"The Mind Is Its Own Place"

John Milton's wonderful line from ‘Paradise Lost’ : “The mind is its own place and of itself can make a heaven of Hell or a hell of Heaven” came to mind when I read a very interesting comment by ‘Anonymous’ on a previous post. Referring to Kaiser Wilhelm, s/he wrote:

“His parents were a happy marriage, so I don't know why he became such a complicated character. On the other hand, Emperor Karl grew up in a broken home, his father being an unfaithful husband and his mother a very strict and monotonous woman. That clearly shows that it's up to every person to decide what kind of human being she or he wants to become in life.”
I couldn’t agree more with the last sentence of this comment. Recently I was watching a TV drama in which someone, from the outside, had everything going for him but he was deeply unhappy due to his perception of, and emotional response to the events happening with other members of this family, which – inaccurately as it happened – left him feeling somehow unloved. Children see the world revolving around themselves. If parents are unhappy together, children often believe themselves to be the cause of their unhappiness. If, for some valid reason, which the child does not understand, parents leave the child with other people for a while, the child can feel abandoned. Children are so finely tuned that the slightest snub can seem like a disaster, and the tiniest observation can create immense awe and joy. Most of us dull that fine tuning as we grow up – and we are encouraged to do so by adults - in order to dull our extremes of painful or rapturous emotion. Whether we grow up in idyllic domestic circumstances (did anyone grow up in a thoroughly idyllic home where everything was always rosy?) or in very unhappy circumstances, it seems to me we have a choice. We can either become reactors/victims or creative and perceptive beings. How wonderful it would be to maintain a child’s fine-tuning alongside the wisdom that comes with understanding that, while we truly are the centres of our own universe (in that we have choice how to perceive every encounter and situation), everyone else around us is also the centre of his/her universe.

Kaiser Wilhelm, I think, had a reactor/victim mentality and was in such inner turmoil because he knew he needn’t be that way but couldn’t find a means of overcoming his own demons. The fact of his parents’ happy marriage probably added to his woes. His mother was little more than a child when he was born and she had very little say in his upbringing. Being so young and being a stranger in a foreign country and in a Court that was so different to the one in which she was raised, she felt powerless to influence Wilhelm when he was, almost from the moment of his birth, made the property of the Prussian Court, and had his head filled with grandiose notions from Bismarck and from his paternal grandparents. At the same time, because of the deformity of his arm, he was forced to endure countless hours of humiliation and painful treatments in a futile attempt to correct the deformity. A small child, seeing the love his parents had for each other, yet feeling excluded from that love, he always seems to view his deformity as the cause of his mother’s abandonment of him. To make matters worse, his mother was intellectually brilliant, and didn’t really ‘suffer fools gladly’ – after all, her own mother had been very quick to criticise her children so that was the normal pattern for Vicky. Wilhelm must have felt one minute stupid and weak, and the next minute, hearing Bismarck speak of his role as future Kaiser, amazingly powerful. It was a pattern he continued to act out all his life – swinging between victor and victim to such extremes.

At the outbreak of war, for example, his initial response to the Russian mobilisation was that of a victim. The Willy-Nicky telegrams and his own autobiography show him in an attitude of injured innocence – the poor victim of his family’s treachery. Within a week he was making grandiose and extreme announcements about how he would utterly decimate every British soldier who set foot on the Continent, and how every Russian prisoner should be killed without mercy. Who or what was he really railing against? His own sense of confusion and inadequacy.

The saddest part of his story is, I think, that he was intellectually gifted and he was capable of great love but his inner turmoil prevented him from ever finding balance or harmony within himself. The last video footage of his life shows him at Doorn, carving wood, playing with his dogs, behaving as he probably behaved in the happy hours he spent with his mother and family at Bornstedt (the country ‘farm’ his parents bought to create as normal a family life as possible for their children. There, he had played with local children and lived a ‘normal’ life and felt very close to his mother).

The contradictions in his character are fascinating, and are also a family trait. Few people could be as contradictory as Queen Victoria and several of her children and grandchildren...and perhaps the contradictions, magnified by the loftiness of their position, are what make these people so attractive even today. They mirror everyone’s contradictions in a way that is quite beautiful.

There is so much more to write of Wilhelm’s contradictions...

Happy Birthday, Kaiser Wilhelm

Perhaps it is because we are such complicated beings that people try to create some sense of order in the chaos of emotions and thoughts within each person’s life. When you think of the hundreds of thousands of thoughts that enter your mind each day, the many emotions through which you move and the millions of images that enter your visual, auditory and olfactory fields it’s small wonder that people try to organise and label so many experiences, and so many other people. Scientists slot things into categories – gasses, liquids solids, elements, minerals, species etc. etc. – everything labelled and in order to prevent confusion. Perhaps for the sake of clarity, historians sometimes adopt the same method, labelling people as good or bad, black or white, innocent or guilty.


In the annals of history, Kaiser Wilhelm is categorised clearly as either mad or bad. I feel for this man, though very few people seem to have much that is good to say of him and I don’t believe this is simply because he happened to be on the losing side of WW1 – after all, few people write in a critical way of Franz Josef or Karl of Austria. Something about this man arouses either scorn and mockery or dislike, and it is my firm belief that this is because no one hated the Kaiser as much as he hated himself. All that grandiose posturing, the uniforms the huge moustache, concealing the lost little boy whom he remained to the end of his life. He was a bundle of contradictions – playful and bizarre one moment, angry the next; adoring his grandmother and holding her while she died; alternatively adoring and despising his mother, whom he treated appallingly; desperately longing to be loved, while at the same time needing to appear strong and above the rest of mankind; hating and loving and envying England; changing mood from one moment to the next; wanting to feel part of his large extended family, yet so desperately longing for the respect of his cousins that his behaviour was often beyond irrational (as when he threatened to ban his sister from entering Germany simply because she had converted to Orthodoxy, but a short time later was encouraging his cousin, Alix, to convert in order to marry the Tsarevich); and perhaps most strikingly, his genuine sense of his own self-righteous innocence at the outbreak of war.
This would-be powerful man remained a victim of his own insecurities all his life. No wonder he suffered at least two nervous breakdowns.

