- 6 months ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00on August the 4th 1914 Britain went to war against an old friend and traditional
00:10ally a people with whom it shared countless historical and cultural ties it did so in
00:19alliance with an authoritarian dictatorship which had been its most deadly enemy for the
00:24best part of a century how it is that Britain came to fight alongside Russia against Germany
00:33is one of the great puzzles of the 20th century the explanation in part lies in the eccentricities
00:43and foibles of a single family that of Queen Victoria whose descendants occupied the thrones
00:49of no less than 10 European countries a dynastic web that meant European diplomacy was also a
00:56domestic drama at the outbreak of war three first cousins reigned over Europe's greatest powers
01:06as our Nicholas the second of Russia Kaiser Wilhelm the second of Germany and King George the fifth of
01:13Britain their passions their friendships and above all their poisonous rivalries would play a key role
01:24in the realignment of European politics a role often overlooked by historians this is the story of how
01:34how royalty helped drag Europe into the abyss the story of a family tragedy
01:41on March the 10th 1863 half a century before the outbreak of World War One the royalty of Europe
02:01gathered at St George's Chapel Windsor for the wedding of Queen Victoria's eldest son Bertie later King Edward the seventh to Princess Alexandra
02:11Alexandra of Denmark beautiful and glamorous princess Alex as she was known
02:23was the princess Diana of her day already wildly popular with the British
02:31public
02:33but the wedding would also be remembered as the first public appearance in England
02:41of Queen Victoria's grandson the future German Kaiser Wilhelm II Wilhelm who is age
02:50four comes to wedding as a page and he's very excited because he's allowed to
02:56wear what he calls his scotch dress with a kilt and a sparring and the skin during his
03:01socks he is sat next to a couple of his uncles and first of all he bites the leg
03:09of one of them and then he throws his little dirk into the middle of the aisle
03:14while they're saying their vows so at the age of four he's already trying to
03:19upstage the British monarchy and his uncle it was the beginning of a long
03:28complex and tortured relationship between the future German Kaiser and his
03:33British family
03:36and the wedding that spring day would prove a turning point in the royal
03:43family's relations with Europe in other ways as well
03:47within a year of the marriage of Bertie and Alex Prussia invaded Denmark
03:58Prussia was the largest of the states in a Germany which at that time was still not
04:05united the troublesome Wilhelm's father known as Fritz was heir to the Prussian throne and was married to Queen Victoria's oldest daughter Vicky
04:17Denmark was the home country of the beautiful new Princess of Wales
04:23the effect of this is basically to set up a hostility between Denmark and Prussia that is to
04:35be a major factor in the sort of alignment of the European powers and to divide Victoria's family
04:42Alex was reported to weep every night and Bertie would come in and find her crying over the
04:49dream tremendous humiliation that Germany had done to Denmark but Alex's mother-in-law Queen Victoria took
04:58Prussia's side she ordered her son Bertie to remember your connection with Denmark is only of a year's standing
05:05your whole family are German and you are half German you've got to remember that she is pretty much
05:13completely German herself you know her mother was German her paternal grandmother was German and her
05:19great-grandparents were all German too princess Alex though was determined to signal her support for her
05:26Danish homeland she became I think more deeply anti-Prussian because she had to bottle it up effectively
05:34and she found lovely subtle little ways of expressing it one of the earliest family photographs of their
05:42first child she has the baby on her knee and he is dressed in what appears to be the traditional baby
05:49outfit but if you look very closely it's decorated with little Danish flags it is literally a very quiet
05:57piece of flag-waving on the part of the princess of Wales princess Alex darling of the British public
06:06wife of one future British King mother of another would never forgive the Prussians for the war of 1864 and
06:15although Prussia won the war would also have profound implications for Queen Victoria's daughter Vicky and her
06:25husband Fritz in Berlin Prussia was an aggressive rising power when Victoria and Prince Albert had sent Vicky to
06:38marry the Prussian heir six years before they were sending her on a mission Queen Victoria and Albert had this
06:46plan to civilized Prussia it was an attempt to use Vicky to marry the eventual heir to the German throne and to rescue Prussia from the excesses of of German militarism
07:04Vicky was just 17 when she married Fritz a child bride but she was highly intelligent and had been carefully trained by her
07:15father for the task in hand it was assumed Germany would soon be united under Prussian leadership it was
07:27Vicky's job to make sure the new Germany would be a liberal pro-British constitutional monarchy if you have a
07:36liberal pressure you'll have a liberal Germany say Vicky is fired off like sort of exoset missile into
07:43pressure to kind of create a liberal pressure it was nothing less than a battle for the soul of the future
07:50Germany a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of a 17 year old girl as even Queen Victoria recognized
07:57poor dear child I often tremble when I think how much is expected of her Victoria's plans soon unraveled
08:08in 1862 Otto von Bismarck was appointed Prussian prime minister an arch-conservative Bismarck's politics were the
08:22opposite of Vicky's the attack on Denmark in 1864 consolidated Bismarck's grip on power resulting in
08:31the seizure of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein a series of short wars followed during which Bismarck
08:40crushed the independence of the smaller German states and defeated Austria and France by 1871 he had achieved
08:48the dream of German unification transforming the map of Europe the creation of the united Germany it
08:57totally threatens the European balance of power simply because of the number of Germans their strategic
