History of the Kingdom of Greece. Part XIV. Reign of King Constantine II, Exile and Monarchy Is Abolished

Tags

Anne-Marie of Denmark, Exile, General Georgios Zoitakis, King Constantine II of the Hellenes, King Paul of the Hellenes, Military Junta, Monarchy Abolished, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Constantine II (June 2, 1940 – January 10, 2023) was the last King of the Hellenes reigning from March 6, 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on June 1, 1973.

Constantine was born in Athens as the only son of Crown Prince Paul and Crown Princess Frederica of Greece. Born Her Royal Highness Frederica Princess of Hanover, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, and Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, in the German Duchy of Brunswick, she was the only daughter and third child of Ernst August, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II and his wife Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

Prince Constantine had an elder sister, Princess Sofia, born in 1938. However, since agnatic primogeniture governed the succession to throne in Greece at the time, the birth of a male heir to the throne had been anxiously awaited by the Greek royal family, and the newborn prince was therefore received with joy by his parents.

His birth was celebrated with a 101–gun salute from Mount Lycabettus in Athens, which, according to tradition, announced that the newborn was a boy. According to Greek naming practices, being the first son, he was named after his paternal grandfather, Constantine I, who had died 17 years earlier in 1923. At his baptism in Athens, the Hellenic Armed Forces acted as his godparent.

Being of Danish descent, Constantine was also born as a Prince of Denmark. As his family was forced into exile during the Second World War, he spent the first years of his childhood in Egypt and South Africa. He returned to Greece with his family in 1946 during the civil war.

After Constantine’s uncle George II died in 1947, Paul became the new king and Constantine the crown prince. As a young man, Constantine was a competitive sailor and Olympian, winning a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Dragon class along with Odysseus Eskitzoglou and George Zaimis in the yacht Nireus. From 1964 he served on the International Olympic Committee.

Constantine acceded as King following his father’s death in 1964. Later that year he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Frederik IX of Denmark and Princess Ingrid of Sweden, the daughter of King Gustaf VI Adolph of Sweden and his first wife, Princess Margaret of Connaught, a granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria.

Anne-Marie is the youngest sister of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. She is also a first cousin of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and a second cousin of King Harald V of Norway. Anne-Marie and her husband Constantine were third cousins: they shared King Christian IX of Denmark as patrilineal great-great-grandfather. They also shared Queen Victoria as a great-great-grandmother.

They had five children: Princess Alexia, Crown Prince Pavlos, Prince Nikolaos, Princess Theodora, and Prince Philippos.

Although the accession of the young monarch was initially regarded auspiciously, his reign saw political instability.

The opportunity to be removed from the Greek Orthodox Cephaly, in fact it was one of the first measures with which Constantine collaborated with the Junta. On April 28th, 1967, Chrysostomos II was retained and was forced to resign after having to sign one of the two versions of the letter brought to him by an official of the royal palace. Finally, Ieronymos Kotsonis was elected as metropolitan by the junta’s and Constantine’s proposal on May 13, 1967.

From the outset, the relationship between Constantine and the regime of the colonels was an uneasy one, especially when he refused to sign the decree imposing martial law and asked Talbot to flee Greece in an American helicopter with his family.

But the administration of US president Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to keep Constantine in Greece to negotiate with the junta for the return of democracy. The presence of the United States Sixth Fleet in the Aegean Sea outraged the junta government, which forced Constantine to get rid of his private secretary, Michail Arnaoutis [el]. Arnaoutis, who had served as the king’s military instructor in the 1950s and became his close friend, was generally reviled among the public for his role in the palace intrigues of the previous years.

The king and his entourage were beginning to worry that the future of the monarchy was endangered. Constantine visited the United States in the following days and in a meeting with Johnson, Constantine asked for military aid for a countercoup he was planning, but without success. The junta, however, had information about Constantine’s conspiracy. Constantine later described himself as having the idea of a countercoup ten minutes after he found out about the junta’s rise to power.

