In September 1915, Tsar Nicholas II decided to take personal control of the Russian military.  In just about any other war and with any other ruler, this might have been seen as audacious and decisive.  In a war where Russia was only able to gain tactical victories when their enemies made mistakes and a ruler as mediocre as Nicholas, this was a disaster.

Nicholas may have been trying to emulate Alexander I, who led Russian forces in the wars against Napoleon.  However, Nicholas was not his great-great-grandfather, even if he tried to use tactics that differed little from the Napoleonic ideal.  Nicholas had already had to deal with the political and cultural backlash of a military defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.  The 1905 Revolution had roots in many causes, including military humiliation.

In addition, when Nicholas left St. Petersburg to go to the front, he left his wife, the Tsaritsa Alexandra, in charge of the government.  This brought two simmering problems to a boil.  First, Alexandra was German, and resentment of her prominent position in the government caused many problems at a time when Russia did not need them.  Second, she was influenced, to say the least, by Grigori Rasputin.  Blinded by her devotion to the only man she trusted to treat and heal her haemophiliac son, she allowed Rasputin’s antics to cloud her judgement and damage her reputation, as well as her husband and his fragile government.

I’ve always wondered how things would have worked out had Nicholas listened to his cabinet and stayed aloof from the day-to-day operations of the war.  Russia would have gone through troubles, that is sure, but would things have gotten as bad as they did? Would the millions of people around the world who paid for his hubris in the next century have escaped revolutions, massacres, and Communism’s long nightmare?