Dirty Bertie

by Stephen Clarke

  As this impressive funeral cortège assembled at Westminster, Wilhelm tried to steal the family show one last time, leaping from his horse as Alexandra’s coach approached, opening the door for her, and kissing her as she emerged.

  Along the route through London to Paddington station, from where the coffin was to be transported to Windsor for the funeral service, people stood silent, their hats off, almost none of them smoking – either as a mark of respect or because they knew what had just killed their sovereign. Many people had laid simple wreaths along the route, and everyone was struck by the dignified calm of the occasion – not one of the 6,000 policemen on duty was forced to make an arrest. There were black-clad spectators at every window, on every balcony and every roof that afforded a view of the long procession of soldiers and dignitaries. Bertie’s body was being escorted by a guard of sailors, perhaps as a posthumous message to Kaiser Wilhelm that Britannia still intended to rule the waves after her great defender was gone.

  The funeral in Windsor was a confused, badly organized affair that would have infuriated Bertie, the stickler for precision and organization. There was no seating plan for St George’s Chapel, so protocol was enforced by mourners being ejected from their pews when a more important guest arrived. It is easy to imagine the mixture of fury and amusement that Wilhelm would have felt as he clung on to his place in the front pew.

  The new King George V had sportingly invited Alice Keppel to the service and she was smuggled in through a cloister door. He also broke with precedence and let his mother follow the coffin down the aisle, which should rightly have been his place as the succeeding monarch. But after so many decades when Alexandra had been forced to take a back seat in her husband’s life, this was her great occasion, and George let her stand alone by the coffin as Bertie was lowered into his final resting place.

  At 11 a.m. that morning, France also said farewell to its favourite Anglais with a funeral service at the English church in Paris, in the rue d’Aguesseau, just around the corner from Bertie’s favourite hotel, the Bristol. It was attended by the country’s top politicians – the Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé, the former Prime Minister and future war leader Georges Clemenceau, and President Armand Fallières (whom Bertie had met), as well as an old guard of powdered aristocrats – Bertie’s friends, his lovers, and failed intriguers from 1870, when France had said adieu to its own last monarch, Bertie’s mentor Napoléon III. It was a sombre occasion. France knew that it had lost probably its closest and most important British ally in all its history.

  IV

  The public grief in Britain was deep and real – deeper than when Victoria died, even though she had been on the throne more than six times longer than Bertie, and had overseen Britain’s rise to the pinnacle of the world’s most powerful empire.

  The explanation for this depth of feeling was Bertie’s human touch. He brought the monarchy out of the closet. He delighted in public ceremonies and managed to say a kind word to every one of his subjects who met him. It was obvious to his people that he was conscious of the privileges he enjoyed, but that he also understood the duties that went with them. More simply, the nation felt that Bertie loved life and wanted everyone else to enjoy it, too.

  What he hated most were people who were incapable of appreciating the pleasures of life: racists, religious bigots and bores. And, of course, warmongers who threatened the peace that allowed him to travel unhindered from one country to the next – from spa to château to hunt to intimate dinner.

  Thanks to Bertie’s obvious sincerity, the ordinary British people no longer begrudged him his pleasures, and forgave all the sins that the Victorians had condemned him for. When he died, even the British press forgot its past moralizing and talked about the nation’s ‘deep sorrow’ for the loss of a ‘common leveller’ and ‘peacemaker’ who had enjoyed ‘one of the most brilliant and fruitful reigns in history’. Bertie had come a long way in a short time.

  He also got glowing write-ups in all the European press. The Russian paper Novoye Vremya (New Time) declared that Edward VII had ‘moulded the destiny of his realm’. In Austria he was hailed as ‘the most influential man of the present day’ and a monarch ‘who had been his own Foreign Minister’. Even the German papers praised Bertie in their own way, with the Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung calling him ‘a victorious antagonist’ and ‘the great adversary, who inflicted inestimable damage upon us’ – though that was perhaps less an obituary than a declaration of war.

