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Title: ROYAL COUSINS AT WAR (EPISODE: 1/2)
Description: In the first episode of the historical BBC documentary in commemoration of the centenary of the first world war, we study the political and personal eccentricities from the dynastic relations of three grandchildren of Queen Victoria. These imperial cousins were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and King George V of Great Britain.

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ROYAL COUSINS
AT
WAR EPISODE: 1 OF 2 “A HOUSE DIVIDED”
(FIRST BROADCAST ON B
...
C
...
It did so in alliance with an
authoritarian dictatorship which had been its
most deadly enemy for the best part of a century
...


“The explanation, in part, lies in the
eccentricities and foibles of a single family – that
of Queen Victoria – whose descendants occupied
the thrones of no less than ten European
countries, a dynastic web that meant European
diplomacy was also a domestic drama
...


“Their passions, their friendships and, above
all, their poisonous rivalries would play a key
role in the realignment of European politics, a
role often overlooked by historians
...


(CAPTION READS:
‘ROYAL COUSINS AT WAR –
PART: 1 - A HOUSE DIVIDED’)

NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“On March 10th 1963, half a century before
the outbreak of World War I, the royalty of
Europe gathered at St
...
Beautiful and glamorous,
Princess Alix, as she was known, was the
Princess Diana of her day… already wildly
popular with the British public
...


PROF
...
And he’s very excited because
he’s allowed to wear what he calls his ‘Scotch
dress’, with a kilt and a sporran, and a sgian-dhu
in his socks
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“It was the beginning of a long, complex and
tortured relationship between the future
German Kaiser and his British family
...
Within a year of the
marriage of Bertie and Alix, Prussia invaded
Denmark
...


“The troublesome Wilhelm’s father, known
as Fritz, was heir to the Prussian throne, and
was married to Queen Victoria’s oldest daughter
Vicky
...


PROF
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“It was the beginning of a long, complex and
tortured relationship between the future
German Kaiser and his British family
...
Within a year of the
marriage of Bertie and Alix, Prussia invaded
Denmark
...


“The troublesome Wilhelm’s father, known
as Fritz, was heir to the Prussian throne, and
was married to Queen Victoria’s oldest daughter
Vicky
...


PROF
...


German, and her great-grandparents were all
German too
...


CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT
(HISTORIAN):
“She became, I think, more deeply antiPrussian because she had to bottle it up,
effectively
...
One of the earliest family
photographs of their first child, she has the baby
on her knee, and he is dressed in what appears to
be the traditional baby outfit, but if you look
very closely, it’s decorated with little Danish
flags
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Princess Alix, darling of the British public,
wife of one future British king, mother of
another, would never forgive the Prussians for
the war of 1864
...


“Prussia was an aggressive, rising power
...


PIERS BRENDON
(HISTORIAN):
“Queen Victoria and Albert had this plan to
civilise Prussia
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Vicky was just 17 when she married Fritz, a
child bride, but she was highly intelligent, and
had been carefully trained by her father for the
task in hand
...
It was
Vicky’s job to make sure the new Germany
would be a liberal, pro-British constitutional
monarchy
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“If you have a liberal Prussia, you’ll have a
liberal Germany
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“It was nothing less than a battle for the soul
of the future Germany – a heavy burden to place
on the shoulders of a 17-year-old girl, as even
Queen Victoria recognised
...
And although Prussia won, the
war would also have profound implications for
Queen Victoria’s daughter Vicky and her
husband Fritz in Berlin
...

When Victoria and Prince Albert had sent Vicky
to marry the Prussian heir six years before, they
were sending her on a mission
...
It was an attempt to use Vicky to
marry the eventual heir to the German throne,
and to rescue Prussia from the excesses of
German militarism
...
DOMINIC LIEVEN
(UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE):
“The creation of the united Germany totally
threatens the European balance of power, simply
because of the number of Germans, their
strategic position in the middle of Europe, and
the fact that Germany has the most vibrant
economy
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Unification also meant a dramatic tilt in the
balance of power within Germany
...
Vicky
was sidelined
...


H
...
H
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“But Bismarck was just one of Vicky’s
problems
...
His problems had begun on the night he
was born
...


CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT
(HISTORIAN):
“The baby was firmly stuck
...
His legs were sort of up over his
chest
...
And the
doctor somehow got the left arm… brought it
down, but 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
...
His sensitive, intelligent, 18-year-old mother
Vicky was traumatised
...
R
...
THE CROWN PRINCESS OF PRUSSIA:
“It cuts me to the heart when I see all other
children with the use of all their limbs, and that
mine is denied that
...
I long to have a child with
everything perfect about it, like everybody else
...
KARINA URBACH
(UNIVERSITY OF LONDON):
“It’s a militaristic society, 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
...


PROF
...
In many ways it creates, in the middle
of Europe, a country which potentially could
dominate the continent
...
The forces of
conservative militarism were triumphant
...
She wrote anguished letters to her
mother, Queen Victoria
...
R
...
THE CROWN PRINCESS OF PRUSSIA:
“You cannot think how painful it is to be
continuously surrounded by people who
consider your very existence a misfortune
...
To treat this, he
was strapped into a machine
...


H
...
H
...
It was all I could do to
prevent myself from crying
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Wilhelm’s young, traumatised mother
compounded his problems
...
JOHN ROHL
(BIOGRAPHER OF KAISER WILHELM II):
“Vicky finds it almost impossible to accept
Wilhelm’s disability, that there’s no bonding
between them
...


DR
...
She
tries to love him, and pulls herself together and
tries to be a good mother, but at the end of the
day she looks at him and she thinks, ‘This is my
greatest failure
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“The relationship between the future Kaiser
and his English mother would be fraught and
complicated, with profound implications for the
future of Europe
...
George was born six years after
Wilhelm, and was healthy and robust
...
His brother Eddie was
the heir
...
His
father, Bertie, the Prince of Wales, although fond

of George’s mother, was a notorious philanderer
...
But
it meant she poured her affection into her
children
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“Alix is the dominant figure at home
...
And she creates, what, for small
children, I think, must have been a rather
wonderful atmosphere of endless games, no
lessons, nothing serious, endless sort of romping
– a very kind of child-centred environment
...
Although comparatively
impoverished, the Danish royal family had
succeeded in marrying into various European
dynasties
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Wilhelm’s grandfather, the Prussian King,
Wilhelm I, reacted with characteristic Prussian
tact
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Vicky had failed in what, for the Prussians,
was her central mission
...
Here, Wilhelm was subjected to a series of
desperate treatments for his disability
...


CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT
(HISTORIAN):
“The atmosphere is completely knockabout
...
You hear of the
Princess of Wales and the Empress of Russia
turning somersaults in full evening dress
...
They call him
‘Uncle Fatty’
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“So, this extraordinary atmosphere of
emperor, empress, several kings and queens and
endless, countless, archdukes and duchesses, all
of them behaving like sort of children on
holiday
...
But one royal cousin was never
invited – Vicky’s son, the future Kaiser Wilhelm
of Germany, who, as a Prussian, was not
welcome in defeated, humiliated Denmark
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“You get the sort of losers from the Prussian
wars of the 1860s all gathering on the beach and
muttering against Prussia
...
Minnie and Alix hoped to draw their
husbands, Bertie and Alexander, closer to each
other, and away from Germany
...
(Visual

description) Minnie, seen here on the left, was as
glamorous and photogenic as her sister, and the
British public was enchanted
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“They came out together, I think on the first
day, wearing identical outfits and, of course,
they were very striking women, anyway
...
Perhaps
Britain and Russia do have something in
common, you know, perhaps there things that
could draw them together
...

It was a situation the beautiful Princess Alix, his
future Queen, had little option but to accept
...


PROF
...
Bertie
is often away
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Every other summer, Princess Alix would
take the whole family off to stay with her
parents in Denmark
...
And cousins, uncles and aunts from
across the continent would all meet up at the
Danish king’s summer home, outside
Copenhagen
...
M
...
They will always hate us, and we
can never trust them
...


PROF
...

Britain is the country which blocks Russia, in all
sorts of ways
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Rather than to Britain, Russia looked to
Germany, where the chancellor, Bismarck, had
worked hard to cultivate good relations, fearful
of an alliance between France and Russia that
would leave Germany encircled
...
His choice to lead it was a surprising one –
Nicholas’s cousin, Prince Wilhelm, now 25
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Ever keen to marginalise the liberal
influence of Wilhelm’s parents, still only heirs to
the throne, Bismarck was exploiting what had
become a complex, troubled relationship,
particularly between Wilhelm and his English
mother
...


