George, Nicholas and Wilhelm.

Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I.

by Miranda Carter.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Until 1918 Russian dates followed the Julian, or Old Style, calendar, rather than the Gregorian one we use today. In the nineteenth century this meant Russian dates were twelve days behind Western dates, and in the twentieth century, thirteen. In my notes I have used the abbreviation "OS" to mark Julian calendar dates.I have also taken the decision, where the character or name has a well-established Western or Anglicized alternative, to go with the Anglicization, i.e., Leo instead of Lev (Tolstoy), Nicholas instead of Nikolai, Augusta Victoria instead of Auguste Viktoria, Hapsburg instead of Habsburg.

INTRODUCTION

July 1917, as the First World War reached its third exhausting year, was not a good month for monarchs. In London, George V, King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, decided to change his name. A month or so before, he had held a dinner party at Buckingham Palace. The occasion would have been slightly grimmer and plainer than usual for a European monarch. In an effort to show their commitment to the war effort, George and his wife, Mary, had inst.i.tuted a spartan regime at the palace: no heating, dim lighting, "simple" food-mutton instead of lamb, pink blancmange instead of mousses and sorbets-and no alcohol. The king had taken a pledge of abstinence for the duration as an example to the nation-an example to which it had remained noticeably deaf. Since there was no rationing in England, the aristocratic guests would almost certainly have eaten better at home. Nor, very probably, was the conversation precisely scintillating. The king and queen were known for their dedication to duty and moral uprightness, but not for their social adeptness: "the King is duller than the Queen," went the refrain of a rather mean little poem by the society wit Max Beerbohm. During the course of the meal, Lady Maud Warrender, occasional lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary and a friend of Edward Elgar and Henry James, happened to let slip that there were rumours going round that because of the king's family name-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-he was regarded as pro-German. Hearing this, George "started and grew1 pale." He left the table soon afterwards. He'd been shaken by the abdication and arrest in March of his cousin the Russian tsar, Nicholas II; the new rumours made him fear again for his position. He had always been hypersensitive to criticism and was p.r.o.ne to self-pity, though he tended to cover it with barking anger. The war had gnawed at him; it had turned his beard white and given him great bags under his eyes and somehow eroded him: observers said he looked like an old worn-out penny. pale." He left the table soon afterwards. He'd been shaken by the abdication and arrest in March of his cousin the Russian tsar, Nicholas II; the new rumours made him fear again for his position. He had always been hypersensitive to criticism and was p.r.o.ne to self-pity, though he tended to cover it with barking anger. The war had gnawed at him; it had turned his beard white and given him great bags under his eyes and somehow eroded him: observers said he looked like an old worn-out penny.Things were worse for George's cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German emperor. The war had once and for all destroyed the pretence that Wilhelm-supposedly the apex of the German autocracy-was capable of providing any kind of consistent leadership. In early July the kaiser's two most senior generals, Ludendorff and Hindenburg, threatened to resign unless Wilhelm sacked his chancellor. The gesture was a move to demonstrate and secure their hold over the civilian government. Wilhelm ranted and complained, but his beleaguered chancellor resigned anyway. The generals imposed their own replacement. They took away the kaiser's t.i.tle of "Supreme Warlord" and awarded it to Hindenburg. "I may as well abdicate," Wilhelm grumbled. But he didn't, remaining the increasingly flimsy fig leaf of a military dictatorship. In Germany, they began to call him "the Shadow-Emperor." (In Britain and America ma.s.s propaganda portrayed him as a child-eating monster, egging his troops on to ever greater atrocities.) Those closest to him worried about the serious "declining popularity of the monarchical idea," and sighed over the levels of self-deception-Wilhelm veered between depression and "his well-known, impossible, Victory mood." Through the hot July days, a virtual prisoner of the army, he shuffled from front to front, pinning on medals, then dining at some grand aristocrat's large estates: "Once more a rich dinner and the same bunch of idlers,"2 a particularly disillusioned member of his entourage observed. a particularly disillusioned member of his entourage observed.Further east, just outside Petrograd in Russia, at Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, "the Tsar's village," George's other cousin, Nicholas Romanov, the former tsar-to whom the king had always said he was devoted-was in his fourth month of house arrest since his abdication. Throughout July, Nicholas spent his days reading, cutting wood and pottering in the kitchen gardens of the palace. It was a life that in many respects suited him, and he seemed to greet his downfall with a stoic calmness that might even have been relief-but then he'd always been hard to read. On hot days his children swam in the lake, and his son Alexis showed the household his collection of silent films on his cinematograph. Beyond Tsarskoe Selo, Russian soldiers at the front were mutinying, and on 3 July angry workers, soldiers and Bolsheviks had taken to the streets of Petrograd. There was fierce fighting as the moderate provisional government struggled to stay in control. The city was full of furious rumours that the hated Romanovs were about to flee the country. A few weeks before, the provisional government's foreign minister had asked the British amba.s.sador for the second time whether Britain could give asylum to the former tsar and his family. The amba.s.sador, deeply embarra.s.sed, said it was impossible. At the end of the month Alexander Kerensky, the new prime minister, told Nicholas that the family would have to get away from Petrograd for their own safety, just for a few months. They must be packed and ready to leave by 31 July. Their destination was Tobolsk in Siberia-which had a certain appropriateness; the old regime had consigned thousands of its enemies to Siberia. Nicholas's wife, Alexandra-perhaps the most hated woman in all Russia-wrote to a friend, "what suffering our3 departure is; all packed, empty rooms-it hurts so much." departure is; all packed, empty rooms-it hurts so much."Back in England, George came up with a new last name for himself: Windsor-irreproachably English-sounding, and entirely made up. It established the British royal family once and for all as a slightly stolid but utterly reliable product of the English Home Counties. Though, of course, it wasn't. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-like Windsor, not so much a surname as a statement of provenance-had been given to George's grandmother Queen Victoria (herself half-German) by his grandfather Albert, the Prince Consort, son of the German Duke of Coburg. It was redolent of the close relations and blood ties that linked the whole of European royalty, and which in Britain had been crowned by the fact that Kaiser Wilhelm was Queen Victoria's eldest grandson. George's father was Wilhelm's uncle; his mother was Nicholas's aunt; Wilhelm and Nicholas, meanwhile, were both second and third cousins, through the marriage of a great-aunt, and a shared great-great-grandfather, the mad Tsar Paul of Russia.When Wilhelm heard that George had changed his name, he made his almost only ever recorded joke: that he was looking forward to seeing a production of the Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.Fifty-odd years before, these three emperors had been born into a world where hereditary monarchy seemed immutable, and the intermarriage between and internationalism of royal dynasties a guarantee of peace and good international relations. How the world had changed. This book tells the story of that change, through the lives of George, Wilhelm, the last kaiser, and Nicholas, the last tsar, and how they presided over the final years of old dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the First World War, the event which set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Throughout their lives, Wilhelm, George and Nicholas wrote to each other and about each other in letters and diaries. The history of their relationships-as well as those with George and Wilhelm's grandmother Queen Victoria and her son Edward VII, who also ruled during this era and whose relationships with the three men were crucial (there were moments in this book's writing when I almost considered calling it "Four Emperors and an Empress")-is a saga of an extended and often dysfunctional family, set in a tiny, glittering, solipsistic, highly codified world. But this personal, hidden history also shows how Europe moved from an age of empire to an age of democracy, self-determination and greater brutality.Wilhelm and Nicholas wielded real power, more power perhaps than any individual should have in a complex modern society-certainly more than any unelected individual. What they said and did mattered. George did not-though neither he nor his father nor grandmother liked to acknowledge it-but his role in the functioning of government was welded into the fabric of British and empire const.i.tutional politics, and there were moments when the monarch could make a difference.And yet, at the same time, they were all three anachronisms, ill-equipped by education and personality to deal with the modern world, marooned by history in positions increasingly out of kilter with their era. The system within which they existed was dying, and the courts of Europe had turned from energetic centres of patronage into stagnant ponds of tradition and conservatism. The world was leaving them behind. The great technical innovations and breakthroughs, the great scientific theories, the great modern masterpieces of art and letters, were being produced by men-Chekhov, Stravinsky, Einstein, Freud, Planck, Yeats, Wilde, Pica.s.so-who might have been born under monarchies, but for whom the courts meant nothing. As great ma.s.s movements took hold of Europe, the courts and their kings cleaved to the past, set up high walls of etiquette to keep the world out and defined themselves through form, dress and precedence. The Berlin court, for example, had sixty-three grades of military officer alone. The Russian court included 287 chamberlains and 309 chief gentlemen in waiting.Though the world was overtaking them, the three emperors witnessed high politics in the decades before the war from a proximity denied anyone else-even if the conclusions they drew from events were often the wrong ones. Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas led their countries into a conflict that tore their nations apart, destroyed the illusion of their family relationships and resulted in their own abdication, exile and death. George looked on, usually powerless to do anything. Every so often, however,there came an occasion when his decisions did have consequences. By a terrible irony, 1917-the year he changed his name-would give rise to one of those moments, when he had power over the future of his cousin Nicholas. His decision would vividly demonstrate how Queen Victoria's vision of royal relationships-indeed the whole edifice of European monarchy-was irrefutably broken.

