Alexander served as a sub-Lieutenant of the Hussars of the guard, and as an aide-de-camp to the Russian emperor.[3] Later he became attached to the Fourth Battalion of the Chasseurs of the Guard of the Imperial Family.[3]
Marriage
In 1909, Alexander featured in many newspapers after rumors spread that he would enter into a morganatic marriage with American Marjorie Gould, a daughter of wealthy railroad executive George Jay Gould I.[3][4][5] They reported Alexander met Marjorie the previous summer in Paris, and that his father later approached George Gould and asked for his daughter's hand for his son.[3] One stated Alexander's father "would not sanction a marriage merely for love, and would insist that the Prince's bride must bring with her a fortune suitable to the rank of an Imperial Princess".[5] George Gould and others put down these rumors vehemently, stating there the two were mere friends and there was no engagement.[3]
In 1912, Alexander was reported to have gained the reluctant consent of Emperor Nicholas to marry the wealthy Marianne Friedländer-Fuld, but only on the condition that the union would be considered unequal, with none of his titles being passed onto his wife or possible children.[6] Despite being the senior descendant of Eugène de Beauharnais (son of Empress Joséphine), Alexander was far from rich, and served as a captain of the Russian Hussars of the guard and as an aide-de-camp to the Emperor.[6] He was however the principal heir to his grandfather.[6]
Alexander later morganatically married to Nadezhda (or Nadejda) Nicolaevna Caralli (14 July 1883 – 1964) on 22 January 1917 in Petrograd.[2]
As he was closely related to the Russian imperial family, Alexander made several attempts to save Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Several days after Nicholas's abdication on 15 March 1917, Alexander visited Muriel Buchanan[nb 2], the daughter of Sir George Buchanan, British ambassador to the Russian court, with the hopes of gaining her father's help.[7] She noticed that the duke seem distracted and somehow different, "then I realized suddenly that he had discarded all his decorations, and no longer wore the golden aiguillettes. Russia had no Emperor now, I remembered".[8] Alexander said he had come to urge her father, Sir George, to take swift action and get the tsar and his family out of Russia.[7] He continued that the family was in "the gravest danger", and that if they did not leave soon, it would be too late to get them away and save them from possible disaster.[7] Muriel subsequently called her father over, where he and Alexander discussed the situation; Sir George agreed to do all he could, but stated he had already sent several messages to London warning of the dangers.[7]
In 1918, the year the family was murdered, Alexander traveled to Berlin and tried to get the help of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, who was a cousin of Nicholas's; in this attempt, the duke tried to persuade Nicholas to agree to a plan based on German help.[9] Alexander was in favor of spiriting the family away to Berlin, but Nicholas refused, causing rumors that Wilhelm's government was considering "kidnapping the Tsar and his family and bringing them to Germany".[10][11] Empress Alexandra insisted she "would rather die in Russia than be rescued by the Germans".[11] In the end, nothing came of these plans, as monarchist groups could not decide whether or not to restore Nicholas or his son Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich.[9]
Near the end of 1917, while lodging with Felix Yusupov[nb 3], Alexander was arrested by Bolshevik authorities, along with four or five prominent members of the monarchical party.[12] In 1919, a Bolshevik wireless message sent to The Washington Post asserted that after a meeting of Russian monarchists in Siberia, Alexander was offered and accepted the Russian throne,[13] though no further reports confirmed this.
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