“A sovereign should not be with the army unless he is a general!” said Napoleon, evidently uttering these words as a direct challenge to the [Russian] Emperor. He knew how [Czar] Alexander [I] desired to be a military commander,” – Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Workers’ strikes and bread riots raged in the Russian Empire’s capital city of Saint Petersburg. Nicholas II, who had been visiting military headquarters in Mogilev, more than 400 miles away, began a journey home on March 13 to suppress the uprising. Just two days later, before he could even reach the capital, he abdicated the throne, leaving Russia without a sovereign for the first time since 1613, when the Time of Troubles that preceded the accession of the founder of the Romanov dynasty, Michael.
By the time Nicholas left Mogliev, his authority had already collapsed as military regiments joined the demonstrations. That same day, the Duma, Russia’s representative assembly, responded to the unrest in Saint Petersburg with the announcement, “In view of the grave situation of internal disorder, caused by measures taken by the old government, the Interim Committee of Members of the State Duma has found itself obliged to take into its own hands the restoration of state and public order.” Two representatives of the Duma traveled more than 150 miles to meet Nicholas’ Imperial train in Pskov and delivered the announcement to him. Nicholas, for his part, had little political capital left to do anything but accept the Duma’s demands and abdicate his position.
