Part 2: Chapter 19 Summary and Analysis

To celebrate Alexis's return to health eighteen months after his Spala illness, the Tsar decides to take his son on an all male outing. They and their companions set out in two cars into the mountains in the Crimea. The outing did all of them good. At this time, Alexis's older sister Olga was eighteen and there were talks of marriage matches. Olga made it clear that she was Russian and wanted to remain in Russia. The year was 1914 and the Romanovs were sailing on the Standart when news arrived of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

Serbia had its own revolutionaries trying to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, most prominent among them was the Black Hand. Franz Ferdinand was the heir apparent to the Austrian throne, even though he had married a commoner. This caused much dissension...