Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia ( 1856 – 1929 ) Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich Romanov of Russia ( Russian : Николай Николаевич Романов ( младший - " the younger " ) ) ( November 6 , 1856 – January 5 , 1929 ) was a Russian general in World War I . A grandson of Nicholas I of Russia , he was commander in chief of the Russian armies on the main front in the first year of the war , and was later a successful commander in the Caucasus . Biography . Family . Nicholas , named after his paternal grandfather the emperor , was born as the eldest son to Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich of Russia ( 1831 – 1891 ) and Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg ( 1838 – 1900 ) . His father was the sixth child and third son born to Nicholas I of Russia and his Empress consort Alexandra Fedorovna of Prussia ( 1798 – 1860 ) . Alexandra Fedorovna was a daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg - Strelitz . Nicholas ' mother , his father ' s first cousin ' s daughter , was a daughter of Duke Konstantin Peter of Oldenburg ( 1812 – 1881 ) and Princess Therese of Nassau ( 1815 – 1871 ) . His maternal grandfather was a son of Duke George of Oldenburg and Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia , daughter of Paul I of Russia and Maria Fedorovna of Württemberg . ( Catherine was later remarried to William I of Württemberg . ) His maternal grandmother was a daughter of Wilhelm , Duke of Nassau ( 1792 – 1839 ) and Princess Luise of Saxe - Hildburghausen . The Duke of Nassau was a son of Friedrich Wilhelm , Duke of Nassau ( 1768 – 1816 ) and Burgravine Louise Isabelle of Kirchberg . His paternal grandparents were Duke Karl Christian of Nassau - Weilburg ( 1735 – 1788 ) and Carolina of Orange - Nassau . Carolina was a daughter of William IV of Orange and Anne , Princess Royal and Princess of Orange . Anne was the eldest daughter of George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach . Grand Duke Nicholas was the first cousin once removed of the Tsar Nicholas II . To distinguish between them , the Grand Duke was often known within the Imperial family as " Nikolasha " . Early military career . Grand Duke Nicholas was educated at the school of military engineers and received his commission in 1872 . During the Russo - Turkish War , 1877 - 78 , he was on the staff of his father who was commander in chief . He distinguished himself on two occasions in this war . He worked his way up through all the ranks until he was appointed commander of the Guard Hussar Regiment in 1884 . He had a reputation as a tough commander , yet one respected by his troops . His experience was more as a trainer of soldiers than a leader in battle . Nicholas was a very religious man , praying in the morning and at night as well as before and after meals . He was happiest in the country , hunting or caring for his estates . By 1895 , he was inspector - general of the cavalry , a post he held for 10 years . His tenure has been judged a success with reforms in training , cavalry schools , cavalry reserves and the remount services . He was not given an active command during the Russo - Japanese War , perhaps because the Tsar did not wish to hazard the prestige of the Romanov s and because he wanted a loyal general in command at home in case of domestic disturbances . Thus , Nicholas did not have the opportunity to gain experience in battlefield command . Grand Duke Nicholas played a crucial role during the Revolution of 1905 . With anarchy spreading and the future of the dynasty at stake , the Tsar had a choice of instituting the reforms suggested by Count Sergei Witte or imposing a military dictatorship . The only man with the prestige to keep the allegiance of the army in such a coup was the Grand Duke . The Tsar asked him to assume the role of a military dictator . In an emotional scene at the palace , Nicholas refused , drew his pistol and threatened to shoot himself on the spot if the Tsar did not endorse Witte ' s plan . This act was decisive in forcing Nicholas II to agree to the reforms . From 1905 to the outbreak of World War I , he was commander - in - chief of the St . Petersburg Military District . He had the reputation there of appointing men of humble origins to positions of authority . The lessons of the Russo - Japanese War were drilled into his men . Marriage . On April 29 , 1907 , Nicholas married Princess Anastasia of Montenegro ( 1869 - 1935 ) , the daughter of King Nicholas I , and sister of Princess Milica , who had married Nicholas ' s brother , Grand Duke Peter . They had no children . She had previously been married to George Maximilianovich , 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg , with whom she had two children , until their divorce in 1906 . Since the Montenegrins were a fiercely Slavic , anti - Turkish people from the Balkans , Anastasia reinforced the Pan - Slavic tendencies of Nicholas . The hunter . Nicholas was one of the great hunters of his day . Ownership of borzoi hounds was restricted to members of the highest nobility , and Nicholas ' s packs were famous . As the Russian dogs perished in the Revolution of 1917 - 18 , the borzoi of today are descended from gifts he made to European friends before World War I . In his lifetime , Nicholas and his dogs caught hundreds of wolves . A pair of borzoi were used which caught the wolf , one on each side , while Nicholas dismounted and