Just sad since few days thinking of how they were killed

[ezguy]

Just extremely sad since few days thinking of how they were killed.


My blood boils.


Why did they have to kill the innocent kids.


They could have killed the Tsar, but why the kids and his wife ?.


Russians are cruel and cold.


I wish I can go back in time and stop all this.


Very upset. do any one here feel the same way ?

 

[Muhler]

Only to some extent.

I don't think it's appropriate to characterize all Russians for something a few, and desperate extremists ordered 100 years ago.

The children were killed to make sure there would but no pretender in the future to to rally around. It's brutal logic.

And BTW congratulation on your first posts.

 

[ezguy]

I understand about the killing children. But they were killed brutally, and that too in the 19th century. Even during french revolution. They killed the King in a proper way. Not half ass botched.

Also I learnt most of them where not Russians but Austro-Hungarian prisoners.

Thanks for the congratulations

 

[Denville]

Just extremely sad since few days thinking of how they were killed.


My blood boils.


Why did they have to kill the innocent kids.


They could have killed the Tsar, but why the kids and his wife ?.


Russians are cruel and cold.


I wish I can go back in time and stop all this.


Very upset. do any one here feel the same way ?

Not really......Its history, its not possible to go back in time and in WWI, millions died...

 

[COUNTESS]

Nicholas was also responsible for the deaths of many of his citizens, including children. If you were Jewish you feared for your life. Other ethnicities, too. That doesn't mean I think killing the children was okay. It was what they were used to.

 

[Denville]

Nicholas was also responsible for the deaths of many of his citizens, including children. If you were Jewish you feared for your life. Other ethnicities, too. That doesn't mean I think killing the children was okay. It was what they were used to.

It was a war and revolution situation and terrible things happened. I don't feel any emotional attachement to the Romanovs, mainly because they were terrible rulers. Of course it was sad that the girls and Alexei were killed, and it goes without sayng it was very wrong.. but it had a brutal logic. THe Revolutionaries wanted to eliminate the heirs, and the Tsar and his wife... so that the IF was partly destroyed...and to send a message to the remaining family that they should give up all hopes of restoring the Monarchy...

 

[Samvel Magrdini]

Just extremely sad since few days thinking of how they were killed.


My blood boils.


Why did they have to kill the innocent kids.


They could have killed the Tsar, but why the kids and his wife ?.


Russians are cruel and cold.


I wish I can go back in time and stop all this.


Very upset. do any one here feel the same way ?

Everyone does. And also, don't blame the Russians. I am not an anti-semitist or conspiracy theories lover, but the fact of almost all the killers being mostly Jews is true. The executors were not only jewish, but also Kazakh, Russian and Georgian. In one word - they were Bolsheviks. Communists never stopped killing people, and will never stop.

Also, there's one big detail that everyone misses.
First, they didn't just walk and execute them, they lied that they should stand up for a picture, and that made the kids very excited. But as they revealed their plan, Nicholas came to shock and shouted "Господи! Прости их, они не ведают, что творят!", "Oh god, forgive these people, they don't know what they are doing".

unfortunately, you can't travel back in time

 

[COUNTESS]

And you forget all the pogroms those "Jews" families suffered and were killed in, not only permitted by the Tsar, but often instigated. No one worried about their children. By the way, those actions disturbed Alexandra who was not anti-Semitic as the Russsians were.

 

[Denville]

Everyone doesn't have that emoitional reaction.. It is sad, it was terrible that the girls were killed as well but it was during a terrible war and a revolution and millions were being killed.. if Nicholas II had not been such a terrible ruler, he might have saved himself and his dynasty.. Its true that In pogroms, people were killed, and their children and people weren't worried about that.. By the way, I thought that Nicholass final words were something like "what??" because he was startled by being told that they were about to be shot.. nothing about forgiving people...

 

[Lee-Z]

While the killing of millions of innocents throughout the centuries past is deeply sad and unjust in every single occassion (and imo the cruelest side of humanity), i think if you want to put blame, blame the people who directly ordered or performed the specific killings and not project it on entire populations from whatever etniticity, nationality, religion, race, heritage or whatever grouping is used.

(PS Wasn't the quote "Forgive them for they don't know what they are doing" a biblical one, attributed to Jesus?)

