Nicholas I, a third son, was only four years old when his father        
          was murdered. He and his younger brother were engrossed in the             
          trivialities of army drill, even to the positioning of uniform buttons     
          instead of the art of warfare itself.                                      
             When Tsar Alexander I, his eldest brother, died, insecurity as to       
          whom was to be the next Emperor lasted for two weeks. The next             
          brother, Constantine, had resigned his rights several years before,        
          but this had been done in secrecy. Nicholas, the third brother, was        
          reluctant to claim the throne; but when he did, everything went            
          smoothly at first until the First Battalion of the Moscow Regiment         
          mutinied on 14 December 1825.                                              
             Some of these "Decembrists" wanted to establish a constitutional        
          monarchy instead of the autocracy; some wanted a republic while others     
          simply wanted to murder the Imperial Family. Many of these soldiers        
          were very simple people and were consequently used by others.              
          Nicholas I, an ornamental soldier known only for his action on the         
          parade-ground, had to lead the Izmaylovsky Guards into action against      
          his own people. It was several hours before he himself underwent his       
          baptism of fire on horseback, exposing himself to the danger of            
          assassination by rebel soldiers. With some of the mutineers drunk,         
          Nicholas made all efforts to end the uprising without further              
          bloodshed. However, in the long run he had to strike and send in the       
          cavalry. This was a fiasco as the horses, not properly shod, kept          
          slipping on the frozen surface. Then, after having given the mutineers     
          a last chance to surrender, the artillery was ordered to fire. They        
          killed at least fifty and the rest fled, some trying to cross the          
          river Neva only to have cannonballs smash the ice so that they drowned     
          in the freezing waters.                                                    
             Seeking revenge, Nicholas I interrogated the conspirators at about      
          150 per week for several months. The eventual trial of the Decembrists     
          took place without their presence. Five were the victims of a bungled      
          hanging, the rest exiled to Siberia.                                       
             Even at middle-age and wearing a toupee, Nicholas I was regarded as     
          the most handsome man in Europe. However, his good looks invariably        
          made one want to shiver, or so said Alexander Herzen, and Queen            
          Victoria agreed with him. Even though his marriage to his Empress          
          Alexandra (Princess Charlotte of Prussia) was happy and he had a           
          strong sense of duty, there were at least two mistresses. It took him      
          a long time to overcome his scruples, but when he did he fathered          
          several children by Barbara Nelidov, a lady-in-waiting.                    
             Not a merciful man, he wanted things to stay as they were. His          
          methods, shortsighted and cruel, proved unworkable in the long run. He     
          was not only hardworking but travelled continually across Russia. His      
          unexpected appearances menaced many officials; for quite simple            
          misdemeanours they would be exiled, dismissed, or moved elsewhere.         
             His endless interferences were often both ridiculous and cruel.         
          After an uprising in 1831 by military colonists in the Novgorod area,      
          1599 people were flogged with no less than 129 of them to death. No        
          wonder his nickname was Nikolay Palkin, or Nicholas the Stick. In          
          1845, however, he at least banned the use of the hideous and often         
          fatal scourge, the knout.                                                  
             In 1849 at St.Petersburg, Dostoyevsky and twenty others received        
          the death sentence. However, with a gruesome sense of humour, Nicholas     
          made his troops go the full length of an execution up to the point of      
          ordering to take aim to shoot the first three scheduled for death.         
          Then a special drumroll announced that their sentence had been             
          commuted at the last second.                                               
             Nicholas disliked writers. He hanged the poet Ryleyev as a              
          Decembrist and started a campaign of harassment against Pushkin. With      
          especially created police force as well as his army.                       
             Suppressing mutinous Russians and Poles as well as victorious in        
          wars against Persia and Turkey, he sent troops to Hungary in 1849 to       
          assist the Austrian Emperor to put down a revolt.                          
             The Crimean War (1853-1856) revealed the inefficiency of the            
          Russian army, being headed by a Tsar who nevertheless was still a mere     
          drill-sergeant and a hopeless administrator. Before it was to end,         
          however, Nicholas died on 18 February 1855 of an affliction of the         
          lungs. Eager to destroy revolt, he had nevertheless given it many          
          reasons to arise. Consequently he left Russia heading inevitably for       
          its unavoidable Revolution.            
 

Source: Leo van de Pas