All language subtitles for BBC Royal Cousins at War 2of2 Into the Abyss.srt - 2

In May 1913, the royalty of Europe
gathered in Berlin

for the wedding of
the German Kaiser's only daughter,

Viktoria Luise.

Kaiser Wilhelm
was filmed with his cousin,

King George V of Britain.

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia,
another cousin, was also a guest.

At that moment,
these three close relatives

reigned over almost half
of the Earth's population.

But the 19th century
world of pageantry,

pomp and royal power was ending.

The modern age hovered
like a spectre at the feast.

As the guests assembled
that spring day in Berlin,

a Zeppelin flew overhead.

And, just over a year later,
the magnificent cavalrymen

would swap their horses
and feathered hats

for the mud and blood
of the trenches.

For Europe's royalty, a very
personal family tragedy loomed.

A tragedy of conflict...

..and betrayal.

Europe's three royal cousins
would never meet again.

On the 27th of July 1900, Kaiser
Wilhelm II made a farewell speech

to German troops departing to crush
the Boxer Rebellion in China.

He was so pleased with it,
he later made a recording.

The rest of Europe was alarmed
by his bloodcurdling rhetoric.

The perception is that here
is someone who is out of control

and you don't know
what he's going to do next

and he's leading a very powerful
country with a powerful army.

I mean, is he bent on war?

German power means that
when the Kaiser opens his mouth,

people listen hard.

He is seen as the symbol
of brash, arrogant,

powerful German militarism.

The son of Queen Victoria's
oldest daughter,

Wilhelm had been born
with a disabled left arm.

He had grown up into
an erratic, unpredictable monarch...

..and, by 1900, was widely regarded

as a dangerous, destabilising
force in European politics.

His emotions towards Britain
and his British family

were particularly tangled.

Wilhelm has a very ambivalent
attitude towards England.

On the one hand, he hates England.

On the other hand,
he longs to be recognised by England.

So it's a very conflicted attitude
that he has towards England,

not just at a personal level
but also at a political level.

I think this is crucial to his
whole foreign policy, in fact.

At the end of the 1890s, the Kaiser
took a fateful decision...

..ordering a dramatic expansion
of the German navy.

Having failed to coax
the British into friendship,

the naval build-up was Wilhelm's
way of forcing Britain

and his British relatives to show
him the respect he felt he deserved.

Some people have described
Germany at this time,

it's like a sort of adolescent that
wants to swing its weight around.

In a way, Wilhelm is
the adolescent who never grows up

and who is incredibly bad at seeing

the potential consequences
of his actions.

And it's, "Well, if they wouldn't
take notice of us this way,

"we're going to play hard
and see how they like it."

As a policy, the naval build-up
backfired disastrously.

Britain at this time was
the world's greatest imperial power.

It ruled over almost a quarter
of the world's land surface

and was dependent for its security
on its naval supremacy.

In the 1890s, it had been disdainful
of the need for friends and allies.

But now the German naval build-up

combined with a series
of unexpected military set backs

in the Boer War in South Africa

to force a radical change of course
in British foreign policy.

It made the British do
what they didn't really like to do

and that is
look for peacetime allies.

So the Germans got precisely the
opposite of what they had hoped for.

What you do when you have an enemy

is you look for
the enemies of your enemy.

In 1902, Britain signed
a military alliance with Japan,

easing pressure on the Royal Navy
in the Far East.

Then, in the spring of 1903,

the British king, Edward VII,
set off for Paris.

Edward VII is conventionally
seen as a lazy king

because he's too fat and too
interested in going to parties.

I think that this view is, um...

a lazy view.

In terms of foreign policy,

Edward VII is far more active
than he's been given credit for.

Paris was a city where Edward,
a notorious philanderer,

had spent many pleasurable hours
over the years.

But he was now determined to deploy
his royal charm and charisma

in the service of his country.

He arrived to find
the French capital seething

with resentment over Britain's
treatment of the Boers.

There is an atmosphere
you could cut with a knife

of hostility to the king of England.

Edward's agenda
is basically to turn this around.

So he launches what you might call
a charm offensive on Paris.

Over the course of two or three days,

he sort of converts
the boos into cheers.

It's a great PR exercise.

Paris is completely on his side
and the significance of that

is that it means that opinion
in France is completely changed

and so it's possible
for the politicians to get together

over the negotiating table
and work out an agreement

between the two countries.

Edward's trip laid the ground
for the Entente Cordiale,

signed between Britain and France
the following year,

to the fury of the Kaiser.

Although short
of a formal military alliance,

the Entente ended
almost 1,000 years of rivalry.

Combined with the Franco-Russian
defence pact

signed a decade earlier,

it meant it was the Germans
who now felt isolated.

For Wilhelm, Edward's success
was a painful lesson

in the art of diplomacy.

Edward has this savoir-faire,
this charm.

And Wilhelm is the opposite.

