The 'King, Kaiser, Tsar' who were cousins

It was three royal cousins – Georgie, Nicky, and Willy – who marched the world to World War I. [Editor's note: In the original version, Nicholas II of Russia was falsely identified as a grandson of Queen Victoria. An earlier correction wrongly stated Wilhelm was not a grandson of Victoria. He was, but Nicholas II was not.]

By Randy Dotinga

from the July 24, 2007 edition

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There was Georgie, dutiful and perhaps a little bit dim. Nicky, loving but weak. And Willy, jealous, cruel, and insecure. Bound by family ties, dominated by bossy relatives, and crippled by personal weaknesses, these three royal cousins ineptly reigned as Europe fell into the abyss of the Great War.

Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? Ah, but there's plenty of life in these long-dead royals and their colorful clans, as British author Catrine Clay proves in her witty, revealing, and perceptive new history.

The scandals, quarrels, and rivalries of these ruling families "were played out in public, on the dangerous stage of international politics," writes Clay in King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War.

And what glorious dysfunction it was that surrounded the "Trade Union of Kings" – British King George V, Russian Czar Nicholas II, and German Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Today, only Czar Nicholas, leader of the doomed Romanov clan, is much remembered on this side of the pond. To many, Kaiser Wilhelm is just some vague 19th-century German in a pointy helmet, and King George – which one was he?

Readers of Clay's book will never confuse them again. She paints vivid pictures of the turn-of-the-century royals through sharp historical analysis and a plethora of lively excerpts from their personal letters and diaries.

Georgie and Willy – the childhood nicknames stuck with all three royals for life – were grandchildren of an aging Queen Victoria, who comes across as a maniacally controlling matriarch with a heart of gold.

On one hand, she's forever arranging marriages and ordering her offspring around, once fretting that one of her sons married a woman with a small head, bad tidings for their children considering the future king's own "small empty brain."

But Victoria is also passionate and even sensitive, not quite the stiff-necked party pooper of popular history. In one letter, she even defends the lower classes against "the wretched ... high-born beings who live only to kill time." (Today, we might call those folks royalty, but never mind.)

Willy is the villain of the piece, and no wonder. Crippled at birth, his sense of inferiority knew no bounds. As the "odd one out," his relatives snubbed him, and it certainly didn't help that he liked to slap diminutive Nicky on the back and poke him in the ribs.

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