One can often come across assertions that some European crowned heads had full opportunity through diplomatic channels to help out of the Bolshevik captivity, if not Nicholas II himself, then at least his wife and children.
The provisional government was preparing the trial of the royal couple
When Nicholas II abdicated, guarantees were allegedly given of an unhindered departure with his family abroad, specifically to England. However, the facts show that the Provisional Government was not preparing, rather, the safe departure of the royal family abroad, but the trial of the renounced tsar and, in all likelihood, also of his wife, who at that time in Russia was considered by many to be the main patroness of Rasputin, a German spy and the culprit. of all the troubles that have befallen the country.
Kerensky later argued that the Provisional Government immediately asked the Cabinet of Ministers in London to accept Nicholas II with his family. However, the functions of Kerensky himself initially had nothing to do with diplomacy. In the first composition of the Provisional Government (March-April 1917) Kerensky was the Minister of Justice and in this capacity he initiated the investigation of the "atrocities" of the tsarist regime. In May-June he was Minister of War and Naval. When in July 1917 Kerensky headed the Provisional Government, even then he could not give the go-ahead for the imperial family to travel abroad. At this time, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government was still working with might and main, trying to collect materials for the royal couple, exposing them of criminal ties with the enemies of Russia.
Back in March 1917, Kerensky made it very clear that he intends to bring the case not only to trial, but also to the massacre of the deposed crown bearer, and also, probably, of the queen and someone else. “Two or three sacrifices are perhaps necessary,” he cynically declared to members of the Governing Senate, the highest judicial body appointed by the tsar.
It must also be borne in mind that the Provisional Government, at least until the beginning of July 1917, was strongly constrained in its actions by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. And the leaders of the "revolutionary democracy" - the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, who ruled it, demanded a trial against the emperor and the dignitaries of his regime. The reprisals against the "German queen" and "Nicholas the bloody" were demanded by many workers of the capital, and parts of the garrison, and especially the sailors of the Baltic Fleet. In such conditions, it was generally dangerous for the Provisional Government to help the tsarist family escape from "justice" abroad - this could provoke a serious political crisis.
For the Provisional Government, the trial of the royal couple was a kind of "trump card in the sleeve", which it was going to play at the right moment in order to silence its most zealous critics on the left. Therefore, it kept the royal family under arrest and was not going to release it anywhere. True, events began to develop so rapidly that anything had ceased to depend on this or some other step of the Provisional Government.
Public opinion in England considered the king as a German agent
To understand and appreciate the course of action of the king and the government of Great Britain, the following circumstances must be borne in mind. First, these are the intentions and actions of the Provisional Government itself, which have already been mentioned. Secondly, the Russian liberal press, even before the revolution, created the image of the tsarist couple who betrayed Russia and the Entente with ties with Germany, and after the revolution it began to write about it openly and excitedly. Third, Russia continued to be viewed in the West as a most valuable ally in the war, and Britain was not going to do anything that could provoke Russia's withdrawal from the Entente. Fourth, finally, Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy, and little depended on the king there.
Promotional video:
On March 23, 1917, the British government instructed its Ambassador in Petrograd, George Buchanan, to convey through the Provisional Government an invitation to Nicholas II and his family to come to Great Britain and settle there. However, someone instigated the leak of information about this, and already in early April, the opposition in the House of Commons raised a fuss. Here they recalled all the accusations of complicity with the enemy, which the Russian opposition awarded the tsar before and especially after the revolution. The case ended with the fact that already on April 10, King George V instructed his personal secretary, Lord Stanfordham, to invite Prime Minister David Lloyd George to withdraw this invitation. The Cabinet of Ministers instructed Buchanan to notify the Provisional Government about this, arguing that His Majesty's government could not accept a man "whose sympathies for the enemy are well known."
George V was Nicholas II's cousin by a common grandmother - the Danish queen. Both monarchs even outwardly were very similar. According to another grandmother - Queen Victoria of England - he was a cousin of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Historian Alexander Bokhanov writes: “King George V did absolutely nothing that could alleviate the fate of the defeated crowned heads. He had not the slightest desire to challenge the public, showing his human sympathies, if they existed. However, given all of the above, this is not surprising.
The Kaiser took revenge on the royal couple for refusing to conclude a separate peace
The grandson of Queen Victoria on her mother's side was the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Bolsheviks are known to have enjoyed material support from Germany during their rise to power. Lenin provided Germany with favorable conditions for the Brest Peace. In the spring of 1918, German influence on Soviet Russia was at its zenith. It would seem that one word of the Kaiser could be enough to save, if not Nicholas II himself, then at least the queen with children. Moreover, if the queen, as they said in Russia, was indeed a "German spy."
However, is it any wonder that the Kaiser did not in the slightest degree use the dependence of the Soviet government on Germany in order to free the royal family from the Bolshevik torture chamber? Would he not have known better than anyone that "Nicky" and "Alix" contemptuously rejected during the war all his proposals for a separate peace ?!
Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks tried to use the possible interest of Germany in saving the Tsar's family. Therefore, they reported the murder of only one Nicholas II, and until September 1918, inclusive, they kept in touch with the German government a false rumor that the king's wife and children were alive. Then they stopped it, apparently due to the absence of any oncoming movement on the other side.
One can, of course, assume that if the monarchs at home knew in advance about the fate that lies ahead for the royal children, who are innocent of their parents' "sins", then they might have shown more diplomatic activity towards their release. What the Bolsheviks did in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918 did not fit into any imagination, and for a long time many refused to believe this, both in Russia and abroad.