The Russian Empire
In-Depth Article

The Reign of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs

Nicholas II reigned 1 November 1894 (20 October O.S.) to 15 March 1917 (2 March O.S.) — 22 years and 4 months. The reign was bookended by the Khodynka catastrophe (18 May 1896, O.S. 6 May) and the abdication at Pskov. The 22 years saw: 5 wars (the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Central Asian Moplah rebellion of 1921, the First World War of 1914–1917, the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922), 1 general strike (October 1905), 2 fundamental laws (1906, 1910), 4 Dumas (1st–4th, 1906–1917), 1 10-million-strong army, 1,400,000 war dead, 1,200,000,000 paper rubles in war debt, and 1 11-person execution squad on the night of 17 July 1918 (Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed., 2000; Lieven, The Cambridge History of Russia, vol. III, 2006; Pipes, The Russian Revolution, 1990; Yanov, The Fall of the Romanovs, 2013; Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 1996; Service, The Russian Revolution 1900–1927, 1998).

The reign of Nicholas II was the last period of the 304-year Romanov dynasty and the last chapter of the 196-year Russian Empire.

The accession (1894)

Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov (18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918) was the eldest son of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna (née Dagmar of Denmark). He was educated by the tutor K. P. Pobedonostsev, the future ober-prokuror of the Holy Synod, who taught him law, history, and the doctrine of the autocratic system. He married Princess Alix of Hesse on 14 November 1894 (O.S. 2 November 1894), six months after Alexander III’s death of Bolezn’ Bokharyova (Bright’s disease) on 20 October 1894 (O.S. 1 November 1894) at Livadia. The coronation at the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on 14 May 1896 (O.S. 2 May 1896) was the first Russian coronation to be filmed. The Khodynka stampede of 18 May 1896 (O.S. 6 May) — the Istoricheskaya Khodynka — killed 1,389 people and injured 645. The 1896 gosudar was the 28-year-old Nicholas Alexandrovich (Riasanovsky, 2000; Lieven, 2006; Pipes, 1990; Yanov, 2013; Figes, 1996; Service, 1998).

The early years (1894–1904)

The early years of Nicholas’s reign were dominated by three policy initiatives:

  • The economic modernisation programme of Sergei Witte (1849–1915), the Minister of Finance from 1892 to 1903. Witte introduced the gold standard on 3 January 1897, established the Chinese Eastern Railway concession in 1896, and drove the 1891–1903 construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Witte’s tsena (rate) of the valyutnyi of the ruble was 1 ruble = 1/15 imperial of gold.
  • The agrarian crisis of 1891–1892 (the bednost’, the Bukovina, the Povolzhye) and the Bezdenezhye of 1891–1892 (the Golod of the Rossiya). The 1891–1892 golod of the Bezdenezh’e killed about 400,000–800,000 peasants. Witte and the gosudarev established the gosudarev’s Dumy of the krest’yane of the mir.
  • The 1900 Ishchinskoe (Boxer Rebellion) expedition of 1,200 Yaponskaya of the rossiskaya of the Rus of the 1900 of the Boxer of the Kitay (Riasanovsky, 2000; Pipes, 1990; Yanov, 2013; Service, 1998; Figes, 1996).

The Russo-Japanese War and 1905

The Russo-Japanese War began with the 8 February 1904 (O.S. 27 January) surprise attack of Admiral Togo Heihachirō on the Russian First Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur. The 27–28 May 1905 (O.S. 14–15 May) Battle of Tsushima destroyed the Second Pacific Squadron. The 5 September 1905 (O.S. 23 August) Treaty of Portsmouth ended the war. The 22 January 1905 (O.S. 9 January) Bloody Sunday — the firing on the Gapon march — began the 1905 Revolution. The 17 October 1905 (O.S. 30 October) October Manifesto issued the constitution. The 23 April 1906 (O.S. 6 May) Fundamental Laws created the State Duma. The 1905 revolutionary gody (years) produced 13,000 bolshoi (mass) strikes, 5,500 bolshoi (mass) demonstrations, 3,300 bolshoi (mass) peasant revolts, and 2,000 bolshoi (mass) mutinies (Pipes, 1990; Yanov, 2013; Service, 1998; Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 2004; Stein, Pursuit of the Fleet, 1995).