H
...
H
...
Promise to do so really as you did in
my dream to me, for I do so love you
...
But one royal cousin was never
invited – Vicky’s son, the future Kaiser Wilhelm
of Germany, who, as a Prussian, was not
welcome in defeated, humiliated Denmark
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“You get the sort of losers from the Prussian
wars of the 1860s all gathering on the beach and
muttering against Prussia
...
Minnie and Alix hoped to draw their
husbands, Bertie and Alexander, closer to each
other, and away from Germany
...
(Visual

H
...
R
...
THE GERMAN CROWN PRINCESS,
CROWN PRINCESS OF PRUSSIA:
“Willy is chauvinistic and ultra-Prussian, to
a degree and with a violence which is often very
painful to me
...


DR
...
He’s a total rebel
...
He wants
to be with the winners, you know, with his
grandfather and with Bismarck
...
He
doesn’t want to be associated with them
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“She was always saying how fantastic
England was and how, basically, rubbish
Germany was
...
JOHN ROHL
(BIOGRAPHER OF KAISER WILHELM II):
“‘You’re a little German boy; you will never
understand what it is to be an Englishman
...
’ And on and on and on and on
...


PROF
...
Petersburg and
Moscow
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Wilhelm saw the Russian Tsar, Alexander
III, Nicholas’s father, as a demi-god
...
Wilhelm was
intoxicated
...
M
...
They will always hate us, and we
can never trust them
...


PROF
...

Britain is the country which blocks Russia, in all
sorts of ways
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“But Wilhelm’s relationship with England
mirrored his relationship with his mother, in all
its complexity
...
He’s
fascinated by Britain; he wants to be noticed by
Britain, he hates Britain!”

DR
...
That’s
all appealing to him, terribly, but at the same
time, there is always this insecurity
...
They think that Germany is not
equal
...
His
relationship to England is the most troubled one
he has
...
Wilhelm was far fonder of his
grandmother than his mother
...
Queen Victoria
was having none of it
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“When Victoria hears that Wilhelm has
invited himself as the German representative
bypassing his parents, without telling his
parents, she is furious
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“As the grand procession wound its way
through the streets of London, Wilhelm had to
make do with a minor role
...
Wilhelm was left gnashing
his teeth, relegated to a window alcove with his
younger cousin, Prince George
...


H
...
H
...
One
cannot have enough hatred for England
...
30 years after arriving
in Germany, Queen Victoria’s daughter Vicky
was Empress at last, but there was to be no
joyful coronation
...


PROF
...
And one can’t overlook the fact that
it’s Wilhelm’s left hand that is in a glove, to hide
the discoloured nature and the claw-like nature
of it
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Now in his 20s, the future Kaiser’s heart
had hardened… and he had become fiercely
hostile to everything his parents represented
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Vicky knew that she and her husband
would never wield real power
...


H
...
R
...
THE GERMAN EMPRESS,
THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA:
“I think people in general consider us a mere
passing shadow, soon to be replaced by reality in
the shape of Wilhelm
...
It’s really, really grim
...

Aged 29, his erratic, emotionally unstable son
was now Kaiser of one of the most powerful
countries in the world – a country where
ultimate power still rested with the monarch
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“He says that the palace must be searched for
papers relating to his father’s time as Emperor
...

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
...
He wrote to Vicky to
console her over the behaviour of her son
...
R
...
PRINCE ALBERT,
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
“His conduct towards you is simply revolting
but, alas, he lacks the feelings and usages of a
gentleman
...
The relationship between
Wilhelm’s cousin Prince George and his mother
could not have been more different
...
JOHN ROHL
(BIOGRAPHER OF KAISER WILHELM II):
“Wilhelm is absolutely enchanted by the
autocracy that he sees in St
...
The fact that there are 12,000 soldiers
lining the railway tracks, all shouting, ‘Hooray!’
when the imperial train goes past – this is his
ideal world
...
Living
amidst almost-unimaginable splendour in his
numerous palaces, the Tsar wielded absolute
power, untrammelled by any form of
representative government
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“George remained behind his older brother
in line to the throne and had originally been
intended for a career in the Royal Navy
...

