Romanovs' Fate Revealed

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 10, 2012 | Jonathan Earle

[C19fan]

Nicholas Romanov, the deposed czar of Russia, and his family were awakened in the middle of the night on July 16-17, 1918, and told to get dressed. They were being moved to a safe location, their Bolshevik captors said, away from the White army that was closing in on Yekaterinburg, in the southern Ural Mountains.

The soldiers shepherded the family and four servants—a cook, valet, doctor and maid—into the basement of the house where they were being held. Nicholas carried his ailing son, Alexei, in his arms. Once all were assembled, a death sentence was read aloud, twice, and the eight executioners raised their guns.

Precisely what happened next took Soviet and Russian investigators nearly a century to piece together.

Now the results of those investigations, the last of which was closed last year, are the subject of an ambitious exhibition at the Russian State Archives in Moscow. "The Death of Tsar Nicholas II's Family: A One-Hundred Year Investigation," through July 29, aims to clear away seven decades of misinformation and silence under the Soviet regime.

[Calvin Locke]

Nick made the decision to take Russia into a war for which it was woefully unprepared,

I've read that what passed for brinkmanship in those days was mobilization, and once the extremely expensive task was started, it sort of took on a life of its own, as egos measured the capabilities of each other.

You would think "Nick" would have learned from getting his buttocks kicked by Japan.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Russian interest in the Balkans seems fitful. Earlier they had fought a war with Turkey and tried to set up an independent Bulgaria (in the 1870s)--later, in the post-WWII era, Bulgaria was one of the most loyal of the satellite nations in the Soviet bloc. The Russians sided with Serbia in 1914 and in the 1990s but pretty much ignored them at other times--they didn't offer any help when Hitler was about to attack in 1941.

Besides the humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russia had been forced to back down in 1908 after Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, with nothing to show for it. They didn't want another humiliation in 1914. In July 1914 they should have told the Kingdom of Serbia: "Yes, the ultimatum is outrageous, but you had better give in."

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Nice post. Barbed wire, machine guns, artillery and chemical weapons. Not the same as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

One of Russia’s greatest fears has historically been to be left behind intellectually, technologically, culturally, commercially by the West, and in this case the fear became reality.

[wagglebee]

What doomed Russian was it's backwardness and its military incompetence. War had moved past where all you needed to win was feed numbers to the battlefield. Technology was at a point where it could kill and maim faster then you could feed the beast. The Russo-Japanese War did send the message that battlefield technology was the deciding factor, but obviously it fell on deaf ears.

Excellent point and this is at least partly due to the fact that western Europe was much further along with technology in general.

As far as Czar Nicholas II goes, he was a good and decent man, and I think cared for the Russian people. However he wasn't very bright, his father poorly prepared him for the throne, he was way too mild mannered to be the Czar of Russia. I think he did care for the Russian people but didn't know how to be effective, whatever levers he had to pull or push were corrupt, obsolete and made things worse. None of this he understood it was beyond him and outside his world view.

As I said in my first post on this thread, I think he would have made an excellent constitutional monarch in the manner exemplified by his cousin George V. Unfortunately, it is difficult to transition from an autocracy to a democratic republic (Russia still hasn't done it) and I think Nicholas was doomed from the outset.

[DickBrannigan]

Schiff, Kuhn, Loeb. Any commonality between the people behind these names?

[Little Bill]

Read “August 1914” by the divine Alexander a very profound book. The Russians were doomed by history and the Orthodox Church in Russia was doomed by Peter when adopted the Byzantine model.

[TexasRepublic]

“Any commonality between the people behind these names?”

You mean, beyond the obvious?

[rmlew]

The German High Command funded the Bolsheviks, brought them into Russia, and armed them. No one seems to mention it.

[rmlew]

They were German Jews who preffered civilized Wilhemine Germany to the Slavophilic thugs running Russia?

[kalee]

Exactly, DNA confirmed the identity of the remains and the RO Church buried them befitting that identity. I can’t understand why the church balks now. One would think the two remaining children should be buried with their parents and the family reunited for eternal rest.

[kalee]

How does one go from believing oneself to be God’s absolute authority on earth for the Russian people to constrained rule at the people’s pleasure? England needed the Protectorate, the Restoration, and overthrow of Charles II to get King and subjects accustomed to the idea. If the monarchy ever returns to Russia,it will be modern, the royals and the people have had time to make the necessary adjustments in expectation.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks C19fan. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

The fall of Tsarist Russia begs the question- what is the mind set of the aristocracy that has doomed them to obsolescence? How is it that people in power cannot evaluate their own shortcomings and modify their behavior and policies in light of the work of history? We see this in a global financial aristocracy which has basically run the world’s economies over the cliff and suffer no remorse or ability to change policies. The same SOB’s are garnering bailouts and golden parachutes while retirements, jobs and homes are wiped out. No one has gone to prison. None of the guilty have been brought to the book. Both the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movements have been rendered impotent. Members of this forum seem to suffer from attention deficit disorder. We need to march, period.