Nicholas II of Russia (Ausgleich of 1917)

Nicholas II of Russia (18 May 1868 - 26 September 1929) was the last Emperor of the Russian Empire from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution. Despite the fact that the Russian Empire was a member of the Triple Entente, it suffered especially against Germany and so caused by harshness of the war and a peace with the Germans nowhere in sight, Nicholas and his government were ousted by the people three weeks after the Triple Alliance was secretly dissolved at the Salzburg Meeting. Nicholas and his family fled and spent the rest of their lives' living in the Norwegian capital city of Oslo.

Before the POD
Despite the reign of Peter I and Catherine II and their attempts to modernise the nation, the Russian Empire was still very backward and weak for the time. When Alexander III died, Nicholas become the sovereign of a falling superpower. In 1905, the country was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War and lost their influence in Asia. Nicholas allied himself further with France and the United Kingdom. Slowly the political life of Russia turned bloody with first the Red Sunday and then an outright two years of unrest after that. As a result the State Duma was created, a lower house of the Russian parliament was created, though it only met four time between 1906 and 1917. Two further things made the eventual downfall of the Romanov inevitable. When the July Crisis boiled over into a war, Russia aided its ally Serbia, because it was in their sphere in influence and thus dragged themselves into the First World War. The bloodline of Queen Victoria was tainted with the scourge known as Haemophilia and unfortunately for the royal couple their sole son Alexei had the disease. Due to the poor state of medicine in regards to the disease, the doctors were unable to do anything. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna became a devout Orthodox believer and eventually fell under the influence of the Siberian mystic named Grigori Rasputin, who managed to make himself the true ruler of the nation until an alliance of various conservative noblemen.

February Revolution
During the First World War the Russian Empire was strained to the breaking point and became involved in riots and rebellions. Nicholas continued his stay close to the capital and refused to make reforms. The army began taking farmers by force, causing food shortages. On 5 March 1917 it all came into fruition when the people took to the streets demanding the overthrow of the government and a peace with Germany. Slowly even the army started to defect and the State Duma and members of the Trudoviks declare the Russian Provisional Government led by Prince Georgy Lvov.

On 15 March 1917 the Tsar abdicated the throne and then also abdicated on behalf of his heir. He named his brother as the new sovereign, but Grand Duke Michael refused the throne and Georgy Lvov became the de facto ruler of Russia as the head of the Provisional Government, though he would later be replaced by Alexander Kerensky, who would become the 1st President of Russia. The tsar sent a request to his cousin King George V of the United Kingdom to ask for asylum, but the government denied it, as did the French government later on. To insure his family wouldn't end up imprisoned or executed, the Romanov family fled the country on 3 April.

Norwegian Exile
With several people loyal to their family, the Tsar, his mother, his wife and their children fled to Reval and then took a ship to Oslo in Norway. The family arrived the next day in the capital city of the young nation and was officially welcomed by the government and King Haakon VII later that day. The people of Norway accepted the family rather coldly, as all Scandinavian countries had remained neutral during the First World War. The Norwegian Queen at the time was Maud, George V's sister and the Tsar's cousin as was Haakon himself - all three were grandchildren of Christian IX of Denmark- so the royal family accepted them as relatives in need.

To avoid their presence in the capital, they lived at the Oscarshall Palace in the nearby bay. Several loyalists of Nicholas's government fled Russia during April and attempted to create a government-in-exile. Nicholas II continued to claim his title as Tsar, though he would never set foot in his lands ever again. A small Orthodox chapel was build in Oscarshall for the imperial family with an Orthodox cleric named Sergey Simanskiy, who fled Russia, becoming the First Orthodox Bishop of Oslo.

Civil War
Nicholas rarely addressed happenings back home. When on 14 June the government of Alexander Kerensky abolished church property, multiple factions of the Orthodox Church and Tsarists created the Restoration Faction, which was at least nominally supported by Nicholas, but he refused to leave Oslo in case Kerensky imprisoned the family.