[custom_adv] Nicholas II or Nikolai II (1868 – 1918), known as Saint Nicholas II of Russia in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917.His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. [custom_adv] He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the executions of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War. [custom_adv] Soviet historians portray Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.Russia was defeated in the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War which saw the annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima, the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese annexation of South Sakhalin. [custom_adv] The Anglo-Russian Entente was designed to counter the German Empire's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East, but it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the United Kingdom. [custom_adv] When all Russian diplomatic efforts to prevent the First World War failed, Nicholas had to approve the Russian mobilization on 30 July 1914 which gave Germany formal grounds to declare war on Russia on 1 August 1914. It is estimated that around 3.3 million Russians were killed in the First World War. [custom_adv] The Imperial Russian Army's severe losses, the High Command's incompetent management of the war efforts, and the lack of food and supplies on the Home Front were the leading causes of the fall of the House of Romanov. [custom_adv] Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son. He and his family were imprisoned and transferred to Tobolsk in late summer 1917. [custom_adv] On 30 April 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, and his daughter Maria were handed over to the local Ural Soviet in Ekaterinburg; the rest of the captives followed on 23 May. [custom_adv] Nicholas and his family were eventually executed by their Bolshevik guards on the night of 16/17 July 1918.
