The Pity of War

England and Germany, Bitter Friends, Beloved Foes

Miranda Seymour

In 1613, a beautiful Stuart princess married a handsome young German prince. This was a love match, but it was also an alliance that aimed to meld Europe's two great Protestant powers. Before Elizabeth and Frederick left London for the court in Heidelberg, they watched a performance of The Winter's Tale. In 1943, a group of British POWs gave a performance of that same play to a group of enthusiastic Nazi guards in Bavaria. Nothing about the story of England and Germany, as this remarkable book demonstrates, is as simple as we might expect.

Miranda Seymour tells the forgotten story of England’s centuries of profound connection and increasingly rivalrous friendship with Germany, linked by a shared faith, a shared hunger for power, a shared culture (Germany never doubted that Shakespeare belonged to them, as much as to England), and a shared leadership. German monarchs ruled over England for three hundred years—and only ceased to do so through a change of name.

This extraordinary and heart-breaking history—told through the lives of princes and painters, soldiers and sailors, bakers and bankers, charlatans and saints—traces two countries so entwined that one German living in England in 1915 refused to choose where his allegiance lay. It was, he said, as if his parents had quarreled. Germany’s connection to the island it loved, patronized, influenced, and fought was unique. Indeed, British soldiers went to war in 1914 against a country to which many of them—as one freely confessed the week before his death on the battlefront—felt more closely connected than to their own. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished papers and personal interviews, the author has uncovered stories that remind us—poignantly, wittily, and tragically—of the powerful bonds many have chosen to forget.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 528 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4422-4174-9 • Hardback • October 2014 • $81.00 • (£62.00)

978-0-8108-9615-4 • Paperback • November 2017 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: History / Europe / Western, History / Europe / Germany, History / Europe / Great Britain / General, History / Military / World War I, History / Military / World War II, History / World

The Pity of War

England and Germany, Bitter Friends, Beloved Foes

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

In 1613, a beautiful Stuart princess married a handsome young German prince. This was a love match, but it was also an alliance that aimed to meld Europe's two great Protestant powers. Before Elizabeth and Frederick left London for the court in Heidelberg, they watched a performance of The Winter's Tale. In 1943, a group of British POWs gave a performance of that same play to a group of enthusiastic Nazi guards in Bavaria. Nothing about the story of England and Germany, as this remarkable book demonstrates, is as simple as we might expect.

Miranda Seymour tells the forgotten story of England’s centuries of profound connection and increasingly rivalrous friendship with Germany, linked by a shared faith, a shared hunger for power, a shared culture (Germany never doubted that Shakespeare belonged to them, as much as to England), and a shared leadership. German monarchs ruled over England for three hundred years—and only ceased to do so through a change of name.

This extraordinary and heart-breaking history—told through the lives of princes and painters, soldiers and sailors, bakers and bankers, charlatans and saints—traces two countries so entwined that one German living in England in 1915 refused to choose where his allegiance lay. It was, he said, as if his parents had quarreled. Germany’s connection to the island it loved, patronized, influenced, and fought was unique. Indeed, British soldiers went to war in 1914 against a country to which many of them—as one freely confessed the week before his death on the battlefront—felt more closely connected than to their own. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished papers and personal interviews, the author has uncovered stories that remind us—poignantly, wittily, and tragically—of the powerful bonds many have chosen to forget.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 528 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4422-4174-9 • Hardback • October 2014 • $81.00 • (£62.00)

978-0-8108-9615-4 • Paperback • November 2017 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: History / Europe / Western, History / Europe / Germany, History / Europe / Great Britain / General, History / Military / World War I, History / Military / World War II, History / World

Author

Miranda Seymour is a biographer, novelist, and reviewer. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and recipient of the Pen Ackerley Memoir of the Year Prize for Thrumpton Hall, her extraordinary account of life at the family manor, which she now runs as a successful conference and wedding business. Her other acclaimed biographies include lives of Mary Shelley, Henry James, Robert Graves, Ottoline Morrell, and Helle Nice, the Bugatti Queen.

Her interest in the history of the relationship between England and Germany was triggered by her own background. In 1931, her English uncle was (inadvertently) almost responsible for Hitler’s death. His marriage to a German woman led Miranda on a quest for her family’s German links, which had been neglected and forgotten following World War II.

Table of Contents

PART ONE
FROM A PROTESTANT ALLIANCE TO THE ENDING OF AN EMPIRE (1613–1919)

1 Noble Endeavours
2 Exiles and Travellers (1613–1782)
3 Romantic Exchanges (1790–1830)
4 Count Smorltork’s Progress (1826–32)
5 The Age of Virtue (1830–60)
6 Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale and Charles de Bunsen’s German Hospital (1840–52)
7 Germanising England: The Albert Effect (1840–61)
8 Travels in a Foreign Land (1840–60)
9 The Eagle and the Lion (1858–88)
10 Lululaund and Other Adventures (1880–1910)
11 The Age of Apprehension (1888–1901)
12 The Friendship Under Strain (1902–10)
13 The Rift Widens (1906–14)
14 Debacle (1913–14)
15 Victims of Circumstance: England in Germany (1914–18)
16 Victims of Circumstance: Germany in England (1914–18)
17 Pay-Back (1918–19)

