WI: Nicholas II killed in Japan?

When Nicholas II was visiting Japan in 1891 he was attacked by a Japanese police officer wielding a samurai sword. The sword cut him deep and gave him headaches for the rest of his life, but what if it killed him. Who would be the next heir and would they be ready when Alexander III died 1894? Would they be able to handle the First World War better, if they get involved at all? What about staying in power?
 
Next on line is Nicholas' younger brother Georgi. But problem with him was that him had bad health nad died in OTL on end of 1890's so he wouldn't be czar very long. His bad health would cause that all administration would be practically on hands of reactionary and nationalist groups. After czar George I would be youngest son of Alexander III Michael. He was conservative but smarter than grand duke Nicholas. So he might be able to push some reforms but another thing is can he make enough in time. Czar Michael II might be able to handle problems better so WW1 might go bit better than in OTL and it is possible avoid revolution.
 
Next on line is Nicholas' younger brother Georgi. But problem with him was that him had bad health nad died in OTL on end of 1890's so he wouldn't be czar very long. His bad health would cause that all administration would be practically on hands of reactionary and nationalist groups. After czar George I would be youngest son of Alexander III Michael. He was conservative but smarter than grand duke Nicholas. So he might be able to push some reforms but another thing is can he make enough in time. Czar Michael II might be able to handle problems better so WW1 might go bit better than in OTL and it is possible avoid revolution.

Wouldn't Juri/George have a higher regnal number? I think there were one or two Grand Princes named Juri as well. And considering that there was a rumor doing the rounds after his death that Juri had married (in secret) TWICE! And had kids, two daughters and a son ( the woman in whose arms he died was rumored to be his second wife, and the boy with her George's son, for instance), we might see a regency. And as long as he keeps away from Alix of Hesse he should be fine. Who would you suggest him marrying?
 
Wouldn't Juri/George have a higher regnal number? I think there were one or two Grand Princes named Juri as well. And considering that there was a rumor doing the rounds after his death that Juri had married (in secret) TWICE! And had kids, two daughters and a son ( the woman in whose arms he died was rumored to be his second wife, and the boy with her George's son, for instance), we might see a regency. And as long as he keeps away from Alix of Hesse he should be fine. Who would you suggest him marrying?

If these rumors are true, marriage is probably morganatic which effectively bar boy rising to throne.
 
If these rumors are true, marriage is probably morganatic which effectively bar boy rising to throne.

One of the wives was a Princess Nakachidze (cousin of the Countess Zarkenau, wife of Konstantin of Oldenburg. " The marriage was contracted in defiance of his brother's commands and his mother's entreaties. The Emperor [Alexander III] as the doctors had expressed the conviction that he [George] could not live many years, refrained from inflicting upon him those penalties of banishment and publc deprivation of rank and honors that fall to the share of members of the imperial house rendering themselves guilty of disobedience of this kind to the sovereign".

Now, there's no reason that George couldn't publish an ukaz that the marriage ISN'T morganatic and his kids are going to come to the throne. It'll cause a repeat of Alexander II's marriage to Princess Dolgorukova in the family; but Mikhail "Misha" wanted to marry Baby Bee of Edinburgh and Nicky forbade it because he was Bee's first cousin. If George agrees to it, he can at least count on Misha's support.

Plus, George was his mother's favourite, so I figure she'd bow to the inevitable, even if she doesn't approve.

Lastly, even IF this is just a rumour, it shows that George (even with TB) was capable of siring children. So, if we substitute a European priincess for the Georgian girl, it's no sure thing that we'll see Czar Mikhail II (correction to my previous post: It was two boys and a girl, not a boy and 2 girls)
 
Well it is clear what the rules are - Nicholas, George and Michael in order and legitimate male heirs (followed by uncle Vladimir and his sons and so on)
Nicholas' death comes in this pod before George was diagnosed with initially acute bronchitis and forced to abandon the capital for the warmer climate of Georgia.
Having to move north on his father's death which one assumes happens as in otl will probably finish him off much earlier.
The marriage rumours have never been stood up (which is unusual given that in most cases they became common knowledge at least within the family) - though certainly George's cousin Duke Constantine of Oldenburg and his connections were dodgy in the extreme and the suggestions that his morganatic wife was connected to George's rumoured spouse would be problematic (Georgian nationalism and radicalism)
Even so any marriage without consent and in breach of the family law's would mean the marriage would be void - Alexander III and Nicholas II were both rigid on the issue of marriages by dynasts.

Assuming George's health is as in otl then his father may consider removing him from the succession (though the legality of that would be murky) - more than likely George will refuse the throne due to his health in favour of Michael - however Michael didn't become of age to rule until November 1894 a few months after his father's death - so George might assume the throne as Emperor on the tacit understanding he would abdicate once Michael was capable of ruling without a regent. If Alexander III had decided to name a regent then it is likely he would have named Marie Feodorovna or the next person in line (his brother Vladimir) - if Marie then George will probably renounce his rights on his father's death and Michael will be proclaimed straight away - if Vladimir is named then George may rule until Michael comes of age. Of course George may insist on retaining the throne - though that would offer insecurity a young Emperor not likely to live long followed by a very long regency if he manages to produce a male heir.
Either way Marie is certainly going to spend the late 1890s trying to find a suitable spouse for George and/or Michael - to sure up the succession instability will be the last thing anyone wants.

