Nicholas II

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NICHOLAS II

NICHOLAS II (1868–1918; ruled 1894–1917), emperor of Russia.

Nicholas II ruled the Russian Empire from November 1894 until his abdication during the February Revolution in 1917. He came to the throne at the age of twenty-six, after his father, Alexander III, died prematurely of nephritis. Nicholas's mother, Maria Fyodorovna (née Dagmar, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark), lived until 1928. In November 1894 Nicholas married Alexandra Fyodorovna (née Alix of Darmstadt-Hesse). She bore him four daughters—Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia—before the birth of a male heir, Alexei, in 1904. Like many of his cousins—related through Queen Victoria's offspring—Alexei suffered from hemophilia.

Courteous and sensitive, Nicholas inherited his parents' devotion to family and a love for outdoor recreation. From his father and teachers—including the archconservative Konstantin P. Pobedonostsev—he acquired an unshakable belief in autocratic rule. Nicholas lacked, however, Alexander's imposing stature and self-assurance. Notoriously indecisive, he also proved a dogged, and sometimes devious, defender of his prerogatives.

As preparation for his future duties, Nicholas received instruction in languages, law, history, and economics from tutors, government ministers, and scholars. There followed a carefree stint as a Guards officer in the late 1880s. In 1890 and 1891 he took a grand tour of Asia and Siberia. He then served an apprenticeship as chairman of state committees dealing with the Trans-Siberian Railroad and agrarian issues. Still, his parents and advisors doubted his readiness to rule, while Nicholas himself was "terrified" when he succeeded.

In early 1895 Nicholas dismissed liberal calls for reform as "senseless dreams." He swore instead to maintain autocracy and his father's policies: censorship, restrictions on universities, Russification, institutionalized anti-Semitism, gentry dominance in the countryside, and restraint on the zemstvos (elective local government bodies). He supported Finance Minister Sergei Witte's industrialization program, partially funded by tariffs on an overburdened rural population, while engendering a working class with its own demands. By the period between 1900 and 1902, tensions multiplied. Within government, Nicholas undermined the powerful Witte, pitting him against Vyacheslav K. Plehve, the minister of internal affairs, in economic and agrarian policies. He removed Witte as minister in August 1903. Revolutionaries assassinated Plehve in 1904, as unrest mounted among peasants, workers, and students. That summer urban and gentry constitutionalists formed the Union of Liberation; in November, a zemstvo congress called for an elective legislature to control the bureaucracy.

Revolution erupted in 1905, following "Bloody Sunday" on 22 January (9 January, old style), when troops killed over two hundred peacefully demonstrating workers in St. Petersburg. Promises of reform throughout the spring and summer provoked peasant risings and urban strikes, revolutionary terrorism, ferment among national minorities, and liberal demands for a constitution. In a manifesto published on 30 October (17 October, O.S.) Nicholas "granted" civil liberties, religious tolerance, and an elective, legislative State Duma. The new legislature convened in May 1906; Nicholas dissolved it after six contentious weeks.

The revolution had gained strength during the disastrous Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), which also weakened the empire's international position following a period of peace inaugurated by Alexander III. Under Nicholas, the recently concluded alliance with France was balanced by correct relations with William II's Germany. Agreements with Austria-Hungary in 1897 and 1903 guaranteed the Balkan status quo. Nicholas also sponsored international talks on disarmament in The Hague in 1899. China's decline and the rise of Meiji Japan, however, brought volatility to Asian affairs. In 1897 Russia seized Port Arthur from China, creating a southern terminus for the Trans-Siberian Railroad. After the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Russia occupied much of Manchuria, prompting the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. Nicholas wavered between the caution urged by Witte and the assertive policy advocated by the courtier A. M. Bezobrazov. Confused negotiations led to a Japanese attack on Port Arthur in early 1904, followed by Russian defeats, notably at Mukden (March 1905) and the sea battle of Tsushima (May 1905). U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt brokered a humiliating peace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in September 1905.

In the spring of 1906 Nicholas appointed Peter Stolypin to restore order. As prime minister and minister of internal affairs, Stolypin dominated Russian politics until his assassination in September 1911. He attacked revolutionary activists and supported Russian dominance in multiethnic areas, while instituting a land reform to cultivate peasant loyalty. On 16 June (3 June, O.S.) 1907 Stolypin invoked emergency legislation to dissolve the Second Duma, reforming the franchise to secure a more amenable legislature. The Third Duma's centrist majority partnered with Stolypin to foster military renovation and economic recovery. Nicholas chafed at the 1905 regime and his charismatic premier.

After Stolypin's death, Nicholas populated his cabinet with conservatives who shared his suspicion of the legislature. Nicholas's new assertiveness also drew on demonstrations of affection from the Russian population during the dynasty's tercentenary in 1913. Nicholas saw these displays as popular support for the monarchy against forces of reform. He took a confrontational position against the Duma and supported militant monarchists. Such gestures, as well as the anti-Semitic trial of Mendel Beilis and the increasing visibility of the "holy man" Grigory Rasputin, eroded the dynasty's mystique. Recession and the violent suppression in 1912 of a strike in Siberia provoked renewed labor unrest, culminating by July 1914 in the largest strikes since 1905.

These challenges coincided with renewed international tensions. Defeat and revolution led Nicholas to seek peace abroad until Russia recovered from the Asian debacle. In 1907 Russia reached an entente with Great Britain on Asian issues, complementing an earlier Anglo-French rapprochement, forming a new combination in European diplomacy. Continued weakness forced Russia to stand by as instability overtook the Balkans. In 1908 revolution in Turkey facilitated Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, despite Russian and Serbian protests. In 1912 and 1913 Russia proved unable to defend its Slavic protégés' gains in the Balkan Wars, while German and Austrian influence grew apace. By 1914, foreign minister S. D. Sazonov and others were urging Nicholas to defend Russia's great-power status. Nicholas heeded these arguments: In July 1914 he supported Serbia's rejection of an Austrian ultimatum following the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the Habsburg heir, in Sarajevo. In early August, Nicholas led his deeply divided empire into World War I.