Russia was no innocent victim, however. The perpetual machinations to have the tsar abolish the Duma, or downgrade it to a mere consultative body, had heated up. In effect, the decision for war was Nicholas II’s sideways coup against the Duma he despised. War would allow his reclamation of an unmediated mystical union between tsar and people (a prolongation of the Romanov tercentenary of the year before). The tsar did suffer genuine pangs of conscience over the innocent subjects who would be sent to their deaths, but he also felt tremendous emotional release from the distasteful political
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