July 17, 1918. Execution of the Russian Imperial Family

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Alix of Hess and By Rhine, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia, Grand Duchess Maria, Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana, Ipatiev house, Provisional Government, Tsarevich Alexei. Alexander Kerensky, Yekaterinburg

At the end of the “February Revolution”, Nicholas II chose to abdicate on March 15, 1917. He first abdicated in favor of Alexei, but a few hours later changed his mind after advice from doctors that Alexei would not live long enough while separated from his parents, who would be forced into exile. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all Russias. He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government.

Grand Duke Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and Michael’s deferment of accepting the throne brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty’s rule to an end. The fall of Tsarist autocracy brought joy to liberals and socialists in Britain and France. The United States was the first foreign government to recognize the Provisional government. In Russia, the announcement of the Tsar’s abdication was greeted with many emotions, including delight, relief, fear, anger and confusion.

Possibility of exile

Both the Provisional Government and Nicholas wanted the royal family to go into exile following his abdication, with the United Kingdom being the preferred option. The British government reluctantly offered the family asylum on March 19, 1917, although it was suggested that it would be better for the Romanovs to go to a neutral country. News of the offer provoked uproar from the Labour Party and many Liberals, and the British ambassador Sir George Buchanan advised the government that the extreme left would use the ex-Emperor’s presence “as an excuse for rousing public opinion against us”.

The offer of asylum was withdrawn in April following objections by King George V, who, acting on the advice of his secretary Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham, was worried that Nicholas’s presence might provoke an uprising like the previous year’s Easter Rising in Ireland.

The French government declined to accept the Romanovs in view of increasing unrest on the Western Front and on the home front as a result of the ongoing war with Germany. The British ambassador in Paris, Lord Francis Bertie, advised the Foreign Secretary that the Romanovs would be unwelcome in France as the ex-Empress was regarded as pro-German.

Even if an offer of asylum had been forthcoming, there would have been other obstacles to be overcome. The Provisional Government only remained in power through an uneasy alliance with the Petrograd Soviet, an arrangement known as “The Dual Power”. An initial plan to send the royal family to the northern port of Murmansk had to be abandoned when it was realised that the railway workers and the soldiers guarding them were loyal to the Petrograd Soviet, which opposed the escape of the tsar; a later proposal to send the Romanovs to a neutral port in the Baltic Sea via the Duchy of Finland faced similar difficulties

On March 20, 1917, the Provisional Government decreed that the royal family should be held under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Nicholas joined the rest of the family there two days later, having traveled from the wartime headquarters at Mogilev. The family had total privacy inside the palace, but walks in the grounds were strictly regulated. Members of their domestic staff were allowed to stay if they wished and culinary standards were maintained.

That summer, the failure of the Kerensky Offensive against Austro-Hungarian and German forces in Galicia led to anti-government rioting in Petrograd, known as the July Days. The government feared that further disturbances in the city could easily reach Tsarskoye Selo and it was decided to move the royal family to a safer location. Alexander Kerensky, who had taken over as prime minister, selected the town of Tobolsk in Western Siberia, since it was remote from any large city and 150 miles (240 km) from the nearest rail station. Some sources state that there was an intention to send the family abroad in the spring of 1918 via Japan, but more recent work suggests that this was just a Bolshevik rumour.

The family left the Alexander Palace late on August 13, reached Tyumen by rail four days later and then by two river ferries finally reached Tobolsk on August 19. There they lived in the former Governor’s Mansion in considerable comfort. In October 1917, however, the Bolsheviks seized power from Kerensky’s Provisional Government; Nicholas followed the events in October with interest but no alarm.

In February 1918, the Council of People’s Commissars (abbreviated to “Sovnarkom”) in Moscow, the new capital, announced that the state subsidy for the family would be drastically reduced, starting on March 1. This meant parting with twelve devoted servants and giving up butter and coffee as luxuries, even though Nicholas added to the funds from his own resources. What kept the family’s spirits up was the belief that help was at hand. The Romanovs believed that various plots were underway to break them out of captivity and smuggle them to safety. The Western Allies lost interest in the fate of the Romanovs after Russia left the war. The German government wanted the monarchy restored in Russia to crush the Bolsheviks and maintain good relations with the Central Powers.

