A Word on Words; 0923; Robert K. Massie

it's been more than words the program building in the world of books and their author robert j massey talks about brett not germany and the coming of the great euro square were downward mr johnson involved in evening ladies and gentlemen once

again welcome to word on words singing i guess that is an author whose reputation precedes him robert massie it's great to have you on our own words that brought us your new of a great work of nonfiction dreadnought the story of those events that led up to the first world war story a half of his more than it's a book about life royal life events that had brought us literally the age of the world was asked that i have to ask you the outset looking at the size of nine hundred pages however the publisher to agree in this day when publishers as i write short charge a lot how you'd gotten to let you work put together a book of nine hundred pages and to and then it fell about the country promoting

what can i say i i ask them nicely thought they'd rather have a shortage of business of course about that because and as in any with any product or the vigor it is that gm or they feel like a charter they have to charge him and so here here if you're into that sort of mind can we put this price on either one of us are really my problem i i said that from the beginning that this was going to be a day of the book which was to cover this period they knew from peter the great mr nicholas was alexander was a more normal size peter was was nine hundred pages to and i guess the answer is if i drop just one veil of modesty is that having had that very considerable commercial success with peter they figured that i could i

could i could be allowed to do this and they are so that they were never critical of the length video they said to know who will that will do a plywood i have to say looking at it it's challenging i mean there are movie people and book store opens a whole thirty five books and now that the left of the end if they go further they'll miss what the fact is and this is a book about war and peace it's a book about romantics it's a book about politics and government for the fifth highest level the world as it is a wonderful yarn i mean what we have here are all the ingredients the tremendous novel but it's true life in fact

and ann it's cataclysmic in and that it does literally lead the world to the brink of what was then the most devastating war in history begins with the it begins with queen victoria was someone she was in the band and my nfl season begins with the first we'll see is the diamond jubilee naval june at ninety seven when victoria who had been on the throne for sixty years as queen was celebrating and and and although she herself couldn't be president she said her son bertie prince of wales down two to review the royal navy which stretched out thirty miles of

battleships and cruz's mother ships and that he was celebrating out not only hurt the summit of her aimed at the summit of british male supremacy because for the whole nineteenth century since battle for father nelson eliminated the french and spanish navies in the polling threat to invade the british isles the british navy had been on talent there were no other navies of that size and of this seemed to be the safe haven in fact it was the result was a sort of a gold and twilight because that same month june at ninety seven queen victoria's eldest grandchild who was the german emperor kaiser within the second and who because of his british connections or because he had spent his summers on the isle of wight with his grandmother says mother british rather than being being the victors daughter a very dramatic and the young are

young william i will leave the court had spent his cell it's a summer's they're wearing the sale glide across a great naval base portsmouth and semen of warrant before and so when he became german emperor he wanted to flee and he was the he was the ruler of this enormously powerful militarily they're still has stayed in central europe which could afford to build battleships and sell off coincidentally in the same month of june eighteen and seven that the british navy was displaying himself unchallenged william appointed a dynamic young often find treatments to become the navy's minister the german empire triplets went over to the lifesaving plants in berlin and began to plan to build battleships and from that point for the last seventeen years before the first world war the german navy

stroll might've to compete in shipbuilding the british navy and the british of course took note and then took alarm and then they have to respond and that's what the book is about it's about building battleships that also it's about the tensions in the family the diplomatic tensions at center it is about that is about to leave our ships floated is about so much more it is about is a it is about the unique end diverse and complex personalities who interact inside each of these two governments governments that are bound by blood but governments that are separated by ambition and jealousy that fast lane to me that that's a the two governments uncle and nephew

to move each of them were ultimately come to war particularly in light of the fact that great britain i had a natural traditional historic enemies i'm in the french were always glenn beck sure five hundred long as you remember the evil empire is mostly the russians were always there is a as a sort of a secondary threat and part of what this story is about is how willie and garrity managed to let the alliance and get away from him and the blood that turned bad between them right they i think they truly dislike each other a lot as long as the core as queen victoria was alive and he died in ninety one thought she eat in a grandmotherly affection could keep williams willie are under control i mean you i've shown i mention included some wonderful letters which she says

is not that strike was also small boy in the patent says now and willie this isn't the way sovereigns the hadith the year to know that he he came to the throne the very end because his father who was a very a man with a great deal of potential liberal would've taken germany died of cancer ninety nine days after he came to the throne and so willie at twenty nine are still bob chesson envious of jealous and full of then it became german emperor and his uncle that was twenty odd years old when he was was still prince of wales waiting if that's the right term for queen victoria to die so you could become king of england with willie immediately puts them down the prince of wales and yet despite the fact that he put in downtown protocol gurney was far more popular where every way

