WI: Empress Helene d'Orleans of Russia, wife of Nicholas II?

[Emperor Constantine]

So I've recently rekindled my interest in late Imperial Russia and found out that Princesse Helene d'Orleans, daughter of Prince Philippe Comte de Paris and Orleans pretender to France, was the main pick of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Marie Feodorovna as a wife for the future Nicholas II. Odviously he went against them and picked Alix of Hesse, the future Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. This would, in my opinion, prove to be a disaster. Alexandra isolated the Emperor from both his family and the nobility, not to mention the people. The fact that she was heavily under the influence of Rasputin didn't help either. Or the fact that the only son she produced had hemophilia. Now I'm not saying that she was the reason for the Russian revolution or anything like that but I do believe that her actions and non actions help contribute fuel to the fire.

So what if Nicholas II had bowed to his parents will and married Helene d'Orleans? What changes would a French liberal raised Empress bring to Russia? Besides the obvious exclusion of hemophilia from the Imperial family I mean. Would she be enough to influence Nicholas II to move away form absolutism and toward a more stable Constitutional Monarchy? Or would this mean nothing in the long run? Also, how would this marriage effect France? With the daughter of the Pretender to their throne being married to their closest ally, would there be a revival of Monarchism in France? Would the republic be replaced by a Fourth Kingdom? Or would there be no change whatsoever?

 

[highwayhoss]

Well, removing Alexandra (a neurotic hypochondriac) and that trickster Rasputin from the scene would certainly help, considering how deeply they influenced Nicholas II. Maybe Helene D'Orleans' influence would mean that Nicholas II is more engaged in running his country and takes more action to head off the Revolution.

One question: I was reading an article on Rasputin's death (he was NOT killed by Russian nobles but by an agent of British Intelligence) and it mentioned how both the Tsar and Tsarina were heavy drug users. Did Helene D'Orleans have any history of drug use? If she could keep Nicholas away from the marijuana and cocaine, that would be a BIG help right there.

As for France, Helene D'Orleans would certainly help bring the two nations closer together; as for the effect on France, I do not really know enough to comment on that

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

But would Nicholas II still be a bit incompetent that earned the title "Idiot Nicky" if Helene d'Orleans married him though?

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Well, removing Alexandra (a neurotic hypochondriac) and that trickster Rasputin from the scene would certainly help, considering how deeply they influenced Nicholas II. Maybe Helene D'Orleans' influence would mean that Nicholas II is more engaged in running his country and takes more action to head off the Revolution.

One question: I was reading an article on Rasputin's death (he was NOT killed by Russian nobles but by an agent of British Intelligence) and it mentioned how both the Tsar and Tsarina were heavy drug users. Did Helene D'Orleans have any history of drug use? If she could keep Nicholas away from the marijuana and cocaine, that would be a BIG help right there.

As for France, Helene D'Orleans would certainly help bring the two nations closer together; as for the effect on France, I do not really know enough to comment on that

Thats what I was thinking. Nicholas II had had an innate believe that he was not prepared to rule and with Alexandra isolating him from his family and government it kind of reinforces that idea. Hopefully Helene would be a more positive influence.

As for the article you read, I've never heard of anything like that being true or read any idea similar in an accredited source. It sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory.

For France, I suppose that could go either way.

But would Nicholas II still be a bit incompetent that earned the title "Idiot Nicky" if Helene d'Orleans married him though?

IDK. Nicholas II wasn't totally incompetent he just had no real confidence in himself. I feel that Alexandra, unconsciously, encouraged that in him and left him very indecisive. It reminds me a bit of Louis XVI in all honesty.

 

[highwayhoss]

As for the article you read, I've never heard of anything like that being true or read any idea similar in an accredited source. It sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory.

The article in question was from the book "Loose Cannons" by Graeme Donald.

Also mentioned in the Wikipedia under "recent evidence": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin#Recent_evidence

 

[katchen]

Or Shah Mohamas Reza Pahlavi

 

[BBadolato]

No Alexandra will go a very long way, without her you won't have a possibility of hemophilia in any children and you won't get someone superstitious enough to believe in people Monsieur Philippe and Rasputin.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

The article in question was from the book "Loose Cannons" by Graeme Donald.

Also mentioned in the Wikipedia under "recent evidence": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin#Recent_evidence

And you notice that every cite either says unreliable source or cite needed.

Or Shah Mohamas Reza Pahlavi

I assume you mean Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who didn't gain power unil 1921 and didn't become Shah until 1925? Very unlikely.

Can we have an actual debate about the topic and not go to conspiracy theory's that have nothing to do with the topic.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

So what will be the nickname for Nicholas II if he became a bit more incompetent? How will this affect Russia up to and including WWI?

