Борис Романов - A new look at the Russian February Revolution of 1917

Attempts prevent war.

Let's start with the fact that, contrary to known myths, Nicholas II did everything possible to avoid a world war – beginning with the Hague Peace Conference convened on his initiative of 1898, and then in the years of the Balkan wars (1912-1913), and literally up to the last day before the start of the WWI. Really, two days before the start of the WWI, on July 29, 1914, Nicholas II has suggested Kaiser Wilhelm to convey the Austro-Serbian dispute to the Hague International Tribunal – but the Kaiser actually had not regected any answer this peaceful path. [1] [3] [5] [19] ] [47] [80] This fact from their correspondence became known to the world community in January 1915 and was the cause of a major international diplomatic scandal.

Burden of war and life's level of the people to 1917

(According to my materials of Wikipedia's article on the premises of the February Revolution).

Comparing Russia with other belligerent countries, historian S. V. Volkov wrote that the burden and trials on the Russian economy was lower than in other countries, both in the Allied camp and among its opponents; that there were no objective preconditions for the revolution, that Russia's military position on the eve of the revolution did not give cause for concern, and comparing the burden on the human resources of the countries participating in the First World War, he cited such figures [Volkov, S.V. "The Forgotten War", 2004.]:

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Thus, the hardships of the war in Russia were much less severe than in Austria-Hungary and Germany or France, and no more severe than in England.Nevertheless, unlike these countries, in Russia, almost from the very beginning of the war, a conspiracy against the supreme authority (against Nicholas II) was brewing, and by the beginning of 1917 this plot had found a real plan.

…

Ten years after the catastrophe of 1917, Winston Churchill wrote about Russia and Nicholas II: [Winston Churchill. The World Crisis 1916-1918. Vol.1 N.Y. 1927. (P.227-228)]

“ It is the shallow fashion of these times to dismiss the Tsarist regime as a purblind, corrupt, incompetent tyranny. But a survey of its thirty months' war with Germany and Austria should correct these loose impressions and expose the dominant facts. We may measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the battering it had endured, by the disasters it had survived, by the inexhaustible forces it had developed, and by the recovery it had made. In the governments of states, when great events are afoot, the leader of the nation, whoever he be, is held accountable for failure and vindicated by success. No matter who wrought the toil, who planned the struggle, to the supreme responsible authority belongs the blame or credit.

Why should this stern test be denied to Nicholas II? He had made many mistakes, what ruler has not? He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability, of merciful disposition, upheld in all his daily life by his faith in God. But the brunt of supreme decisions centred upon him. At the summit where all problems are reduced to Yea or Nay, where events transcend the faculties of man and where all is inscrutable, he had to give the answers. His was the function of the compass needle. War or no war? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratise or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These were the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honour from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the munitionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Brusilov; the Russian entry upon the campaign of 1917, unconquered, stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.

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