Strom I really think you have made a wonderful point that is very much closer to where Nicky was thinking. One of the things was most tragic about the last few years of Nicky's reign was the interception of letters that the even family members were writing about the need to get rid of Alix that the secret police were then passing on to Nicky and Alix to read.
While historians acknowledge the terrible impact that the intercepted letters had on Nicky and Alix as they began to understand how hated they were and how compromised their own family was. I believe that Alix read both letters from Princess Z. Yousoupoff and her own sister that show complicity with the murder of Rasputin. While historian acknowledge the depressing impact the intercepted letters had on Nicky and Alix, still they show so little understanding when interpreting scenes such as the GD Alexander's famous last interview with Alexandra. They emphasize how inflexible and distant Alix is as she listens to the GD, even when he looses all control and starts shouting, with Nicky sitting quietly the whole time smoking.
No one make mention of the fact that one of the GD Alexander's brothers has openly stated Alix should be illiminated. How is Alix going to react to the GD Alexander's pleas for a more liberal government when behind that plea a plot against her life.
But you know, actually as I have thought about it I think that the real culprit of the revolution is not Alexandra, Nicky, or even Rasputin, I think that they were all scapegoats. I think the real cause of the Revolution was WW1.
When my books are unpacked I will try and share some of the statistics of what happened to America when it tried to mobilize a million men on entering the last year of the war and the near crisis and popular revolt it brought on. I think reviewing those facts will give a much clearer sense of how remarkably well Russia did through three long years of war.
In connection with this I was also aware that if you study the year that the GD Nicholas was Commander and Chief you begin to read descriptions of how altered his behaviour becomes after a year of the constant slaughter of the Russian Army and then the reverses in Gallacia, and how the GD Nicholas becomes distant and depressed. The description of his mental state just before he was replaced by Nicky are very similar to the descriptions of Nicky close to the abdication.
I feel that the abdication was a way of Nicky trying to save Alix life' and the what ever would be left of his son's life. I think that on a personal level, as Strum has said, the abdication is Nicky's last desparate attempt to save all that he really had in life, his dear misunderstood wife and his precious children.
It also occurs to me that no historian wants to look at the abdication too closely as it would compromise too many people including the Allies. I have always found it rather curious that America did not enter the War until the Czar abdicated and that America was the first nation to recognize the Provisional Government as legitimate.
The Allied Ambassadors involvement in the Revolution has always remained a unsolved question especially when one considers that Paleologue at one point offered asylum for the Empress in France for the remainder of the war, and Princess Cantacuzene repeats a conversation just before the revolution with a woman she describes as Lady ____, who she describes as the wife of a dipolmat and who could be non other that Lady Buchannan the wife of the British Ambassador.
While calling on the Lady, the Princess relates that the topic of conversation had focused on the hard conditions in St. Petersburg, newly renamed Petrograd, when Lady ______, the wife of the dipolmat said:
"But really, what can you expect when the party in power is a Germanophile party, led by a woman not normal, who is in the hands of the enemy, and working for them? It is really terrible about the poor Empress, you know; all all those horrible creatures about her! I am sure if no one does anything about it there will be a revolution one of these days!" And the Princess adds that the last part of the statement was made in a threatening tone as the Lady settled her skirts with great energy.
Princess Canatcuzene did not let the matter rest there without defending the Empress's honor and replied to the Lady:
"Why surely, dear Lady_____, you don't believe all the gossip you hear? One must not, you know. We don't; as for instance, there are rumors being floated that your husband was mixed up in Rasputin's murder, and we don't believe that; so you must not accept as truth all that the busy-bodies say of us Russians at court. We are not half so bad, really, as we are made out to be."
The Princess said that the diplomat's wife changed the conversation immediately and spoke instead of the lovely Order of St. Catherine that the Empress had recently decorated her with.
Oh and I wanted to add that I just learned, and I am sure that everyone else already knows this, so forgive me my ignorance, but the Julian calander for the 19th century was 13 days behind our calander and in the twentieth century 12 days so I am sorry to have challenged that dates and mine were two days off in the thread.
