The Palace of Versailles a few miles from Paris set the standard for the architecture of royal palaces all over Europe.  The grandiose palace was not only the home of the king’s family it was also the seat of government.  Surrounding the palace are exquisite formal sculptured gardens with fountains and marble staircases. Completed in 1688 by Louis XIV, it is still one of the world’s most famous buildings.

Approximately 1,000 courtiers and 4000 attendants lived in the palace.  It could accommodate 10,000 people for state functions.  Some 14,000 servants and soldiers lived in annexes and the adjoining town of Versailles. 

The apartments of the royal family are extravagant beyond belief.  The King and Queen had their own separate suites with sitting rooms and bedrooms.  Often, business of the affairs of state was conducted in these quarters with those dignitaries privy to the attentions of the King or Queen.  The word “boudoir” in common usage today as “bedroom” actually referred to the Queen’s suite of rooms.

It became fashionable for the other capitals of Europe to build palaces patterned after Versailles.  The only differences between any of them are the scale and lavishness.  Two notable ones that we have visited are Schoenbrunn, built by the Hapsburg Dynasty in Vienna, Austria and Peterhof in St. Petersburg, Russia.  They are incredibly ornate!

Peterhof was burned and sacked by the Germans in World War II.  As many as possible of the portable treasures were removed by the Russian people and hidden away as the German army advanced toward St. Petersburg.  It has since been lovingly restored room by room, with all the elaborate gilded molding, wall hangings and furnishings.

Today, Peterhof is a museum of a bygone era. Over their shoes, visitors are required to wear “booties” supplied by the museum auspices to protect the intricate inlaid wood flooring.  There are some rooms that have not yet been returned to their former glory.  These rooms show the ravages of war.

The Hermitage in St. Petersburg was once the Winter Palace of the Czars.  It is now another museum housing a priceless treasure-trove of art.  In one room after another there is always an older lady in a chair by a door.  These ladies do not seem to function as docents or security as far as I could tell.  They are just there.  We were trooping through the rooms in our tour group.  I happened to make eye contact with one of the ladies.  She smiled and gestured toward offering me her chair.  I smiled and shook my head, “no”, but wasn’t that gracious of her?

A long tradition was that royal families always married into other royal families as a means of forming political alliances.  Love had nothing to do with many of these marriages.  Often, the prospective bride and groom had never even met each other until their wedding day.  Everything was arranged for the benefit of everybody else except the happy couple.   More often than not, the marriages were less than idyllic.  Occasionally, the couple got to know one another after the wedding and actually liked or even grew to love each other.

Queen Victoria (1840-1901) of England was married to her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha, a duchy in Germany.  They had nine children, five of whom survived to adulthood.  Unbeknownst at the time, Victoria carried the gene for hemophilia and passed it on to two of her daughters, Alice and Beatrice.

Beatrice was married to Henry of Battenberg of Germany.  They had four sons with the hemophilia disease who died.  Their daughter, Victoria-Eugenie married King Alfonso XIII of Spain.  Two of their three sons had the disease and died.  The third son, Juan, succeeded his father to the Spanish throne, as did Juan’s son, Carlos.

Alice married Louis IV, the Grand Duke of Hesse, also in Germany.  They had seven children, five daughters and two sons.  One of the boys, Frederick, had hemophilia.  Two of the girls, Irene and Alix, carried the gene.

Alix (1872 -1918) married Nicholas II (1868–1918) of Russia.  They had four daughters and one son, the only male heir, Alexis.

A century and a half ago, nobody knew anything about the particulars of blood, DNA or exactly how hereditary diseases worked.  As pointed out, Watson and Crick did not discover the intricacies of DNA until 1953.  But the disease itself, hemophilia, had been around forever and was well known.  However, the cause, treatment and possible cure were unknown.

As long as the afflicted person had no injury or minor illness, there was no reason to believe that there was anything wrong at all.  However, the least little nick, bump or bruise had the potential to be extremely serious or even fatal.  A small cut on the surface of the skin could be controlled and stopped by pressure to a certain extent.  A nosebleed might be fatal since there was no way to stop it.

