Tag Archive | downton abbey

A Writer’s Worst Enemy … And Best Friend

I can tell you the exact moment when I knew I was serious about this writing thing. Sure, I’ve been writing since I was ten and realize it was something I could do for fun outside of school. And I kept writing all through my teens and well into my twenties for entertainment and as an escape. I always had the vague idea that I wanted to be a Writer (with a capital W). But the day that I knew I was serious was December 21st, 2007. That was the day I turned off the TV.

: © Antos777 | Dreamstime.com

TV is a serious time-drain. It’s just so daggone tempting! We can spend hours sitting in front of it, letting it entertain us and suck away our creativity. Many an hour that could be spent in writing is, instead, spent being a couch potato. The modern world makes it so easy to watch TV too. What’s the flashiest item offered for sale on Black Friday? Giant TVs at massively discounted prices. What does everyone talk about at work that involves the entire department? TV shows. (Specifically American Horror Story where I work, which absolutely creeps me out … and I haven’t seen a single episode!) What is the velvet rope that keeps modern people bound in inaction? TV.

It’s just so seductive! And yet the moment I turned it off my productivity shot through the roof. I finished the first draft of The Loyal Heart (all 250,000 original words!) within a month and a half of turning off the TV. All those hours that had previously been spent with wide, glassy eyes staring at those flashing pictures on my boob tube went into creating. Granted, I stopped watching when I did not to write, but because I absolutely hate political commercials and I knew that the only way to avoid them in 2008 was to turn them off. That worked, by the way. But more importantly, my journey to becoming a serious, published writer had begun!

Yep. TV is a terrible waste of time. It can mire you in inertia faster than you can say “Where’s the remote?”

TV is also one of the most potent sources of inspiration and the most brilliant resources for learning the craft of storytelling that has ever been invented.

I’ve learned so many things about story structure from watching TV. Your average hour-long drama, even a good half-hour comedy, is a textbook perfect way to study structure. Each segment between commercials is designed to convey a chunk of story with all the elements of introduction, rising action, reaction, climax, and denouement. The very best TV shows also carry a plot through an entire season, complete with foreshadowing, carefully placed bits of information, and satisfactory tying together of diverse plot threads. Good TV shows are the best writing tutorial you can get.

My all-time favorite TV shows are Lost, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, Northern Exposure, Band of Brothers (technically a mini-series) and the Russell T. Davies seasons of the new Doctor Who. Downton Abbey, New Girl, and Modern Family might also end up in the all-time favorites. We have yet to see if they will stand the test of time. Yeah, I know, I have wildly diverse tastes.

Take Lost for an example.

Best and most descriptive poster for Lost ever!

Aside from the so-so third season (in which the writers arguably lost track of the plot as the network tried to decide exactly how many seasons to let the show run for), Lost is a terrific example of plot structure both within an episode, over the arc of a season, and through an entire series. I would hate to give away any spoilers for this highly-suspenseful show, but as the viewer you start out knowing almost nothing about The Island or the people who have crashed on it. By the end you’ve learned so much that it feels like a real place. When you watch the series through for a second time you realize just how much the writers knew in advance and just how many clues they squeaked into each episode along the way.

(As an aside, watching Lost from a writer’s perspective, you can also figure out which plotlines they were forced to drop as external forces, like actor arrests, ruined their plans. The ways in which they scrambled for new ideas to fulfill the original purpose of the characters they had to drop is a great exercise in revisions under pressure.)

The same kinds of comparisons can be made for plenty of other shows depending on what you like to watch. Try watching an episode of your favorite show not for entertainment value but for story structure. How are the characters introduced? What sets up the situation for each episode? What kinds of complications are thrown in the way of the characters achieving their goals? How is back-story introduced? When does the moment of most tension come? (Hint: before the last commercial break) How is the episode resolved? What tidbits do you get as the credits are rolling?

Everything you see in a good TV show is going to teach you something that will improve your writing. It’s going to teach it to you faster than reading a bunch of books. BUT, watching TV is no substitute for reading. And all TV is not created equal. In fact, there’s a lot of completely useless junk on the air. The key is to find the good stuff. Fortunately, most of the time there’s a reason why things are critically acclaimed.

I can count the number of TV shows I watch these days on one hand, not including my thumb. I watch shows online so that I can watch when I want to and avoid commercials. For me that’s the best way to avoid the time-suck of useless TV and annoying commercials while still learning what I need to know for my writing. It’s the best of both worlds.

