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Summary
Summary
The extraordinary family story of George V, Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II: they were tied to one another by history, and history would ultimately tear them apart.
Known among their families as Georgie, Willy, and Nicky, they were, respectively, the royal cousins George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Nicholas II of Russia--the first two grandsons of Queen Victoria, the latter her grandson by marriage. In 1914, on the eve of world war, they controlled the destiny of Europe and the fates of millions of their subjects. The outcome and their personal endings are well known--Nicky shot with his family by the Bolsheviks, Willy in exile in Holland, Georgie still atop his throne. Largely untold, however, is the family saga that played such a pivotal role in bringing the world to the precipice.
Drawing widely on previously unpublished royal letters and diaries, made public for the first time by Queen Elizabeth II, Catrine Clay chronicles the riveting half century of the royals' overlapping lives, and their slow, inexorable march into conflict. They met frequently from childhood, on holidays, and at weddings, birthdays, and each others' coronations. They saw themselves as royal colleagues, a trade union of kings, standing shoulder to shoulder against the rise of socialism, republicanism, and revolution. And yet tensions abounded between them.
Clay deftly reveals how intimate family details had deep historical significance: the antipathy Willy's mother (Victoria's daughter) felt toward him because of his withered left arm, and how it affected him throughout his life; the family tension caused by Otto von Bismarck's annexation of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark (Georgie's and Nicky's mothers were Danish princesses); the surreality surrounding the impending conflict. "Have I gone mad?" Nicholas asked his wife, Alexandra, in July 1914, showing her another telegram from Wilhelm. "What on earth does Willy mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not?" Germany had, in fact, declared war on Russia six hours earlier. At every point in her remarkable book, Catrine Clay sheds new light on a watershed period in world history.
Author Notes
Catrine Clay has worked for the BBC for more than twenty years, directing and producing award-winning television documentaries. King, Kaiser, Tsar is her third book, resulting from her documentary of the same title. She is married and lives in London with her three children.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
How did WWI happen? Was it the inevitable product of vast, impersonal forces colliding? Or was it a completely avoidable war that resulted from flawed decisions by individuals? Clay (Princess to Queen), a documentary producer for the BBC, inclines strongly to the latter explanation, and she brilliantly narrates how just three men led their nations to war. Forming a trade union of majesties, King George V (Britain), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany) and Czar Nicholas II (Russia) were cousins who together ruled more than half the world. They were a family, and thus subject to the same tensions and turmoil that afflict every family. They had "played together, celebrated each other's birthdays... and later attended each other's weddings," but still, while George and Nicholas were close, Wilhelm was something of an outsider--a feeling exacerbated by his paranoia and self-loathing. Over time, his sense of exclusion and humiliation would avenge itself on the family and eventually contributed strongly to the murder of Nicholas and the loss of his own throne. Clay's theory does have a hole--though not ruled by the "cousins," France and Austria-Hungary also played major roles in the outbreak of war--but that does not detract from the ingenuity and pleasure of her narrative. 35 b&w photos. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Events in Europe leading up to--precipitating--World War I are viewed through a purposefully narrow lens in this excellent example of consistently gripping, smoothly flowing narrative nonfiction. Clay sets herself the task of investigating the degree of personal responsibility for contributing to the outbreak of war in 1914 that can be placed on the shoulders of three European monarchs who not only ruled more than half of the world but also were cousins on close terms with one another: erratic, out-of-control Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany; likable but ineffectual Czar Nicholas II of Russia; and the much more ordinary but much more successful keeper of his throne, King George V of Great Britain. The author inquires into their upbringing, education, marriages, and relations with each other--in essence, everything about them as individuals that can speak to how and why World War I broke out. As so graphically witnessed here, family history back then, when the family happened to be royal, often made national history. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2007 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Did sibling rivalry lead to the slaughter that was World War I? This psychobiography makes a good case in the affirmative. BBC documentarian Clay delivers only a bit of news, but lights up some of the shadows in the lives of the cousins who would become George V, Wilhelm II and Nicholas II. Georgie was a bit of a thickie, Willie a born victim and Nicky pleasing but ineffectual. Each, descended from Queen Victoria, had unusual burdens, but young Wilhelm had more than his share. Mauled by a doctor's forceps on delivery, he could not easily do some of the things other boys of his age and class did, such as ride a horse or shoot a bow. When Nicky and Georgie came over to Germany to play, they often left Willie out of the proceedings; moreover, Nicky never liked Willie personally, and he "was snubbed by his English relations, again and again and often with relish, feeding his paranoia and playing right into the hands of the Anglophobes," the Prussian nationalists who came to dominate his administration. Small wonder that as early as 1910, Germany was spoiling to go to war to avenge the slights against its thoroughly militarized (if, we learn, gay) emperor; small wonder that Wilhelm took the Triple Entente, which hemmed Germany between England and Russia, as a personal insult. Clay ventures that, though Tsar Nicholas was no help, George might have been able to negotiate a workable peace, since some difficult episodes with Queen Victoria had already demonstrated that Wilhelm was well capable of reason. As it happened, George was the only one of the cousins whose rule survived the vicious war that followed; the Bolsheviks executed Nicholas and his family, Wilhelm went into exile on the coast of Holland, railing daily against socialists and Jews, and the world lurched on toward a still greater catastrophe. Readable, if something of a footnote to history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Clay (documentary producer, BBC: Princess to Queen) has written a truly ambitious biography of not one but three significant men. King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (familiarly known as Georgie, Willy, and Nicky) were more than just the leaders of three of the most powerful countries in the world in the early 20th century-they were cousins who had grown up together, played together, and attended family functions together. Queen Victoria, as grandmother to Georgie and Willy and grandmother through marriage to Nicky, is here depicted as the strong matriarch linking the three together. Clay expertly weaves the story of the boys' lives up to World War I, using diary entries and letters written by members of this extended royal family and their acquaintances (many of these documents were made newly available for this publication). With remarkable expertise, she provides an intimate look inside the lives of these boys as they grew into manhood and became king, kaiser, and tsar, bringing new pleasures and details to a well-known subject. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.-Susanne Markgren, SUNY Purchase Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
