the great drama that unfolded on the world stage in the pre-war years involved monarchies and monarchs connected by numerous family and dynastic ties. they could be friends or dislike each other, but they went to visit each other for family celebrations and funerals, met at european resorts, corresponded with each other, in family photographs they are all together: russian romanovs and germans. gauguin solerns, austrian habsburgs and english windsers. the bells of big ben struck nine when the funeral procession left buckingham palace. london was dazzled by the sight of these princes, as the times put it, beautifully sitting on horses. riding ahead was the new king of england, george v, with kaiser wilhelm ii next to him. in the shape of. willie,

who hated edward vi for the entente, considered his cousin george a very good boy. at this time, the new king of england was 45 years old. he was crowned first in london and then in dally, since george v was the king of britain and india. görg 5. was not only willy’s cousin, but also nicholas ii and russian empress alexandra feodorovna. they called him georgie, he was their nicky and alex. nicky and i were the same age and friends. their external resemblance was striking. they loved to be photographed in identical clothes. nicholas often joked that if he had put on a top hat, he would have appeared arm in arm with his cousin george on the royal tribune of the british parliament, then a considerable part of the audience.

at the end of the world war in the first year of the russian revolution, ally, cousin and friend, george v, under pressure from his government, refused to accept nikolai romanov and his family, who had already abdicated the throne, into england, and thereby doomed them to death. was one of the few monarchs, participants in the world war, who retained his throne until the end of his life; he died in 1936 by the british and indian emperor george v. but that large family of monarchs, which before the war ruled europe from the height of twenty thrones, almost all went down in history, paid for the war with her thrones, the collapse of the empire. a month before the war. june 28

, 1914, sarajevo. at the beginning of eleven, franz ferdinand's car appeared melachka embankment. he moved slowly. ertz duke wished that his good people could see their future emperor. bells rang in churches. there was a memorial service for the serbs who died on this day 5 centuries ago on kosovo for the independence of their country.

telegrams from the children, only then the cortege continued its leisurely movement, it was 10:20. at that moment, the terrorist standing at the third bridge, seventeen-year-old nedelka gavrinovic, raised a bouquet of flowers over his head, in which a stuffed with nails was hidden. the bomb threw her under the wheels. the last peaceful summer of good old europe was especially serene. perhaps it was the last summer of the 19th century. the 20th century was late. its real beginning will be the first world war. she will cut off the old world and open a new one. it’s not strange, no one

guessed, neither the peoples nor the political elites. cinematography was becoming fashionable in everything. the time had come for film magazines, which informed the well-dressed public about european news before cinema screenings. the sweat magazine knows everything, sees everything. in paris, niki mernier invented a method of safe aeronautics, so that it... he dropped a mannequin weighing five pounds from the saifei tower. this was the invention of the parachute. in june 1914, the main parisian stores presented their summer collections. sports became an integral

part of european life, and every film magazine always included a sports story. and, probably, the paris nice motorcycle races excited people’s consciousness in the summer of 1914. just like formula 1 in monte carlo today. europe in '14 was extraordinarily elegant and festive. the spanish king loved to play polo and, as a rule, won. in the main square of barcelona, ​​thousands of hot air balloons took off into the sky. parisian boulevards turned into confetti battlefields during carnivals. it is especially famous in germany. there were cologne carnivals, the carnival masks of pre-war europe were picturesque, funny and touching. europe was having fun. europe increased its prosperity. kaiser wilhelm visited an exhibition of agricultural achievements of the german empire, a kind of prototype of vdnkh. special attention

he turned to breeding bulls. however, in the summer of 1914 the germans were disappointed. their football team, on its territory in baden, lost to the swiss 2:1 in a difficult struggle. london in the summer of 1914 was entertained by the spectacle of the largest show on earth of twenty lions and a circus of midgets. a month before the war , june 28, 1914, sarajevo. the bomb thrown by gabrinovich hit a lamppost and fell. thrown up, following the frenchman ferdinand of the escort car, then slid onto the paving stones and under the car exploded. the nails from the exploding bomb injured many people in the crowd. two officers from the archduke's retinue were also wounded. but he himself was not harmed at all. his wife countess

khotok had her neck scratched by a shrapnel. the terrorist gabrinovich grabbed a bottle from his pocket, swallowed the poison and rushed into the river. tangy kali had no effect on him. he was pulled out of the water, confusion arose on the embankment, cars stopped and stood for at least 5 minutes, no one thought about protecting the erzduke. during this time , all the terrorists could have converged on the explosion site, and those who missed the turn, and those whose turn has not yet reached. ertz duke ferdinand himself was the first to come to his senses, he was completely furious, the trip went perfectly, suddenly such a finale, it... became the finale, on his orders the cortege went further, according to the program, to the town hall, the cars raced along the embankment past the principle , but whether because they were now rushing quickly, or because he heard the explosion, he considered the matter over, the principle did not use either a bomb or a revolver. six months before the war,

march 1914, st. petersburg. emperor nicholas ii hosted the parade together with his guest the romanian prince carol, the possible groom of his eldest daughter olga. the emperor's guards habitually minted the shak on the two-hundred-year-old cobblestones of alexander square, which had seen so many parades and witnessed so many imperial victories.