09:03position in the middle of Europe and the fact that Germany has the most vibrant economy in many ways it
09:10creates in the middle of Europe a country which potentially could dominate the continent
09:15unification also meant a dramatic tilt in the balance of power within Germany the forces of
09:27conservative militarism were triumphant Vicky was sidelined she wrote anguished letters to her
09:34mother Queen Victoria you cannot think how painful it is to be continuously surrounded by people who
09:42consider your very existence a misfortune but Bismarck was just one of Vicky's problems as the British had
09:54already observed at Bertie's wedding her son Wilhelm was a difficult child his problems had begun on the night
10:04he was born Wilhelm's had been a breech birth the baby was firmly stuck he was coming out bottom first his legs were sort of up over his chest his arms were behind his head and the doctor somehow got the left arm brought it down
10:30but he said in his own notes that he had to use considerable force to do it which I mean even when you think about it it's hideous and it's really in those moments that the Kaiser is made
10:45Wilhelm's left arm would be permanently disabled shorter than his right and of little use his sensitive intelligent 18 year old mother Vicky was traumatized
10:59it cuts me to the heart when I see all other children with the use of all their limbs and that mine is denied that the idea of his remaining a cripple haunts me I long to have a child with everything
11:14perfect about it like everybody else it's a militaristic society and a milieu where you can't be handicapped I mean you can't have a one-armed king that's something you don't have in Prussia you have
11:26to have to have the perfect body and she has a son who hasn't got the perfect body
11:32Wilhelm's grandfather the Prussian king Wilhelm the first reacted with characteristic Prussian tact
11:39William the first when he sees a little baby William is said to have wondered aloud to his son Fritz whether he should congratulate him on the birth of a defective child
11:51Vicky had failed in what for the Prussians was her central mission
12:00by the early 1860s Vicky and Fritz were living in the vast impersonal grandeur of the new palace outside Berlin
12:11here Wilhelm was subjected to a series of desperate treatments for his disability his right arm was strapped to his body to force him to use his left arm resulting only in endless painful falls as he tottered along the marble corridors then at the age of four
12:36Wilhelm's head began to twist to one side as a result of the imbalance in his neck muscles
12:43to treat this he was strapped into a machine
12:48Vicky included a sketch in a letter to her mother
12:51I cannot tell what I suffered when I saw him in that machine
12:56it was all I could do to prevent myself from crying
13:00to see one's child treated like one deformed
13:03it really is very hard
13:05Wilhelm's young traumatised mother
13:10compounded his problems
13:12Vicky finds it almost impossible to accept
13:16Wilhelm's disability
13:18that there's no bonding between them
13:20She clearly sends messages
13:23perhaps subliminally to Wilhelm
13:25that he's somehow not up to her expectations
13:29This is the story of a proud mother
13:33who reacts really badly to her son's handicap
13:36She tries to love him and pulls herself together
13:42and tries to be a good mother
13:45but at the end of the day
13:47she looks at him and she thinks
13:48this is my greatest failure
13:49that's what she feels
13:51The relationship between the future Kaiser
13:54and his English mother
13:56would be fraught and complicated
13:58with profound implications
14:00for the future of Europe
14:03across the North Sea at Marlborough House
14:10the London home of the Prince and Princess of Wales
14:13the childhood of the future King George V
14:16could not have been more different
14:19George was born six years after Wilhelm
14:23and was healthy and robust
14:25the second son
14:29he was not originally intended for the throne
14:31his brother Eddie was the heir
14:37George was spared the hothouse education imposed
14:40on his German cousin
14:42his father Bertie, the Prince of Wales
14:45although fond of George's mother
14:47was a notorious philanderer
14:50it was a situation the beautiful Princess Alex
14:53his future Queen
14:54had little option but to accept
14:57but it meant she poured her affection into her children
15:01and she created what for small children
15:06I think must have been a rather wonderful atmosphere
15:09of endless games
15:10no lessons, nothing serious
15:12endless sort of romping
15:14a very kind of child-centred environment
15:18every other summer Princess Alex would take the whole family off to stay with her parents in Denmark
15:35although comparatively impoverished
15:37the Danish royal family had succeeded in marrying into various European dynasties
15:44and cousins, uncles and aunts from across the continent
15:48would all meet up at the Danish King's summer home outside Copenhagen
15:55among them were the Russian royal family
15:58it was here that George first met his cousin
16:01the future Tsar Nicholas II
16:04whose mother Dagmar
16:06always known as Minnie
16:07was Alex's sister
16:09what happens is
16:11Bertie and Alex end up holidaying
16:15you know once every two years
16:17with the Russian Tsar and his wife
16:19because Alex and Minnie have this very close relationship
16:22they were obviously sisters
16:24and they want to bring the families together
16:29Minnie's husband was Alexander Tsar of Russia from 1881
16:36a larger-than-life personality
16:38famous for being able to bend iron pokers with his bare hands
16:46both shy and withdrawn
16:48George and Nicholas were somewhat in awe of their fathers
16:52and they would become firm friends
17:01the informality of these summer holidays
17:03is captured in rarely seen images from the Danish archives
17:08taken by the royals themselves
17:10keen amateur photographers
17:12the atmosphere is completely knockabout
17:21that circle is notorious for a very relaxed
17:25very slapstick sense of humour
17:27you hear of the Princess of Wales
17:29and the Empress of Russia
17:30turning somersaults in full evening dress
17:33the children turn a garden hose on the Tsar of Russia
17:37and he laughs and turns it back
17:40they call him Uncle Fatty
17:43can you imagine that?