Her and her sister Alexandra both babied their children well into middle age and their gossip about suitable spouses often resulted in rumours (Michael at one point was engaged to Princess Patricia of Connaught which had to be denied by Buckingham Palace simply because his mother and aunt had been gossiping about possible wives for Michael)

Suggestions amongst the women the two might meet, family connections etc - Marie's influence on her two surviving sons will be far more than she had on Nicholas' choice assuming they don't fall in love - distant cousins first -
Alexandrine Auguste of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (mother a Romanov - minor German state so not too political), Princess Margaret of Connaught and Princess Victoria (Patricia) of Connaught (bit young for George but both a good age for Michael and Edward VII their uncle was keen they married well and both were regarded as very attractive), Alix of Hesse and Rhine, Helena and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (unlikely given the family ill feeling between their father and the Danish Royals), Princess Alice of Albany, Princess Helen of Serbia (after her father successful coup but was brought up by her Montenegrin aunts in Russia) her aunts Xeniya and Vera of Montenegro would also be the right age.

1st Cousins - Marie, Victoria, Alexandra and Beatrice of Saxe Coburg Gotha, Victoria and Maud of Wales, Marie of Greece, Louise and Ingeborg and Thyra of Denmark, Marie Louise and Alexandra and Olga of Hannover and Cumberland, Elena Vladimirovna of Russia

Further afield - you can probably rule out the Catholic nations due to religious issues (George or Michael's wife's will have to convert ahead of the marriage) and Prussia (unless a love match) due to Marie's personal issues with the Kaiser and the Prussian state. There is a bit of a dearth of candidates in the Balkans.

The longer George or Michael waits to marry other candidates will emerge (both domestically and abroad) as younger distant cousins age making them marriageable.
 
Well it is clear what the rules are - Nicholas, George and Michael in order and legitimate male heirs (followed by uncle Vladimir and his sons and so on)
Nicholas' death comes in this pod before George was diagnosed with initially acute bronchitis and forced to abandon the capital for the warmer climate of Georgia.
Having to move north on his father's death which one assumes happens as in otl will probably finish him off much earlier.
The marriage rumours have never been stood up (which is unusual given that in most cases they became common knowledge at least within the family) - though certainly George's cousin Duke Constantine of Oldenburg and his connections were dodgy in the extreme and the suggestions that his morganatic wife was connected to George's rumoured spouse would be problematic (Georgian nationalism and radicalism)
Even so any marriage without consent and in breach of the family law's would mean the marriage would be void - Alexander III and Nicholas II were both rigid on the issue of marriages by dynasts.

Assuming George's health is as in otl then his father may consider removing him from the succession (though the legality of that would be murky) - more than likely George will refuse the throne due to his health in favour of Michael - however Michael didn't become of age to rule until November 1894 a few months after his father's death - so George might assume the throne as Emperor on the tacit understanding he would abdicate once Michael was capable of ruling without a regent. If Alexander III had decided to name a regent then it is likely he would have named Marie Feodorovna or the next person in line (his brother Vladimir) - if Marie then George will probably renounce his rights on his father's death and Michael will be proclaimed straight away - if Vladimir is named then George may rule until Michael comes of age. Of course George may insist on retaining the throne - though that would offer insecurity a young Emperor not likely to live long followed by a very long regency if he manages to produce a male heir.
Either way Marie is certainly going to spend the late 1890s trying to find a suitable spouse for George and/or Michael - to sure up the succession instability will be the last thing anyone wants.

Her and her sister Alexandra both babied their children well into middle age and their gossip about suitable spouses often resulted in rumours (Michael at one point was engaged to Princess Patricia of Connaught which had to be denied by Buckingham Palace simply because his mother and aunt had been gossiping about possible wives for Michael)

Suggestions amongst the women the two might meet, family connections etc - Marie's influence on her two surviving sons will be far more than she had on Nicholas' choice assuming they don't fall in love - distant cousins first -
Alexandrine Auguste of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (mother a Romanov - minor German state so not too political), Princess Margaret of Connaught and Princess Victoria (Patricia) of Connaught (bit young for George but both a good age for Michael and Edward VII their uncle was keen they married well and both were regarded as very attractive), Alix of Hesse and Rhine, Helena and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (unlikely given the family ill feeling between their father and the Danish Royals), Princess Alice of Albany, Princess Helen of Serbia (after her father successful coup but was brought up by her Montenegrin aunts in Russia) her aunts Xeniya and Vera of Montenegro would also be the right age.

1st Cousins - Marie, Victoria, Alexandra and Beatrice of Saxe Coburg Gotha, Victoria and Maud of Wales, Marie of Greece, Louise and Ingeborg and Thyra of Denmark, Marie Louise and Alexandra and Olga of Hannover and Cumberland, Elena Vladimirovna of Russia

Further afield - you can probably rule out the Catholic nations due to religious issues (George or Michael's wife's will have to convert ahead of the marriage) and Prussia (unless a love match) due to Marie's personal issues with the Kaiser and the Prussian state. There is a bit of a dearth of candidates in the Balkans.