in less than six months, all these pavlovtsy, izmailovtsy, preobrazhensky troops will leave to the sounds of regimental marches, under the well-deserved banners and standards. from st. petersburg to the fronts of the first world war. going to the great war, the cavalry guards, cuirassers, and cossacks could hardly imagine that they were leaving on their last campaign, that there would be no more either this army or this country. just before the war , a series of state

anniversaries took place in russia with incredible pomp, and the most important of them was the tricentenary of the house of romanov. it seemed to the whole world that the dynasty was unshakable, stronger than ever, and the foundations of the empire were unshakable. nicholas ii had an heir, tsarevich alexei. one brother mikhail, one uncle pavel alexandrovich, 10 cousins, four cousins and 10. second cousins, a total of 28 romanov men, not counting the numerous female representatives of the dynasty , there was no need to worry about the fate of the throne. in the pre-war decades of the empire there was something to celebrate, the bicentenary of the founding of st. petersburg, the centenary of the battle of borodino, and finally, the fiftieth anniversary of the conquest of the caucasus, which fell exactly in the fourteenth year. nicholas ii personally arrived in the caucasus to... participate in the celebrations. in sukhum in krasnaya polyana, near sochi, he received

parades of troops of the caucasian military district and greeting addresses of the abominable subjects of the caucasian peoples. folk races took place in teflis, vladikavkaz, sukhum, and grozny. petersburg in 1914 was at the zenith of its silver age, refined, refined, refined. he absorbed all the new european trends and became a trendsetter himself. traditional imperial ballet coexisted here with modernist choreography, the so-called sandals, followers of isidora duncan. from the memoirs of grand duke alexander mikhailovich in the household of sandro, that a foreigner who would have visited st. petersburg in '14. a black bartender

in a european hotel hired in kentucky, true parisian actresses on the stage of the mikhailovsky theater, the majestic architecture of the winter palace, white nights in june, in the haze of which long-haired students argued passionately with red-cheeked young ladies, and the advantages of german philosophy. on the embankments. he had to create a russian military aviation and end his life in exile.

a month before the war, june 28, 194. sarajevo. the motorcade of hertz-duke franz ferdinand finally got to the town hall. they didn't know about the assassination attempt yet. the muslim burgomaster began.

months before the war, may 1914, the hague, on the crest of that wave of humanitarian idealism that flooded europe in the last decades before the war , the peace palace was opened in the hague in an extremely solemn atmosphere in the presence of delegates from all countries. from now on, war was irrevocably banished from the circulation of cultural humanity, in the history

of which a golden age began, an era of peaceful cooperation of peoples. the peace palace in the hague, where today the international the hague tribunal was built on the initiative and largely through the means of the russian emperor nicholas ii. his portrait still hangs here in a place of honor. it was emperor nicholas and the russian government back in 1899, at the turn of the century, who came up with a proposal that stunned europe, for a representative of all the great powers to gather in gaga. emperor nicholas found himself in the center of world attention. nicholas ii was friends with the dutch queen vergemina, who warmly supported his initiative to convene a peace conference in the hague. at her request the conference opened on the birthday of the russian emperor, may 6, 1899.

an international one was created in the hague. bullets, air bombing, and the use of asphyxiating harmful gases. the participating countries decided to perpetuate their haakh agreements by building a grandiose peace palace. however, the lesson of history was that their tower of babel, the peace palace in the hague, was opened just before the world war, which overturned all these rules and conventions. the bans flooded the whole of europe with the blood of millions of people. a month before the war, june 28, 1914. sarajevo. the motorcade of ertz-duke franz ferdinand , unexpectedly for the light of the escort, turned from the embankment of the melyachka onto the street of emperor franz

joseph. in the chaos, they forgot to inform the drivers that the route was from.

a random passer-by, a serbian student, rushed at the killer, the principle dropped the bomb, it did not explode, gendarmes, officers, passers-by came running from all sides, a car with a frenchman, ferdinand and sofia, rushed at all speeds to the governor's palace, where the horse-drawn horses. the heir to the austrian throne died 20 minutes after the assassination attempt. his wife lived a few minutes longer. by chance , some amateur photographer happened to be at the scene of the murder; he heard a shot, he

raised his camera and unexpectedly, unexpectedly, in a remote corner of europe, he photographed the most notorious terrorist act of the 20th century, which marked the beginning of the greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind.

