auxiliary cruisers of the Volunteer Fleet. Alexander took part in the development of programs aimed at rebuilding the fleet, brought them to the attention of governments and the public, and avidly supported the construction of new battleships. In 1909 he was promoted to the rank of vice admiral. World War I Alexander played a major role in the creation of Russian military aviation. He was the initiator of the officer's aviation school near Sevastopol in 1910 and later the chief of the Imperial Russian Air Service during the First World War. From December 1916 Alexander was the Field Inspector General of the Imperial Russian Air Service. At the beginning of 1917 he advocated the formation of a government with the participation of public figures, speaking out against the "responsible ministry". The Revolution and after His impact on Nicholas has been both criticized and appreciated. His memoirs document that he openly challenged Empress Alexandra's political influence on her husband but wished that Nicholas had used troops to resist the revolution. He also admitted that he had been brought up to share the anti-Semitic views that he claimed were prevalent in Russia prior to the revolution. His appeal to Nicholas, as his children approached adulthood, to relax the requirement for equal marriage for Romanov dynasts was rejected, and all seven of his children married titled but non-royal Russian aristocrats, but only his daughter obtained permission of Nicholas to do so. When Alexander's eldest son, Andrei Alexandrovich, married at Yalta in the Crimea on 12 June 1918, Nicholas, who had abdicated on 15 March 1917, was a prisoner at Yekaterinburg with his family. They would be executed by the Bolsheviks just over a month later. Alexander left the Crimea with his eldest son, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, and his son's new bride, Elisabetta Ruffo di Sant'Antimo, who was pregnant, in December 1918. His wife and mother-in-law, Empress-Dowager Maria Fyodorovna and his sons as well as other Romanovs, were rescued from the Crimea by the British battleship in 1919. Alexander lived in Paris and wrote his memoirs. Once a Grand Duke (Farrar & Rinehart 1933) is a source of dynastical and court life in Imperial Russia's last half-century. He also spent a time as guest of future Emperor Ras Tafari. He talks about why he was invited to the Ethiopian Empire in his sequel, Always a Grand Duke. He died in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. He was