The situation of the Romanovs in Crimea deteriorated after the successful Bolshevik coup of November 1917. For a time Prince Andrei was imprisoned along with his parents, grandmother the Dowager Empress, and a large number of other Romanov relatives, at Dulber, a palace in Crimea that belonged to Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia. In 1918 Russia and Germany were still at war. When German troops invaded the peninsula, they liberated the Romanovs in captivity. In December 1918, Prince Andrei left Russia with his wife Elisabetta Ruffo Di Saint Antimo, who was pregnant with their first child, and his father, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich aboard the Royal Navy ship "HMS Marlborough" in order to attend the Paris Peace Conference. He and his father were seeking support in western Europe for the White Army.