A Crack In Time

In the annals of human history there are a few select moments of time, where so many events are compressed, that suddenly it is the future that one can see instead of the past. The very first month, of the very first year, of the twentieth century was most definitely one of those focal points. Even more ironic is how it is all centered around a single day. Maybe this is clear to us now due to hindsight but, the strange coincidence that occurred on the 22^nd of January, of that year, most certainly did seem, to those at the time, as if a torch had been passed from a vanishing era to yet another.

In Chicago, President Elihu Root and his running mate, Theodore Roosevelt, were sworn in to office. Root was now officially on his second term and by the very act, his reinstatement was a message that nothing had changed and that America was still in the war. Even if no one knew it at the time, it was also not as important as was Roosevelt’s swearing in, which was treated as something to be disposed of. For someone who was quite famous for his speeches, even at this point, Theodore would not utter a single word to the gathered crowds. He would stand in a line of men, looking not any different from the others, for most of the ceremony.

One has to understand that this was very typical for vice presidents of the United States. The position was something of a black hole for politicians and, so much so, that many of Theodore’s friends had urged him not to accept the nomination. Going all the way back to the very first Vice President, John Adams, it was quickly discovered how easily this position could be ignored. Unlike John Adams, very few Vice Presidents would ascend to the next logical step of commander and chief. That position was usually reserved for the Secretary of State and, in the past, even the primary function of the Vice President was called into question when the first President had died in office. It had resulted in a constitutional crisis because many did not believe the Vice President should loose the status of ‘vice.’

While the constitutional issue of presidential succession was largely resolved in 1901, no one gave it much thought because it had been a very rare occasion that a president died in office. On that day, in January of 1901, Root appeared to be the poster boy of good health. He gave a three hour speech with a tireless energy that normally his Vice President was famous for. What the people in the crowd were unaware of was that this was one of two speeches that Root had prepared for this day. The first one, the one he thought he would be forced to use, was a much shorter speech and not because Root had any mercy for the crowd who braved the cold on that day.

What was not commonly known by the public, and even many inside the administration, was that US military intelligence had managed to get a close eye on the Confederate airships that were stationed in northern Alabama. They were also equally successful at getting out raid warnings via a successful spy ring that was well imbedded in the state government of Tennessee. The information that they passed along on that day was never more crucial to Root, who had expected those Zeppelins to show up in the sky’s of Chicago while he was on the stump, however, the strange fact was that the Confederate Air Force had been ordered to stand down on this day.

Root never pondered why and simply thanked his blessings and went with his longer speech. He would not find out what the connection was until later that night, when the news reached a Chicago ball room, that the leader of America’s most hated enemy had died earlier in the day. Oddly enough, during one of the many inaugural balls, for the President of an enemy country, Queen Victoria was given five minutes of silence to memorialize her passing. Even now, after all the blood, the people in Chicago, and America in general, still understood on an almost subconscious level that, while they might be living in a rival nation they were still living in an era that would be named for the woman who had just died. No matter what you felt about the British, Victoria Windsor’s death was a moment that transcended national rivalries and was most certainly a book mark of human history. The war only made this moment more heart felt.

It is strange how so much, that was not very important in the material sense, was leaving such a heavy mark on the impressions of so many at the time. While it was well known in the circles of governments, across the globe, that Victoria was merely a figurehead, her presence had most certainly captured the imaginations of the people, far and wide, and made everyone, even those who lived in rival nations, feel a sense of stability. The subsequent events only went to demonstrate how true this was. It also showed how desperate people were becoming and, by extension, it made their governments even more so because they knew the hard part was yet to come.

This seems a bit of historical irony when you consider how irrelevant Victoria had become in her own government and even in the context of how she redefined the very throne that she occupied. In many ways it is easy to surmise that Victoria was more loved in death than she ever was in life and, one can go right back to her very first days on the throne and see this. She was but a teenager when she was crowned and her age had been one of the chief reasons that opponents of the monarchy had attempted to dispose of the institution entirely. The compromise left Victoria as head of state but, in name only. She never truly tried to change this situation and, seemed perfectly happy to be the “moral center” of great Britain.

