of it going to members of the party in power. These pesos were later retired on a basis of $.08 each. This ruinous finance, added to the prostration begun by internal war, was disastrous to agriculture, commerce and transportation. The conservative Government, aided by the U.S. Department of State, effected on Nov. 5 1910 an agreement providing for Estrada's continu- ance in the presidency, for a commission containing Americans to adjust revolutionary claims and those arising from cancellation of concessions granted by Zelaya (see 10.645), and for a treaty with the United States providing for a loan. Estrada was elected Dec. 31 for a term of two years, and was promptly recognized by President Taft. But troubles with Emiliano Chamorro's faction over the constitution, and with Gen. Mena's faction over con- trol of the army, resulted in Estrada's resignation. The United States intervened, and with the consent of Gen. Mena, who was for some months in actual control, Adolfo Diaz succeeded to the presidency. The plan for financial rehabilitation, arranged for by treaty on June 6 1911, was checked by failure of the treaty in the U.S. Senate. However, a private loan was effected and the currency reformed by the adoption, on Nov. 12 1912, of a monetary unit, the cordoba having the value of the U.S. dollar. The loan was secured by the customs duties, and control of the national railways was obtained by an American corporation. In 1912 the customs collectorship was entrusted to Col. C. D. Ham, formerly of the customs service in the Philippine Is., who served the interests of Nicaragua, the U.S. State Depart- ment, and the holders of the national debt. The interest rate on the debt was reduced, and much of the debt itself paid. A Claims Commission, sitting from May i 1911 until late in 1914, awarded $1,840,432 out of the $13,808,161 demanded; U.S. claims of $7,576,564 were scaled to $538,749. In Oct. 1911 Gen. Mena induced the Assembly to elect him president for the term beginning Jan. i 1913, whereupon Diaz removed him from the Ministry of War, and he fled, his place being given to Emiliano Chamorro. Mena's faction, really the old Zelaya party, led by Gen. Zeledon in the illness of Mena, was opposed by the United States in the interests of the banking firms which had undertaken the reform of Nicaraguan finances. At the instance of Diaz, U.S. marines kept open the lines of communications, protected American lives and property, and sustained the Government. On Nov. 2 1912 Diaz was reelected for the term 1913-7, and was maintained in power by American marines. He ruled under the Constitution of March i 1912, as amended in Articles 168 and 170 on April 5 1913. In the latter year an additional loan of $1,000,000 was obtained in New York, but during the World War it became necessary to issue unsecured paper currency. This caused depreciation, which was checked in 1915. In Feb. 1913 a treaty was signed whereby Nicaragua gave to the United States, for $3,000,000, exclusive canal rights, with accessory control over the entrances on the Corn Is. and in the Gulf of Fonseca. An effort to extend the treaty to limit Nicaraguan foreign relations failed, but a treaty providing for a loan was finally ratified, and proclaimed on June 24 1916. Protests by Costa Rica and Salvador against alleged infringements of their sovereignty by this treaty were heard before the Central American Court of Justice, which sustained the complaints. Its decision has been ignored by both parties to the treaty, in practical derogation of the Washington Conventions of 1907, which were intended to safeguard the interests of all Central American countries and to promote the settlement of difficulties through arbitration. The policy of the United States caused resentment in many parts of Central America, where guarantees of American investments are considered evidence of imperial designs. Police control, even though maintaining a minority in power, has improved public and private finance, and given peace to the country. In 1919 Nicaragua became involved in the troubles of Honduras by allow- ing troops to gather on her border to invade her neighbour; after warning from the United States, Nicaragua desisted from the enterprise. She broke relations with Germany on April 18 1917, and declared war on May 8. She was represented at Versailles as an original member of the League of Nations, and ratified the Treaty on April 5 1920, but up to the middle of Dec. had not deposited her ratification in Paris. Nicaragua did not enter the Central American Union organized in 1921.
In Oct. 1916 Emiliano Chamorro, the candidate committed to the American financial programme, was elected as president, and inaugurated Jan. i 1917 for the term ending Dec. 31 1920. On Jan. 1 1921 Diego Manuel Chamorro, retiring minister to the United States, was inaugurated as president. (H. I. P.)
NICHOLAS II. (1868–1918), Tsar of Russia (see 19.655). In view of the tragic end of the Tsar Nicholas II. and his family, in the Russian revolution, it may be noted that, even in the lifetime of his father, Alexander III., his mind had been deeply imbued by mystic belief in divine rights and providential guidance, and he was prepared to suffer and to endure, if necessary, in carrying out the duties of his office. His intellectual preparation as heir to the throne was very insufficient. As the second son he had been left in the background for some time, and even when it became clear that his elder brother, George, was doomed to untimely death by consumption, no special efforts were made to prepare him for his task by any elaborate teaching. An English tutor, Mr. Heath, taught him indeed good English, and inspired a love of sports and healthy exercise, while a Russian general, Danilovitch, supervised his military training, but there was no attempt to provide him with the comprehensive knowledge required from one whom fate had destined to rule an immense empire. The only occasion which was offered to the young Tsarevitch to acquaint himself with the problems of the world was his journey to the Far East, so abruptly cut short in Kioto by the sabre cut of a Japanese fanatic. It is not to be wondered at that Nicholas II. 's range of ideas was not very wide or profound, although he was by no means unintelligent and possessed in high degree the royal habit to move with ease and tact in complicated personal surroundings. His disposition towards fatalistic mysticism made him particularly amenable to the promptings of superstitious and irrational suggestion. He told Stolypin on one occasion, when he had to take an important decision, that he was loth to do so, because he was sure that his interference .would be accompanied by bad luck; he saw a warning in the fact that he had been born on May 6, the day when the Church honoured the memory of Job; he was predestinated to say with Job: "As soon as I apprehend a danger, it occurs, and all the misfortunes dreaded by me come over me." His career was bent with many dismal predestinations of every kind. He wedded Princess Alix of Hesse, at the death-bed of his father; at the festival of his Coronation more than three thousand people were crushed to death through the negligence of the officials who had to arrange a distribution of bounties; and during the Coronation itself the imperial chain on his breast fell to the ground. Such impressions contributed strongly to inspire him with a mystic resignation, especially unsuitable for a monarch who had to lead the nation through times of great crisis at home and in foreign affairs.
Nicholas II.'s political outlook was dominated by a kind of theocratic or hieratic spirit; he was looking back for inspirations to the ideas and customs of the Moscovite period; he was induced to impersonate the figure of Alexis Mikhailovitch, the father of the western reformer Peter the Great; in 1913 the tercentenary of Michail Feodorovitch's accession to the throne after the " Great Troubles " was celebrated with great splendour and emphasis. Pilgrimages were performed with great devotion and circumstance.
The courtiers and bureaucrats in the immediate surroundings of the Tsar, men like Sipiaguin, Nicolas Maklakov, and Sabler, took advantage of these prepossessions in order to keep up a constant hostility against progressive reformers and western adaptations. But the most dangerous representative of mystic reaction was the Tsar's consort, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Of German descent on her father's, side and of English descent on the side of her mother (Princess Alice, the daughter of Queen Victoria), she had received her education in England, but, on coming to Russia, she surrendered completely to the most extreme form of theocratic exaltation. While her sister, the widow of the Grand Duke Sergius, killed by a ter-