More insidious was an injury that caused internal bleeding.  We are all familiar with the well-known bruise, or hematoma, caused by a bump.  A purplish area appears and is tender to the touch.  Bleeding from the ruptured small capillaries under the skin is the cause.  As the blood is gradually absorbed, the bruise turns greenish-yellow and eventually disappears.

In a hemophiliac, the blood does not clot so the bleeding continues under the skin and any other body cavity it can go into.  It only stops when there is no place else for the blood to go.  The accompanying swelling is excruciatingly painful as a result of pressure on nerves.  It is especially debilitating if the bleeding is in or around a joint such as an elbow, knee or hip.  Depending on the extent of the pressure of all that blood, the ligaments, tendons and even bones can be damaged or destroyed.  Those tissues do not easily repair themselves.

Prevention of situations that would cause bleeding is of course the preferred method but not always possible.  Even a tooth extraction is cause for alarm.  Today, treatment consists of transfusions of plasma or whole blood containing the blood clotting factors as well as pain management when a bleeding episode occurs.  Hemophiliacs can now lead relatively normal lives.  But just imagine the kind of strain it would be to try to keep a rough and tumble youngster from scrapes and bumps!  No successful treatment was known in Queen Victoria’s day.

The royalty of Europe was one big extended family. They knew each other well as they visited one another often on holidays, weddings, funerals and the kinds of occasions that all families get together.  Nicholas and his relative who would become King George V of England looked so much alike they were often mistaken for each other.  Queen Victoria was Alix’ much beloved “Granny” and Alix was Victoria’s pet.

Nicholas II was the Czar of all the Russias.  He was descended from Michael (1596-1645) who began the Romanov Dynasty down through a number of famous czars and czarinas including Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

At the time Nicholas and Alix were married, Russia was and had been isolated from the rest of Europe to a certain degree for a long time.  Language, culture, religion and geographical distance were the main elements contributing to that isolation.  The Russian people as a rule were locked into a hefty attitude of xenophobia.

The imagination can fill in the gaps of stories about the people down through history mentioned in this chronicle of the Roman and Byzantine Emperors, the churches and political figures.  On the surface, Nicholas, the Prince Charming, and his Princess Alix would appear to have been living out the storybook model of a Russian fairy tale.

They first met when Nicholas was 16 and Alix was 12 and saw each other from time to time over the years.  This is what really happened in a more detailed account in the lives of Nicholas and Alix.  Their lives and the circumstances surrounding them have been well documented by a large number of sources.

Both were well educated.  They were fluent in French, the traditional language of the courts, as well as German and English.  However, the czarevich, the crown prince, and princess were raised with a rather narrow focus for the roles they were destined to play by reason of their birth.

Nicholas’ father, Alexander III, was the personification of the Autocratic Czar, dominating the country and his family equally with a huge physical presence.  Nicholas’ mother, Marie, had been Princess Dagmar of Denmark.  Marie’s older sister became Queen of England.  Marie enjoyed her role as Empress immensely.  She loved the glittering balls, the rounds of parties and functions of Society.

(Now, if you think the Persian names were tough, wait till you take on Russian names!)

Naturally, as the czarevich, Nicholas did not go to schools so was not exposed to other boys or teachers with varying points of view.  His life-long tutor, Pobedonostsev, was the lay head of the Russian Orthodox Church, (Procurator of the Holy Synod.)  The tutor grilled into the head of his student his own fierce prejudices of nationalism, the absolute authority of the autocracy and the church.  He was an avowed bigot and hated the very idea of parliaments with a passion.

Nicholas had no choice but to apply himself diligently to his studies.  He learned at an early age to keep a life-long diary.  He considered this indicative of an orderly mind.  He dutifully recorded his thoughts and events of the day.  This daily account later proved to be a valuable insight into Nicholas’ life for historians.

At the age of 21 when he “graduated” he happily devoted himself wholeheartedly to the life of a playboy.  At one time he had a liaison with a famous ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinaska.  However, they both knew there was no future for their relationship. (Kschessinaska left Russia in 1920 and married Grand Duke Andrie in 1921.  She had a ballet studio in Paris and numbered Margot Fonteyn among her students.  Kschessinaska danced in London at age sixty-three.  She lived well into her nineties in Paris.)