On the morning of the day the countercoup had been rescheduled to, December 13, 1967, after eight months of planning the countercoup, the royal family flew to Kavala, east of Thessaloniki, accompanied by Prime Minister Konstantinos Kollias who was informed at that moment of Constantine’s plan.

They arrived at 11:30 a.m. and were well received by the citizens. But some conspirators were neutralised, such as General Manettas, and Odysseas Angelis informed the public of the plan, asking citizens to obey his orders minutes before telecommunications were cut off.

By noon, all the airbases, except one in Athens, had joined the royalist movement, and fleet leader Vice Admiral Dedes, before being arrested, ordered successfully the whole fleet to sail towards Kavala in obedience to the king.

They did not manage to take Thessaloniki and it soon became apparent that the senior officers were not in control of their units. This, along with the arrest of several officers, including the capture of Peridis that afternoon, and the delay in the execution of some orders, led to the countercoup’s failure.

The junta, led by Georgios Papadopoulos, on the same day appointed General Georgios Zoitakis as Regent of Greece. Archbishop Ieronymos swore Zoitakis into office in Athens. Constantine, the royal family and Prime Minister Konstantinos Kollias took off in torrential rain from Kavala for exile in Rome, where they arrived at 4 p.m. on December 14th with their plane having only five minutes of fuel left. In 2004, Constantine said that he would have done everything the same, but with more caution.

Two weeks after his exile, photos of Constantine and his family celebrated Christmas with normality in the Greek Ambassador to Italy’s home reached Greek media, which didn’t do Constantine’s reputation “any favour”. He remained in exile in Italy through the rest of military rule.

King Constantine II formally remained Greece’s head of state in exile until the junta abolished the monarchy in June 1973 (a decision ratified via a referendum in July). After the restoration of democracy a year later, a second referendum was held in December 1974, which confirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.

While Constantine had contested the results of the 1973 referendum, he accepted the verdict of the 1974 vote, even though he had not been allowed to return to Greece to campaign. After living for several decades in London, Constantine moved back to Athens in 2013. He died there in 2023 following a stroke.

From the Emperor’s Desk: I will conclude this series next week with my assessment and thoughts on the Greek monarchy.

History of the Kingdom of Greece: Part XI. Restoration of King George II

Tags

Elisabeth of Romania, Exile, Ferdinand of Romania, General Georgios Kondylis, King Alexander of Yugoslavia, king George II of the Hellenes, Plebiscite, Restoration

From the Emperor’s Desk: for some reason I am unable to post with pictures. I am looking into it and hopefully pictures will be back soon!

First exile

Exiled in Romania since December 1923, the former Greek King and his wife settled in Bucharest, where King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania put at their disposal a wing of the Cotroceni palace for some time. After several weeks, however, the couple moved and established their residence in a more modest villa on Victory Avenue.

Regular guests of the Romanian sovereigns, George and Elizabeth took part in the ceremonies which punctuated the life of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family. Despite the kindness with which his mother-in-law treated him, the ex-King of the Hellenes felt idle in Bucharest and struggled to hide the boredom he felt from the splendors of the Romanian court.

Tried by the humiliations of exile, financial difficulties and the absence of descendants, relations between George and Elisabeth deteriorated. After having first assuaged her weariness in too rich food and gambling, the ex-queen of the Hellenes then carried on extra-marital affairs with various married men.

She took advantage of a visit to her sick sister, in Belgrade, to flirt with her own brother-in-law, Alexander, the King of Yugoslavia. Later, she began an affair with her husband’s banker, a Greek named Alexandros Scavani, whom she made her chamberlain to cover up the scandal.

In the United Kingdom

Restoration of monarchy and the Metaxas regime

After the abolition of the monarchy, in 1924, the anti-Venizelist leaders, except for Metaxas, refused to recognise the new regime. This “regime issue”, that arose just after the proclamation of the Republic, haunted Greek politics for more than a decade and eventually led to the restoration of monarchy.

