(1872-1918)
Part 1
Alix and her siblings were under the care of an English nanny named Mary Anne Orchard, familiarly called by the children "Orchie", who ruled the nursery under the explicit instructios of Princess Alice. The first contact that Alix had with tragedy was in 1873, when she was a year old, at the death of her brother Freidrich, who fall from an open window to a stone terrace, about twenty feet below. Friedrich was an hemophiliac so he died because of the bleeding on the brain. Alix didn't remember her brother quite well, but Princess Alice used to take her children regulary to visit their death brother's crypt. In 1877, Grand Duke Louis III of Hesse died and Alix's father became Louis IV of Hesse and Alice, because of her duties as First Lady of the duchy, was less time with her children, so she became a lesser part in the three-year-old Alix's life. During the summer of 1878, Alix, her siblings and her parents went to England to visit Queen Victoria. They also visited other relatives along Europe. Back in Darmstadt, on November 5, the eldest sister, Victoria fall ill with diphteria. Inmediately the New Palace was put under quarantine. By November 11, Victoria was out of danger, but the next day, Alix fell ill. She was quicly followed by the rest of her siblings (Irene, Ernest and May), except Ella, who was sent away. Even Grand Duke Louis fell ill. Princess Alice devoted herself to nurse her family. Princess May died on the nigth of the sixteenth. Alice kept the sad notice away from the rest of the children, but Ernest kept asking about his little sister and finally his mother told him May was death. Alice gave the children a kiss. By the first week of December Alice had contracted the disease. The rest of the family began t recovered but Alice didn't. Finally Alix lost her mother on December 14, the same day her grandfather, Prince Albert had died seventeen years before. from that day on, a sad look appeared constantly on Alix's face and would remained for the rest of her life. Queen Victoria became a mother for her orphan grandchildren. Alix spent many summers of her youth in England with the Queen.To her, her grandmother was "an imposing lady of somewhat large girth, encased in black silk wich rustled with every movement", but above everything else, the Queen was a friend and counselor for Alix. On the summers spent at Queen Victoria's residences, Osborne and Balmoral, Alix departed with some of her many cousins, mainly the Prince of Wales's children (Eddy, George, Louise, Victoria and Maud), and with Marie Louise of Schleswig Holstein, her aunt Helena's daughter, who was about Alix's same age. Under Queen Victoria's supervision, Alix became an authentic English princess. An English woman, named Margaret Hardcastle Jackson, became her tutor, an was responsible in parte for Alix's independent thinking. Alix cared little for social work but was conscious that helping the poor was a duty for every princess. She was a good student with an excellent memory and she spoke perfectly German and English.
Inthe summer of 1884, Alix's sister, Ella, married Grand Duke Serge of Russia, a brother of Tsar Alexander III, so Alix went to Russia with her family to attend the wedding. Tsar Alexander was a very tall and strong man, with gruff manners, but a kind heart, who deslike all kind of pomp and festivities. His wife, Empress Marie Feodorovna, was the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and sister of Alexandra, Princess of Wales. They have five children: the Tsarevitch Nicholas, the Grand Dukes George and Michael, and the Grand Duchessses Xenia and Olga. Nicholas was born on 1868 and by the time of Alix's visit to Russia, he was sixteen years old; Alix was just twelve. He was a handsome and charming boy and was a second cousin to Alix. His paternal grandmother was Marie of Hesse Darmstadt, a sister of Alix's grandfather, Charles of Hesse. Alix and Nicholas first met on Jun 8, 1884, and as he recorded on his dairy, he liked her very much. It is uncertain about Alix's feelings for the Tsarevitch during this visit,
The next visit Alix made to Russia to visit her sister was in 1889. Now she was a beutiful seventeen year old girl and Nicholas was handsom and slim, but not very tall, young man of twenty one. Ella and her husband encouraged the pair to be together for a possible marriage between them. But Alix's grandmother, Queen Victoria, didn't think as Ella. The Queen had always deslike Russians; to her Russia was a far and uncivilzed land with savage coustumes. Instead,she had think Alix as a possible bride for her grandson, Prince Eddy, elder son of the Prince of Wales and heir pressumtive to the throne of England. In 1889 the Queen summoned Alix to Balmoral; Eddy was there too. He took his cousin to walk over the hills and to carriage rides looking for the right moment to declare, but when the moment came, Alix rejected him . Later on Alix wrote Eddy how it hurt her to pain him and that she liked him ver much as cousin but she would not be happy with him. She told him that if she was forced she would marry him but neither she nor he would be happy. So in spite Alix's determination, even Queen Victoria had to give up the match. But the Queen was worried about Alix trying to married the Tsarevitch, so she found another candidate for her granddaughter. This time it was Prince Max of Beden. But Alix declared that she would not marry the prince and Queen Victoria had to give up again. There was only on man on Alix's mind: the Tsarevitch Nicholas. But there was an impediment for her to accept him. To marry the heir of the Russian throne, Alix had to reject her Lutheran religion and became into the Orthodox faith, and it was very difficult for her. On Nicholas' side, he loved Alix with all his heart but his parents didn't agree with the engagement and they didn't give him permission to ask for Alix's hand.