PART I.

THREE CHILDHOODS, THREE COUNTRIES.

1.

WILHELM.

An Experiment in Perfection 1859.

It was a horrible labour. The baby was in the breech position and no one realized until too late. The eighteen-year-old mother had been too embarra.s.sed to allow any of the court physicians to examine or even talk to her about her pregnancy-a prudishness learned from her own mother. The experience of childbirth would cure her of it. To make matters worse, an urgent summons to Berlin's most eminent obstetrician got lost. After ten or eleven hours of excruciating pain-the mother cried for chloroform, she was given a handkerchief to bite on (her screams, her husband later wrote, were "horrible")-the attending doctors, one German, one English, had pretty much given up on her and the baby. (There were bad precedents for medics who carried out risky interventions on royal patients: when Princess Charlotte, the heir to the British throne, died in childbirth in 1817, the attending physician felt obliged to shoot himself.) The child survived only because the famous obstetrician eventually received the message and arrived at the last minute. With liberal doses of chloroform and some difficulty, the doctor managed to manipulate the baby out. He emerged pale, limp, one arm around his neck, badly bruised and not breathing. The attending nurse had to rub and slap him repeatedly to make him cry. The sound, when it came, the boy's father wrote, "cut through me like an electric shock."1 Everybody wept with relief. It was 27 January 1859. Everybody wept with relief. It was 27 January 1859.

At the moment of his birth, two, or arguably three, factors immediately had a defining effect on the life and character of Friedrich Victor Wilhelm Albert Hohenzollern-soon known as w.i.l.l.y to distinguish him, his father said, from the "legion of Fritzes"2 in the family. Firstly, the baby's left arm was damaged in the delivery-a fact which, in the relief and excitement following his birth, wasn't noticed for three days. It seems likely that in the obstetrician's urgency to get the baby out before he suffocated, he wrenched and irretrievably crushed the network of nerves in w.i.l.l.y's arm, rendering it useless and unable to grow. Secondly, and unprovably, it's possible that those first few minutes without oxygen may have caused brain damage. w.i.l.l.y grew up to be hyperactive and emotionally unstable; brain damage sustained at birth was a possible cause. in the family. Firstly, the baby's left arm was damaged in the delivery-a fact which, in the relief and excitement following his birth, wasn't noticed for three days. It seems likely that in the obstetrician's urgency to get the baby out before he suffocated, he wrenched and irretrievably crushed the network of nerves in w.i.l.l.y's arm, rendering it useless and unable to grow. Secondly, and unprovably, it's possible that those first few minutes without oxygen may have caused brain damage. w.i.l.l.y grew up to be hyperactive and emotionally unstable; brain damage sustained at birth was a possible cause.

Thirdly, an almost impossible burden of conflicting demands and expectations came to rest upon w.i.l.l.y at the moment of his birth. Through his father, Friedrich, one of the ubiquitous Fritzes, he was heir to the throne of Prussia; his mother, Vicky, was the first-born child of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and he was the British queen's first grandchild. As heir to Prussia, the biggest and most influential power in the loose confederation of thirty-eight duchies, kingdoms and four free cities that called itself Germany, he carried his family's and country's dreams of the future. Those dreams saw Prussia as the dominant power in a unified Germany, taking its place as one of the Great Powers. For Queen Victoria, monarch of the richest and arguably most influential country in the world, w.i.l.l.y was both a doted-on grandchild-"a fine fat child3 with a beautiful soft white skin," as she put it when she finally saw him twenty months later-and the symbol and vehicle of a new political and dynastic bond between England and Prussia, a state whose future might take it in several different directions, directions in which Britain's monarch and her husband took an intense interest. Three days after his birth the queen wrote delightedly to her friend and fellow grandmother Augusta of Prussia, "Our mutual grandson with a beautiful soft white skin," as she put it when she finally saw him twenty months later-and the symbol and vehicle of a new political and dynastic bond between England and Prussia, a state whose future might take it in several different directions, directions in which Britain's monarch and her husband took an intense interest. Three days after his birth the queen wrote delightedly to her friend and fellow grandmother Augusta of Prussia, "Our mutual grandson4 binds us and our two countries even closer together!" binds us and our two countries even closer together!"