17:46so this extraordinary atmosphere
17:48of emperor, empress, several kings and queens
17:51and endless countless archdukes and duchesses
17:54all of them behaving like sort of children on holiday
18:01traces of the royal holidaymakers remain to this day
18:05an initial scratched into a windowpane
18:08probably that of Tsar Alexander
18:14the heights of the children marked on a doorframe
18:24but one royal cousin was never invited
18:27Vicky's son
18:28the future Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany
18:30who as a Prussian
18:32was not welcome in defeated, humiliated Denmark
18:39many of the other guests were from minor German royal houses
18:42also beaten in the German wars of unification
18:46and no more keen than the Danes to holiday with their Prussian conquerors
18:50you get the sort of losers from the Prussian wars of the 1860s
18:55all gathering on the beach and muttering against Prussia
18:59for the Tsarina of Russia and the future British Queen
19:05the holidays had a clear political purpose
19:07Minnie and Alex hoped to draw their husbands
19:12Bertie and Alexander closer to each other
19:17and away from Germany
19:24in 1874 the Russian royal family visited London
19:30Minnie, seen here on the left
19:32was as glamorous and photogenic as her sister
19:34and the British public was enchanted
19:38the Danish sisters became the fashion icons of their day
19:42and quickly turned the trip into a declaration of Anglo-Russian friendship
19:47they came out together I think on the first day
19:50wearing identical outfits
19:51and of course they were very striking women anyway
19:54and this makes an incredible impact
19:57and it makes a very interesting underlying point
20:00perhaps Britain and Russia do have something in common
20:02you know perhaps there are things that could draw them together
20:06but in the 1870s the sisters were fighting an uphill battle
20:11in seeking to forge Anglo-Russian ties
20:19for the British Russia was the traditional enemy
20:22throughout the 19th century most Britons looked with fear
20:26and something close to loathing at Russia
20:28Russia was the country that in the kind of nightmare imagination
20:32of the government in London threatened India
20:35India the jewel in the imperial crown
20:37they're Asiatic
20:39they're the descendants of the Mongol horde
20:41they're barbarians
20:43Queen Victoria spoke for the nation
20:46those detestable Russians
20:50horrible deceitful cruel
20:53they will always hate us
20:55and we can never trust them
20:57the Russians were no more fond of the British
21:01resenting their presence in India and Central Asia
21:05the Russian perspective is that the British are both
21:11hypocritical and a damn nuisance
21:14Britain is the country which blocks Russia in all sorts of ways
21:21you know the moral superiority of Britain
21:24that sticks in a few gullets
21:25rather than to Britain Russia looked to Germany
21:31where the Chancellor Bismarck had worked hard to cultivate good relations
21:36fearful of an alliance between France and Russia
21:39that would leave Germany encircled
21:41in Berlin in 1884 Bismarck strengthened ties by sending a delegation to Russia for the celebration of the coming of age of Tsarevich Nicholas the Russian heir
21:58his choice to lead it was a surprising one
22:02Nicholas's cousin Prince Wilhelm now 25
22:05this is incredibly flattering for somebody you know so young and experienced as Wilhelm
22:12you know he hasn't done any diplomatic work before
22:14but it's also tremendous slight to his father
22:16because Wilhelm's father Fritz had long wanted to take part in government and Bismarck had basically kept him out
22:23ever keen to marginalize the liberal influence of Wilhelm's parents still only heirs to the throne
22:30Bismarck was exploiting what had become a complex troubled relationship
22:36particularly between Wilhelm and his English mother
22:48as a teenager Wilhelm had written strange sexually charged letters to Vicky describing dreams in which he repeatedly kissed and caressed her hands
22:58dreams he longed to fulfill
23:02in eight days we will go to Berlin and then what I dreamed about we will do in reality when we are alone in your room without any witnesses
23:11promise to do so really as you did in my dream to me for I do so love you
23:16well what does one think of that it's clearly an erotic dream
23:23and strangely concentrating on the hands and specifically the left hand
23:30and one can't overlook the fact that it's Wilhelm's left hand that is in a glove to hide the discolored nature and the claw like nature of it
23:37and my interpretation of it is that it's one last appeal that he's making through this illicit incestuous avenue to his mother to love him the way he really is
23:53now in his twenties the future Kaiser's heart had hardened
24:00and he had become fiercely hostile to everything his parents represented
24:06Vicky wrote in despair to her mother Queen Victoria
24:10Willi is chauvinistic and ultra Prussian to a degree and with a violence which is often very painful to me
24:19he is turning into the archetypal Potsdam Lieutenant with that evil admixture of a very loud mouth and a chauvinist's hatred and ignorance of all things foreign
