[DIRTYSECRET]

The guy got around didn’t he?

[Leaning Right]

Nicholas II was a fool, a complete incompetent. I suspect that the monarchy would have collapsed even if there had been no Rasputin.

A quick story:
The British ambassador met with Nicholas after some serious rioting in the streets.

Ambassador: Your majesty, you must regain the trust of your people.
Nicholas: No. They must regain my trust.

Hopeless.

[Bratch]

Antony Beevor publicly stated that President Trump shows signs of dementia.

That makes me skeptical of his conclusions on any subject. 🙄

[Capn Hayek]

Interesting!

Thanks for sharing. I’ve read a number of Beevor books - his prior book on the Russian Civil War following 1917 is great and I highly recommend.

I wasn’t aware of this new one — but I just ordered it. I find the period fascinating and looking forward to getting it.

[sauropod]

.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Everyone in that story was in the wrong job. Nicholas II would, like George III, have been far happier as a simple country gentleman. (Sergei Witte, Nicholas’s one-time minister of finance, waspishly remarked that the Tsar was a ‘well-intentioned child’.) Alexandra was better suited to fretting over imperfectly polished silver spoons than helping to direct the fate of an empire at war. Rasputin himself should have remained a hard-drinking, philandering holy man (he was never actually a monk). But that’s not how history works."

Some things never change, do they? --> Harris, Crockett, Buttigieg, Schumer, AOC, Hakeem Jeffries, Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Mamdani, et al

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Vwey, very interesting figure in history.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Rasputin - Boney M