Queen Victoria felt a deep affinity with Germany. Her mother was German and so was her husband, Albert, the younger brother of the ruling duke of the small but influential central German duchy of Coburg. She carried on intense correspondences with several German royals, including Fritz's mother, Augusta, and she would marry six of her nine children to Germans. Although the queen's Germanophilia was sometimes criticized in England, the British were at least less hostile to the Germans than they were to France and Russia, and occasionally even approving. At the battle of Waterloo, Britain and Prussia had fought side by side to defeat Napoleon, and well into the 1850s as a salute to the old alliance there were still German regiments stationed on the South Coast. Thomas Hardy described the German hussars stationed in Dorset in the 1850s as being so deeply embedded in the local culture that their language had over the years woven itself into the local dialect: "Thou bist" and "Er war" becoming familiar locutions. Germany-or at least the northern part-was the other Protestant power in Europe. German culture was much admired. In turn, German liberals looked to Britain as the model for a future German const.i.tutional monarchy, its traders admired British practice, and at the other end of the political spectrum, it was to England that some of the more reactionary members of the German ruling elite-including w.i.l.l.y's German grandfather-had fled during the revolutions of 1848. There he and his wife Augusta had become friends-sort of-of the queen and her husband Albert.

Albert, the Prince Consort, an intelligent, energetic and thoughtful man denied a formal public role in England, was even more preoccupied with Germany than his wife, particularly with its future and that of its ruling cla.s.s. He had seen the German royals rocked by the revolutions of 1848, their very existence called into question by the rise of republicanism and democratic movements. He'd come to believe that Germany's future lay in unification under a modern liberal const.i.tutional monarchy, like that of England. Prussia, as the largest, strongest state in Germany, was the obvious candidate.

Though it was not necessarily the perfect one. Prussia was a peculiar hybrid, rather like Germany itself: it was half dynamic and forward-looking, half autocratic backwater. On the one hand, it was a rich state with an impressive civil service, a fine education system, and a fast-growing industrial heartland in the Western Rhineland. It had been one of the first states in Europe to emanc.i.p.ate Jews, and had a tradition of active citizenship, demonstrated most visibly in 1813, when it had not been the pusillanimous king but a determined citizenry who had pulled together an army to fight Napoleon. After 1848 a representative a.s.sembly, the Landtag, had been forced on the king, and liberal politicians and thinkers seemed to be in the ascendant. On the other hand, however, Prussia was stuck in the dark ages: it was a semi-autocracy whose ruling inst.i.tutions were dominated by a deeply conservative small landowning cla.s.s from its traditional heartland on the East Elbian plain, the Junkers. They had a reputation for being tough, austere, incorruptible, fearsomely reactionary, piously Protestant, anti-Semitic, feudal in their att.i.tudes to their workers, their land and their women, and resistant to almost any change-whether democratization, urbanization or industrialization-which might threaten their considerable privileges. These included almost total exemption from taxation. They dominated the Prussian court, the most conservative in Germany. They regarded Prussia's next-door neighbour, Russia-England's great world rival-as their natural ally, sharing with Russia a long frontier, a belief in autocratic government and a pervasive military culture.

Prussia's highly professional army was the reason for its domination of Germany, and in many respects gave Prussia what political coherence and ident.i.ty it had. It had long been dominated by the Junkers, and was the heart of Prussian conservatism. Almost all European aristocracies identified themselves with the army, but since the seventeenth century the Prussian aristocracy, more than any other, had been encouraged by its rulers to equate its n.o.ble status and privileges entirely with senior military rank. It was not unusual for boys of the Prussian ruling cla.s.ses to wear military uniform from the age of six. History showed that war paid: Prussia had benefited territorially from every central European military conflict since the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century Frederick the Great had doubled Prussia's size in a series of vicious central European wars. Prussia's intervention in the Napoleonic Wars had doubled its size again, making it the dominant power in Germany. But at the same time, Prussia's military culture had arisen not simply from a desire to expand and conquer, but quite as much from the fact that the Prussian ruling cla.s.s was haunted-obsessed even-by its country's vulnerability in the middle of Europe, undefended by natural barriers, always a potential victim for some larger power's territorial ambitions. Territorial expansion had constantly alternated with disaster and near annihilation. During the Thirty Years War, Prussia had lost half its population to disease, famine and fighting; the scar remained in folk memory. During the Napoleonic Wars, it had been humiliated, overrun and threatened with dismemberment while the French and Russians squared up to each other. Since then, Prussia had been hostile to France and carefully deferential to the Russian colossus next door. The ruling dynasties of Hohenzollern and Romanov had intermarried and even developed genuine friendships. w.i.l.l.y's Prussian great-aunt Charlotte had married Tsar Nicholas I, and w.i.l.l.y's grandfather, who would become King of Prussia and then Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, enjoyed a long and close friendship with his son, Tsar Alexander II.

The contradictions in Prussia mirrored the extraordinary heterogeneity of Germany and its states as a whole. Within its loose boundaries there existed a plethora of conflicting Germanys: the Germany that led the world in scientific and technological innovation, the Germany that was the most cultured, literate, academically innovative state in Europe-the Germany of Goethe, Leibnitz, the von Humboldt brothers, Bach and Beethoven-stood alongside the Germany of resolutely philistine Junkers. In East Elbia, the heartland of the Junker estates, disenfranchised peasants lived in almost feudal conditions, and yet at the same time Germany was the most industrialized place in Europe with some of the best labour conditions. Germany had some of the most hierarchical, undemocratic states in Europe, ruled by an embarra.s.sment of self-important little princelings, and was also home to the largest and best organized Socialist Party in Europe. Southern, predominantly Catholic, Germany coexisted with northern, Protestant Germany. It seems entirely appropriate that Berlin, Prussia's capital, with its vast avenues, seemed like a parade ground, while also being a centre for political radicalism, for scholarship, for a wealthy Jewish community.

Prince Albert believed there was a battle going on for the soul and political future of Germany. "The German stands5 in the centre between England and Russia," he wrote to his future son-in-law Fritz in 1856. "His high culture and his philosophic love of truth drive him towards the English conception, his military discipline, his admiration of the asiatic greatness ... which is achieved by the merging of the individual into the whole, drives him in the other direction." Albert also felt that in the post-1848 world, monarchy was under threat. He wanted to prove that good relations between monarchies created peace between countries. And he had come to the conclusion that princes must justify their status by their moral and intellectual superiority to everyone else. in the centre between England and Russia," he wrote to his future son-in-law Fritz in 1856. "His high culture and his philosophic love of truth drive him towards the English conception, his military discipline, his admiration of the asiatic greatness ... which is achieved by the merging of the individual into the whole, drives him in the other direction." Albert also felt that in the post-1848 world, monarchy was under threat. He wanted to prove that good relations between monarchies created peace between countries. And he had come to the conclusion that princes must justify their status by their moral and intellectual superiority to everyone else.