  Fittingly, Bertie received his greatest homage from France. Purely out of respect for him, the Archbishop of Paris cancelled the annual celebration of Joan of Arc day, the patriotic ceremony that reminds the French every year that their traditional enemies have always been the English. Paris couldn’t have paid Bertie a greater historical tribute – thanks to him, for the first time ever, the French forgave England for the Hundred Years War, which had of course been started by Bertie’s namesake Edward III.2

  And since it was France that had enabled him to forget the traumas of his pleasureless childhood and develop into the warm, tolerant and popular man that he became, it is fitting that the most heartfelt – and most accurate – testimony to Bertie’s life came from a Frenchman.

  On 15 April 1912, almost exactly two years after his death, a statue of Bertie as a relatively young-looking yachtsman was unveiled on the seafront in Cannes. At the ceremony, which was disrupted slightly by a gusting wind, there was an impressive turnout of dignitaries, including the senator and future president Raymond Poincaré, as well as France’s Minister of War and Minister of the Navy. The British Ambassador to France, the aptly named Sir Francis Bertie, read out a speech in French saying that King George V wished to thank the town for this informal statue:

  . . . because it was as Prince of Wales that King Edward came to know and love Cannes, and that Cannes came to know and appreciate him. It was thanks to the King’s frequent visits to different parts of France before his accession to the throne that His Majesty was able to see in person the feelings of the French people and the opportunity to establish between our two neighbouring countries relations of cordial friendship.

  In reply, Raymond Poincaré’s speech was much more personal – and much longer. He gave a brilliant assessment of Bertie the man as seen by the French, who, après tout, knew him better than anyone. It was, in essence, a posthumous love letter from France to Bertie. And, like many love letters, it said as much about the recipient as the writer.

  Describing the statue, Poincaré said that:

  In the elegant and robust yachtsman astride this pedestal, you will all recognize the magnificent Prince who, beneath the Cannes sun, exuded so much graciousness, wit and seduction. Of all the places where this tireless traveller was led by his all-embracing curiosity, the Mediterranean coast was one of his favourites. Each one of you will remember his noble ease, the sharp good sense, witty bonhomie and instinctive diplomacy . . . that were the characteristics of his genius . . . No human experience was alien to him.3 He raised or lowered himself to the level of deep or trifling questions. He was at home in Cannes, Paris or London, in palaces and in modest homes . . . He adapted himself effortlessly to the varying conditions of a life that encompassed all pleasures, sadness and earthly honours. For more than half a century, he fulfilled, with admirable tact, the delicate role of heir to the throne, and this long preparation for monarchy gave him an incomparable schooling in delicacy and discretion . . . Every time he came to France, he penetrated deeper [ahem] into his examination of our society, our morals, and our institutions. He maintained relationships with our writers, artists, and men of state, and on each of them he practised the art of making them love him, an art of which he was a master . . . When, at the age of sixty he finally acceded to the throne, he transformed all his accumulated resources of prudence, wisdom and skill into brilliant political qualities . . . He was well informed about the financial, military and naval strength of all the European nations and he was determined to use th
is information, his experience and his natural subtlety to pursue a firm and trustworthy policy of peace and stability. He did not try to break with the past. He did not wrench England out of its splendid isolation. It was with method and subtlety that he prepared the necessary evolution, and with gentleness that he influenced his government to change their position. Sir Edward Grey [Britain’s Foreign Secretary] said that the King’s visits to the courts and nations of Europe were precious to Great Britain, because . . . he possessed a gift that has never been equalled for inspiring in governments and peoples a legitimate confidence in the good will of the people and the government of England.

  Poincaré recalled the signing of the Entente Cordiale and Bertie’s successful policy of keeping the peace with Russia and Germany, saying that he had made ‘the balance of European powers less unstable, and peace less precarious’. He then went on:

  Edward VII was peace-loving by nature, by choice, and by reasoning, and if he referred to France as the best friend of England, he certainly did not give this friendship a meaning that might worry other powers. And it is in the same spirit that France has conducted this policy of entente since the death of Edward VII . . . France does not plan to attack or provoke any of its neighbours, but we are aware that, to avoid being attacked or provoked, we must maintain, both on land and sea, armed forces capable of protecting our honour and our interests.