So what TV shows have you learned from and what inspires you? I mentioned Lost as one of my all-time favorites, and the Sci-Fi series I’m currently working on, Saving Grace, tips its hat to Lost’s storytelling style. And I can’t help but see some of the style elements of Dr. Quinn when I work on my Montana Romance series. But that’s just me. Where on the small screen do you find your inspiration?

Women and World War One

Jan26

World War I changed everything, plain and simple. But in so many ways the biggest changes it brought about involved not the scores of men who fought and died in the trenches, but the women who held the fort down at home.

It’s important to remember that the world before the war saw women as primarily mothers, wives, and daughters. They were the keepers of the graces, gentle creatures whose sphere was in the home and whose thoughts were best expressed through the men in their lives. Sure, this meant that women were put up on a pedestal to a certain point, especially in the upper classes. To use Downton Abbey as an example, the Crawley sisters were expected to do no more than look fashionable and snag the right husband. No thought was given to what they would be when they grew up. And you can see through the characters of the Crawley sisters that this life and these expectations were profoundly difficult for a lot of women to bear. Women knew that they were perfectly capable of taking charge. It wasn’t until war swept through the world that they were truly given a chance to show that.

War fashion took a decidely slimmer turn

It wasn’t obvious at first. In the early days of the war, as far as women were concerned, or rather as far as the media assumed women would be concerned, it was the loss of life’s luxuries that would affect them most profoundly. Women’s fashion changed quickly to incorporate simpler lines and less material. The blooming, voluminous dresses of the Victorian era, dresses that took more than one person to climb into, were replaced by straight lines and modest colors. And in the early days “sacrifices” like this, the fact that women of all classes were encouraged to donate their money to the war effort instead of buying new clothes, were seen as the worst women would or could endure. It also brought about a huge crisis in the garment industry, which is a whole other story.

The thing is, women who were in the know, the ones who had been fighting for equal rights for decades, knew that to simplify the contribution by women to the war effort as giving up finery was an insult. The fact of the matter was that while men were in power, fighting in the front lines and making the military and political decisions that had gotten everyone into the mess in the first place, it was the women back home, wherever home was, that suffered the most.

In her book A Woman and the War, the Countess of Warwick goes to great lengths to point out that the suffering of a mother losing her son in battle is a far graver tragedy to be endured than any man could handle:

“She has lost much that was dearest to her, much that life is powerless to replace. All the springs of her being have nourished the love that she has given to her dear ones, to the man who was her choice, to the son who fed upon her life. In many cases she has loved almost entirely in her children, for the ties that bind her to the active pleasures of life grow weak in conflict with the powers of maternity. She has forgotten the brief years in which she lived for herself and savoured all the sweets of existence, she has lived in her children, happy chiefly in their happiness, ambitious only for their future and concerned with the struggle for the freedom of her sex less on account of her own generation than on account of that which is to follow.”

I wanted to quote this paragraph because I don’t think that we women of the early 21st century can really appreciate what it was like to live a life where we were not truly individuals in and of ourselves, but rather a root or an extension of someone else. Prior to the war so many women out there didn’t work, couldn’t vote, and, as this paragraph implies, devoted their whole lives to their husbands and most especially their children.

And suddenly that was gone, torn away by a war that many women opposed. It was a war built on policies that women were powerless to vote for or against. Many women, especially the suffragettes violently opposed the war. And yet they could do nothing about it. Because during this time women couldn’t vote.

Think about this for a second. As pretty as the world before WWI was, the women who inhabited it were largely powerless. Then suddenly this war comes along, this war that they didn’t want, that ripped their lives away from them in so many ways that went far beyond fashion. And in the midst of the unspeakable sorrow of losing the men that these women not only loved but who were their conduit to be heard … life got better.

Downton Abbey does a pretty decent job of showing these changes in the lives of women through the characters of Sybil, who drops everything about her posh lifestyle to become a nurse, and Isobel, who was already a nurse but steps up and takes charge not only within the context of the hospital in town, but later by going to France to help the Red Cross. Even Edith steps up to help on a farm and Cora by helping to run the convalescent part of Downton Abbey. These are all real examples of massive changes that rearranged the social and sexual landscape forever.

Women stepped into all sorts of jobs that the men had left behind. It wasn’t quite the era of Rosie the Riveter yet, but Rosie was on the way. And once that cat was out of the bag, no pun intended, it was difficult to put it back.