thousands of spectators sailed from st. petersburg on yachts and boats. the raid resounded with festive noise, shots from the cannons of the french squadron and russian land batteries, cheers from the ship's crews, the marseillaise, in response to the russian anthem "god save the tsar." in the presence of the president the french republic held a large parade in krasnoe selo.

continued to receive treatment in austria on the waters. tens of thousands of russian families, including grand dukes and generals, continued to vacation in fashionable german resorts. from the memoirs of putnik, unaware of the imminent catastrophe, general brusilov. we were almost finishing our treatment in quisingham, germany, when unexpected news was received of the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand. and his wife. general indignation was a response to this terrorist attack, but no one thought it could come that this murder would serve as the reason for the start of a terrible world war.

the numerous resort public of quisingham remained completely calm and continued their treatment. after the assassination of franz ferdinand, russian magazines in the summer of 1914 presented fashionable styles of mourning dresses, noting that they were in accordance with the spirit.

journalists from all over the world rushed to sarajevo and were in the city. mourning flags, a very solemn ceremony was held to transfer the bodies of the murdered from the governor's palace to the horse-drawn the cathedral and then to the station. franz, ferdinand and sophia returned to vienna the same way, from sarajevo to the adriatic coast by train, across the adriatic sea to trieste on the battleships, from trieste to vienna again by train and along the entire route of the funeral cortege for the heir to the austrian throne. gave due honors. the latin bridge, where the principle waited for the erz-duke, was called the bridge of ferdinand and sophia. soon they were placed

here. monument. touching legends immediately arose around the deceased chita. one of residents of sarajevo testified. they died, pressed shoulder to shoulder, head to head, and their bodies swayed strangely, and , apparently, they were still quietly whispering something to each other. they said that in the car, hertz herzog’s last words were: “sophia, sophia, live for our children.” these words spread throughout europe when the elderly emperor franz learned of the misfortune. joseph said: “ fate has not saved me from anything in this world.” however, being a fanatic of etiquette, he ordered that franz ferdinand and his wife be buried not in the habsburg family tomb, but in their castle artstatten, not far from vienna, since sophia by birth was only a czech count of hottek, and not a princess of royal blood. as a terrible omen, on the night before this funeral a terrible thunderstorm broke out, and while crossing.

across the danube, the coffins almost sank. meanwhile , in sarajevo, a group of people took to the streets with portraits of emperor franz joseph. serbian pogroms swept across bosnia. serbs' shops, their houses, and restaurants were destroyed. mass arrests began in sarajevo, serbian high school students were seized and imprisoned almost without.

exactly a month after the shooting of sarajevo, on the night of july 28-29, austrian artillery began bombing belgrade. now it was up to germany alone to stop the austro-ser war or let it go.

wilhelm, in the form of an ultimatum, demanded the cancellation of mobilization and gave 12 hours for this. all these days, the russian emperor and the german kaiser exchanged personal telegrams, which , out of habit, they still signed willy and nicky. they always wrote to each other in english. the highest telegrams flew from berlin to the petersburg palace and back. until the last minute, nikolai did not believe that his cousin, the godfather of his only son alexei, would declare war on him. in his last telegram, the russian emperor invited his cousin willy to refer the austro-serbian conflict to the court of arbitration in

the hague. kaiser on telegram. did not answer, his response was germany’s declaration of war on russia. the day before the war, july 31, 1914 . petersburg. the russian ministry of foreign affairs has switched to round-the-clock operation. on july 31 at 11:00 pm, minister sozonov was informed of the arrival of the german ambassador count of portalles. the deadline ends tomorrow at noon. without allowing sazonov to answer, he repeated three times in an agitated, trembling voice: “agree to cancel the mobilization.” and he left with a gesture of despair. august 1, 1914

was a saturday. the german ultimatum expired at noon. but only at 7 pm did graftales show up for the car wash at the ministry.

the trial of the sarajevo murder began; the austrian government wanted to give the trial the character of a large political performance, designed for the entire civilized world. this didn't work out. in in october of the fourteenth, the civilized world

was already in a state of massacre, and it clearly had no time for the sarajevo affair. compared to the terrible losses of the first months of the war, the murder of the ertz-duke alone no longer bothered anyone. most of the participants in the case were. because they were minors and, according to austrian law , they could not be executed, the main defendants, high school students principy and gabrinovic, were sentenced to twenty years in prison , their less guilty, but adult comrades were hanged. however, almost none of the sarajevo participants the process did not survive the war. the underground casimata of the terezian state fortress did not act so quickly under wartime food conditions. like a merry woman, but just as true: a year later gabrinovich died from a transient phthisis, the principle died in prison in april 1918 from the same sneeze, just a few months he did not live to see the capitulation

of austria and germany, after the war he became a people's hero, his the remains were transferred to their homeland and solemnly reburied in the sarajevo city cemetery. franz bridge ferdinand and sophia was renamed again. and received the name of their killer, gavrilo princip.

