WI: George V doesn’t turn his back on his Romanoff cousins and grants them asylum in Britain?

Britain was originally going to grant asylum to Nicholas Romanoff (former Tsar of Russia), and his family, but the cowardly and spineless George V refused because he was worried about his own popularity and wealth. This despite the fact that they were first cousins and had a good relationship, and George V knew that in refusing, he was condemning them to a near-certain death.

What if George V grew a pair and did the right thing and stood up for his cousins?

Would this lead to a Western-backed attempt to restore the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Russia?
 
Britain was originally going to grant asylum to Nicholas Romanoff (former Tsar of Russia), and his family, but the cowardly and spineless George V refused because he was worried about his own popularity and wealth. This despite the fact that they were first cousins and had a good relationship, and George V knew that in refusing, he was condemning them to a near-certain death.

What if George V grew a pair and did the right thing and stood up for his cousins?

Would this lead to a Western-backed attempt to restore the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Russia?
I doubt very much if he did grow a pair, (in your words and appropriate), and he granted them asylum, that there would have been a restoration of the Romanov's in Russia. Things were very much out of hand in Russia, the only ones seemingly organized were the Bolsheviks, and even if there as to be a restoration, I don't see any provisional Russian government inviting back Nicholas II. Perhaps his brother, Michael, had he not been killed, or an adult Alexis, of course Nicholas did abdicate for him as well.
 
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I doubt very much if he did grow a pair, (in your words and appropriate), and he granted them asylum, that there would have been a restoration of Romanav's in Russia. Things were very much out of hand in Russia, the only ones seemingly organized were the Bolsheviks, and even if there as to be a restoration, I don't see Russia inviting back Nicholas II. Perhaps his brother, Michael, had he not been killed, or Alexis as an adult, of course Nicholas did abdicated for him as well.

You’re probably right. I do think that George’s abandonment of “Cousin Nicky” and his family is one of the more disgraceful moments in 20th century history.
 
An old post of mine:

***

I have never seen a less important question (politically [1]) get so much attention as that of the fate of the Romanovs after their overthrow.

One thing that a lot of people don't seem to understand is that as of 1917-18 monarchism was not very popular among even anti-Bolshevik Russians. Indeed, it was precisely the murder of the Imperial Family that made them heroes to the Whites; a living Nicholas Romanov would probably be more of an embarrassment than a blessing to them. (BTW, to show how out of touch the Imperial Family was about current politics, their greatest fear was that Nicholas would be coerced by the Bolsheviks into approving Brest-Litovsk!)

The fact is that not a single White government during the Russian Civil War ever proclaimed restoration of the monarchy as a political objective. (Their official position was always that the form of government of a future Russia would have to be decided by a Constituent Assembly.) "In the civil war none of the White leaders, whatever their private views, called for the restoration of the monarchy because they knew that to do so would be to jeopardize public support for their cause." https://books.google.com/books?id=CDMVMqDvp4QC&pg=PA28

"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

As I have suggested before: If the Bolshevik leaders were smart, they would allow--or rather force--Nicholas to flee abroad and then claim that he (along with foreign governments) was masterminding every anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia (including Left SRs and Anarchists) and for that matter all oppositionist movements within the Bolshevik party. (In the show trials of the 1930's, ex-Trotskyists and "Rightists" confess to their recent contacts with the exiled Tsar..)

Seriously, did Lenin really think the Romanovs were a political danger in 1918? I doubt it. I agree with Adam Ulam when he writes in The Bolsheviks:

"As to the real motivation behind Lenin's decision one must refer to his curious historical sense. Even before the Bolsheviks took over he had complained petulantly that the English and French revolutions executed their monarchs, and that the Russian one was being terribly backward in that respect. The same note was struck by Lenin after the executions: "In England and France they executed their Tsars some centuries ago but we were late with ours," he said in an appropriately homely language, speaking to the Congress of the Committees of Poor Peasants. 55 Yet another symptom of Russia's cultural backwardness.

"That he [Lenin] was genuinely worried about any political influence the ex-Emperor might exert if freed, is extremely unlikely. The rationalization given by Trotsky simply does not fit the facts of Russia in 1918. He writes: "The execution of the Tsar's family was needed not only to frighten, horrify and dishearten the enemy, but also in order to shake up our own ranks." Yet to Lenin the Tsar was "idiot Romanov," [2] a person politically of no consequence...If anything, the physical presence of the ex-Emperor in the Whites' camp would have been an embarrassment to them and a political asset to the Bolsheviks. Why then did Lenin sanction the execution? Partly it was his historic sense of which we spoke above, and partly (here Trotsky's account is closer to the mark) for the effect it would have upon his own followers. Lenin was forever complaining to Trotsky, "Russians are too kind . . . lazybones, softies." Even the old terrorist tradition had elements of the "softness"; an assassin would often go to great lengths and run additional danger to avoid harming women and children, who found themselves in the vicinity of his intended victim. The murder of the Tsar and his family was probably thought to be a good lesson "that one does not enter the realm of revolution with white gloves and on a polished floor.."