WWI Factory workers - photo courtesy of http://rememberingscotlandatwar.ning.com/

When the war was over some things reverted back to the way they had been. Jobs were given back to men and women were shuffled back into the home. But wheels had been put in motion that couldn’t be stopped. In 1918, as the war ended, women were finally given the vote after as much as a century of struggle. Well, in the UK and Germany at least. Women didn’t get the vote in the US until 1920. And guess what? Women in France didn’t get the vote until 1944 and 1946 for Italy. Even in Russia women were granted the vote in 1917, but there were a few other revolutionary factors at play there.

The point is that the war marked a distinct turning point in the lives of women. No more could they be said to be fragile creatures that were incapable of serious work or serious thought. While they had to endure sadness and loss on a level that men couldn’t comprehend, they gained the ability to organize their lives around more than just men. It might sound like a small thing as I write it here, but you can’t put too fine a point on it. As horrible as the war was, it opened so many doors for women.

Which is why I’m dying to see how Downton Abbey season three handles this transition. But I’ll have to wait a super long time now to see that.

Trench Warfare

Jan19

“At 4:15am a whistle blew. The men in the front line went over the top, and we scrambled out and took their places in the front trench. In front of us was a small field, with grass knee-high, split diagonally by an old footpath. On one side of the field was a belt of trees, known as the Y-Wood, in which lay the first Hun trench…”

A good portion of the action on Downton Abbey so far this season has centered around trench warfare. We’ve seen snippets of it from both Matthew and Thomas’s points of view (with more to come). We’ve heard clips of it in Mr. Lang’s tattered imagination and seen its effects. And we’ve had a glimpse of how horrifying it must have been through the sad story of Mrs. Patmore’s nephew being shot for cowardice.

So what’s this all about? Is Downton Abbey exaggerating? No. In fact, I think they’ve cleaned it up a lot for modern audiences.

“…When I dropped into the Hun trench I found it a great place, only three feet wide, and at least eight deep, and beautifully made of white sand-bags, back and front. At that spot there was no sign of any damage by our shells, but a number of dead Huns lay in the bottom….”

Trench warfare was a result of the improvements in weaponry and tactics in the early 20th century. It was a brilliant defensive strategy in a way. Dig in so that the enemy can’t hit you with machine guns unless you pop up in the open. Set up machine gun nests yourself so that they can’t send soldiers to get you without great loss of life. Spread a lot of barbed wire and dead bodies between your trench and their trench so that No Man’s Land is the most god-awful, dangerous place you can conceive of. Throw in some mustard gas that eats your lungs from the inside out to kill your enemy in the most gruesome way possible. This was the reality of trench life.

The trenches through France and parts of Germany that constituted the stagnant front of the First World War moved very little throughout the course of the war. On the Allies’ side trenches were made up of narrow runs packed with sandbags and lined with boards to keep them from caving in. There were several rows of trenches, the front line and various lines further back where living and command quarters were located. Men ate, slept, and burned time right at the front.

The German trenches were a little different, incidentally. They were more of a system of trenches and tunnels. Some tunnels were as deep as 50 feet underground and had electricity and running water. The supply lines were a little better so that as soon as men and materials were used up more could be delivered. This, of course, only perpetuated the horrific stalemate.

“… I had just filled a sandbag and placed it on the top of the parapet when I happened to glance down, and saw a slight movement in the earth between my feet. I stooped and scraped away the soil with my fingers and found what seemed like palpitating flesh. It proved to be a man’s cheek, and a few minutes’ work uncovered his head. I poured a little water down his throat, and two or three of us dug out the rest of him. He was undamaged except for his feet and ankles, which were a mass of pulp, and he recovered consciousness as we worked. The first thing he said was in English: ‘What Corps are you?’ He was a big man, and told us he was forty-five and had only been a soldier for a fortnight. We dragged him out and laid him under the hedge. There was nothing else we could do for him. He had another drink later, but he must have died in the course of the day. I am afraid we forgot all about him, but nothing could have lived there until evening….”

And it was horrific. Soldiers weren’t the only things living in the trenches. On the Allies’ side lice and rats were a major problem. The lice spread everywhere, getting in everyone’s hair, clothes, and bodies regardless of rank. Men were stricken with “trench fever”, a disease with flu-like symptoms which was only discovered to be caused by a virus carried by trench fleas later in the war. Rats were everywhere and they were well-fed. They ate the soldier’s rations, the corpses in the trenches and No Man’s Land, and the soldiers themselves if they weren’t careful.