I have often read descriptions of him as ‘bonkers’ and I think it is rather sad that he is written off so easily. Clearly, he did have many psychological issues that remained unresolved - sometimes he played rather cruel tricks on people or behaved inappropriately (slapping Ferdinand of Bulgaria on the bottom and wondering why he was affronted??), but I don’t think he was deliberately cruel and I think he was capable of a great deal of love – as he showed at his grandmother’s deathbed. He loved animals and children. It must have taken a great deal of determination to overcome not only the physical disability of his left arm, but also the psychological effects of knowing he wasn’t the perfect specimen of a prince that his people expected. He rode brilliantly; he spoke many languages fluently; he was an intellectually intelligent man who loved art and literature and wanted to make Germany a place of learning and culture which extended to all classes. He fell in love with his cousin, Ella, and felt rebuffed that his love was unrequited....and later, when he married, he remained faithful to his wife. I think the speed with which he remarried following the death of his first wife, says something of his need to be mothered....He spent his entire life seeking the approval of the mother whom he treated so badly.

The photographs of him in Doorn after his ‘escape’ from Germany, show the face of a
very sad and broken man. Every time I think of him, I think of Longfellow’s lines:

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
So...Happy Birthday, Willy – the contradictions in your character often seem to be mere exaggerations of the contradictions within us all.

The Kaiser and his Grandmother

Some years ago, on August 4th (the anniversary of Britain’s entry into the the First World War), I stood on the corridor outside Queen Victoria’s bedroom at Osborne House on the same spot where Kaiser Wilhelm must have once stood, and tried to imagine how it felt to him, wanting to see his grandmother one last time as she lay on her death bed. The Kaiser’s behaviour after the death of his father was so obnoxious and, since I do not believe him to have been for one moment a callous man at heart, I suspect he regretted that impetuous arrogance for many years afterwards. His family, Queen Victoria’s family, were so reluctant to allow him to even visit his beloved grandmother that he arrived quietly and behaved more like a subservient beggar than a pompous Emperor. As a man to whom appearance seemed to matter so much; a man who hardly ever let down his guard and always had to wear a mask, adopt a powerful persona and play the part he had assigned to himself, his presence at Queen Victoria’s deathbed is very striking. It seems like one of the few times in his life when Willy was truly himself – not arrogant, not wanting to be the centre of attention (the very opposite in fact – he skulked in the corridor, wanting only to be allowed into the room) but acting sincerely and out of genuine love.

Fritz Ponsonby, in his wonderful “Recollections of Three Reigns” describes the scene:

“At about half past six we were told the end had come. The Duke of Argyll told me that the last moments were like a great three-decker ship sinking. She kept on rallying and sinking. The behaviour of the German Emperor was beyond all praise. He kept in the background until they were all summoned. The Prince of Wales, Princess Christian, Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice stood around the bed, while the German Emperor knelt down and supported the Queen with his arm....the Emperor never moved for two and a half hours. His devotion to the Queen quite disarmed all the Royal Family.”

Kaiser Wilhelm, German Unification and the End of Empires.

On the 18th January 1871, the King of Prussia stood in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles to hear himself proclaimed the first German Emperor. It’s impossible to overlook the irony that Versailles also gave its name to the treaty which so decimated Germany, almost half a century later.

What an effect must that moment have had on the young Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, future Kaiser Wilhelm II, and grandson of the first Prussian Emperor? As a boy, Wilhelm witnessed Prussia’s rise to power. He was seven years old in 1866 when his father returned triumphantly after defeating the Austrians in the Seven Weeks War and he saw, too, how several German states who had sided with the enemy, were brought under Prussian command. At twelve years old, he witnessed his country’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War and the ease with which the German Empire then came into being. To a small, insecure boy, traumatised by the disability of his arm, and confused by a desperate need to win his mother’s approval, such victories must have seemed incredibly romantic. It seems as though this was the dream around which he created his own persona....and yet it was a persona that he, with all his insecurities, could never live up to. Deeply sensitive on so many levels, and desperate to be liked, he seemed to spend his life hiding behind a mask of over-joviality and a sense of his own magnanimity, interspersed with outbursts of rage due to his feelings of being misunderstood, followed by periods of deep depression.

The interesting part of it all is that, of the 43 years of the German Empire, prior to World War I, Wilhelm was Emperor for 26 years and, during that time, Germany enjoyed peace and prosperity to a far greater extent than any other major power in Europe. While Russia suffered the disastrous war with Japan and the 1905 revolution; Britain battled with the Boers and faced strikes, suffragettes and the persistent problems posed by the Irish Home Rule question; and Austria-Hungary’s fragmentation began, in Germany, industry thrived, workers were given more rights than anywhere else in Europe and there was peace.

Now, here’s a thought...if one could view nations and empires as individual people growing through the stages of their lives, it would seem in 1871, that Germany had reached her adolescence, was beginning to find her own place in the world, and for the next 40 or so years was growing into her prime as a cultured and civilised place to be. Children – unfortunately! – often imitate their parents and the adults around them. If Germany were a person looking at her neighbours, she would see other Empires, some of which (like Austria) seemed already decrepit, desperately guzzling up land, creating colonies, and basking in the glory of power. Where could Germany go to spread her wings as other empires did? Africa, India, South America, Canada, Australia, the ocean...everywhere was already taken. Hemmed in on all sides, she needed to flex her muscles but there was no room to move, so she grew stronger, built better ships, created a more powerful army...and was seen as aggressive.

Kaiser Wilhelm’s life, and stages of life, coincided so clearly with that of his Empire from its first beginnings to its sad end. There was so much potential in Germany in 1871 and I believe Kaiser Wilhelm also had a great deal of potential for good, but it was already the beginning of the end of Empires and it seems as though Germany came too late to the party....

An Unlikely Friendship

A couple of weeks before his fatal visit to Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria entertained Kaiser Wilhelm II at one of his favourite homes, Konospischt Castle,
just south of Prague. There, the Archduke had followed his passion to cultivate roses and the Kaiser brought along another avid rose-breeder, Admiral von Tirpitz.
Since Franz Ferdinand had recently been created an admiral in the Austrian navy to enable him to continue his work as Inspector of the Armed Services in Austria-Hungary, one might think, with hindsight, that the meeting of these three men was a political or military meeting in preparation for war. I think, though, that it was simply a social visit, which must have meant a great deal to Franz Ferdinand whose marriage to a lady-in-waiting had led him to feel so excluded from and angry about royal events within Austria.
As I see it, Kaiser Wilhelm and the Archduke formed a friendship which partly accounts for the Kaiser’s horror at his murder a couple of weeks later. (All the other Royal Houses of Europe were equally shocked – in Britain, George V declared a week of mourning; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas declared 14 days...other countries also were in mourning for him).

