Nicholas II: Tsar of all the Russias. A Guilty Man?
by Some people, will acquire for themselves a small footnote in history. For most of us this is not so. We will live our lives, die, and soon be forgotten, and everything we did, and said, and were, will die with us. The characters featured in this book, have all made their mark on history. They will not be forgotten, but will live on in time, in legend, in reality, and in myth. This book is not intended, however, to be a thorough examination of their life and times. It merely paints the picture. It is popular history, a short-cut to events.
Much of the content can no doubt be debated, but then history is not a science. It is interpretative and in a constant state of flux, and in history evidence does not serve as proof
Unlike the millions who have come before us and the millions yet to come the characters of which I write did not pass through time, they were captured in time, and for all time. They truly are the Prisoners of Eternity.
At Khodynka Field in Moscow on 18 May, 1896, during the festivities following the new Tsar’s Coronation, a large crowd gathered. To most Russians their Tsar was like a God, he was their father and they his children, and they were eager to usher in the new reign. They were in the mood to celebrate and many were drunk; but there was no attempt to regulate the crowd and as the numbers grew the available space became ever restricted. It was evident that a disaster was in the making, even so the Police continued to stand aside. Eventually, some people stumbled and in the ensuing panic 1,389 men, women, and children were trampled to death.
The Tsar, on being informed of the tragedy was advised not to attend the French Ambassadors Ball being given in his honour, out of respect for the dead, he refused. It was a mistake, from early in his reign this new Tsar was perceived as being indifferent to the pain of his people. It was to stain his character for the rest of his life. In the subsequent inquiry into the tragedy the Imperial Authorities were found to have been negligent though no individuals were held to be accountable. The Khodynka Field affair damaged the reputation of the Tsar and no amount of aid provided to the families of the victims would repair it.
The Tsar of All the Russias
It was an event that seemed to herald all that was to come in the ill-starred reign of Tsar Nicholas ll. The new Tsar of all the Russia’s was an autocrat. He believed in his divine right to rule, and whereas he understood the necessity of delegating power, he was never willing to share it. He was also a militarist, an imperialist, and an enthusiastic anti-Semite. He openly endorsed and encouraged the anti-Jewish pogroms that swept the Pale of Settlement between 1903-06, that were to leave thousands dead. He firmly believed in the Global Jewish Conspiracy as expounded in the pages of that erroneous book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (as indeed did Adolf Hitler) and kept his own much-thumbed copy. He also led Russia into two disastrous wars and did nothing to reduce the vast disparity between rich and poor.
The Russo-Japanese War 1904-05
Was a fierce conflict that was the precursor to the brutal trench warfare of World War One, and was to prove to be a humiliation for Russia. Her aggressively expansionist policies in the Far-East had brought her into direct conflict with the emerging Japanese Empire. Having behaved with a breathtaking arrogance in reneging on a series of deals over Manchuria, the Japanese unable to trust the Russians any longer, decided to strike. On 8 February, 1904, they launched a surprise attack upon and laid siege to Port Arthur on the Liaotung Peninsula. The Russians could only reinforce their forces in Manchuria via the as yet incomplete Trans-Siberian Railway. Outnumbered 2 to 1 they suffered a series of heavy defeats culminating in the surrender of Port Arthur on 2 January, 1905; withdrawal from Manchuria altogether after the Battle of Mukden in late February,1905: and the utter-destruction of her Baltic Fleet in the Straits of Tsu-Shima on 25 May.
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