The King, the Kaiser & the Tsar

in the draper's hall in the city of london a scene is being filmed which took place at buckingham palace in 1911. stephen polyakov famous for his dramas which he not only directs but also writes has turned his attention to the haunting and unknown story of george v and queen mary's youngest son johnny the lost prince we see the story through johnny and his brother george's eyes the eyes of a child the story spans the period from just before the first world war to its end and this documentary gives a picture of the epic history behind the drama before the first world war europe was dominated by the pomp and splendor of the royal and imperial courts nearly every country was a monarchy and the greatest monarchs of them all were the three cousins the king the kaiser and the tsar our story starts in 1910 with the grand state funeral of johnny and george's grandfather edward vii the end of the edwardian mirror behind the dead king the last great parade of the regal the kaiser of germany the boy one day to be edward viii alfonso of spain heads and representatives from every state in the world positively the last appearance of the greatest show on earth i knew a little bit about prince john and the story of prince have been hidden away from fragments that i read in in various um histories and things and i was so haunted by this story of this this boy the stare his short life spans the height of the warning era and then the first world war and how he viewed although he was hidden away he saw clay's hand the chaos and panic that engulfed his own family the king and queen and also the other royals and i became very intrigued looking at history through a child's eye it would be better if all the people over there wanting black you know who that is can you see him standing just like that doorway covering bill the emperor of germany and how about this one the person there he's just moved the one by that column the king of grace the powers unfortunately there's uncle fritz grand duke of mack i nearly got it the grand duke of mecklenburg's trailers [Music] this scene is a reconstruction of the photograph of the nine kings um which was taken on the day of edward the seventh funeral kaiser was here um the king of denmark in spain king bulgaria um various other kings i wanted to be their cousin bill basically this is my family the kaiser is played by david barris george v by tom hollander having read the script you see what it is that's um what version of a person it is they're trying to create and in this instance it's somebody who's dwarfed by his surroundings he was very desolate he missed his father tremendously he felt inadequate both physically and mentally he didn't feel he was up to the job he was desperately nervous the interesting fascinating thing about the plato is that the kaiser is in the back row behind george v directly maybe not one of the great moves of history putting him in the back row of this famous baseball anyway we've reconstructed it with again a little bit of humor seen through the children's point of view but this was an extraordinary photo unbelievable the medals they were wearing the original shows them in a sort of extraordinary ruratonian dream which was going to be shattered within four years the raritanian dream was really queen victoria's creation a dream to people the crowns of europe with her own dynasty her own children and her own grandchildren [Music] from buckingham palace she and her beloved husband the german prince albert would spread their influence not only across the great british empire but right across the empires and monarchies of europe and at first it seemed to work their nine children married one after another into all the ruling families so by 1910 victoria's grandchildren were perfectly placed her first william was the german kaiser her granddaughter alexandra was married to nicholas ii tsar of all the russians her grandson george v was king of great britain and emperor of india the rest known as the royal mob were all intermarried and interrelated if things at buckingham palace didn't always run to victoria's grand plan well they could always be fixed george v was never meant to be king but when his elder brother died prematurely george inherited not only his brother's title but his brother's fiance as well princess mayoftech was a minor and impoverished royal from the german branch of the family she was bright and nice quite pretty even with a strong sense of duty it was opposite uh you know from a worldly point of view a terrific step up i mean after all she was going to be queen of great britain she would never be short of money again and uh she had this terrific reverence for the british monarchy and the history of the british monarchy so i mean for her it was like wonderland they were betrothed in may and married in july it could hardly have been any quicker queen victoria very much uh managed that relationship uh it's very difficult to say did they love each other not at first perhaps but to their own surprise they soon did my own darling sweet name although i am simply overwhelmed with letters thank god we both understand each other and i think it really unnecessary for me to tell you how deep am i lasting my thoughts and in my dreams ever your own most loving and devotee georgie at the time of their coronation in 1911 jordan mary had been happily married for 18 years queen victoria had chosen well they had six children so plenty of heirs and mary's love and devotion helped george through what he saw as the terrible burden of monarchy queen mary ladier by miranda richardson was by now 43. mary's often cast party world like this great liner this this sort of you know battleship liner in edward mrs simpson and i think everybody thinks of queen mary never having been remotely young and always being bit of a battle axe but if you look at the photos she's actually um a very handsome