NICHOLAS II 



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NICHOLAS 



he might be able to drive it from Europe; and 

 as a pretext for war he demanded a protec- 

 torate over the Christian subjects of Tu/key. 

 The result was the Crimean War, in which 

 England and France joined Turkey in resist- 

 ance to the ambitions of Russia, and before the 

 close of that struggle Nicholas died, over- 

 whelmed by grief at his failure. 



The "iron czar" was a commanding figure in 

 the history of his time. Sincere, and meaning 

 to be just, he was misled by his vanity as well 

 as by his love for his country into courses which 

 humiliated rather than strengthened Russia. 

 See ROMANOFF. 



NICHOLAS II (1868-1918), czar of Russia 

 from 1894 until 1917, was the eldest son of Alex- 

 ander III, and a member of the imperial family 

 of the Romanoffs (see ALEXANDER; ROMANOFF). 

 No ruler ever ascended a throne with a greater 



THE MURDERED CZAR AND THE CZARINA 

 T'ntil March, 1917, he was czar of all Russia, 

 and "Little Father" to the millions of peasants in 

 his empire. Nicholas was a Romanoff ; his wife, 

 a German princess. Her sympathy for the Ger- 

 man cause in the War of the Nations and the 

 strength she showed in diplomacy hastened the 

 downfall of the dynasty. She was the second 

 woman to possess commanding influence in con- 

 nection with the war, the other being the queen 

 of Greece, a sister of the German emperor. Her 

 husband also lost his throne, and her eldest son, 

 the crown prince, was set aside. The second son, 

 Alexander, succeeded to the crown. 



opportunity than his the opportunity to lift 

 his country, downtrodden by centuries of des- 

 potism, to a position among the free, progres- 

 sive nations of the world, and to give the great 

 mass of Russian peasants the sacred right to 

 live in comfort and happiness. His unwilling- 

 ness or inability to measure up to this oppor- 

 tunity brought his downfall; students of Rus- 

 sian government attribute his failure more to 

 inability to cope with the powerful influences 

 surrounding him. In 1917 the Russian people 

 revolted, forced him to abdicate his throne and 

 organized a republic. He and his family were 

 imprisoned in Siberia, and in 1918, probably on 

 June 16, he was shot to death by members of 

 the bolshevist regime. 



Nicholas II was born at Petrograd. He re- 

 ceived a military education, and traveled 



through Greece, Egypt, India and Japan before 

 his ascension to the throne of his father. The 

 same year of his ascension (1894). he married 

 the German Princess Alexandra of Hesse, who 

 bore him four daughters and a son. Russian 

 liberals had hoped that the new czar would 

 grant extensive and badly-needed reforms, for 

 he was known to be of a mild and amiable dis- 

 position, but in this hope they were disap- 

 pointed. Nicholas II, though he attempted to 

 make more humane the enforcement of govern- 

 ment regulations, showed that he believed in 

 autocracy. A time came, however, when the 

 demands for constitutional reform became too 

 insistent to be ignored, and in 1905 the czar 

 issued a decree establishing freedom of the 

 press and a legislative body (see DUMA). Even 

 with these concessions, little real progress to- 

 ward liberal government was made. 



In his foreign policy Nicholas declared him- 

 self an advocate of peace. He exchanged visits 

 with the rulers of Austria, Germany and France, 

 and it was he who initiated the famous Peace 

 Conference at The Hague (see PEACE CONFER- 

 ENCE, INTERNATIONAL). He was not able to 

 keep his country out of war, however, and the 

 struggle with Japan in 1905-1906 ended disas- 

 trously for Russia (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). 

 During the next few years the conflicting in- 

 terests of the powers pointed the way toward 

 a general European war, and Europe became 

 an armed camp. When, in July, 1914, Austria 

 declared war on Serbia, Russia, as the friend of 

 the small Slav nations, came to the support of 

 Serbia, and in a short time was involved in the 

 most terrible conflict of modern times (see 

 WAR OF THE NATIONS). In this war the ineffi- 

 ciency of the government of Nicholas brought 

 Russia to such a demoralized condition that a 

 revolution inevitably followed. (The details 

 of this upheaval- will be found in the article 

 RUSSIA, subtitle History). The murder of the 

 czar has been recorded; no facts are known as 

 to his family's fate. 



Consult Vasili's Behind the Veil of the Russian 

 Court; Harden's Monarchs and Men. No book in 

 print in 1917 deals with the effects of the revolu- 

 tion of that year upon the former czar. 



NICHOLAS, SAINT ( ? -about 326), a saint 

 reverenced everywhere as SANTA GLAUS by the 

 children, who look upon him as the free-handed 

 bestower of gifts at Christmas time. This role 

 is merely an acquired one, however, the real 

 Saint Nicholas standing for other things. Ac- 

 cording to tradition, upon which all accounts of 

 this saint, popular alike in the Roman Catholic 