I mean, he was extraordinarily badly educated
...


PROF
...
He is not gregarious
...
He likes order, he likes
discipline, he likes control
...
Unlike Cousin Wilhelm, he had
never had any desire to be king
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“The death of his brother comes as a
complete shock
...

So, at that level, it is devastating
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Now a sense of shared destiny drew him
more than ever to friendship with his cousin, the
Russian heir, Nicholas… with whom he also
shared a remarkable physical similarity
...
MARGARET MACMILLAN
(UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD):
“They are both rather decent, rather callow,
rather nice young men without really much
curiosity to move beyond the rank and station in
life which fate has assigned them to
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“In 1887, Queen Victoria celebrated her
Golden Jubilee
...
And now showed
his pro-British face, once again persuading his
grandfather to send him, rather than his parents,
as head of the German delegation
...


PROF
...
She sort of disinvites him
and asks his parents instead, invites them
...
In the official
portrait of Victoria’s extended family, painted
for the occasion, it was his father Fritz who was

“In St
...
Alix was the daughter of Victoria’s
second daughter Alice, who had married a
German duke
...
And Queen Victoria
had taken the motherless children under her
wing
...
The Queen takes a particular interest
in the daughters and that inevitably means in the
daughters’ marital prospects
...
And the thought of her
marrying the Russian heir revived all the
Queen’s old fears and suspicions
...
M
...
The state of
Russia is so bad, so rotten that, at any moment,
something dreadful might happen and the wife
of the heir to the throne is in a most difficult and
precarious position
...


MATTHEW DENNISON
(BIOGRAPHER, QUEEN VICTORIA):
“It seems extraordinary that, given Alix’s
only purpose, really, is going to be a breeding
machine, that this potential defect isn’t raised
...
It afflicts
primarily men, but is passed through women and
had entered the royal family through Queen
Victoria herself
...
Queen
Victoria’s own son Leopold had died at the age of
30
...


CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT
(HISTORIAN):
“By 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? The whole
business of royalty is heredity
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Vicky knew that she and her husband
would never wield real power
...


H
...
R
...
THE GERMAN EMPRESS,
THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA:
“I think people in general consider us a mere
passing shadow, soon to be replaced by reality in
the shape of Wilhelm
...
It’s really, really grim
...
Then, in
1894, they were brought together again when
the royalty of Europe gathered for a wedding in
Coburg, Germany
...
He pleaded with her to change
her mind until, finally, she relented
...
I
...
THE TSAREVICH NICHOLAS OF RUSSIA:
“I cried like a child, and she did too
...
Her face was lit by a
quiet content
...
An
extraordinary snapshot of European royalty
...
Also
present were the Queen, her daughter Vicky,
Bertie, the Prince of Wales, and the German
Kaiser, who believed he had played a key role in
bringing the happy couple together
...

In his memoirs, he claimed that it was he who
had, basically, bolstered Nicholas’s courage,
taken him off to his room, put a bouquet of
flowers in his hand, dusted him off and said, ‘Go
and ask for her!’”

NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“By now, Kaiser Wilhelm had been on the
throne almost six years and was proving an
alarming, unpredictable, if energetic, presence
on the European stage
...
Petersburg in 1888
...

Instead, he had offended Alexander by his lack of
grief at the death of his own father Fritz just a
few weeks before
...


H
...
M
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Wilhelm, though, retained a disastrous
confidence in his own diplomatic abilities
...
Within
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
...


H
...
H
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“George was 25 at the time
...
In 1890,
George was made honorary colonel in a Prussian
dragoon regiment during a visit to Berlin with
his father
...
His mother reacted with amused
dismay
...
R
...
PRINCESS ALEXANDRA,
THE PRINCESS OF WALES:
“So my Georgie boy has become a real-life,
filthy, blue-coated, Pickelhaube German soldier
...
As you say, ‘it could not have been
helped
...
I
...
M
...

Vincent and Nelson, it is enough to make one
quite giddy
...