Was the referendum to restore the Greek Monarchy in 1935 rigged?

In October 1935 General Georgios Kondylis, a former Venizelist who had suddenly decided to throw in his lot with the monarchist forces, overthrew the government and appointed himself prime minister. He then arranged a plebiscite both to approve his government and to bring an end to the republic.

In 1935, Prime Minister Georgios Kondylis, a former pro-Venizelos military officer, became the most powerful political figure in Greece. He compelled Panagis Tsaldaris to resign as Prime Minister and took over the government, suspending many constitutional provisions in the process. Kondylis, who had now joined the Conservatives, decided to hold a referendum in order to re-establish the monarchy, despite the fact that he used to be a supporter of the anti-monarchist wing of Greek politics.

Conduct

Observers of the time expressed serious doubts about the vote’s legitimacy. Besides the implausibly high “yes” vote, the vote was held in far-from-secret circumstances. Voters dropped a blue piece of paper into the ballot box if they supported the king’s return, or a red paper to retain the republic. Anyone who cast a red ballot risked being beaten up.

On November 3, 1935, almost 98% of the reported votes supported restoration of the monarchy. The balloting was not secret, and participation was compulsory.

George, who had been living at Brown’s Hotel in London, returned to Greek soil on November 25. Almost immediately he and Kondylis disagreed over the terms of a general amnesty the King wanted to declare, and George appointed an interim prime minister, Konstantinos Demertzis.

New elections were held in January, which resulted in a hung parliament with the Communists (who were naturally anti-monarchist) holding the balance of power. A series of unexpected deaths amongst the better-known politicians (including Kondylis and Demertzis), as well as the uncertain political situation, led to the rise to power of politician and veteran army officer Ioannis Metaxas.

March 8, 1748: Birth of Willem V, Prince of Orange and the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic.

Tags

August Willem of Prussia, Dutch Republic, Exile, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, King George III of Great Britain, Prince Willem V of Orange, Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, Stadtholder of the United Netherlands, Treaty of Paris 1783

From the Emperor’s Desk: It seems I’m on roll here with Dutch Royals today!

Willem V (Willem Batavus; March 8, 1748 – April 9, 1806) was a Prince of Orange and the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. He went into exile to London in 1795. He was furthermore ruler of the Principality of Orange-Nassau until his death in 1806. In that capacity he was succeeded by his son as Willem VI, Prince of Orange.

Prince Willem Batavus was born in the Hague on March 8, 1748, the only son of Willem IV Prince of Orange and who had the year before been restored as Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He was only three years old when his father died in 1751, and a long regency began.

Prince Willem V of Orange

Prince Willem V’s mother was Princess Anne, Princess Royal, the second child and eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his consort Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach .

Willem V assumed the position of Stadtholder and Captain-General of the Dutch States Army on his majority in 1766. However, he allowed his cousin Duke Ludwig Ernst of Brunswick-Lüneburg (younger brother of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel) to retain a large influence on the government with the secret Acte van Consulentschap.

On October 4, 1767 in Berlin, Prince Willem married Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, the daughter of Prince August Willem of Prussia and Duchess Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel a daughter of Ferdinand Albrecht II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife and cousin Duchess Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia was a niece of King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia and a cousin of King George III of Great Britain (Willem himself was George III’s first cousin).

Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the War For American Independence, there was growing restlessness in the United Provinces with Willem V’s rule. A coalition of old Dutch States Party regenten and democrats, called Patriots, was challenging his authority more and more.

Mid September 1785 Willem left the Hague and removed his court to Het Loo Palace in Gelderland, a province remote from the political center. In September 1786 he sent States-Army troops to Hattem and Elburg to overthrow the cities’ Patriot vroedschap, despite the defense by Patriot Free Corps, organised by Herman Willem Daendels.

This provoked the Patriot-dominated States of Holland to deprive him of his office of Captain-General of the States Army.