24:30he does everything that annoys his parents of course he is a total rebel he knows that it will upset his parents if he mingles in anti-semitic circles and he does that he wants to be with the winners you know with his grandfather and with Bismarck and his parents are to him the losers in German society he doesn't want to be associated with them
24:56the tensions between mother and son were exacerbated by Vicky's ferocious attachment to her British homeland
25:05she was always saying how fantastic England was and how basically rubbish Germany was
25:11you little German boy you will never understand what it is to be an Englishman you know you may praise your navy but it's nothing compared with our navy and on and on and on and on
25:21Wilhelm's trip to Russia for Nicholas's coming of age in 1884 put the final seal on his defection to the conservative camp
25:34Wilhelm is absolutely enchanted by the autocracy that he sees in st. Petersburg and Moscow the fact that there are 12,000 soldiers lining the railway tracks
25:43all shouting hooray when the imperial train goes past this is his ideal world
25:51Wilhelm saw the Russian Tsar Alexander III Nicholas's father as a demigod
25:59living amidst almost unimaginable splendour in his numerous palaces the Tsar wielded absolute power
26:05untrammeled by any form of representative government Wilhelm was intoxicated
26:18the emperor ideology that he develops in 1884 stays with him this kind of notion of I've been sent by God to rule my people and I must listen to the people I must listen to God and tell them what God tells me is best for them
26:32On returning to Berlin Wilhelm began a gushing private alarmingly indiscreet correspondence with the Tsar in which it was clear his hostility to his mother now extended to her British family
26:49I ask you only one favour oppose the English uncles do not be shocked by what you will hear from my father
26:56he is under the influence of my mother who for her part is directed by the Queen of England and who causes him to see everything through English eyes
27:06but Wilhelm's relationship with England mirrored his relationship with his mother in all its complexity
27:14he's pulled in all sorts of directions he sort of is fascinated by Britain
27:18he wants to be noticed by Britain he hates Britain
27:24so he loved the pomp of the Empire he loved the pomp around his grandmother
27:29that's all appealing to him terribly but at the same time there's always this insecurity that you know I'm not up to it
27:37they think that Germany is not equal
27:40all his relationships in his whole life are totally conflicted and so is this one
27:44there's a relationship to England is the most troubled one he has
27:53in 1887 Queen Victoria celebrated her golden jubilee
27:59Wilhelm was far fonder of his grandmother than his mother
28:03and now showed his pro-British face
28:06once again persuading his grandfather to send him rather than his parents as head of the German delegation
28:12Queen Victoria was having none of it
28:17when Victoria hears that Wilhelm has invited himself as the German representative bypassing his parents without telling his parents
28:25she is furious and she sort of disinvites him and asks his parents instead invites them
28:32As the grand procession wound its way through the streets of London Wilhelm had to make do with a minor role
28:45In the official portrait of Victoria's extended family painted for the occasion
28:51it was his father Fritz who was given pride of place
28:57Wilhelm was left gnashing his teeth
29:00relegated to a window alcove with his younger cousin Prince George
29:05In private his anti-English venom returned
29:09It's high time that old woman died
29:11One cannot have enough hatred for England
29:14One cannot have enough hatred for England
29:20A few months later the royalty of Europe gathered once more in Berlin
29:25for the funeral of Wilhelm's grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I
29:29who had finally died aged 90
29:3130 years after arriving in Germany Queen Victoria's daughter Vicky was Empress at last
29:43but there was to be no joyful coronation
29:46Her husband Fritz was dying
29:49Fritz, Wilhelm's father contracts throat cancer
29:53and it takes ages to get the diagnosis and by the time they've worked out what it is it's basically too late
29:59Fritz became Kaiser in March 1888
30:03but by then he had just a few months to live
30:07It's one of the great what-ifs of history
30:10If Wilhelm I hadn't lived quite so long
30:13if his son Fritz had taken over sooner
30:16Germany might have evolved in a different way
30:19Fritz was a liberal, he wanted to make Germany a constitutional and modern country
30:23but his son Wilhelm II did not want to do any of the above
30:26Vicky knew that she and her husband would never wield real power
30:31she wrote tragically to Queen Victoria
30:36I think people in general consider us a mere passing shadow
30:41soon to be replaced by reality in the shape of Wilhelm
30:44Fritz wants to have some effect on German politics
30:47but he's just too ill and too weak and he sort of sits there knowing he's dying
30:57and that you know everything he'd worked for for 20 years
31:00you know this sort of liberal idea of Germany that he'd hoped to create
31:04is just not going to happen
31:06it's really really grim
31:11Fritz died after just 99 days on the throne