Alix was considered in some circles as a minor German princess.  As a small child, she had a bubbly personality with the nickname, “Sunny”.  Her young life was shattered when she was six by the death of her mother and four-year-old sister from diphtheria. She became shy and withdrawn.  As a result of her loss, her lifelong public persona appeared to be aloof and even arrogant.  She became a tall and serious girl.  Only in the small company of intimates did her “Sunny” disposition re-emerge.

Queen Victoria took her little motherless granddaughter Alix under her wing.  Between frequent visits, Victoria required regular reports on Alix progress from tutors and governesses. The queen sent frequent instructions and advice in return.  Thus, Alix was molded into the proper English lady with Victorian standards of taste and behavior.

An interesting little footnote to history occurred in 1889.  Prince Albert Victor, heir to the English throne proposed to Alix.  She turned him down.  He died at the age of 28.  Alix possibly could have been the mother of the future monarch of England.  As it turned out, George V and Mary became King and Queen of that country and Nicholas and Alex were godparents to Edward, Duke of Windsor.  Edward, of course, abdicated the British crown to marry the American Wallis Simpson.

In the spring of 1894, Alix’ older brother, Ernest, was married in Coburg.  The cream of European nobility was on hand for the festivities.  Despite the objections of Alexander III and Marie, who were anti-German, Nicholas proposed to Alix.  At first she was reluctant because she would be required to change her religion from that of a devout Lutheran to Russian Orthodox.

Many of the extended family, including Queen Victoria, rallied around to talk her into the match.  Their engagement far overshadowed the wedding of Ernest.  Nicholas’ parents relented and Alexander III even dispatched his personal confessor, Father Yanishev, to begin instruction in the Russian Orthodox religion.  Alix also threw herself into the difficult task of learning the Russian language.

Alexander III was only forty-nine and had always enjoyed robust health.  However, he became ill with nephritis.  Physicians were summoned from far and wide as well as a priest who was known to perform miracles.  When Alexander grew steadily worse the family was advised to take him to the milder climate of the summer palace in Livadia in the Crimea.  Nicholas prevailed upon Alix to join him there.

She not only obliged by traveling alone on the train as an ordinary passenger but also said she wished to have her conversion ceremony to the Orthodox Church take place there.  Nicholas was overjoyed!  As ill as Alexander was, he greeted her and gave her his blessing at the formal betrothal.

As was to be expected, the Empress Marie, the ministers, government officials and doctors were too preoccupied with the failing health of the czar to take any notice of the future empress of Russia.  Ten days after Alix arrival, Alexander III died on November 1, 1894.  A terrified young man of twenty-six, Nicholas realized that as unprepared and actually unwilling as he was for the task, he was now the Czar of all the Russias.

His Imperial Majesty Czar Nicholas II took the oath of allegiance in the palace before the family, court and officials as the guns of the Royal Navy in the Yalta harbor fired the final salute to the dead emperor.  The one-year of formal mourning began with the palace draped in black.

The next morning while the body was being prepared, the Lutheran German Princess was received into the Russian Orthodox Church in her conversion ceremony at age twenty-two.  Nicholas II’s first Imperial Decree issued was the proclamation of the new faith in which Alix assumed the title and name of Grand Duchess Alexandra Fedorovna.

Nicholas wanted to be married quietly there in Livadia, as did many others of the court.  Marie and Nicholas’ four uncles, the brothers of his dead father, prevailed that the wedding was far too important an occasion and must be held in St. Petersburg after the funeral.

The draped coffin carrying the body of Alexander III was taken to Sevastopol and then by train slowly across the Ukraine and Russia – Kharkov, Kursk, Orel, Tula, Moscow and on into St. Petersburg.  Along the way services and litanies were observed with the local officials as well as peasants lining the streets.  The family followed the processional cortege.

Behind them alone in a carriage and heavily veiled in black was the new Grand Duchess Alexandra Fedorovna.  “As she passed, the silent crowd strained to see their young empress-to-be.  Shaking their heads, old women crossed themselves and murmured darkly, ‘She comes to us behind a coffin.’ ”₂₀ 

Many of the superstitious peasants called her “Nemka, that German woman.”   A cold and hostile reception for a bride–to-be in her new country.