PROF
...
They’re not on show in the way that William
is
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“One year, he brings this enormous bloody
band which plays all over the place all the time
and is incredibly noisy
...


H
...
H
...
I hope he will
be out
...


PROF
...
I mean, he was a bon
viveur, which has something attractive in it, I
think
...


“And here is Wilhelm, who has always this
feeling that someone’s laughing at him, that he’s
not really being taken seriously
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“Now a sense of shared destiny drew him
more than ever to friendship with his cousin, the
Russian heir, Nicholas… with whom he also
shared a remarkable physical similarity
...
MARGARET MACMILLAN
(UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD):
“They are both rather decent, rather callow,
rather nice young men without really much
curiosity to move beyond the rank and station in
life which fate has assigned them to
...


PROF
...
It
prefigures so much of what is later to come
...
In 1894, Tsar Alexander III
died
...
But
beneath the pomp and grandeur, the new Tsar,
just 26, was desperately insecure, as he told one
of his cousins
...
I
...
TSAR NICHOLAS II,
THE EMPEROR AND AUTOCRAT OF ALL THE
RUSSIAS:
“What am I to do? What is going to happen to
me? To Alix, to mother, to all of Russia? I’m not
prepared to be Tsar
...


PROF
...
He is also, simply,
emotionally younger than his age of 26
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“But Nicholas’s beautiful young wife, Queen
Victoria’s favourite granddaughter, now the
Tsarina Alexandra, was already on hand,
offering a combination of sugary devotion and
steely resolve
...
I
...
TSARINA ALEXANDRA:
“Darling boysy, me loves you, oh so very
tenderly and deeply
...

Forgive me, lovey
...
MARGARET MACMILLAN
(UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD):
“I think Alexandra is like people who
convert to another religion, they often overdo it
...


MATTHEW DENNISON
(BIOGRAPHER, QUEEN VICTORIA):
“She invests her husband with this sort of
quasi-divine character which doesn’t allow him
ever to compromise
...


H
...
QUEEN VICTORIA:
“My blood runs cold when I think of her
placed on that very unsafe throne
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“But, strangely, one obvious obstacle to
Nicholas marring Alix was never mentioned –
haemophilia
...


H
...
R
...
KAISER WILHELM II,
THE GERMAN EMPEROR, KING OF PRUSSIA:
“Behaving as badly as it can, swinging
backwards and forwards between the socialists,
egged on by the Jews and the Catholics, both
parties being soon fit to be hung, all of them, as
far as I can see
...
For
the Kaiser, Nicholas’s accession provided the
opportunity for a fresh start in Russo-German
relations
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“Wilhelm had this very unfortunate manner
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“The Kaiser’s sense of humour was crude and
infantile
...
On his yacht, he would force his ageing
entourage to perform morning gymnastics,
snipping their braces so their trousers fell
down… and sitting on them
...


BRITISH STATESMAN
(UNIDENTIFIED):
“If the Kaiser laughs, which he is sure to do a
good many times, he will laugh with absolute
abandonment, throwing his head back, opening
his mouth to the fullest possible extent, shaking
his whole body, and often stamping with one
foot to show his excessive enjoyment of any
joke
...

And the Tsarina Alexandra was no more fond of
him
...
A
whole new generation of royals was now
holidaying in Denmark
...
Petersburg
...
In it, Tsar Nicholas can be seen
fooling around with royal relatives
...
(Visual description)
Nicholas’s mother and aunt, the Danish sisters
Minnie and Alix, seen here on the right,
continued to be the centre of this boisterous,
anti-Prussian grouping of cousins – a grouping of
which the Tsarina was very firmly a part… and
from which the Kaiser remained excluded
...
Then, in
1894, they were brought together again when
the royalty of Europe gathered for a wedding in
Coburg, Germany
...
He pleaded with her to change
her mind until, finally, she relented
...
I
...
THE TSAREVICH NICHOLAS OF RUSSIA:
“I cried like a child, and she did too
...
Her face was lit by a
quiet content
...
An
extraordinary snapshot of European royalty
...
Also
present were the Queen, her daughter Vicky,
Bertie, the Prince of Wales, and the German
Kaiser, who believed he had played a key role in
bringing the happy couple together
...
(Visual description) They can
be seen here walking either side of Queen
Victoria’s carriage
...