31:14age 29 his erratic emotionally unstable son was now Kaiser of one of the most powerful countries in the world
31:33a country where ultimate power still rested with the monarch
31:36his first act was to order troops to surround the new palace where his father had died
31:46he says that the palace must be searched for papers relating to his father's time as emperor
31:54it's sort of monstrous it's such an aggressive act because of course it's really directed at Vicky and the British family hear of this Bertie in particular and it's an awful awful thing to do to your mother obviously and they are horrified by this
32:12Bertie the Prince of Wales
32:15Bertie the Prince of Wales now in his late 40s was close to his sister
32:21he wrote to Vicky to console her over the behaviour of her son
32:25his conduct towards you is simply revolting
32:29but alas he lacks the feelings and usages of a gentleman
32:34the future British King never forgave his German nephew
32:38the relationship between Wilhelm's cousin Prince George and his mother could not have been more different
32:51George always called Alex the Princess of Wales darling mother dear
32:56while she called him little Georgie signing off one letter
33:01with a great big kiss for your lovely little face
33:04George was 25 at the time
33:07George was 25 at the time
33:13George! George!
33:15George!
33:17Princess Alex's loathing for Germany had not dimmed
33:21in 1890 George was made honorary colonel in a Prussian dragoon regiment
33:26during a visit to Berlin with his father
33:29while Bertie squeezed into a somewhat tight uniform
33:34George kept in the background
33:36his mother reacted with amused dismay
33:39so my Georgie boy has become a real life filthy blue coated pickle how the German soldier
33:47never mind as you say it could not have been helped
33:50George remained behind his older brother in line to the throne
33:58and had originally been intended for a career in the Royal Navy
34:03George had the education of a midshipman
34:07I mean he was extraordinarily badly educated
34:10almost uniquely among late 19th century royalty
34:16George could speak no foreign languages
34:19well I think to a large extent George is is shaped by his life in the Navy
34:24and you know he likes small spaces even after he becomes Prince of Wales
34:29he is not gregarious he doesn't like meeting people
34:33he likes order he likes discipline he likes control
34:36it was only with the death in 1892 of his older brother Eddie from pneumonia
34:43that George became heir
34:46unlike cousin Wilhelm he had never had any desire to be king
34:51the death of his brother comes as a complete shock
34:54Eddie is almost a twin to him
34:56so at that level it is it is devastating
34:58and then suddenly to be faced with all these responsibilities which he never anticipated
35:05is is terrifying to him I think at the beginning
35:09now a sense of shared destiny drew him more than ever to friendship with his cousin
35:15the Russian heir Nicholas
35:17with whom he also shared a remarkable physical similarity
35:21they are both sort of rather decent rather callow rather nice young men
35:26without really much curiosity to move beyond the rank and station in life which fate has assigned them to
35:34like George Nicholas's closest relationship was with his mother Minnie
35:40his Danish mother as is the way with her sister Queen Alexandra of Britain
35:45is a very good mother a very possessive mother
35:49but one who does her utmost to keep her son's children
35:52it strikes me as an extraordinary thing that you've got these two immensely prominent royal figures who at home are little more than big babies
36:06but there was one key difference between the two royal cousins
36:11where George dutifully married Princess Mary the girl who had been engaged to his older brother
36:16Nicholas's marriage would be an epic tale of drama and romance
36:20one that would alter the course of Russian history
36:23in St Petersburg in 1889 during a family visit
36:36Nicholas had fallen deeply passionately in love with his German cousin Queen Victoria's granddaughter
36:40Princess Alex of Hesse Darmstadt
36:48Alex was the daughter of Victoria's second daughter Alice who had married a German Duke
36:55Alice had died of diphtheria when Alex was just six years old
36:59and Queen Victoria had taken the motherless children under her wing
37:02Victoria has this strong sense that Alice's children have in some way become her own children
37:09the Queen takes a particular interest in the daughters and that inevitably means in the daughter's marital prospects
37:18Alex was always said to have been Victoria's favourite grandchild
37:23and the thought of her marrying the Russian heir revived all the Queen's old fears and suspicions
37:31my blood runs cold when I think of her placed on that very unsafe throne
37:38the state of Russia is so bad so rotten that at any moment something dreadful might happen
37:44and the wife of the heir to the throne is in a most difficult and precarious position
37:48but strangely one obvious obstacle to Nicholas marrying Alex was never mentioned
37:56Haemophilia
37:58it seems extraordinary that given Alex's only purpose really is going to be as a breeding machine
38:04that this this potential defect isn't raised