In June 1787 his energetic wife Wilhelmina tried to travel to the Hague to foment an Orangist rising in that city. Outside Schoonhoven, she was stopped by Free Corps, taken to a farm near Goejanverwellesluis and after a short detention made to return to Nijmegen.

To Wilhelmina and her brother, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, this was both an insult and an excuse to intervene militarily. King Friedrich Wilhelm II launched the Prussian invasion of Holland in September 1787 to suppress the Patriots. Many Patriots fled to the North of France, around Saint-Omer, in an area where Dutch was spoken. Until his overthrow they were supported by King Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

Prince Willem V of Orange, Portrait by Johann Georg Ziesenis (c. 1768–1769)

Exile in Great Britain and Ireland

Prince Willem V joined the First Coalition against Republican France in 1793 with the coming of the French Revolution. His troops fought in the Flanders Campaign, but in 1794 the military situation deteriorated and the Dutch Republic was threatened by invading armies.

The year 1795 was a disastrous one for the ancien régime of the Netherlands. Supported by the French Army, the revolutionaries returned from Paris to fight in the Netherlands, and in 1795 Willem V went into exile in England. A few days later the Batavian Revolution occurred, and the Dutch Republic was replaced with the Batavian Republic.

Directly after his arrival in England, the Prince wrote a number of letters (known as the Kew Letters) from his new residence in Kew to the governors of the Dutch colonies, instructing them to hand over their colonies to the British as long as France continued to occupy the “mother country”.

Only a number complied, while those that demurred from doing so became confused and demoralised. Almost all Dutch colonies were eventually captured by the British, who in the end returned most, but not all (South Africa and Ceylon), first at the Treaty of Amiens and later with the Convention of London signed in 1814.

In 1799 Prince Willem V took an active part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, engineering the capture of a Batavian naval squadron in the Vlieter Incident. The surrender of the ships (that had been paid for by the Batavian Republic) was formally accepted in the name of Willem V as Stadtholder, who was later allowed to sell them to the Royal Navy (for an appreciable amount).

But that was his only success, as the troops suffered from choleric diseases, and civilians at that time were unwilling to re-instate the old regime. The arrogance of the tone in his proclamation, demanding the restoration of the stadtholderate, may not have been helpful, according to Simon Schama.

King Willem I of the Netherlands (Willem VI, Prince of Orange)

After the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, in which Great Britain recognised the Batavian Republic, an additional Franco-Prussian Convention of May 23, 1802 declared that the House of Orange would be ceded in perpetuity the domains of Dortmund, Weingarten, Fulda and Corvey in lieu of its Dutch estates and revenues (this became the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda).

As far as Napoleon was concerned, this cession was conditional on the liquidation of the Stadtholder and other hereditary offices of the Prince. William V, however, had no interest in towns, territories and abbeys confiscated from other rulers, including alternatives as Würzburg and Bamberg, but wanted what was his due: his arrears in salaries and other financial perquisites since 1795, or a lump sum of 4 million guilders.

The foreign minister of the Batavian Republic, Maarten van der Goes, was willing to secretly try to persuade the Staatsbewind of the Batavian Republic to grant this additional indemnity, but Napoleon put a stop to it, when he got wind of the affair.

The last of the Dutch Stadtholders, Willem V died in exile at his daughter’s palace in Brunswick, now in Germany. His body was moved to the Dutch Royal Family crypt in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft on April 28, 1958.

In 1813, his son, William VI returned to the Netherlands and proclaimed himself King Willem I of the Netherlands thus becoming the first Dutch monarch from the House of Orange.

Marriage and Divorce of King Gustaf IV Adolf and Frederica of Baden. Conclusion

Tags

Abdication, coup d'état, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Exile, Frederica of Baden, Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden, King Carl XIII of Sweden, Royal Divorce

Coup

On March 12, 1809, King Gustaf IV Adolf left her and the children at Haga Palace to deal with the rebellion of Georg Adlersparre. The day after he was captured at the royal palace in Stockholm in the Coup of 1809, imprisoned at Gripsholm Castle and deposed May 10 in favor of his uncle, who succeeded him as Carl XIII of Sweden on June 6. According to the terms deposition made on May 10, 1809, she was allowed to keep the title of queen even after the deposition of her spouse.