One of Albert's projects had been to design a rigorous academic regime for his nine children to turn them into accomplished princes. His eldest daughter, Vicky-his favourite-responded brilliantly to it. She was clever, intellectually curious and pa.s.sionate-qualities not always a.s.sociated with royalty. Her younger brother Bertie-the future Edward VII-had suffered miserably under the same regime. Albert thought that, under the right circ.u.mstances, a royal marriage between Britain and Prussia might nudge Germany in the right direction, towards unification, towards a const.i.tutional monarchy and a safe future for the German royal families. It might even bring about an alliance with Britain, an alliance which could become the cornerstone of peace in Europe. Albert resolved to send his clever daughter on a mission to fix Germany, by marrying Vicky to Friedrich Wilhelm Hohenzollern, nephew of the childless and increasingly doddery King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, and second in line to the throne after his sixty-two-year-old father, who had already taken over many of his brother's duties.

Fritz, as he was called, was ten years older than Vicky, dashingly handsome, charismatic and an effective officer-so much the Wagnerian hero that in Germany he was actually known as Siegfried. The marriage, which took place in January 1858, looked good on paper-the heir of the rising Protestant German state marrying the daughter of the richest, stablest power in Europe. Unlike most arranged royal marriages, it worked even better in reality. Personally gentle, earnest and p.r.o.ne to depression-somewhat at odds with the emphatically blunt, masculine ideal of the Prussian officer-twenty-seven-year-old Fritz adored his clever seventeen-year-old wife, and she adored him. He also showed, Victoria and Albert noted approvingly, a liking for England and admirable liberal tendencies very much at odds with those of his father and the Prussian court.

At the time, the plan of sending a completely inexperienced seventeen-year-old girl to unify Germany may not have seemed quite so extraordinary as it does now. The external circ.u.mstances looked promising. In 1858 the political balance in Prussia seemed to be held by the liberals: they had just won a landslide victory in the Landtag elections. Prussia's king was elderly and had recently suffered a series of incapacitating strokes, and his heir, Fritz's father, was sixty-two years old. Fritz and Vicky shouldn't have to wait too long before they would be in control.

That was the plan. It didn't turn out that way. Firstly, Albert had been away from Germany a long time and didn't understand how suspicious the Prussian ruling cla.s.s was of Vicky's Englishness, and how touchy about the prospect that larger powers might interfere in its country. "The 'English'6 in it does not please me," the future chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, told a friend, "the 'marriage' may be quite good ... If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home." Secondly, Vicky, though extremely bright, had no talent for politics, was hopelessly tactless and held fast to her Englishness. Thirdly, Fritz's father turned out to be astonishingly long-lived, and appointed Otto von Bismarck, the greatest conservative European statesman of the late nineteenth century, his chief minister. in it does not please me," the future chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, told a friend, "the 'marriage' may be quite good ... If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home." Secondly, Vicky, though extremely bright, had no talent for politics, was hopelessly tactless and held fast to her Englishness. Thirdly, Fritz's father turned out to be astonishingly long-lived, and appointed Otto von Bismarck, the greatest conservative European statesman of the late nineteenth century, his chief minister.

It went wrong quite quickly. The Prussian court was not welcoming and was critical of Vicky's forthright views and intellectual confidence. Prussian wives were supposed to be silent and submissive; there was none of the leeway allowed in Britain for an intelligent, educated woman to shine. It was said disapprovingly that Vicky dominated Fritz. She met intellectuals and artists, whether or not they were commoners, and this contravened the social strictures of court etiquette: princesses did not host salons or mix with non-royals. Bewildered and isolated, Vicky had no idea what to do. She responded with a social tone-deafness and complete lack of strategic tact which would become characteristic. She complained-imperiously and incessantly-about the philistine, rigid and deadly dull Prussian court; about the threadbare carpets, dirty floors, and lack of baths and lavatories in the Hohenzollerns' ancestral castles;* about the frequent absences of her soldier husband. Worse, she displayed the insufferable habit of saying that everything was better in England, a habit that became almost compulsive as time went on. This seemed to confirm Prussian suspicions that she intended to bring Prussia under English influence, though it was actually a manifestation of loneliness and homesickness. "She loved England about the frequent absences of her soldier husband. Worse, she displayed the insufferable habit of saying that everything was better in England, a habit that became almost compulsive as time went on. This seemed to confirm Prussian suspicions that she intended to bring Prussia under English influence, though it was actually a manifestation of loneliness and homesickness. "She loved England8 and everything English with a fervour which at times roused contradictions in her Prussian surroundings," one of her few allies, her lady-in-waiting Walpurga Hohenthal, later wrote. "I was perhaps the only one who entirely sympathized ... but I was too young and inexperienced to reflect that it would not be wise to give them too much scope." and everything English with a fervour which at times roused contradictions in her Prussian surroundings," one of her few allies, her lady-in-waiting Walpurga Hohenthal, later wrote. "I was perhaps the only one who entirely sympathized ... but I was too young and inexperienced to reflect that it would not be wise to give them too much scope."

Back in England her parents didn't understand. The queen tried to micromanage her, sometimes sending her four letters a week and telling her not to get too familiar with her Prussian relatives. Albert limited himself to writing once a week, and was gentler, but in his way just as insistent. He demanded essays on international affairs and told her to study chemistry and geometry-which she duly did. Her in-laws were unsympathetic: Fritz's father, Wilhelm, was a philistine arch-traditionalist whose deepest emotional attachment was to the army. He required only that his son and daughter-in-law attend every court function and be entirely obedient to his will. Fritz's mother, Augusta, who loathed her husband and was hugely disliked at court at least partly for being an educated woman with liberal views, was angry and difficult (the King of Belgium called her "the Dragon9 of the Rhine"), and made no attempt to support her daughter-in-law. The Hohenzollerns were a by-word for family dysfunction. The father of Frederick the Great (Wilhelm's great-great-great-great-uncle) had locked him up and forced him to watch his best friend's execution. Oedipal conflicts seemed to afflict every generation. of the Rhine"), and made no attempt to support her daughter-in-law. The Hohenzollerns were a by-word for family dysfunction. The father of Frederick the Great (Wilhelm's great-great-great-great-uncle) had locked him up and forced him to watch his best friend's execution. Oedipal conflicts seemed to afflict every generation.