and an end so the two had this natural this antipathy which did begin to make itself felt in national policy and this is in a sense of one of the things about the theme of the book is that it was williams' love hate and england which dictated the buildings directly which as you said armed i inclined in london and forced it to make relationships on top of the car with her natural and different and in the in the in the air and wound up with great britain and germany which were dynastic we call from economically close the opposite sides agree in the great war ii let's go into willie's so why first of all here his mother and all of us cook on regular clothes

are withered you know a photograph there are these have as love debating a collusion that is that his arm is not short she envisions this child is coming to the throne and really getting a german a sensitive caring concern for for four people a liberal government but early on it seems to me minister alan bismarck courts siobhan really sort of weeds him away from his mother and from frederick fritz her husband who is quite weak and and so he comes to the throne bismarck has them in his pocket and he has come to dislike his love

and those markets in his pocket for about a year after the end of the fascinating about that john is kind of the the interplay of personality and the effects it has on history bismarck who live there are given some space to test even though his wife and essentially anti gates was over buffalo but a lot of the red knot and writing at the diatonic at ninety seven which was the year the book begins but it's given some carry on as like our the bismarck was the titan imperial germany and really of europe in that hole second half of the year of the nineteenth century in bismarck in the second half and napoleon just got to bismarck not only unified germany took always little kingdoms and principalities grand duchy electorate put them in may than the german empire he also wrote the german constitution and this was both his strength and his ultimate i'm doing as he wrote it so that the kaiser german emperor

would have the power to appoint this mess hall on the left of the government including the chance and other rice died the parliament had no power except to approve or disapprove money because they could vote money enough that they could initiate legislation center so that the executive branch is entirely in the hands of the kaiser we turned around and handed if the chance is under old would be in the first ladies' market may temper old william gave a lot of his wife william the first live cannon arm and on and on so that vicki the english princess and her husband ferenc <unk> waited and waited it's it's it's it's of the sounds of cold blooded to say there weren't real man to die but that's the way it is with your heirs to the throne or even vice president thought and he didn't die in twenty twenty funny twenties i seventy five when old wooden finally died friends died ninety nine days thereafter so incomes young william and for

two years or not quite two years he and bismarck at are hints of an uneasy ally bismarck for them is getting giving with him besides a bismarck is making entirely too many decisions he won't give him what he bought including and that is not at all the smartphone called simply and so after our two years wm the second young country uses the power to bismarck road into the constitution fully universal within the first to get rid of this and there's a famous cartoon of dropping the bismarck going down the ladder a witty and white then bismarck is gone although he's in opposition firing broadside that the government some from his retirement and williamson of zigzagged trying to find somebody to run the government decided to do it himself for how much and germany wobble some glitches that involved before we live with that before we deposed this more than

just a little insight to his personality and first fall there was an earlier time when when i guess against well fritz was it not idea he really cracked down on the press cost you should call for a free press and a crackdown on the press anyway does that mean he absolutely he just he just it is wrong right over both frederick and now he's the white ones that now he's as young willie on his aunt willie and a moment of conscience besides that maybe doesn't like i want to be like within the first maybe he'd like to take on songs oh the character then his mother and father envisioned for him and so he proposes labor reforms in child labour take terrible people bismarck says the work on sunday no work on sunday and bismarck says hello we will go and he

cracks down well at the beginning of the brain and then let's examine whether he goes out of his way to say he beat me on this and he's humiliated me on this but i'm i get him and he begins to go around the court individual ministers bismarck felicia are probably an earlier asia might not have done it in bismarck tells the ministers you will not call dominating forty eight i guess we're making fifty two rudy had put it will not visit the sovereign without my permission and literally cuts his own program by so that the interesting thing to me is unwilling for his hard line approach involves cooling on the bismarck still had that desire to be popular and ended it turns up again and again during the book and he was he was a complex human being ourselves and an ambitious and thoughts well also craved popularity

and it and at times was able to get you know john if there is it says a central figure in this book i mean it is not my favorite thing that's jackie fisher odds at it as a central figure in this book in terms of responsibility for war it's when in the second and it is a central figure in terms of the session running away with a book although you know i go off to england for well you do come back to yemen and so forth but the because of the way this marker of the constitution the kaiser was the the key factor he kept he was the one who insisted and the navy and turf it's got it for jesus was every bit as probably more pop organize and kaiser of the kaiser had had this kind of waffling the personality that was williams the decision and his insistence right on through about the german fleet that that alienated great britain so he is

so what i'm trying to show him what i think you're talking about is the fact that just this personality fascinating neurotic dynamic at some point to sympathetic at some points very off putting off what was a key to what happened and that is what i'm trying to say this point well i'm delighted that would have i'm sure our audience is very delighted to know that wouldn't have to weeks to discuss this will be back on with a sign with the sirs i am author and red knot again next week at it to do justice to the scope of of what i consider a literary to afford it really thinks that that serve in it to give justice to both willie on one side birdie on the other both target someone sent