 

[JR76]

(PS Wasn't the quote "Forgive them for they don't know what they are doing" a biblical one, attributed to Jesus?)

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34

 

[Denville]

While the killing of millions of innocents throughout the centuries past is deeply sad and unjust in every single occassion (and imo the cruelest side of humanity), i think if you want to put blame, blame the people who directly ordered or performed the specific killings and not project it on entire populations from whatever etniticity, nationality, religion, race, heritage or whatever grouping is used.

(PS Wasn't the quote "Forgive them for they don't know what they are doing" a biblical one, attributed to Jesus?)

Yes and I dotn believe that Nicholas said that. unless someone can provide a quote? I understood that they read out the notice that they were going to be shot and Nicholas started to exclaim "What are you saying" but only got out the word "what".. before the shooting started. I agree that it is not right to blame iether Jews or Russians or Non Russians.. It was ordered by the Govt, wrongly but in the context of the time, it was something that was lilkey to happen. THe IF were not popular, they were increasingly hated for their refusal to allow moderate reforms..and for the failures in the War..If a lot of Jews were communists, it is quite understandable since they were a group who suffered a lot from Romanov misrule...

 

[JR76]

I feel that we should be careful in pointing fingers and putting blame on specific nationalities. As one poster wrote above most importantly the executioners were communists. It's been proven that many of them were very reluctant to kill the girls and that everyone wanted to be the one to kill the Tsar which, together with the fact that the girls had a literal armour of jewels sewn in their clothes, lead to them and their brother surviving the initial rain of bullets and causing them to suffer both mentally and physically before they finally met their deaths.
I can understand the political motivation behind the need to have them killed, but poor kids. Murdered for the crimes of their parents.

 

[Iluvbertie]

The youngest of these 'kids' was 13. The eldest was certainly not a child but was a 23 year old woman.

They were all of an age where they could certainly be the focus of attempts to overthrow the government.

There should have been a public trial (even if the outcome was a foregone conclusion) but that certainly wasn't going to happen with an approaching army aiming at rescuing them ... among other things.

Even if they had been rescued there then would have been the question of what to do with them. They weren't wanted anywhere. Britain had refused to take them and that would have extended to the British empire. No one elsewhere in Europe would have wanted them either in all likelihood - sure The Netherlands took in the Kaiser but he wasn't seen as anywhere near the tyrant Nicholas II was.

With virtually no one in the world saying 'we will have them' they were faced with no real choices - basically kill them then or hold them in prison forever for the safety of the new regime.

Hard facts to face but we aren't really talking about 'kids' but young adults in most cases and a boy who very much knew who he was and what he was and was very conscious of being the second person in the land even at 13.

 

[victor1319]

The original sin of the 20th century...

The murder of the Romanovs was the original sin - many, millions others followed. The Red Terror started with the end of the Romanovs, but by far did not end.

And it should not be forgotten, which role the german army leadership played: They brought Lenin into Russia!

The end of the german "Czardome", the end of the rule of the Kaiser, was also not hindered, yes even promoted by the german generals. And this end gave room for the rise of Hitler.

These generals showed a terrible lack of political foresight and built the ground for the biggest slaughter, mankind has ever experienced.

 

[Denville]

These generals showed a terrible lack of political foresight and built the ground for the biggest slaughter, mankind has ever experienced.

Nicholas showed a lakc of foresight, in not allowing reform and trying to preserve autocratic rule, n the 20th century, allowing pogroms etc.

 

[Samvel Magrdini]

Nicholas showed a lakc of foresight, in not allowing reform and trying to preserve autocratic rule, n the 20th century, allowing pogroms etc.

That was because he wasn't ready to get the throne, his father died too early, with Nicholas having no knowledge in being monarch.

 

[wartenberg7]

Just extremely sad since few days thinking of how they were killed.


My blood boils.


Why did they have to kill the innocent kids.


They could have killed the Tsar, but why the kids and his wife ?.


Russians are cruel and cold.


I wish I can go back in time and stop all this.


Very upset. do any one here feel the same way ?