Of course Charles I and Louis XVI had at least been given trials before their executions. Ulam writes, "The revolutionary etiquette would have required a great trial-demonstration, in which after a recital of the Emperor's iniquities the Russian people would duly send him to the scaffold. Trotsky in his recollections relates that he proposed such a trial to Lenin and that he, Trotsky, fancied himself as the public prosecutor.54 Lenin refused, pleading shortage of time. But no doubt he would have refused in any case: there was other business to be attended to in this summer of 1918 and Trotsky's proposal smacked of theatricality, which was entirely alien to his [Lenin's] nature. Most of all, he must have realized (and how strange that Trotsky did not) that from the Communist point of view Nicholas II would have made a very poor prisoner in the dock: his very lack of intelligence combined with his dignity and Christian resignation would have made him an object of pity rather than of popular indignation. Indeed, the former Emperor, an abject failure while on the throne, displayed while prisoner the kind of fortitude and equanimity that moved even his jailers..." Anyway, the approach of the Whites to Yekaterinburg made the question of a trial moot.

Maybe instead of asking why the Bolsheviks killed the Imperial Family, it would make more sense to ask why they should be expected not to--or to put it another way, why should the Red Terror, which claimed so many victims among people with unsatisfactory (to the Bolsheviks) "class origins" have been expected to *exempt* the Imperial Family?

[1] Not of course that I don't recognize the human tragedy. To quote the émigré poet Georgii Ivanov:

Emalevyi krestik v petlitse
I seroi tuzhurki sukno…
Kakie pechal’nye litsa
I kak eto bylo davno.

Kakie prekrasnye litsa
I kak beznadezhno bledny –
Naslednik, imperatritsa,
Chetyre velikikh kniazhny…

Not-quite-literal translation, quoted from memory from Markov and Sparks, *Modern Russian Poetry*:

Enameled cross in the buttonhole,
The grey fabric of his coat,
How very sad the faces,
And the era--how remote.

What lovely faces, and yet how pale
In utter hopelessness-–
The Tsarevich, the Empress,
The four Grand Duchesses…

There's a reading of this poem at
See http://www.thenabokovian.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NABOKV-L-0026476___body.html for another translation.

[2] Lenin to the Moscow Soviet in March, 1918, defending Brest-Litovsk: "It was one thing to struggle with that idiot Romanov or that boaster [Ulam's own translation is "windbag"] Kerensky, but here we have an enemy [Germany] which has organised all its forces and the economic life of its country for defence against the revolution." https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/12.htm
 
You’re probably right. I do think that George’s abandonment of “Cousin Nicky” and his family is one of the more disgraceful moments in 20th century history.
I have, in recent years become a less of a fan of George V. (for many reasons not just his abandonment of his cousin on a purely family and humanitarian reasons). Many try to paint him as someone who saved the monarchy after his rogue father, (who did a good job by the way), and to justify his becoming king because his elder brother died prematurely thrusting him into his place. (I am still not convinced that Albert Victor was as bad as some have tried to paint him especially as many of the faults he is supposed to have had were also said about younger brother George in the same sentence.) I did read somewhere however, that Albert Victor would have been likely to save the Tsar and his family had he lived long enough to reign. But, history is what it is. But still do not believe there would have been a restoration, and if there was, it would not have been Nicholas II.
 
By the way, I have all often wondered why didn't neutral Denmark, with other maternal first cousin King Christian X on the throne offer him asylum?
 
By the way, I have all often wondered why didn't neutral Denmark, with other maternal first cousin King Christian X on the throne offer him asylum?

Both George and Nicholas are closer to the Danish and thus each other, but I understood that Nicholas was friends with Wilhelm despite both mothers hating the Germans and Wilhelm. So my off-track question for the obvious alternatives are what happens if Germany is not defeated? First, does the Provisional Government hole up the Imperial Family and go on to salvage the peace, and here the Romanovs still leave the country? Next, if a revolution still breaks out do the Romanovs still come under threat and seek asylum? And most unusual, does Wilhelm extend asylum to Nicholas if he still has a place in Germany? My concern is that Nicholas is simply too foolish to not stay, but if we get a revolution and a surviving monarchy in Germany or A-H, why not go there? Would that move England? With enough danger do we get the weird result of the Romanovs saved? Weirder still in Berlin?
 