Perhaps the worst part of trench life was that all of these miserable conditions had to be endured in long stretches of strategic boredom punctuated by insane charges against heavily defended positions. One thing a lot of historians talk about when they talk about WWI is how callous Allied commanders were when it came to sending thousands of young men to certain death because they were using tactics that were completely inadequate for trench warfare. If you were told to go over the top and charge at the other side you knew your chances weren’t good. There was no ignorance involved. No wonder Mrs. Patmore’s nephew fell apart and was shot as a coward! No wonder Mr. Lang had violent nightmares and feared being sent back!

“… The worst of it was the inaction. Every minute several shells fell within a few yards and covered us with dust, and the smell of the explosives poisoned my mouth. All I could do was to crouch against the parapet and pant for breath, expecting every moment to be my last. And this went on for hours. I began to long for the shell which would put an end to everything, but in time my nerves became almost numbed, and I lay like a log until roused….”

In the end the stalemate of trench warfare was broken by a combination of tanks, American troops reinforcing the Allies, and sheer exhaustion on the part of … well, everyone. While men were fighting in the trenches naval battles and blockades had weakened both sides and their supply lines considerably. The Allies’ Hundred Days Offensive began on August 8, 1918 at Amiens (remember this, oh Downton Abbey watchers!) and marked the beginning of the end for Germany, the war, and trench warfare. But it’s barely the middle of our Downton Abbey Season Two story.

“… Soon the runaways began to return. They had been turned back, in some cases, at the point of the revolver, but when their first panic had been overcome, they came back quite willingly, although they lost heavily in the process. They crowded into our trench, and there was hardly room to move a limb….

… About 6:00pm the worst moment of the day came. The Huns started to bombard us with a shell which was quite new to us. It sounded like a gigantic fire-cracker, with two distinct explosions. These shells came over just above the parapet, in a flood, much more quickly than we could count them. After a quarter of an hour of this sort of thing there was a sudden crash in the trench and ten feet of the parapet, just beyond me, was blown away and everyone around blinded by the dust. With my first glance I saw what looked like half a dozen bodies, mingled with sandbags, and then I smelt gas and realized that these were gas-shells. I had my respirator on in a hurry and most of our own men were as quick. The others were slower and suffered for it. One man was sick all over the sandbags and another was coughing his heart up. We pulled four men out of the debris unharmed. One man was unconscious, and died of gas later. Another was hopelessly smashed up and must have got it full in the chest….

…As soon as things quieted down a bit, we had a chance to look around. Since the morning most of the branches of the trees in the wood had gone and many of the trunks had become mere splintered poles. Something else had changed also, and for a time I could not make out what it was. Then it suddenly flashed across my mind that the thick hedge at the back of the trench had entirely disappeared. It was right in the path of the storm of gas-shells and they had carried it away….”

Excerpts from a letter written by H.S. Clapham of the British army describing his experience, taken from World War I & European Society: A Sourcebook. Coetzee, Marilyn Shevin, and Frans Coetzee, editors, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1995. Print.

WWI – Over By Christmas

Jan12

So there we were, the summer of 1914. The archduke and his wife had been assassinated, all of the alliances that had been put into place over the last several decades went into play, the domino chain cascaded, and the world was at war. The first time the world had been at war.

Piece of cake, right?

The prevailing opinion on both sides was that it would all be over before Christmas.

Why on earth would anyone assume that?

For one, there was a recent precedence for shortish wars. The Franco-Prussian War, between France and what was soon to become a unified Germany, was fought from July of 1870 to May of 1871. Although the hostilities that lead to the outbreak of this conflict had been brewing for decades the war itself was short due, in part, to the fact that it was so lop-sided. Prussia had a clear military advantage. They had better railroads for supplies and more advanced artillery. They were pretty much able to walk in to France and get what they wanted. Which, by the way, was something France was still smarting over 43 years later.

The British had engaged in a couple of shorter wars themselves. The First Boer War, fought in South Africa against the Dutch-descended Afrikaners, lasted only from December of 1880 to March of 1881. The Second Boer War was a bit longer, from October of 1899 to May of 1902. This was the war that Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey fought in, by the way, where Mr. Bates served as his assistant. But even this war took place in phases with breaks in between.

Even the United States had had a short little war preceding The Great War. The Spanish-American War took place from April to August in 1898.

In all of these cases the winning side saw themselves as technologically and nationalistically more advanced. They saw victory as their right as much as anything else. This is that whole Nationalism thing I mentioned last week in my post about the Causes of WWI.