38:10Haemophilia is an hereditary condition that prevents the blood from clotting
38:14it afflicts primarily men but is passed through women
38:19and had entered the royal family through Queen Victoria herself
38:24Alex's brother Fritz had died from the condition at the age of just two
38:30Queen Victoria's own son Leopold had died at the age of 30
38:35but European royalty appeared to be in a state of denial
38:40by the 1890s doctors understood that it was inherited but are you going to tell the Queen or the Tsar that all their children's futures might be compromised because they might just be carrying Haemophilia
39:00the whole business of royalty is heredity
39:05you have to produce healthy children to produce healthy children
39:10the Russian royal family related to the British through the Danish connection
39:16were at this stage free of Haemophilia
39:19the failure to confront the possibility that Alex might be a carrier
39:22would have tragic consequences for the Romanov dynasty
39:31but in 1894 the principal obstacle to Nicholas and Alex's wedding was a religious one
39:38marriage to the Russian heir would require Alex to convert to Russian Orthodoxy
39:44deeply religious she was loath to abandon her Lutheran faith
39:54she was in love with Nicholas she would have married him readily if he hadn't been Russian
40:00and the relatives who tried to persuade her on the grounds of it's a formality
40:05it doesn't have to mean anything
40:06we're reading her completely wrong because if she converted she would do it wholeheartedly completely
40:14Alex initially rejected Nicholas
40:19then in 1894 they were brought together again when the royalty of Europe gathered for a wedding in Coburg Germany
40:29Nicholas and Alex spent hours alone together
40:33he pleaded with her to change her mind
40:37until finally she relented
40:40I cried like a child and she did too
40:45but her expression had changed
40:47her face was lit by a quiet content
40:50the next day Queen Victoria's extended family gathered for a group photo
40:56an extraordinary snapshot of European royalty
41:03Nicholas and Alex were stood side by side
41:07also present with a Queen
41:10her daughter Vicky
41:12Bertie the Prince of Wales
41:14and the German Kaiser
41:16who believed he had played a key role in bringing the happy couple together
41:21Wilhelm always liked to put himself at the centre of every story
41:25and this was no exception
41:28in his memoirs he claimed that it was he who had basically bolstered Nicholas's courage
41:35taken him off to his room
41:37put a bouquet of flowers in his hands
41:39dusted him off and said you know go and ask for her
41:44by now Kaiser Wilhelm had been on the throne almost six years
41:47and was proving an alarming unpredictable if energetic presence on the European stage
41:54his reign had begun with a catastrophic trip to St Petersburg in 1888
42:02Wilhelm had hoped to seal a conservative alliance with his hero
42:07Tsar Alexander the third
42:08instead he had offended Alexander by his lack of grief at the death of his own father Fritz just a few weeks before
42:18himself a devoted family man the Tsar was appalled
42:22he's a rascally young fop throws his weight around thinks too much of himself and fancies that others worship him
42:34Wilhelm though retained a disastrous confidence in his own diplomatic abilities
42:39determined to control German foreign policy himself in 1890 he sacked Otto von Bismarck the architect of German unification
42:52within months the German alliance with Russia had disintegrated Russia signing instead an alliance with France the first stage of the encirclement of Germany Bismarck had always dreaded
42:57by now the erratic young Kaiser was veering wildly back in the other direction towards his British family
43:16suddenly Wilhelm turns around and says oh grandmama I really want to come and visit you and I really want to come and visit you at Cairns
43:33Cairns is this famous regatta which takes place once a year in August on the Isle of Wight
43:39and it is a gathering place of the sort of richest people
43:45it's as if all the oligarchs and kind of zillionaires and rich Euro trash gathered to show off their Lear jets in one place
43:54Wilhelm desperately wants to be invited
43:58Queen Victoria doesn't really want him to come but her Prime Minister Lord Salisbury says look we need to be friendly with the Germans
44:04so she still says okay you can come and he comes and he loves it
44:11to his delight the Kaiser was made an honorary admiral in the Royal Navy
44:17fancy wearing the same uniform as St Vincent and Nelson it is enough to make one quite giddy
44:23Wilhelm returned to cows regularly through the early 1890s
44:28but prolonged exposure did nothing to improve relations with his British family
44:34Wilhelm the Kaiser could never understand the English royal family
44:39see cows and Osborne as basically a picnic by the sea they're not on show in the way that William is
44:45he gets it wrong always
44:47one year he brings this enormous bloody band
44:50which plays all over the place all the time and is incredibly noisy
44:53and you know another year he brings two warships which kind of shoot endless gun salutes
45:00get in the way of all the boats and you know everybody goes
45:03you know why doesn't he just go home