The situation in Tobolsk changed for the worse on March 26, when 250 ill-disciplined Red Guards arrived from the regional capital, Omsk. Not to be outdone, the soviet in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the neighbouring Ural region, sent 400 Red Guards to exert their influence on the town. Disturbances between these rival groups and the lack of funds to pay the guard detachment caused them to send a delegation to Moscow to plead their case. The result was that Sovnarkom appointed their own commissar to take charge of Tobolsk and remove the Romanovs to Yekaterinburg, with the intention of eventually bringing Nicholas to a show trial in Moscow.

The man selected was Vasily Yakovlev, a veteran Bolshevik, Recruiting a body of loyal men en route, Yakovlev arrived in Tobolsk on April 22; he imposed his authority on the competing Red Guards factions, paid-off and demobilized the guard detachment, and placed further restrictions on the Romanovs. The next day, Yakovlev informed Kobylinsky that Nicholas was to be transferred to Yekaterinburg. Alexei was too ill to travel, so Alexandra elected to go with Nicholas along with Maria.

At 3 am on April 23, the three Romanovs, their retinue, and the escort of Yakovlev’s detachment, left Tobolsk in a convoy of nineteen tarantasses (four-wheeled carriages), as the river was still partly frozen which prevented the use of the ferry. After an arduous journey which included two overnight stops, fording rivers, frequent changes of horses and a foiled plot by the Yekaterinburg Red Guards to abduct and kill the prisoners, the party arrived at Tyumen and boarded a requisitioned train.

Yakovlev was able to communicate securely with Moscow by means of a Hughes’ teleprinter and obtained agreement to change their destination to Omsk, where it was thought that the leadership were less likely to harm the Romanovs. Leaving Tyumen early on 28 April, the train left towards Yekaterinburg, but quickly changed direction towards Omsk. This led the Yekaterinburg leaders to believe that Yakovlev was a traitor who was trying to take Nicholas to exile by way of Vladivostok; telegraph messages were sent, two thousand armed men were mobilized and a train was dispatched to arrest Yakovlev and the Romanovs. The Romanovs’ train was halted at Omsk station and after a frantic exchange of cables with Moscow, it was agreed that they should go to Yekaterinburg in return for a guarantee of safety for the royal family; they finally arrived there on the morning of April 30.

They were imprisoned in the two-story Ipatiev House, the home of the military engineer Nikolay Nikolayevich Ipatiev, which ominously became referred to as the “house of special purpose”. Here the Romanovs were kept under even stricter conditions; their retinue was further reduced and their possessions were searched. The remaining Romanovs left Tobolsk by river steamer on May 20. and arrived in Yekaterinburg three days later. By the first weeks of June, the Bolsheviks were becoming alarmed by the Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, whose forces were approaching the city from the east. This prompted a wave of executions and murders of those in the region who were believed to be counter-revolutionaries, including Grand Duke Michael, who was murdered in Perm on 13 June.

Although the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow still intended to bring Nicholas to trial, as the military situation deteriorated, Leon Trotsky and Yakov Sverdlov began to publicly equivocate about the possible fate of the former Emperor. On July 16, the Yekaterinburg leadership informed Yurovsky that it had been decided to execute the Romanovs as soon as approval arrived from Moscow, because the Czechs were expected to reach the city imminently. A coded telegram arrived in Moscow from Yekaterinburg that evening; after Lenin and Sverdlov had conferred a reply was sent, although no trace of that document has ever been found. In the meantime, Yurovsky had organized his firing squad and they waited through the night at the Ipatiev House for the signal to act.

Execution

There are several accounts of what happened and historians have not agreed on a solid, confirmed scope of events. According to the account of Bolshevik officer Yakov Yurovsky (the chief executioner), in the early hours of July 17, 1918, the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, got dressed, and were led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house. The pretext for this move was the family’s safety, i.e. that anti-Bolshevik forces were approaching Yekaterinburg, and the house might be fired upon.

Present with Nicholas, Alexandra and their children were their doctor and three of their servants, who had voluntarily chosen to remain with the family: the Emperor’s personal physician Eugene Botkin, his wife’s maid Anna Demidova, and the family’s chef, Ivan Kharitonov, and footman, Alexei Trupp. A firing squad had been assembled and was waiting in an adjoining room, composed of seven Communist soldiers from Central Europe, and three local Bolsheviks, all under the command of Yurovsky.

Nicholas was carrying his son. When the family arrived in the basement, the former Emperor asked if chairs could be brought in for his wife and son to sit on. Yurovsky ordered two chairs brought in, and when the Empress and the heir were seated, the executioners filed into the room. Yurovsky announced to them that the Ural Soviet of Workers’ Deputies had decided to execute them.

