Czar Nicholas II

         Czar Nicholas II was the heir to Czar Alexander III's throne when the latter died of liver disease. Born Nicholas Aleksandrovich Romanov, he took the throne in 1894. He soon married Queen Victoria's daughter, Alexandra of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was also a German princess. The had four daughters: Olga Nikolaevna, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna; and a son, Alexei Nikolaevich. Alexei was born with hemophilia, and so the Czar and his wife hired the legendary healer, Rasputin.

         Nicholas II originally did not want to take the throne. However, since he was the eldest son, the ruling duty fell onto him. When the old Czar died, Russia hoped for a change in policies. Unfortunately, his culturally nationalistic viewpoints meant he did not want to change much from when his father ruled. This, coupled with his many other faults, led to the Russian Revolution.

         As Czar, Nicholas was an easy pushover, he supposedly let his wife make most of the decisions. and as a child, he failed to understand the many different facets of economics and politics; his father did not help much by not providing training in state affairs. Additionally, as a child, Nicholas did not attend very many political meetings, unless the state council and the committee of ministers held them.

          As a result, he was mostly oblivious of political affairs within his own kingdom and made a poor first impression on his subjects. On the same day thousands of people died in a Moscow stampede, he and his wife went to celebrate his coronation at a ball, "all smiles" because they were both unaware such an event had occurred (biography.com). Later on, Bloody Sunday occurred- Father George Gaspon led a peaceful workers' protest in St. Petersburg, and the Czar's troops shot at the demonstrators when they appealed to the Czar to establish a popular assembly.

          Before inheriting the throne, Nicholas joined the military for a little over 3 years at age 19. When World War I broke out, he decided to take charge of Russia's army- a bad idea, because "from then on, every military failure was directly associated with him." When Russia ultimately lost, the country blamed him and his lack of leadership for their failure.

         However poor of a ruler he was, he made it up in being a caring father. According to biography.com, "The emperor proved such a devoted family man that his journal entries, which were meant to log official affairs of state, instead focused on the everyday goings-on of his wife and kids." He had good intentions; he just focused his good intentions on the wrong area. Had he been a family man, he would have spared himself, his wife, and children their horrible fates.

         Ultimately, the Romanov family went into house arrest at the Ural Mountains, and on July 17, 1918, the Bolshevik regime gunned down him and his family, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, alongside a few other family servants. He was the last Czar of the Romanov line, though there are rumors that his youngest daughter, Anastasia survived the shooting.