woman before the first world war and um i wanted to suggest that for me what was important was that she stated she wasn't able to get her personality across that was something that she felt very deeply sorry about but she's always aware of her duty and responsibility and protocol so that she will always do what is right and seemingly in situation she was completely necessary to to george together they managed the ordeals of court life but what george longed for was the quiet life the simple life and this he got at york cottage on the sandringham estate york cottage was small by royal standards and that is exactly why george liked it it was so small they could scarcely all fit in the children shared the tiny rooms at the top of the house the private secretaries had to do their work in their bedrooms the only telephone was in the hall the servants had to be villaged out to cottages on the estate it was too small to put up visitors and that was even better after a quiet family supper george liked to read the papers or do his stamp collection mary liked to have a cigarette and do her knitting at your cottage george and mary lived the life they liked best a life very like the suburban lives of most of their subjects george and mary loved being at your cottage they were probably happier than anywhere else nearly every contemporary that visited them there was astonished to find the king queen of england in these tiny little rooms um squashed into this um small dwelling the other main room at york cottage was the school room where mr hansel played here by john sessions taught the royal children georgie was bright but the rest were not the worst were the two eldest boys david and bertie one was bad and thick and one was good and thick um and of course the father was the thickest of the lock george v and shooting was really what he liked doing like sailing shooting collecting stamps and his wife wouldn't be difficult to be better educated than poor george v whose our upbringing was not intellectual by any means and in fact he disliked intellectuals he used to call them eyebrows spell e y e b r o w s which i'm not sure if he really knew it was a joke or not every year the royal mob liked to get together on the isle of wight for cows week in 1909 bazaar and his family came from russia it may have been enjoyable but again george made sure they couldn't stay their house spartan manner was much too small for visitors nicholas ii of all the russia's was the last of the autocratic rulers he held absolute power over an empire so vast that when the sun rose on one side it was already setting on the other the capital of the empire was petersburg and here nicholas ii held his court his palaces were so golden and so grand that his subjects most of whom were illiterate peasants living in extreme poverty saw them as a kind of heaven and the tsar as a kind of god [Music] caught life centered around an endless series of church rituals royal processions and military parades tsar nicholas his wife alexandra and their five children proceeded from one grand palace to another throughout the year but their favorite place the place they thought of as home was the by their standards modest alexander palace at sasko sila brazar's village 15 miles outside saint petersburg here they lived a relatively quiet domestic life firmly organized by alexandra alexander was german but she was also a granddaughter of queen victoria so she liked around their lives very much along english lines five o'clock tea with milk was a must it was all established by his wife cesarean uh then nicholas liked very much sports in the open air he did rowing tennis like george v he was in a way very simple man nicholas had one great strength he loved his wife alexandra when they were apart they wrote each other love letters all in english because it was the only language they had in common but this loving couple had a problem everyone expected the young zarina to give russian uzar and they had four girls one after another one after another and only then in 1903 she produced the son alexey and what a tragedy it was their son alexey had inherited the bleeding disease hemophilia her four daughters maria tatyana olga and anastasia were all fine healthy young women but they couldn't inherit the imperial throne only alexey victoria's great grandson who had to be carried everywhere for fear of an accident which might start the bleeding could inherit the throne and continue victoria's dynasty alexandra in desperation turned to a healer called rasputin he had somehow a power to calm this boy to help his boy when he was ill this gave rasputin a great influence over alexandra and in many ways has colored the history of russia towards the end of the regime straight through to your first position stephen polyakov is interested in the close relationship between the two families especially the relationship between the two cousins georgie and nikki in this scene the russian imperial family comes to the isle of wight for another royal gathering to meet their cousins sail their yachts drink tea and speak english there was a general intermingling of the two families and there was a famous photograph of george and um the russians are um taken together they're linked in a strangely awkward rather touching pose rather haunting that um you know only six seven years later he was going to not come to his cousin's rescue it was a very close relationship king george v and the psalm nicholas ii their mother's resistance they both had um these little beards they both had rather protruding blue eyes and that way they were in many ways very like the other cousin who never missed the family gathering at cows was willie the german kaiser but willie wasn't one of the popular members of the family he was a neurotic man suffering from a kind of megalomania everything german had to be bigger and better willie wanted an empire like his cousins georgie and