My latest article: Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

The Bavarian royal house of Wittelsbach is in my opinion one of the most interesting dynasties in history, and in the December issue of Majesty (Vol. 35, No. 12), which went on sale in Britain on Thursday, I write about the life of Crown Prince Rupprecht, the eldest son of the last King of Bavaria, who in the words of the historian Golo Mann was more suited to be king than several of his forebears. The revolution of 1918 prevented that, but the life of Rupprecht - a First World War commander who during the Second World War had to go into hiding while his family languished in concentration camps and who might have been not only King of Bavaria, but German Emperor and King of Britain - is nevertheless an interesting one.

Book news: Some books due this autumn

With autumn approaching it seems this year’s book harvest will be a rather rich one. Among the most interesting titles expected in the coming months is Dynastiet Glücksburg - En danmarkshistorie (“The Glücksburg Dynasty: A History of Denmark”) by the historian Jes Fabricius Møller, a political history of the current Danish royal house which is due to be published by Gad at the end of September. The history of the Danish monarchy will also be covered in a new work on the tombs of Danish kings, Danske kongegrave, which is also due this autumn.
The King of Sweden is celebrating his fortieth anniversary on the throne in September, which is the occasion for the book Mina 40 år för Sverige (“My Forty Year for Sweden”), which consists of some 300 photos from the past four decades to which the King has added his comments.
Queen Silvia is probably not looking forward to the publication later this month of Erik Åsard’s book Drottningens hemlighet (“The Queen’s Secret”), which again addresses the issue of her father’s membership of the German Nazi party and his actions during the Second World War.
That war will also be at the centre of the sixth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of King Haakon VII of Norway, which will be published in mid-October and which will take the story from June to September 1940. The events of that crucial year will obviously also be addressed in Halvdan Koht - Veien mot framtiden (“Halvdan Koht: The Road to the Future”), the historian Åsmund Svendsen’s biography of the eminent historian Halvdan Koht, who served as foreign minister in Johan Nygaardsvold’s government and consequently had to accept some of the blame for Norway’s being poorly prepared for the German invasion on 9 April 1940.
The upcoming centenary of the outbreak of the First World War has already led to a number of books. One which seems particularly promising is The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War by the historian Margaret MacMillan, who is perhaps best known for her book on the Paris peace conference of 1919. That book will be out at the middle of October. The military historian Max Hastings will give his version of those events in Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, to be published in September.
The First World War was unleashed by the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian thrones, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg. Their story is told by Greg King and Sue Woolmans in The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder that Changed the World, which is due to be published in September.
The lead-up to the Second World War sets the stage for Peter Conradi’s Hot Dogs and Cocktails: When FDR Met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson, which relates the story of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain’s visit to the United States and its president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939. Peter Conradi, a journalist at Sunday Times, is best known as the author of The King’s Speech, the book behind the Academy Award-winning film, but has also written The Great Survivors: How Monarchy Made it into the Twenty-First Century, an interesting book (so far published in English, French, Swedish and Dutch) on the European monarchies of today.
The long-awaited second volume of Philip G. Dwyer’s biography of Emperor Napoléon I of France, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power, 1799-1815, will be published in early November.
This week will see the publication of a new biography of Mary Queen of Scots, Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots, by Linda Porter, who has earlier written acclaimed biographies of Queen Mary I of England and Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six queens.
Also out this week is Axel & Margaretha: A Royal Couple, written by the Danish journalist Randi Buchwaldt and published by Rosvall Royal Books. This richly illustrated book tells the story of Prince Axel and Princess Margaretha of Denmark, who played more significant parts in the lives of the Scandinavian royal families than their fairly remote genealogical positions would suggest.
The life of Queen Christina after her abdication in 1654 is the topic of Drottning utan land - Kristina i Rom by the historian Erik Petersson, which will be published in September. The book, which is the 28-year-old author’s fourth, is the sequel to his earlier book on Queen Christina’s reign, Maktspelerskan (2011).
November will see the publication of a biography of Princess Louise of Britain, Duchess of Argyll, the somewhat unconventional daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria’s Rebellious Daughter is written by Lucinda Hawksley.