They could have killed the Tsar?! Well, as I understand a murder is a murder, no matter if someone kills a man or a woman! And speaking about the Tsar and the Tsarina, Alexandra, if we talk about "guilt" or who is to blame, is equally, some might say even more so, to blame about how things went in Russia! It is common knowledge by her diary entries and letters to her husband, that she influenced him to take some very bad decisions concerning the war and his autocratic rule.

For her, democratizing Russia was an offence and a sin against God. Beyond that I won´t start what fatal and destroying effect her bondage to Rasputin had and by that again on the Tsar! All this had a highly damaging effect on the image of the monarchy in a country, where revolution was in the air since many decades.
The Tsar himself is to "blame" for being too weak, too easily to be influenced and to know too less about the poorest of the poor of his country. But of course, nobody, also not the Tsar, should have to be killed for that!

 

[Denville]

That was because he wasn't ready to get the throne, his father died too early, with Nicholas having no knowledge in being monarch.

he was a grown man, had been Tsar for many years, and he hadn't learned in all that time?

 

[Gawin]

he was a grown man, had been Tsar for many years, and he hadn't learned in all that time?

I completely agree. He didn't know it was wrong to tolerate pogroms against the Jews, oppose democratic reforms, and order troops to fire on starving workers as they marched on the palace to deliver a petition to him? And considering his father's poor track record on human rights, what would he have learned had Alexander III lived longer? In fact, Nicholas learned his father's lesson all too well: preserve autocracy at any cost. Unfortunately he didn't have the wisdom to understand the consequences.

It's no wonder Nicholas was regarded as a despot. That's what led George V to resist any efforts to grant the Romanovs asylum in Britain. Did Nicholas and his family deserve to die? No, of course not, but neither did the people whose deaths Nicholas was responsible for, either directly or indirectly.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Only to some extent.

I don't think it's appropriate to characterize all Russians for something a few, and desperate extremists ordered 100 years ago.

The children were killed to make sure there would but no pretender in the future to to rally around. It's brutal logic.

The imperial succession included the male linage only. Thus Nicholas' heir was Alexis. The four daughters could not inherit. Thus could not the four Grand Duchesses have been spared?

 

[Queen Claude]

Russia had female empresses previously so it was not a foreign concept. Also I don't know how credible it was but I recall reading that it was likely that Nicholas was going to decree that females could inherit the Russian throne, so that in the event Alexei predeceased him or died childless then Olga would become Empress of All Russia.

 

[Iluvbertie]

The law was that females could inherit IF there were no male heirs. It wasn't full salic which didn't allow female inheritance at all.

In the case where the monarch had been overthrown the rules could easily have been changed if one of the daughters survived so that she could be the focus of anti-regime forces. Her descent from the Tsar would be enough in a post-revolutionary attempt to restore the monarchy.

 

[Frelinghighness]

If you read any of the Shakespeare’s history plays, or in fact, read, any of history, it is always a kill the children! Because they are next in line for the throne.if someone wanted the throne of England who was farther down the line, which happened many times in history, they would kill the ruler and then have to to also kill his children, who were all next in line, to assure clearance.

 

[Frelinghighness]

Although I have great empathy for Alix as I do for Marie Antoinette of France, I do feel that they aided in their own and their countries destruction however unwittingly

 

[Muhler]

The imperial succession included the male linage only. Thus Nicholas' heir was Alexis. The four daughters could not inherit. Thus could not the four Grand Duchesses have been spared?

That would have made absolutely no difference.
From an ice cold perspective the children were destined to die because:
A) The ruling family should be exterminated. There was no room for them anyway in the Communist Russia.
2) Female empresses was far from anything new in Russia.
3) The daughters could deliver a male heir at some point.
4) The daughters were living political symbols for the anti-communists to rally around and fight for.
5) One of the daughters could marry "a strong man", who in his own right could be a dangerous threat. His claim to power would now be legitimized by his and the Imperial bloodline being mixed.

