During this period of health emergency from Covid-19 which sees us worried but also closer, we thought we'd publish a reading every day: moments of #history, of #society or commented pages of the great #classics of literature. An easy way to rediscover culture together because #culturedoesn't stop to give even a single moment of beauty and serenity in the importance of respecting everyone #stayhome. Thank you
Europe was prosperous and at peace on that radiant May morning when nine sovereigns rode behind the coffin of Edward VII of England, to pay him the utmost honours. But already at that moment the cannons of August 1914 were being readied and the world was approaching a point of no return.
In blue and scarlet, in green and purple, three by three, the kings on horseback passed the gates of Buckingham Palace, glittering with plumed helmets, gold braid, vermilion scarves, and orders of chivalry. They were followed by five crown princes, quadrant and more royal and imperial highnesses, seven queens and a number of ambassadors and extraordinary envoys from republican countries. Among crowned heads and high dignitaries, they represented 70 nations in the largest parade ever seen and the last of its kind.
The muffled chimes of Big Ben, the clock of the tower of Westminster, struck nine as the procession prepared to leave the royal palace, but on the clock of history it was sunset time and the old world sun was sinking in a last flash of light, never to rise again.
In the center of the first row the new king, George V. Gl8 stood on the right a character who, according to a note that appeared in the Times "even in the most critical moments of our relations, has never lost his popularity among us": William II, Emperor of Germany. Mounted on a gray horse, dressed in the scarlet uniform of a British marshal, the Kaiser, his face, adorned with the famous upturned mustache, was composed of an expression of almost severe gravity.
William II was a cousin of the new ruler of England; and he was also an outspoken man. A few days earlier he had told Theodore Roosevelt, US special envoy at the funeral that George V was " a very nice 45 year old boy” “ He is a perfect Englishman and hates all foreigners, but I don't mind, as long as he doesn't hate Germans more than the others.”
Now, beside King George, the Kaiser rode confidently. Once he had distributed some of his photographs which bore his signature on them, the oracular motto: "I await my time.” Finally his time had come: he was the most powerful monarch in Europe. He was in London to bury King Edward, his nightmare; Edward, Germany's archenemy, as he saw him; Edoardo, his mother's brother, who was neither intimidated nor dictated by him.
In the nine years of Edward's reign, England's splendid isolation, England's splendid isolation had succumbed to a series of understandings not quite alliances with two traditional enemies, France and Russia, and with a new nation of great future , Japan.
In William II's judgement, Edward had paid an unjustified visit first to the king of Spain and then to the king of Italy, with the evident intention of detaching the latter from the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria. The Kaiser was in a rage for which he considered diabolical maneuvers to encircle Germany.
William was consumed with envy for nations older than his own. He felt unappreciated. “In all the long years of my reign” he had said to the king of Italy “my colleagues, the monarchs of Europe, have never taken my opinion into account. "
Behind William II, in the procession rode the two brothers of the widow Alexandra, King Frederick of Denmark and King George of Greece; his nephew, King Haakon of Norway; and three kings who were destined to lose their throne: Alfonso of Spain, Manuel of Portugal, Manuel of Portugal and Ferdinand of Bulgaria who annoyed his colleagues by calling himself Tsar.
The new sovereign, and the only one who was to prove himself great as a man, was King Sylbert of Belgium, who didn't like the pomp of royal ceremonies and managed to look embarrassed and distracted in such company.
Tall, thick, narrow in the bust, the one who was to be the origin of the immense conflict, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the old emperor Franz Joseph, rode on King Albert's right hand. The attack in which he found himself on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, would have been the spark that would have ignited the first world war.
During the funeral procession, William's behavior was beyond reproach. When the procession reached Westminster he was the first to dismount and rush towards Queen Alexandra's carriage with such alacrity that he was at the window before the footmen, realizing only at the last moment that the Queen was about to get off the other side. Fortunately, King George comes to his mother's aid: as the Danish queen by birth, she detested the Kaiser, both for personal reasons and for the loss of the Duchies of Scleswing-Holstein, which Germany had taken by force from Denmark. And although William was then only eight years old, the Queen had never forgiven him or her country.
A veiled drum roll echoed along with the plaintive sound of the bagpipes as the coffin was carried out by the guard's grenadiers. With a sudden flash of sabers in the sun, the cavalry came to attention. London had never been crowded, nor so silent.
At the sides and behind the cannon shaft marched the 63 aides of the deceased King, all the land and sea commanders including du nei, marquises and counts.
A personal and touching note was given by Edward's horse, with an empty saddle, followed by Caesar, his white terrier.
The long procession wound its way along Whitehall, the Mall, Piccadilly and Hyde Park up to Paddington station, from where the body would continue on to Windsor, to be buried. the Band of the Guards Brigade played the Saul's Funeral March. The slow cadenced step, the solemn music gave the crowd the sense of definitive detachment.
The immediate future It held in store the gunshot of the assassin of Sarajevo, the cannons of that fateful August 1914, the invasion of neutral Belgium by Germany, the battle of the Marne.
From that moment, there would be no turning back. Nations were caught in a death trap from which there was, and has been, no way out.
