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

King, Kaiser, Tsar is a biography on the lives of three rulers whose choices not only ended the age of monarchs but also gave birth to the 20th century. The irony, and tragedy, of the lives of King Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II, is that they were cousins who ancestry and relations were spread across Europe. It was these men who decisions, and relationships, that changed history and the modern world both through rational decisions and sometimes personal flaws. However more than just a biography of these men's lives, King, Kaiser, and Tsar is a look into an almost forgotten world when monarch still controlled much of the West and the modern world. Since their births in the 19th century, Edward, Wilhelm, and Nicholas lived in an age where their needs were met in every conceivable way and beyond. The glory that surrounded their thrones could be seen during every day of their lives where hundreds of servants easily attended to their needs. This is not including the hundreds of millions who were subjects of their empires and who could be found around the world. King, Kaiser, and Tsar is study on the world of the late 19th century and early 20th century which even now, barely 100 years later, is unimaginable when courts, aristocracies, and imperial glory, were still hailed as something admirable. What I was impressed with the most was not the major choices these men made but the lives they lived behind the throne and out of sight of their empires. The author gives an impressive account of their education, romances, fears, and disappointments that the average British, German, or Russian would have been unaware of. These were real humans aside from the crowns that they wore and they were as flawed and imperfect as everyone else. The use of diaries and letters reveals who these men were and how they thought and perceived not only their god given right but also each other. Politics for them was not only an international affair but also a family one which only added more issues. An excellent book if one wants to not only understand these three men but a major era of history where we can see one age ending and another beginning, King, Kaiser, and Tsar is an impressive look into the past.

When I got this book in very good condition and in a timely manner I immediately started to read it and I haven't put it down since. Good insight and a fast paced page turner reads like a novel but what you are reading is history-who needs soap operas when you have these three men and their families!! If you are looking for a different view point to how World War I started this is your book. Enjoy meeting the King, the Kaiser and the Tsar it will keep you on your toes in trying to remember who is all related to whom but very interesting book.

Their era of kingship is long gone but their legacy remains. British historian Catrine Clay has told their fascinating story in this new triple biography of the rulers and the world they lost in the guns of August, 1914. It was in that fateful autumn that the long 19th century of peace in Europe ended with the horrific beginning of the Great War which would claim 10 million lives and over 20 million casualties. Clay's purpose is not to retell that story oft told but to look at the remarkable lives of three ordinary men who led their nations in this dark and dangerous time. The chief players in this drama are: 1. Queen Victoria-She was the formidable grandmother of all three of the cousins profiled in the book. Victoria ruled the greatest military power on earth whose navy ruled the waves. Despite the Afghan, Zulu and Boer wars Britain was surpreme in its rulership over a vast empire and a democratic society in which the monarch had no real power. 2. George V-George was the second son of Edward VII (who ruled from 1901-1910 forging the Entente Cordial treaty with France and Russia pledging them to come to the aid of their allies in time of war). The oldest son Edward died in 1892 so George became king in 1910 following the death of Edward VII. George was a momma's boy and was tied to the apron strings of his beautiul mother Alexandra the Danish born queen. She suffered from deafness and putting up with her husband's constant philandering (most notable of Edward's mistresses as Alice Keppel). Alexandra hated Germany following the ravishment of her native Denmark by the Germans in the 1862 war. George is sometimes known as the sailor king due to his long service in the Royal Navy. He was a faithful husband to his wife May Teck and was a good father. He loved his stamp collection and was a good friend to his cousin Nicky the Russian Tsar. George was the only one of the three rulers who emerged unscathed and popular at the end of World War I. He would die in 1936 beloved of his nation. During World War I he left the fighting to professional soldiers encouraging the troops by frequent visits to them. 3. Kaiser Wilhelm II-He was born to Vicky (the favorite daughter of Queen Victoria) and his father Frederick. Wilhelm was born with a deformed left arm and a severe hearing problem. He had difficulty with the arm throughout his life compensating for it by becoming a militarist. Wilhelm grew to despise the views of his mother the liberally minded Vicky and his father whom he deemed weak. Wilhelm married Dona who supported him and was not very bright. In 1888 old Kaiser Wilhelm I died to be replaced by Frederick who also died that year succumbing to throat cancer. 1888 became known as the year of the three emperors for that is when Wilhelm II got his chance to rule Germany with a strong hand. He favored the extreme right wing views of Chancellor Bulow and his good friend Prince Eulenburgh and his circle of homosexual cronies, Wilhelm fired Bismarck and desir

I think the subtitle of this book, "Three Royal Cousins Who Led The World To War" is a bit misleading. We're dealing with three monarchs who happen to be cousins: the King of England, the German Kaiser, and the Russian Tsar. Of these three, the English King was a constitutional monarch, and really had no say on questions of war and peace. The other two, however, were autocrats and controlled the fates of their respective peoples. The book is an excellent family history of how the various royal courts of Europe were related, and everything related back to Queen Victoria. The author places the bulk of the blame for the war directly on the shoulders of the Kaiser and his paranoia. She concludes that, if his English relations had treated him a bit more inclusively, the war might not have happened. I myself do not subscribe to that belief, but it is plausible. The Tsar was a victim of his own timidity and his wife's overbearing control of him. Of the three monarchs, I have the most sympathy for Nicholas, who really didn't deserve to be deserted by his English cousin when he was in need of a place of exile, nor did he and his entire family deserve to be executed. This is a very interesting, and ultimately sad, book, and I recommend it highly.

There have been innumerable individual biographies of King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II, as well as countless histories in which they play major roles. Catrine Clay has done a masterful job of comparing the three royal cousins in a joint biography which does justice to all three men. Nowadays King George V is usually regarded as a successful monarch but unsuccessful father, while Nicholas II is usually praised as an excellent husband and father but a terrible ruler. Until fairly recently Wilhelm II was considered a monstrous ruler, while his private life was generally ignored. Catrine Clay's biography confirms many of these preconceptions but often provides some intriguing new information and insights. Nicholas and George were first cousins because their mothers were sisters, daughters of the King of Denmark. George and Wilhelm were first cousins because they were both grandsons of Queen Victoria. Nicholas was married to one of Victoria's granddaughters and was also more distantly related by blood to Wilhelm. The three men grew up in a vast extended family and knew each other from early childhood. Nicholas and George were good friends, but Wilhelm was regarded with distaste by them both because of his bombastic, domineering manner. Clay points out some interesting psychological differences and produces evidence from the men's early childhoods to account for them. She tells many entertaining anecdotes, including many that I, though I've been a student of early twentieth century royal history for many years, had not previously run across. Her psychological comparisons continue through the men's adulthood, comparing the women they married, their relationships with their children, their attitudes towards monarchy and the role they had to play in their governments, and many other details. Among the most interesting of these are the comparisons of the monarchs' advisors: George V's elected officials who held the real power in Britain, Nicholas' shady and unscrupulous priests and monks, and Wilhelm's even more bizarre circle. The saddest part of the book comes towards the end, after World War I had torn the extended royal family apart and isolated the three men. Nicholas and his family perished during the Russian Revolution, while Wilhelm was forced into exile at the end of the war and only George maintained his position. Clay does a good job of tracing the lives of the three men throughout the book, occasionally mixing up the chronology or getting (forgiveably) some of the many similarly-named royalties confused. By the end the reader is left feeling grateful that the British had George V to rule them and intensely sorry that Russia and Germany had rulers who, while of similar intellect to their British cousin, were far less able to adapt to changing times.