nikki and his palace of potsdam would be the great centerpiece [Music] willie was born with a withered arm and whether it was this or his difficult relationship with his mother vicky queen victoria's eldest daughter which helped give him his inferiority complex it's difficult to tell but by the time he was in his teens he was obsessed with everything military everything his parents hated he very much loved dressing up he dressed up all the time he was always asking if they went out um what other uniform he should wear and um there were thousands of photographs taken of him in different positions and in different uniforms as all sorts of ruffles and wigs and all sorts of things he was a born actor he loved it everything he did was like going on stage there was a kind of braggart he was a a show off they say that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding he wanted to be the corpse at every funeral he simply always wanted to hold the center of attention [Music] once in power willy's megalomania knew no brands he already had the might of the prussian army behind him but now he began to build up his navy as well determined to challenge britain's mastery of the seas he was now the kaiser he was in power and he could finally live all his lavishness and all his power he had ever dreamed of he he built palaces which were so sumptuous and lavish one can't even imagine he brought a luxury yacht that he liked to um sail on which was with a lot of white and gold he got a lot of shooting kit um to go hunting and he loved his parades he got a royal train everything that goes with a big pompous pageant really he was the main actor in it his palace at potsdam had 84 bedrooms which was centrally heated and had electric lighting throughout the ensuite bathrooms had hot and cold running water all he needed now was a grand occasion to show it all off the wedding of his daughter princess victoria louise in 1913 was the perfect opportunity the royal mob descended on germany in their royal yachts and their royal trains delighted to celebrate yet another suitable marriage but george v and queen mary had been firmly told by their government that this could only be a private visit a family affair and in no sense a state visit willy might be a cousin he was making too many war-like noises for the british government's liking so the emperors and empresses royal and serene highnesses dukes and archdukes clan princes and princesses paraded and celebrated and feasted later they danced and twirled together in the grand ballroom how could they know that this would be the last dance the end of an era the end of victoria's dynastic dream was lord stamford his private secretary played here by bill nye lord zamfadam was the perfect courtier discrete albane and utterly loyal queen victoria had personally selected him because she could be sure stamford would know how to offer discreet help where it was needed he was the man that george v did once describe as the person who had taught him how to be king his job was to remain passive and to be unreadable upgraded at the time war was in the air an anxious george wrote from windsor castle to his cousin nikki in some petersburg windsor castle june 16 1914 my dearest nikki you will remember the very satisfactory conversations we had last year in berlin when we both entirely agreed upon the great importance of maintaining the most friendly relations between our two countries i confess that i feel so anxious upon this subject that i write this private letter to explain what is causing me this anxiety i remain always your devoted old friend and cousin georgie [Music] [Applause] back in the city of london stephen poliakoff is filming another scene at buckingham palace which shows that whilst george may have been worried about a possible war with europe in july 1914 he was much more worried about a problem a lot near her home ireland this is the irish conference that happened in buckingham palace i thought it was very interesting that something that still haunts us was very much on their minds at that precise moment just at the point where the western world was going to go completely mad the place the world went mad was the balkans at sarajevo the capital of a region called bosnia on the 28th of june 1914 archduke franz ferdinand heir to the austro-hungarian empire went on a royal visit as he and his wife sat side by side in a car greeting the public a man left out and shot them the bosnian serb fighting for bosnia to be given back to serbia [Music] if you've lost your heir to the throne as austria has you feel you have to do something so you declare war on who you imagine is responsible serve it but you don't really mean it how can you not really mean it all the austrian generals are on holiday so are the german generals and so we absolutely you don't declare war when everyone's on holiday and not have them return so it's purely for sure and that's how it will stay just so long as russia doesn't get everybody excited doesn't decide to mobilize its army to come to the aid of serbia and so the russian army was mobilized but behind the scenes the royal cousins were keeping in touch before the war was actually declared the kaiser tsar and george v they're writing frantically telegrams to each other and they hope that they could somehow stop the war happening they assumed that as they were all cousins they could somehow bring a certain influence to bear that turned out to be nonsense because they had no personal power anymore but there's something they didn't actually realize at the time 4th buckingham palace i held a council at 10 45 to declare war with germany it is a terrible catastrophe but it is not an enormous crowd collected outside the palace we went on the balcony both before and after dinner the cheering was terrific in the first few days thousands of young men volunteered to fight the hun not thinking perhaps that the han was doing the