PROF
...


H
...
QUEEN VICTORIA:
“Nicky is charming and wonderfully like
Georgie
...
He is very unaffected
...


H
...
QUEEN VICTORIA:
“I am afraid William may go and tell things
against us to you, just as he does about you to us
...
It is
so important that such mischievousness and
unstraightforward proceedings should be put a
stop to
...


H
...
M
...
It is a dangerous double game
he’s playing at
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“In the evening of Queen Victoria’s life, a
slow-motion reversal of traditional power
relationships was underway
...
It was a
process driven primarily by politicians and
national interest, but the Kaiser’s tangled
relationship with his British relatives had
played a key part
...
During the Boer
War, she was subject to vicious attacks in the
German press
...


H
...
M
...
Her mother was German, her
husband was German, her sons-in-law and
daughters-in-law nearly all
...


MIRANDA CARTER
(AUTHOR, ‘THE THREE EMPERORS’):
“Suddenly, Wilhelm turns round and says,
‘Oh, Grandmamma, I really want to come and
visit you and I really want to come and visit you
at Cowes
...
And it is a gathering place of the sort of
richest people
...


“Wilhelm desperately wants to be invited
...

So she sort of says, ‘OK, you can come
...


NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“To his delight, the Kaiser was made an
honorary admiral in the Royal Navy
...
JANE RIDLEY
(BIOGRAPHER OF KING EDWARD VII):
“She is very clever at handling him, getting
him to do what she wants, by being firm but
affectionate, and he responds to that
...

The Kaiser dashed to her side
...
MARGARET MACMILLAN
(UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD):
“He came rushing over when it was clear
that she wasn’t going to last much longer
...
He held
her in his arms and said ho little and how light
she was and I think he was genuinely very
moved
...
A few days later,
Wilhelm rode side by side with his old sailing
rival, now King Edward VII, behind Queen
Victoria’s coffin, uncle and nephew united in
grief
...
The
Grandmother of Europe, the woman who held
the extended royal family together, was dead
...


CREDITS:

NARRATOR
TAMSIN GREIG

ARCHIVE
AKG-IMAGES
AP ARCHIVE / BRITISH MOVIETONE
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY
BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE, CORBIS IMAGES
CHRISIANBORG PALACE, CHRONOS MEDIA
DANSKE FILM INSTITUT, FOOTAGE FARM,
GARF MOSCOW, GETTY IMAGES, HERITAGE
IMAGES
HUIS DOORN, HUNTLEY ARCHIVES
ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS
I
...
N
...
PETERSBURG STATE PHOTO ARCHIVE
SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG PHOTO

NARRATOR
(TAMSIN GREIG):
“But Cowes became, above all, the stage for a
growing rivalry between Wilhelm and his Uncle
Bertie, the future King Edward VII, now
entering his 50s, and as rakish as ever
...
MARGARET MACMILLAN
(UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD):
“I think Edward VII is perhaps one of the
most attractive characters
...
He loved the theatre, he liked life, he
enjoyed himself, he had lots of friends, people
liked him, he was fun to be with, he was widely
respected
...
I mean, he tries
to throw his weight around and make people
like him and, of course, that makes people
dislike him even more
...
SMITH
MASHA OLENEVA

DUBBING MIXER
ENZO CANNATELLA

COLOURIST
ALEX GASCOIGNE

ONLINE EDITOR
ANDY PENFOLD

GRAPHICS
TRAINOR DAVIES DESIGN

PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE
ALISON SEYMOUR

PRODUCTION MANAGER
PATRICIA BURNS

RESEARCHER
SAMANTHA BROWN

ASSISTANT PRODUCER
TOM WATKINSON

FILM EDITOR
MARK EASTON

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR B
...
C
...
B
...


COPYRIGHT
OF
BLAKEWAY PRODUCTIONS LTD
MMXIV (2014)

(END OF DOCUMENTARY)


Title: ROYAL COUSINS AT WAR (EPISODE: 1/2)
Description: In the first episode of the historical BBC documentary in commemoration of the centenary of the first world war, we study the political and personal eccentricities from the dynastic relations of three grandchildren of Queen Victoria. These imperial cousins were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and King George V of Great Britain.