He tries too hard.
He throws himself at people.

He's obviously manipulative.
He's over-energetic.

People just don't like him.

Wilhelm is monumentally jealous of
his uncle because Edward is so good.

He is so relaxed.
He is so good with people.

The King is what he wants to be.

When King and Kaiser met,

German officials were
embarrassed by the contrast.

Observing them in conversation,
wrote one, was like watching...

"A fat, malicious tomcat
playing with a shrew mouse".

The anxious Germans moved quickly

to try and drive a wedge in
the new Anglo-French relationship.

In the spring of 1905,

it was decided Wilhelm would take
a trip to Tangier in Morocco,

a country which was supposedly
under French control,

according to the terms
of the Entente Cordiale.

So what this does is basically
throw down a gauntlet.

It says to the French, "Germany
is now trying to move in on Morocco,

"are you going to let them do it?"

The British are put in a position
of do they support France or not?

The Kaiser intended to declare
support for Moroccan independence.

Faced with this challenge,

it was assumed Britain
would fail to support the French,

revealing itself
as a weak, unreliable ally.

It was a grand theatrical gesture
of the type the Kaiser loved.

But strangely,
when he arrived in Morocco,

Wilhelm suddenly got cold feet.

The great irony about the Kaiser
was he talked in this warlike way

but when it came to the crunch
in crisis after crisis,

he was the one
who wanted to pull back.

He was the one who said,
"Let's make a deal."

William II had this characteristic
of talking bombastically

and then running away.

On this occasion, the Kaiser's
nervousness was compounded

by a simple physical fear
of riding a strange horse

with his disabled arm.

Wilhelm is a good rider
but he can only ride a horse

if it's been broken in
to his very special needs.

Eventually,
the Kaiser plucked up courage

and road unsteadily
through the streets of Tangier.

In photos, an aide can be seen
holding nervously on to his saddle.

But the Tangier initiative proved
clumsy and counter-productive.

When the French protested,
the British stood firm behind them

and it was Germany
that had to back down.

The immediate reaction of his uncle,
Edward VII,

is to go to France
and have conversations

with all the key French diplomats
to strengthen the Entente Cordiale.

The Kaiser is left high and dry,
humiliated.

He personally has made this landing.

He personally has stood up
for Germany's rights.

And he gets nothing out of it.

It's a moment where Germany
faces its isolation as never before.

King Edward regarded
the Kaiser's attempt to sabotage

the Anglo-French Entente
as underhand and dishonourable.

It was a turning point in their
already difficult relationship.

"I have tried to get on with him

"and shall nominally
do my best till the end.

"But trust him? Never.

"He is utterly false

"and the bitterest foe
that England possesses."

The Kaiser, too, now saw Edward
as his greatest enemy.

"He is a Satan. You can hardly
believe what a Satan he is."

But Wilhelm was having more luck in
relations with his Russian cousin,

Tsar Nicholas II.

By this time, Nicholas and his wife,
the Tsarina Alexandra,

had been on the throne a decade and
were living at the Alexander Palace,

just outside Saint Petersburg.

By Romanov standards,
it was modest. Almost humble.

The Tsarina decorated the walls

with pictures of her beloved
grandmother, Queen Victoria...

..and, perhaps less wisely, of the
French queen, Marie Antoinette...

..along with countless
religious icons.

Both Tsar and Tsarina
were firmly committed

to maintaining their own
absolute autocratic rule...

..while, in foreign policy,
Nicholas was starting to be drawn

to Romantic dreams of imperial
expansion in the Far East.

Dreams his older cousin,
the German Kaiser Wilhelm,

was keen to encourage.

"Dearest Nicky, it is the great task
of the future for Russia

"to cultivate the Asian continent

"and to defend Europe from the
inroads of the great yellow race.

"In this, you will always
find me on your side,

"ready to help you
as best as I can."

"You'll be
the emperor of the Pacific

"and I'll be the emperor
of the Atlantic."

It's all in those terms.

Trying to persuade an emperor,

whom he clearly regards
as a kind of retarded child.

The Kaiser wants to point
Nicholas eastwards

because he wants Russia
to leave Germany alone.

It's as basic as that.

If Russia's busy in the East

and busy building an empire in
the East, it won't be looking West.

Nicholas had little time
for his German cousin

but, on the issue
of Russian expansion in the East,

their views happened to coincide.

It was a policy that would
lead Nicholas to disaster.

In 1904, war broke out between
Russia and Japan, Britain's ally...

..after the Japanese attacked
Russia's Pacific fleet.

Nicholas was able, briefly, to ride
a tide of popular enthusiasm,

blessing the troops
before they set off to fight.

Although the Anglo-Japanese treaty
did not oblige Britain to intervene,

inevitably,
as the fighting intensified,

Britain's relations with Russia
deteriorated sharply.

In October 1904,

Russia's Baltic fleet,
en route to the Far East,

accidentally fired on
British trawlers in the North Sea,

killing three fishermen.