Within a couple of years of w.i.l.l.y's birth, Vicky's "mission" was in shreds. "You cannot think10 how painful it is, to be continuously surrounded by people who consider your very existence a misfortune," she wrote to her mother. Then, just before w.i.l.l.y's third birthday in 1861, Albert died and Vicky lost her guide and hero. Later that same year Fritz's sixty-four-year-old father, Wilhelm, came to the throne for what would be a twenty-seven-year reign. He made it clear he wanted to strengthen relations with Russia, and at his coronation he announced that he ruled by divine right-a concept the English crown had abandoned 300 years before. A year later, in the midst of a battle with the Landtag over military reform, which everyone expected to end with the king giving in to more const.i.tutional curtailments of his powers, he appointed Otto von Bismarck as his minister-president. Bismarck closed down the Landtag. Over the next twenty years, he would turn Germany into the political powerhouse of continental Europe, while also eliminating liberals from power and delivering the organs of government into the hands of conservatives and rural property-owners, the Junkers. how painful it is, to be continuously surrounded by people who consider your very existence a misfortune," she wrote to her mother. Then, just before w.i.l.l.y's third birthday in 1861, Albert died and Vicky lost her guide and hero. Later that same year Fritz's sixty-four-year-old father, Wilhelm, came to the throne for what would be a twenty-seven-year reign. He made it clear he wanted to strengthen relations with Russia, and at his coronation he announced that he ruled by divine right-a concept the English crown had abandoned 300 years before. A year later, in the midst of a battle with the Landtag over military reform, which everyone expected to end with the king giving in to more const.i.tutional curtailments of his powers, he appointed Otto von Bismarck as his minister-president. Bismarck closed down the Landtag. Over the next twenty years, he would turn Germany into the political powerhouse of continental Europe, while also eliminating liberals from power and delivering the organs of government into the hands of conservatives and rural property-owners, the Junkers.

Vicky hated Bismarck. "That wretch11 Bismarck ... has done all he could to irritate the King against London and Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell," she complained in 1862. "Bismarck is such a wicked man that he does not care how many fibs he tells to serve his own purposes, and this is the man who is to govern this country." To Bismarck, Vicky and Fritz were a dangerous magnet for liberal sympathies. He set out deliberately to neutralize the couple. He alienated father from son, and used every weapon at his disposal: feeding damaging stories into the Berlin rumour mill and the German press-much of which he secretly funded-to characterize Vicky as a sinister representative of British ambitions in Germany and Fritz as her dupe. Vicky thought she could take Bismarck on. "I enjoy Bismarck ... has done all he could to irritate the King against London and Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell," she complained in 1862. "Bismarck is such a wicked man that he does not care how many fibs he tells to serve his own purposes, and this is the man who is to govern this country." To Bismarck, Vicky and Fritz were a dangerous magnet for liberal sympathies. He set out deliberately to neutralize the couple. He alienated father from son, and used every weapon at his disposal: feeding damaging stories into the Berlin rumour mill and the German press-much of which he secretly funded-to characterize Vicky as a sinister representative of British ambitions in Germany and Fritz as her dupe. Vicky thought she could take Bismarck on. "I enjoy12 a pitched battle," she wrote optimistically. But she was a rank amateur p.r.o.ne to moments of tremendous misjudgement, and he was perhaps the most brilliant political tactician of the late nineteenth century. As if that weren't enough, Vicky's health collapsed: she was plagued for weeks at a time by chronic pains and fevers for which there seemed no cure, symptoms that some historians now think might have been porphyria a pitched battle," she wrote optimistically. But she was a rank amateur p.r.o.ne to moments of tremendous misjudgement, and he was perhaps the most brilliant political tactician of the late nineteenth century. As if that weren't enough, Vicky's health collapsed: she was plagued for weeks at a time by chronic pains and fevers for which there seemed no cure, symptoms that some historians now think might have been porphyria13-the illness which had caused George III's madness.

It wasn't surprising, perhaps, that Vicky's family and children became one of her refuges from the hostility of the court, a place where she could express her frustration with her situation, and where she channelled all the disappointed energy. There were eight children in all: w.i.l.l.y, his sister Charlotte and his brother Heinrich, to whom he was closest; then five subsequent siblings: Sigismund, Victoria (known as Moretta), Waldemar, Sophie and Margaret (or Mossy), of whom the two boys died in childhood. The family dynamic seems to have been in the main warm and loving. When Fritz was in one of his depressions, Vicky believed the company of the children dispelled it. She loved her children, especially her eldest. "You do not know14 how dear that child is," she wrote to her mother when he was a few months old. "... I feel so proud of him and it makes me so happy to carry him about." But her love was complicated, especially for her first three children, and most of all for Wilhelm. She veered between tenderness and love, and brutal criticism, obsessively high expectations and anxiety over their shortcomings. Albert had instilled in her a belief that character could be created and moulded by education, that perfectibility could be achieved by hard work. "The welfare how dear that child is," she wrote to her mother when he was a few months old. "... I feel so proud of him and it makes me so happy to carry him about." But her love was complicated, especially for her first three children, and most of all for Wilhelm. She veered between tenderness and love, and brutal criticism, obsessively high expectations and anxiety over their shortcomings. Albert had instilled in her a belief that character could be created and moulded by education, that perfectibility could be achieved by hard work. "The welfare15 of the world," he said, depended on "the good education of princes." He'd also-along with the queen, who was a relentless critic of her children-turned his daughter into an anxious perfectionist compulsively critical of herself, and then of her own children. Vicky was determined that her son would measure up to her father's standards. She scrutinized every bit of the boy-just as her parents had scrutinized her-frequently found him wanting and let him know it. She wrote to her mother when he was nine, "Still I dote of the world," he said, depended on "the good education of princes." He'd also-along with the queen, who was a relentless critic of her children-turned his daughter into an anxious perfectionist compulsively critical of herself, and then of her own children. Vicky was determined that her son would measure up to her father's standards. She scrutinized every bit of the boy-just as her parents had scrutinized her-frequently found him wanting and let him know it. She wrote to her mother when he was nine, "Still I dote16 on w.i.l.l.y and think there is a great deal in him. He is by no means a common place child; if one can root out or keep down pride, conceitedness, selfishness and laziness ... I do not speak as openly of our little ones to anyone but you." But whatever she said to her mother, she did communicate her dissatisfactions to her children. She would mark the misspellings in Wilhelm's letters to her and send them back. She was just as bad with his brother Heinrich, describing "his poor ugly on w.i.l.l.y and think there is a great deal in him. He is by no means a common place child; if one can root out or keep down pride, conceitedness, selfishness and laziness ... I do not speak as openly of our little ones to anyone but you." But whatever she said to her mother, she did communicate her dissatisfactions to her children. She would mark the misspellings in Wilhelm's letters to her and send them back. She was just as bad with his brother Heinrich, describing "his poor ugly17 face," and reporting that he was "awfully backward" face," and reporting that he was "awfully backward"18 and "hopelessly lazy." The question of perfection (or imperfection) was constantly in the air because, of course, w.i.l.l.y's stunted arm meant he was very visibly imperfect. and "hopelessly lazy." The question of perfection (or imperfection) was constantly in the air because, of course, w.i.l.l.y's stunted arm meant he was very visibly imperfect.

