Grand Duke Romanov Alexander Mikhailovich was born on April 13, 1866 in Tiflis. Most of his life was associated with the development of the fleet and aviation. This member of the royal dynasty is remembered for his design projects, short-lived leadership of maritime trade and vigorous activity during the period of emigration after the Civil War.
Childhood and youth
The Grand Duke was the son of Mikhail Nikolayevich and the grandson of Emperor Nicholas I. He was a cousin of Tsar Alexander III. The last autocrat Nicholas II was his cousin. Alexander's mother, Olga Fedorovna, was German by origin. She was the daughter of Duke Leopold of Baden.
As a child, the future Tsar Nicholas II had several closest friends. Alexander Mikhailovich was considered one of them. The Grand Duke and the heir to the throne were practically the same age with a difference of two years. Like many minor representatives of the Romanov dynasty, Alexander chose a military career. He entered the Metropolitan Naval School, from which he graduated in 1885. The young man received the rank of midshipman and was enlisted in the Guards crew. The choice was not random. The Guards Crew was a prestigious naval unit within the Imperial Guard.
Trip around the world
In 1886, Romanov Alexander Mikhailovich went on a trip around the world, starting it as a midshipman. The Grand Duke circled the planet on the Rynde armored corvette. On Christmas Eve, the ship entered the territorial waters of distant Brazil. Alexander Mikhailovich even paid an official visit to the local emperor Pedro II. The monarch met the Russian guest at his high- altitude residence, Petropolis, where he was waiting for the zenith of the hot southern summer. Just a couple of years later, Pedro abdicated and Brazil became a republic.
The Grand Duke made a stop in South Africa. There he got acquainted with the life and hard work of Dutch farmers. From Cape Town, the longest passage of the Rynda began - to Singapore. The ship spent 45 days on the high seas, and all this time her crew did not meet a hint of the approach of the land. According to the memoirs of Alexander Mikhailovich, every second house in Singapore's Chinatown was an opium den, where lovers of the then popular drug gathered.
The cousin of the then king celebrated his 21st birthday on the way to Hong Kong. Then he spent about two years in Nagasaki, from where he went on voyages to India, Australia and the Philippines. In Japan, the Grand Duke visited the local emperor and even learned the basics of the local language. Rynda returned to Europe in the spring of 1889, passing through the Suez Canal in Egypt. Before being at home, the greatthe prince visited the English Queen Victoria, who received Romanov with cordiality, even despite the difficult period of British-Russian relations.
Alexander Mikhailovich had his own yacht Tamara. On it, he also made several trips. In 1891 "Tamara" visited India. Shortly after that journey, Alexander Mikhailovich became commander of the destroyer Revel. In 1893, he went to North America with the squadron. The frigate "Dmitry Donskoy" and other Russian ships were sent to the New World on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of its discovery by Columbus.
Marriage
In 1894, Alexander Mikhailovich, the Grand Duke, was already in the rank of senior lieutenant. Shortly after this promotion, he married. Alexander's wife was Ksenia Alexandrovna. The Grand Duchess was the younger sister of Nicholas II. She knew her future husband from early childhood - he regularly visited Gatchina, where the children of Alexander III grew up.
Slender tall brunette was the only love of young Xenia. She first told about her feelings to her brother Nikolai, who called his friend Alexander simply Sandro. The wedding of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess took place on July 25, 1894 in Peterhof. The couple had seven children - six sons and one daughter (Irina, Andrey, Fedor, Nikita, Dmitry, Rostislav and Vasily).
Caring for the fleet
In 1891, Alexander Mikhailovich began to publish the reference book "Military Fleets", which became an extremely popular publication indomestic fleet. In the same year, his mother Olga Fedorovna died. The Grand Duke paid much attention to the state of the Pacific Fleet. In order to strengthen it, Alexander spent several years preparing a program for its strategic reform. The document was presented to Nicholas II in 1895.
At that time, the Far East was restless - there were unrest in China, and Japan was rapidly modernizing and began to claim the title of the main power in the region. What did Alexander Mikhailovich do under these conditions? The Grand Duke suggested proceeding from the fact that the rapidly developing Japan would sooner or later declare war on Russia. In his youth, he spent two years in the Land of the Rising Sun and during this time he could see firsthand the progress that the island empire made in a short time.
However, the warnings of the Grand Duke caused irritation in St. Petersburg. The more senior military and members of the dynasty treated Japan as a weak enemy and did not consider it necessary to prepare for a difficult campaign. Time has shown that they were wrong. However, the program was never adopted. In addition, due to disagreement about the future of the fleet, Alexander Mikhailovich himself was briefly dismissed. The Grand Duke returned to service in 1898, becoming an officer on the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin of the Coast Guard.
Design achievements
Service on the Apraksin gave the Grand Duke invaluable experience, which formed the basis of his design work. In 1900, the military finished a sketch of the seaworthy battleship of the coast guard "Admiral Butakov". Hebecame a rethinking of Apraksin. Together with Alexander Mikhailovich, Dmitry Skortsov, the chief ship engineer of the capital's port, worked on the project.
Another fruit of the design work of the Grand Duke is the project of a squadron battleship with a displacement of 14,000 tons. He received sixteen guns. An identical project simultaneously with Alexander Mikhailovich was completed by the famous shipbuilding engineer Vittorio Cuniberti. This sketch became the foundation for the construction of Regina Elena class ships. The difference between the idea of Cuniberti and the Grand Duke was only that the idea of the Italian, unlike Romanov's variation, was nevertheless implemented.
