WI/AHC: Romanovs pull a successful escape

Deleted member 1487

If there is a WW2 then would the Czar then be a focal point for expats to rally and try and take back their country? Some expats worked with the Nazis and fought against Stalin, perhaps Hitler opts to use that to fight Stalin with the goal of betraying the expats later?
 
If the imperial family is rescued by some masterstroke of subterfuge or direct German demands it would probably install the Bolsheviks with an even higher level of paranoia towards all imagined fifth-columnists. I dunno, though, if the Whites would rally round the Tsarevitch or his sisters, since it was Grand Duke Michael who was chosen as Nicky's successor when he abdicated the throne.
 
If the imperial family is rescued by some masterstroke of subterfuge or direct German demands it would probably install the Bolsheviks with an even higher level of paranoia towards all imagined fifth-columnists. I dunno, though, if the Whites would rally round the Tsarevitch or his sisters, since it was Grand Duke Michael who was chosen as Nicky's successor when he abdicated the throne.

I don't think the Whites would "rally" around any member of the Imperial family. Rather they would take the position they took in OTL: that the future form of government of Russia would have to be decided later by a constituent assembly. [1] The reason they took this position is simple: "As Denikin wrote in one of his letters, 'If I raise the republican flag, I lose half my volunteers, and if I raise the monarchist flag, I lose the other half. But we have to save Russia.' For this reason, the army's slogan was not any specific form of government, but 'great Russia, one and indivisible.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=NAZm2EdxKqkC&pg=PA209

[1] This does not mean the one elected in OTL and dominated by socialists. See https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=8877151&postcount=9 for Kolchak's testimony on this...
 

Tovarich

Banned
Maybe have a selfless sacrifice in which Nicholas gets some maids, dresses them up as the kids, and by the time the Soviets f Nd out and kill him and his wife, the kids are out of Communist hands.
Lovely example of selflessness there, sacrificing a few servants to protect the royal heirs :rolleyes:
 
All of these monarchy-in-exile scenarios are all well and good, but my sense is that had the Romanovs made it out alive, whether by German, British, or Grand Fenwickian hands, they'd become irrelevant in a short time as did the Hohenzollerns (they don't even register on the radar today).

I agree they'd be something of an embarassment wherever they wound up initially (betting on Great Britain or Sweden) and would quickly be shipped off elsewhere. Their best chance of long-term survival would be somewhere other than Europe altogether; perhaps South Africa or Argentina might work. These days, the Romanovs would be not much more than C list celebrities (a great-great-grandson of Nicholas might be notorious for gambling debts; a great-great-granddaughter might make the pages of Penthouse after visiting a nude beach, for example) and that's about it.
 
All of these monarchy-in-exile scenarios are all well and good, but my sense is that had the Romanovs made it out alive, whether by German, British, or Grand Fenwickian hands, they'd become irrelevant in a short time as did the Hohenzollerns (they don't even register on the radar today).

I agree they'd be something of an embarassment wherever they wound up initially (betting on Great Britain or Sweden) and would quickly be shipped off elsewhere. Their best chance of long-term survival would be somewhere other than Europe altogether; perhaps South Africa or Argentina might work. These days, the Romanovs would be not much more than C list celebrities (a great-great-grandson of Nicholas might be notorious for gambling debts; a great-great-granddaughter might make the pages of Penthouse after visiting a nude beach, for example) and that's about it.
Agree; honestly, the only thing that draws me to this particular topic is trying to imagine who the princesses end up marrying, and what kind of material they and their descendants provide to the gossip columnists.
 
If there is a WW2 then would the Czar then be a focal point for expats to rally and try and take back their country? Some expats worked with the Nazis and fought against Stalin, perhaps Hitler opts to use that to fight Stalin with the goal of betraying the expats later?

Absolutely not. To the Nazis, subhumans were subhumans, royalty or no. To add to that, Hitler was extremely contemptuous of monarchy. If the Nazis win they get murdered with all the other Slavs. Now that I think of it, that would be ridiculously tragic irony; to escape one totalitarian dictatorship only to be killed by another.
 
Agree; honestly, the only thing that draws me to this particular topic is trying to imagine who the princesses end up marrying, and what kind of material they and their descendants provide to the gossip columnists.

Good point. Could you, for example, imagine (let's say) John F. Kennedy being somehow smitten with a granddaughter instead of Jacqueline Bouvier? That might be one of the less far-fetched ways in which such an escape might affect US history: no idea how the electorate in, say, 1960 would go for a potential First Lady who happened to be the granddaughter of a deposed monarch.

I can also see the front cover of Penthouse in, say, 1997, 80 years after the escape: PRINCESS TATIANA NUDE: Last Tsar's Great-Granddaughter Strips and Spreads

Wouldn't the tabloids have fun with that? And wouldn't the magazine sell out, especially if she had the style / appearance of some of the latter-day royalty like that of Spain?
 
Absolutely not. To the Nazis, subhumans were subhumans, royalty or no. To add to that, Hitler was extremely contemptuous of monarchy. If the Nazis win they get murdered with all the other Slavs. Now that I think of it, that would be ridiculously tragic irony; to escape one totalitarian dictatorship only to be killed by another.
Ever after Peter the Great, the Romanov heirs always married German princesses, so that Nicholas II was 63/64th German by ancestry. That would be quite enough to get him and especially his family classified as German even by the Nazis.
 
Ever after Peter the Great, the Romanov heirs always married German princesses, so that Nicholas II was 63/64th German by ancestry. That would be quite enough to get him and especially his family classified as German even by the Nazis.

Be that as it may, but that 1/64th may be all that would be needed for Hitler and friends to condemn a Romanov.
 
Be that as it may, but that 1/64th may be all that would be needed for Hitler and friends to condemn a Romanov.
If their criteria was that strict, they would have to throw out a lot of their own. Even the SS I believe didn't have such difficult requirements.
Of course, the discussion is academic, since Hitler would never allow the Romanovs to assume any leading role in Russia because he was not interested in there being a Russia ever again. They might use him for propaganda, though.
 
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