They fire on them because, bizarrely,

they think it's a squadron
of Japanese torpedo boats.

To this day, nobody's ever
really understood why an admiral

could think he was encountering
the Japanese fleet in the North Sea.

When the trawlers got back to Hull,
there was outrage

and war between Britain and Russia
was narrowly averted.

When, finally, the Russian Baltic
fleet arrived in the Far East,

it was annihilated in
a single afternoon by the Japanese.

Russia's land forces
were also defeated.

The Russo-Japanese War was
an unmitigated disaster for Russia.

It cost huge amounts of money.

It was a total humiliation
because Russia, in the end,

was beaten by what was regarded
by the rest of the world

as a third-rate power.

The war exposed Russia's
backwardness, discrediting Nicholas

and fuelling discontent
with his autocratic regime.

On January the 22nd 1905,

troops opened fire on peaceful
demonstrators in Saint Petersburg,

killing hundreds.

Events later recreated
by Soviet film-makers.

The German Kaiser wrote
to congratulate the Tsar.

"I am glad your soldiers
showed themselves reliable

"and true to their Emperor."

In contrast, Britain's King Edward,
appalled at the slaughter,

was conspicuous by his silence.

Revolution now spread across Russia.

The Tsar, who had previously
enjoyed good relations

with his British relatives,
became increasingly hostile

and was soon referring to
the British as "Zhids" or Jews,

which he, like most Russians,
assumed to be an insult.

He picked up his pen
to write to his German cousin.

"Dearest Willy, it is certainly
high time to put a stop to this.

"Germany, Russia and France should
at once unite upon an agreement

"to abolish Anglo-Japanese
arrogance and insolence.

"Would you like to lay down
and frame the outlines

"of such a Treaty
and let me know it?"

Wilhelm didn't need asking twice.

The two men agreed to meet
on their yachts

off the Finnish island of Bjorko.

This was very much
a royal initiative.

Like schoolboys skipping school,
as their yachts neared,

the Tsar and the Kaiser
telegraphed excitedly ahead.

"At home nobody informed."

"I'm so delighted to be able
to see you."

"All my guests under impression
of going to Visby, in Gotland.

"Their faces will be worth seeing

"when they suddenly
behold your yacht.

"A fine lark."

The two men met
for what they believed would be

an historic encounter,
on July the 24th, 1905.

Bjorko is a fantasy
for Wilhelm and Nicholas

about sort of what
autocratic rulers can accomplish.

Wilhelm says, "You know,
this is a new day

"for the autocratic monarchies.

"You know, it's US - it's you and me
against those democratic states,

"that's what the future holds.

"We've got to stick together
against Republican France

"and evil, democratic England."

Acting on their own initiative,

the two monarchs signed a military
alliance between Germany and Russia.

An event that would have transformed
the European balance of power.

Wilhelm writes in his memoirs
that, as they signed,

a ray of sunshine came through
the yacht window and he looked up

and, in heaven, you know,
his and Nicholas' grandfathers

were shaking hands.

And they both go home

and their ministers go, "What?!"

The two men had attempted
to conduct diplomacy

as if they were medieval monarchs,

but they had revealed themselves
as amateurs.

The Bjorko summit fails
because, in the end,

Nicholas's advisers tell him
the truth, which is that,

"You've got to choose - either you
can have this alliance with Germany,

"without the French alliance,

"or you can stick to
the Franco-Russian Alliance,

"at which point,
you cannot sign Bjorko."

The Kaiser's ministers, too, were
furious he had signed the treaty

without consulting them
and refused to ratify it.

For both men, it was a lesson that,
at the dawn of the 20th century,

royal power was greater in theory
than in practice.

Ironically, it was the monarch
who wielded least power

that had emerged
as the master diplomat.

King Edward VII had almost no say
in British foreign policy,

but he was a superb ambassador

and, in 1907, he invited the Tsar's
mother, Minnie, to Britain,

keen to smooth the tensions inflamed
by the Russo-Japanese War.

The visit was primarily personal.

The ever-youthful Minnie, in black,

was the sister of the equally
youthful British Queen Alexandra.

The tsarist regime had only narrowly
survived the revolution of 1905

and, for Minnie,
it was a relief to escape

the claustrophobic atmosphere
of Saint Petersburg,

as she wrote to her son, Nicholas.

"Everyone is so very kind
and friendly to me!

"I do wish you could come over here
for a little to breathe the air

"and live for a while
in different surroundings.

"How good for you that would be!"

The two sisters, seen here
on the right, were from Denmark

and had never forgiven
the Germans for the invasion

of their native country in 1864.

For over 40 years, they had striven
to improve Anglo-Russian relations

and their sons, Tsar Nicholas
and the future King George V,

were close friends.

Now, finally, history was
on the side of the Danish sisters.

Just a few months later, Britain and
Russia signed an historic entente,

resolving outstanding
colonial differences

and, in the process, completing
the encirclement of Germany.

It is very significant
that, at the time of the making

of the Anglo-Russian Entente,
Minnie comes to London.

I think she is really playing
a key part in trying to engineer

this entente and this, in a way,
is the culmination

of all that these two sisters
have been working for politically.

At last, they've got it.

Royalty had played a key role
smoothing the path to friendship

and the British government
now deployed King Edward
to seal the deal,

dispatching the royal couple
to the Baltic port of Tallinn

for the first-ever visit
to Russian territory

by a reigning British monarch.

For Russian officials, the jovial
Edward provided a welcome contrast

to the bullying, hectoring
German Kaiser.

The Russians are really impressed
and they keep saying, you know,

"He's so much easier to deal with
than the Kaiser.

"The Kaiser's a nightmare!"

Confronted with the tricky
protocol issue

of who should go into dinner first,
the Tsarina or the Tsar's mother,

Edward displayed his legendary tact.

He had the wonderful idea of saying,

"Well, now I have
the unique opportunity

"of walking into dinner
with an empress on either arm,"

so he took them both into dinner
and they were both happy.

Privately,
Edward regarded Nicholas as...

"Weak as water,
deplorably unsophisticated,

"immature and reactionary."

Far more liberal politically
than his nephew,

the King startled his hosts
by raising the issue

of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia.

But, overall,
the summit was a success.

Tsarist Russia and parliamentary
Britain were now allies.

In Germany,
the public was horrified.

Suddenly, this dreadful nightmare
of Bismarck's has come true

and Germany really is surrounded

by the three great powers
left in Europe.

People say, "What kind
of regime is this?

"Where have we got to?
When Bismarck was dismissed,

"Germany was allied
to almost every power.

"Now, almost every power is allied
against Germany, what's happened?"

At the new palace outside Berlin,
the Kaiser found himself

and his entourage under growing
pressure and intense scrutiny.

Wilhelm was now engulfed
in a series of surprising scandals.

The Kaiser, without realising it,
had gathered a circle

of gay men around him,
or bisexual men around him,

and they were very close to him
and they were very sort of...

It was all innocent stuff.

I mean, it was like his days in the
army, where he'd been with men only

and they sort of played
practical jokes on each other

and they called each other
very affectionate terms.

The oldest and closest
of these gay advisers

was Count Philipp zu Eulenburg,

the bearded figure seen here

with his hand on the shoulder
of the Kaiser,

who is wearing sunglasses.

It's unlikely the Kaiser himself
was a repressed homosexual.

He was married twice,
had seven children

and a number of mistresses.

But Eulenburg and his circle
filled a deep emotional need.

He has this feminine side to him.

He is very much interested, for
example, in jewellery and in design.

He designs his wife's clothes,
he designs uniforms.

He's a great aesthete,
he likes beautiful things,

he does flower arrangements.

I mean, he has a feminine side
and then this macho side.

I mean, I think the Kaiser
probably was someone

who was more sensitive
and more artistic

than he could let himself appear.

He is seen by foreigners
as an embodiment

of all that is worst
about a German mindset.

And the terrible irony of that
is that William partly espouses

that mindset because he believes
that's what he's supposed to be.

The little boy with the poorly arm,

the little boy who is humiliated
by being put in a metal cage

as a child to sort out the unevenness
in his shoulders

takes his revenge
by becoming a caricature

of a great Wagnerian warrior.

The Kaiser was an emotionally
damaged man and he knew it,

as he once told Eulenburg.

"Something is missing in me
that others have,

"all poetic feeling in me is dead,
has been killed."

With Eulenburg and his gay circle,

the Kaiser could drop the act
and be himself.

But now Eulenburg's homosexuality
was exposed in the German press...

..Wilhelm was forced to dismiss him.

The Kaiser was bereft

and, at the end of 1908, suffered
a serious nervous breakdown.

He just vanishes,
he leaves Berlin and goes into hiding

and he writes a letter to
one of his friends saying, you know,

"I'm such a sensitive soul
and how can they be so awful to me?

"And I feel so hurt,
the public has hurt me.

"And everybody is against me."
He feels totally encircled.

Wilhelm recovered,

but he was never again as dominant
a figure in German foreign policy.

In Saint Petersburg,
Tsar Nicholas had also withdrawn

somewhat from political life.

Humiliated by the defeat
in the Far East,

chastened by near revolution
at home,

he took refuge
in his growing family.

By now, the couple had
four daughters and a son, Alexis,

finally born to them in August 1904.

The Tsar was essentially
a family man.

He was a Tsar
because he knew that was his duty

and he performed the roles
very diligently,

he accepted it was a role
that he had to do,

but he found his fulfilment
in private life, so did Alex.

They were the wealthiest, most
powerful royal family in Europe,

but the Romanovs' own home movies
capture their relaxed private life.

