First World War.com - Vintage Video - Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, 1914

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Vintage Video: Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, 1914
Updated - Saturday, 22 November, 2003

Ruling Russia at the time of its entry into the Great War was Tsar Nicholas II, and with him his powerful, influential wife Tsarina Alexandra.

Nicholas' war was not a happy one however; repeated early military setbacks led to him taking personal command of his armies in 1915, a move strenuously opposed by much of the Cabinet. They correctly feared that further defeats on the battlefield would subsequently be directly attributed to the Tsar himself: such was the case.

With the Russian Revolution of February 1917 the Tsar was persuaded to abdicate; he (and his family) were subsequently murdered by Bolshevists following the October Revolution.

Click here to view film footage of the Tsar and Tsarina taken before the First World War began in 1914 (Windows Media, 7 seconds, 116KB).

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