The Three Cousins of WW1: Part 4 - The Tsar

In Khodynka Fields in Moscow an estimated half a million people gathered in 1896. It was four days after the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, who would prove to be not only the last of the Romanov ruling family that had been in power since 1613, but the last of the tsars. The crowning of a monarch would be the place to be, seeing as you're bound to get some overflow from the richest guy around throwing a party. On this, Nicholas didn't disappoint. There was a promise of beer and pretzels for all comers of the party, and considering how wild people go for free food nowadays, it's got to be full lunacy for Russian peasants circa the start of the 20th century. That sounds all well and good. Give the people what they want. But here's the kicker; a rumour spread (who knows if there was any truth behind it) that Nicholas was committing the worst mistake a host of a party could make.

They were running out of beer.

Nicholas and his wife on their wedding day.
This picture demonstrates their deep, passionate
mutual acceptance of their marriage.

It's a recipe for disaster when you have that many people in a tightly packed space all trying to reach one spot, and it's only turning up the heat when the desired item in question is of limited quantity. In spite of the police's best efforts to hold back the mob, a stampede broke out in the field. 1,389 people were trampled to death, making Nicholas' reign begin in a dreadfully bloody, tragic fashion. The following is an excerpt from his journal, writing on the incident.

"Until now, everything was going, thank God, like clockwork, but today there was a great mishap. The crowd staying overnight at Khodynka, awaiting the start of the distribution of lunch and mugs pushed against buildings and there was a terrible crush, and awful to say trampled around 1300 people! ...I had to make a speech, and then another for the assembled marshals of the nobility. After going around the table, we left for the Kremlin. Dinner at Mama's at 8. Went to the ball at Montebello's. It was very nicely arranged, but the heat was unbearable. After dinner, left at 2."

This was the world of Russia. On one hand there was incredible, stunning decadence. On the other, 120,000,000 peasants, dirt poor, unable to speak out for rightful fear of punishment and unable to write on their troubles because most weren't even literate. Those at the top saw the other end of the spectrum as an infinite supply of expendable resources to fund every wish. Those at the bottom were meant to prop those above them up on their shoulders. That was the way it was, the way it always has been and the way the Romanovs meant to keep it. Nicholas wholeheartedly meant to keep it that way.

It's not too tough to understand how that came to be. As a child, he didn't so much set foot in a store, meaning he had a shocking knowledge gap when it came to monetary value. This is especially odd considering how the vast, vast majority of the inhabitants of the country he was to inherit were going through tremendous economic hardships. That, again, is strangely understandable; Nicholas was sheltered to such a degree that he would only be subjected to seeing other royalty, servants, and military men. This was something that would plague the future tsar for the rest of his life - a total lack of knowledge (and thus, compassion) for the world that was crumbling around him. There were bits and pieces that must have given him some hint, of course. After all, his grandfather was killed in a terrorist bombing and bled to death right in front of him at a very young age. However, that was somehow not a wake up call that perhaps there was more a growing discontent.

Tsar Nicholas and King George.
Nicholas is the bearded, short-haired
white guy with the big moustache.

Upon taking the reins after his father's passing, he kept the standard for Russia at the time, which is to say a strict authoritarian mentality. This was an interesting choice. Nicholas, similar to George, didn't really so much want to run the country. He was incredibly nervous, and had every single right to be. Growing up as Russian royalty, he had never truly had to make a decision of any great consequence, but now he was at the top of the heap and responsible for over a hundred million souls. To compensate, he bogged himself down with trivialities to appear busy while doing nothing of any real significance (we've all been there, Nicky). For example, he was inexplicably the only one that had the authority to officially change someone's name. In a country of, again, over a hundred million. Meanwhile, while he's working through piles of useless, mind-numbing bureaucratic work, the country was veritably burning around him. 

Russia's unrest eventually culminated into riots and rebellions, some peaceful, others not. Instead of facing the problem head on, Nicholas retreated and doubled-down on his policies. He would limit freedom of the press and did his best to repress the government. Dissenters were dealt with bruatally, often in the form of assassinations. Groups could be subjected to wholesale slaughter. The most egregious example of this came from his treatment of a peaceful, unarmed protest led by a priest. They came with a list of grievances for the tsar, approaching his Winter Palace in 1905. Imperial soldiers fired on the crowd, resulting in around a thousand casualties, and would prove to be the spark that would ignite the Russian Revolution.

All the while, Nicholas was mostly walling himself off literally and metaphorically. He would often retreat to Tsarskoe Selo, his home away from home in St. Petersburg (more like palace away from palace). There, he was somehow oblivious to just how bad things were getting around him. That is, until it all came crashing down. Eventually forced to abdicate after the incredible losses his army took in World War I, he went into exile. Denied entry into Britain, revolutionaries eventually tracked him down and murdered not only Nicholas but his entire family. It was said that so many jewels adorned the dresses of his daughters that they survived the first wave of bullets from the firing squad. They were subsequently bayoneted.