  It is a moving speech – a heartfelt lament for a lost friend and ally, as well as a sincere plea from a politician who hopes for peace but is resigned to war now that Bertie, the one man who could prevent it, is gone.

  V

  It is not always wise to trust a French politician’s judgements, but in this case Raymond Poincaré seems to have hit the nail on the tête. If Bertie had been alive and healthy when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, he would almost certainly have been able to ‘calm the spirits’, as the French say.

  Bertie would have assembled Emperor Franz Joseph of Austro-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Tsar Nicholas of Russia – on a yacht, at a spa or in a Schloss somewhere in central Europe – handed out the cigars, and talked firmly but amiably about the danger of a pointless, disruptive war.

  What exactly was the problem? Ah yes, a nineteen-year-old Serbian student had shot the Archduke, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, Sophie, and now Serbia’s assorted allies and opponents were at each other’s throats. It was very regrettable, Bertie would have agreed. But was Franz Ferdinand really worth a war?

  Before he could be shouted down with complex political arguments about alliances and the balance of power, Bertie would have played the trump card he knew best – family.

  Even Franz Ferdinand’s own relatives disliked him, Bertie would have reminded the assembled gentlemen. For a start, he was a bloodthirsty maniac. Everyone enjoys blasting a few animals to kingdom come (nods and grunts amidst the cigar smoke), but Franz Ferdinand was a psychopath – he boasted of having shot 274,889 animals in his lifetime. Yes, he insisted on having every corpse counted, and kept an exact tally. The man was a serial killer.4

  Not only that, Franz Ferdinand was unreliable. In 1900, four years after becoming heir to the Austrian throne on his father’s death, he had ignored the traditions of his family and the instructions of his dear uncle Franz Joseph and married a non-royal woman – entering into what is known in royal circles as a morganatic marriage (cue shudders around the table). This had resulted in Franz Ferdinand’s children automatically being removed from the line of succession. All in all, Bertie would have concluded, what use was he as an heir?

  His wife was not much of a loss, either. Apart from being a mere countess, Sophie was by all accounts an unsmiling, dull-witted religious crackpot. And people were saying that this unlikeable couple were worth a world war? Bertie would have guffawed (and coughed) at the idea.

  By now his audience of royal males would have been stroking their decorative facial hair. At least half won over, they would have been ripe for Bertie’s clinching argument.

  There was, as everyone seemed to have forgotten, an ideal successor to Franz Ferdinand – his nephew, the young Karl Franz Joseph Ludwig Herbert Georg Otto Maria. Admittedly his name was a bit of a mouthful, but in all other respects he was perfect. In June 1914, he was twenty-six years old, married to a princess (Zita di Borbone-Parma, granddaughter of a Portuguese king), and had recently produced a male heir. Even better, since his uncle’s morganatic marriage in 1900, Karl had been groomed as an eventual emperor. He was the dream candidate.

  In a cruel way, Bertie might have suggested, it was almost a relief that Franz Ferdinand had been removed from the line, just as Bertie’s own eldest son, the uncontrollable Eddy, had been, by flu rather than a bullet. Because the most important thing, surely, for all of them – Franz Joseph, Wilhelm, Nicholas and Bertie himself – was the survival of their royal lines. And young Karl Franz Joseph Ludwig etc. was the best Austrian for that job. Why, then, would anyone bother to go to war on Franz Ferdinand’s account?

  And while the others were all puffing thoughtfully, and Kaiser Wilhelm was wondering what to do with all his new battleships – a cruise past Cowes, perhaps, or artillery practice off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein? – Bertie would have closed his speech by bringing all his years of experience into play.