It has been a little baffling to see what brought together these two men, Franz Ferdinand and Wilhelm, who in so many ways seem so different, and to understand the basis of their friendship, which I believe was genuine. Their contradictions in character and belief are part of the fascination...and, yet again, bring the delight of seeing how this ‘family’ of monarchs of the era seem like a microcosm (or macrocosm) of the contradictions in everyone’s life.

Franz Ferdinand was brusque, unsociable and seemed to despise so much pomp and rigidity in the Habsburg Court.
Wilhelm loved to be the centre of attention, revelled in display and pageantry, laughed too loudly and enjoyed everything to do with display. Franz Ferdinand had forward thinking ideas about basing the government of the Austrian Empire on the American model – a sort of federal group of states.
Wilhelm despised the American dream as republican and in 1911 had the bizarre notion of sending battleships towards Manhattan. Franz Ferdinand was utterly devoted to his children and wife; they were always foremost in his mind and he was willing to suffer the humiliation of declaring his marriage morganatic in order to marry the woman he loved. Wilhelm had a difficult relationship with his sons, particularly the Crown Prince for whom he seemed to feel a kind of envy. Wilhelm cared intensely about what people thought of him. Franz Ferdinand didn’t care at all whether or not he was liked.

Apart from their friendship, both were in themselves so contradictory. Wilhelm loved and despised Britain at the same time. He was genuinely kind on occasions but could turn in an instant if he saw his kindness appearing as weakness. He adored his grandmother but had a love-hate relationship with his mother. He banned his sister, Sophie, from returning to Germany because she had converted to Orthodoxy then eagerly encouraged his cousin, Alix, to convert so that she could marry the Tsar. Franz Ferdinand loved roses and nature, but was also one of the most prolific hunters of his age, killing thousands of innocent creatures. He railed against the traditional Habsburgs way of doing things but was not willing to abdicate his position in line to the throne (as Franz Josef’s father had done). At home with his family, he was a doting father and romantic husband who adored his wife....yet to the outside world he appeared so unsociable.

What created a friendship between these two men? I think they both considered themselves outsiders within their own families. Wilhelm, I think, too, saw an opportunity of appearing as benevolent and wise advisor to a man who would soon become Emperor; Franz Ferdinand, I think, was so grateful that Wilhelm was gracious to his wife, who had been so humiliated by his own family.

Had Franz Ferdinand not been murdered, I wonder how it would have all played out...and imagine that the the friendship of these two unlikely men might have created a perfect balance between tradition and progress. Endlessly, endlessly fascinating since neither of them is as one-dimensional as most superficial histories portray them.

Princess Marie Louise and the Kaiser

This post is in response to a comment by ‘Anonymous’ on the previous post.

Throughout Marie Louise’s lovely book, there are many references to Kaiser Wilhelm and they present him as a sympathetic, cheerful and warm man for whom Marie Louise obviously had great affection. While Marie Louise was living in Anhalt, she often took tea with the Empress Dona – who comes over as a little bit stiff (e.g. being thoroughly shocked that Marie Louise was – horror of horrors! – once seen riding a bicycle, and another time travelling in an ordinary fiacre rather than a royal carriage!). They obviously had a friendly and close relationship though. Here are a few excerpts from: “My Memories of Six Reigns”:


“I want to give all...a true and quite different side to the character of that much-maligned man, William II, German Emperor. At heart he was pro-British, though not, I agree in his policy for there his country and its interests had, of necessity always to be first. He was devoted to his grandmother, Queen Victoria, and admired everything English....I can say in perfect truth that the Emperor did not want war. He was against the invasion of Belgium for two reasons – first, he did not wish Germany to break her word, she having guaranteed to neutrality of Belgium, and second that he knew it would bring this country [Britain] into the war. I can also say that when the Emperor saw the telegram sent to Serbia by Berchtold, he was terribly upset....”
“To return to the affection he had for my parents, the following fact will give you a very touching proof of what I am endeavouring to tell you. In 1916 my parents celebrated their golden wedding. I spite of the war, it was a very happy day...in the afternoon, while we were talking, the steward handed a telegram to my mother. It was from the Crown Princess of Sweden, Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Connaught. The telegram was as follows: “William asks me to transmit to you his loyal and devoted good wishes to dear Uncle Christian and Aunt Helena on the occasion of their golden wedding.” “
Marie Louise’s brother, Albert, served in the Prussian army. She writes:

“Although he was on the retired list when war broke out, he was honour bound to place his services at the disposal of the Emperor. But he made on stipulation: that he would under no circumstances serve on the Western Front. The Emperor fully understood his objections and in consequence appointed him to the staff of General von Loewenfeld, who was in charge of the Berlin defences. The General’s mother was an English woman and the Emperor, knowing this, told my brother that he had arranged this appointment on purpose, realising that the General was in an equally difficult position.”

A Tender-Hearted Tyrant?

“I have not spent a day without loving you; I have not spent a night without embracing you; I have not so much as drunk a single cup of tea without cursing the pride and ambition which force me to remain separated from the moving spirit of my life.”
What an interesting line from one of Napoleon’s letters to his wife. In other letters he writes of the distance between them and again blames his pride – it almost seems like he was driven beyond reason to be constantly conquering somewhere or other for fear of being conquered. When he discovered that during one of his terribly long absences Josephine had taken a lover, he was beside himself with grief but rather than treating her with physical cruelty, he returned home and when she swore it would not happen again, he accepted it....on condition that he could take what mistresses he chose – and he did. What a need to be in power...and such a tender heart. He must have lived in constant conflict between his head and his heart – his driving ambition that made him quite ruthless, and his natural tendency to love and the need to feel loved in return. Even as he invaded other countries, he tried to convince himself that he was doing so to liberate them but it was surely was merely a symptom of his need to liberate himself from the many unresolved issues from his childhood and beyond.

In spite of myself, I really do find something attractive and intriguing about him – something of the lost little boy who disguised his need to feel loved behind a display of machismo. In this he reminds me a lot of Kaiser Wilhelm II, but Napoleon had the added intellectual brilliance and personal drive to be able to achieve so many of his aims. Unlike the vile Robespierre, he didn’t insist on the slaughter of innocent bystanders- he fought only opposing armies - and he did seize a crown, but only when that crown was already there for the taking. His support for the French Revolution is something I dislike but he didn’t support all that unnecessary slaughter or the paranoia that was so characteristic of ‘The Terror.’

