Most infamous ...

[say1988]

Isn't "Listen to the wife" on every man's checklist of bad ideas?

 

[Dachs]

It didn't help that his overbearing wife was on the German payroll, and he did pretty much whatever she told him to.

Like go to war with Germany amirite

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yeah... Alix had quite a bad influence on the royal family (and with her being a carrier of haemophilia Nicholas shouldn't had married her in the first place), but the accusations of her being a German spy are unfounded.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Like go to war with Germany amirite

Like reform nothing, like shoot the peasants, like make peace with Germany, which he had more than once considered by the time he was ousted in February.

Really, her betrayal is pretty well documented. The revolutionaries found a lot of proof for it (and were equally shocked) upon her arrest and their rummaging through the various palaces after February.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Like reform nothing, like shoot the peasants,

Are you suggesting that Alix was behind it all as a way to weaken Russia?

The revolutionaries found a lot of proof for it (and were equally shocked) upon her arrest and their rummaging through the various palaces after February.

What is your source for it? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Masada]

She could have just told her husband to kiss and makeup with lil' Willie.

 

[Lone Wolf]

She disliked Wilhelm.

 

[Masada]

Then she's a poor German spy.

 

[civ editor11]

Hitler
Stalin

Are by far the most infamous

 

[Harvin87]

Michael Jackson now a days...

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Are you suggesting that Alix was behind it all as a way to weaken Russia?

No, because she really really hated them as the underclass, said they deserved it and the like.

What is your source for it? I'm genuinely curious.

Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. He discusses the parts I mentioned in chapters IV - VI of Book 1. Many of his sources are his or her diaries themselves, or interviews with people who knew them or were there. He mentions both the widespread suspicion of her that was based purely on her not being Russian, but says later that in February the revolutionaries found more concrete proof of it after kicking them out.

 

[Lone Wolf]

No, because she really really hated them as the underclass, said they deserved it and the like.

She wasn't the only reactionary in Russia, so I'm not sure what that does have to do with her supposed German spying.

but says later that in February the revolutionaries found more concrete proof of it after kicking them out.

The only concrete thing I was able to find is Denikin's quote that Alekseev stated that a map with placement of the troops was found among the Tsarina's papers. (ch. 5, "Idea of a palace coup".) The statement about her wanting a separate peace is described by Denikin in the same quote as a widespread rumour.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

She wasn't the only reactionary in Russia, so I'm not sure what that does have to do with her supposed German spying.

Of course not, but she was the only one with influential power over the Tsar.

The only concrete thing I was able to find is Denikin's quote that Alekseev stated that a map with placement of the troops was found among the Tsarina's papers. (ch. 5, "Idea of a palace coup".) The statement about her wanting a separate peace is described by Denikin in the same quote as a widespread rumour.

I'm pretty sure it was Nicholas who was considering the separate peace, which was one reason the liberals wanted to remove him; so they could continue the war and continue getting rich.

I don't have time to look right now, but somewhere in that chapter should be a part about her being surrounded by traitors and that no one even within the palace trusted her. But I think that map part was what I was immediately thinking of.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Of course not, but she was the only one with influential power over the Tsar.

What I'm getting at, is that these reactionaries genuinely thought (or, at least, had convinced themselves that they genuinely thought) that their worldview is best for Russia.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What I'm getting at, is that these reactionaries genuinely thought (or, at least, had convinced themselves that they genuinely thought) that their worldview is best for Russia.

I didn't mean to suggest that she was being reactionary because she was helping the Germans, merely that she was reactionary and helping the Germans. My problem with her remarks about how to treat the peasants: "Be Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Emperor Paul - crush them all under your feet!" comes from simply how disgusting it is. I don't think she had that attitude because of Reichmarks in her pocket, it was because she was born and bred of the elite in Europe, the ancien regime, and taught from birth that the peasants deserve to be slaughtered like dogs when they get rowdy about "freedom," and used as tools of imperialist nations.

 

[Dumanios]

Michael Jackson now a days...

Inb4 Micheal Jackson fanboys.

Hitler
Stalin
Mao Zedong
Isabella
Andrew Jackson

 

[LightSpectra]

I knew Stalin listened to Beat It in preparation for Bagration, but I have trouble believing that Hitler was also a Jackson fan.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I knew Stalin listened to Beat It in preparation for Bagration, but I have trouble believing that Hitler was also a Jackson fan.

Nah he was into his old-school stuff like Jackson 5 and whatnot. I read once that he would break out into "I Want you Back" whenever Alsace-Lorraine was brought up in the 20s.

 

[Harvin87]

I knew Stalin listened to Beat It in preparation for Bagration, but I have trouble believing that Hitler was also a Jackson fan.

who wouldnt????

 

[StormD]

Am I seriously the only one who thinks Napoleon would make this list?

You wanting to put Napoleon on this list makes me want to take off my glove and slap you. Napoleon belongs on the list of Most Great.

Time heals most wounds, but almost 3000 years ago, the names of many Assyrian Kings like Ashurnasirpal II were feared and reviled by the nations they massacred and/or enslaved. Each was pretty much as brutal as the last, and they all recorded in graphic detail a history of their atrocities to intimidate their other subjects (often with terrifying carved illustrations to go along with the inscriptions...displayed right in their palace no less!) Here's a typical example:

"I built a pillar against his city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skin. Some I walled up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the stakes, and others I bound to stakes round about the pillar . . . And I cut off the limbs of the officers, the royal officers who had rebelled . . . "
"Many captives from among them I burned with fire, and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads, and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I burned in the fire."
"Twenty men I captured alive and I immured them in the wall of his palace . . . The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates. . . ."

Note the battering ram tearing down the city wall, the defenders thrown from atop the city wall to their death, the Assyrian soldier cutting the throat of an incapacitated man, and the rows of people impaled on poles for public display. They weren't just despicable bastards, they reveled in being infamous, and used it as propaganda. None of this "Oh no, nothing unusual is going on here, everything is fine", like modern terror regimes, it was more like, "We entered their city, killed everyone, salted their earth, and desecrated their graves. and you could be next."