Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia before World War I broke out, Grand Duchess Anastasia visited her brother, Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia, and his family in England. When many eagerly greeted the outbreak of war, after the Austrian ultimatum, she wrote to Tsar Nicholas II: ""I hope that the war will not happen and that we even can say ‘perhaps in a few days, we’ll all be together again'"". The conflict split her family. Her son was a reigning prince in Germany and her younger daughter was the Kaiser's daughter in law. On the opposite side, her brothers in Russia were fighting to defeat
Alexander II of Russia estrangement between the two Alexanders. Amongst his children, he remained particularly close with his second, and only surviving daughter, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna. In 1873, a quarrel broke out between the courts of Queen Victoria and Alexander II, when Victoria's second son, Prince Alfred, made it known that he wished to marry the Grand Duchess. The tsar objected to the queen's request to have his daughter come to England in order to meet her, and after the January 1874 wedding in St. Petersburg, the tsar insisted that his daughter be granted precedence over the Princess of Wales, which the queen