same and so was the russian and so was the frenchman [Music] now the whole of europe lined up for war germany supporting austro-hungary declared war on serbia and montenegro when russia came to serbia of aid germany declared war on russia as well two days later germany declared war on russia's ally france on the 4th of august when germany invaded belgium britain entered the war [Music] and so began a war more terrible than anyone could have imagined a war which was meant to last no more than a few months but went on for four interminable years four years of trenches four years of mud four years of gaining a few hundred yards of french soil and then losing it again four years of maiming and blinding and gassing and death i think that a george v found visits to the troops anguishing i think he really felt the strain because he knew what was going on he could read the casualty list he wrote to queen mary once saying if it were not for your support i think i would have had a breakdown [Music] yeah look straight towards queen mary found her own way of helping the war effort she went to many many hospitals literally hundreds of hospital visits sometimes three or four during one day and she was very distressed by what she saw um she recalled in her diary how pitiful it was to see the men's injuries um this did not mean that she questioned obviously the war or why they were fighting it and quite the contrary i think it reinforced her determination that that we should win it we commend you for your service [Music] just to be a royal presence like a sort of ministering angel was the hope visiting these incredibly young men some of whom have had devastating injuries and i think for many people it probably did have a profound fact [Music] as the war went into the second terrible year and then the third life at the front got worse and worse the generals on both sides found it hard to change tactics it was stalemate the war could not be worn they thought unless you hurled enormous numbers of men against each other in the trenches on the western front hundreds of thousands of of casualties marked every big battle at the battle of loose battle of the song passion dale i mean absolutely tragic [Music] things were much the same on the german side the kaiser's grand plan for a glorious prussian victory had come to nothing it had all gone terribly wrong and there was nothing he could do about you he had always spoken about war and he had had all these um bloodthirsty words but he had never thought about the deed and what it would mean the power was taken by the generals and ludendorff and hindenburg they outmaneuvered him totally the kaiser who started out with a war assuming that uh he would have i think that he would take control as the war went on saves revealed for what he was really an empty barrel he simply had no idea of how a campaign should be conducted and in the end he simply stayed near headquarters congratulating the soldiers handing out medals inspecting troops this is really what he was best at what he preferred to by 1916 things were changing in london in december the liberal lloyd george became prime minister he simply refused to supply the thousands of men the generals required at home he encouraged george v to set a good example to the people and give up alcohol which was causing a drink problem with munitions workers george v agreed based at buckingham palace he and queen mary worked all day and rarely dined out in the evenings they shut down balmoral and turn some of the royal gardens over to potatoes they disapproved of the rich who carried on much as usual whilst the poor had to queue for food they complained to the government that five shillings was not enough for a war widow's pension at south casino the news from the eastern front was bad sar nicholas decided it was time to take a firmer grip on his generals [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] by 1916 the soldiers on the eastern front were beginning to revolt there were mutinies and discontents spread from the battlefields to the cities where the people were starving there were demonstrations against the government and against the tsarina whom they no longer trust you serena was german by origin and they were rumors that she intrigued in favor of a separate piece with germany that it was a direct connection cable uh from her bedroom to the german military headquarters and she would report everything and not simply the soldiers or uneducated peasants would believe this rubbish and not only in russia in britain as well war-weary people began venting their feelings on local germans it was terrible i mean people would kick dachshunds off the pavement and anyone with a german name if if it was a shop with a german name they'd throw stones through the window and it wasn't only german shopkeepers who were in trouble sax coburg gopher was not a good name for a british king the royal family's german connections now became a real problem what are you talking about there are rumors circulating that we are supporting the german because we have a german name it's so ridiculous isn't it what do they want them saying for us to change our name the genealogists if that's the word did come up with a couple of alternatives one being whipper and the other being wet more both of which i think were eliminated because of uh comic potential and it was in fact stanford who came up with the idea of the house of windsor edward the third we're going back that far my family has nothing in common with evil edward iii was often known as edward of windsor i suppose nowadays it would be called we'll rebrand ourselves and what emerged was the house of windsor and of course it was absolutely brilliant because uh the profile of windsor castle is probably the best known and best loved outside london that there is but in russia nothing could help bizarre george v noted in his diary march 13 1917 bad news from russia