Within a few months of w.i.l.l.y's birth it was clear that his arm wasn't growing properly. He couldn't lift it and the fingers had curled into a kind of claw. In Prussia, royalty was closely identified with the army and physical prowess. On w.i.l.l.y's birth, in a gesture of typical Hohenzollern tact, Fritz's father had wondered to his face whether it was appropriate to congratulate him on the birth of a "defective"19 prince. Vicky worried over it constantly, asking herself whether the nation would tolerate a physically disabled prince. "I cannot tell you prince. Vicky worried over it constantly, asking herself whether the nation would tolerate a physically disabled prince. "I cannot tell you20 how it worries me, I am ready to cry whenever I think of it," she wrote to her father when w.i.l.l.y was six months old and had begun to undergo all kinds of peculiar treatments to mend the arm. It was covered in cold compresses, sprayed with sea water, ma.s.saged and given a weekly "animal bath," in which it was placed inside the warm carca.s.s of a freshly killed hare-an experience, his mother noticed, w.i.l.l.y seemed to like very much. Queen Victoria thought the practice medieval, and it was: the idea was that the heat of the dead animal would trans.m.u.te itself into the arm of the child. At least this was harmless. Less so was the binding of his right arm to his body, when w.i.l.l.y reached toddler-hood, in an attempt to force the other arm to function. It left him with nothing to balance with as he tried to learn to walk. Even nastier were the electric shocks pa.s.sed regularly through his arm from the age of fourteen months. "He gets so how it worries me, I am ready to cry whenever I think of it," she wrote to her father when w.i.l.l.y was six months old and had begun to undergo all kinds of peculiar treatments to mend the arm. It was covered in cold compresses, sprayed with sea water, ma.s.saged and given a weekly "animal bath," in which it was placed inside the warm carca.s.s of a freshly killed hare-an experience, his mother noticed, w.i.l.l.y seemed to like very much. Queen Victoria thought the practice medieval, and it was: the idea was that the heat of the dead animal would trans.m.u.te itself into the arm of the child. At least this was harmless. Less so was the binding of his right arm to his body, when w.i.l.l.y reached toddler-hood, in an attempt to force the other arm to function. It left him with nothing to balance with as he tried to learn to walk. Even nastier were the electric shocks pa.s.sed regularly through his arm from the age of fourteen months. "He gets so21 fretful and cross and violent and pa.s.sionate that it makes me quite nervous sometimes," Vicky wrote. By the age of four, w.i.l.l.y had developed torticollis-the right side of his neck had contracted, lifting the shoulder and making him look crooked. (One biographer has suggested that this came about through a desire to turn away from his affliction.) To try to correct this, he was strapped into a body-length machine to stretch the muscles of his right side. Vicky wrote painful, guilty letters to Queen Victoria describing and drawing the contraption, which looked like a medieval instrument of torture. "He has been fretful and cross and violent and pa.s.sionate that it makes me quite nervous sometimes," Vicky wrote. By the age of four, w.i.l.l.y had developed torticollis-the right side of his neck had contracted, lifting the shoulder and making him look crooked. (One biographer has suggested that this came about through a desire to turn away from his affliction.) To try to correct this, he was strapped into a body-length machine to stretch the muscles of his right side. Vicky wrote painful, guilty letters to Queen Victoria describing and drawing the contraption, which looked like a medieval instrument of torture. "He has been22 a constant source of anxiety ever since he has been in the world. I cannot tell you what I suffered when I saw him in that machine the day before yesterday-it was all I could do to prevent myself from crying. To see one's child treated like one deformed-it is really very hard ..." a constant source of anxiety ever since he has been in the world. I cannot tell you what I suffered when I saw him in that machine the day before yesterday-it was all I could do to prevent myself from crying. To see one's child treated like one deformed-it is really very hard ..."

In the end two small operations severed the tendons that were distorting his body and corrected the torticollis. The arm never improved, though there was always another "specialist" with another crank "cure." The electric shocks and stretching machines continued until w.i.l.l.y was ten, when the doctors noted how "nervously tense"23 the treatments made him. Wilhelm later claimed they caused "intolerable pain." the treatments made him. Wilhelm later claimed they caused "intolerable pain."24 The only thing that made any difference was a course of gymnastics which developed a compensatory great strength in w.i.l.l.y's right arm. The only thing that made any difference was a course of gymnastics which developed a compensatory great strength in w.i.l.l.y's right arm.

w.i.l.l.y seemed a jolly, boisterous, affectionate small boy. Vicky described him, aged three, patting her face, saying, "Nice little25 Mama, you have a nice little face and I want to kiss you." He slept in her bed when his father was away with the army, and she saw much more of him than most royal parents. "w.i.l.l.y is a dear, Mama, you have a nice little face and I want to kiss you." He slept in her bed when his father was away with the army, and she saw much more of him than most royal parents. "w.i.l.l.y is a dear,26 interesting charming boy," Vicky wrote when he was seven, "clever, amusing, engaging, it is impossible not to spoil him a little. He is growing so handsome and his large eyes have now and then a pensive, dreamy expression and then again they sparkle with fun and delight." He could also be aggressive and difficult. He hit his nurses; after a trip to England in 1864, his grandmother complained that he was thumping his interesting charming boy," Vicky wrote when he was seven, "clever, amusing, engaging, it is impossible not to spoil him a little. He is growing so handsome and his large eyes have now and then a pensive, dreamy expression and then again they sparkle with fun and delight." He could also be aggressive and difficult. He hit his nurses; after a trip to England in 1864, his grandmother complained that he was thumping his27 aunt Beatrice-who was only two years older and afraid of him. "We have a gt. aunt Beatrice-who was only two years older and afraid of him. "We have a gt.28 deal of trouble to keep him in order-he is so jealous of the Baby," Vicky wrote after the birth of his sister Charlotte. Aged seven or so, on the beach at the Isle of Wight, he threw a furious tantrum deal of trouble to keep him in order-he is so jealous of the Baby," Vicky wrote after the birth of his sister Charlotte. Aged seven or so, on the beach at the Isle of Wight, he threw a furious tantrum29 and tried to kick an eminent gentleman and throw his walking stick into the sea. (The eminent gentleman, a former secretary of Prince Albert's, tripped him up and spanked him.) On another occasion, at his uncle Edward's wedding in England in 1863, aged four, he got bored, scratched the legs of his uncles Leopold and Arthur to get their attention, threw his sporran into the choir, and when scolded, bit one of his uncles in the leg. and tried to kick an eminent gentleman and throw his walking stick into the sea. (The eminent gentleman, a former secretary of Prince Albert's, tripped him up and spanked him.) On another occasion, at his uncle Edward's wedding in England in 1863, aged four, he got bored, scratched the legs of his uncles Leopold and Arthur to get their attention, threw his sporran into the choir, and when scolded, bit one of his uncles in the leg.* W. P. Frith, celebrated painter of crowd scenes such as W. P. Frith, celebrated painter of crowd scenes such as Derby Day Derby Day, who had been commissioned to paint the occasion, muttered, "Of all the30 little Turks he is the worst." To modern eyes, this seems like fairly typical obstreperous, spoilt toddler behaviour, but at the time it struck his mother and the British relatives as more than that-though this may have been just as much to do with their impossible expectations of how a young monarch-to-be should behave. little Turks he is the worst." To modern eyes, this seems like fairly typical obstreperous, spoilt toddler behaviour, but at the time it struck his mother and the British relatives as more than that-though this may have been just as much to do with their impossible expectations of how a young monarch-to-be should behave.