He divorced Josephine when he considered her too old to bear him a son to continue the dynasty but he was heart-broken by that decision and he saw that Josephine was well cared for. When he heard later of her death, he retired to his room, refusing to be seen for two days. There was a man who had the wherewithal and opportunity to achieve all that Nicholas II would have liked to have achieved – a quiet life with his wife and family – but who was so driven by ambition that he could not live that ideal. Nothing except Napoleon stopped him from living a happy life with his wife but he remained driven and unhappy. Doesn’t it show how everything is in the mind of the individual? None of us is a victim of circumstance. We are victims only of our own thoughts and beliefs and, since we have power over those, the world is our oyster!

I set out to learn more of Napoleon, believing I would dislike him but in fact, I find him fascinating. (Incidentally, as a light aside, my mother told me today that when she was a small child her grandmother, for some odd reason, had a very large portrait of Napoleon hanging on the wall. My mother – being a small child – assumed it was a picture of her late grandfather! Funny...my mother’s name is Josephine!)

Here is a fascinating site with some of Napoleon’s letters to Josephine....and then to his mistresses and to his second wife.

http://www.napoleonguide.com/lovelett.htm

Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler

No one can deny that dreadful atrocities have been committed throughout history, and uncovering the truth of the past seems to bring some kind of resolution to terrible situations but I fear there is often a danger of laying crimes at the feet of rulers who had little say in what exactly happened.

An article in the 'Daily Mail' today, describes a new book: "The Kaiser's Holocaust", which relates an appalling story of cruelty and murder in Namibia. The horrendousness of the story needed, perhaps, to be told but I cannot help but feel unsettled by the title or one phrase in the article which speaks of the 'tacit consent' of the Kaiser, while at the same time showing a very large picture of Wilhelm in uniform, looking every inch the German conquering hero.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314399/Hitlers-Holocaust-blueprint-Africa-concentration-camps-used-advance-racial-theories.html

Willy was, there is no doubt, racist - as were a large majority of Europeans at that time (with a notably exception in Queen Victoria) - but he was not a sadist and to compare him to Hitler, or worse, lay the blame for Hitler's abominable crimes at the feet of such a man is so unjust. Much as he would have hated to admit it, Kaiser Wilhelm was not a great leader but one who was often disregarded by his ministers who had their own agenda and desire for power. The more they took power from him, the more uniforms Willy acquired and the more aggressive poses he adopted on his photos and portraits, but at heart he was not an aggressive man, but simply a patriot in a new country, and one who wanted his country to stand equally alongside the other 'major powers' of Europe. It must be remembered that by the outbreak of WW1, Germany, unlike the other powers, had known 40 years of peace and prosperity. Germany was way ahead of other countries in caring for the unemployed and the aged, and advancing rapidly technologically. Willy simply wanted that to be recognised by the rest of Europe (and especially by Britain) and, alas, his own personal hang-ups, made it impossible for him ever to feel happy in his skin. I very, very much doubt though that he would have willingly accepted this horrendous slaughter in Namibia. During the Boer War, the British were 'inventing' concentration camps in S. Africa and, all that time, Queen Victoria was writing letters to her generals and politicians, urging them to respect the culture, religion and way of life of native peoples. Willy, I think, wanted to be like his grandmother....but never lived up to his own image of what he wanted to be.

A lot is written about the subsequent involvement of some of the German princes, grand dukes etc. with the Nazis. Making it absolutely clear that I utterly, totally and completely reject all forms of racism, control etc. and find the Nazis abhorrent, I have to say we cannot judge it all as it was then from the position of hindsight when we see the full horrific effects of how it played out. Imagine, though, if you knew and had lived through a time when your country prospered; a World War, for which you were not solely responsible, that led not only to shame of defeat and the memory of how many young men had died in vain, but also to the bankruptcy of your great nation, the loss of so many lands, being humiliated and deprived of an army to defend your borders (the Treaty of Versailles was so short-sighted!!*)...and suddenly there appeared a man who promised to restore a sense of pride. I think, before they understood the true manic and perverse nature of this man (Hitler), it is understandable that many believed in him.

None of that, of course, excuses believing in him so much that you would willingly attack your neighbours (literal neighbours - the Jewish people who lived next door; or national neighbours - like invading Poland!) but nothing is ever quite what it appears. No nation has been totally blameless and I think the large picture of the Kaiser in that newspaper, alongside such a headline, merely prolongs the mistaken myth of the Kaiser being an evil war lord and the German nation being behind all the aggression in Europe and beyond.

(And I write this as a full blooded English person!)

* Incidentally, during the Balkan Wars, the nuch-maligned Tsar Nicholas II was one of the very few people who understood the effects of short-sightedness. He knew that humiliating Bulgaria, would lead to resentment in that country and tried to broker a fair deal for everyone. What a pity he wasn't present to offer his wisdom at Versailles!)

Outcome

In the July Crisis of 1914 - the events which could have prevented WW1 - it's interesting that 2 of the 3 supposedly major players were away. Kaiser Wilhelm was shoved aside, against his better judgement, to continue his plans for his holiday touring the Norwegian fjords; Emperor Franz Josef was at his summer residence, Bad Ischl...and Tsar Nicholas was working day and night to find a peaceful solution through an international agreement (he contacted the British Foreign Secretary, Grey) and suggesting presenting the whole matter to a fair council in The Hague. Nicholas comes out of the war as a weakling (for some utterly bizarre reason!); Wilhelm as a monster, and Franz Josef is virtually forgotten in the popular imagination. Everything was created behind the scenes by ministers when their kings were out of the way...and afterwards they blamed their kings for the horror of it.

"If only..." is such a pointless thing, but it seemed to me that if, during the German successes in the early part of 1918, the Central Powers had succeeded in driving the Allies home, it might have been a better long term outcome. If Germany had won WW1, I dare say that Belgium would eventually have regained her borders; France would have still lost Alsace and Lorraine but would have survived; Britain would have still been Britain; the defeated Tsar would have been shipped off to somewhere safe (perhaps Denmark); Kaiser Wilhelm would have retained his throne and, above all, WW2 would never have happened. Germany, at the time, was one of the most progressive countries in terms of care of the workers, the unemployed, the elderly and the 'needy' and also at the forefront of literature and music. Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany was probably one of the best places to live in Europe at that time. The travesty of the Treaty of Versailles utterly destroyed a nation which, until then, had been one of the most enlightened in the world...and so gave rise to the darkness of Hitler.

As an English person, I love my country...and, apart from seeing the pointlessness of that horrendeous war, think it would have been better for all of us, if Germany had not been defeated.

Who Had the Most to Gain?

