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Stumbled across an interesting possible point of departure the other day in the form of the Otsu incident. Short version is that whilst the future Nicholas II of Russia was on his Eastern Journey from 1890-1891 he visited Japan, during which whilst returning from a day trip to Lake Biwa one of his police escorts tried to assassinate him with his sabre. Tsuda managed to strike him once on the forehead giving him his scar but Prince George of Greece and Denmark who was accompanying Nicholas managed to parry the second stroke, he then attempted to flee but was caught by a pair of rickshaw drivers. Cue much apologising on the Japanese royal family and government's part since is was highly embarrassing for them and they knew that if Russia tried to use it as a reason for war they couldn't match them at the time. Thankfully things blew over. But what happens if Tsuda is more successful with his first stroke or Prince George is just a fraction too slow and the second one lands, mortally wounding Nicholas?

At the time he was Tsarevich since he was the eldest living son of then reigning Emperor Alexander III, so the position immediately falls to Grand Duke George Alexandrovich. The only problem with that is George Alexandrovich wouldn't live to see out the century thanks to contracting tuberculosis, some pages saying he caught it during an earlier leg of the Eastern Journey, other that it was merely bronchitis and that he caught tuberculosis later on back in Russia. That's something I need to run down. This vaults his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich up to Tsarevich until Nicholas had his son Alexei Nikolaevich, which he will obviously not be having in this timeline what with being dead and all. So depending on when George Alexandrovich contracted tuberculosis, for the moment lets assume it was before Nicholas is killed, if things stay roughly on schedule as our timeline that means Alexander III dies three years later making Tsarevich George Alexandrovich the new Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias in 1894, only to die himself five years later in 1899, possibly better conditions being counterbalanced by increased stress. Tsarevich Michael Alexandrovich ascends to the imperial throne and his uncle Grand Duke Cyril becomes Tsarevich until such time as Michael has a son.

So what's going to be the likely outcome of a fairly quick turnover of Tsars in this period? Not having much luck turning up anything too substantive about George, or Michael to a lesser extent, so will have to go visit the library at some point. One good thing to at least come out of things for Michael would be that if and he meets Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in this timeline as Tsar and head of the church he can simply say sod the rules and marry her. I have heard it argued that as an autocrat the tsars were the only people who could really affect Russia and push reforms, or by extension interfere and bugger things up. What's five years rule by a sick tsar going to do? Would a hands off approach actually improve things compared to Nicholas' reign? And the sixty-four thousand dollar question then becomes what is Michael going to be like as a ruler. All of which until I can do some research I can't really answer, but I thought I'd post and see what other members might know.
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