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George, a dutiful but splenetic martinet, arrived with Queen Mary, but Nicholas came alone. Georgie and Nicky both wore Prussian Dragoon uniforms with spiked pickelhaube helmets, Willy dressed as a British dragoon with a Russian order; but behind dynastic swagger and sartorial ententes, the three emperors tensely surveyed a quaking Ottoman empire. The trepidation had started in 1911 when Italy, desperate for colonies after its Ethiopian humiliation, seized Tripoli and Benghazi. The Young Turk Enver tried to hold Tripoli, then rushed to defend the Turkish homeland as the hungry new kingdoms of the Balkans – Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro – joined the carve-up. In this first Balkan war, Bulgarian troops grabbed the most territory.

In January 1913, believing himself to be the Turkish Napoleon, Enver seized power with two comrades, Talaat and Jemal – the Three Pashas – who embraced a toxic mix of Turkish ultra-nationalism, social Darwinism, including eugenics and a hierarchy of racial superiority taught them by their German military instructors, and militaristic warmongering, to save race and empire. They loathed Christian minorities, particularly Armenians and Greeks, and their views were not that different from those later espoused by the Nazis. Enver joined the dynasty, marrying the sultan’s daughter.

At the Hohenzollern wedding, ‘There was absolute unanimity between George V, the emperor [Nicholas] and me,’ Willy boasted to Franz Ferdinand (who was not at the wedding), that the Balkan kingdoms could attack Bulgaria.^* The kaiser dragged George’s private secretary aside. ‘The Slavs have become unrestful and will want to attack Austria,’ he predicted ominously. ‘Germany is bound to stand by her ally. Russia and France will join in and then England.’

Many in Britain were convinced that war was now inevitable. The Liberal chancellor, David Lloyd George, a self-made silver-tongued lawyer known as the Welsh Wizard (as a priapic dynamo he was also nicknamed the Goat), had delighted in baiting and taxing the aristocracy to fund social welfare for the working classes, but now he warned that Britain would fight if peace became ‘a humiliation intolerable for a great country’. His friend Winston Churchill, aged thirty-seven, newly appointed first lord of the Admiralty, ordered four more battleships ‘to prepare for an attack by Germany as if it might come the next day’, and made a key decision: he converted the navy from coal to oil, purchasing 51 per cent of a company, Anglo-Persian Oil, that had struck oil four years earlier. Iran, ruled by the Qajar shahs, recently weakened by a revolution, became vital to British power, as the possession of oil now became essential to great powers. ‘Mastery itself,’ declared Churchill, ‘was the prize.’

Even in his wedding toast, Wilhelm could not resist combining family with race. ‘My darling daughter, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the joy you have given me,’ he proclaimed. ‘As long as the German tongue is spoken, it will tell of the prominent role played by the Guelphs and Hohenzollerns in the historic development of our fatherland.’ At the end of the ball, Nicholas approached the bride. ‘I hope,’ he said gently, ‘you’ll be as happy as we have been.’

The three emperors would never meet again. Willy kept close to Franz Ferdinand, writing after the wedding to express ‘staunch confidence in you, dear Franzi’ and encouraging the Austrian commander, General Conrad, to destroy Serbia. Conrad, chomping at the bit, in 1913 asked twenty-three times to go to war. ‘I go along with you!’ said Willy, who was infuriated by the glacial slowness of Austrian decision-making, which was still ultimately in the hands of Franz Josef. ‘The struggle between Slavs and Germans can no longer be avoided and will surely come,’ he raged. ‘When? We shall see.’

In mid-June 1914, Wilhelm stayed with Franz Ferdinand at Konopischt Castle, Prague. The kaiser recommended war; if the Austrians ‘didn’t strike, the position would get worse’. Two days after his return, he told Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg that Russia planned a pre-emptive strike. On 28 June, in Kiel, Willy, accompanied by Gustav Krupp, boarded his yacht Meteor to prepare for a race, while Franzi and Sophie headed to Sarajevo to open a museum.