Frederica and her children were kept under guard at Haga Palace. The royal couple was initially kept separated because the coup leaders suspected her of planning a coup. During her house arrest, her dignified behavior reportedly earned her more sympathy than she had been given her entire tenure as queen.

Her successor, Queen Charlotte, who felt sympathy for her and often visited her, belonged to the Gustavians and wished to preserve the right to the throne for Frederica’s son, Gustaf.

Queen Charlotte was born as Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp (1759 – 1818) was also a famed diarist, memoirist and wit. She is known by her full pen name (above), though her official name as queen was Charlotte (Charlotta).

Queen Charlotte was the daughter of Duke Friedrich August I of Holstein-Gottorp and Princess Ulrike of Hesse-Cassel. She married her cousin Prince Carl, Duke of Södermanland, in Stockholm on July 7, 1774 when she was fifteen years old.

The marriage was arranged by King Gustaf III to provide the throne of Sweden with an heir. The King had not consummated his marriage at that time and had decided to give the task of providing an heir to the throne to his brother.

Frederica told Queen Charlotte that she was willing to separate from her son for the sake of succession, and requested to be reunited with her spouse. Her second request was granted her after intervention from Queen Charlotte, and Frederica and her children joined Gustaf Adolf at Gripsholm Castle after the coronation of the new monarch on June 6. The relationship between the former king and queen was reportedly well during their house arrest at Gripsholm.

During her house arrest at Gripsholm Castle, the question of her son crown prince Gustaf’s right to the throne was not yet settled and a matter of debate.

There was a plan by a Gustavian military fraction led by General Eberhard von Vegesack to free Frederica and her children from the arrest, have her son declared monarch and Frederica as regent of Sweden during his minority.

These plans were in fact presented to her, but she declined: “The Queen displayed a nobility in her feelings, which makes her worthy of a crown of honor and placed her above the pitiful earthly royalty. She did not listen to the secret proposals, made to her by a party, who wished to preserve the succession of the crown prince and wished, that she would remain in Sweden to become the regent during the minority of her son… she explained with firmness, that her duty as a wife and mother told her to share the exile with her husband and children.” The removal of her son from the succession order, however, she nevertheless regarded as a legally wrongful.

The family left Sweden on December 6, 1809, via three separate carriages. Gustaf Adolf and Frederica traveled in one carriage, escorted by general Skjöldebrand; their son Gustaf traveled in the second with colonel baron Posse; and their daughters and their governess von Panhuys traveled in the last carriage escorted by colonel von Otter.

Frederica was offered to be escorted with all honors due to being a member of the house of Baden if she traveled alone, but declined and brought no courtier with her, only her German chamber maid Elisabeth Freidlein. The family left for Germany by ship from Karlskrona on December 6.

Exile

After having been denied to travel to Great Britain, the former king and queen settled in the duchy of Baden, where they arrived February 10, 1810. After having become private persons, the incompatibility between Frederica and Gustaf Adolf immediately became known in their different view in how to live their lives.

Gustaf Adolf wished to live a simple family life in a congregation of the Moravian church in Christiansfeld in Slesvig or Switzerland, while Frederica wished to settle in the palace Meersburg at Bodensee, which was granted her by her family.

Their sexual differences was also brought to the surface, as Frederica refused sexual intercourse because she did not wish to give birth to exiled royalty. These differences caused Gustaf Adolf to leave alone for Basel in Switzerland in April 1810, from which he expressed complaints about their sexual incompatibility and demanded a divorce.

The couple made two attempts to reconcile in person: once in Switzerland in July, and a second time in Altenburg in Thüringen in September. The attempts of reconciliation was unsuccessful and in 1811, Gustaf Adolf issued divorce negotiations with her mother, stating that he wished to be able to marry again.

