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Has the role of Alexandra and Rasputin in the downfall of the Romanovs been exaggerated out of all proportion?
If a country is defeated in war, the rulers run the risk of being overthrown. In 1918 the Kaiser left Germany for Holland, Germany became a Republic; the Austro-Hungarian Empire came to an end; in Turkey the Caliphate lasted little longer.
In Russia the overthrow of the Romanovs came before capitulation but was also precipitated by military disasters. By 1916 Russia had experienced immense losses in war and hardships at home, rumours about the Tsarina and Rasputin and their relations with Germany were rife. The Tsar had replaced his uncle at the front as commander-in- chief, thus becoming personally linked to military disasters. In October and November 1916 uncleared garbage littered the streets of St Petersburg, snowdrifts and typhus added to the misery caused by shortage of food.
There were long term reasons for the fall of the Romanovs but failure in war was the immediate cause. In this dynasty's downfall Alexandra and Rasputin played colourful but subsidiary roles.
Who was Alexandra?
Alexandra, wife of Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia, came from Hesse. She was the youngest daughter of Grand Duke Louis and Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria. The fact that she came from Germany added to the hatred Russians felt for her after 1914, but the rulers of Hesse had no love for the Prussian monarchs who forced them into the German Empire, and Alexandra was in fact an Anglophile, having spent much of her youth in England in the company of Victoria after Alice's early death.
Alexandra, probably Victoria's favourite grandchild, inherited from her the haemophilia which she passed on to her only son, Alexis, heir to the Romanov dynasty. It was this disease that caused her reliance on the healer, Rasputin. He was not the first mystic healer she had turned to in her concern for Alexis, but he was to become the most notorious.
Alexandra disliked and was disliked by Russian society. She was awkward and often tongue-tied in public and her more serious nature revolted against the extravagance and frivolity of the Russian elite. She felt a mystical bond to the peasantry and developed an emotional attachment to...