The funeral befitting a czar was accompanied by ritual pomp and ceremony.   Representatives from all the courts of Europe and delegates from across Russia came to pay their respects.  There were innumerable subdued receptions, banquets and of course daily masses in the church where Alexander’s body lay in state for seventeen days.  Hoards of people silently filed passed the bier.

One week after the funeral while the country was still in deep mourning, Alexandra exchanged her black dress for white for one day.  The wedding of Nicholas and Alexandra quietly took place in the palace chapel.  Immediately back into mourning, there was no reception, no honeymoon.

In the haste of grief, the funeral, then the wedding, and thrust into attending to the bewildering affairs of state, Nicholas had had no time to establish a new residence.

The first six months of their life together were spent under the roof of the Anitchkov Palace, with the now Dowager Empress Marie very much in charge.  They dined every night with “mother dear” as Marie wished to be called.  Nicholas trying to console his recently widowed mother and she lavishly giving him her advice on his duties as czar.  Alexandra was totally ignored.

Marie became the mother-in-law from hell!  Protocol dictated that the dowager empress out-ranked the new empress.  On public occasions Marie entered on the arm of her son, Alexandra behind with one of the grand dukes.  Protocol also obliged the empress to wear some of the crown jewels.  Marie balked at giving them up.  Only the possibility of a scandal persuaded Marie to hand them over.  By then Alexandra had no interest in wearing them anyway.

When the official period of mourning was over, Marie happily resumed her place as a social butterfly.  Relative peace was established when Nicholas and Alexandra moved into Peterhof.  Nonetheless, Marie and Nicholas’ four uncles as well as his old tutor, Pobedonostsev, constantly harassed Nicholas with their meddling “advice”.

Nicholas was so young and inexperienced but he made a conscientious effort to effectively fulfill the enormous demands of the role of czar.  In addition to the business of state, he had seven palaces to maintain.  That is a lot of really big caves!  His huge extended royal family continually harangued him for funds to support their sumptuous lifestyles.  Marie and the uncles went into snits whenever the demands for their pet projects were not met.

Nicholas’ obnoxious cousin, ”Willie”, William II, Kaiser of Germany, was nine years older and more experienced with his own self-serving agenda.  Wedged between Russia and France, “Willie” wanted to sabotage the treaty those two countries had between themselves.  For a time, he successfully influenced and manipulated the susceptible Nicholas.

After the year of mourning was over, Nicholas’ formal coronation took place in Moscow in 1896.  The occasion was one steeped in tradition and ceremony for the whole country. The equivalent of the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards and Christmas all rolled into one!

Nicholas wanted to be crowned with the eight-hundred-year-old Cap of Monomakh that weighed only two pounds.  You-know-who overruled him instead with the nine-pound Imperial Crown of Russia.

When Alexandra was crowned Empress, it seemed to her a transforming event from the girl who grew up in Germany and England to becoming the Matushka, Mother of the Russian people.  She wore a silver-white gown with a train carried by twelve attendants. The ceremony lasted five hours.

Seven thousand people bedecked in finery and dripping with jewels, attended the glittering coronation banquet and ball.  The heavy crown rested on a scar that had been inflicted by a Japanese assailant when Nicholas previously had been on a tour of Japan. He wound up with a roaring headache.

The next day the traditional feast of celebration was held in a field for the people.  Hundreds of barrels of free beer had been ordered for the expected five hundred thousand good-natured people.  Many arrived the night before and were already drunk.  Someone began circulating the word that there was going to be only enough beer for the first ones to get to the wagons.  A stampede ensued.  When it was over and the police and Cossacks had arrived, hundreds of men, women and children were dead and thousands wounded.  A complete disaster.

Nicholas and Alexandra went from hospital to hospital visiting the injured, personally paid for the individual burial of the victims rather than a mass grave and gave 1000 rubles from their own funds to each surviving family.