A stunned Nicholas asked, “What? What did you say?” and turned toward his family. Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and Nicholas said, according to Peter Ermakov, “You know not what you do.”

The executioners drew handguns and began shooting; Nicholas was the first to die. Yurovsky took credit afterwards for firing the first shot that killed the Emperor, but his protege – Grigory Nikulin – said years later that Mikhail Medvedev had fired the shot that killed Nicholas. “He fired the first shot. He killed the Emperor” he said in 1964 in a tape-recorded statement for the radio. Nicholas was shot several times in the chest (sometimes erroneously said to have been shot in his head, but his skull bore no bullet wounds when it was discovered in 1991).

Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets. They were then stabbed with bayonets and finally shot at close range in their heads.

An announcement from the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government emphasized that conspiracies had been exposed to free the ex-Emperor that counter-revolutionary forces were pressing in on Soviet Russian territory, and that the ex-tsar was guilty of unforgivable crimes against the nation.

In view of the enemy’s proximity to Yekaterinburg and the exposure by the Cheka of a serious White Guard plot with the goal of abducting the former Emperor and his family. In light of the approach of counterrevolutionary bands toward the Red capital of the Urals and the possibility of the crowned executioner escaping trial by the people (a plot among the White Guards to try to abduct him and his family was exposed and the compromising documents will be published), the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, fulfilling the will of the Revolution, resolved to shoot the former Nicholas, Nikolai Romanov, who is guilty of countless, bloody, violent acts against the Russian people.

The bodies were driven to nearby woodland, searched and burned. The remains were soaked in acid and finally thrown down a disused mineshaft. On the following day, other members of the Romanov family including Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the empress’s sister, who were being held in a school at Alapayevsk, were taken to another mine shaft and thrown in alive, except for Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich who was shot when he tried to resist.

March 15, 1917: Abdication of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.

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Abdication, Duma, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, House of Romanov, King George V of the United Kingdom, Provisional Government, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, World War I

Nicholas II (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from November 1, 1894 until his forced abdication on March 15, 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse.

By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total collapse of morale. An estimated 1.7 million Russian soldiers were killed in World War I. The sense of failure and imminent disaster was everywhere. The army had taken 15 million men from the farms and food prices had soared. An egg cost four times what it had in 1914, butter five times as much. The severe winter dealt the railways, overburdened by emergency shipments of coal and supplies, a crippling blow.

Ideologically the Emperor’s greatest support came from the right-wing monarchists, who had recently gained strength. However they were increasingly alienated by the Emperor’s support of Stolypin’s Westernizing reforms, by tsar’s liberal reforms taken early in the Revolution of 1905, and especially by the political power the tsar had bestowed on Rasputin.

On February 23, 1917 in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to start to break shop windows to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted “Down with the German woman! Down with Protopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!”

Police started to shoot at the populace from rooftops, which incited riots. The troops in the capital were poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime. They were angry and full of revolutionary fervor and sided with the populace. On Sunday, March 11, 1917, despite huge posters ordering people to keep off the streets, vast crowds gathered and were only dispersed after some 200 had been shot dead, though a company of the Volinsky Regiment fired into the air rather than into the mob, and a company of the Pavlovsky Life Guards shot the officer who gave the command to open fire. Nicholas, informed of the situation, ordered reinforcements to the capital and suspended the Duma. However, it was too late.

On March 12 order broke down and members of the Duma and the Soviet formed a Provisional Government to try to restore order. They issued a demand that Nicholas must abdicate. Faced with this demand, which was echoed by his generals, deprived of loyal troops, with Empress Alexandra and the rest of the imperial family firmly in the hands of the Provisional Government and fearful of unleashing civil war and opening the way for German conquest, Nicholas had little choice but to submit.

Nicholas had suffered a coronary occlusion only four days before his abdication. At the end of the “February Revolution”, Nicholas II chose to abdicate on March 15, 1917. He first abdicated in favor of Alexei, but a few hours later changed his mind after advice from doctors that Alexei would not live long enough while separated from his parents, who would be forced into exile. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all the Russians.

He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government. Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and Michael’s deferment of accepting the throne brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty’s rule to an end. The fall of Tsarist autocracy brought joy to liberals and socialists in Britain and France. The United States was the first foreign government to recognize the Provisional government. In Russia, the announcement of the Emperor’s abdication was greeted with many emotions, including delight, relief, fear, anger and confusion.

