Nicholas II was the last Russian tsar, and he ruled from 1894 until 1917. Nicholas II, who assumed the throne with great trepidation upon his father Alexander III’s death…he was a clumsy and ineffective leader whose avoidance of direct involvement in government caused resentment among the Russian people and resulted in violence in 1905…it was said of Nicholas II that he didn’t have the temperament to be leader…he was more of a reserved sort and seemed incapable of being an effective Tsar…it is the considerable opinion of experts that he was incompetent of running the Russian empire…part of it was he was not properly trained, and part of it seemed to be a lack of energy to do the job…he enjoyed the privileges of being a Tsar, but he failed to keep a finger on the pulse of what was going on…and when something did happen, he wasn’t sure how to handle it…perhaps it was because he was so insulated from the real world...he made what many feel was a mistake when he took control of the Army and traveled away from Saint Petersburg to Stavka…leaving the Tsarina with the alleged input of Rasputin to run general affairs…Nicholas II abdicated on March 2, 1917, at the urging of many formerly loyal Generals…as a result of the February Revolution, in July of 1918, the revolutionaries executed Nicholas along with his wife, Alexandra, and their children, daughters Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, Maria, and his son Alexei…Grigori Rasputin had warned that “ I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa [Tsar Nicholas], to the Russian Mother [Tsarina Alexandra] and to the Children […] if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then none of your children will remain alive for more than two years. And if they do, they will beg for death as they will see the defeat of Russia, see the Antichrist coming, plague, poverty, destroyed churches, and desecrated sanctuaries where everyone is dead. The Russian Tsar, you will be killed by the Russian people”...a prophecy that indeed did come true for Rasputin was killed by a relative of the Tsar...the movie ‘Nicholas and Alexandra’ may not be totally accurate, but it gives a great representation of what occurred and I recommend seeing it.