That night a lavish ball was to be given by the French Ambassador.  Nicholas and Alexandra were appalled not only by the tragedy but the prospect of the ball.  They wanted to cancel or at least postpone the affair.  Marie and the uncles insisted that Nicholas could not offend Russia’s only European ally.  Guess who prevailed?

Many of the peasant population viewed the events as an ominous portent for the reign of young Nicholas.  Others, among them the already fomenting revolutionaries, took a more sinister posture against the autocracy in general and Nicholas and “Nemka, that German Woman.”

Despite the accumulation of misfortunes, Nicholas and Alexandra genuinely loved one another and had a happy marriage and family life.  Throughout their life together, contrary to the tradition of nobility, they always shared a bedroom.  There is an extensive record of tender letters they wrote to each other during Nicholas’ absences.  When they were together they had a loving family life. They were both thoroughly devoted to their children.

In 1895 they moved to Tsarskoe Selo, a magnificent palace complex fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg.  Over eight hundred acres of the Imperial Park encompassed the more than two-hundred-room Catherine Palace and the smaller Alexander Palace of some one hundred rooms.  The Alexander Palace became the permanent home of the royal family for twenty-two years.

The arrival of Nicholas and Alexandra’s first child was eagerly anticipated.  The artillery at the naval base of Kronstadt was at the ready to send off a salute of 300 rounds for a boy, the new male heir, but only 101 for a girl.  Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna was born in November 1895.  Nicholas and Alexandra were overjoyed with their little daughter.  After that, about every two years Alexandra had three more daughters, the Grand Duchesses Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia.

Finally, in accordance with the requirements of a royal mother, Alexandra produced a male heir, Alexis, on Aug. 12, 1904.  The 300-gun salute and church bells all over Russia announced the joyous news.  Alexandra was deliriously happy that at long last she had fulfilled her duty to her husband and the nation.  She took special pride in showing off her handsome little son.

The royal family was totally insulated at Tsarskoe Selo from the world of their subjects.  True, there were hoards of people; bodyguards, servants, attendants and guards around the palace complex.  But they had very little contact with the outside population.   Cloistered as they were, their life was that of being shuttled occasionally from one palace to another and being on display as the royal family at state functions.

The court itself was often a corrupt hotbed of gossip, jealousy, backstabbing and intrigue.  As a properly trained English lady, Alexandra intensely despised the conduct of the court.  In time the feeling grew to be mutual with the nobility.  None-the-less, something akin to the Italian Renaissance arose in Russia during the early years of Nicholas’ reign.

The magnificent Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg was an exact copy of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  The aristocrats file into the church in their furs and jewels.  The peasants, wearing kerchiefs on their heads, were all too well aware of the contrast in social and economic status.

Cousin “Willie”, along with his sly Chancellor Bismarck, fed Nicholas a steady stream of “advice” on the “Divine Right of Kings”.  This only reinforced what his tutor, Pobedonostsev, had drummed into Nicholas’ head all his life.  Willie persuaded Nicholas that Russia had a destiny in the Pacific.  Willie wanted to keep Russia busy and out of the affairs of Europe and the Near East.

Russia’s only port in the Pacific, Vladivostock, was frozen in ice a good part of the year.  Japan invaded some Chinese provinces and took the warm water Port Arthur.  That was Russia’s chance to “liberate” Port Arthur and expand in the Pacific.  Russia built a railroad across Manchuria with an eye to taking possession of the Korean Peninsula.  The Japanese would have been willing to let Russia have Manchuria.  But Japan wanted Korea for herself.

Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of the Interior, struggling with an increasing wave of socialist revolts, was convinced that a nice little war with Japan would be a welcome diversion for the attention of the people.  Despite the urging of advisors and ambassadors, Nicholas was reluctant to declare war.

The Japanese made the first move by attacking and sinking three Russian battleships in the Port Arthur harbor.  The war was on.  Russia sustained heavy losses both on land and sea.  Goaded on by Willie, Nicholas ordered the Russian Baltic Fleet to travel around the world and come to the rescue.  Admiral Rozhdestvensky very nearly got Russia into war with England before he got out of the North Sea!