Even that part of her job changed entirely when, in December of 1861, her husband died unexpectedly at the age of 42. The truth was that Albert had been ill for some time but down played this fact, especially too his wife. Victoria and Albert were hopelessly in love, something very uncommon amongst monarchs of the age and, as a testimony to their unofficial power, had made loving one’s spouse a standard when it had never really been before. Albert’s death also exposed a problem with this particular custom and it is quite possibly why monarch’s had never treated marriage as anything more than a business arrangement before that time. This problem was that Victoria was heart broken and remained in morning the rest of her life. The subsequent effects on politics and culture would show itself but, only be realized years later and then, mostly by historians that are rarely listened too.

The events surrounding Victoria’s death are a good case in point. It was Victoria’s custom, after the passing of Albert, to spend the winter on the Isle of Wight at her estate known as the Osborne House. While the estates look palatial, by any standard, the fact was that her family hated it and constantly begged her to spend the Christmas season at Buckingham Palace. This was so true, that, one of Victoria’s last requests was that Osborne House remain in the Windsor family. This caused something of a predicament for her son Edward, who tried to pawn the place off on any number of relatives, all of whom refused.

There was the added problem that it was not only her family that had requested she spend her winter somewhere else. When the war began, the Isle of Wight seemed rather exposed to the Royal Navy because, after all, France was just right across the channel and they had already seized the channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey. It was greatly feared that Victoria’s presence on the coast would be a tempting target for President Boulanger. Of course, the truth is, this was mostly wartime paranoia. We now know that Boulanger had absolutely no interest in Queen Victoria or the Isle of Wight. Jersey and Guernsey were right off the coast of Brittany which, to the French at least, made them a security problem. The Isle of Wight was seriously defended, within sight of England, and beyond it’s worth to even raid.

Still, the Queen’s presence at her estate always meant that the Royal Navy had to siphon off resources to increase the security of the island for her annual pilgrimage. While there was not even an unofficial mention of it, one can surmise that there was nothing but relief in Plymouth at having been relieved of this responsibility. The same could not be said of their King and his unforeseen responsibility of disposing of an estate that not a single royal would have anything to do with. Oddly enough, the one man who was willing to claim title to Osborne, was also kneeling beside Victoria as she passed. He was her eldest grandson and, unlike Victoria, he was a monarch in the true sense of the word. He was the Kaiser of the Second German Empire, and his name was Wilhelm.

At the time of Victoria’s passing, it is hardly imaginable that Wilhelm had given much thought about owning another estate. It is quite possible that his reasons were personal. He had spent much time there, as a child, and adored his Grandmother even if she privately did not return the favor. Victoria would often comment in private about her grandson and, it seems, that her opinion of the boy was that he was very much a, “boorish bully.” Yet he was the one holding her hand when she died, and it would be Wilhelm that would go very much forward with the memorialization of his grandmother, even exceeding her English family.

The passing of the estate was also one of the very first concrete changes brought about by Victoria’s death. By the end of the year the grounds would be mostly occupied by visiting German military Officers, most of whom were advisors sent from the Kriegsmarine to cooridnate operations with the Royal Navy. By the end of the war it would become a military headquarters, responsible for all operations in the channel that involved the navies of both nations. After the war it would become a permanent symbol of Anglo-German military cooperation.

This would not be the last real change brought about by Victoria’s death. In fact, this would be one of the smallest. The most visible change was only days away, even if it would take years before anyone realized that Victoria’s death had anything to do with it. It would be, quite literally, a silent change despite being well publicized at the time. It would terrify the collective general officers, their staffs, and the politicians of every nation. It would be easily fixable from their point of view but, it was the very first, and very unexpected, sign of what they all knew was coming. Ultimately, they all knew that they could fight the symptoms but, in the end, they were powerless to stop.