Both George and Nicholas are closer to the Danish and thus each other, but I understood that Nicholas was friends with Wilhelm despite both mothers hating the Germans and Wilhelm. So my off-track question for the obvious alternatives are what happens if Germany is not defeated? First, does the Provisional Government hole up the Imperial Family and go on to salvage the peace, and here the Romanovs still leave the country? Next, if a revolution still breaks out do the Romanovs still come under threat and seek asylum? And most unusual, does Wilhelm extend asylum to Nicholas if he still has a place in Germany? My concern is that Nicholas is simply too foolish to not stay, but if we get a revolution and a surviving monarchy in Germany or A-H, why not go there? Would that move England? With enough danger do we get the weird result of the Romanovs saved? Weirder still in Berlin?
Find it hard to believe that Wilhelm II will be of any help. consolation, or trusted by the Tsar, after all, it was his government and military that secretly brings Lenin to Russia.
 
Britain was originally going to grant asylum to Nicholas Romanoff (former Tsar of Russia), and his family, but the cowardly and spineless George V refused because he was worried about his own popularity and wealth. This despite the fact that they were first cousins and had a good relationship, and George V knew that in refusing, he was condemning them to a near-certain death.

What if George V grew a pair and did the right thing and stood up for his cousins?

Would this lead to a Western-backed attempt to restore the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Russia?

Are you saying the British Monarch should go against his government's advice, causing a constitutional crisis?
 
Most of all, he must have realized (and how strange that Trotsky did not) that from the Communist point of view Nicholas II would have made a very poor prisoner in the dock: his very lack of intelligence combined with his dignity and Christian resignation would have made him an object of pity rather than of popular indignation.

It wasn't as if Charles and Louis were particularly bright either. And the question is less about what the Bolsheviks did with him, and more about what would have happened if he'd gone to Britain.

Anyway, to answer the question, George V was acting on the advice of his Private Secretary. Quite apart from that, the Labour Party, a major chunk of the Liberals, and the large swathes of the public saw Nicholas (not without reason) as a tyrant. That's a pretty broad spread of opinion, in a setting where Britain is fighting a massive war, and where the Establishment all across Europe is starting to wobble. Letting the Romanovs into Britain would have painted a great big political target all over the British Establishment.
 
It wasn't as if Charles and Louis were particularly bright either. And the question is less about what the Bolsheviks did with him, and more about what would have happened if he'd gone to Britain.

Anyway, to answer the question, George V was acting on the advice of his Private Secretary. Quite apart from that, the Labour Party, a major chunk of the Liberals, and the large swathes of the public saw Nicholas (not without reason) as a tyrant. That's a pretty broad spread of opinion, in a setting where Britain is fighting a massive war, and where the Establishment all across Europe is starting to wobble. Letting the Romanovs into Britain would have painted a great big political target all over the British Establishment.

The British Establishment did not like Nicholas that much either, if my memory is correct.
 
And the question is less about what the Bolsheviks did with him, and more about what would have happened if he'd gone to Britain.

Anyway, to answer the question, George V was acting on the advice of his Private Secretary. Quite apart from that, the Labour Party, a major chunk of the Liberals, and the large swathes of the public saw Nicholas (not without reason) as a tyrant. That's a pretty broad spread of opinion, in a setting where Britain is fighting a massive war, and where the Establishment all across Europe is starting to wobble. Letting the Romanovs into Britain would have painted a great big political target all over the British Establishment.

I am really more interested in the effects on Russian politics if the Tsar went into exile in Great Britain. And my conclusion is that there would be none at all, except that maybe it would be a bit of an advantage to the Bolsheviks, since they could portray the Tsar as a British puppet whom the Whites (despite their official position that they were not pre-judging the form of government) were going to restore to the throne. And of course after the Bolsheviks win, all their opposition (including Left SR's and Anarchists) will be portrayed as tools of the British and the Tsar, and in the 1930's all purged Communists would be accused of being in league with the British and the exiled Tsar...

(After all, the OP asks whether there would be to a "Western-backed attempt to restore the Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Russia" and my point is that the West would have to be crazy to seek to restore the Tsar, given the unpopularity of the Tsar even among anti-Bolsheviks and the refusal of any White leader to come out publicly for the restoration of the monarchy. Indeed, as I noted, it was precisely the killing of the Tsar and the Imperial Family that made them heroes to the Whites--a live Tsar, exiled or not, would have been an embarrassment.)
 