Both the Provisional Government and Nicholas wanted the royal family to go into exile following his abdication, with the United Kingdom being the preferred option. The British government reluctantly offered the family asylum on March 19, 1917, although it was suggested that it would be better for the Romanovs to go to a neutral country. News of the offer provoked uproar from the Labour Party and many Liberals, and the British ambassador Sir George Buchanan advised the government that the extreme left would use the ex-Emperor’s presence “as an excuse for rousing public opinion against us.”

On March 20, the Provisional Government decreed that the royal family should be held under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Nicholas joined the rest of the family there two days later, having travelled from the wartime headquarters at Mogilev. The offer of asylum was withdrawn in April following objections by King George V, who, acting on the advice of his secretary Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham, was worried that Nicholas’s presence might provoke an uprising like the previous year’s Easter Rising in Ireland.

The Life of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Part VI: Conclusion.

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Alexander Kerensky, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Marie of Russia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, House of Romanov, Provisional Government, Russian Revolution

With Michael wiling to leave it up to the will of the people whether or not he shall become Emperor of Russia, commentators, ranging from Kerensky to French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, regarded Michael’s action as noble and patriotic, but Nicholas was appalled that Michael had “kowtowed to the Constituent Assembly.”

The hopes of the monarchists that Michael might be able to assume the throne following the election of the Constituent Assembly were overtaken by events. His renunciation of the throne, though conditional, marked the end of the Tsarist regime in Russia. The Provisional Government had little effective power; real power was held by the Petrograd Soviet. Historians debate whether Michael can be counted as the legitimate last Emperor of Russia.

Michael returned to Gatchina and was not permitted to return to his unit or to travel beyond the Petrograd area. On April 5, 1917, he was discharged from military service. By July, Prince Lvov had resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by Alexander Kerensky, who ordered ex-Emperor Nicholas II removed from Petrograd to Tobolsk in the Urals because it was “some remote place, some quiet corner, where they would attract less attention”. On the eve of Nicholas’s departure, Kerensky gave permission for Michael to visit him. Kerensky remained present during the meeting and the brothers exchanged awkward pleasantries.

On August 21, 1917, guards surrounded the villa on Nikolaevskaya street where Michael was living with Natalia. On the orders of Kerensky, they were both under house arrest, along with Nicholas Johnson, who had been Michael’s secretary since December 1912. A week later, they were moved to an apartment in Petrograd. Michael’s stomach problems worsened and, with the intervention of British ambassador Buchanan and foreign minister Mikhail Tereshchenko, they were moved back to Gatchina in the first week of September. Tereshchenko told Buchanan that the Dowager Empress Marie would be allowed to leave the country, for England if she wished, and that Michael would follow in due course. The British, however, were not prepared to accept any Russian Grand Duke for fear it would provoke a negative public reaction in Britain, where there was little sympathy for the Romanovs.

On September 1, 1917, Kerensky declared Russia a republic. Michael wrote in his diary: “We woke up this morning to hear Russia declared a Republic. What does it matter which form the government will be as long as there is order and justice?” Two weeks later, Michael’s house arrest was lifted. Kerensky had armed the Bolsheviks after a power struggle with the commander-in-chief and in October there was a second revolution as the Bolsheviks seized power from Kerensky. With a permit to travel issued by Peter Polotsov, a former colleague of Michael from the Savage Division who was now a commander in Petrograd, Michael planned to move his family to the greater safety of Finland. They packed valuables and prepared to move, but their preparations were seen by Bolshevik sympathisers and they were placed once more under house arrest. The last of Michael’s cars were seized by the Bolsheviks.

The house arrest was lifted again in November, and the Constituent Assembly was elected and met in January 1918. Despite being the minority party, the Bolsheviks dissolved it. On March 7, 1918, Michael and his secretary Johnson were re-arrested on the orders of Moisei Uritsky, the Head of the Petrograd secret police, and imprisoned at the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute. On March 11, 1918, Uritsky sent Michael and Johnson to Perm, a thousand miles to the east, on the order of the Council of the People’s Commissars, which included both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of Russia from July–October 1917

Natalia lobbied the Commissars in Petrograd for his release and, on April 9, 1918, he was set at liberty within Perm. He moved into the best room in the best hotel in Perm, along with Johnson and two manservants, valet Vasily Chelyshev and former chauffeur Borunov. Natalia feared for George’s safety, and in March 1918, she arranged for him to be smuggled out of Russia by his nanny with the help of Danish diplomats and the Putyatins.