There were other reasons as well. Technology had advanced. The days of long mobilization and marching troops across Europe was gone. Railroads meant that men and supplies could be delivered to the sight of a battle faster than ever before. Ships were tougher and faster than ever as well. Aerial reconnaissance was new and vital to any campaign. Surely if it was so easy to get the troops where they needed to go in relatively no time at all the fighting that would take place would be quick and decisive too, right?

That was another consideration. People often mention when talking about World War I how profound it was that the technology of warfare had outpaced battle tactics. Much has been made about the futility of 19th century infantry charges mounted against machinegun nests and mustard gas. It’s one of the saddest things about the war, if you ask me. But it wasn’t like nobody knew what a machinegun was or what it was capable of. There was definitely a feeling that because warfare technology had advanced so much, because a gun had been invented that could fire bullets so much faster, for example, battles would be over quickly.

Which brings us to early 20th century military mentality. It was all about aggression. He who struck first and struck hardest would certainly win. The armies of Germany, France, and Russia mobilized so mind-bogglingly quickly that many at the time speculated that once the process started there would be no politically or economically feasible way to stop it. These were nations that committed and committed hard. Germany began mobilizing on July 30th and bashed across Belgium less than two weeks later. And by September 12th both sides were already entrenched along the Maginot Line and wouldn’t move much either way until the end of the war.

But perhaps the biggest reason everyone thought that the war would be over by Christmas was because that was what the government wanted people to believe. Internal war correspondence and wires of the time suggests that at heart the military leaders probably knew they were in for the long haul. But most nations tried to keep the public opinion light and positive. Keeping a light-hearted attitude about the war, painting a rosy picture of the call to glory that it represented, meant that recruiters had an easier time convincing young men to join up.

There is some evidence to suggest that some military leaders actually thought things would be over quickly. Germany, for example, only stocked about 6 months’ worth of chemicals needed to make gunpowder. Any Russian officers that suggested the war would be longer than six weeks were derided as pessimists. It was only the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, who went on record as saying the war would last at least three to four years. He was criticized for being negative.

Of course history proved that the world was in for the long haul. The war wasn’t over by Christmas. In fact, it had disintegrated into two-front trench warfare in Europe and scattered colonial clashes everywhere else in the world.

So as you watch all of our Downton Abbey boys out fighting in the trenches, as you see the exhausting effects back home of a war that seemed like it would never end, you can gain a sense of appreciation for what people were feeling. Warfare is bad enough, but the psychological toll it took on nations full of people who had been told it would be quick and glorious was devastating.

The Causes of WWI … and Other Silly Stories

Jan5

Right. So last week we talked about Life in 1912 in preparation for season two of Downton Abbey, which begins on PBS this Sunday, January 8th. I’m not giving anything away by saying that season two is about World War I in every way. But what would cause that burgeoning, vital society of 1912 to tip over into full-scale global war? What happened in reality that flipped the fictitious house of Grantham on its head?

History teachers across the world will tell you it boiled down to four things: Nationalism, Militarism, Imperialism, and Alliances. And they’re right too. But it’s a little trickier than that. In fact, World War I is one of the trickiest messes that the world ever tripped and fell into.

But first the textbook causes….

Nationalism

Unlike the Medieval world, Europe of the nineteenth century was increasingly nationalistic. Basking in the glow of the French Revolution, the French were definitely FRENCH. The Germans were not so much a bunch of small kingdoms like they used to be, but now and increasingly GERMAN. The same goes for ITALY. The Russians were catching up to the rest of Europe politically and culturally and were seriously RUSSIAN. Britain was pretty much always BRITAIN … and played a far bigger role in tipping the balance of all this saber-rattling into all-out war than, well, Germany for one expected. But the match that lit the fuse was the fact that Serbia wanted to be SERBIA! But half of what they considered to be Serbia ethnically was, in fact, a principality of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King George V of England

Imperialism

Ever since Magellan circumnavigated the globe everyone with ships and swords wanted a piece of it. The rush to snatch up colonies in places like Asia, the Americas, and especially Africa rose to a fevered pitch towards the end of the nineteenth century. Why were colonies so important? Well, they proved the point of Nationalism for one. The country with the most “toys” was obviously the best, right? But more than just bragging rights, colonies provided crucial income for their parent country. They were a source of raw materials, cheap labor and goods, and a market in which to sell it all. Britain was the clear winner in the imperialist race, but Germany was making inroads, particularly in Africa. This boosted the German economy and made it a real threat to the balance of power in Europe.

