What Could Nicholas II Have Done to Preserve the Imperial Throne?

[Alixz]

I also always use Queen Mary as an example. Prince John had seizures. His intelligence was not up to normal standards. It was more than possible that he would die and he did. Queen Mary didn't go off the deep end. She was a strong and resourceful consort.

No Rasputin's in Buck House. King George V didn't want to be king any more than his cousin Nicholas II wanted to be Tsar. But he sucked it up and did what had to be done, even marrying his dead brother's fiance (the same as Alexander III).

I am all over the map with Alexandra, too, but I won't budge an inch with the romantic stuff and nonsense about Alexei's illness and "true love". I agree with Marie Pavlovna "one ought to know one's job" and if one does know as some here have said Alexandra did, then one shouldn't shirk.

I won't budge on the nursing either. She wasn't unique in doing that among royals and she even made her eldest daughter a nervous wreck by insisting that she had to do it too.

[Petr]

Well, of course, taken in isolation you may be right about the disconnect between NII's view of the monarchy and reality (I remain less convinced about where AIII would have come out had he lived). However, the advent of the Revolution was the result of many different factors and one which seems to be forgotten with some regularity, was the advent of WWI. As I have stated before, had Russia been given the time to let industrialization (commenced under AIII) run its course as it did in Europe and the United States, in my view, there was a good chance that there would have been a political evolution towards a constitutional monarchy, or, at least a monarchy that was more proscribed, which would have permitted its survival. I believe that full industrialization would have resulted in the rise of a middle class and, given time, would have permitted the proletariat to adjust to their status like the English working classes did in the latter half of the 18th century and the American working classes did in the latter half of the 19th century. In both cases there would have been a natural desire to assert political rights which, given developments in society, would have been granted, perhaps grudgingly but nonetheless granted because of the economic power wielded by these increasingly powerful segments of society.  WWI put such a strain on the whole country in such a short space of time that there was simply no way for society to adjust in a timely fashion.  The war decimated the principal bulwark of the monarchy, i.e., the army (and the navy), which became a fertile ground for leftist propaganda and ultimately whose Kronstadt sailors and Petrograd garrison tipped the balance.  By the way, Lenin's presence may lend support to Nietzsche's theories of the ubermensch and query had he not been present perhaps things would have turned out differently.

I sound like an apologist for NII and, for that matter, the rest of the Romanoffs but that is not my intent. I just think the causes of the Revolution were much more complex and it is too easy to lay the blame at his doorstep. Many in Russian aristocratic and government circles were critical of NII as weak and AF as a hysteric with a bad influence on him.  But even so, the forces which created the Revolution were much more profound and far reaching than whatever their contributions may have been.

Petr              

[Vanya Ivanova]

In response to Alixz's references to 'stronger' parents, Joe Kennedy had his daughter Rosemary lobotomized, for what was most probably just a low a IQ. George V and Queen Mary had their son John completely segregated in a farm house on the Sandringham estate just because he was epileptic where he died aged 13 by all accounts a very lonely little boy. Hardly paragons of parental stoicism because both those children were just ruthlessly 'removed' to avoid embarassment.

Even in an age where infant mortality and disease were the norm, Alexei's physical suffering was exceptional. They couldn't give him pain relief for fear of turning him into an addict, so he lay there for days on end in acute agony. They never knew when the next incident would occur and with each attack it wasn't known if he would live. The difference for Alexandra from many of the other examples mentioned was because Alexandra carried the disease and the child was the heir to the throne, his suffering and the damage it did to the dynasty was in effect seen as her fault. Death is one thing, seeing someone suffer acutely for long periods of time is another. Believe me I know.

I cannot understand how people can fail to feel sympathy for a woman in that position. Either way in my opinion it didn't materially effect the outcome of the revolution anyway.

With regards to the nursing I'm very aware Alexandra was not alone, but she was the most high status individual to engage with actual full scale nursing duties in WWI. My own great aunt Lady Nina Geraldine Knowles was a red cross nurse in WWI and did exceptional work. I only made the point because people had stated Alexandra wasn't prepared to engage with people because she was too haughty whereas the nursing proved that was not the case at all. It may not have been her 'job' to do that, but come on, it was still courageous.

[Alixz]

But she didn't engage with the "people". The soldiers who were selected to stay in her hospitals were officers (at least that is the way the are described in all accounts) not the peasants who were conscripted.

And she was still within the confines of her safe and structured world of Tsarskoe Selo.