well, today nicholas ii is a rather controversial figure, even for convinced monarchists, because many criticized nicholas for leaving his post. mainly nicholas the martyrs, so there is something to deal with, in general, a really interesting personality. yes, and quite often you can hear the point of view according to which russian revolutions are a consequence of weakness of will, weak character, mistakes made by nicholas ii, now if it weren’t for nikolai, if only there had been someone else in this place, at least alexander ii, then perhaps the revolution would not have happened, vid, in particular , said so, we’ll sort it out, probably, hello. this is a historical podcast russia

and the west on the swing of history. pyotr romanov and sergei solovyov are with you, we will understand the fate of the last russian emperor. it’s interesting to remember nikolai’s upbringing, because in general, a lot is laid down, naturally, in youth. in general, all the main, so to speak, historical figures tried to cultivate certain main traits. nicholas, let’s say, raised alexander i like this, physical activity, training, raising such a man, you can’t complain, and so on, such a very tough upbringing. alexander the second did the same with his son, the same method was used in raising nikolai, he turned out to be a really strong, formal person.

who was his father’s teacher, to what extent this upbringing was actually reflected in his figure, so to speak. it’s difficult for nikolai to say, because when they asked the same victorious, what about his students, so to speak, first alexander ii, then nikolai usveili, he shrugged his shoulders, he didn’t know, in general, what had happened and what hadn’t. if we talk about upbringing, then after all , pobedonostsev has one thing, and not only pobedonostsev, from the entire russian context. the second one definitely learned that

it is necessary to protect the beginning of an unshakable autocracy, and his famous reservation in the coronation speech, when he had already become an emperor, he called dreams of a parliament meaningless, in the 1897 census, he also filled out the corresponding questionnaire, here in the graph of his studies was written by the owner of the russian land, and this is exactly how he felt until the very end of his reign. owner of the russian land, that’s how adequate this was to the reality of that time, this is a big question, the very beginning of his reign is interesting, all his predecessors in general came with some fairly definite program, well, not a plan, maybe specific actions, but still pavel changed everything that catherine did, alexander ii changed much of what paul did, nicholas i after the decembrist uprising, judging.

nicholas ii came with nothing, he had no plans of his own. in general , such a force of inertia acted, he tried to continue his father’s work to some extent in both domestic and foreign policy, well , in the internal one, we can remember, let’s say, that he, thank god, continued his father’s economic undertakings, monetary, so say, these reforms are vita, yes, but as for foreign policy, well , alexander ii is famous, he was called a peacemaker, and he really... in general, was a non-militant person

warehouse, in any case, he didn’t fight, he had the only serious war, a customs war with germany, economic, here he defended the russian wallet, so to speak, he was the master, so he was really some kind of master of the russian land, he was interested in, let’s say , well, a pacifist idea, yes, something like that, disarmament and so on, all this was put on his table, but he... sympathizing with this, he threw it aside, because he believed that this was something utopian, and nicholas ii, well, well, one might say, so, figuratively speaking, took from the baskets are what dad threw away. tried, so to speak, to implement this peacekeeping idea, or something, well, then there were several such famous works that really influenced society, it was such an austrian boroness von sutter, she

lived in russia for quite a long time, she wrote, so to speak , such a pacifist book, down with the weapons, this book. between great britain and germany, especially in the field of the navy, especially germany and france, great britain and france,

russia was clearly completely behind here, therefore, it was beneficial for russia to introduce the idea of ​​disarmament, despite the fact that at the same time russia was pursuing a rather aggressive policy. in the far east, that’s why there was some kind of living contradiction here, there is a widespread myth that nicholas ii was a characterless man, so it’s probably worth saying about this right away that he wasn’t characterless, but he was confident in his chosenness of god , but he had a quality, i think you will agree, he selected people for himself with an amazing inability, he inherited all his ministers father, another minister, in my opinion, just grimykin then from the post of minister of internal affairs.

his mind is not flexible enough, and his methods are not honest enough, they can cause criticism, social problems there, and so on. and sepyagin is a man, of course, the most honest, the most honest person, but he is not clever enough in the current situation. pobedonostsev was not a courtier, he answered simply: sepyagin is a fool, the tribe is a scoundrel. what did nicholas ii do? first he appointed sepyagin, who was killed by the esrs, then plevya, who was also killed by the esrs. this is the brightest illustration. that is, he smart advisors, albeit polar ones. rendered by the german emperor welhelm, because a very interesting point, alexander ii

was very contemptuous of wilhelm, he called him a dancing dervish, because he had such a gait, as alexander ii said this. wilhelm simply put psychological pressure on nikolai, he succumbed, including, he pushed him to war in the far east, because it was beneficial to germany, and nikolai succumbed, yes, to him...