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Headquarters
Copies to all Commanders
To the Chief of Staff
In the days of the great struggle against the external enemy, who has striven for nearly three years to enslave our homeland, the Lord God has willed to subject Russia to yet another heavy trial. The popular disturbances that have broken out threaten to have a calamitous effect on the further conduct of the hard-fought war. The fate of Russia, the honor of our heroic army, the welfare of the people, the whole future of our beloved Fatherland demand that the war be brought at all costs to a victorious conclusion. The cruel foe exerts his last efforts, and the time is near when our valiant army, together with our glorious allies, will decisively overcome him. In these decisive days in Russia’s life We have deemed it Our duty in conscience to Our nation to draw closer together and to unite all the national forces for the speediest attainment of victory. In agreement with the State Duma, We have acknowledged it as beneficial to renounce the throne of the Russian State and lay down Supreme authority. Not wishing to separate Ourselves from Our beloved Son, We hand over Our succession to Our Brother, the Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich, and give Him Our blessing to ascend the throne of the Russian State. We command Our Brother to conduct the affairs of state in complete and inviolate union with the representatives of the nation in the legislative institutions on such principles as they will establish and to swear to this an inviolate oath. In the name of Our deeply beloved homeland, We call on all true sons of the Fatherland to fulfill their sacred duty to It by obeying the Tsar in the difficult moment of national trials and to help Him, together with the representatives of the people, lead the Rus-sian State to victory, prosperity, and glory. May the Lord God help Russia.
Pskov, 2 March 1917
15 hours 5 minutes Nicholas
Words from the official document of abdication
Nicholas & Alexei in exile
The Romanov Dynasty
Nicholas & Alexei
It is believed that Nicholas' decision to remove his son as heir to the throne spelt the end of the Romanov Dynasty...
As required by Russian law, Basily’s drafts of the manifesto named Nicholas’s young hemophiliac son, Alexei, as the new tsar. When told that he might have to leave his son behind in Russia and live in exile, however, Nicholas changed the draft. Instead of Alexei, he named his ineffectual younger brother, Grand Duke Michael, as his successor. If the Romanov dynasty had had any chance at all of surviving the crisis, this decision irretrievably spelled its doom. Although the Duma conceivably might have accepted the attractive and innocent young son, it was in no mood to accept Michael. When Duma leaders told Michael that his safety could not be ensured, the newly designated tsar quickly renounced the throne.
Nicholas’s abdication and Michael’s renunciation were made public simultaneously on March 4, two days after Nicholas signed the abdication manifesto. The manifesto was addressed to the chief of staff of the armed forces, General Mikhail V. Alekseev, because Nicholas did not wish to abdicate to the Duma, which he detested. Although he signed the document at 11:50 p.m. on March 2, he backdated it to 3:05 p.m.—to avoid the impression that he had been influenced by a delegation from the Duma with whom he had met that evening. The town of Pskov is recorded as the place where the manifesto was signed. The event actually took place aboard the imperial train, which had been diverted to Pskov when rebels blocked its way to Tsarskoe Selo, where Nicholas hoped to rejoin his family.
"We all must answer in the name of the historical memory of the people, and therefore, I could not fail to come here today. As man and President, I have to be here. And I bow my head before the victims of the merciless murder."
Boris Yeltsin
Russia wilted in two days. At the very most, three. . . . It is amazing how she suddenly fell apart, all of her, down to particles, to pieces. . . . There was no Empire, no church, no army, no working class. And what remained? Strange to say, literally nothing.
The four months between August 19, 1991, when a coup attempted to depose President Gorbachev, and December 25, 1991, when he resigned his office, are reminiscent of the events of early March 1917. What had appeared to be great and secure empires were in both cases revealed to be hollow shells. Lacking democratic support, both empires collapsed quickly without resistance and, thankfully, with little bloodshed. We can only hope that the long-term aftermath of the events of 1991 will differ radically from those of 1917. For the tsar’s abdication was the starting point of what became a seventy-four-year tragedy for the Russian people. A similar outcome of the revolutionary changes of 1991 would be a tragedy not only for Russia but for all the world.