Militarism

So what were these countries spending their money on? Weapons. Well, partially. Technology was improving. The race to build the biggest and best battleship kept Britain and Germany occupied and thumbing their noses at each other. Naval power was critical to gaining and keeping colonies. Aviation was brand new as well and of course there had to be a way to use it as a weapon. Not only that, but vast armies were needed to keep the colonies, and continental neighbors in order. Especially those naughty Serbians who kept causing trouble for Austria-Hungary.

Alliances

So what better way to put your economic and political clout to good use, to justify your military spending, and to keep everyone in check than by making all sorts of sticky alliances? Britain was the biggest peddler of the theory of a balance of power in Europe. Since all of the major players had the potential to be dominant, the best way to keep the lid on things was to tie everyone together. The alliances began to be formed as early as 1868. Some were open, some were backroom deals. I could write an entire entry about the alliances alone. But for the sake of convenience, by 1914 the dominoes were stacked like this: The Central Powers consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. The Triple Entente was made up of Britain, France, and Russia. Russia also happened to have an alliance with little old Serbia on the side and Britain had a seemingly trivial alliance with Japan, of all countries.

How the Chain Reaction Started

Okay, raise your hand if you know the event that sent the first domino tumbling. Yep, you’re right. The assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. But why the heck did anyone care?

Well, Franz-Ferdinand was the heir presumptive to the throne in Austria-Hungary. Sarajevo is in Serbia. The Serbians were ticked off with Austria-Hungary for not letting Slavic provinces in southern Austria-Hungary break off and join with Serbia to be SERBIA! In retaliation and to make a point a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, shot the Archduke and his wife. This, of course, made Austria-Hungary more than a little mad. To way oversimplify what actually happened, Austria-Hungary checked with Germany to make sure they would back them up, then they declared war on Serbia.

Then Serbia’s ally, Russia, started mobilizing its troops to defend Serbia. So Germany declared war on them.

Wait, Germany? What the heck! What did they have against Russia?

Well, They had told Austria-Hungary they would back them up, and they did.

So France declared war on Germany.

Hold on, hold on. What does France have to do with any of this?

Well, they were allies with Russia.

Then Germany decided the best way to attack France was to attack Belgium first. Because, you know, it was just sitting there being all neutral and all.

So Britain, which had said it would consider sitting this one out, pretty much said “Oh no you didn’t!” and declared war on Germany.

Not to be outdone, Japan took advantage of the situation to attack Russia way over in the east, which a lot of people forget, but which made it a truly world war, not just a European war. Of course, it also spilled over into everyone’s colonies, but that’s yet another story. Italy entered the fray on Germany and Austria-Hungary’s side. And after much hemming and hawing and swearing they wouldn’t get involved in a war on the other side of the Atlantic, the U.S. changed their mind and sent a bunch of troops over to save the day and win the war. *cough* Well, that’s what the Americans say at least.

So there you have it. Conditions were right and the world had become a powder keg of pent-up aggression and dangerous alliances that finally boiled over.

But is that the real explanation for the causes of the war?

Well, my high school history teacher threw in another element that a lot of people tend to overlook.

Queen Victoria with her childern and grandchildren

The rulers of the two countries that barked the loudest and fought the dirtiest were cousins. King George V of England and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were both Queen Victoria’s grandchildren. And they did not like each other. Not at all. Wilhelm was older by a few years but George had more of an attitude. When they met up at family and state events (like the picture at the top) the two would posture and rumble for precedence, who got to march at the head of the parade and such. Wilhelm usually took precedence, but when George was raised to the throne in 1910 it was he who got the number one spot in family gatherings, parades, and pictures. Wilhelm couldn’t stand it. My high school history teacher speculated that Germany deliberately tweaked Britain’s nose by attacking Belgium in 1914 and that Britain’s subsequent entry into the war was a personal grudge-match between the two leaders.

I’ve never been able to find the evidence that backs this up, but then again, I’ve never looked for it. Knowing what we know about the way the upper classes acted from watching Downton Abbey I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, just imagine if Mary and Edith were the rulers of their own nations. War would have been declared long before it was.

Enjoy the premier episode of Downton Abbey on PBS on Sunday! Next week I think I’ll take a look at how the war was supposed to be over by Christmas (ha!) and why it wasn’t.

Incidentally, this has always been my favorite explanation of the causes of the war: