CH4 - Three Kings at War (2006)

A look at the incredible story of Queen Victoria's three first cousins who found themselves at the centre of a family feud and a global war when she died. The story of George V, Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II, how they were tied to one another by history, and history would ultimately tear them apart.
Families are always complex. There are plots, scandals and betrayals. But when the family concerned rule the most powerful nations on the planet, these petty squabbles can lead to political turmoil, economic upheaval and even war. In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who went to war in 1914, but by the time in 1918, only the British Throne had survived, and still reigns today. Their relationship and rivalries had a devastating impact on Europe then and now. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.
Known among their families as Georgie, Willy, and Nicky, they were, respectively, the royal cousins —the first two grandsons of Queen Victoria, the latter her grandson by marriage. In 1914, on the eve of world war, they controlled the destiny of Europe and the fates of millions of their subjects. The outcome and their personal endings are well known—Nicky shot with his family by the Bolsheviks, Willy in exile in Holland, Georgie still atop his throne. Largely untold, however, is the family saga that played such a pivotal role in bringing the world to the precipice. Thanks to the recently discovered royal correspondence, the programme sheds new light on a watershed period in world history.