45:06his cousin Prince George dreaded the Kaiser's visits as he wrote to his wife
45:11I am just off now with Papa to pay William a visit on board the Hohenzollern
45:16I hope he will be out
45:19but cows became above all the stage for a growing rivalry between Wilhelm and his uncle Bertie the future King Edward the seventh
45:28now entering his fifties and as rakish as ever
45:32I think Edward the seventh is perhaps one of the most attractive characters
45:37I mean he was he was a bon viveur which is something attractive in it I think he loved the theatre he liked he liked life he enjoyed himself
45:43he had lots of friends people liked him he was fun to be with he was widely respected and here is Wilhelm who has always this feeling that someone's laughing at him that he's not really being taken seriously I mean he tries to throw his weight around and make people like him of course that makes people dislike him even more
45:59far from encouraging friendship for the Kaiser cows became a competition with national prestige at stake
46:13each year he comes along with a more and more expensive boat because each year he fails to beat Bertie and the year he actually beat Bertie Bertie sold his boat because clearly actually you know he'd quite enjoyed beating Wilhelm and once the battle was over and Wilhelm had won he didn't want to play that game anymore
46:33the regatta at cows was once a pleasant holiday for me but now that the Kaiser has taken command there it is nothing but a nuisance
46:46I think this rivalry is incredibly interesting because it encapsulates not only the relationship between William and his uncle this constant sort of jostling and jousting for position but also the relationship between England and Germany and the English fleets and the German fleets it would pre-think it
47:02so much of so much of what is later to come by the mid 1890s the erratic young Kaiser was veering once more away from Britain and back towards Russia
47:21in 1894 czar Alexander III died
47:27the coronation of his son Nicholas provided the first moving images of any royal figure
47:34but beneath the pomp and grandeur the new czar just 26 was desperately insecure as he told one of his cousins
47:43what am I to do what is going to happen to me to Alex to mother to all of Russia
47:50I'm not prepared to be czar I never wanted to become czar I know nothing of the business of ruling
47:57Nicholas the second is very badly prepared to be czar in terms of having played an effective role of any sort in government
48:03he is also simply emotionally younger than his age of 26 and just by character here is a man whom fate is placed in the middle of politics here is also a man who dislikes politics and politicians
48:18but Nicholas's beautiful young wife Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughter now the czarina Alexandra was already on hand offering a combination of sugary devotion and steely resolve
48:35darling Boise me loves you oh so very tenderly and deeply be firm and show your own mind and don't let others forget who you are
48:47forgive me lovey
48:49I think Alexandra is like people who convert to another religion they often overdo it
48:55she underwent this tremendous emotional struggle
48:59did convert to Russian Orthodoxy and I think became more Russian than the Russians became more Orthodoxy
49:04the Orthodox
49:07she invests her husband with this sort of quasi divine character which doesn't allow him ever to compromise
49:16if you are a representative of God on earth then you can't be told what to do by anybody else
49:23adrift and uncertain Nicholas also clung to Russia's authoritarian traditions
49:29I shall maintain the principle of autocracy just as firmly and unflinchingly as it was preserved by my unforgettable dead father
49:41Kaiser Wilhelm thoroughly approved of his young cousins anti-democratic instincts
49:47he wrote to Nicholas complaining that his own German parliament was
49:52behaving as badly as it can
49:54swinging backwards and forwards between the socialists egged on by the Jews
49:58and the Catholics
50:00both parties being soon fit to be hung all of them as far as I can see
50:03the two men would meet during summer cruises on their royal yachts in the Baltic
50:21For the Kaiser, Nicholas's accession provided the opportunity for a fresh start in Russo-German relations
50:32but like most people, Nicholas found his German cousin difficult
50:36Wilhelm had this very unfortunate manner you know he would go around sort of smacking people on the bottom and you know playing practical jokes and turning all his rings inward and then squeezing your hand very tight so it really hurt
50:51The Kaiser's sense of humor was crude and infantile
50:58In this Christmas card he has drawn in the bodily functions himself
51:06On his yacht he'd force his ageing entourage to perform morning gymnastics
51:11snipping their braces so their trousers fell down
51:15and sitting on them
51:21He was invariably delighted by his own wit as one British statesman observed
51:28If the Kaiser laughs, which he is sure to do a good many times
51:33he will laugh with absolute abandonment
51:36throwing his head back, opening his mouth to the fullest possible extent
51:40shaking his whole body
51:42and often stamping with one foot to show his excessive enjoyment of any joke
