'What on earth does William mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not!' Behind the friendliness of family gatherings lurked family quarrels, which were often played out in public. 'Have I gone mad?' Nicky asked his wife Alix in St Petersburg, showing her another telegram from Willy. Each was blaming the other for the impending disaster of the First World War. But by July 1914 the Trade Union of Kings was falling apart. Between them they ruled over half the world. George V, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II, known in the family as Georgie, Willy and Nicky, were cousins. Petersburg, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in attendance.During the last days of July 1914 telegrams flew between the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar. DNA analysis confirmed the royal identity of the remains and they were transferred and formally interred in a special chapel in St. In 1991, the remains of the slain family were exhumed under the newly post-Soviet Russia. Descendants of Nicholas II’s two sisters, Olga and Alexandra, survive, as do descendants of previous czars. In 1919, the British sent a ship to Crimea to evacuate the remaining Romanovs. Members of the British royal family had hoped to at least save the children. The British agreed.Īn illustration depicting the massacre of the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks A transfer to Ekaterinburg signals doom.Īfter transferring to the city of Ekaterinburg, the Romanovs and their servants were imprisoned in the ominously named “House of Special Purpose.” Despite their bleak circumstance, they still were optimistic, with Alexandra writing a hopeful diary entry hours before her execution.Īfter the execution, only Nicholas’ death was announced, and it would be months before word of the rest of the family’s fate reached the courts of Europe. They asked other Governments to grant the Romanovs asylum. That new Russian government, however, faced its own looming threat: what if pro-monarchist groups try to restore Nicholas to the throne? Because of this, they wanted the Romanovs out of Russia-and fast. Great Britain also needed to tread lightly with the new Provisional Government in Russia it would be a disaster for the Allies if Russia succumbed to internal pressure and withdrew from World War I. George V expressed his concern for his cousins in private letters, but he knew the situation was precarious as most Brits at the time called the former czar “Bloody Nicholas.” They also despised the German-born Alexandria just as much, as anti-German sentiment was at such a fever pitch that George V eventually changed the royal family’s name from the very German “Saxe-Coburg-Gotha” to the thoroughly British “Windsor.” The week Nicholas spent traveling back to his family was likely the last window for the family to escape Russia. He eventually succumbed to pressure and abdicated. Alexandra refused to leave without Nicholas, who was at the front fighting against the revolutionaries. Petersburg, Nicholas’ wife and children were urged by the government to flee as the riots unfolded. Russia’s disastrous entry into World War I in 1914 and the ensuing defeats and hardships increased resentments toward the family, eventually erupting into the 1917 February Revolution. They began to rely on mystics and healers like the much-hated Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin to help with Alexandra’s failing health and their son Alexei’s debilitating hemophilia, which distanced them further away from the other royals and drew suspicion among many Russians. While most of the royal relatives were fond of the warm and outgoing Nicholas, who also bore strong physical resemblance to George, Alexandra’s slightly arrogant demeanor rubbed many the wrong way, leading to growing antipathy.Īfter a smaller-scale revolt in 1905 forced Nicholas to cede some of his power, the couple started to withdraw from society. The web of royal marriages across the continent was so interconnected that King George V of England was first cousins to both Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra. Nicholas and Alexandria begin to drift from royal relatives. Would this have been a possibility, or were they doomed from the start? Here’s how the events unfolded leading up to their brutal deaths. In the 15 months from his abdication to his death, royal relations still in power debated if and how they should grant the family asylum, with many of the Romanov descendants believing King George V of England, the czar’s cousin and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, could have saved them.
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