In the Cabinet of Ministers
In 1903, good news came to the palace of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. He was promoted to rear admiral. Prior to that, the Grand Duke had been a captain on the squadron battleship Rostislav for two years. Now Alexander Mikhailovich focused on bureaucratic service. He joined the Council for Merchant Shipping. Alexander persuaded the king to transform this department. In November 1902, the Council became the General Directorate of Merchant Shipping and Ports, and in fact a ministry.
The inspirer and main defender of the new department was Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich himself. The Russian fleet needed a separate institution that could protect its trade interests, Romanov believed. However, no matter how well-intentioned the nobleman was, he had to face serious resistance from the rest.ministers. They did not like that a member of the royal family interfered in the work of the government. Almost the entire Cabinet of Ministers turned out to be in opposition to Alexander Mikhailovich. His colleagues did everything to convince the emperor to dissolve the Main Directorate. This was done in 1905. Thus, the brainchild of the Grand Duke did not last even three years.
War with Japan
With the onset of the Russo-Japanese War, the Navy of the Russian Empire faced a serious test. Alexander Mikhailovich, who gave him most of his life, took a lively part in that campaign. He began to direct the operations and training of auxiliary vessels belonging to the Volunteer Fleet. Then he headed a committee that organized the collection of donations to strengthen military squadrons.
In 1905, following the liquidation of his own ministry, Alexander Mikhailovich became the commander of a detachment of destroyers and mine cruisers put into operation at the expense of the people. When the question arose of sending the Second Pacific Squadron to the shores of the Far East, the Grand Duke opposed this decision, considering the ships insufficiently prepared. After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the tsar's cousin took part in drawing up programs and plans for the restoration of the fleet that had been defeated during the campaign.
Admiral and Patron of Aviation
In 1909, the Grand Duke became vice admiral. In the same year, his father Mikhail Nikolaevich died. For two decades he was the Viceroy of the Caucasus, another 24year - Chairman of the State Council. Mikhail Nikolaevich had six children, and Alexander lived longer than all his brothers and sisters.
In 1915, the Grand Duke became an admiral. However, his activities concerned not only the fleet. Alexander Mikhailovich did a lot for the development of domestic aeronautics. It was on his initiative that the Sevastopol officer aviation school was established in 1910. Moreover, the tsar's cousin was the chief of the Imperial Air Force. During World War I, the Grand Duke inspected both ships and aircraft.
Revolution and Civil War
The February Revolution drastically changed the lives of all the Romanovs. Members of the imperial family were removed from the army. Alexander Mikhailovich was dismissed from service, retaining his uniform. The provisional government allowed him to settle in his own Crimean estate. Perhaps only a timely move to the south saved citizen Romanov. Together with him, Ksenia Aleksandrovna and their children moved to the Crimea.
Alexander Mikhailovich did not leave Russia until the last moment. During the Civil War, Crimea changed hands several times. When power on the peninsula temporarily passed to the Bolsheviks, the Romanovs were in mortal danger. Then Crimea came under German occupation. After the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, it was briefly held by the foreign allies of the Whites from the Entente. It was then that Alexander Mikhailovich and his family decided to leave Russia. In December 1918 he was on a British shipwent to France.
Emigration
In Paris, Alexander Mikhailovich became a member of the Russian Political Conference. This structure was created by opponents of the Soviet government in order to represent the interests of their country at the Versailles Conference. At the end of 1918, the First World War ended and now the victorious countries were going to decide the fate of Europe. Russia, which, before the Bolsheviks came to power, honestly fulfilled its duty to the Entente, was deprived of representation in Versailles because of a separate peace with Germany. Supporters of the white movement tried to intercept the fallen banner, but to no avail. Alexander Mikhailovich himself used all his resources to persuade foreign powers to overthrow the Bolsheviks, but also unsuccessfully.
The attempts of emigrants, as you know, did not lead to anything. Among many, the Grand Duke left for Europe, hoping to return to his homeland soon. He was still far from being an old man, who had recently crossed the fifty-year threshold, and counted on a better future. However, like other white emigrants, Alexander Mikhailovich remained in a foreign land until the end of his days. He chose France as his place of residence.
The Grand Duke was a member of many emigrant organizations. He chaired the Union of Russian Military Pilots and took part in the activities of the Russian All-Military Union created by Pyotr Wrangel. Romanov helped a lot of children who found themselves in exile in the most vulnerable position.
The last years of my cousin's lifeNicholas II's uncles left to write their own memoirs. In printed form, the memoirs of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich ("Book of Memoirs") were published in 1933 in one of the Parisian publishing houses. The author died shortly after the appearance of his work on store shelves. He passed away on February 26, 1933 in the resort town of Roquebrune on the Cote d'Azur. The Maritime Alps became the resting place and remains of the wife of the Grand Duke Xenia Alexandrovna. She survived her husband by 27 years, having died on April 20, 1960 in Windsor, UK.
The memoirs of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich today represent the most interesting monument of a turning point in Russian history. After the fall of communism, the memory of Romanov himself in his homeland, as well as of many other representatives of the royal dynasty, was finally restored. In 2012, a bronze bust was erected to him in St. Petersburg. The author of the monument was the sculptor and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts Albert Charkin.