51:48The Tsar found his cousin's visits an ordeal
51:53and the Tsarina Alexandra was no more fond of him
51:57The Kaiser considered her a German
52:02but she considered herself an Englishwoman
52:06and had always been part of the anti-Prussian club
52:08A whole new generation of royals was now holidaying in Denmark
52:15For the Tsar and Tsarina it was an escape from the stifling atmosphere of St Petersburg
52:21This footage dates from 1899
52:26In it, Tsar Nicholas can be seen fooling around with royal relatives
52:37In this company, Tsar and Tsarina could truly relax
52:42Play the fool even, in a way that was unthinkable at home
52:45Nicholas' mother and aunt, the Danish sisters Minnie and Alex, seen here on the right
52:57continued to be the centre of this boisterous anti-Prussian grouping of cousins
53:02a grouping of which the Tsarina was very firmly a part
53:06and from which the Kaiser remained excluded
53:09He is paranoid
53:15and he sees a sort of conspiracy
53:18and it's the Russians and the British
53:20and then all these funny little German cousins and principalities
53:24all ganging up against him and sort of talking behind his back
53:28The Tsarina made little attempt to conceal her contempt for the Kaiser
53:33He thinks himself a superman, but he's really nothing but a clown
53:39Wilhelm was the cousin no one wanted to play with
53:50The Kaiser's paranoia worsened
53:52as it became clear Nicholas' accession
53:55had led to a thawing of relations not with Germany
53:58but with Britain
53:59In 1896, Nicholas and Alexandra visited Balmoral
54:03They can be seen here walking either side of Queen Victoria's carriage
54:11Victoria was enchanted by the new Tsar
54:18I think everyone's looking for a case where actually personal chemistry does matter in international politics
54:23Victoria's fond attitude towards Nicholas is very clearly one of them
54:27Nicky is charming and wonderfully like Georgie
54:34He always speaks English and almost without a fault
54:38He is very unaffected
54:44In 1899, Queen Victoria wrote to Nicholas to warn him about his German cousin, Wilhelm
54:50I am afraid William may go and tell things against us to you just as he does about you to us
54:58If so, pray tell me openly and confidentially
55:03It is so important that such mischievousness and unstraightforward proceedings should be put a stop to
55:12Tsar Nicholas immediately wrote back
55:16I am so happy you told me in that open way about Wilhelm
55:20It is a dangerous double game he is playing at
55:23As you know, dearest Grandmama
55:27All I am striving at now is for the longest possible prolongation of peace in this world
55:32In the evening of Queen Victoria's life, a slow motion reversal of traditional power relationships was underway
55:43Britain was drawing closer to its former enemy, Russia
55:47And away from its traditional ally, Germany
55:50It was a process driven primarily by politicians and national interest
55:57But the Kaiser's tangled relationship with his British relatives had played a key part
56:04For the old Queen, the distancing between the two nations was painful
56:10During the Boer War, she was subject to vicious attacks in the German press
56:15Her daughter, Vicky, wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm to protest
56:21You can imagine my feelings when I see her made the subject of gross and insulting caricatures
56:27Her mother was German, her husband was German, her sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, nearly all
56:34Her sympathies always were German
56:37The Kaiser too, for all his occasional hostility, never lost his affection for his grandmother
56:43People have no idea how much I love the Queen
56:48How profoundly she is interwoven with all my memories of childhood and youth
56:53I think the Kaiser, as much as he could love anyone except for himself, really loved Queen Victoria
56:59She was his grandmother, he had very happy memories of going and staying with her
57:03And she was good with him, I mean, he listened to her when he wouldn't listen to other people
57:06She's very clever at handling him, getting him to do what she wants, by being sort of firm but affectionate, and he responds to that
57:14But Victoria was now 81, and at Osborne, at the start of 1901, she entered her final illness
57:30The Kaiser dashed to her side
57:33He came rushing over when it was clear that she wasn't going to last much longer
57:36And he was actually beside her as she died, he held her in his arms and said how little and how light she was
57:45And I think he was genuinely very moved
57:47Queen Victoria died in the arms of the German Kaiser
57:52And he helped lay her body out beneath a portrait of her beloved German husband, Prince Albert
57:57A few days later, Wilhelm rode side by side with his old sailing rival, now King Edward VII, behind Queen Victoria's coffin
58:12Uncle and nephew united in grief
58:17But everyone present knew the old Queen's passing marked the end of an era
58:21The grandmother of Europe, the woman who held the extended royal family together, was dead
58:28A chilly, uncertain new century was dawning
58:38And part two of Royal Cousins at War is here tomorrow at 9 o'clock
58:43Next tonight on BBC 2, dark humour with an unexpected twist from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton inside number 9
Comments