Frederica was not willing to divorce, and her mother suggested that Gustaf Adolf entered some kind of secret morganatic marriage on the side to avoid the scandal of divorce. Gustaf Adolf did agree to this suggestion, but as they could not figure out how such a thing should be arranged, a proper divorce was finally issued in February 1812.

In the divorce settlement, Gustaf Adolf renounced all his assets in both Sweden and abroad, as well as his future assets in the form of his inheritance rights after his mother, to his children; he also renounced the custody and guardianship of his children.

Two years later, Fredrica placed her children under the guardianship of her brother-in-law, the Russian Tsar Alexander. Frederica kept in contact through correspondence with Queen Charlotte of Sweden, whom she entrusted her economic interests in Sweden, as well as with her former mother-in-law, and while she did not contact Gustaf Adolf directly, she kept informed about his life and often contributed financially to his economy without his knowledge.

Frederica settled in the castle Bruchsal in Baden, but also acquired several other residences in Baden as well as a country villa, Villamont, outside Lausanne in Switzerland. In practice, she spent most of her time in the court of Karlsruhe from 1814 onward, and also traveled a lot around Germany, Switzerland and Italy, using the name Countess Itterburg after a ruin in Hesse, which she had acquired.

In accordance with the abdication terms, she kept her title of queen and had her own court, headed by the Swedish baron O. M. Munck af Fulkila, and kept in close contact with her many relatives and family in Germany. According to her ladies-in-waiting, she turned down proposals from her former brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Oels, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

She was rumoured to have secretly married her son’s tutor, the French-Swiss J.N.G. de Polier-Vernland, possibly in 1823.

In 1819, her daughter Sophia married the heir to the throne of Baden, Frederica’s paternal half-uncle, the future Grand Duke Leopold I of Baden.

Her last years were plagued by weakened health. She died in Lausanne of a heart disease. She was buried in Schloss and Stiftskirche in Pforzheim, Germany.

Death of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia. Part II.

Tags

Abdication, Battle of Tannenberg, Comander-in-Chief, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Exile, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia, Monarchist, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union

1915

The Grand Duke had no part in the planning and preparations for World War I, that being the responsibility of General Vladimir Sukhomlinov and the general staff. On the eve of the outbreak of World War I, his first cousin once removed, the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, yielded to the entreaties of his ministers and appointed Grand Duke Nicholas to the supreme command. He was 57 years old and had never commanded armies in the field before, although he had spent almost all of his life on active service. His appointment was popular in the army. He was given responsibility for the largest army ever put into the field up to that date. He recalled that “… on receipt of the Imperial order, he spent much of his time crying because he did not know how to approach his new duties.”

Grand Duke Nicholas was responsible for all Russian forces fighting against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. He decided that their major effort must be in Poland, which thrust toward Germany like a salient, flanked by German East Prussia in the north, and Austro-Hungarian Galicia in the south. He planned to attend first to the flanks and when they were secure to invade German Silesia. In the north poor coordination of the two invading Russian armies resulted in the disaster of Tannenberg.

The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 26 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915.

The Grand Duke picked and chose from the various plans offered by his generals. The Grand Duke begged for the artillery and ammunition they desperately lacked, so he could not embark on a coherent plan for victory. Grand Duke Nicholas came to power because of his royal status, and the tsar’s belief that God was guiding his decision. He lacked the broad strategic sense and the ruthless drive to command all the Russian armies. His headquarters had a curiously calm atmosphere, despite the many defeats and the millions of casualties. He failed in terms of strategy and tactics, as well as logistics, selection of generals, maintaining morale, and gaining support from the government. On a personal level he was well liked by both officers and men.

After the Great Retreat of the Russian army, the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Yanushkevich, with the full support of the Grand Duke Nicholas, ordered the army to devastate the border territories and expel the “enemy” nations within. The Russian authorities launched pogroms against German populations in Russian cities, massacred Jews in their towns and villages and deported 500,000 Jews and 250,000 Germans into the Russian interior.