Some of the footage of the Tsar
himself is startlingly revealing.

There are countless photographs,
countless footage of the Tsar

and his children playing.

Often quite informal,
surprisingly informal, actually.

The Tsar was willing to open up
that private family life

to the photographers' lens.

To try, I suppose,
to capture something

that was profoundly
important to him.

The Romanovs were keen
amateur photographers.

They left behind numerous albums
containing thousands of images.

A unique, intimate portrait
of a close, loving family.

Although the visits of cousin Willy
from Germany appear not to have been

the most eagerly anticipated
event of the year.

It's often said Nicholas would have
made a perfectly good king of England

because he's a nice,
relaxed family man.

In a constitutional role,

he would probably have fitted in
very comfortably,

but he's not in
a constitutional role,

he's in a role
where everything devolves on him.

The Tsar considered it a holy duty

to maintain the autocratic
political system of his forefathers.

You have what perhaps is
the worst of all possible worlds.

You have a man who's rigid
in his commitment to autocracy,

but actually doesn't really
have the kind of character,

the kind of determination
to carry it through.

It's as though sometimes, and this
is perhaps a bit harsh on Nicholas,

he's like a small boy trying
to play the part of autocrat.

His father played it very well,
Nicholas can't do it.

Like the German Kaiser,
the Tsar spent his life

trying to be something he was not,

to play a part
that did not come naturally to him.

His wife, Alexandra, was no more
comfortable in the role of Tsarina.

She was not a good empress
in the sense that

she didn't enjoy parties,
she didn't enjoy dancing,

she didn't enjoy
talking to members of high society.

On the contrary,
she thoroughly disliked it.

And the more she felt herself
hated and despised

and condemned in Petersburg society,
the more, to make up for it,

she herself came to denounce
this society as superficial,

alien to Russia.

The imperial couple had also
been afflicted by tragedy.

Their son, Alexis,
heir to the throne, had haemophilia,

a potentially fatal condition that
prevents the blood from clotting.

Alexis had inherited haemophilia
from his mother,

who had inherited it from her
beloved grandmother, Queen Victoria.

When well, the Tsarevich,
seen here rowing, was a feisty lad.

Here, he's third from the right,
displaying the imperiousness

his father sometimes lacked.

But often, after suffering
attacks of bleeding,

he had to be carried in public
by a large sailor.

His condition was kept secret but,
in time, it will lead the Tsarina,

always intensely religious,

to dependence on the notorious,
debauched mystic, Rasputin,

who appeared to be the only man
able to treat her son's condition.

It was a relationship that would
have disastrous consequences

for the Romanov dynasty.

In May 1910, King Edward VII
of Britain died at the age of 68.

If Queen Victoria
was the grandmother of Europe,

Edward was its genial uncle.

Regarded as a philanderer and a
playboy when he ascended the throne,

he had surprised everyone
with his diplomatic skills.

And he was seen as the architect

of Germany's encirclement
by Kaiser Wilhelm,

seen here on the left, walking
side-by-side with his cousin,

now King George V,
behind Edward's coffin.

Wilhelm, of course, typically dashes
to London as quickly as he can

and plays a very prominent part
in the funeral procession.

However, I do not think that
the Kaiser shed many tears

about the death of his uncle Bertie.

In fact, I think he was
probably rather relieved.

"Only the French and the Jews
will miss him."

Wilhelm was confident
he could look forward

to a better relationship
with the new King.

George V and the Kaiser were
first cousins, almost equal in age,

but George V was...made no attempt to
compete or try to upstage the Kaiser

and so the Kaiser had no need
to sort of show off and be difficult.

George had always
lived in the shadow

of his more flamboyant father.

George V felt thoroughly inadequate
to succeed his father.

His father was
this great, majestic personality.

George was small,
puny by comparison.

Originally trained
as a naval officer,

George's education had been limited.

Like his cousin and close friend,
Tsar Nicholas, 16 years before,

he was terrified at the prospect
of ascending the throne.

The Tsar wrote kindly
to offer him consolation.

"Dearest Georgie, just a few lines
to tell you how deeply I feel

"for the terrible loss
you and England have sustained.

"I know, alas, by experience
what it costs one.

"There you are with your heart
bleeding and aching

"but, at the same time,
duty imposes itself."

MARTIAL MUSIC PLAYS

George now reigned over
the greatest Empire on earth.

And, in 1911, he became
the first British monarch

to travel to India
to be crowned Emperor.

He didn't impress the locals.

There's this huge durbar in Delhi,

and George makes a sort
of ceremonial entry

but, unfortunately, George,
who was not very brave,

refuses to ride an elephant

and insists on making his entry
on a horse

and the horse
is rather a small horse.

So here is the King Emperor
entering Delhi,

but nobody can see him
in the procession

cos he's below all the elephants.

And as he received homage from
countless maharajas and princes,

George found the crown, literally,
to be a burden.

