Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War
    Unavailable
    King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War
    Unavailable
    King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War
    Ebook607 pages10 hours

    King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War

    By Catrine Clay

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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.

    Drawing widely on previously unpublished royal letters and diaries, made public for the first time by Queen Elizabeth II, Catrine Clay chronicles the riveting half century of the royals' overlapping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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateMay 26, 2009
    ISBN9780802718839
    Unavailable
    King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War
    Author

    Catrine Clay

    Catrine Clay was a director and producer of documentaries at the BBC for 20 years, the last 10 years for Timewatch, the major BBC2 strand in the History Unit. She won the International Documentary Award, the Golden Spire for Best History Documentary, and was nominated for BAFTA. She is the author of ‘King Kaiser Tsar’ and ‘Trautman’s Journey’, which won the Best Sports Biography of the Year in the William Hill Sports Book Prize.

    Related to King, Kaiser, Tsar

    Related ebooks

    Royalty Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      TIMELINE Mary’s Turbulent Life

      Mar 19, 2020

      TIMELINE Mary’s Turbulent Life
      1 min read

    • Article

      Dazzling Duchess

      May 5, 2020

      Dazzling Duchess
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Sep 11, 2020

      Dear Paul
      6 min read

    • Article

      Encounters

      Oct 29, 2020

      Encounters
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Grand Old Duke

      Oct 27, 2022

      IN THE INTRODUCTION TO A Royal Life, Hugo Vickers, royal biographer and historian, announces: “This book is not a biography or memoir.” I disagree. This book is a new and original kind of biography — one that I have never encountered before. Vickers

      3 min read

    • Article

      Queen Elizabeth II

      Sep 17, 2022

      Queen Elizabeth II
      14 min read

    • Article

      Making Of A Modern Monarchy

      Apr 29, 2021

      Making Of A Modern Monarchy
      5 min read

    • Article

      A royal ROMANCE

      Sep 15, 2022

      A royal ROMANCE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Why Isn’t There A Historian Laureate?

      May 4, 2022

      The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has been greeted with a steady thud of books by familiar names: Robert Hardman; Andrew Morton; Joanna Lumley. Historians have already published interim reports on the Queen – the volume of the Penguin Monarchs series on E

      3 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Prince Philip: 10 Surprising And Lesser-known Facts About The Duke Of Edinburgh

      Apr 12, 2021

      Following the death of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who died at the age of 99 on 9 April, the country has entered into a period of national mourning. As well as being the longest-serving consort in British history, married to Queen Elizabeth

      6 min read

    • Article

      Apocalypse, No?

      Apr 16, 2020

      “Wheresoever men tilled, the earth bare no corn, for the land was all ruined by such deeds; and they said openly that Christ and his saints were asleep. Such and more than we can say we endured 19 winters for our sins.” The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pain

      9 min read

    • Article

      66

      Aug 3, 2023

      66
      5 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Enthralled by Egypt

      Jan 18, 2024

      Interesting as your feature on Napoleon's “many faces” was (Christmas), it surprisingly omits his fascination with ancient Egypt. In 1798, a large party of French savants, including scientists such as Joseph Fourier, accompanied Napoleon's military e

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cinema Connection

      Nov 16, 2021

      Cinema Connection
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Line Of Duty

      Apr 13, 2023

      The Line Of Duty
      7 min read

    • Article

      Right Royal Writers

      May 4, 2022

      Right Royal Writers
      4 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Nov 10, 2023

      by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe This historical biography chronicles the story of America’s Astor family across several centuries, showing how they rose from beginnings in the fur business, purchasing property and dazzling American society, bef

      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jul 6, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      9 min read

    • Article

      The House Of FAA: Scotland’s Lost Gypsy Royal Dynasty*

      Feb 11, 2023

      Yetholm and the borderlands In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the itinerant and outlawed Scots Gypsy community established itself in the small villages of Kirk and Town Yetholm, nestled in the Cheviot Hills on the Scottish side of the border

      9 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      May 31, 2022

      Reviews
      3 min read

    Reviews for King, Kaiser, Tsar

    4/5

    48 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This was an interesting book and reading it brought to light many issues in the Royal Familes of Europe that likely lead to World War I. I would not have read this if it had not been for a paper I am writing for a history class and I am glad for the reason. I learned quite a bit from this book and it is a good overview into how family problems caused political problems because of the machinations of Queen Victoria and her desire to marry her family to as many European Royal Families as posibble to bring about the Utopian Europe she and Prince Albert dreamed about.
    • 4/5
      Themes: family, duty, royalty, loyalty, education, politics, religion, patriotism, jealousySetting: Europe 1880s or so until 1919This book is about three European rulers who were all caught up in World War I. But what makes it interesting is that the book focuses not on their politics, but on their relationships - the three men were cousins, all descended from England's Queen Victoria. George V of England, Tsar Nicholas of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany were roughly contemporaries and all knew each other very well. They didn't exactly grow up together, but there was a lot of visiting back and forth, a lot of correspondence, and a lot of family drama to go around.As I read it, I couldn't help thinking how different everything could have been if Kaiser Wilhelm, or Willie as the family called him, had been raised differently. Caught between his Prussian grandfather and king and his English mother and grandmother, Queen Victoria, he was always in the middle of the tension. Prussia was an ambitious country, and there was plenty of room for drama, with the way everyone royal in Europe was related to everyone else. That made any war a family matter. And then Willie was deformed at birth, with a damaged arm and inner ear which made his mother reject him. He could have compensated for that, but there were a lot of other influences at work.Then there was the tsar. Brought up in strict seclusion to protect him from the revolutionaries who eventually murdered his grandfather, the tsar and his family grew up out of touch with the mood of the country. He and his English cousins were close, but nothing could really have saved him from the violence which swept Russia.I liked this book, but it was really more detailed than it needed to be. It would have been a much better read if she had cut about 150 pages. Too many names, too many details, and so much build up to get to the end. It must have been good, though, because I dreamed about saving the tsar last night. I was sure I could have prevented World War I if we had just assassinated the kaiser at the right time. Which may be true, but may have just been the sleep meds talking. Still, worth reading if you are interested in the subject and don't mind the many details. Good pictures helped. I think the kaiser was the clear winner in the looks department, but that may have been because the other two wore such heavy beards that you couldn't see their faces past the fuzz. 3.5 stars.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I always knew that George V of England, Wilhelm II of Prussia and Nicholas II of Russia were cousins, on an intellectual level, since they are all grandchildren of the great Queen Victoria. But I somehow never considered the idea that these royal cousins would have all known each other, and corresponded with each other, and even had fates that were destined to merge with World War I. As much the story of the Danish royal house into which two of the cousins married, this was a fascinating book, although the ending, with World War I, felt a little abrupt. Here's something I learned that will perhaps surprise few people - no one liked the Prussian.

      1 person found this helpful