num_pages: 324
description: A court insider's prophetic memoir of pre-World War I Germany.From 1902 through 1909 Topham served as English governess to Princess Victoria Louise, the only daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. In this graceful compilation of her three books about her experiences in the German royal household published from 1914-1926, she has little to say about her young charge but presents an animated picture of the Kaiser, from his crushing macho handshake, his incongruous military getup worn even on picnics, his intense jealousy of England, his bellicose speeches and glorification of war, to his boast that he and his guests had killed more than 1600 heads? of game during a three-day-hunt. Despite the jolly badinage between them (he called her the British Dreadnought because of her tart tongue), the emperor and the middle-aged governess did not take to each other. Topham's remarks about the Germans in general are scathing; she desribes their "nauseous" sentimentality, coarseness, brutality, jingoism and blind adoration of their leaders in detail. Her reminiscences, as edited by Crisp, publisher of New Chapter Press, convey a vivid series of pictures of daily life in the Prussian court before the Great War, with ominous warnings of the approaching storm. Photos.
language: English
title: A Distant Thunder: Intimate Recollections of the Kaiser's Court
titlecomplete: A Distant Thunder: Intimate Recollections of the Kaiser's Court (A Clio History Book)
ratings_count: 15
publisher: New Chapter Pr