Okay, could they have left the daughters alive? Were there alternatives?
A) Prison, indefinitely. - No, the daughters would still be living symbols, who should be freed.
B) Making the daughters "renounce the world", take a wow and enter an cloister. - The Communists didn't trust and didn't want the church around. It was too big a competitor. And the whole thing about religion goes against Communism as a concept. - And they could eventually leave the cloister. Wows can be overruled if it's "Gods will" and it would be...
C) Exile the girls abroad. - See A, except that you no longer have control over them.
D) Letting them disappear somewhere. - They could still be recognized and there would be endless questions and as long anyone are in doubt as to their deaths, they would be symbols.
E) "Ruining the royal bloodline" by force marrying them to a commoner. - That would be the equivalent of rape and would cause a huge uproar, probably even among the Communists. Also, Communists too have daughters...
F) Sterilizing them. An unsafe procedure at the time. And it wouldn't make that big a difference. Ekaterina the Great wasn't even in the bloodline, yet she became empress. As political symbols that method wouldn't make any difference either.

- They had to die. The only question was how.
"Sickness", "accident", "suicide", "trying to escape" and so on would be a nice solution. But snuffing them out one by one over a period is risky. They would inevitably try to escape, probably with inside help, and perhaps succeed.
So the logic solution was the one taken: Gunning and bayoneting the whole family down at the same time.

 

[victor1319]

That is, how they rolled...

Imho the murder of the Romanovs should not be seen as an isolated incident! To rob all people blind and to murder everybody, who could put up resistance - that was, how the Bolshewiki acted. That was their doctrine! The Red Terror!

 

[Muhler]

The Communists were not the only ones who used terror and oppression.

There was a Russian saying from the latter half of the 1800's, which translated goes something like this: We can sleep safely in prison, because that's the only place where we are safe from the White Terror. (The secret police.)

Revolutionaries make poor politicians, because revolutionaries are unwilling to compromise and they tend to be extremists.
A wise political move could have been to reunite Russia under a totally powerless Tzar, under control of the Communists. A kind of Shogunate, if you will. Where the Communists would have ruled through the Tzar. (Who would be under house-arrest, basically with his family as hostages.)
That would have been an interesting alternative.

But it would have been impossible to sell that solution to the extremists who were taking over at the time. To extremists only extreme solutions are possible. Not acceptable, possible!
Which is why most extremists end up being shot...

It was Stalin who around this time said about one of the extremist revolutionaries (can't remember who): On the day of the revolution he is absolutely indispensable, on the second day he should be shot.

- You can't build a stable government and a stable society on extremists, so...

 

[victor1319]

No way!

The Communists were not the only ones who used terror and oppression.

There was a Russian saying from the latter half of the 1800's, which translated goes something like this: We can sleep safely in prison, because that's the only place where we are safe from the White Terror. (The secret police.)

What are you implying? That the rule of the Romanovs was in any way whatsoever like Communism?

 

[Muhler]

What are you implying? That the rule of the Romanovs was in any way whatsoever like Communism?

Well, it wasn't the Communists who came up with the idea of deporting political opponents (as well as criminals) to Siberia.
The omnipresent and much feared secret police (White Terror) with it's network of informants and Commissars with extremely wide-ranging power, was something that was in place centuries before NKVD, KGB and FSB - their first symbol BTW was a broom.
The vast majority of Russians, peasants, were serfs with very limited rights and whose conditions in life were only a notch or two above being slaves. That was under the Romanovs. Serfdom was only abolished in the second half of the 1800's, without a system in place to replace it, which led to disaster in quite few places.
Also, Russia was an expansionist empire, especially in the Caucasus, through Transoxania towards Afghanistan and towards what is today western China were vast areas conquered by Russia, under the Romanovs. And people living in these areas objecting against being a part of the empire were not treated leniently!
The brutal oppression and political castration of a whole class in the society, the Boyars, was not something the Communist came up with either. They finished the job though, that's for sure!
The forced resettlements of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people at a time, for whatever purpose, was not the Communists idea either.
The frequent pogroms against Jews happened under the Romanovs, without the authorities doing much about, or for that matter caring much about it.

What the Communists did was to continue this kind of oppression against their opponents on an order of magnitude higher and in a much more organized way.

I find it much easier to sympathize with Louis XVI, he was by all accounts a genuinely kind man, who with his limited abilities, and even more limited help from the nobility wished to improve the conditions in life for his subjects rather than just maintaining a status quo and who hesitated from using oppressive means to stay in power.
It cost him, and his family, their lives.
How many sleepless nights, I wonder, did Tzar Nicholas spend thinking about those of his subjects at the bottom of the society? Also before he became a Tzar.