I kind of question both of those statements. First of all, how could a sick, little boy like Alexei be able to hit someone hard enough to make their nose bleed and not suffer a bleeding attack himself from the force? Here he could suffer greatly from a simple bump on the knee, yet he somehow managed not to trigger an attack by a forceful punch? It seems strange. Also, I wonder where exactly he heard "bad" words in order to repeat them. Remember Olga at a young age didn't understand them and had underlined some in a schoolbook for Gillard to go over with her. If she didn't understand such language, how did Alexei?
Anastasiafan:
You don't like our book, quite clearly; in fact, you go out of your way to attempt to denigrate it whenever you can. Even when, as has previously happened, you have accused us of not citing sources for various things, and then be shown to be wrong, you have not gone back and corrected your errors in other threads where such assertions were originally repeated. Fine. I don't care if you like the book or not. But in your determination to undermine what we say, you apparently didn't read it very carefully, for if you had, you would have found that in our introduction we flatly state that we elected to focus deliberately on that which reveals the other side of the story, an examination of the opposite side of the well-known monarchist mythology surrounding the story. Thus, your repeated assertions that the book is somehow unfair or slanted are based on your apparent failure to understand what we very clearly said at the beginning.
As to Alexei's behavior: As we say, it gradually improved over time, but even as late as 1916 Gilliard took a leave of absence because he found Alexei's behavior impossible. There are many examples of this sort of thing to be found; does it represent a totality of evidence? No. But it does co-exist as evidence, and helps portray Alexei more closely as he undoubtedly was, good and bad, rather than in a two-dimensional manner. As to Alexei being capable of hitting someone, I suggest you do some more research on this subject-there are other episodes, and one can be viewed in contemporary film footage, where Alexei smacks a young cadet squarely in the face. Perhaps you are young, and have not studied this subject as long as have I, so I make allowances for your lack of knowledge.
Greg King
