Nicholas II (born 1868, ruled 1894-1917). His Danish mother was a sister of Queen Alexandra of England, wife of Edward VII.
Nicholas had great charm but was hopelessly indecisive as the all-powerful head of the Russian state. He was greatly influenced by his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. She was a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria.The imperial couple fell under the spell of the scheming Siberian monk Rasputin. Alexis, their only son and heir to the throne, had hemophilia, a blood disease. When the boy began to bleed, for some unknown reason only Rasputin seemed able to stop it.
Nicholas and Alexandra thus came to believe that Alexis' life depended upon Rasputin. The monk therefore gained great political power and in the process offended many of the nobles. In spite of his efforts, a powerful military bureaucracy pushed Russia into a disastrous war (1904-05) with Japan. The Russo-Japanese War was followed by widespread revolutionary movements.
Nicholas called for the election of a duma, or legislative assembly, as a step toward constitutional government. The duma was not a success, and public discontent grew, particularly in the cities. The discouraged emperor withdrew almost completely from public life. Rasputin continued to meddle with government affairs until he was assassinated by Russian nobles in 1916.
In the summer of 1914 Russia and the other great European powers became involved in World War I (see World War I). War again proved a disaster for the imperial government. There were corruption at home and defeat on the war fronts. The Russian Revolution came in 1917. Troops in St. Petersburg attacked and looted the Winter Palace. The emperor abdicated both for himself and the sickly Alexis, leaving the throne to his brother Michael, who disappeared during the uprisings and was never heard from again. The imperial family was kept under guard until they were finally sent to Siberia. There, on July 17, 1918, in the town of Ekaterinburg, Nicholas, Alexandra, and their five children were brutally murdered by the new Bolshevik rulers.
But there have been stories that one of the children survived. Numerous women have come forward claiming to be the youngest daughter Anastasia.