 

[Emperor Constantine]

So what will be the nickname for Nicholas II if he became a bit more incompetent? How will this affect Russia up to and including WWI?

Um I think you mean competent. IDK on nicknames but really it depends, at least in my opinion, on how Russia handles the 1905 revolution. If that revolution can create a real Constitutional Monarchy then maybe the 1917 revolution wouldn't occur. However, with, what 20 years, separating the marriage og Nicholas and Helene and the start of WWI the war might not even happen, with a more competent Emperor at the helm or with the Emperor having better advisors.

 

[katchen]

I menat Reza Shah's son who was overthrwon in 1979. Reza Shah was far more competent than his son Mohamas.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Bump. Any other thoughts?

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

Would the Russo-Japanese War even occur if Nicholas II had better advisers if he married Helene d'Orleans?

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Would the Russo-Japanese War even occur if Nicholas II had better advisers if he married Helene d'Orleans?

Thats up for debate. On one hand better advisors might not encourage an interest in Korea and eastern Asia. But Russia was awarded Port Arthur at the expense of Japan. So Japan might try to take it.

 

[mcdnab]

Marie Feodorovna favoured Helene in part because she thought it would encourage and strengthen the Franco Russian Alliance.
Neither her nor her husband were keen on Alix for reasons that have never been properly explained.
However the real question is whether Helene would have been allowed to marry Nicholas.
Her father and the Pope had vetoed her love match with Marie's nephew Albert Victor Duke of Clarence (despite Queen Victoria supporting the match) because she would have had to convert to Anglicanism.
Whether the Pope and Orleans would allow her to convert to Orthodoxy is a question.
Nicholas himself already believed himself in love with Alix of Hesse - say she vanished from the picture then it is more likely he will be guided by his parents views.

To be fair Nicholas didn't consider himself unfit to rule - though arguably he was certainly ill prepared - given Alexander III's reluctance to allow politics to impinge on his happy family life.

A different wife, one more like his social mother for example, might have enabled him to build better relations with his immediate family (his father's strong will had enabled him to control the extended Romanov family and their rivalries far better than Nicholas who disliked confrontation).

Also if a new wife produced a healthy male heir early then it would have reduced the courts reliance on mystics, fraudsters etc.

However Nicholas' determination to reign as an autocrat like his father and his personal distaste for the idea of a constitutional monarchy was not changed by his marriage to Alix of Hesse nor is it likely to change by marrying Helene.

Marrying someone able to get on better with his mother might help him in terms of listening more to his mother who was by and large sensible.
in otl they would frequently reduce each other to tears as his mother berated him for not getting rid of Rasputin etc according to one of their relations.
That might have helped in terms of political stability however Marie was often torn between the autocratic ways of her husband and the more liberal monarchys of her father (Denmark) and her brother in law(Britian). It was usually said that when abroad she was far more liberal in her advice to Nicholas than when she was back in Russia - and she was noticeably upset at the inauguration of the Duma after the 1905 revolution.

Alix (or Alexandra Feodorovna as she became) was certainly badly affected by her health and her son's illness - it brought out some of her worst characteristics and had a damaging effect on the dynasty and Nicholas in particular.

Nicholas personally was largely responsible for how badly he handled his government - unwilling to bend, sometimes indecisive, reluctant to devolve authority etc. He was also unlucky that events sped up the need for some form of change.

 

[JonasResende]

I read that Marie Feodorovna and Queen Alexandra's Germanophobia was based on Prussia's seizure of Schlswig-Holstein. It would also lead to awkwardness when Alexandra's sister-in-law Helena married Christian of Schleswig-Holstein after Alexandra remarked "he's no duke. Those duchies belong to Pappa (Christian IX)."

Alexandra also wasn't in favor of Eddy marrying the original match proposed by Queen Victoria of one of the German princesses (can't remember if it was Margarethe or Viktoria). She finally settled on Mary of Teck because while German, she had been raised in England.

Also, whether as a result of two failed engagements (or two crowns) or if she was inclined to intrigue before this, Helene spent her marriage to the Duke of Aosta scheming/intriguing for him to either become king of Italy or king of somewhere else. If it was in her nature, Russia would have a intrigante for tsarina such as it hadn't had since Ekaterina II.

 

[DrakeRlugia]

I don't know if the marriage would work. Prince Albert Victor, Edward VII's eldest son wanted to marry her, but conversion was required. Helene was willing to convert, but her father refused to allow her, nor did the Pope.

She'd probably have the same issue if she wanted to marry Nicholas; she might be willing to convert but her father and the Pope probably will not allow it.