With the beautifully respectful and desperately tragic story of the new cemetery at Fromelles, comes the century-old question of 'what was it for?'
The Second World War - on the surface at least - seemed to have a genuine cause for which so many gave their lives, but the First World War? The more I study it, the more I wonder if anyone knew what he was fighting for, all of which begs the questions: who wanted that war and why?

As a small child I sat on my grandmother's knee as she sang (untunefully) songs of the era and told me stories of all the people she had known who were killed there (happy scenario for a small child??). Everyone explained what had happened but no one said why. It was the Kaiser's fault. It was 'for England' and 'for our freedom'. Was it heck! The Kaiser, I am absolutely certain, had no desire for war. He, who held his dying grandmother (Queen Victoria) in his arms had a love-hate relationship with Britain and a desire to appear 'strong' to Cousin Nicky in Russia, was a loyal German, wanting the best for his country - which hadn't known any war since Unification and was thriving. Why would he want war? He didn't.

Nicholas, in Russia, far from being the 'weak' or unintelligent Tsar of popular imagination, worked overtime to prevent a recurrence of the Balkan Wars with a brilliant understanding of psychology (note his suggestions for a Bulgarian settlement after the Bulgarians' routing in the Second Balkan War) and what was best for his own country. He ordered 12 or 14 days mourning for Franz Ferdinand and then worked day and night to achieve a peaceful solution to the 'July Crisis' of 1914.

Franz Ferdinand, whose death was the catalyst to the tragedy, wanted to create an American-style government in Austria-Hungary, giving a kind of autonomy to each of the states within the Empire. His trip to Sarajevo was, I think, part of that plan - to hand power back to people.

None of the kings had any desire for war. They were friends, relations; they attended the same functions, met occasionally, lived the same way of life and every single one of them wanted the best for their people.

How many soldiers went to war because their landowner or his son went first? That doesn't show that the people were forced into something against their will; it shows rather the amount of respect they had for caring employers. Here's another lie - the generals and officers stayed safely behind the scenes while the ordinary soldiers went to their deaths. 78 British Generals were killed in World War I and countless officers, most of whom were first out of the trench, armed with only pistols against machine gun fire.

So who wanted war? Well...obviously, there were the power-seekers and the hot-heads most of whom posed (and continue to pose) as 'socialists' who have the welfare of the people at heart but really are seeking only their own gain. In Austria, there was Berchtold and Conrad. Behind them, stood the bankers and economists for whom war is always profitable, and behind them is the whole mass of people who are happy to be led without thinking for themselves.

I have such deep feeling for those who died in those trenches and firmly believe that almost 100 years later we still haven't uncovered who and what was really behind that mass slaughter. It certainly wasn't for freedom. It certainly wasn't for the pleasure of kings (who suffered more from it than anyone!) and it certainly wasn't for all the reasons that have been taught ever since then.

There is so much more to say....

The Innocence of Kaiser Wilhelm II

Kaiser Wilhelm II - oh, had he not grown that silly moustache and adopted those theatrical poses, how differently he might have appeared in history books!

To the British of WW1, he was an object of scorn - "Belgium put the kybosh on the Kaiser" - or a figure of grotesque proportions who sent in his troops to commit all kinds of atrocities against the innocent Belgians. To the Russians, he was a duplicitous fraud who wrote one thing to the Tsar, while secretly plotting for war. To the French, he was the arch-enemy, the successor of those who had stolen Alsace-Lorraine; and to the Austrians he was the their one chance of success in suppressing the Serbs.

But behind that huge moustache stood a poor little fellow. Like Richard III of England, Louis XVI of France and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Wilhelm has been labelled as a 'bad thing' by posterity and his particular label is that of the aggressor which is, perhaps, the most unattractive of all labels. The Willy-Nicky telegrams (cousin-to-cousin in the days leading up to the outbreak of WW1) imply his perfidy and his own memoirs seem to tell quite a different story from what was actually happening on the world stage but the more I learn of this man, the more clear it is that he has been so wrongly labelled.

Wilhelm, in spite of his love of uniforms and military prowess, had no more stomach for war than any of his cousins. He had never led an army into battle or captained a ship. Like Nicholas, he saw his role as doing the best for his country. Germany at that time, in spite of the unification, still comprised so many different states, each with its own military uniforms and view of the world. The same was true of Austria, where Franz Ferdinand suggested a sort of American model of governance, and Russia comprised an equally eclectic mix of cultures. The difference for Willy was that his country was so 'new' - only 40 years old - and he, with own psychological hang-ups, found himself responsible for bringing it all together. To add to his woes, he obviously had many difficult childhood experiences and had such a longing to be loved. He seems to me to have loved the sense of his own magnanimity. He wanted to please people. Above all, he wanted to be loved. He once described Germany as 'the custodian of peace' in Europe and I don't think he said that insincerely.

Alas! Like the rest of his contemporaries, he found himself at the mercy of ministers who sought only their own ends and their own route to power. Not one single monarch wanted war in Europe but someone obviously did. As in all wars, look at who gained from it in order to discover who instigated it. Ah, the whole arms machine, the shadowy power-seekers who think they rule the world by hoodwinking people with propaganda and finding a face to pin to the idea of 'saviour' or 'aggressor'.

Willy, like so many others...a convenient caricature. At the same time, an amazingly intellectually intelligent man who never quite caught up with his own emotions. Had the Central Powers 'won' the First World War (if such mindless carnage could ever be called a victory) he would probably have been labelled "Wilhelm the Great", but even if that had happened I doubt that he would ever have felt victorious.

Perhaps it is time for a trial to be held, like that which - several hundred years later found Richard III innocent of the crimes of which he was accused - and this one would show that Willy was not the aggressor; Nicholas of Russia was anything but weak and the real responsibility for the carnage of the war lies with those who hid behind th scenes....

It was ever thus...

Crown Prince Wilhelm

Apologies again for my tardiness in updating this blog! Interesting how matter arise in our lives that lead us into a kind of temporary seclusion, which leaves a lot of time for sitting about in unwholesome atmospheres but brings thing to light. Family 'illness' necessitates time spent in such hospital atmospheres. Can anything be less conducive to health than being in that kind of atmosphere of a conglomeration of belief in illness? The more I see of illness, the more apparent it is that everything originates in our thoughts...but that's another story....)

For some bizarre reason, last night I dreamed of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, eldest son of the Kaiser, and wished so much this morning that I could remember that dream! The Crown Prince's memoirs were written in exile so short a time after World War I, during which he must have lived through horrendous experiences, including the daily reports of the loss of his friends and the gradual collapse of all he had been brought up to expect he would one day inherit. Like most adolescents, he seemed to go through a stage of rebelling against his father while his love for his mother casts a whole new light on a woman whom I considered rather shallow. He also is impressive in his balanced view of events - I stand in admiration of his considered appraisal of all that had happened, which sounds so balanced and thoughtful, even down to his fair descriptions of his father.

