During the war, his ministers and generals bypassed him, and Ludendorff, especially, became a de facto ruler of the country.
Following the war and his forced abdication, Wilhelm lived in exile in the Netherlands. His cousin, King George, described him as ‘the greatest criminal in history’. The Dutch queen, Queen Wilhelmina, declined ever to meet the fallen Kaiser but when the Paris Peace Conference requested Wilhelm’s extradition to face trial for war crimes, she refused.
In 1940, with Hitler’s armies bearing down on the Netherlands, the Dutch royal family fled to Britain. Wilhelm however did not, even refusing Winston Churchill’s offer of asylum. He preferred instead to live under German occupation, hoping that the Nazis would restore the monarchy. He died the following year.
Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II believed he ruled Russia by divine right and could see no other way but rule by autocracy. He paid little heed to either his advisors or his people, and ignored the political and social unrest fermenting in Russia. That he was despised and considered an anachronism had no effect on the Tsar. No believer in change, he undid the minor reforms he felt obliged to implement following the failed Russian Revolution of 1905.
Tsar Nicholas II, 1909
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress
Following Russian reversals during the early stages of the First World War, he took personal command of Russia’s military, despite having no experience of military matters. It was a fatal error of judgement – because he could no longer blame his generals for the failure of Russia’s armies, defeat was now his personal responsibility. He left the running of the country to his wife, Alexandra, who, in turn, was overly influenced by the mercurial monk, Georgi Rasputin. This, together with the growing disillusionment of war, did nothing to help the Tsar’s cause.
Forced to abdicate in March 1917, following the February Revolution, Nicholas and his family and immediate entourage were imprisoned and held in various safe houses. The British government wanted to offer Nicholas asylum but King George, his cousin, refused it, fearing that the presence of the fallen Tsar in Britain could cause trouble.
On the night of 18 July 1918, they were all shot by the Bolsheviks, probably on the order of Lenin.
King George V
When, in 1917, King George V changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, his cousin, Wilhelm II, joked, ‘I look forward to seeing the Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’. George preferred shooting and stamp collecting than being in the company of politicians or intellectuals. Nor were politicians and intellectuals terribly impressed by the King. During his coronation in 1911, the English writer and caricaturist, Max Beerbohm, dismissed the King as ‘such a piteous, good, feeble, heroic little figure’. And David Lloyd George, on first meeting him, said, ‘The King is a very jolly chap . . . thank God there is not much in his head’.
King George V, 1923
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress
Of the three cousins, George wielded the least power but consequently was the only one to survive in post. He died in 1936 to be succeeded by Edward VIII.
Horatio Kitchener 1850–1916
Lord Kitchener’s face and pointing finger proclaiming ‘Your country needs you’, often copied and mimicked, is one of the most recognizable posters of all time.
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Kitchener first saw active service with the French army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and, a decade later, with the British Army during the occupation of Egypt. He was part of the force that tried, unsuccessfully, to relieve General Charles Gordon, besieged in Khartoum in 1885. The death of Gordon, at the hands of Mahdist forces, caused great anguish in Britain. As commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army, Kitchener led the campaign of reprisal into the Sudan, defeating the Mahdists at the Battle of Omdurman and reoccupying Khartoum in 1898. Kitchener had restored Britain’s pride.
Horatio Kitchener, 1914
Harris & Ewing collection, Library of Congress
His reputation took a dent however during the Second Boer War in South Africa, 1899–1902. Succeeding Lord Roberts as commander-in-chief, Kitchener resorted to a scorched-earth policy in order to defeat the guerrilla tactics of the Boers. Controversially, he also set up a system of concentration camps and interned Boer women and children and black Africans. Overcrowded, lacking hygiene and malnourished, over 25,000 were to die, for which Kitchener was heavily criticized.
The criticism however, did not damage Kitchener’s career. He became commander-in-chief of India, was promoted to field marshal, and, in 1911, Consul-General of Egypt, responsible, in effect, for governing the whole country.
At the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Kitchener was appointed Secretary of State for War, the first soldier to hold the post, serving under Asquith’s Liberal government. Bleakly, he predicted a long war, a lone voice among the government and military elite, for which Britain would need an army far larger than the existing 1914 professional army, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
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