Czar Nicholas II and His Family Escapes Assassination

What if of instead of being surprised and murdered by supporters of the Revolution in 1917, what if the Russian royal family manages to be successfully be smuggled out of the country alive, what becomes of them and their money?
 
What if of instead of being surprised and murdered by supporters of the Revolution in 1917, what if the Russian royal family manages to be successfully be smuggled out of the country alive, what becomes of them and their money?

It gives the White Army someone to rally around, but Nicholas II really is not that inspirational. He would better serve the cause as a martyr, but to have some of his family survive could be a good thing.
 
The Tsar was political deadweight by the time the execution actually happened, I agree with tank in that a murdered royal family down to the last child is a far better rallying point for the Whites than anything else. Sure, some of the Whites did actually want the restoration of the Tsar, but the writing on the wall was already against that: the Tsar hadn't been deposed at the end of a bayonet point, he signed his own abdication document from a train car. It really dampens the claim that he was taken from power against his will.
 
I don't know how it could be done, but having one of the Czar's daughters survive, especially if she was witness to the execution of her family would be powerful. Graphic, first hand news articles about the death of her family could be a real rallying cry and also could hurt the Red cause.
 
I don't know how it could be done, but having one of the Czar's daughters survive, especially if she was witness to the execution of her family would be powerful. Graphic, first hand news articles about the death of her family could be a real rallying cry and also could hurt the Red cause.

That might be tricky if we're aiming for Duchess Anastasia Nikolayevna to be the aforementioned surviving daughter of Unlucky Nicky as witness to the deaths of her entire family. Not to mention that the Bolshevik Cheka are lethally efficient in hunting down for counter-revolutionaries.
 
That might be tricky if we're aiming for Duchess Anastasia Nikolayevna to be the aforementioned surviving daughter of Unlucky Nicky as witness to the deaths of her entire family. Not to mention that the Bolshevik Cheka are lethally efficient in hunting down for counter-revolutionaries.

I have read the accounts of the execution, and it was done to ensure that all members of the family died, right down to the use of bayonets on those who were not killed by bullets. So the only way to have someone survive would be if the executions were handled poorly allowing one of the family members to be able to escape, perhaps in the night. That is all a big longshot, so any survivors of the family would have to escape prior to the executions to make it plausible.
 

katchen

Banned
Or Kolchak's Whites, possibly under Ungern-Sternberg have some Mongol cavalry irregulars able to ride 70 miles a day in small units without being seen and good intelligence.
 
Does surviving Rightful and successor on Russian Throne means having more military intervention from Entente in RCW?
 
Getting back to the original premise:

  • Stipulating that somehow the royal family is spirited out of Russia, where would they wind up? Apart from the Central Powers, the monarchies in the rest of Europe are reasonably progressive for the most part and would probably have some trepidation at sheltering a family as reactionary as the Romanovs. That suggests to me that Sweden and Norway are out, as are the Netherlands. Belgium is very much in the thick of things, so forget that. Denmark is relatively close, and there's some familial connection, so perhaps that could be arranged.
  • Money? Tough to abscond in the dead of night with gold bullion. That stuff is heavy. My sense is that any valuables would probably be in the form of jewelry instead, either worn or hidden under clothing/stashed in hiding places in luggage and so forth. Short version: they'd get out with a sizable potential fortune, but a fraction of what they once had. And they'll have to sell that off piecemeal to live wherever they land.
  • A guess at the future: assuming they land in Denmark, the Danes will treat them with respect and some deference but I would not expect any great assistance at all. They'd probably be largely on their own to find a place to live, retainers, and so on. It would be a sizable culture shock/rude awakening, that's for sure. The daughters would probably wind up marrying Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Dutch nobles/men of wealth; Alexis (hard to imagine a man named that these days, isn't it?) would lead a fairly sheltered life given hemophilia-and given the state of medicine with respect to that genetic disorder then, die fairly young (say, some time in the early 1920s).
  • The next generation-the daughters having married as noted above-would probably scatter through much of northern/western Europe, especially those born of non-noble fathers. By now, more than a few descendants would have left Europe for the US or Canada, quite likely. Their connection would be no more than a "gee whiz" that one great- or great-great-grandfather was once the Tsar of Russia: in other words, a colorful ancestor about on a par with having one convicted of witchcraft at Salem, MA in 1692, but that's about it. The estate-if you can call it that-in Denmark would probably be a museum.
In short, clearly documented Romanov descendants would still be around today but they'd be pretty obscure, considering that it's virtually a lock there would be none through the lone son--and thus none with the Romanov name.
 
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