In his private life he was touchingly kind to those near him. Easy of access, he never refused to listen to those who wished to see him, in spite of the number of papers he had to read every day. His family life was exemplary. He adored the Empress and his children: the Tsarevich - the little Grand Duke - was the special object of his affection. His tardy birth, the poor state of his health, made him the idol of his parents. I often heard the Emperor say, in times of trouble during his reign, that he would accept all sufferings if he could leave Russia in order and prepare for his son an easy and a happy reign.
Count Paul Benckendorff
This is me the person responsible for this site, my name is Sarah
(I always wanted to sit beside Tsar Nicholas Romanov, now I have...[sad sigh]...)
My thoughts on Nicholas are as follows. I don't think he was a harsh tyrant out of touch with the people as such, especially when it comes to claims that he had soldiers fire upon protestors outside the winter palace. It was claimed, at the time, that 1000 were killed and 5000 injured, and that most were women and children. I do not diminish what happened, butI do not believe that the numbers were that great when reading another article on the same event where it was said the numbers were 150 and that they were men, not women and children. Also, from reading his diaries and letters and other accounts of him, he was a very passive and generous man who came across as someone who would not readily or without just cause, hurt anyone.
His two cousins who murdered Rasputin were not sentenced to death by Nicky, he sent them to exile, ironically saving their lives as they did not fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks as did most of the others. Point is, he could quite easily have had them executed for what they did, rather, he protected them.
He adored his wife and his children, spending much time with them unlike other sovereigns of the day, so I can not imagine he would have been agreeable to the killing of women and children under any circumstances. Rather, I have read articles where he was overjoyed to see the numbers of Russian infants, to him it meant that Russia would continue to grow and that there would be many from future generations to live in and love the land he served.
He was a devout lover of God and honour, he almost always prayed that God's will be done, not his, and no he was not your garden variety Christian, but he loved and respected the ways of God in his own understandings, as do we all to a certain measure.
He was so devoted to his children that he would rather take Alexei away as heir to the Russian throne as opposed to going into exile and abandoning Alexei, that shows that his love of his children was greater than his love of stature or social standing.
That he was murdered along with his beloved wife and children, without trial, without recourse is a disgusting blight on history in my opinion. The only mercy extended him was that he did not see it coming and the last thing he saw was his beloved son.
In the account of the murder, Nicholas was standing in the basement of Ipatiev House shielding his son. Yurovsky said, "Your friends have tried to save you but they have failed, I am now obligated to shoot you."
Nicholas said, "What?" then turned around to shield his son Alexi and was shot in the back of the head.
The rest of the family suffered greatly in the process of the murder, none more probably than Alexei because he was one of the last to die and thus, he witnessed what happened to the rest of his family. The murders of his sisters were particularly barbaric.
That the Bolsheviks, under the orders of Lenin, murdered them at all, in itself, is bad enough, but that they bumbled through the process, thus prolonging the suffering, is heinous to say the least. The disposal of the bodies was monstrously cold and calculated, and in some ways, a few Russians deserved the future they had under Lenin, that they would allow this heinous crime to be perpetrated upon innocents. That the consequences of sin can be visited down to the third generation, indeed, proved to be so.
The English royal family was also somewhat responsible, they offered exile and then at the last minute withdrew it, leaving Nicholas and Alexandra nowhere to go.
To date the bodies of Marie/Maria and Alexei have never been found and I think that finding them and laying them to rest with their beloved parents is important. They have an idea of where the remains are and I can not understand why they do not undertake to claim them.
All in all, I think what happened to this family as a whole was terrible, even the 53 survivng memebers who made it out on the Marlborough did not fare very well and none saw their beloved Russia again.
But for a man who loved God, his country, his wife and his children, I think the end was a despicably dishonorable, cruel and vicious thing to have done to him and as I said earlier, the only mercy extended to Nicholas was that he died first and never saw what happened to his beloved wife and children.
May they rest in peace.
