ALSO BY MIRANDA CARTER Anthony Blunt: His Lives For Finn and Jesse CONTENTS Family Trees Maps Author’s Note Introduction PART I THREE CHILDHOODS, THREE COUNTRIES WILHELM An Experiment in Perfection 1859 GEORGE Coming Second 1865 NICHOLAS A Diamond-Studded Ivory Tower 1868 PART II FAMILY TIES, IMPERIAL CONTESTS WILHELM EMPEROR 1888–90 YOUNG MEN IN LOVE 1891–94 WILHELM ANGLOPHILE 1891–95 PERFIDIOUS MUSCOVY 1895–97 BEHIND THE WALL 1893–1904 IMPERIAL IMPERATIVES 1898–1901 PART III A BRIGHT NEW CENTURY 10 THE FOURTH EMPEROR 1901–4 11 UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES 1904–5 12 CONTINENTAL SHIFTS 1906–8 13 A BALKAN CRISIS 1908—9 14 EDWARD’S MANTLE 1910–11 15 CELEBRATIONS AND WARNINGS 1911–14 16 JULY 1914 PART IV ARMAGEDDON 17 A WAR 1914–18 EPILOGUE Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Illustrations ... King of Prussia and then Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, enjoyed a long and close friendship with his son, Tsar Alexander II The contradictions in Prussia mirrored the extraordinary heterogeneity... Europe, undefended by natural barriers, always a potential victim for some larger power’s territorial ambitions Territorial expansion had constantly alternated with disaster and near annihilation... the abdication and arrest in March of his cousin the Russian tsar, Nicholas II; the new rumours made him fear again for his position He had always been hypersensitive to criticism and was prone