practically a revolution has broken out in petrograd and some of the guards regiments have mutinied and killed their officers nikki is at headquarters but nikki was no longer at headquarters as revolution broke out throughout russia he was making his way back to saint petersburg on his royal train halfway there the train was stopped nicholas tsar of all the rashes was forced to abdicate before he could continue his journey back to saskosilo where the family was under house arrest waiting to hear whether they could leave the country and go to england but in england the public was less keen on their arrival at windsor castle a decision was about to be made which was always blamed on the lloyd george government but was in fact the personal decision of nikki's devoted cousin georgie it's becoming increasingly clear to me that because the romanovs are my family it's putting me in a very unfair position unfurl in the sense you are obliged yes i'm obliged because of our ties but it may not be the correct course as a section of the public's feelings hardened stamford wrote urgently to the government from windsor every day the king is becoming more concerned about the question of the emperor and empress coming to this country his majesty receives letters from people of all classes of life saying how much from the first the king has thought the presence of the imperial family in this country would raise all sorts of difficulties the king changed his mind i suspect very strongly put up to this by stanford and stamfordum said what we must do is guard against a surge of republicanism in this country by being associated with a fallen tyrant the rest of that year nicholas and his family were under house arrest at saskocelo still hoping to get to england it's three years since germany declared war on us it's as though we'd lived a whole lifetime in those three years lord help and save russia [Music] the following spring the russian imperial family will move to siberia and later to our house at ekaterinburg nicholas made his last diary entry alexa's knee is getting better but he still can't unbend it completely the weather is warm and pleasant we have no news whatsoever from the outside three days later they were led down the steps to a basement room they were all shot tell me do you really think around a choice by letting them in we could not know how things would develop did we have a choice for the stability of the country i don't think we had a choice with all monarchies self-preservation is the overriding factor more than anything in the world what monarchs want to do is to hang onto their thrones [Music] in germany george's other cousin the kaiser faced his own crisis the people were starving and revolution had spread to the cities once america entered the war it was clear that germany was defeated america was against the old regime of kaisers and emperors and the american president wouldn't make peace unless the kaiser abdicated on november the 9th 1918 he left his fabulous palace at potsdam forever and went into exile in holland and there he remained to the end of his days queen victoria's eldest grandson the very first thing he asked for as he arrived in holland he said now for a nice cup of good english tea and he actually had just spent the last four years fighting britain but what he wanted was like a ladies gentleman a nice cup of english tea the survivors celebrated the end of the war but there were nine million dead and scarcely any victors the old europe the europe of kings and emperors was gone replaced by something new democracy and republicanism had overtaken victoria's dream [Music] the map of europe was now redrawn the biggest change came to the austro-hungarian empire it simply ceased to exist all that was left was austria one-fifth of the former empire hungary became independent czechoslovakia became a republic serves and starves united to become yugoslavia romania having backed the right side doubled in size bulgaria having backed the wrong side was halved poland was carved out of germany and russia alsace lorraine went back to france belgium regained her occupied territory and britain well britain was the only country that never had to change her boundaries and emerged triumphant [Music] on the 11th of november 1918 the people flocked to buckingham they were filled with victory and happiness and relief and now they came to cheer george v and queen mary their king and queen george v the only one of the three cousins to survive as monarch standing on the balcony saluting his people and where was johnny the lost prince on that day perhaps behind an upper window of the palace looking down on all those cheering crowds below looking down on the victoria memorial in front of buckingham palace built to commemorate victoria's dynastic dream a dream which was gone forever [Music] this video is produced within the project for the book the romanov royal martyrs what silence could not conceal which is an impressive 512-page book featuring nearly 200 archival photographs and a 56-page photo insert of more than 80 high-quality images colorized by the acclaimed russian artist olga shernina and appearing here in print for the first time [Music] [Music] [Music] oh

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Rating: 4.8452845 out of 5

Keywords: romanovs, romanov, romanov royal martyrs, Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, Royal Family, Romanov execution, Romanov dynasty, Romanov trailer, Romanov family, Romanoffs, Helen Rappaport, Four sisters, Last Tsar, Ekaterinburg, Olga Shirnina, Anastasia Romanov, Alexandra Feodrovna, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Royalty, British Royalty, romanov family today, romanov family death, romanov coronation, romanov sisters, romanov jewels, romanov saints, romanov book, National Geographic

Id: w8mVGgYSohA

Length: 41min 40sec (2500 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020