To add to the pressures and confusion there were the competing tugs of his English and German inheritances. The conflict was incarnated in his own name-to his mother and his English relations he was William, to his German relations and his country he was Wilhelm. The more Vicky felt alienated from her German environment, the more she denigrated her son's German heritage. One ten-year-old visitor remembered Vicky reprimanding her children for dunking their cake in their tea: "None of your31 nasty German habits at my table!" She was determined to root out any signs of "that terrible nasty German habits at my table!" She was determined to root out any signs of "that terrible32 Prussian pride" and she loathed the Prussian obsession with the army. When he was ten, w.i.l.l.y wrote plaintively to his English grandmother, "There were lately Prussian pride" and she loathed the Prussian obsession with the army. When he was ten, w.i.l.l.y wrote plaintively to his English grandmother, "There were lately33 two parades where I marched towards the King. he two parades where I marched towards the King. he [sic] [sic] told me that I marched well, but Mama said I did it very badly." Vicky told her mother that in his miniature Hohenzollern uniform, he had looked like some "organ grinder's told me that I marched well, but Mama said I did it very badly." Vicky told her mother that in his miniature Hohenzollern uniform, he had looked like some "organ grinder's34 unfortunate little monkey." unfortunate little monkey."

Everything British, Vicky made it clear, was better. She told her son the Royal Navy was the greatest fighting force in the world and she dressed him up35 in a sailor outfit, aged two, feeling she'd won a great victory in managing to do it before he'd worn a Prussian army uniform. "He is so fond in a sailor outfit, aged two, feeling she'd won a great victory in managing to do it before he'd worn a Prussian army uniform. "He is so fond36 of ships," she told her mother when he was five, "and I wish that to be encouraged as much as possible-as an antidote to the possibility of a too engrossing military pa.s.sion." In his teenage years, she wrote to him extolling England's of ships," she told her mother when he was five, "and I wish that to be encouraged as much as possible-as an antidote to the possibility of a too engrossing military pa.s.sion." In his teenage years, she wrote to him extolling England's37 civilizing imperial mission, contrasting it with Germany's foolish claims to be a player in Europe. She took him as often as possible to visit Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her holiday home on the Isle of Wight. Even after the First World War, beaten by the British and in exile, his memories of Osborne were golden. "How entirely like a second home to me was my grandmother's house, and how England might well have been a second home to me also," he wrote wistfully. "We were treated as children of the house." He recalled a visit in 1871, aged twelve, when his uncle Arthur of Connaught took him round London and how impressed he was by the sharp figure Arthur cut in uniform; he remembered his favourite aunt Louise letting him play in her rooms and giving him sweets: he recalled going to see Nelson's HMS civilizing imperial mission, contrasting it with Germany's foolish claims to be a player in Europe. She took him as often as possible to visit Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her holiday home on the Isle of Wight. Even after the First World War, beaten by the British and in exile, his memories of Osborne were golden. "How entirely like a second home to me was my grandmother's house, and how England might well have been a second home to me also," he wrote wistfully. "We were treated as children of the house." He recalled a visit in 1871, aged twelve, when his uncle Arthur of Connaught took him round London and how impressed he was by the sharp figure Arthur cut in uniform; he remembered his favourite aunt Louise letting him play in her rooms and giving him sweets: he recalled going to see Nelson's HMS Victory Victory at Portsmouth in the queen's paddle steamer and seeing British battleships off Spithead on the way. Osborne, he later claimed, was "the scene of my earliest recollections." at Portsmouth in the queen's paddle steamer and seeing British battleships off Spithead on the way. Osborne, he later claimed, was "the scene of my earliest recollections."38 The family story went that on w.i.l.l.y's first visit in June 1861, aged two-and-a-half, Albert had wrapped him in a towel and dandled him in it. The family story went that on w.i.l.l.y's first visit in June 1861, aged two-and-a-half, Albert had wrapped him in a towel and dandled him in it.

The Prince Consort died six months later, but the connection remained important to w.i.l.l.y and to his grandmother. "Albert," she wrote39 a month after her husband's death, "loved that dear child so dearly, felt so anxious about him, was so sure he would be clever-that it only adds to my love for ... the sweet child ... You know he is my favourite." The fact that w.i.l.l.y would be king of the most powerful state in Germany also focused her attention. The queen had never been very keen on babies ("I don't dislike babies," she wrote, "though I think very young ones rather disgusting"), and by the time grandchildren came at a rate of three a year, admitted they were "a cause of mere anxiety for my own children" and "of no great interest either." a month after her husband's death, "loved that dear child so dearly, felt so anxious about him, was so sure he would be clever-that it only adds to my love for ... the sweet child ... You know he is my favourite." The fact that w.i.l.l.y would be king of the most powerful state in Germany also focused her attention. The queen had never been very keen on babies ("I don't dislike babies," she wrote, "though I think very young ones rather disgusting"), and by the time grandchildren came at a rate of three a year, admitted they were "a cause of mere anxiety for my own children" and "of no great interest either."40 But w.i.l.l.y was the first, and the queen was indulgent with him as she was with few others. He called her "a duck," and she p.r.o.nounced him "full of fun and mischief, and in fact very impertinent, though he is very affectionate with it all." But w.i.l.l.y was the first, and the queen was indulgent with him as she was with few others. He called her "a duck," and she p.r.o.nounced him "full of fun and mischief, and in fact very impertinent, though he is very affectionate with it all."41 In turn, w.i.l.l.y was fascinated by the queen. "She was a proper In turn, w.i.l.l.y was fascinated by the queen. "She was a proper42 Grandmother," he wrote approvingly. The two had a weakness for each other which would endure, despite everything. Grandmother," he wrote approvingly. The two had a weakness for each other which would endure, despite everything.