PART TWO
FROM VERSAILLES TO THE VERGE OF WAR (1919–40)

18 Love Among the Ruins (1919–23)
19 Reconnecting (1924–30)
20 Falling in Love Again: Tom Mitford (1909–45)
21 Entering the Abyss (1928–34)
22 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Odd One Out (1929–33)
23 The Young Ambassadors (1930–39)
24 And Then, There Was Romance (1930–39)

PART THREE
MOVING BEYOND REPAIR

25 Exodus (1933–8)
26 Noble Endeavours (1933–40)
27 Resisters and Informers (1933–40)
28 Fate and Circumstance (1939–45)
29 Only Connect
Afterword

Reviews

Biographer Seymour, granddaughter of diplomat Richard Seymour who served in Berlin under Queen Victoria, captures the tumultuous relationship between England and Germany in this ambitious exploration of the period from 1613–1945. She opens with the union of Prince Frederick and Elizabeth Stuart—'marriage of the Thames and Rhine'—and runs through the 1840 match of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that culminated in WWI. Long before the indelible scars created by 'the pity of war,' Seymour illustrates how intellectual attraction drew the two cultures together, sketching a series of illustrious Englishmen—for example, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Friedrich Schiller’s translator) and William Thackeray. Most compelling is the minor royal who played a role in what might be called the family feud: Daisy, Princess of Pless—née Cornwallis-West—who in 1891 married into the German aristocracy. Daisy’s position afforded her a close view of the antipathy between Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Victoria’s irascible grandson, and his Uncle Bertie, the Prince of Wales. Seymour draws on Daisy’s private papers, which foretold the inevitability of WWI, and interviews with her son Hansel, which revealed her own uncomfortable position during the conflict. Every family has its differences but Seymour lays out why this particular family’s intrigue is so irresistible.
— Publishers Weekly

In her new book, Seymour contends that no two European nations have a stronger history of cultural and familiar bonds than Germany and England. This work celebrates these connections and calls for a resurgence of the mutual admiration that once existed between these cousin nations. Beginning with the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart and Prince Frederick in 1612, Seymour explores how marriages of royals and nonroyals created dual identities for the children of these unions. Particularly appealing are the accounts of lesser-known figures such as Daisy Plessy and Hansel Plessy, mother and son, one interned by Germany and the other interned by England for being alien enemies during World War II. Equally compelling are the lives of Herbert Sulzbach and Heinz Koeppler, who worked with German prisoners of war during the same war, teaching them the skills necessary for democratic citizenship. By focusing on intercultural exchange, successful diplomatic relations, and cultural exchange, Seymour successfully makes the case that the nationalism of the era isn’t the only lens from which to examine the period. VERDICT A well-researched collection of stories that emphasizes the connection rather than the divide among nations, this book should appeal to students of international relations and peace studies as well as Anglophiles and Germanophiles.
— Library Journal

Miranda Seymour’s [stories] have a hypnotic effect. Imagine yourself outside a café overlooking a seaside esplanade. The mood is elegiac: nostalgia shot through with a sense of foreboding. . . .A vivid, well-researched book.
— BBC History Magazine

An arresting account of a complex and multi-faceted subject.
— Country Life

This is an impressive, meticulously researched and thought-provoking history.
— History Today

Seymour’s enormously entertaining . . . book acts as a much-needed counterweight to the glut of World War One histories that appeared in 2014; it paints the much larger picture of just how incredibly interconnected England and Germany were in the decades preceding the outbreak of war in 1914. Even long-time students of WWI will learn a great deal from this wonderful book.
— Stevereads

The Pity of War is a collection of the personal stories of the rich and the famous, many of whom had close family connections. . . .The chapters dealing with the 20th century are...interesting because there is more detail and longer biographical sketches.

— Daily News

A noble endeavour, encyclopaedic in its scope, beautifully organised and written, and very moving, as these two cousinly nations are driven asunder by war. A wonderful subject.
— Michael Frayn

Seymour provides an eloquent, perceptive and often moving account of that broader, longer and more benign sweep of history. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Times (UK)

[Seymour’s] account of the First World War is both riveting and moving. . . . A gripping read and a new and strangely uplifting perspective on relations between these two countries. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Literary Review

Most readable and compulsive. . . . By writing her book as a patchwork of individual tales, Seymour allows this story of torn loyalties and proliferating influences to retain its messiness and its colour. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Guardian

Miranda Seymour’s . . . hugely entertaining and absorbing study . . . keeps the political, military and diplomatic dimensions as a framework and focuses on two centuries of personal relationships, families and friendships. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Daily Telegraph

Seymour’s masterstroke is to engage and teach us by letting the stories of real people shine through. . . . A timely reminder of a delicate, deeply felt relationship between two countries. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Daily Express

Expands like an accordion, stories opening into more stories, and the whole propelled by prose that is lean and intricate. The book, which could be read for style alone, is an education and a handshake not only with the past, but with the present. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Telegraph

Miranda Seymour’s research is meticulous, and many of her vignettes are lively and perceptive. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Times Literary Supplement