Postcard of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars.
Völkerkrieg (people's war)1914; In Treue FestPeople's WarFirm in Loyalty
"Princess R_______ said to me when I was discussing the imperial court with her recently :'Isn't it grievous to think that the masters of Russia live in such an atmosphere? It's as if they lived in rooms which are never aired. Just think, no one — I mean it, no one — ever sees them alone or lunches with them or goes for a walk with them or dines with them or spends an evening with them . . . not a soul except Anna Vyrubova! . . . [The courts of Alexander II and Alexander III had] some life about them. The monarchs were approachable; you could talk quite freely with them so that they learned a good deal. In turn you got to know — and like them. But now . . . what a contrast, what a lapse!'"
Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Tuesday, December 29, 1914. The Russian Empress was German, and on October 14, the Ambassador had written that, 'the Empress and those about her are suspected of carrying on a secret correspondence with Germany.' Anna Vyrubova was lady-in-waiting, confidant, and friend to Empress Alexandra, and spent many evenings alone with the royal family. She was imprisoned during the first Russian Revolution in 1917.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 230, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
1914-12-29, 1914, December, Vyrubova, Paléologue, Paleologue