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We’d probably see something similar to the Hozerhollens in the Netherlands. Bunch of former kings ruminating about the “good old days” over whiskey and cigars. By the time of the revolution the monarchy was a jenga tower on the verge of collapse. The peasantry and military hated the tsar for his bumbling during both the First World War and the Russo-Japanese War, as well as his incompetence in handling domestic issues. Only the nobility kind of like Nicky, and that was just barely.
 
What if they decided to only kill Nicholas after a show trail and send the Tsarevich along with his mother and sisters into exile? How would that effect politics and the future of the Romanovs, especially considering the Tsarevich his health.
 
It wasn't as if Charles and Louis were particularly bright either. And the question is less about what the Bolsheviks did with him, and more about what would have happened if he'd gone to Britain.

Anyway, to answer the question, George V was acting on the advice of his Private Secretary. Quite apart from that, the Labour Party, a major chunk of the Liberals, and the large swathes of the public saw Nicholas (not without reason) as a tyrant. That's a pretty broad spread of opinion, in a setting where Britain is fighting a massive war, and where the Establishment all across Europe is starting to wobble. Letting the Romanovs into Britain would have painted a great big political target all over the British Establishment.

Would this have really been the case? After all, Britain had granted asylum to deposed monarchs before (Napoleon III and Manuel II come to mind) with little fuss. What would make the Romanovs different?
 
Would this have really been the case? After all, Britain had granted asylum to deposed monarchs before (Napoleon III and Manuel II come to mind) with little fuss. What would make the Romanovs different?
This would have shown the real character of Britain. It was fine being an ally of the tsar, and then Revolution and he is not a such a good guy after all. Yea I know they may have not felt he was such a good guy before, but as long as they promised half of the Central Powers land to stay in the war he was okay, then "poof." Not so nice now.
 
Find it hard to believe that Wilhelm II will be of any help. consolation, or trusted by the Tsar, after all, it was his government and military that secretly brings Lenin to Russia.

While I do believe Lenin was an agent for Germany, his transport and his money coming from them, indeed I suspect the "revolutionary" press before he arrived was getting German gold to undermine morale, but Lenin is only employed as the war dragged deeply into stalemate, a scenario not out of the question in a "victorious" Central Powers alternate timeline, but my thought was that the war having gone just enough better and without the USA entering after 1916 uts the CPs in an undefeated (not undamaged) position. In that the PG seeks a truce, without American aid and the war unwinnable Nicholas is forced to abdicate by the one consensus in Russia, he is the liability. If the PG can negotiate a separate peace I do not think it is as harsh as B-L, humiliating but not more so than was the Russo-Japanese War, the territory lost is that in German/Austrian hands and mostly restive minorities who can be surrendered. Now I do have my doubts the PG can eek peace and retain power long without a counter-coup, but niether right or left really was behind the Tsar. So here Nicholas is off the throne in a very unstable Russia.

Wilhelm was a dynasist who believed in monarchy, his actual grip on power would still be weak, highly symbolic, but an important symbol in an undefeated Germany, the bulwark against an extreme right and a pivot for the left, so I think he can influence things if not actually command them. I think he would try to help Nicholas, his letters do show a kinship he felt was true, to him the war was like those of old, a chess game, the kings simply play a game and their world goes on. Now we know that was not really true but for Wilhelm I do believe the loyalty towards his fellow monarchs was personal and above politics. But could or would he grant asylum to the Romanovs?

In my own drafting I do not follow it, I have them overtaken by the revolutionary fires still set by a frustrated and desperate Germany. I still consign them to the tragic pages of history. But I could conceive of events where Nicholas and family escape, likely through Finland or Ukraine, and Wilhelm intercedes enough to get them beyond the revolution. Germany might still have a working relationship with Lenin so the Romanovs cannot simply be ensconced in a palace outside Berlin, thus I would plagiarize history, send them to Denmark to mirror how Wilhelm ends in the Netherlands. Contrived but plausible.
 
George V could have kept asylum for the Romanovs low key. I am thinking the first stop would be to have Nicholas and his family be guests at the British Embassy in Denmark. Next the family could be brought to Great Britain quietly. No visits to Buckingham Palace. The Romanovs could be hidden away at Balmoral. After the Armistice the family could be returned to Denmark or shipped off to Palestine with Alexandria’s sister Elisabeth.Elisabeth could serve as a Nun in the Church of Mary Magdalene where she was buried OTL.
 
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