more ominous step of quietly murdering certain retainers to the royal family such as Klementy Nagorny and Ivan Sednev. Taking advantage of an attempted takeover of the city by anarchists which had been violently put down by red guards, the Government in Russia had claimed that Monarchists had attempted to rescue the Emperor which was then used as an excuse to further restrict the already severely restricted privileges of the Romanov family.

On June 29, 1918, it was agreed by the Ural Regional Soviet that the Romanovs should be executed. This decision was sent to Moscow for approval, and on July 3 seven members of the Central Executive Committee concurred with the decision, electing to leave the details of the execution up to the Ural Soviet. For the next two weeks the Ural Soviet worked on a plan of execution along with both pre- and post-execution details to ensure that the execution was carried out efficiently and that as much evidence as possible could be destroyed as quickly as possible. This was also done to prevent any member of the execution team from raping the women or attempting to make off with any jewelry hidden on the bodies. On July 16, word came down that the Red Army contingent in the area was retreating on all fronts and that the executions could be delayed no longer. Accordingly, Yakov Yurovsky ordered the executioners assembled and then gathered the Romanov family together, explaining to them that they were to be evacuated for their own safety. Once in the basement, Yurovsky abruptly declared: "Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you." Nicholas II was caught entirely off guard. It was reported that he swiftly turned around and asking "what?" prompting Yurovsky to repeat the declaration before opening fire on Nicholas. This precipitated a roughly 20-minute period during which the Romanov Family was systematically murdered by bullets and bayonets, permanently removing the Romanovs from any place in Russia's future government.

With the executions completed, the bodies were loaded on the back of a military truck and then shipped to a disposal site, although the truck twice got stuck on the boggy and muddy roads. Following the second incident in which the truck got stuck in mud it was decided to bury the bodies at the location rather than attempt to press on to the intended site. Clothes were removed and jewelry which had earlier acted as a primitive form of body armor was seized from the corpses. In a rare moment of dignity for the now deceased royal family, Yurovsky refused to allow the men selected for the job to loot the bodies and dismissed at gunpoint two men who had fondled Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's genitalia. The bodies were then dissolved with acid and lime save but for two which were burned, and the bone remains for all family members were repeatedly smashed prior to burial to make it more difficult for anyone to positively identify the royal family's remains.

For a number of years the Soviet government kept quiet about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Romanov family, only officially revealing the deaths of the Romanov family in its entirety in 1926 and then only reluctantly in light of the publication of an investigation by a White émigré. To protect Lenin, the blame was placed entirely on the Ural Soviet, but the subject in its entirely would be suppressed by Joseph Stalin in 1938.

Today, the Romanov family has been somewhat rehabilitated, owing in part to modern forensic analysis and the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Russian authorities have been able recover what little remains of the Romanov family and lay to rest the stories of the various Romanov impostors that popped up over the years due to the absence of any proof of the Romanov line's extermination. On 1 October 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that Nicholas II and his family were victims of political repression and rehabilitated them; the Russian Orthodox Church now considers Nicholas II and his family to be "passion bearers". Although they are currently no plans to restore the monarchy in Russia, there is an extended Romanov line and some of the distantly removed family of Nicholas II are recognized to have some claim to any restored monarchy that may be instituted in Russia, although the extent to any claim made by the current pretenders to the throne is for obvious reasons subjective and open to interpretation by both the citizens and the government of Russia.