Living in a democracy, like we do, it's hard to understand the importance and power of absolute monarchs. However, until World War I ,monarchs in Europe had absolute power, and according to many historians, the absolute power of three monarchs in Europe led to plunging the world into war in 1914.
Recently I read a book entitled King, Kaiser, Tsar by Catrine Clay which describes the three most relevant monarchies in Europe in the 19th century. The three monarchs were KING George V of England, KAISER Wilhelm I of Germany and TSAR Nicholas of Russia. In addition to being monarchs, they were also descendants and relatives of Queen Victoria of England, the granny monarch of England for so many years who sent her children to marry into the various royal houses of Europe.
The author clearly details the lives of these three monarchs and shows the relationships among them. They were intriguing people. George and Nicholas were good friends...."Georgie" and "Nicky" in their letters to each other. Wilhelm "WIlly" always was the third wheel, odd man out, even though his mother was Queen Victoria's eldest daughter. His personality was prickly and strange and obsessive. He loved to visit England and dress up like an "English country gentleman." In fact he loved to dress up. He had uniforms for every regiment in the German army, the Germany navy, the English army, the English navy, the Russian army, and the Russian navy. He rarely wore civilian clothes.
In addition to the relationships between the monarchs, were the relationships between the women in their lives. Tsarina Alexandra had a very strong influence on her husband, and King George's mother Alexandra was also very influential. I didn't know it, but the Danish royal family was very important in these relationships. King George's mother, Alexndra, was a Danish princess and Denmark was where all the royal families liked to go in the summer for their vacations. The Danes played practical jokes on each other, one photo shows the Danish Queen Mother holding a monkey on her lap, and were much more relaxed than the other three royal houses.
Eventually, the relationships among these three monarchs became so poisonous that they could not pull the European continent back from war. It was a hideous war. More lives were lost than Americans realize. This past March, a group of us went to Belgium and France, and one place we visited was a World War I battlefield named Vimy Ridge. We got to walk through the trenches and travel down in the tunnels the soldiers lived in. These were awful! We learned that people still die every year from unexploded ordnance in the fields of northern France....eighty years after the end of that war.
Basically, I read this book to find out what happened to Kaiser Wilhelm after World War I. I knew that Tsar Nicholas was assassinated and that King George survived and prospered in England. I had no idea what had happened to the Kaiser. At the end of the book I learned that he lived in exile in Holland until just berfore the beginning of World War II. No one in Europe wanted him, but the queen of the Netherlands wouldn't let another monarch be chased down and assassinated, so she gave him asylum and protection for the rest of his life.
I like history, so found this book fascinating. The end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century is one of my favorite eras to read about. We don't realize it, but World War I is still affecting us.
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