cut the wolf ' s throat with a knife . A hard working man , hunting was his major recreation , and he traveled in his private train across Russia with his horses and dogs , hunting while on his rounds of inspection . World War I . German / Austro - Hungarian Front . The Grand Duke had no part in the planning and preparations for World War I , that being the responsibility of General Vladimir Sukhomlinov and the general staff . On the eve of the outbreak of World War I , his first cousin once removed , the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia , yielded to the entreaties of his ministers and appointed Grand Duke Nicholas to the supreme command . He was 57 years old and had never commanded armies in the field before . He was given responsibility for the largest army ever put into the field in all prior history . Grand Duke Nicholas was responsible for all Russian forces fighting against Germany , Austria - Hungary , and Turkey . Initially , the Russian high command was not up to the challenge of the war . Different armies failed to coordinate their actions which resulted in the disaster of Tannenberg . The subsequent Battle of the Vistula River and Battle of Łódź were more successful for the Russian army . The Grand Duke ' s role was limited to picking and choosing from the various plans offered by the many Russian Army generals . No coherent plan for victory emerged from the Grand Duke or his staff , though on a personal level he was well liked by both officers and the troops . Nicholas seems to have been more a bureaucrat than a military leader , lacking the broad strategic sense and the ruthless drive to command all the Russian armies . His headquarters had a curiously calm atmosphere , despite the many defeats and the millions of casualties . On March 22 , 1915 he reсeived Order of St . George 2nd degree for the successful Siege of Przemyśl . After the strategic retreat of the Russian army , the Tsar replaced the Grand Duke as commander of the Russian armed forces on August 21 , 1915 . The Caucasus . Upon his dismissal , the Grand Duke was immediately appointed commander - in - chief and viceroy in the Caucasus ( replacing the Illarion Vorontsov - Dashkov ) . While the Grand Duke was officially in command , General Yudenich was the driving figure in the Russian Caucasus army . Their opponent was the Ottoman Empire . While the Grand Duke was in command , the Russian army sent an expeditionary force through to Persia ( now Iran ) to link up with British troops . Also in 1916 , the Russian army captured the Fortress of Erzerum , the port of Trebizond ( now Trabzon ) and the town of Erzincan . The Turks responded with an offensive of their own . Fighting around Lake Van swung back and forth , but ultimately proved inconclusive . Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917 . But , in March 1917 , the Tsar was overthrown and the Russian army began slowly to fall apart . The Revolution . The February Revolution found Nicholas in the Caucasus . He was appointed by the Emperor , in his last official act , as the supreme commander in chief , and was wildly received as he journeyed to headquarters in Mogilev ; however , within 24 hours of his arrival , the new premier , Prince Georgy Lvov , cancelled his appointment . Nicholas spent the next two years in the Crimean Peninsula , sometimes under house arrest , taking little part in politics . There appears to have been some sentiment to have him head the White Russian forces active in southern Russia at the time , but the leaders in charge , especially General Anton Denikin , were afraid that a strong monarchist figurehead would alienate the more left leaning constituents of the movement . He and his wife escaped just ahead of the Red Army in April 1919 , aboard the British Battleship HMS " Marlborough " . On August 8 , 1922 , Nicholas was proclaimed as the emperor of all Russia by the Zemsky Sobor of the Priamursk region by general Mikhail Diterikhs . The former was already living abroad and consequently was not present . Two months later the Priamursk region fell to the Bolsheviks . In exile . After a stay in Genoa as a guest of his brother - in - law , Victor Emmanuel III , King of Italy , Nicholas and his wife took up residence in a small castle at Choigny , 20 miles outside of Paris . He was under the protection of the French secret police as well as by a small number of faithful Cossack retainers . He became the center of an anti - Soviet monarchist resistance group , and headed the Russian All Military Union alongside general Pyotr Wrangel . Plans were made by them to send their agents into Russia . Conversely a top priority of the Soviet secret police was to penetrate this monarchist organization and to kidnap Nicholas . They were successful in the former , infiltrating the group with spies , and later luring the anti - Bolshevik British master spy Sidney Reilly back to the Soviet Union where he was killed . They did not succeed however , with kidnapping Nicholas . As late as June 1927 , the monarchists were able to set off a bomb at the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow . Grand Duke Nicholas died on January 5 , 1929 of natural causes on the French Riviera , where he had gone to escape the rigors of winter . In popular culture . Grand Duke Nicholas was portrayed in the 1971 movie " Nicholas and Alexandra " by Harry Andrews , and in the 1974 television drama " Fall of Eagles " by John Phillips .