This work provides an account of the Crimean residency of Nicholas II's mother, Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, former Commander--in-Chief of the Russian Armies, and other members of the Romanov dynasty, from the abdication of the tsar (March 1917) until their departure aboard the H.M.S. Marlborough (April 1919). The first two chapters provide a background of conditions within the Imperial Family during the reign of Nicholas II. The remainder of the work traces their lives from arrival in the Crimea until the Dowager Empress accedes to the request of her sister, Dowager Queen Alexandra, to emigrate to England. The study concludes that the Romanovs played no active role in the Russian Civil War, although they were considered dangerous counterrevolutionaries by the Bolsheviks.

Utilizing the debates of the German Reichstag, the proceedings of the SPD, the memoirs of the leading military and Marxist figures and the principal newspapers of the Second Reich and Weimar Republic, this dissertation attempts to show how the army chiefs and the socialist leaders of Germany altered their policies not only to promote their interests but also to protect the state.