In 1892, Alix's father, Grand Duke Louis was diagnosed as having heart troubles. Eight years before he had secretely married a Russian divorcee, Alexandrine de Kolemine, but he was forced to divorce by Queen Victoria who considered the lady not adequated for the Grand Duke. One day, while Alix was hosting a luncheon for her father, he suffered a heart attack, The Grand Duke never recovered consciusness and he died on March 13, 1892 when he was fifty five.
A year and a half later, on hte autumn of 1893, Alix wrote to Nicholas telling him that although she loved him, a marriage between them was unthinkable because it was impossible for her to change religion. Nicholas was shocked. But things soon began to change; Ella, who was not obliged to change her religion when she got married, now was converted to Orthodox faith and told her sister about the similarities between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy. Meanwhile in Russia, Tsar Alexander became ill and weak. He felt his end was near and Nicholas was not prepared for assuming the throne. At last he decided to gave his permission to ask for Alix's hand.
The opportunity arrived soon. On April 1894, a royal wedding was celebrated in Coburg, between Alix's brother, Ernest, now Grand Duke of Hesse since his father's death, and his cousin Victoria Melita, daughter of Alfred, duke of Saxe Coburg, who was Queen Victoria's son. Nicholas attended to the wedding. During the first night in Coburg, Nicholas and Alix went to the opera. The next day, Nicholas asked Alix to talk to her alone. He told her that she could not denied to marry him. She broke down in tears exclaiming she could not because of her religion. During the wedding, Nicholas and Alix stole attention from the bride and groom; everyone was awaiting her final answer. That night her cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm, visited her in her room. He thought that a marriage between a German princess and the Russian Tsarevitch would favour a Russo-German alliance. Wilhelm told Alix that it was her duty to marry Nicholas, in order to maintain the peace of Europe. Alix finally decided to give up her religion and married Nicholas, convinced by Wilhelm and by the ideas Ella told her about Orthodoxy. On Apirl 20, 1894, she said yes to Nicholas in tears. The only obstacle was now Queen Victoria, but there was nothing she could do. When she was told, the Queen kissed them both.
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig Holstein was sitting in her room, getting ready for lunch, whe her cousin and friend Alix stormed into her room and put her arms around her neck telling her: "I am going to marry Nicky".
Alix visited her Grandmother in Windsor; while she was there, Tsar Alexander III sent his own confessor, Father Yanishev, to instruct his future daughter in law in the Russian Orthodox faith. She also received the visit of her husband to be and while being together the couple charmed everybody. Before leaving Windsor, Alix and Nicholas attended as godparents to the christening of the newborn son of the Duke and Duchess of York, George and Mary, the future Edward VIII and afterwards Duke of Windsor..
When Alix discovered that Nicholas kept a dairy, she began to write little notes in it like: "I dreamt that I was loved, I woke and found it true, and thank God on my knees for it. True love is a gift which God has given-daily stronger, deeper, fuller, purer." Some days later Alix went to Darmstadt and Nicholas returned to Russia.
Alexander III was dying; he had been diagnosed an incurable nphritis. Nicholas was terrified; he didn't know how to be tsar. He sent a telegram to Alix begging her to come to Livadia in the Crimea, where the Tsar and his court were staying. Alix inmediately packed her things and began her journey to the country which from then on would be her homeland. Her sister Ella met her at Warsaw and continue the trip together. Nicholas met them at Simferopol and continue the journey in an open carriage to Livadia. The Tsar received his future daughter in law sitting on a chair; he was so weak that he was unable to stand. The dying Tsar kept everybody's attention in Livadia and Alix felt ignore. She was annoyed by the way Nicholas was treated by the officials in attendance and the doctors, who first reported to the Tsarina ignoring the precedence Nicholas had over his mother as heir to the throne. Then, Alix encouraged her future husband to forced the others to give him his right place; she wrote him: "...Show your own mind and don't let the others forget who you are." But Nicholas was not strong enough in chararcter to put his mother aside and things stayed the same.
