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In September 1908, Franz Ferdinand orchestrated a deal with Russia that bypassed Serbia: if Russia got a free hand over the Straits of Constantinople, Bulgaria, also a Russian protégé, would become independent,^* and Austria would annex Bosnia. Franz Ferdinand boasted to Willy that ‘he was involved in it everywhere. Its driving force.’ A month later, Franz Josef announced the annexation of Bosnia, at which Russian Slavophiles, outraged by the betrayal of Serbia, forced Nicholas to deny the pact. Serbia threatened war, backed by Russia, forcing the Habsburgs to appeal to their ally, Kaiser Wilhelm. ‘I stand by you,’ Willy promised Franzi, ‘through thick and thin.’ Europe was close to war.

In late October, the London Daily Telegraph published the kaiser’s outrageous interview, given months earlier, assuring the British that his fleet was aimed at the Yellow Peril and claiming that he had protected the British, who were ‘mad as March hares’. Britain was alarmed by Wilhelm, and at home his rule was threatened; he sacked ‘traitor’ Bülow and promoted the steady Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. The kaiser not only backed the Habsburgs but encouraged war: ‘Get on with it!’

In November, Willy went shooting with ‘dear Franzi’ and then on to a hunting party given by his new best friend, the Austro-German Prince Max von Fürstenberg, at Donaueschingen Castle. There, as everyone was having cocktails before dinner, General Count von Hülsen, the strapping moustachioed chief of the kaiser’s Military Cabinet, emerged wearing a bright-pink ball dress belonging to their hostess and a hat decked with ostrich feathers. As a witness recalled, he was ‘dancing gracefully to the music, holding a fan coquettishly in his hand. Rewarded with resounding applause, stepping backwards throwing kisses to the ladies,’ he retired – then collapsed. ‘The man who had just been so full of the joys of life – dead! And by his head stood the Kaiser, by the body of the man who had been closer to him than any other.’ While this flamboyant death was being hushed up, Russia threatened to back Serbia. At this, in February 1909, Wilhelm warned France that ‘In the event of Russian’s intervention against Austria, the casus foederis [triggering a treaty obligation] arises for us immediately: mobilization.’ Facing war with Germany and a European conflict, Nicky, weakened by revolution, blinked. ‘The role Germany’s played is odious and disgusting,’ he told his mother. ‘We won’t forget it.’ Willy and Franzi were elated at Russia’s retreat. ‘It was a real pleasure to me to be a good second to you for once,’ Willy told his friend. ‘A wonderful trial-run for the showdown.’

A sense of desperation and of diminishing time encouraged extreme solutions. Reclaiming his autocratic powers, Nicholas rebuilt his army; next time he would have to fight. In Belgrade, Apis sought a way to accelerate Serbian resurgence. In Constantinople, Ottoman officers sought to halt the dismemberment of their empire. In Thessalonica, a cosmopolitan Ottoman city, home to 90,000 Jews, soldiers backed by merchants of an abstruse religious minority^* joined a secret Committee of Union and Progress – Young Turks – that took over the Third Army and forced Abdulhamid to accept a parliament. The last Ottoman autocrat abdicated; a parliament was elected; a passive sixty-five-year-old Ottoman, Mehmed V, was enthroned. Among the Young Turks, a dashing young officer, Enver Bey, disdained democracy: only war could restore empire. As Mehmed clutched at the reins of power, another decaying empire was losing its veteran monarch: that November, Empress Cixi realized she was dying and reached for the arsenic.

I WANT NANNY: THE BABY EMPEROR, DR SUN YAT -SEN AND THE SONG SISTERS

First Cixi ordered the poisoning of her nephew Emperor Guangxu,^* then she sent eunuchs to seize without warning the Manchu toddler Prince Puyi, two-year-old son of Prince Chun, taking him away from his mother (whom he did not see again for seven years) and, with the child screaming, convey him by palanquin to the empress. ‘I remember suddenly finding myself surrounded by strangers,’ wrote Puyi, ‘while before me was hung a drab curtain through which I could see an emaciated, terrifying, hideous face. This was Cixi. I burst into loud howls. Cixi told someone to give me some sweets, but I threw them on the floor.’

‘I want nanny,’ shouted Puyi.

‘What a naughty child,’ said Cixi. ‘Take him away.’

Two weeks after her death, in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Piyu, terrified by the drums and music, sobbed all the way through his coronation as Xuantong Emperor. ‘Don’t cry,’ said his father, Regent Chun. ‘It’ll be over soon.’ Xuantong grew up into a capricious hell-child – ‘Flogging eunuchs was part of my daily routine,’ he later admitted, and he fired his airgun at courtiers.