The longer George or Michael waits to marry other candidates will emerge (both domestically and abroad) as younger distant cousins age making them marriageable.

George wouldn't have to move north. He could run the country from anywhere. Nicholas once spent 3 months in Hesse Darmstadt while Tsar. If George doesn't want the throne moving up Michael's majority by a couple of months is easy. Uncle Vladimir is never going to be regent as Alexander never trusted his brother

As for spouses:

The Orthodox Church forbids marriages between first cousins

The Pauline laws didn't apply to a Tsar (Michael would argue they didn't apply to the heir to the throne either). In any event, the Tsar was the only one who could interpret the law so his decision is final. He can also change it at will I know Paul decreed that his laws couldn't be changed but a Tsar could just declare that null and void. We know Alexander II was planning to crown the Princess Dolgurkova when he was assissinated

Policy wise its hard to see much difference. Both Michael and George were young and had no developed program. Most likely they would be like Nicholas and follow what they thought their father would have wanted
 
This is an interesting timeline worth exploring. Regardless of who ends up on the throne with Nicholas out of action, you could make a scenario for a better world or a much worse one, depending on your political views of what is better or worse and Russia's role in world affairs.

One of the things that weighs down any rational discussion of Nicholas II as a ruler is of course the tragic nature of his death. It's understandable, after all it's a bit hard to analyze, oh say, OJ Simpson's football career without at least acknowledging, ya know, the double murders. But that tragic death, and the political motivations of his killers and the results of the murder of him, and his entire family, made it quite hard for anyone to calmly discuss just how awful Nicholas was at being a tsar. And even those that condemn his inability to manage a modern state, or an ancient one for that matter, are often quick to point out that he was a nice guy and a wonderful family man, as if afraid to be accused of piling on. Nicholas II was a disaster. Not just because of his wife, or Rasputin, those both of those certainly didn't help. Nicholas II could do bad all by himself, and did it, a lot. He was that lethal combination of stubborn and indecisive you often find in deposed rulers, e.g., Charles I of England.

George, however better he might have been, was not exactly a win either. Oh sure everyone thought he was witty and lovely, but the job he would have been inheriting would not be to his natural strengths. You can be a witty King of England in 1890s, being a witty Tsar in the 1890s... The notion of absolute ruler of something the size and complexity of Russia in the 1890s is absolutely absurd. How can any man even pretend he had a clue of what went on in Russia if he was its ruler? Not even Bill Simmons at his worst could imagine his beloved fascist totem Bill Belichick pulling that job off. So poor witty George, the apple of his mother's eye, would look resplendent in a uniform, make deadpan remarks that would leave ambassadors in stitches, in more than three languages, and still come up empty. If you did not butterfly his TB, then he's dead before whatever is the equivalent of 1905 in TTL. And if he's alive... how much can he do? Granted, he'd be better suited to display at least an ounce of sanity more than Nicholas II did, and unless he too marries a loony German mystic he might be less inclined to rescind his promises to the kick the tires of constitutional monarchy, but he'd still have his rancid asshole uncles pushing him to restore the old ways and sooner or later WWI comes calling and then what...? Don't get me wrong, I'd still would enjoy reading the timeline and it'd be different. I just don't seeing it going all that diff for Russia, that's all.

Michael is intriguing. He had more sense than Nicholas, though that is not saying much. He was also willing to look reality in the face. But he spent his entire life running from his responsibility, in my view. I do not buy the notion of Michael the romantic falling in love with women and forsaking any chance at a throne out of a sheer stirring of loins and heart. He had many, many, many affairs and each time let the family bury them, and him. But the one time he married was when he found out Alexei had hemophilia. He literally quoted that as the reason he was marrying a commoner, to make sure he could do it before the family could force him to become the successor to Nicholas II again (he briefly was second in line between the death of George and birth of Alexei). Lets think about that for a moment. He realizes he's about to be made second in line, so he does the one thing that will guarantee he won't stay second in line by marrying a commoner. You can call it a fit of pique or love, but I think that's someone who doesn't want the job. Still, if George the lunger is on the throne, Michael might not have a chance to run away from power and he would dutifully allow himself to be placed upon the throne. Maybe a reluctant tsar would be a good thing for Russia. But would he have the strength of character to avoid the rancid asshole uncles giving him terrible advice? Would a man who is described as "naive" by more than one observer be good at the job? Would he grow into it? Once again, I am intrigued at a potential timeline. But it might all end in tears regardless. TTL may not have 1905 occur in 1905, but a 1905 will come and then what will Michael be able to do, realistically? And if TTL has a WWI, he might be much, much more effective than his other brothers at the top job, but still... I am not a Marxist, nor play one on TV, it's just hard to see a WWI that does not end with Russia in pieces due to it being held together by bullshit and bast shoes and fighting a war against modern states. That being said, I'd be the first in line to read any timeline anyone wants to write about it.
 
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