As I am presently working in a book in which he plays quite a minor role, it feels like opening a door to a whole new world of understanding. Rather than seeing Queen Victoria's family solely from the perspective of her children and grandchildren, it's interesting to see how they appeared as parents. In truth, nothing is ever as it seems, is it?

Please, kind people who drop by here, don't stop visiting because there is a delay in updating this blog...Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos, taken last week, of May time in the woods and gardens of Temple Newsam...

The Kaiser's Sons

The Kaiser's sons were an interesting group of men, weren't they? There are strange parallels with the sons of Britain's George V. An eldest Crown Prince/Prince of Wales who clashed endlessly with his father; a lonely young man who became overweight to compensate for his sense of being misunderstood; a son who contracted a morganatic marriage (around the time the Kaiser was visiting Franz Ferdinand, whose morganatic marriage was such a burden to him); a son who suffered a nervous breakdown (or shell shock??) during World War I; a son who was gay and a son who became addicted to alcohol and gambling (and eventually killed himself). It's endlessly fascinating the way that family patterns work out in the next generation and the next and the next until someone breaks the chain and says, "Enough!".

For any soldier serving in World War I, the horrendousness of the situation must have been unbearable but that trauma must have been multiplied for a son of the Kaiser, coming home to a country in turmoil, and all you once believed and lived being swept away in so short a time. Imagine being the son of a man who was such a bundle of contradictions, who envied you and maybe loved you and played you off as a pawn against your grandmother and then whose throne was swept away and all you had been brought up to believe would one day be yours had suddenly turned to dust!

What's fascinating, though, is that the children of Tsar Nicholas II had a father who simply loved them and had nothing to prove. George V and Kaiser Wilhelm had major 'hang-ups' and their children seemed to bear the brunt of it....Family patterns, following family rules - so much 'stuff' being placed on the shoulders of the next generation - from a psychological point-of-view it is endlessly absorbing and there is so much to learn....

The Kaiser in the First World War

Throughout the First World War Kaiser Wilhelm seemed to go into a sort of manic-depressive state. One minute he was elated and filled with wild notions ranging from rage and anger (about killing all the Russian prisoners of war) and the next taking to his bed for in utter despair. If 'Willy' were responsible for the war, as was suggested afterwards by those who wanted to bring him to trial for war crimes, he would be a real criminal, but the truth is that he wasn't responsible for it at all. He was a puppet. He called himself the All Powerful, and he played in his uniforms and parades but his generals and war council played him to the full.

I wonder sometimes which would be worse for Willy: to feel himself responsible for all that carnage, which he did not want, or to view himself as insignificant and at the mercy of his ministers. The propaganda of the time portrayed him as a monster but he never actually commanded an army or captained a ship. He played - Nero-like, he fiddled while Rome burned. Poor, poor man - he was just a little boy playing and never realising that those around him were taking his game as reality.

The photos of him during his exile in Holland, show the face of a man filled with sorrow. I guess, for appearance sake, he played his part to the end - his memoirs are filled with untruths (such as what he wrote of Tsar Nicholas in the run-up to the war) - but in his heart, he must have been feeling bewildered beyond belief. He might have liked to have been the monster on the propaganda posters, rather than the poor little boy and sad man he became.

I can't help liking him.

"What Is Truth?"

There's a profound irony in Pontius Pilate's question, "What is Truth?" isn't there? Whether it was said as an attempt to dismiss the profundity of the Man he was about to hand over for crucifixion, or asked as a genuine question, I don't suppose he really wanted to hear an answer.

It's a question that continues to haunt us through the ages. Looking through the annals of history, so little of what is perceived as 'truth' tells the whole story. Events can be reported factually but there is a great deal of difference between facts and truth. Events can be reported untruthfully, but there might be a grain of truth even in the lie. History is usually written by the victors but the victors' triumph is often temporary and a century or two later, someone arrives with a different version of the story.

After researching a little of the life of Franz Ferdinand (whose murder sparked the outbreak of the First World War) I find myself surround by so many different viewpoints about the subsequent events. The initial reaction is that so many people used his death to their own ends. There was the vile Montenuovo, who so cruelly sabotaged the funeral of Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife by denying the public the opportunity to pay their last respects by arranging for the train, bearing their bodies home, to arrive late in the night and ensuring they had only the shortest time to lie in State (with Sophie's coffins considerably lower than Franz Ferdinand's). There was Von Hotzendorf baying for war, and Berchtold and the rest of the 'war party' using the tragedy to their own ends...and into the slaughter. These same people hated Franz Ferdinand and saw his death as a relief, while using it as an excuse to further their own ends in a show of self-righteousness. It's the 'truth' of little boys. The 'truth' of gangs and gangland killings and it is nonsense. It's the idea that 'truth' means upholding whatever we happen to believe and so it goes on throughout ages.

What if we all found our own truth? What if we turned to our own demons and outed them rather than projecting them; and then turned to our own beauty and lived it - lived our own lives and our dreams, lived our reality, without a need to make someone else wrong, or to avenge perceived attacks? Then, we would know the Truth and the Truth would make us free. Alas, in this world, we complicate so many things and make people innocent or guilty; decide that the world is wrong because it doesn't match our version of Truth; or else we hand over all of our power to ministers who, we think, know better than we do but who are really equally small beings seeking their Truth but, often, finding it easier to impose notions onto others than to look inside themselves and see what is driving them.

"What is Truth?" said Pilate.

"I am." sounds like the most accurate reply.

Helen's Nose, Willy's Arm

Some wise person whom I cannot remember once pointed out that 'if Helen of Sparta's nose had been half an inch shorter" it would have changed the whole course of history. The reference is, of course, to the Trojan Wars as described by Homer, wherein Helen - she whose face 'launched a thousand ships' - was abducted by the Trojan, Paris, which led to the decade long battle and siege. Had she been less beautiful, (her nose half an inch shorter) the war might never have happened.