As a result of his failure, Emperor Nicholas II removed the Grand Duke as commander of the Russian armed forces on August 21, 1915 and took personal command.

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia towering over Emperor Nicholas II

The Caucasus

Upon his dismissal, the Grand Duke was immediately appointed commander-in-chief and viceroy in the Caucasus (replacing Count Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov). While the Grand Duke was officially in command, General Yudenich was the driving figure in the Russian Caucasus army, so the Grand Duke focused on the civil administration. Their opponent was the Ottoman Empire. While the Grand Duke was in command, the Russian army sent an expeditionary force through to Persia (now Iran) to link up with British troops. Also in 1916, the Russian army captured the fortress town of Erzerum, the port of Trebizond (now Trabzon) and the town of Erzincan. The Turks responded with an offensive of their own. Fighting around Lake Van swung back and forth, but ultimately proved inconclusive.

It is reported that, while visiting the garrison of Kostroma he met Said Nursi, a famous Muslim cleric who was a prisoner of war. Because of Nursi’s disrespectful attitude, the Grand Duke gave an order to execute him. But after seeing Nursi’s devotion to his religion during his last prayer, Grand Duke changed his mind and amnestied Nursi. Nothing in the Grand Duke’s record suggests that he would have even considered such a war crime. At the time he was urging the Emperor to set up colleges for training Muslim clerics so they would not have to study abroad.

Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. But, in March 1917, the Tsar was overthrown and the Russian army began slowly to fall apart.

Revolution

The February Revolution found Nicholas in the Caucasus. He was appointed by the Emperor, in his last official act, as the supreme commander in chief, and was wildly received as he journeyed to headquarters in Mogilev; however, within 24 hours of his arrival, the new prime minister, Prince Georgy Lvov, cancelled his appointment.

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia

Grand Duke Nicholas spent the next two years in the Crimean Peninsula, sometimes under house arrest, taking little part in politics. There appears to have been some sentiment to have him head the White Army forces active in southern Russia at the time, but the leaders in charge, especially General Anton Denikin, were afraid that a strong monarchist figurehead would alienate the more left leaning constituents of the movement. He and his wife escaped just ahead of the Red Army in April 1919, aboard the British Royal Navy battleship HMS Marlborough.

On August 8, 1922, Nicholas was proclaimed as Emperor Nicholas III of all the Russias by the Zemsky Sobor of the Priamurye region in the Far East by White Army general Mikhail Diterikhs. Nicholas was already living abroad and consequently was not present. Two months later the Priamurye region fell to the Bolsheviks.

In exile

After a stay in Genoa as a guest of his brother-in-law, Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, Nicholas and his wife took up residence in a small chateau at Choigny, 20 miles outside of Paris. He was under the protection of the French secret police as well as by a small number of faithful Cossack retainers.

He became the symbolic figurehead of an anti-Soviet Russian monarchist movement, after assuming on November 16, 1924 the supreme command of all Russian forces in exile and thus of the Russian All-Military Union, which had been founded in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by Gen Pyotr Wrangel two months prior.

The monarchists made plans to send agents into Russia. Conversely a top priority of the Soviet secret police was to penetrate this monarchist organization and to kidnap Nicholas. They were successful in the former, infiltrating the group with spies. (OGPU later lured the anti-Bolshevik British master spy Sidney Reilly back to the Soviet Union (1925) where he was killed.) They did not succeed however, in kidnapping Nicholas. As late as June 1927, the monarchists were able to set off a bomb at the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Grand Duke Nicholas died on January 5, 1929 of natural causes on the French Riviera, where he had gone to escape the rigors of winter. He was originally buried in the church of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Cannes, France. In 2014 Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia (1922–2014) and Prince Dimitri Romanov (1926-2016) requested the transfer of his remains. The bodies of Nicholas Nikolaevich and his wife were re-buried in Moscow at the World War I memorial military cemetery in May 2015.