 

[Dr. Waterhouse]

I don't think a different choice of empress saves imperial Russia. In the end, the structural imbalances are too great between a heavily industrialized modern economy and a ruling ideology that could only make sense (to the extent it ever did) in a feudal autocracy. Nicholas II relied on legal theories in which he was the actual owner of the Russian people. And of course the extreme concentration of wealth that this primitive system of government allowed was destined, I think, for some kind of catastrophic break.

Finally, just as there is a disparity between the way Russia's rulers imagined the country and the way the country actually was, there was disparity between the expectations the Russian military had for World War I and what was actually possible given where the Russian military was in terms of technological development and modernization (I've read about them lacking sufficient numbers of trucks, for instance).

To a big extent, Nicky is in a fantasy world at the start of World War I, and part of that fantasy world was even the belief that God would tell him directly the right things to do (this is in Figes).

Perhaps the only way the presence of Helene d'Orleans could solve all these problems and transform Russia dramatically enough to avert an existential crisis would be for her to take as her model that greatest of Russian consorts, Sophie Frederike of Anhalt-Zerbst, and do as Sophie did, and be as lucky, and succeed as well. Which is not likely.

I much prefer a timeline in which there is a different Emperor entirely at the time the first World War happens, or having on hand a successor capable of engineering desperate reforms when it becomes obvious the existing system cannot survive and Nicholas abdicates.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

I don't think a different choice of empress saves imperial Russia. In the end, the structural imbalances are too great between a heavily industrialized modern economy and a ruling ideology that could only make sense (to the extent it ever did) in a feudal autocracy. Nicholas II relied on legal theories in which he was the actual owner of the Russian people. And of course the extreme concentration of wealth that this primitive system of government allowed was destined, I think, for some kind of catastrophic break.

Finally, just as there is a disparity between the way Russia's rulers imagined the country and the way the country actually was, there was disparity between the expectations the Russian military had for World War I and what was actually possible given where the Russian military was in terms of technological development and modernization (I've read about them lacking sufficient numbers of trucks, for instance).

To a big extent, Nicky is in a fantasy world at the start of World War I, and part of that fantasy world was even the belief that God would tell him directly the right things to do (this is in Figes).

Perhaps the only way the presence of Helene d'Orleans could solve all these problems and transform Russia dramatically enough to avert an existential crisis would be for her to take as her model that greatest of Russian consorts, Sophie Frederike of Anhalt-Zerbst, and do as Sophie did, and be as lucky, and succeed as well. Which is not likely.

I much prefer a timeline in which there is a different Emperor entirely at the time the first World War happens, or having on hand a successor capable of engineering desperate reforms when it becomes obvious the existing system cannot survive and Nicholas abdicates.

I think your really underestimating just how much damage Alexandra Feodrovona actually did. We all know Nicholas II wasn't prepared to be Tsar. Hell Nicholas himself admitted as much. We also know his governing style couldn't last long term in a 20th century Nation. Also there's about 20 years between Nicholas's ascension to the throne and WWI so with such a POD there's no guarantee that WWI would still happen or if it does that it would be the same as OTL. But lets look at the damage Alexandra did. First she was a hemophiliac carrier, which led to the only heir being born with the bleeding disease. Thanks to that the Empress was desperate to save her son, leading her to falling under the influence of Rasputin, and we all know how destructive his association with the throne was. Then fast foward to WWI, when she was essentially Empress Regent. She and Rasputin dismissed anyone who argued or disagreed with them, leading to incompetents filling the vacant military and government slots. Also she was as firm a believer in Russian Autocracy as Nicholas. Hell possibly even more then him. For every blunder Nicholas made she was there to reenforce it by telling him he was right. Then finally Alexandra isolated the Emperor from his family, the nobility and eventually the peasants, helping to lead to the Revolution.

Without Alexandra at least half of the problems could be avoided. We won't get a British model in Russia by any means but we might see a German model, power wise.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

I don't know if the marriage would work. Prince Albert Victor, Edward VII's eldest son wanted to marry her, but conversion was required. Helene was willing to convert, but her father refused to allow her, nor did the Pope.

She'd probably have the same issue if she wanted to marry Nicholas; she might be willing to convert but her father and the Pope probably will not allow it.

Well if she was being seriously considered by Alexander III and Marie Feodorovna then the Comte de Paris would have no doubt have been consulted. I can't imagine that the Emperor and Empress would do all that work, convincing Nicholas to marry Helene only for it to fall thew because of religion. Remember that Russia and France were very close ally's at the time so perhaps the Comte would see the benefits of such a marriage, especially if the French Republic unofficially supported the match. Maybe a deal, with Helene marrying Nicholas and the French revoking the Royal exile law?