Tsarskoe Selo, the tsar's retreat. It wasn't bad. A bit of a cozy fixer-upper.

But I can't end it there. While I've been scathing in this blog post, Nicholas had his moments where he didn't seem all bad. He was undeniably a doting husband and a real family man (the story also goes that he died trying to protect his kid). He seemed genuinely concerned with keeping his family intact. (This includes his extended family. Keep in mind Wilhelm was his cousin. Even as the war was about to begin, he would still sign his letters to him with things like "Your affectionate, Nicky".) 

Perhaps this was what led to his canonization. No, I'm not kidding. In 2000 the Romanov family was delivered into sainthood by the Russian Orthodox Church, naming him Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer. The same man who brought on Bloody Sunday; who allowed pogroms, the vicious mob attacks against Jews; whose reign was so terrible and bloody that it led to a revolution that only served to cause the deaths of countless more.

I guess baffling love of royalty extends beyond the borders of Britain and Canada. 

The Three Cousins of WW1: Part 3 - The King

"The sun never sets on the British Empire" isn't just boasting (and even in 2018, although just barely, still rings true). At its peak the British Empire covered almost 24% of the globe. Considering England is less than 1/5th the size of Alberta (the United Kingdom is still only about a third) it's

Queen Victoria possessed an ability
to say "I am utterly disappointed in you"
expressed entirely in her scowl.

really an incredible, seemingly impossible feat. Of course, a leader must be named for this quarter of the world. George Frederick Ernest Albert, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India was that man. As a child, Queen Victoria once described him as "very small and not very pretty." I do not believe that was included in his title.

George was born into a time when the British sat firmly on the throne of the world, even notably above the rest of the European kingdoms. Rich, powerful, and owning a massive chunk of the Earth, who could say they weren't? At the helm of the imperial ship, their leadership was changing towards more of a democratic style. The queen, while technically in her figurehead status, was still of tremendous importance in foreign affairs, especially when royalty was concerned (so, almost always, I assume). The British played right into the stereotypes we imagine by still being so concerned with appearances and tradition that if the queen said something it was bound to get done. This is the world George inherited, just prior to the war; one where his powers are strong, but the guidelines and borders on can and cannot are confusing and muddled.

Fortunately for him, he was never really that interested in inheriting it. High society held little appeal to him and he dreaded going out and doing the whole British song and dance, which was every bit as

King George. As a boy.
Boy George.

formal and completely devoid of enjoyment as one would expect from British royalty. He much prefered stamp collecting and shooting in his free time, not quite shirking his duties as a royal but certainly not being that interested in them. (His two cousins, Wilhelm and Nicholas, were also obsessed with shooting. Wilhelm recorded all his wildlife kills, and by the time 1897 came around he had bagged 33,967. Add "Scourge of Mother Nature" to Wilhelm's many titles, I guess.)

George's distaste for society even stretched into his relationships. His marriage in particular was about as strange as they come. They would hardly speak, not seemingly out of hatred for each other but awkwardness, opting instead to send letters that would be expressing his love for her. Sort of like a far too intimate pen-pal relationship. Of the rest of his family he was cold and demanding, not acting much better to his children than his wife. His epileptic, possibly autistic child who died at the age of thirteen he openly resented, saying after his death that he was "more of an animal than anything else."

But being a jerk and a hermit (a stamp collecting, gun toting loner sounds like a description of a shooter in the modern day, really) doesn't prevent you from inheriting the throne. His father, Edward, was clearly not long for the world when he took the throne around the turn of the century. Somehow, his habits of gorging at mealtime and smoking like a chimney caught up to him. Doctors warned of his coming demise but the only change he was willing to make was to only have two cigars before breakfast.

King George's hair was drawn by
only the finest of Sharpies.

Rather predictably, Edward died in 1910, leaving the poorly educated, frequently nervous, often self-pitying George to take over. Quite quickly the British parliamentary powers, elected or not, realized that George might not have been the brightest bulb. He would demand things to happen and his requests were often ignored or put aside. In the events leading up to the war, he would often have to spearhead negotiations with the frequently volatile and threatening Wilhelm but his talks would most often amount to nothing.

Here's the kicker. It was George's distaste for leadership that ultimately saved the monarchy. During and after the war, he didn't seem to mind all that much when others took over for him, solidifying the monarchy as the figurehead position it is today. I'll go more into detail on how this happened soon, but here's just a taste for how he reacted when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Visibly upset, he complained to his son (the living one he didn't refer to as an animal) that he would miss a weekend of sailing.

Monarchies... Incredible. But let's go celebrate another royal wedding.

The Three Cousins of WWI: Part 2 - The Kaiser

I was going to begin this by saying that the road to World War I was paved by three leaders - a king, a tsar, and a kaiser. While it's arguably true, I can't write that in good conscience. The world was going through a number of changes, and like the progression from a child to an adult, the process was fraught with confusion, violence, and a strange, paradoxical concoction of overconfidence and low self-esteem coming from the leadership. (Or brain, if you wish to continue the metaphor. Further, they also both contain an awkward moustache component.) There's a part of me that thinks the Great War was due to take place almost inevitably, and while it was largely the work of incompetent leadership, if it didn't happen under them it would have happened a decade or two later.