It was impossible, of course, for Vicky to keep Prussian influences away from her children. Growing up in Berlin and Potsdam, which was appropriately both the military and leisure capital of Prussia, they were surrounded by the symbols of Prussian military might and ambition-parade grounds and drilling regiments-and they lived in the vast, rather chilly Neues Palais, built by Frederick the Great as an aggressive a.s.sertion of Prussian power (having built it, he decided it was a piece of architectural showing off and refused to live in it). A palace of hundreds of huge, echoing rooms, it fronted on to a parade ground. When w.i.l.l.y reached ten, his grandfather, now King Wilhelm of Prussia, began to show an interest in the boy, demanding that w.i.l.l.y turn up at military events and inviting him to dinner in his ostentatiously austere apartments where he slept on his old army camp bed, ate off a card table, and marked the level of the wine on the bottle to make sure the servants didn't steal it. The king, who could be extremely charming when he pleased,* would talk about his Napoleonic campaigns and the grandson would listen, rapt. The criticism and expectation at home made his grandfather's world very attractive to w.i.l.l.y. The king had a very different view of the obligations of royalty: he was uncomplicatedly absorbed in the army, in being Prussian, and to him royalty didn't need a fancy education to prove itself worthy-it just was. would talk about his Napoleonic campaigns and the grandson would listen, rapt. The criticism and expectation at home made his grandfather's world very attractive to w.i.l.l.y. The king had a very different view of the obligations of royalty: he was uncomplicatedly absorbed in the army, in being Prussian, and to him royalty didn't need a fancy education to prove itself worthy-it just was.

The king was a hero to his grandson: he had presided-with a little help from Bismarck-over a series of astonishing military successes during the 1860s, w.i.l.l.y's first decade. By 1871, through aggressive campaigns and political manoeuvring, Bismarck had dramatically increased Prussia's size and influence. In 1864 Prussia took Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark. In 1866 it routed Austria out of Germany during the Austro-Prussian War, annexed more German states and turned w.i.l.l.y's father, Fritz, into a bona fide military hero, at the battle of Koniggratz. In 1871 the Franco-Prussian War left France defeated and Prussia with the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine. It also prompted the unification of Germany under Prussia's leadership in 1871-and made an enduring enemy of France. The tension between the countries would be a dominating fact of European history for the next eighty years; for the moment, though, the Prussians were clearly triumphant. Nine days before w.i.l.l.y's twelfth birthday his grandfather was crowned kaiser of a united Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, in a piece of terrifying theatre stage-managed by Bismarck. Naturally, w.i.l.l.y followed the campaign and its aftermath avidly. To his eternal43 pride, he was allowed to ride behind his father on his triumphal progress through the Brandenburg Gate. It was hardly surprising that, despite her efforts, Vicky found "a certain receptiveness for the crude, narrow-minded, views of the military" in her son. She worried that her father-in-law and the court were encouraging in w.i.l.l.y a "mistaken pride, in the idea that it was patriotic." pride, he was allowed to ride behind his father on his triumphal progress through the Brandenburg Gate. It was hardly surprising that, despite her efforts, Vicky found "a certain receptiveness for the crude, narrow-minded, views of the military" in her son. She worried that her father-in-law and the court were encouraging in w.i.l.l.y a "mistaken pride, in the idea that it was patriotic."44 She worried about her son's admiration for Bismarck. To her English family, however, she hotly defended the Prussian campaigns. As her brother Edward observed, in Germany there was no one more English and in England no one more German. She worried about her son's admiration for Bismarck. To her English family, however, she hotly defended the Prussian campaigns. As her brother Edward observed, in Germany there was no one more English and in England no one more German.

Vicky was determined her son wouldn't grow up to be a stereotypical Prussian officer. Following her father's example, she wanted him to be a new kind of prince: educated, self-aware, someone who would confound the forces of republicanism. She found him a group of playmates who came from backgrounds that were not exclusively Prussian aristocrat-amba.s.sadors' and businessmen's children. At seven, when European princes traditionally left the nursery, w.i.l.l.y was handed over to George Hinzpeter, a very serious Calvinist liberal, who planned to implement the most contemporary ideas in education and to show w.i.l.l.y and his brother Heinrich some of the realities of modern life, so they would not "grow up in ignorance45 of the wants and interests of the lower cla.s.ses." Going to a real school was mooted. It's hard to exaggerate how utterly unlike the average royal education this was: most European princes were handed over to a military governor to whom civilian tutors were subordinate; most were kept completely isolated from the world. It was an admirable plan in many ways, but the combination of Vicky's expectations, her choice of Hinzpeter, and w.i.l.l.y's emerging personality would be a damaging one. Perhaps also the contrast between the expectations of his mother and tutor and the fact that everyone else-the servants, the legendarily deferential Prussian court-treated him as a little G.o.d was confusing and unhelpful. Wilhelm would later claim that from the age of seven he had been forced into a regime of "perpetual renunciation." of the wants and interests of the lower cla.s.ses." Going to a real school was mooted. It's hard to exaggerate how utterly unlike the average royal education this was: most European princes were handed over to a military governor to whom civilian tutors were subordinate; most were kept completely isolated from the world. It was an admirable plan in many ways, but the combination of Vicky's expectations, her choice of Hinzpeter, and w.i.l.l.y's emerging personality would be a damaging one. Perhaps also the contrast between the expectations of his mother and tutor and the fact that everyone else-the servants, the legendarily deferential Prussian court-treated him as a little G.o.d was confusing and unhelpful. Wilhelm would later claim that from the age of seven he had been forced into a regime of "perpetual renunciation."46 In fact, the first few years were rather gentle: there was lots of travel, music and drawing, and unusual excursions to factories and working-cla.s.s homes. Wilhelm liked to boast later that having seen "the grim poetry" In fact, the first few years were rather gentle: there was lots of travel, music and drawing, and unusual excursions to factories and working-cla.s.s homes. Wilhelm liked to boast later that having seen "the grim poetry"47 of working-cla.s.s life, "I thus learned to understand the German workman and to feel the warmest sympathy for his lot." of working-cla.s.s life, "I thus learned to understand the German workman and to feel the warmest sympathy for his lot."

But when w.i.l.l.y reached eleven, it all began to go wrong. Vicky's criticisms took on an extra intensity. "He is very arrogant, extremely smug and quite taken with himself," she wrote to Fritz a month before his twelfth birthday in December