Queen Victoria's Matchmaking - Deborah Cadbury (2017)

 „His studious grandfather, as a young nineteen-year-old, had ventured to correct no less an authority than the pope on the finer points of Egyptian influences on Greek art.”

  

Being a sucker for all things Queen Victoria, be it fiction or non-fiction, but knowing precious little about her non-British descendants, this book was a real treat for me. Also, as a self-proclaimed history buff who still has a lot to learn about countries and eras that are not constantly talked about or taught in-depth, I was incredibly grateful for this detailed and personal view into the workings of 19th century Russia and Germany. Of course, I’ve heard about Kaiser Wilhelm and Bismarck, but I didn’t really know them, and the same goes for Nikolai II and his wife and children. Knowing the outcome of their story made this book hard to read in places, but in a good way, like a really good thriller that’s making you anxious for the characters but you can’t put it down because you need to see how it ends... I also made the mistake of reading up on Alexandra’s sister Ella’s fate halfway through her chapter which made those parts similarly painful, because my God. I can’t unsee or unhear some of the images this book printed on my mind.

As always when I finish reading a book of this kind, I’m left with a whole slew of „what if?” possibilities in my head. What if Emperor Frederick didn’t die? What if Prince Eddy didn’t die? Or Prince Rudolf? What if Alix didn’t marry Nicholas? What if George V granted asylum to the Russian imperial family? What if Wilhelm wasn’t an asshole and helped his family instead of Lenin? So many possibilities, so many deciding points in history where things that ended in ruin and tragedy could have been averted if not for human folly.

Interested in these points, I turned to the fantastic alternate history books website Uchronia, to see if anything has been written along any of these lines, but unfortunately I only found two that suit my needs. So these books are on my to-read list now, and I figured I would share them for the benefit of anyone likewise interested:

Peter Dickinson – King and Joker and Skeleton in Waiting – Eddy becomes king instead of George

Emil Ludwig - If the Emperor Frederick had not had Cancer – self-explanatory, chapter in a whole books of such alternate histories, If It Had Happened Otherwise: Lapses Into Imaginary History

 

PS. The opening quote refers to not one of the many grandchildren but Prince Albert himself, but I had to highlight it because he was amazing and this is such an Albert thing to do, I love it.