That night, he wrote in his diary.

"Rather tired after wearing the
crown for three and a half hours.

"It hurt my head,
as it is pretty heavy."

The German Kaiser was dismissive
of Britain's new King.

"An English country gentleman
without political interests,

"whose sketchy linguistic abilities

"will incline him
towards staying at home."

It was one of Wilhelm's
more perceptive observations,

but King George's accession

did nothing to ease
Wilhelm's own isolation.

In May 1913, the Kaiser
invited George to Berlin

for the wedding of
his only daughter, Viktoria Luise.

The wedding was held symbolically
on Queen Victoria's birthday

and would be
the last great gathering

of the old Queen's extended family.

King George was filmed
being greeted by the Kaiser.

Tsar Nicholas also attended,
although both had been wary.

"I'll go if you go,"
wrote the Tsar to the King.

Wilhelm's delighted that they've
all come, he puts on a big show,

big dresses, great feasts,

but he's also paranoid

that they're all talking
behind their backs about him.

And so he won't let Nicholas
and George ever be alone together,

because he's scared they're going
to sort of plot against him.

Now, the truth about Nicholas
and George is

you couldn't find two men
who less want to talk about politics.

For the King and the Tsar, the
wedding was a welcome opportunity

to renew their friendship,
as George wrote in his diary.

"I had a long and satisfactory talk
with dear Nicky,

"he was just the same as always."

Even at his own daughter's wedding,

it was once again the Kaiser

who was left feeling excluded.

There's a great paradox
and irony in the fact

that this huge event in Germany

is a sort of enormous manifestation
of the extension of this royal family

and yet, actually, the truth is that
Wilhelm's never felt so isolated,

you know, the feeling he takes away
from this is that, actually,

his two other closest cousins
are ganging up on him.

He's alienated everybody else
and he's just on his own.

It was the last time
in European history

monarchs who mattered
gathered together.

None of the three royal cousins
would ever meet again.

Just over a year later,

the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand,

seen here on the left out hunting
with his friend, Kaiser Wilhelm,

made a trip to the Bosnian city
of Sarajevo.

There, on June the 28th 1914,

he and his wife were assassinated
by Serb nationalists.

Serbia was Russia's ally...

..Austria-Hungary was Germany's.

The alliance system now threatened

to drag the whole of Europe
into war.

As tensions mounted,
telegrams flew back and forth

between the three royal cousins.

"I beg you, in the name
of our old friendship,

"to do what you can
to stop your allies going too far."

"The peace of Europe
may still be maintained by you

"if Russia will agree
to stop the military measures

"which must threaten Germany
and Austro-Hungary."

"I am most anxious not to miss
any possibility of avoiding

"the terrible calamity which at
present threatens the whole world."

King George was appalled at the
thought of war, but had no power,

while in Saint Petersburg,

Tsar Nicholas had power,
but felt he had no choice.

The last thing in July 1914
that Nicholas II wants is war.

The basic problem is

how do you defend what are seen
as essential Russian interests

without risking a war?

And the answer is
there is no way to do that,

certainly in the perception
of the decision-makers.

If Russia crumbles before
the Austrian takeover of Serbia,

its military and geopolitical
position in Europe

will be undermined.

No-one will believe that Russia will
stand up for its own interests again.

To back down now, Nicholas felt,

would be for Russia to abdicate
its status as a great power.

In Berlin, the Kaiser's attitude,
as ever, was more complex.

I think, as is so often with
the Kaiser, he's in two minds.

I think he's afraid of war
and the possible consequences,

but he doesn't want to back down
and look like a fool.

And there's this very revealing thing
he says in the summer of 1914.

He says to a friend, "This time,
I'm not going to back down.

"This time, I'm not going
to back down."

The friend said, "Really odd
to hear him repeating it.

"It seems to me
this is something he fears."

And, you know, he knew that
a lot of his army

were calling him William The Timid.

The Kaiser initially encouraged
the Austrians to crush the Serbs.

Then, faced with the possibility
of a war on three fronts

against Russia, France and Britain,

he suddenly changed course,

writing to the Austrians, telling
them to accept Serbian concessions.

"Austria has forced Serbia
to make a very humiliating retreat.

"There is no longer
any reason for war.

"I am prepared to mediate for peace."

But the initiative from
the Royal Palace was sabotaged

by Wilhelm's generals
and politicians in Berlin,

weary of the indecisiveness
of their blustering leader.

He orders Berlin

to transmit that message
to the Austrians,

and they don't do so in time,
and they weaken it,

they water it down, to the point

where the Austrians can hardly
make sense of it any more.

By the time it reaches Vienna,

the bombardment of Belgrade
has already begun.

At this point, with Europe
on the brink of general war,

family politics intervened,
creating fatal confusion.

Kaiser Wilhelm's brother, Heinrich,
happened to be in London,

and went to talk to the King.