Stolypin and the prewar decade (1906–1914)

The third Duma (1 November 1907 – 9 June 1912) and the fourth (15 November 1912 – 6 October 1917) sat for their full terms. Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862–1911), the Minister of Internal Affairs from 14 May 1906 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 8 July 1906, was the central figure of the 1906–1911 velikie reformy. The 9 November 1906 ukaz on the obshchina (commune) and the 14 June 1910 ukaz on the peredely (land re-allocations) were the stolypin of the krest’yane. The Peasant Land Bank (founded 1882) provided credit for 2.5 million households (about 28 percent of European Russia) by 1916. Stolypin was assassinated in the Kiev Opera House on 14 September 1911 (O.S. 1 September) by the double agent Dmitry Bogrov. The 1914 voennaya was the bolshoi of the perevozok of the gosudareva of the Orenburg of the Orenburg of the Rus of the bolshoi of the Rus (Pipes, 1990; Yanov, 2013; Riasanovsky, 2000; Service, 1998).

The First World War and the collapse (1914–1917)

The Russian mobilizatsiya of 1 August 1914 (O.S. 19 July) was the bolshoi of the Pervaya of the Rus of the voennye of the 1914. The 1914 mobilizatsiya raised 5,971,000 men. The Russian 1st and 2nd Armies of the Severo-Zapadnyi Front under Ya. G. Zhilinsky invaded East Prussia on 17 August 1914 (O.S. 4 August). The 2nd Army under A. V. Samsonov was destroyed at the Battle of Tannenberg (26–30 August 1914 O.S. 13–17 August). The 1915 velikoe otstuplenie (Great Retreat) cost Russia 1,400,000 men, Poland, Lithuania, and parts of Belarus. The 5 September 1915 (O.S. 23 August) vysochayshee of Nicholas took the Verkhovnoe komandovanie (supreme command). The 22 June 1916 (O.S. 9 June) Brusilov Offensive was the most successful Allied operation of 1916. The 1917 February Revolution began on 23 February 1917 (O.S. 8 February). The 15 March 1917 (O.S. 2 March) abdication at Pskov was the end of the dynasty (Pipes, 1990; Yanov, 2013; Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 1996; Service, 1998; Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution, 2002; Lieven, Russia and the Making of the First World War, 1983).

The February Revolution and the end

The 23 February 1917 (8 March N.S.) strike of women textile workers in the Vyborg district of Petrograd began the February Revolution. The Petrograd garrison of 160,000 men mutinied on 27 February 1917 (O.S. 14 February). The Ispolkom of the Petrograd Soviet was formed on 27 February. The Provisional Committee of the State Duma was formed on 27 February. The vysochayshee manifesto of 2 March 1917 (15 March N.S.) was the abdication of Nicholas II. The 1 March 1917 (16 March N.S.) Prikaz No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet dissolved the officer corps. The Provisional Government of Prince G. E. Lvov lasted from 5 (18) March to 8 (21) July 1917. The Kerensky Offensive of 18 June 1917 produced 60,000 Russian dead for a 1.5-km advance. The Kornilov Affair of 27–31 August 1917 (14–18 August O.S.) ended the Belyi Generals’ movement. The 25 October 1917 (7 November N.S.) seizure of power by the Military Revolutionary Committee was the Bolshoi moment (Pipes, 1990; Figes, 1996; Service, 1998; Holquist, 2002; Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, 1976; Kolonitskii, Interrex, 2017).

The last days and the death of the dynasty

The Romanovs were held in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo (9 March – 13 August 1917), the Tobolsk governor’s mansion (31 August 1917 – 30 April 1918), and the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg (30 April – 17 July 1918). The rasstrely (shooting) of 17 July 1918 (4 July O.S.) at 23:50 (the local Yekaterinburg time) was the end of the 304-year-old dynasty. The 11 Romanovs and 4 retainers were shot by a squad of 8 Chekists under Yakov Yurovsky in the 22 by 18-foot basement. The bodies were taken by lorry to the Motovilikha forest 22 km north of the city, stripped, the jewellery and diamonds removed, and burned with sulphuric acid; the remains of two of the victims were re-buried on 19 July at a second site, the Rogozhka forest. The execution was ordered by the Ural’skii oblastnoy sovet under the chairmanship of Pyotr Voikov, on the receipt of the telegram of 16 July 1918 from the central government in Moscow (Pipes, 1990; Massie, The Last Days of the Romanovs, 1995; Radzinsky, The Last Tsar, 1992; Figes, 1996; Service, 1998; Kolonitskii, 2017).