Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II of Russia ( 18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918){{fn|1}} was the last crowned Emperor of Russia. He ruled from 1894 until his forced abdication in 1917. It is said that Nicholas proved unequal to the combined tasks of managing a country in political turmoil and commanding its army in the largest international war to date. His rule ended with the Russian Revolution, during which he and his family were murdered by Bolsheviks, in 1918.

Execution

The provisional Russian government at first kept Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children confined in the Alexander Palace 15 miles from St.Petersburg at Tsarskoe Selo (Tsar's Village). Attempting to remove them from the vicinity of the capital and so from possible harm, the Kerensky government moved them east to Tobolsk, in Siberia in August 1917. They remained there through the Bolshevik October Revolution in November 1917, but were then moved to Red Army and Bolshevik-controlled Yekaterinburg. The Tsar and his family, including the gravely ill Alexei and several family servants, were executed by firing squad and finished off by bayonets in the basement of the Ipatiev House where they had been imprisoned, on the night of July 16 or July 17, 1918, by a detachment of Bolsheviks led by a watchmaker from Perm, Yakov Yurovsky.

Related Topics:
Alexander Palace - Kerensky - Tobolsk - Siberia - October Revolution - Red Army - Yekaterinburg - Ipatiev House - July 16 - July 17 - 1918 - Yakov Yurovsky

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The Soviets always argued that the execution took place as units of the Czech Legion, making their retreat out of Russia, approached Yekaterinburg. Fearing that the Legion would take the town and free him, the Tsar's Bolshevik jailers pursued the immediate liquidation of the Imperial Family. This is, however, disputed by telegraphic evidence and the Sokolov Report, which show mounting pressure to execute the Imperial Family by hard-line Bolsheviks. The telegram giving the order on behalf of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow was signed by Jacob Sverdlov, after whom the town was subsequently renamed, in honour of this event.

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The bodies of Nicholas and his family were long believed to have been disposed of down a mineshaft at a site called the Four Brothers. Initially, this was true—they had indeed been disposed of there on the night of 16 July/17. The following morning—when rumors spread in Yekaterinburg regarding the disposal site—Yurovsky removed the bodies and concealed them elsewhere. When the vehicle carrying the bodies broke down on the way to the next chosen site, he made new arrangements, and buried most of the bodies in a sealed and concealed pit on Koptyaki Road, a since-abandoned cart track 12 miles north of Yekaterinburg.

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