The fleet stumbled into a small group of English fishing boats at night.  Fearing that these might be another surprise Japanese attack, the Admiral opened fire. When he realized the mistake, he sailed on without bothering to pick up survivors.  As it turned out, one boat was sunk and two men killed.  “Uncle Bertie” was furious!  Nicholas wired his regrets to England and Russia ultimately paid 65,000 pounds in reparations.

Into the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope across the Indian Ocean and then into the Pacific, the Russian Fleet finally arrived on May 27, 1905 in the Strait of Tsushima between Korea and Japan.  The Japanese were waiting for them.  In forty-five minutes, almost the entire Russian fleet was destroyed.  Eight battleships, seven cruisers and six destroyers.

This naval disaster made the rest of the world, sit up and take notice.  Britain’s power relied heavily on its Royal Navy.  “Willie” was shaken for his High Seas Fleet.  President Theodore Roosevelt understood the peril in dividing the United States Fleet in two oceans.  This was the impetus for him to forge ahead in building the Panama Canal.

The heady success of the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur and the following consequences emboldened them further, as was born out thirty-nine years later at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in the Pacific.

Theodore Roosevelt mediated the peace conference between Russia and Japan.  Nicholas sent Sergius Witte for the negotiations.  For his successful negotiations, Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Russia’s resounding defeat in the Pacific brought an end to “Willie’s” influence.  But the damage was done.  The Russian people were bitter and disillusioned.

Most of the industrialized countries of the world were experiencing labor strife.  Plehve, was of a policeman’s mentality.  Freedom of assembly was curtailed to the extent that it was necessary to obtain written permission from the police to have a party of more than five people!  Political assemblies were strictly forbidden as a way to suppress socialist propaganda.  Even students were not permitted to walk down the streets together.  There was no freedom of the press or any of the other liberties we enjoy here in the United States.

Plehve especially hated Jews, turning a blind eye to the frequent pogroms visited on Russia’s five million Jews.  Anti-Semitism was rooted in Orthodoxy learned at a mother’s knee that Jews were unbelievers and killers of Christ.  Irrationally inaccurate as the belief was, the people never questioned it.  The persecutions that always followed were religious, not racial as many were taught to believe.  The Jews who accepted Orthodoxy were openly integrated into Russian society.   But the repression succeeded in driving many other Jews into the arms of the socialist’s revolutionaries.

A young priest, Father George Gapon, sincerely hoped to petition Nicholas for better conditions for the workers.  On Saturday, January 21, 1905 he notified the government of the intention for a massive peaceful march to the Winter Palace the next day to meet with the czar.  Instead of informing Nicholas, ministers called out the army.  Nicholas, who was at Tsarskoe Selo did not hear anything of the event until Saturday night.

Estimated at 120,000 workers, the march began as a happy trek to see their czar.  They carried religious icons, national flags and even portraits of the czar, singing religious hymns and “God save the Czar.”  The army opened fire.  The official count was ninety-two dead and 200-300 wounded.  Father Gapon vanished into the melee, but a number of the leaders were arrested.

The alleged and unofficial number of casualties increased as word of “Bloody Sunday” spread across the nation and then around the world.  Nicholas was personally blamed for the massacre.  The terror of riots and revolution had begun.  From mutiny in the armed services to a general strike, the nation was reduced to anarchy.  Out of the chaos a new leader, Leon Trotsky, came into view.  He was a member of the Marxist Social Democratic Party.  He wrote eloquent but inflammatory pieces for the brand new underground newspaper, Isvestia.

Witte pointed out to Nicholas that there were only two alternatives to the mess.  A military dictatorship or a constitutional monarchy.  Nicholas elected for the latter.  So on October 30, 1905 The Imperial Manifesto was issued.  What had taken the rest of Europe several centuries to accomplish was attempted in Russia overnight.

Witte wrote the quasi-constitution but before the ink was dry, began back peddling on its guaranteed rights.  A legislature, the Duma, was established.  On Witte’s advice, Nicholas dissolved the first two Dumas before they ever convened.  The Autocrats and the Revolutionaries were so entrenched that neither side would give an inch.  Consequently nothing was accomplished.  Labor strikes and assassinations became commonplace.  Security around the royal family tightened to further isolate them. The nation continued to spiral down toward total revolution.

Email comments to Jean