Alexander III died on Thursday November 1, 1894. Empress Marie Feodorovna fainted into Alix's arms and Nicholas cried on the shoulder of his friend and brother in law (he was married to his sister Xenia) Grand Duke Alexander. "Sandro, what am I going to do?, he asked, what is going to happen to me, to you, to Xenia, to Alix, to mother, to all Russia? I am not prepared to be Tsar... I know nothing of the business of ruling". That same evening he was proclaimed Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias. The next day, Alix was confirmed in the Russian Orthodox Church and she was given the name of Alexandra Feodorvna and the rank and title of Grand Duchess. Nicholas and Alexandra had to be married as soon as possible. The ceremony took place on November 26, 1894 in the chapel of the Winter Palace. Her wedding dress was so complicated that it took almost an hour for Alexandra to put it on. It was a heavy Russian court dress of real silver whith an inmensely long train edged with ermine; the mantle on her shoulders was of cloth of gold, lined with ermine too. Marie Feodorovna put the diamond nuptial crown on Alexandra's head. Nicholas and Alexandra exchanged their wedding votes and two blessed golden crowns were put on their heads. They were married and now she was Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The following morning, after their wedding night Alexandra wrote on Nicholas' dairy: "Never did I believe there could be such utter happiness in this world, such a feeling of unity between two mortal beings. I love you -those three words have my life in them."
The first months after her marriage were not easy for Alexandra. The Imperial couple lived at Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, sharing residence with the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, whom which Alexandra had some differences for reasons of precedency. According with the Russian protocol of the court, the Dowager Empress had precedency over the reigning Tsarina and that upset Alexandra. Besides, Marie Feodorovna refused to give her some jewels that, accordig to established costumes, belonged to the Tsarina, so the new Empress was infuriated against her mother in law. From then on both Empresses spoke to each other in polite but distant terms.
Alexandra didn't like St. Petersburg' social life. The society ladies described her as beautiful with almost Greek features but shy, not friendly, and being not a brilliant conversationalist. She was becoming unpopular among the Russian society.
Alexandra's influence over her husband began to arise since their first months of marriage. It was the costum that at the accension of a new tsar, groups of representatives of zemstvos (small bodies of provincial officials) sent messages of support and loyalty to the new sovereign. One of these zemstvos, the Tver Zemstvo, included in its message a petition to participate in internal administration matters. When Nicholas received personally the representatives of the Tver Zemstvo, he said he had no intention of allowing the zenstvos to intervene on administrative affairs and that he should mantain up the principle of autocracy as his father had. Nicholas attitude was a shock for everyone since people expected that he would give a democrative turn to his father's policy It was Alexandra who advised him about this matter; she believed in the Tsar's right of autocracy and that she understood Russia's political situation better than her husband.
On May 26, 1896, Nicholas and Alexandra were crowned in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow. During the ceremony, which lasted five hours, Nicholas was invested with the orb, the scepter and the chain of the Order of St. Andrew. After being proclaimed Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Nicholas II entered the sanctuary, for the only time in his life, to celebrate the mass as a priest of the Orthodox Church. As he walked up the stairs, the chain of the Order of St. Andrew slept from his shoulders and fell to the floor, fact which was taken as a bad omen by those who saw it.
Four days later, as it was the costume at the Tsar's coronation, a banquet was going to be held for the people at Khodynka Meadow, a field outside Moscow. There would be free beer and gifts for everyone. A night before, people began to crowd at Khodynka; at dawn a half million people had gathered there, where they could see the beer and the gifts, awaiting for them. Only sixteen men had been assigned to keep order among the crowd. Suddenly a rumour spread among the people that there were not enough beer and presents for everbody. The crowd began to push themselves, falling down and crushing between them. It all happened in 15 minutes; there were 1429 deads and thousand of woundeds. When they learned about the tragedy, Nicholas and Alexandra were shocked; they spent the rest of the day visiting hospitals and comforting the woundeds. That night a ball given by the Franch embassy, was going to be held. The Minister of Finance, Serguei Witte, suggested that the ball should be canceled in spite of the tragedy, but Nicholas' uncles, Grand Dukes Vladimir, Alexis, Serge and Paul advised their nephew that he and Alexandra must attend the ball for diplomatic reasons, and so they did.