WWI veteran Harry Patch to be buried today

Today Harry Patch, who at the time of his death at 111 on 25 July was the last surviving veteran of WWI in Britain, will be buried. The funeral will take place at 12.00 BST today in the cathedral of Wells. Among the 1,000 mourners attending will be the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Gloucester. Later there will be a national memorial service in Westminster Abbey for all those who fought in the Great War.
The coffin will today be accompanied by British, French, Belgian and German soldiers, which will reflect Patch’s view that “Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims”. Harry Patch was the last man to have experienced the horror of the WWI trenches and in his old age made clear his staunch opposition to war. On the eve of his funeral the band Radiohead released a song titled “Harry Patch (In memory of)”, where the lyrics consist of Patch’s own words:

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I’ve seen devils coming up from the ground
I’ve seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/06/harry-patch-first-world-war-funeral

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8184000/8184802.stm

At road’s end: Harry Patch (1898-2009), last WWI veteran in Britain

Within a week both the last surviving WWI veterans in Britain have died. Henry Allingham passed away at 113 last Saturday, while Harry Patch died in his sleep at 9 a.m. today in Fletcher House nursing home in Wells, Somerset, aged 111.
Henry “Harry” Patch was born on 17 June 1898 and joined the British Army in 1916. He fought in the trenches from June to September 1917, when he returned to Britain after having been wounded. He was the last soldier to have fought in the trenches of the Great War, to have been wounded in action and to have taken part in the Battle of Passchendale (Ypres). He outlived two wives, a third partner and both his children.
At the 90th anniversary of the ceasefire last November, three surviving veterans took part in the ceremony at the Cenotaph. Now they are all gone, with Bill Stone the first to die, in January this year.
Since Allingham’s death a week ago, Patch was the last WWI veteran in Britain. There is however a British veteran living in Australia, as well as a Canadian veteran living in the USA and an American veteran living in the USA. The last Australian veteran died in June, while the last French, Italian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Polish and Ukrainian veterans died last year.
Approximately 65 million soldiers fought in WWI, with nearly 10 million being killed in this rather unnecessary war. In reaction to the death of Harry Patch today, the British Queen, Elizabeth II, said: “We will never forget the bravery and enormous sacrifice of his generation, which will continue to serve as an example to us all”.
“I know that the whole nation will unite today to honour the memory, and to take pride in the generation that fought the Great War. The noblest of all the generations has left us, but they will never be forgotten”, said Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
“War is organised murder and nothing else”, Harry Patch himself would say. In his memoir The Last Fighting Tommy, published when he was 109, Patch wrote “that politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder”.

The Guardian’s obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/25/harry-patch-obituary

At road’s end: Henry Allingham (1896-2009), WWI veteran and world’s oldest man

Henry Allingham, one of the very few surviving WWI veterans and the oldest man in the world, died peacefully in his sleep at the nursing home St Dunstan’s in Ovingdean near Brighton at 3.10 a.m. yesterday. He was 113 years and 42 days old.
Born on 6 June 1896, he was 18 at the outbreak of World War I. In 1916 he took part in the Battle of Jutland, whose last survivor he was, and later transferred to the RAF when it was founded. He was also the last living founding member of the RAF.
As the number of WWI veterans dwindled and Allingham lived on, he became an increasingly popular person to interview for commemorative events and thereby shot to fame after he had turned 105. Crediting his great age to “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women - and a sense of humour”, he enjoyed good health well into his ripe old age. At the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI in November last year he had intended to stand as he laid his wreath at the Cenotaph, but in the end could not find his feet.
Turning 113 in June he said he was glad to be a teenager again. That same month he also became the oldest man in the world. Queen Elizabeth II led the tributes yesterday, saying Allingham belonged to a generation who “sacrificed so much for us all”.
Allingham was a widower since 1970 and although they lived to their 80s, both his children predeceased him. He leaves five grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, fourteen great-great-grandchildren and one great-great-great-grandchild.
The passing of Henry Allingham leaves Harry Patch, who is 111, as the last surviving WWI veteran in Britain.

Obituary in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/jul/18/obituary-henry-allingham