How King George refused to save his lookalike cousin
THE British monarch, George V, had no doubt what had caused the downfall of his cousin, the Tsar.
After the abdication in Petrograd, he confided to his diary that ‘Nicky has been weak but Alicky [Alexandra] is the cause of it all’.
He wrote to Nicholas — now designated a simple Russian citizen and living in internal exile with his family on the Romanov country estate: ‘I shall always remain your true friend.’
He proposed bold plans to the British government to rescue the royal family. If they could get to Murmansk on Russia’s northern shoreline, a British battleship would whisk them to Scotland. They could move into Balmoral, which was made ready for them.
Such a solution was always a long shot. Even if the stand-in Russian government agreed, what were the chances of them making the 1,000mile journey across the country to reach the port on the edge of the Arctic Ocean unharmed?
It was doubtful, too, that the Tsar — like George a grandson of Queen Victoria — however hopeless his position, would agree to leave Russia, and his family would not go without him.
But even this remote chance of a rescue was ruled out when King George changed his mind.
He knew there was little sympathy in Britain for the Russian royal family, whose presence on home soil might be awkward.
It might even stir up antimonarchy sentiments in Britain and threaten his own throne.
George got cold feet and called off any mission, leaving them to their fate. When they were slaughtered at Ekaterinburg, he was mortified.