My comments on Maria F. She may have been a good consort to a Tsar like Alexander III. Liked clothes jewels parties, balls, dancing, and being very likeable. However the woman was very ill educated and some of things she did helped cause the destruction of the Russian monarchy. As head of the Russian Red Cross the organization had a bad corruption scandal during the Russo-Japanese War. This hurt the rest of the Imperial family badly add this to the other corruption scandals, the military defeats, Bloody Sunday ect helped trigger the 1905 revolution. This is from the book "Tide at Sunrise":
"A visitor to Moscow was taken by his driver to look at the spot where Grand Duke Serge had been killed. Pointing to the place, the driver said: "Look, that's where the dog was blown to pieces. A fine sight it was. And all they found of him was a few fingers. Where do you think they found those? In the Red Cross box. They were accustomed to be in that box. He had four hundred million roubles when he died, and he stole it from the poor soldiers in Manchuria."
Note the book "Romanov Autumn" points out in real life Serge A was a corruption fighter. So her actions helped smear him.
She had a history of ignoring corrupt practices of people in her entourage. Maria F also was a investor in the Lena Goldfields mining operation where the 1912 massacre took place.
Her relations with Alexandra were bad from day one. Her refusal to let Nicholas marry her at first. Disputes over precedence and jewelry. Then there are the "Style Wars". Instead of introducing her to Russian society she helped estrange Alexandra to it.
Maria F also couldn't understand that Nicholas and Alexandra were too exhausted it part do to the hemophiliac Alexei to put on balls and parties for her social set. She also ignored Nicholas also had a mountain of paperwork to do every day and Alexandra had some serious health problems.
Then after Nicholas decides to take command of the army she gets upset that the grand Duke Nicholas was relieved of command and turns her and Maria Ps gossip machines loose on Alexandra and Rasputin. In order to get rid of them. This was one of the straws that broke the camels back which helped destroy the Russian Monarchy and put her out of a job. She was in away the matriarch of the family. If she had decided to support Nicholas and Alexandra as well as doing damage control on Rasputin there is a chance that the monarchy could have survived.
Her efforts as a matchmaker proved less than successful she got her daughter Olga A a husband who turned out to be a disaster. Her inability to find Michael A a wife resulted in him marrying a commoner.
Then there is prince Grigory Shervashidze, the chancellor to her court. he was in league with the revolutionaries.