I do have sympathy for parents of children with handicaps. Handicaps of all kinds, but I still think that Alexandra was selfish and self centered and her only desire in life was to preserve the autocracy for "Baby". She couldn't see outside of her own narrow world.

And nursing was not her job. Being an Empress was her job and she never took that seriously enough to make it work and then she meddled in things that she had no business in - the appointing of ministers and advice to Nicholas at the front.

But I also agree with many who post here who have made the point that by the time Alexandra was running amok, the dynasty and the autocracy were too deep in trouble that began with the badly provisioned "freeing of the serfs" - (Lincoln did the same thing in the US not too many years later). There was no forethought or training or education for any of those newly freed people and they probably didn't even see a "tickle down" effect before Alexander III began his ruthless Russification and the undoing of all that the freeing of the serfs should have meant.

Alexander's reactionary despotism worked by inertia. It was so heavy handed that, in time, it had no opponents because anyone who might have opposed it saw that it was like a immovable object.

Nicholas II was too weak and malleable to do what his father had done. And he listened all to often (after 1904) to his wife and not his ministers.

[Kalafrana]

The causes of the Revolution were indeed many and complex, and not all related to the personalities of Nicholas and Alexandra. However, their personalities made things much worse than they might have been. In particular, Alexandra only encouraged Nicholas's own intransigence, and her actions in WW1 were a major factor in the destruction of what credibility the monarchy had, and support for it at higher levels.

Vanya
I think you treat Queen Mary unjustly over Prince John. We have to remember that before anti-convulsant drugs were developed, the only way of preventing epileptic fits was to try to remove the triggers. On that basis a quiet life in the country was probably the best thing. He had people around him who were very fond of him - Lalla Bill to name but one. And his fits were very severe - eventually one killed him.

There is no suggestion that either Princess Beatrice or Alexandra's sister Irene went to pieces under the strain of having haemophliac sons. Admittedly, none of their sons was an heir apparent, but Ena of Spain, with two haemophiliac sons, doesn't seem to have gone to pieces either (and she had a much less devoted husband).

Ann

[Vanya Ivanova]

Nicholas II's 'malleability' is in my opinion also a bit of myth. Proof of this is when he made himself commander in chief of the army. Like his wife's nursing that wasn't his 'job' and was very much against everyones strong counsel. Nicholas's didn't have the confidence in his own ideas and so was open to advice but he fundamentally believed in autocracy and so ulitimately did want he wanted.

This is why in 1905 he did pursue Witte's advice which led to the genuinely elected 1st Duma. This as Tsarfan correctly pointed out was 'with a gun at his head' so to speak. However, he could have resisted and brought in a hardliner like Stolypin at that point. He didn't. Nicholas was fundamentally opposed to the erosion of autocracy but he didn't just abandon Witte's policies because of that. He moved to the hard line approach in 1906 after seeing that the concessions were only bringing MORE unrest.

With Stolypin between 1906-1909 Nicholas's government was even more hard line than his father's. Unlike his father Nicholas did understand that at a local level it was important to at least have some semblance or the appearance of consultive governance purely from an administrative point of view. Under Stolypin however he tried to have his 'cake and eat it' in that he wanted that but at the same time not to erode/limit the autocracy which was of course a contradiction in terms.

Alexander III's creation of the 'land captains' weakened both the nobility and the peasants. He effectively tried to reverse the emancipation act. He was not an intelligent man. He was so blinded by his desire to personally control everything that he simply could not grasp that this would completely obstruct successful industrialisation. It took the famine and ensuing cholera epidemic of 1891-2 to make him consede at all that perhaps one man alone could not effectively govern 140 million people entirely by himself but by then it was too late.

Alexander III was perversely VERY adept with foreign policy and in this regard he was a good Tsar, but domestically he was an absolute disaster. To use Louis Charles's Titanic analogy it was Alexander III who was on the bridge at the decisive moment. He dropped dead just as they were hitting the iceberg and his ill prepared son was left to captain a ship that was irreparably damaged as a result of his, Alexander III's blindness, arrogance and stupidity.

As for Empresses having a detrimental effect, his wife Maria Feodorovna may have been good at throwing a good party for the bloated and corrupt elite of St Petersburg but what did that woman ever actually do for anyone? She held a stance of opposition to her son's regime that ultimately led to Rasputin's murder. Her actions directly led to schisms at court that undoubtedly undermined her son every bit as much as anything Alexandra did.

