I understand they say WWI started because the Kaiser was mad at Cousin George for making fun of him, but how did Prinzip killing the Arch Duke give the Kaiser an excuse to start that? Wasn't the start of the war Serbia and Austria? How did Germany get involved and what happened to Austria and Serbia?
shareGavrilo Princip killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. This caused the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph (uncle of the assassinated Archduke) to give Serbia an ultimatum they knew Serbia wouldn't meet as a pre-text for war. The Germans had a pact with the Austro-Hungarian empire and were drawn into the war. A lot of secret treaties/pacts came into play, drawing the whole continent in like a bunch of dominoes falling, and turning what initially looked like a small regional conflicct into a big war. It's a complicated and fascinating subject.
More than you can really get into on a movie board.
All about being bound to treaties. Once someone started a war the other allies follow.
shareI looked up. The Czar was not Victoria's grandson. However, The Czar's mothers parents were the same as George V's mother's parents. So
Kaiser Wilhelm & George V first cousins
Tsar Nicholas & George V first cousins
But
Nicholas and Wilhelm third cousins (and second cousins once removed). But not first cousins.
Actually the Czars wife, Alexandra was the grand daugther of Queen Victoria. So they could have kept this also in, but of course this would be not as straight forward to the story. Of course it would work likely even better when they had shown Young Will getting rejected because of his hand by her. But it is imo stronger and more straight forward (war is a boys game) storytelling.
WW1 had happened because of any reason. And yes, Wilhelm was jealous of George, that's why he invested so much in his marine, because George was supreme lord of the sea with his marine and Wilhelm wanted to compete with him. Anyway, the war had happened anyway because EVERYONE supercharged their armies and was ready to get into war. Because everyone overestimated their army, every country expected the war ending in no time. But they basically neutralized each other.
If Germany/Austria had not started it, very likely France had done so (they wanted revenge for the war of franco-prussian war) or even Russia had done it, to divert from the inner uproars. Not sure about England, but George was definitely not a peace lover, who stopped the war.