-
Bloody Sunday
Father Georgy Gapon had organised a peaceful march to present a petition to the Tsar to ask for measures to be put in place to treat the Russian people more fairly. However, when the marchers reached the Winter Palace they were met by a line of armed Cossacks who opened fire on the demonstrators. More than 200 demonstrators were killed and more than 500 injured.
The event, known as Bloody Sunday sparked a series of revolts known as the 1905 Revolution -
Potemkin battleship mutiny
Potemkin battleship sailors mutinied after refusing to obey the Captain’s order to execute sailors protesting against being served rotten meat. The Captain and officers were thrown overboard.
The sailors then sailed to Odessa where they proceeded to foment revolution through drunken speeches.
The police and Cossacks used violence to break the revolution killing 2,000 people and injuring 3,000. The sailors escaped by sailing to Romania. -
Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War.
Sergei Witte was sent to negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth which agreed that both Russia and Japan would leave Manchuria and return it to Chinese rule. Russia lost Port Arthur to the Japanese. -
October Manifesto
Issued and agreed by Nicholas II to try to appease the people. It promised: Freedom of speech, Freedom to hold meetings, No laws to be introduced without the agreement of the Duma. Political parties were no longer banned, elections to the Duma were agreed. -
Lenin returned to St Petersburg
-
Nicholas returns to autocratic rule
Soldiers returning from the Russo-Japanese war were used to put down revolution so Nicholas once more assumed an autocratic rule with little regard for the October Manifesto. -
Fundamental Law introduced
Nicholas declared supreme autocrat. Duma could not make laws without his approval, Nicholas was to have the final say in the appointment of ministers and other officials. -
First elected Duma began
The Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionaries had refused to field candidates and the largest political group in the first Duma were the Kadets. Nicholas firmly rejected all proposals put forward by this Duma as too radical. -
Lena Goldsfields massacre
A group of miners from the Lena Goldfields in Siberia were went on strike after the management took no action on a complaint about the quality of horsemeat the miners were given to eat.
The Bolsheviks co-ordinated a wave of support strike action and many thousand workers marched to present a petition in support of the miner’s claims. However, the authorities ordered troops to fire on the protesters; 500 died.
The massacre caused an outrage and a wave of sympathy strikes. -
Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia
-
Russia joins the war
Ignoring all advice not to involve Russia in the war, Nicholas decided to support Serbia and declared war on Austria-Hungary. -
Rasputin
Rasputin was blamed for a series of ministerial changes. People were becomming increasingly suspicious of the extent of Rasputin’s influence on the Tsarina. -
Tsar Nicholas decides lead army
Nicholas he did not have sufficient military experience to turn the war to Russia’s favour and moreover made him appear wholly responsible for the continuing defeats Russia faced. -
Rasputin assasinated
-
1917 revolution
150,000 workers took to the streets of Petrograd on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday to protest at the desperate situation many were in – lack of food, poor living conditions and Russia’s continued participation in a war that was going from bad to worse. -
Nicholas tried to put down protesters by force
icholas ordered troops onto the streets to remove the protestors by force.
Although some complied killing around 40 protestors. Nicholas’s move worsened the matter by inflaming the mood of the protestors even more.
Moreover, around 65,000 of the soldiers ordered onto the streets were new recruits who sympathised with the masses and they simply refused to fire on the demonstrators and joined them instead. -
Nicholas abdicates