Had the German Kaiser Wilhelm II's disabled arm been a few inches longer, would it have changed the course of history? I doubt it, really, because - like young lads spoiling for a fight - the ministers of most European countries were so geared up for war that it seemed inevitable. It would, however, have made a great deal of difference to Wilhelm himself. His was such a difficult birth that the doctors had almost given up on his chances of survival and, as he wasn't breathing, wrenched his limb and shoulders to such an extent that his arm failed to grow properly and remained quite useless - and quite an embarrassment - to him. Throughout his early years, he suffered greatly at the hands of doctors using various unhelpful appliances to try to make the arm grow. He could not ride without falling from his horse, found it impossible to use cutlery and, most humiliating of all, overheard whispers that a 'one armed man could never be Kaiser.' It says a great deal for his own strength of character that he learned to ride skillfully and overcame this disability, even succeeding, by the use of pockets or selected poses, in hiding the deformity on his photographs. Original film footage, however, shows his difficulties far more clearly. What today would seem like nothing, at that time seemed like a major handicap for a Prussian King and German Kaiser and the saddest part of his story is that somehow he held his English mother responsible for it. Alternatively hating and adoring her, he likewise hated and adored all things British. His English grandmother, Queen Victoria, was someone whom he deeply loved but his mother, the Empress Frederick, seemed to epitomise to him some mythical ideal that had let him down so badly.

Everything about him was driven to proving himself: proving that he was powerful in spite of his arm, and proving that he could surpass his mother and all that she stood for (read 'Britain') in every way. Had he been as powerful and autocratic a ruler as he thought he was, he might have succeeded in preventing the outbreak of WWI, but in reality, his ministers paid him little attention and everything was already signed and sealed to prove German supremacy in Europe in 1914. He was such a beautiful and attentive-looking young boy and the tragedy is that, behind that stiff moustache and all the medals and uniforms, the little boy is always visibly searching for acceptance.

'Willy' unfortunately came down through British history as some cartoon character whom we defeated. In fact, Kaiser Wilhelm II was, in my opinion. forever a lost little boy, playing at being a brave man and wanting to feel loved. Had his arm been a few inches longer, things might have been very different. What a shame that we pay so much attention to appearances!

"The Weak & Ignorant Tsar"

There have been so many television programmes - not to mention the countless books and forums and websites - in which professors sit in their university studies making pronouncements about the weakness of the 'ignorant' Tsar Nicholas II. On one such programme a 1 minute clip of film footage of the Tsar dancing with his daughters on the Imperial Yacht was used to demonstrate that he spent his life in the lap of luxury frittering away the hours in amusements. Interesting how an oft-repeated lie is taken as truth.

Imagine if you - and only you, one person - were faced with trying to sort out the the present situation in Afghanistan and the recent conflict in Iraq , together with all that happened in Serbia and Bosnia a couple of decades ago, and on top of that you were personally responsible for the well-being of 180 million people from different cultures in one of the largest empires on earth, and in the middle of a time of great change through industrialisation and the speed of advances in technology...oh and you also had a son, whom you loved very deeply, who was seriously ill and a wife who was badly treated by your own family, and that same family had, for the most part, decided not to support you...Well, that is a little of what the 'weak' and 'ignorant' Tsar Nicholas faced every day. It wasn't his choice. He would have liked to have lived a simple life on a Dacha somewhere, caring for his family and spending his time outdoors, but he had been saddled with this responsibility and with more moral courage than any of his contemporaries he tried to rise to that challenge.

In 1913, while King George V (who is never described as 'weak' or 'ignorant') shot over 1000 pheasants in one day for 'sport' or pored over his precious stamp that had cost him over £1000, and while Kaiser Wilhelm strutted around in his uniforms, laughing too loudly and playing at being a king, the weak Tsar, Nicholas, who frittered his life away in luxury, was spending all day and most of the night trying to resolve the crisis in the Balkans. He wrote to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, offering to arbitrate between them and even when 'Foxy Ferdinand' of Bulgaria, refused to listen and sent his troops into a disastrous campaign, Nicholas had the foresight to realize that if the Bulgarians were humiliated by their defeat, it would lead to resentment and future carnage. Nicholas successfully persuaded his ally, Serbia, to relinquish some of their gains to Bulgaria. Meanwhile, he was faced with the problems of German interests in Persia (Iraq) and trying to maintain the balance of power to prevent the outbreak of war.

These are some of the most complex problems in modern history and even today they have not been resolved no matter how many government departments have tried to resolve them. Nicholas faced these problems alone and spent his time in his simple surroundings (so different from how they appeared to the outside world - see Marie of Roumania's description of how the glittering appearance of palaces changed the minute one stepped over the threshold into the simplicity of his surroundings) working from dawn till dusk trying to do the best for his people. Would any of those professors in their ivory university towers have been more capable of solving so many issues? Would they have been willing to sacrifice all that they really wanted in order to carry out their duty as Nicholas did?

A weak Tsar? Well, was Kaiser Wilhelm ever described as weak? No, he just liked to dream of power and loved his uniforms and strutting about, so he must have been strong. Was George V ever described as weak? No, he shot thousands of birds and so proved himself to be a real man! Franz Ferdinand, Franz Josef, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Ferdinand of Roumania....was any other ruler at the time described as 'weak'? No, only Nicholas, and I have yet to hear one single reason why he, the strongest of all of them, deserves the horrendous epithet of 'the weak Tsar.'

Some have greatness....

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them" wrote Shakespeare in 'Twelfth Night'.

The major front-of-house players on the world stage in 1914 were mostly those who had greatness thrust upon them. Franz Josef became Emperor of Austria in 1848, at the age of 18, due to the mental difficulties of his uncle and predecessor. Nicholas - at 26 - became Tsar of Russia in 1894 due to the untimely death of his father. George of Great Britain became king due to the premature death of his brother, Albert Victor; and Wilhelm II became Kaiser due to his father's throat cancer. With the exception of Wilhelm (who was busy working out the problems of his malformed arm and difficulties with his relationship with his mother) none of these men actively sought power but became the front men for the biggest disaster in history. Behind them, of course, were the same unseen 'dark forces' that continue to this day - the forces of those who 'achieve' greatness, or rather snatch at an idea of 'greatness' and power through sheer arrogance.

Across Europe in the years leading up to 1914, there was a restlessness - women were no longer content to remain disenfranchised; the industrial revolution had led people from their more natural way of life to living by the clock in slum dwellings and that couldn't continue; the population had increased and people were suddenly being herded into jobs which crushed their spirit by unscrupulous factory owners. In such a state of unhappiness, the idea was born that the king/Tsar/Kaiser was responsible for all of this dissatisfaction but in fact it was nothing to do with any of these men all of whom (excepting, perhaps, George of Britain) were victims of their greatness.

