The Three Emperors

Starred review from February 1, 2010
Historian Carter (Anthony Blunt: His Lives
) delivers an irresistibly entertaining and illuminating chronicle from Queen Victoria's final decades to the 1930s through linked biographies of the emperors of England (George V), Germany (Wilhelm II), and Russia (Nicholas II). Anachronisms presiding over courts that were “stagnant ponds of tradition and conservatism,” the three possessed average intelligence and little imagination. All were unprepared for their jobs and didn't improve with on-the-job training. Most fortunate was George, who performed his purely symbolic royal role dutifully, avoided scandal, and, alone of the three, reigned until his death, in 1936. More colorful but also tactless and unpredictable, Wilhelm took the German throne in 1888, dismissed his long-serving, brilliant chancellor, Bismarck, and launched an erratic reign that contributed to the onset and loss of WWI. Czar Nicholas showed little interest in governing except to oppose reform. In the end, the most violent reformers, the Bolsheviks, murdered him and his family. Readers with fond memories of Robert Massie and Barbara Tuchman can expect similar pleasures in this witty, shrewd examination of the twilight of the great European monarchies. 32 pages of photos, 2 maps.

January 1, 2010
Carter (Anthony Blunt: His Lives, 2002) examines the well-worn but endlessly fascinating history of the tight, treacherous ties that bound the royal families of Europe in the early 20th century.

Queen Victoria's"secret weapon" had been to manage world affairs through the intricacies of her far-flung familial relationships, and all three reigning monarchs by the start of World War I were bound to her by blood and marriage: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, was her first grandchild via daughter Vicky; George V, King of England, was another grandson, via her son Edward VII; and Tsar Nicholas II was married to one of her granddaughters, Alexandra. All three cousins spent time together when they were young, and more or less got along. Carter creates elucidating snapshots of their respective dysfunctional upbringings. Wilhelm, who resented his pushy English mother, exhibited symptoms of"narcissistic personality disorder" and went through a period of Anglophobia (he had insulted his grandmother and the English regarded him as a"bumptious Prussian"), before relations improved with his accession to emperor in 1888. Nicholas had suddenly become tsar with the early death of his father in 1894; terrified and wholly unprepared, he was comforted by his English royal cousins before his inscrutability and"opacity" isolated him in Europe in terms of affairs in Africa, the Ottoman Empire and Manchuria. George, probably dyslexic as well as given to bursts of private rage, became the reluctant king in 1910 and was deeply attached to his entitlement and hostile to change such as socialism and trade unions. When the war in the Balkans broke out, the three cousins found themselves entrenched in"deepening cracks of mistrust and tension," as events slipped beyond their control.

Carter sharply sorts history in terms of the personal ruling styles of these three fallible monarchs.

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March 15, 2010
Carter ("Anthony Blunt: His Lives") offers a multiple biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, and King George Vnot to mention George's father, Edward VIIin a heavily researched effort to prove that the relationship among the German, Russian, and British cousins was largely responsible for the advent of World War I. Carter is insightful about the different personalities of her protagonists, with Wilhelm in particular coming across as an utter lunatic and boor with a tendency toward Anglophilia that ebbed and flowed. Nicholas's aversion to being tsar and willful disinterest in Russia's socioeconomic problems clearly led to distrust, dislike, and eventually the murder of his entire family. Nicholas's mother was the aunt of George V, and Queen Victoria was the grandmother of both George and Wilhelm. Her influence on these men is felt throughout this book. VERDICT Carter's is not a new topic; nor does she truly succeed in laying new responsibility for World War I on these monarchs. While the use of primary sources and of modern methods of assessing personalities does help, readers may also want to consider Catrine Clay's "King Kaiser Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War". Carter's book is good for research assignments and general readers alike. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/1/09; previewed as "The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires, and the Road to World War I".]B. Allison Gray, Santa Barbara P.L., CA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2010
The slippery slope into horrific armed conflict is a tale often told about World War I, but this authors take on the antecedents of the European war of 191418 is distinct. Carter views the shifting alliance entanglements of the Great Powers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and especially the growing animosity and rivalry between Britain and Germany, with particular focus on the attitudes and actions of three royal first cousins: Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, and King George V of Great Britain (who also reigned as emperor of India, hence the books title reference to three emperors). Rich in concrete detail, elegant in style, and wise, fresh, and knowledgeable in interpretation, the authors account observes a profound anachronism at play: that these three monarchs, in what they didnt realize were the waning days of the institution of monarchy, handled foreign diplomacy as if it were a family business. Despite the reality of growing fissures separating their countries, each emperor continued to paper over the cracks with cousinly gestures, each increasingly irrelevant. Europe plunged over the precipice of war in August 1914, revealing in stark terms the inability of royal familial ties to control and contain national disagreements; as the author has it, the fact that Wilhelm, Nicholas, and George were out of touch with actual politics could not have been more apparent. An irresistible narrative for history buffs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2013

Britain, Russia, and Germany's rulers were first cousins with personal and political ties. Carter shows how these old-world rulers operated blind to the new century's realities. (LJ 3/15/10)

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.