The Kaiser had a brief bout as a wax figurine.

European countries in the early 1900s were the powers of the world, unquestionably. They were also vying for the same territory, were devoted imperialists, and all involved in a high-stakes game of one-upmanship where the way to keep up with the Joneses was to take over another country. The fact that they were also led by people with no right to lead beyond heredity was the icing on the cake. Learning how they came to rule, as well as the decisions they made, is a baffling and shocking ordeal. 

We'll start with Germany, specifically in Prussia. Things didn't quite pan out for them.

Prussia was a strange place, back before the 1900s. Much of it was still locked in the feudal system with the poor slaving away on farms right next door to high-culture elites. Splitting it further was that half of it was crawling towards Russia and the other half was digging in their heels and pulling towards Britain. Queen Victoria wanted the latter half to grow larger, so she does what any good, diplomatic country does in a situation such as this. She sends her seventeen-year-old daughter (also named Victoria) to marry a prince, and hope everything works out all peachy-keen. Somehow, and this was what I said about baffling decisions, that made sense back then. Take two large, powerful countries and put the diplomatic relations in the hands of a teenager.

Her first order of business (and as it was for women back then, pretty close to her only order of business) was to have a bunch of kids and guide them towards Britain. One such child was born with a permanently withered arm due to a birth defect. Fredrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert, the future Kaiser, Wilhelm II. His early life subjected him to bizarre medical treatments in an attempt to cure his arm, such as having him rest it on a dead rabbit (it didn't make it worse, so partial credit) and having to be hooked up to a full body-length machine to try to fix a tilt he had from overcompensating for the arm. Further, his tumultuous birth briefly cut the oxygen to his brain, which may have actually caused some degree of brain damage, which would explain a heck of a lot of the stuff he did later.

Wilhelm would often rest
one arm on his sword to make
it appear normal. If only he had
a more positive body image. This
is why we need Dove's Campaign
for Real Beauty, folks.

With his mother breathing down his neck, Wilhelm still had a strange relationship with not only England but Russia as well. Most often he would cozy up to the latter as their militaristic style appealed to him. This was of course contrary to his mother's wishes, but almost everyone was against poor Victoria. Being far too British for the Prussians, she was unpopular and had little going for her in the way of public opinion, shifting Wilhelm to the Russian side. However, that would rarely last for long. The majority of his life was going back and forth between love and hate of the British, often disrespecting them but clearly reaching for their approval, like a child acting out to get his parents to notice him. Whenever one insulted his pride he would switch to the other, basing national diplomacy on real or imagined slights.

Even then, it was pride that was his greatest curse, and one that was used by both Britain and Russia to get him on their side. A prime example is when he didn't acknowledge his uncle while on a vacation and started an international fuss. The British press and a few of the family members took offense, which bothered Wilhelm (swing to Russia). They got him back by promising him an admiral's uniform and title (swing to Britain). His uniform was a strange source of pride, and taking the "honour" to the nth degree, he would wear it frequently and ensure that it - and he - looked immaculate.

Kaiser Wilhelm in his later, surprisingly
dapper years. This picture was taken just days
before donning a white suit and becoming
 Colonel Sanders.

There are countless stories like this one, but I chose it in particular because it's what happens after that so exemplifies Wilhelm's narcissism. The uniform was obviously a formality, but he nevertheless took it oddly seriously. He suddenly became a self-described expert in the field, and would send messages to the British admiralty suggesting changes which only served to cause a few laughs down in England.

It was that pompous, bombastic style of his that would get him in trouble in the media world, as well. Unable to keep his trap shut, he would often run his mouth at the wrong times, giving strange press releases that would say far too much or speak terribly out of turn. The British and occasionally the German press would roast him for it, and the other leaders would have to roll their eyes and hope he would only be speaking like that just for show. But his paranoia really would get the better of him. Anyone signing a treaty around him would cause him to think it was a sign of a coming war. If he gets wind of an alliance somewhere, it's a betrayal to Germany.

It wasn't so bad when he was just a prince. Things can get glossed over, words forgotten, and so forth. But when his grandfather died and his father was in the later stages of throat cancer, he was set to take the throne. Germany was about to get the full leadership of the mad Kaiser. This was the person set to take over one of the most powerful countries in the world; a narcissistic warmonger, quick to change his mind and so easily won over by praise. Maybe people knew it was a bad idea, but with the ways of hereditary monarchies, there's not a heck of a lot you can do.

When things started going south in the war, the Kaiser was eventually first pushed out of discussions and then fully pushed out of office. Left to rot in disgrace and exile, he was sent to the Dutch town of Amerongen where he would remain for the rest of his life. Right down to the end of his miserable life, he would complain of his mistreatment (he died still having the equivalent of $60,000,000 in today's currency) and remorselessly throw the blame around to anyone who would listen.