Of these 4 kings, the one who has received the greatest criticism is Nicholas, Tsar of All the Russias. So often he has been written off by historians as 'weak' but this is such a glib comment that is merely folk lore. Nicholas went out of his way to avoid the catastrophe of war. He was battling not only against those 'dark forces' of industrialists and bankers who had already decided that war was the best way to acquire wealth, but also against the rising tide of change within his own Empire. When push came to shove, George was most cowardly, in my opinion. Changing his name to Windsor to sound more English, he abandoned his close ally, cousin and friend, Nicholas to save his own skin. Franz Josef, having endured the dramatically tragic deaths of his brother, son and wife, gave up the fight and passed on. Wilhelm, I think, tried to make amends by offering safe haven to his 'enemy' Russian cousins, then fled to Holland but he was already powerless because his ministers had taken over. Nicholas, however, stood by his army, abdicated so as not to turn his army on his own people and suffered the indignity and humiliation of abdicating so as not to be unfaithful to his allies. Of the 4 of them, who behaved with the greatest courage right to the end? The 'weak' Nicholas!

Who came next in these countries? Power seeking psychopaths like Lenin (riddled with syphilis), Stalin (mass murderer), Hitler...massive propaganda machines...and what is happening today in the way of propaganda?

The most fascinating thing about history is that - as so many things in life - nothing is ever as it first appears! The most fascinating thing about the news is also that nothing is ever as it first appears. Let's be awake and aware and not be hoodwinked into believing more untruths.

True Courage

Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig - "Ernie" - of Hesse is, in my opinion, one of the overlooked heroes of history and, had he happened to be born on the winning side in the First World War, he would probably have been hailed as such. One interesting fact is that a man who is so frequently (thanks to the gossip of his first wife) described as effete proved to be so heroic during the German defeat and overthrow of the Kaiser and the monarchy.

Overshadowed in history, perhaps, by his sisters, the Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Ernie was unsurprisingly a deeply sensitive soul. Not only must he have felt (as children take these things upon themselves) in some way responsible for the death of his little brother, Frittie, who died as a result of haemophilia after falling from a window while waving to Ernie, but then, for the death of his mother. While Ernie was recovering from diphtheria, his mother, distraught at his grief for the death of his little sister of the same illness, removed the mask she was wearing to keep her from contracting the infection, and kissed him to comfort him. As Disraeli told the British Parliament, it was literally a kiss of death. Poor Ernie, at only 10 years old, how he must have interpreted that!

When Ernie was in his early 20s his father died and he became Grand Duke of Hesse-and-By-Rhine. He was a very popular Grand Duke, and undoubtedly had inherited his mother's common touch, along with his father's love of the grand duchy. He was also, like so many members of his family, a gifted artist. Queen Victoria, feeling that he was incapable of managing the Grand Duchy alone, all but forced him to propose to his cousin, Victoria Melita ("Ducky") of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg. The main reason, as I see it (and, of course, who can tell what goes on in someone else's marriage?), for the failure of the marriage was that Ducky was already in love with another man, was too temperamental and flamboyant for the grand duchy, and Ernie may or may not have been more attracted at that age to men than his wife. The death of their daughter was yet another tragedy for Ernie. His marriage to his second wife, however, appears to have been very happy.

Where he really comes into his own, however, and shows his true spirit is during the war. When the rest of Europe was caught up in that manic euphoria of war, Ernie (taken from Charlotte Zeepvat's beautiful book, "Queen Victoria's Family") wrote, "It was a terrible time when men were fired by an excitement and enthusiasm one simply cannot imagine. Throughout the day and night, people sang patriotic songs at the tops of their voices...It was an indescribably feeling, to hear these young men's voices raised in song in the darkness, and to know they were all marching to death. Often it was unbearable."

He was not a brainless thug, obviously! And yet, when revolution came and the Kaiser fled to Holland, and the Kaiser's brother, Henry, commander of the Navy, had to tie red flags to his car to escape from Germany, brave Ernie sat in Darmstadt and waited for the revolutionaries to arrive. He didn't flinch or flee as the others did. He remained calm and greeted them as fellow Hessians. So touched were the revolutionary soldiers by his courage, that he was allowed to keep his estates....Who was the most courageous? The ones who strutted in a macho manner and spoke of the glories of war, or the one who sat there calmly at the end, having seen what the outcome would inevitably be?

A life utterly blighted by tragedy (the death of his little brother and sister, his mother, his daughter...the murder of two of his sisters and 4 of his nieces and his nephew....(and very soon after his own death in 1937, the Hessian tragedy reached a dramatic and tragic conclusion in a terrible plane crash....but that's another story). I deeply admire this man.

The Average Family Gathering

If, in the midst of organizing Christmas gatherings and accommodating various - sometimes contrary - characters in families, it is worth sparing an amused thought for Queen Victoria and the challenge she faced in the organization of her Golden Jubilee celebrations. Apart from the representatives from so many corners of her Empire, the more pressing concern was where to house and seat different members of her own family.
Buckingham Palace itself was bursting at the seams; the Duke of Edinburgh had offered the use of Clarence House, and the Prince of Wales was open to guests at Marlborough House. Nonetheless, it would require very careful and tactful planning to ensure that everyone was housed with 'suitable' companions.
Her grandson, the future Wilhelm II, was originally not invited, since his father, the future Frederick III, would be representing the Kaiser. 'Willy' however was angling for an invitation and, to keep Willy's mother, Crown Princess Victoria, happy, Queen Victoria agreed to invite him. He would have to be kept away from his aunt, Beatrice, and his cousin, Victoria of Hesse, since their husbands were 'Battenbergs' and, to Willy's mind, not sufficiently royal or 'of the blood'. His own sister, Moretta, was as that time, still hoping to marry a third Battenberg brother, Sandro - a notion which Willy and his paternal grandfather refused to even consider.
Willy's father, diagnosed with throat cancer, needed to be housed in a place where he could enjoy quiet after the celebrations; and then there was Willy's sister, Charlotte, who was known for making a scene and for whom, the Queen decided, the possibility of staying with her Uncle Bertie - with his 'fast set' - at Marlborough House was hardly appropriate.
Much as the Queen was looking forward to meeting Ella (Grand Duchess Elizabeth) again, she was certainly not so enamoured at the prospect of having to entertain Ella's husband, Serge.
On top of a myriad of other children and grandchildren and their spouses, were the Indian Maharajas and the splendid Queen of Hawaii (whose position in the order of precedence irked Willy, who ridiculously believed that a European prince should come before a black Queen!).
All things considered, the average family gathering is very easily arranged!