In May, Natalia was granted a travel permit to join Michael. Accompanied by family friends Prince Putyatin and Margaret Abakanovich, she arrived at Perm before the Orthodox Easter and they spent about a week together. The Germans demanded that the Bolsheviks disarm the Czechs, who fought back, seized the railway, joined forces with Russians fighting against the Bolsheviks and advanced westwards toward Perm. With the approach of the Czechs, Michael and Natalia feared that she would become trapped there, possibly in a dangerous situation and so, on May 18, she left unhappily. By early June, Michael was again ill with stomach trouble.

On June 12, 1918, the leader of the local secret police, Gavril Myasnikov, with the connivance of other local Bolsheviks, hatched a plan to murder Michael. Myasnikov assembled a team of four men who, like him, were all former prisoners of the Tsarist regime: Vasily Ivanchenko, Ivan Kolpashchikov, Andrei Markov and Nikolai Zhuzhgov. Using a forged order, the four men gained entry to Michael’s hotel at 11.45 p.m.

At first, Michael refused to accompany the men until he spoke with the local chairman of the secret police, Pavel Malkov, and then because he was ill. His protestations were futile and he got dressed. Johnson insisted on accompanying him and the four men plus their two prisoners climbed into two horse-drawn three-seater traps.

They drove out of the town into the forest near Motovilikha. When Michael queried their destination, he was told they were going to a remote railway crossing to catch a train. By now it was the early hours of June, 13. They all alighted from the carriages in the middle of the wood, and both Michael and Johnson were fired upon, once each, but as the assassins were using home-made bullets, their guns jammed. Michael, whether wounded or not is unknown, moved towards the wounded Johnson with arms outstretched, when he was shot at point-blank range in the head. Both Zhuzhgov and Markov claimed to have fired the fatal shot. Johnson was shot dead by Ivanchenko.

Michael (left) in Perm April 1918

The bodies were stripped and buried. Anything of value was stolen and the clothes were taken back to Perm. After they were shown to Myasnikov as proof of the murders, the clothes were burned. The Ural Regional Soviet, headed by Alexander Beloborodov, approved the execution, either retrospectively or beforehand, as did Lenin. Michael was the first of the Romanovs to be executed by the Bolsheviks but he was not the last. Neither Michael’s nor Johnson’s remains have been found.

Pretenders ~ Russia

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Alexander Kerensky, Czar Nicholas II, Czar Paul, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, Morganatic Marriage, Provisional Government, Romanov, Russia, Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin

The succession to the extinct Russian Imperial throne is another one hotly contested and is dependent on the interpretation of House Laws established by Czar Paul (1796-1801). These house laws dealt with the provisions and the legalities of the marriages for the members of the imperial family in order to retain their succession rights. All members had to receive the approval of the emperor and enter equal marriages. A morganatic marriage is a legal marriage between two people of unequal social rank. In this type of union the spouse would not share in her husbands titles or succession rights and children, although legitimate, would also not share in their father’s inheritance of titles and succession rights and were often not included as members of a dynasty.

The Russian monarchy came to an end in 1917 with the abdication of Czar Nicholas II after the February Revolution. The Czar was replaced by a Provisional Government under Georgy Lvov. The former Czar wanted to seek asylum in Great Britain at the court of his first cousin, King George V, but this offer was turned down fearing the Czar’s presence would cause an uprising during unstable times. In August of 1917, Alexander Kerensky, second Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, relocated the Czar and his family to Tobolsk in the Urals, in order to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. However, within months the Provisional Government also fell in the October Revolution which placed Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevicks at the head of the early forming of the Soviet state.

On July 17, 1918 in the early morning hours as the anti-Bolshevick forces were nearing Yekaterinburg where the Czar and his family were imprisoned, the Czar and Czarina, along with their five children and three servants were brutally massacred in the basement of the Ipatiev House.

In 1917 when Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne his first choice to succeed him was his son, Alexei, who was suffering from hemophilia. When told by doctors that young Alexei would not survive long without his parents should they go into exile, the Czar instead abdicated the throne in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Grand Duke Michael said he would not accept the throne unless his succession was approved by a national assembly. This was rejected and Michael was never confirmed as Czar. Grand Duke Michael was also assassinated by the Bolshevicks in June of 1918.

The closest heir to the throne after the Czar and his brother was their first cousin, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia, and it was with Cyril some of the controversy begins over who had the legal right to the defunct throne of Russia and to act as the head of the Imperial house.

Come back tomorrow for part II.