Recaps

Grand Duke Mikhail’s assassination of Nicholas II sparked a succession crisis that became a civil war, while foreign powers prepared to exploit Russia’s weakness. Mikhail took Kazan and opened the road to Moscow as threats gathered on several fronts.

• Grand Duke Mikhail strengthened the Black Sea Fleet and his forces, then ordered Nicholas II’s assassination and prepared to claim the throne.
• After Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra were killed, Mikhail’s rivals backed Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, but Mikhail ordered his army to march on Petersburg.
• Mikhail declared himself the rightful heir and led his forces into open civil war, while Grand Duke Nicholas formed a headquarters to suppress him.
• As Mikhail’s troops advanced toward Kazan and General Brusilov’s force moved toward Moscow, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire prepared to exploit the conflict.
• Viktor Sakharov’s forces bombarded and attacked Kazan, while Grand Duke Nicholas’s army surrounded Brusilov’s troops near Ryazan and failed to break through their defenses.
• Abdul Hamid II sent Ottoman troops into the southern Caucasus, but Mikhail Belyayev’s force and Russian reinforcements repelled them, while Germany supported resistance in Poland and the Baltic region.
• Japan sent troops and warships to Korea and expanded its influence as Russia remained occupied by civil war, while Mikhail postponed dealing with Japan until later.
• After Mikhail’s forces captured more than half of Kazan, Afanasiy Klyuchin and Vladimir Kosel surrendered the remaining defenders on May 12, giving Mikhail control of the city and opening the road to Moscow.

After defeating Grand Duke Nicholas in the civil war, Mikhail II took the throne and reorganized the empire’s government, economy, army, and navy. The arc ended with Russia preparing a counterattack against the stalled Ottoman invasion.

• Mikhail’s forces defeated Nicholas’s armies at Noginsk and Moscow, while Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich defected and Nicholas killed himself rather than flee.
• Mikhail entered Moscow, was crowned Tsar, moved the capital there, and appointed Plehve prime minister with Pobedonostsev as deputy prime minister.
• Mikhail launched an anti-corruption campaign, had Sergei Witte tried and hanged, and ordered recovered funds and imperial wealth invested in industry and infrastructure.
• Mikhail ordered railways and roads built rapidly, assigned civil-war prisoners to construction work, and imposed agricultural reforms that reduced peasants’ taxes and debts and redistributed land.
• Mikhail reorganized the army under the General Staff, divided the empire into seven military districts, and established plans to expand and mobilize their forces.
• Mikhail halted most existing warship programs, introduced plans for new battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, and ordered aging ships transferred to the Far East to deter Japan.
• Mikhail prepared a counterattack against the Ottoman Empire, while Belyayev gathered forces in the Caucasus and Kör Ahmed Pasha reported that Ottoman attacks had failed with heavy losses.