On Sunday morning, Heinrich turns up
at Buckingham Palace,

sees George for five
or six minutes,

who says, "I don't really
have time to talk to you

"because I'm going to church,
the service is starting."

It's a sad moment, really.

And Heinrich says,
"Well, the question I have is,

"what will you do
if there's a war on the Continent?"

George said, "Oh, I don't think
we will come into the war.

"You know,
I can't see why we would."

"But, you know, obviously
I can't say for certain."

Heinrich goes home and,
like a lot of people around Wilhelm,

he likes to tell Wilhelm
what he wants to hear,

and so he says, "Oh, George says
they're not going to get involved,"

and Wilhelm seizes on this.

He says, "I have the word of a king,
and that's good enough for me."

And now he's all full of strength
again, thinking Britain

will stay out of the war
and he can have the Continental war

that he does want
without fear of British interference.

By the time the British made clear
they would stand by their allies,

it was too late.

Germany was already at war
with Russia.

As troops mobilised across Europe,

the Kaiser blamed Britain's
Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey,

for what he saw as a betrayal.

"Grey makes the King a liar.
Dirty bastard!

"The encirclement of Germany
has become a fact.

"The net has closed above our heads."

In Russia, Nicholas's bitterness
was directed towards Wilhelm.

"He was never sincere,
not for a moment.

"In the end, he was
hopelessly entangled

"in the net of his perfidity
and lies."

King George's diary entry
was characteristically low-key.

"Fairly warm, showers and windy.

"I held a council at 10:45
to declare war with Germany.

"It is a terrible catastrophe,
but it is not our fault.

"Please God, it may soon be over."

Crowds surged onto the streets
of Europe's capitals.

In Berlin, the Kaiser was recorded
rallying the nation.

In Saint Petersburg,
the Tsar appeared on the balcony

of the Winter Palace and was also
later recorded rallying his troops.

But this was a war
none of the cousins had wanted.

The Kaiser's blustering,
erratic personality

had done much to destabilise Europe.

The Tsar had revealed himself
an inept amateur.

Only George can be excused
all blame,

because he didn't matter.

But, in the end,
all three cousins were tired -

very ordinary men
steamrollered by history.

Over the next four years, more
than 10 million people would die.

Queen Victoria's extended family
was ripped, brutally, apart.

Of the 120 descendants
of the old Queen alive in 1914,

42 were living in enemy countries.

11 would fight against Britain
and her allies,

including the Tsarina Alexandra's
own German brother.

She was distraught.

"What a horrible war this is.
What evil and suffering it means."

Others had more mixed emotions.

The outbreak of war happened
to find the Danish sisters -

who had never forgiven the Germans

for the invasion of their native
country half a century before -

together in London.

The Tsar's mother, Minnie,
was blunt.

"You cannot imagine
what a satisfaction it is for me,

"after having been obliged

"to dissimilate my feelings
for 50 years,

"to be able to tell the whole world
how I hate the Germans."

Her sister, Alex,
the widow of Edward VII,

wrote to her son, King George,
urging him to remove what she called

"the vile Prussian banners"
of his German relatives

from the chapel at Windsor,

where she had been married
51 years before.

But this was a conflict

that would break the power
of monarchy for ever.

Under the intense pressure of war,
King George V,

a figurehead even before 1914,
found himself relegated

to an entirely ceremonial role,

visiting the troops,
bolstering morale.

The Kaiser, too,
who had wielded very real power,

found it was now wrested from him
by his generals.

"The general staff tells me nothing
and never asks for my opinion.

"If they imagine in Germany
that I command the Army,

"then they are very much mistaken.

"I drink tea and saw wood
and go for walks."

Only the Tsar bucked this trend,

appointing himself Supreme Commander
of the Russian forces.

It was a disastrous move.

Nicholas was now held
personally responsible

for Russia's defeats
on the battlefield.

As the casualties mounted,
discontent grew.

The mood in the Army
became sour, bitter.

But still Nicholas refused
demands for political reform,

bolstered always by letters from
his wife, the Tsarina, Alexandra.

"We must give
a strong country to Baby.

"Be firm.

"Russia loves to feel the whip,
it's their nature.

"How I wish I could pour
my will into your veins.

"Be Peter the Great,
Ivan the Terrible.

"Crush them all under you."

At the end of 1916,
the Tsarina's favourite, Rasputin,

viewed as the evil genius behind
the regime, was brutally murdered.

Then, in March, 1917, bread riots
turned into a full-scale revolution.

The Tsarist regime was overthrown.

The Imperial family
were made prisoners

in their own home
at the Alexander Palace.

The question now
was what to do with them.

In London, the Prime Minister,
David Lloyd George,

seen here with the King,
was prepared to grant asylum.

Kaiser Wilhelm agreed to allow
his cousin safe passage.

But then the Government
received an unexpected letter

from King George's
private secretary.

"The King has been thinking much
about the government's proposal

"that the Emperor Nicholas and
his family should come to England.

