George, Nicholas, & Wilhelm: three cousins, three empires, and the road to World War I by Miranda Carter 498 pp.
Think the royals of today are disfunctional? They've got nothing on this bunch. Thanks to Victoria & Albert and their grand plan of making peace in Europe by marrying off their kids & grandkids to all the royal families in Europe we ended up with the war to end all wars. King George V of England was probably the brightest one of the bunch and all three were the dimmest bulbs in the chandelier. He spent all his time hunting or playing with his stamp collection. Tsar Nicholas was so insulated from the outside world that he was clueless to the reality of world affairs not to mention the fact that he truly believed his position was ordained by God and that made him pretty much omnipotent. And Kaiser Wilhelm was...nuts. Chances are Willy was at the very least bi-polar along with being extremely paranoid. I have to say that the smartest thing my great-grandparents ever did was leaving Germany before Willy succeeded in starting the war he threatened during his entire reign.
No comments:
Post a Comment