page_title: Nicholas II of Russia
section_title: Collapse
hierarchical_section_title: Nicholas II of Russia / Engagement, accession and marriage / Collapse
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Заседание Ставки Верховного Главнокомандующего. Могилев. 1 апр.1916
context_page_description: Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov, known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until being forced to abdicate on 15 March 1917. During his reign, the Russian Empire enacted reforms such as the introduction of civil liberties, literacy programs, state representation, construction of modern infrastructures, industrialization and rebuilding the military after its disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese war. In the Soviet Union, he was reviled by historians and state propaganda as a hardhearted tyrant who oppressed his own people while callously sending countless soldiers to their deaths. More recent assessments have characterized him as a well-intentioned but feeble-minded ruler unsuited to handle the modern challenges facing his empire.
  As Emperor, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by top aides Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin, but strong aristocratic opposition prevented these from becoming fully effective. He supported modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament major roles.
context_section_description: As the government failed to produce supplies, mounting hardship resulted in massive riots and rebellions. With Nicholas away at the front from 1915 through 1916, authority appeared to collapse and the capital was left in the hands of strikers and mutineering soldiers. Despite efforts by the British Ambassador Sir George Buchanan to warn the Tsar that he should grant constitutional reforms to fend off revolution, Nicholas continued to bury himself away at the Staff HQ (Stavka) 600 kilometres (400 mi) away at Moghilev, leaving his capital and court open to intrigues and insurrection.
  Ideologically the tsar's greatest support came from the right-wing monarchists, who had recently gained strength. However they were increasingly alienated by the tsar's support of Stolypin's Westernizing reforms, by tsar's liberal reforms taken early in the Revolution of 1905, and especially by the political power the tsar had bestowed on Rasputin.
  By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total collapse of morale. An estimated 1.7 million Russian soldiers were killed in World War I. The sense of failure and imminent disaster was everywhere. The army had taken 15 million men from the farms and food prices had soared. An egg cost four times what it had in 1914, butter five times as much. The severe winter dealt the railways, overburdened by emergency shipments of coal and supplies, a crippling blow.
  Russia entered the war with 20,000 locomotives; by 1917, 9,000 were in service, while the number of serviceable railway wagons had dwindled from half a million to 170,000. In February 1917, 1,200 locomotives burst their boilers and nearly 60,000 wagons were immobilized. In Petrograd, supplies of flour and fuel had all but disappeared. War-time prohibition of alcohol was enacted by Nicholas to boost patriotism and productivity, but instead damaged the treasury and funding of the war due to the treasury now being deprived of alcohol taxes.
  On 23 February 1917 in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to start to break shop windows to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted "Down with the German woman! Down with Protopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!"
  Police started to shoot at the populace from rooftops, which incited riots. The troops in the capital were poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime. They were angry and full of revolutionary fervor and sided with the populace.
  The Tsar's Cabinet begged Nicholas to return to the capital and offered to resign completely. The Tsar, 800 kilometres (500 mi) away, was misinformed by the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Protopopov, that the situation was under control, and he ordered that firm steps be taken against the demonstrators. For this task, the Petrograd garrison was quite unsuitable. The cream of the old regular army had been destroyed in Poland and Galicia. In Petrograd, 170,000 recruits, country boys or older men from the working-class suburbs of the capital itself, remained to keep control under the command of wounded officers invalided from the front and cadets from the military academies. The units in the capital, although many bore the names of famous Imperial Guard regiments, were in reality rear or reserve battalions of these regiments, the regular units being away at the front. Many units, lacking both officers and rifles, had never undergone formal training.
  General Khabalov attempted to put the Tsar's instructions into effect on the morning of Sunday, 11 March 1917. Despite huge posters ordering people to keep off the streets, vast crowds gathered and were only dispersed after some 200 had been shot dead, though a company of the Volinsky Regiment fired into the air rather than into the mob, and a company of the Pavlovsky Life Guards shot the officer who gave the command to open fire. Nicholas, informed of the situation by Rodzianko, ordered reinforcements to the capital and suspended the Duma. However, it was too late.
  On 12 March, the Vo
caption: Nicholas with members of the Stavka at Mogilev in April 1916.
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