"The King has a strong personal
friendship for the Emperor,

"but His Majesty cannot help
doubting whether it is advisable

"that the imperial family should take
up their residence in this country."

Bolshevism was raising
its ugly head,

and George V saw Bolshevism

as a universal danger
to the established order.

And he felt that this contagion

was liable to spread across Europe.

King George was about
to change his family name

from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor

to distance himself
from the Kaiser.

He now feared he might be tainted by
association with his Russian cousin.

The international brotherhood
of royalty was unravelling.

When Lloyd George's
government hesitated,

a further letter
was dispatched from the palace.

"The opposition to the Emperor
and Empress coming here

"is so strong that we must
be allowed to withdraw

"from the consent previously given to
the Russian government's proposal."

The offer of asylum for the Tsar
and his family was withdrawn.

George V's refusal
to accept Nicholas II

was an act of cowardice,

or certainly an act of political...

..coldness.

But then, after all,
monarchs are hereditary politicians.

At that level, their relations
with each other are not, ever,

relations of ordinary human beings.

These are relations of state.

And a monarchy thinks
of his dynasty.

The supreme law,
as far as royalty is concerned,

is to survive,
and that's what George did.

At the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks
seized power in Saint Petersburg.

Shortly afterwards,
the Tsar and his family were moved

to this house in Yekaterinburg
in the Russian Urals.

On the night of July the 16th 1918,

they were herded along with
four servants into a basement room,

where a drunken execution squad
awaited them.

The Tsar and his wife died
almost immediately,

but the daughters had sewn the
family diamonds into their corsets.

The bullets bounced off them

and they had to be clubbed
and bayoneted to death.

The Tsarevich also survived
the first volley.

Groaning and clutching
at his dead father's coat,

he was kicked in the head, then
finished off at point-blank range.

The basement room later
became a tourist attraction

for triumphant Bolsheviks.

In London, King George
opened his trusty diary.

"I hear from Russia that there
is every probability

"that Alicky and the four daughters
and little boy

"were murdered at the same time
as Nicky.

"It's too horrible and shows
what fiends these Bolshevists are.

"For Alicky, perhaps it was best so,
"but those poor innocent children!"

When George does learn about
the death of the Romanovs,

his reaction is basically to forget
about his refusal of asylum.

He never expressed any guilt,
any sorrow,

any admission of having
let his cousin down in this way,

and, indeed, he did his best
to cover the whole thing up

and let Lloyd George
take the blame for it.

It was not until
decades after George's death

that the truth
about his role emerged.

By the summer of 1918,

the Kaiser, too, was entering
his last days in power.

As British, French and American
troops surged forward,

Wilhelm continued to view
the vast human tragedy

in intensely personal terms,

suffering nightmares that
his English and Russian relatives

were marching past, mocking him.

As defeat loomed,
revolution broke out in Germany.

Wilhelm was defiant.

"I wouldn't dream of quitting
my throne on account

"of a few hundred Jews
or a thousand workers."

Then, on November the 9th 1918,
he was confronted by his generals.

Finally, the generals

tell Wilhelm, "The game's up."

And Wilhelm looks around,
agitatedly, for support.

He realises there's none and then
one general writes in his diary,

"And so we took him,
like a little child, by the hand

"and led him to Holland to exile."

Wilhelm never returned to Germany,

and never spoke to his cousin,
King George, again.

He would live comfortably in exile
in Holland for 22 years,

chopping wood
and writing his memoirs,

blaming others for the disaster
that had befallen his country.

"While commanded by me,

"the brave army
was achieving victories.

"The war was lost
by the people at home,

"led by their incompetent statesmen,
lied to by the Jews."

The former Kaiser would congratulate
Hitler on his early victories.

And when finally he died in 1941,

the Fuhrer sent
a huge wreath to his funeral.

Just one of the three royal cousins
held on to his throne -

King George,
through luck and judgment.

Over the next two decades,
he and his wife, Queen Mary,

would become the pioneers
of modern monarchy,

converting George's
very mundanity into an asset.

In 1932, he inaugurated
the tradition

of the Christmas broadcast.

'His Majesty the King.'

'Through one of the marvels
of modern science...

'..I am enabled this Christmas Day...

'..to speak to all my people
throughout the Empire.'

George V's virtues as King
seem to me

that he is essentially dutiful.
He recognises that

the irony of royal position
is that,

very far from having
infinite opportunity,

you have rather
limited opportunities,

because you, in order to survive
successfully in the modern world,

must appear to do
what is expected of you.

This is helped by the fact that
he's not a very imaginative man.

I think if you are unimaginative,

you're much less likely
to rock the boat.

George and Mary would become
the first service monarchs -

dull, diligent, dutiful

and utterly powerless.

This was the deal royalty
had had to make to survive.

Never again would the peace
of Europe hinge

on the eccentricities of individuals
selected by the lottery of birth.