  It wasn’t just about Austria. Were they sure, he would have asked, that a war between major powers was the best way of ensuring the survival of their dynasties? Bertie had seen at first hand the result of the Franco-Prussian war, when one of the two emperors involved had lost his throne. Were Franz Joseph, Wilhelm and Nicholas willing to throw their crowns into the ring? Were they certain that if Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and Britain, along with all the minor monarchies still dotted about the continent, went to war, all those countries would emerge from the conflict with crowned heads of state still in place?

  Bertie had ridden the waves of republicanism in Britain while France had been tossed about between régimes. He had seen his mother put her throne at risk merely by becoming a recluse, and he had become the people’s King precisely in order to protect the stability that he cherished so much. Now his two nephews and his oldest surviving friend in Europe were at risk of throwing away their futures – and the future of Europe as a group of interlinked monarchies (with the exception of France, but they were harmless if you left them alone) – all for the irrelevant madman Franz Ferdinand, and a quarrel over tiny Serbia?

  Bertie, peacemaker and lover of all the good things in life that prolonged peacetime had to offer, simply would not have let it happen.

  All of which points to perhaps the most tragic thing about Poincaré’s eulogy: just two years before the start of a conflict that would kill 16 million people and wound another 20 million, the Frenchman completely disregards the new English King. There is no sense that George V will be able to follow in his father’s footsteps. The King is dead . . . period.

  If Bertie had one failing as a statesman – leaving aside any criticism of his morality as a man – it is precisely this. For some reason, he failed to prepare his son to take on the role as European peacekeeper. George could speak almost no French, only semi-coherent German, and had rarely set foot outside England except to visit the colonies. To most European leaders, including his own relatives, he was a stranger. And, most importantly, in the eyes of his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm, George was the embodiment of the inward-looking, jingoistic Englishman. And weak to boot. Wilhelm wasn’t afraid of what his cousin would say if he declared war on him or anybody else.

  But perhaps Bertie’s failure to prepare for the future was predictable. He was a self-made man. His mother didn’t teach him much at all, apart from the need to stay close to his family and the importance of not turning into a recluse, as she had done. Starting in his teens, Bertie had learnt the real priorities of life on his own, letting himself be guided by the experienced hands of the French. And he must have sensed that it was this unique, perso
nalized, life-long education that had made him the only man in the world capable of doing his job as the peacemaking uncle of Europe.

  Most of all, though, right up until the last few days of his life, Bertie always lived as if he felt immortal – or as if he could not conceive that the pleasures of life would ever end. This was why he hated being bored. There was always something amusing to be done somewhere, and he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to miss out. Protecting world peace was simply his way of getting everyone to join in the fun instead of squabbling about politics. He had an intense appetite for the here and now, and the future – including, sadly, his heir and Europe – could wait. His personal presence was the spark that kept the flame of peace alight.

  Appropriately, there is no exact English word for this quality that made Bertie such a popular man and successful diplomat. You have to say it in French – what had guided Bertie ever since his first visit to Paris in 1855, and stayed with him until the end of his life, was pure joie de vivre.

  * * *

  1 Here, for once, he was showing that he didn’t always think like a Frenchman.

  2 The forgiveness was temporary. The French re-instated the celebrations the following year and in 1919 had Joan of Arc canonized as their anti-British patron saint.

  3 When a Frenchman says that about a statesman it is a compliment.

  4 A German historian, Emil Franzel, would later coin a brutally accurate name for Franz Ferdinand’s bloodlust: ‘feudale Massenschlächterei’, or feudal mass butchering, thereby suggesting what was likely to happen to any political opponents he might have had when he became emperor.

  AFTERWORD

  LIFE AFTER BERTIE . . .

  Nowadays, Bertie’s role in keeping the First World War at bay is generally underestimated or even ignored. Most people seem to see the conflict as a machine that was gaining momentum throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, and would have broken loose whatever anyone did. I hope that this book has shown that things could have been different. Bertie really could have cooled the hotheads, and convinced the world not to go to war over so trifling a matter as the shooting of an Austrian Archduke who was unpopular with his own emperor.