In May 1910 the funeral of King Edward VII drew together such a parade of European royalty that even the powerful Republican envoys of France and the United States had to suffer the indignity of bringing up the rear of the procession. Resplendent on horseback over 50 emperors, kings, archdukes and princes masked the fact that the Old World nobility were cantering head first into the Great War and oblivion.
These monarchs of the Continental courts were so closely related to Queen Victoria that she was sometimes called the Grandmamma of Europe. War seemed impossible when no less than seven of her direct relations sat on European thrones and three of those were first cousins presiding over the most powerful nations on earth: King George V of Great Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.