Its the double standards that get me, people are so willing to sympathise with Alexander III seeing his father die (in admittedly horrific circumstances) and to make allowances based on that for his entire reign but completely unable to cut Alexandra any slack what so ever for transgressions that pale into insignificance when compared to her father in laws.

[Vanya Ivanova]

Prince's John's condition did mean he needed peace and quiet and so he had the little asthmatic girl as a playmate etc, but the level of isolation the child was placed in was not medically necessary. Mary's instincts as a mother were good but George's instincts as a father were not and Mary was too much under George's thumb to ever do the right thing by her children. Prince John was effectively hidden away to avoid embarassment.

As if John's treatment weren't proof enough you only have to look at how severely Bertie's ( George VI) speech impediment was dealt with, Edward VIII's complete lack of moral fibre (he was George IV all over again) and Princess Mary's enforced marriage to the 'ugliest man in Britain' who was also twice her age to see what terrible parents George and Mary were. It was these two's parenting that led to the unpleasant but perhaps accurate saying that the 'Windsors are like pigs in that they trample their young'. However I do sympathise with Mary, she worshipped her husband like a God and even allowed him to choose her clothes. She wasn't bad but she was utterly malleable to her husband's wishes to the real detriment of her children.

Ena of Spain's predicament was completely different, she had six children all of whom could inherit the throne, the girls included. The Infante's Alfonso and Juan did ultimately both die due to complications arising from their condition but as adults and their is no evidence that their childhoods were blighted with severe attack after attack as Alexei's was. Also, Ena didn't have the mother in law from hell blaming her for everything. Alexandra was self absorbed and emotionally unstable, from childhood most likely. She did try to interfere in politics but I fail to see why that denies her any understanding or allowance for what was a very tough situation.

[Tsarfan]

Nicholas II's 'malleability' is in my opinion also a bit of myth.

Very true.

I think the source of this myth was the ineffective way in which Nicholas handled decision making.  Any good corporate executive understands that all "stake holders" should be present when key decisions are made, so that all views can be put forward and countered in the open and then, when the decision is handed down, everyone knows what it is and which arguments prevailed.  Then, agree or not, everyone leaves the room more or less on the same page about what is to be done next.

Nicholas preferred sequential rather than parallel debate.  One minister would come in and make the case, say, for a new railway line.  Nicholas would agree.  Then the Finance Minister would come in and point out the difficulty of funding the project or the Foreign Minister would come in and point out the implications of the route from the perspective of some foreign policy concern, and Nicholas would reverse the decision.  Meanwhile, the first minister had put things in motion for the project.  He then later finds out the decision was reversed.  Not only must he try to figure out who made the argument that prevailed and why the argument prevailed, but he appears chopped off at the knees in front of his subordinates, thereby undermining his authority.

It was this kind of subtle but perpetual chaos around imperial decisions that so frustrated Nicholas' ministers and that caused stories to spread throughout the bureaucracy of the irresolute or even duplicitous tsar.  Different reasons have been given for this way of operating, but the one I find most compelling is that Nicholas was intimidated by the presence of greater intellect.  It showed up in his silence when hard cases were put to him with strong argument, in the utter insipidness of his diary entries, in the choice of his entertainments, and in the astonishing mediocrity of the ministers to whom he turned as the wheels were coming off the cart from 1915 onward.  And a person saddled with such intellectual limitations would find it much easier to mask that limitation -- at least to himself -- in one-on-one dealings with ministers rather than putting himself in the middle of a debate where strong and informed views are being exchanged in an open forum he is expected to control.

But, as you suggest, Vanya, I don't think this was malleability in the conventional sense.  Perhaps because of the way it ended, even historians tend to look at Nicholas' reign too much through the lens of his personal life.  And that lens homes in on his susceptibility to his wife's constant importunities, which was very real.  But it diminishes the significance of a very important accomplishment Nicholas pulled off against the odds and against the desires of many influential constituencies -- the restoration of virtually total autocracy within a few short years of 1906, when most observers thought constitutionalism in some form had finally been made a permanent feature of Russian monarchy.  In fact, your own argument that Stolypin was appointed to be Nicholas' pit bull in this mission shows that Nicholas could make clever choices in pursuing goals that really mattered to him.  Say what one might about Nicholas' weakness and unsuitability to rule -- and I say more than most here -- this accomplishment cannot be overlooked or overestimated.  

The Stolypin / Alexandra dynamic is very interesting in what it illustrates about the interplay of decisiveness and indecisiveness in Nicholas' character.  For a long time Nicholas resisted intense pressures to remove Stolypin as reactionary interests came to realize that Stolypin's strategy for making the reimposition of full autocracy tenable was built around a reform agenda.  But, in my view, it was Alexandra's unrelenting bedroom campaign against Stolypin that finally brought Nicholas to abandon the strongest ally he had in trying to keep autocracy tolerable to a Russia quickly evolving into a state of perpetual foment.

Its the double standards that get me, people are so willing to sympathise with Alexander III seeing his father die (in admittedly horrific circumstances) and to make allowances based on that for his entire reign but completely unable to cut Alexandra any slack what so ever for transgressions that pale into insignificance when compared to her father in laws.

I haven't seen too many people excuse Alexander's entire reign based on his seeing his father die, nor do I think that had much to do with Alexander's reactionary views which were formed long before 1881.  Alexander III's dislike of his father's policies was well known to the father, to the point that there was speculation that Alexander II was toying with the notion of bypassing AIII in the succession.  There were even some rumors that upon AII's drawing his last breath, AIII hurried to his father's study to retrieve and then destroy a document from his desk that took AIII out of the succession.

Whether true or not, such rumors indicate a widespread understanding even before AII's death that the son was going to be a very different commodity from the father as a tsar.

[Alixz]

Alexander III was very good at international dealings and the diplomacy or lack of it that was needed.

Too much emphasis is put on his personal size and strength as a detrimental influence to Nicholas's character as he grew up. What was detrimental was that Alexander, for what ever reason, did not think it necessary to educate his son in state craft just as Queen Victoria did not, along with Albert until 1861, think it necessary to educate Bertie.

Both men - Bertie and Nicholas - were treated as erring children. The difference being that Bertie didn't inherit the throne until he was in his 60s where Nicholas a very young 26. Bertie had, through various means and ways, taught himself what was needed and began to form a plan for his reign long before his mother died.  (The Royal standard flying at half staff on the ship that transported Victoria's body is a case in point. Bertie asked the captain why the standard was at half staff and the captain replied that the Queen was dead. Bertie replied that the King lived.)
Nicholas did not. Nicholas sat down and cried about how he was not ready to be Tsar and never wanted to be one. So he left the door open for, first his uncles, and then his mother and then his wife to put stress on him.

Did Empress Marie contribute to Russia anything greater that Alexandra did? Continuity of family and dynasty. The ability to show herself to the people and be on display when needed. She, too, gave advice to her husband, but her husband (except in the case of hating Germans) didn't bend to her ideas. And I don't think that Alexander III had to learn to hate the Germans from his wife's carping over Schlesswig Holstein, I think his mind went in the direction anyway.

Marie and Alexandra were both patrons of charities although I think that Marie took a more personal role in actually appearing at functions where Alexandra preferred the solitude of Tsarskoe Selo.

No one has yet replied to my opinion that while Alexandra nursed during the war, she did not actually "meet the people" of Russia as the patients in her hospitals were hand picked and she was still in her own comfort zone of Tsarskoe Selo. She didn't go out and about as her sister Ella did or as her sister in law Olga did.  That is why I think her nursing was not important. To the dynasty or to her personality deficiencies as seen by the imperial family or the people whom she believed loved her so. Nursing gave Alexandra the illusion of doing something important to contribute to the war effort but the illusion was hers alone.

We always have to come back to the "poor Alix" as a mother card. Poor Alix had a husband who could have changed the laws of succession and then her burden would not have been so great. Of course the illness and/or death of an only son would still be a horrible thing for her to have to bear but the burden of providing the "heir" would be gone as any one of her daughters would have had the right to inherit.

And there were still, in the case of Prince John of Wales, no Rasputin at Buck House or anywhere else. King George and Queen Mary were too stable and too savvy to have anything to do with that kind of sorcery. And while posters make the point that Rasputin did "save Alexei at various times, Rasputin as murdered in December of 1917 and Alexi lived for another 8 months without his intervention and even though he was very ill when he was moved to Yekaterinburg, he was not dead without Rasputin's intervention.

So that bring us back to Nicholas and his wait and see "God's will" type of life style.  His use of opiates which must have dulled his mind and senses and the constant dunning from Alexandra which made him run from St. Petersburg to Stavka when she convinced him to dismiss his Uncle Nicholas from command and take over himself. Yes, Nicholas felt that he wanted to be a warrior tsar, but Alexandra didn't help him make any other decision with her constant jealousy and constant ambition.

[edubs31]

Wow this is quite the role everybody is on here! Alixz I'm glad you were able to sneak that post in before mine here as I'm going to dip back into the psyche of Alexandra for just a moment...

I think it's worth pointing out that her situation was relatively unique with regards to the condition and suffering of her son. That it took her five tries to produce an Heir, and then that Heir, as the only son, was inflicted with a tragic illness passed on by her obviously had to overwhelm what was already a fragile mind.  In most other instances of prolonged childhood illness and subsequent death the parents could surely take some solace in the fact that there were other boys to raise and care for. I don't mean to minimize the impact of the illness and/or death of a child, whether they be an only child or have ten siblings, on a mother & father...but it's generally easier to mend a broken heart when there are others to consume oneself with.

- Henry & Irene had three boys. They suffered through the death of Prince Heinrich as a little boy and later Irene would live to see Waldemar die, at 56, due to medical complications during combat in WW2. Yet Sigismund lived a long healthy life.
- Alice had Frederick who died tragically as a boy but at least had a healthy Ernest to cherish for a few more years before her own untimely death.
- Queen Victoria gave birth to four sons, and only her youngest Leopold received and died from the "Royal Illness" as a young man. We see how even the great Queen Victoria succumb to anxiety and depression after death however. I'm talking about her prolonged mourning period after husband Albert died in 1861 of course, and how removing herself from public life temporarily jeopardized her reign.
- George V & Mary had five sons. Only Prince John died because of childhood illness as a young boy. Imagine is Alexei was the youngest of five boys and how that would have changed the nature of the Romanov dynasty even if he had succumb to his disease at a young age.
- Beatrice & Henry saw two of their three sons die. Leopold through the effects of hemophilia and during an operation and Maurice was killed in action during WW1. Alexander the eldest survived them however.
- More recently we have Alfonso & Victoria Eugenie. Their oldest and youngest sons sadly died from their hemophilia but the parents were survived by their two middle sons Jaime and Juan.

The exception to these would be Alice of Athlone who saw both of her sons die...Maurice in infancy and Rupert because of his hemophilia. She certainly pressed on with only daughter May at her side for the last 24-years of her life.

Having additional sons to help cushion the blow, so to speak, after the tragic death of a brother/s was not a luxury not afforded to Alexandra who endured the added weight of needing to produce a natural Heir to the throne. Failing to do so was surely, in her eyes, a betrayal of husband, the dynasty and all of Russia. We have talked much about what one's job is as Empress and her role in the Court. Could there possibly be a more important job for an Empress than to produce an Heir? Alexandra must have believed that she failed in her greatest duty...or at least was a burden because of the "damaged goods" she presented after four previously unsuccessful attempts. Because of this is it not hard to believe her meddling in the affairs of the state was the result of a woman attempting to overcompensate for her shortcomings?

[Forum Admin]

I must disagree with Alixz on one point. I don't see Alexandra as having "constant ambition" at all. The most accurate description I have seen for Nicholas and Alexandra is that they were the perfect Country House couple, and I see parallels between them and Downtown Abbey.  A foreign born wife marries an Aristocrat, has only girls and the problem of a required male heir...Running the manor and loving her husband deeply and working to support him and the family and estate. Sadly, an English Country Manor and freehold estate attendant are not the same as the Russian Empire...Nicholas and Earl Grantham are similar type men. IMO...unfortunately for Nicholas, his ability to govern an empire was not up to anything greater than running Downton Abbey Estate...

[Vanya Ivanova]

So Alexandra was to blame when she influenced her husband and also to blame when she didn't?

I never said the nursing was important, just brave. I suspect security played a very large part in why the nursing was restricted to the Lazeret at Tsarskoe Selo and also why the patients were to some extent hand picked, although stories about the hostility towards Alexandra that Olga and Tatiana witnessed shows it can't have been that rigorous. I don't see why just because the patients weren't peasants that the whole enterprise was just a self absorbed, egotistical waste of time though? She assisted in operations, washed, dressed and generally did real nursing. Queen Mary who everyone seems to think was fantastic did little more than inspect blankets (god forbid she pick one up and fold it) at Marlborough House just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace, that was the extent really of her war work. I'm not anti Queen Mary at all and what she did was what she was expected to do, but by comparison Alexandra was very brave and showed initiative and commitment with her nursing.

There are many instances where Alexandra did engage with ordinary people but this was mainly in the Crimea where it was safer to do so. Tsarfan and Forum Admin had a detailed discussion about the level of security necessary for Nicholas and his family and the many attempts on their lives earlier in this thread. I can't remember the details offhand but there is the incident whereby Alexandra was visiting a church by herself in the Crimea and met a man with a sick child who she personally helped for the rest of her life (as Empress anyway). Then there are the charity bazaar's in the Crimea where she was a stall holder and personally sold items made by herself and daughters to ordinary Russian people for charity. In this she would have met and spoken and probably (with the exhange of the goods and payment touched them).

Maria Feodorovna only really liked to 'show' herself dripping in diamonds to the nobility in the ball rooms of St Peterburg. She was a gifted socialite, when young, very attractive, lively and amusing etc. This is the distinction, Alexandra was inept socially with her peers (St Peterburgs society) but there is no real evidence when security allowed she had any problem showing herself to ordinary Russians. Alexandra's difficulty with the nobility was made very much worse by her mother in law, who openly critiscised everything Alexandra did and encouraged those around her to do the same. I suspect anyone Nicholas married would have been attacked in this way by Marie. She couldn't bear sharing the limelight, however a more emotionally stable and outgoing woman than Alexandra might have been able to give as good as she got. We will never know.

Here's a challenge for all those on the forum who treat Alexandra like a human Pinata- name me her specific crimes, not ooh she influenced this or she didn't do anything when that happended but actual policies and appointments that are directly attributable to her alone and that can be unequivocally shown to have had a direct negative cause and effect on the Russian people. Also back it up with documentary evidence not anecdotes or interpretations of her 'influence'. Then we we will see just how much political agency she really had.

[Alixz]

I know that I am all over the map with Alexandra, but I just don't like her and I can see that you do.

OK from there, I am going to get the information that you are looking for because there was a virtual carousel of ministers during 1917 and Alexandra with Rasputin at her side picked an chose and sent letters to Nicholas informing him that OUR FRIEND says this one is bad and this one is good and we must put aside yet another and bring back the first.

It is documented and it shouldn't be hard to find.

I am out all day today so this is the last time I can post today.

But,   I'll be back...

[Tsarfan]

Here's a challenge for all those on the forum who treat Alexandra like a human Pinata- name me her specific crimes . . . that are directly attributable to her alone and that can be unequivocally shown to have had a direct negative cause and effect on the Russian people. Also back it up with documentary evidence not anecdotes or interpretations of her 'influence'. Then we we will see just how much political agency she really had.

This challenge is a bit overwrought, as no one has claimed that Alexandra could or did anything "alone".  The question has been whether she influenced Nicholas' decisions.  Also, your requirement that the action have a "direct" negative cause and effect in order to attribute harm to Alexandra would moot your own arguments about the harm Alexander II did to Russia by freeing the serfs without granting them land.  Freeing the serfs was not a "direct" cause (or to use the legal term, a proximate cause) of the revolution, as there was more than a half century of intervening events, missed opportunities, and specific decisions to act or not act that turned that initial misstep into a revolution.  Yet you have identified the freeing of the serfs as the seminal cause of all the eventual disasters.

So no one is going to show you examples where Alexandra acted "alone" to create a "direct" negative cause and effect on the Russian people, any more than you have shown such "direct" effects created "alone" by Alexander II or Alexander III, both of whom you censure for bringing on a revolution that happened decades after both their deaths.

But, with the above provisos, your challenge is a fair one as is, up to a point, your request for sources.  (I say up to a point, because many of us who post here have read extensively and take care to use reliable sources, and we use the knowledge gleaned from that reading to inform our posts.  But few of us -- and you included, I suspect -- can give a specific cite right off the cuff to much of what we say.)  As will Alixz, when I have the time I will assemble a list of some specific actions by Alexandra -- with sources, when I can retrace them -- that I believe support my view that Alexandra was a factor in bringing down the monarchy -- NOT a direct cause, mind you, because I have never argued that -- but a factor.

[TimM]

OK from there, I am going to get the information that you are looking for because there was a virtual carousel of ministers during 1917 and Alexandra with Rasputin at her side picked an chose and sent letters to Nicholas informing him that OUR FRIEND says this one is bad and this one is good and we must put aside yet another and bring back the first.

That would be an interesting trick, Rasputin influencing Alexandra in 1917, when he died in 1916.