fissure on the others it's important sue mason some exploration all of these avenues and dancing lines a lot to us to give a real sense of the dynamism was at work in those two decades leading up to sue the first world war let's go for a minute a birdie because party and willy for all despite they had huge for the other war in some ways like it seems to me that they were they were like him and in the sense of for example sartorial that they both love tuna four years old loved to put on uniforms and taken off sometimes three four times a day they were both very fond of pomp and ceremony both want to be sure that absolutely everything was done like their stories about a

birdie when he was king edward the seven stepping down from the throne to change a metal from the side of a jeff chester that nothing was so embarrassing to the kaiser as when in the middle of a of a formal parade which is welcoming as a liberal and the horses would move a man to these guys have to get our one can give me any rage to me this kind of thing for import but they're very very good very different really terribly on william was and was faithful to his wife he had many male friends and i was a very recent questions both at the time and in subsequent in history about his sexuality only a dozen children and some some of his very best friends were factual was never any doubt about birdie birdie never actually he was eight ball leave on a womanizer and one of the year the remarkable things was the extent to which his wife queen alexander most beautiful women in europe they have

tolerated this because she decided that to sort of try and fight it would be an impossible and he had a number of mistresses some of the line three years and they're and the last verses couple who was it was a very distinguished lady one of the really touching story that thing is that when the king was dying and pacino bronchitis but was still very conscious his last day the queen asked mrs temple and come to the press and she considers a party now one is defreitas activists are the kaiser and even more the kaiser's wife was a very german you know uptight tight pillar of the church to that to them that can see the senate actually showing disgraceful and and alexander was followed yeah the danish right right donna wright is another been for a moment but but you know the other kaiser look down this is just

how can one this is the behaviour practice question from a hotbed of the scandal any way todd a birdie is infinitely more likable and willie this and but he was he was actually less important because of the british constitution gave the king less power and yet in my in my in my book i shall i think of the situation how in subtle ways his and painted his importance was the manifest itself it was birdie really who brought france and england together he loved france in paris at a force for some other items and wrong but not it with it was his oeuvre his visit to paris when france and england were at odds would pave the way for the diplomatic rapprochement i you know one just great great fun lawyer on the one hand you

have already making those overtures to the french on the other side you have his nephew will it down to my blood in many ways just driving him away insulting and were bothering him stopping him as you say putting him down sometimes to his face for more often when i'm brought into the thing when a year the aim there was a chance of war with the russians in the northwest frontier in willy slaps his uncle claps his uncle assurances so i now you'll be off to india will see what analysts or do you think this is not the kind of thing that it a proud man wants to hear from the summer he regards as an upstart nephew is that what was there was a scene in the book you talked about where he's a youth siding with the british that there's a scene in the book which

really i think is so is it represents the area metaphor for a will is stubbornness renner in gaza and there is a race only i guess is indeed year three witches is his vote there is the american yacht which is absolutely mr aden launches and there was there an m in an engine and anthony marra has the right away in his bearing down on willy man and their wellies served both longmont won't move won't budge and there is this american owner who's sitting there cigar and mouth glaring and his captain is bearing down and it's it's a contest but wilson john ives and i'm delighted you could that's why that's and then i thought that wasn't exactly you've got the metaphor this was actually offer these people were all

a census guests of the kaiser he we would think he could have his way to the american vote was on the starboard tack and i had had the right of way as you say and the kaiser's yacht when they were on a collision course that and the american captain skipper asks the viola and the board and yours is but i got all the way to no man when they're going out they're going to probably a very last minute and last second via germany it comes about it and the kaiser sends over an outdoor to apologize and say it it was his mistake and and as i said that somewhere in the races which went on for ten days in a barbie meet here every time that it's not better but but not enough people think that i mean this is what you do willie was a bully this is what you have to do with police is call their bluff and you know as you know the end of the book one that when when willie's bullying and ginger wind power have brought jared brought you

up to the brink of war suddenly we realize where where they are and doesn't want to go it's too late he came back what it was it was not there was no opportunity to turn away the dead by then the generals would let him and they say this will be a disaster we will we will we come back next week and i'd like to really get that scene at the death of queen victoria where willie torn between love and hate really falls in love at least briefly with a british again you in that moment and i'll do it said it's a telling touching encounter and suddenly birdie and willie art loving uncle and nephew reconcile this reconcile it seemed to me that that that toll is how it might have been but for

some reason couldn't pay you like that same yes i do it's a it's the moment when william was closest to today's english relatives over the deathbed of his grandmother whom he really did not only respect the love and there he is calmly said i want a calm as grandson of novice kaiser and he's he's waiting outside of the immediate family is inside and the sons and he said i will quite understand if i can be robert k massie threat not britain germany and the coming of the great war has been our guest on the word n word jaros is then john sigg and thought this program was produced in the studios of wbez an imagined fb