Prussian Princesses: The Sisters of Kaiser Wilhelm II Hardcover – January 15, 2019 by John Van Der Kiste (Fonthill Media)

Van der Kiste has written a very readable account, not just of the three sisters but also of the world in which they lived. He's particularly good on the effects of the second world war and in placing the people into a world to which we can relate (King Constantine of Greece's youngest brother Andrew was the father of Philip, who's better known to us as the Duke of Edinburgh) and excels at bringing the personalities off the page as individuals, which must have been particularly challenging when so many have the same - or similar - names.Kaiser Friedrich III and his consort Victoria, Princess Royal of Great Britain, had six children who lived to maturity, the eldest being Kaiser Wilhelm II. The three younger sisters, Victoria, Sophie and Margaret, were particularly supportive of their mother during her widowhood and remained close throughout their lives. Like their parents, they would know much sorrow as adults. Victoria's romance with Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria, was thwarted by Bismarck for political reasons and she married twice, firstly to a minor German prince and secondly to a young Russian adventurer who left her to die in poverty. Sophie married the future King Constantine of Greece, whose ill-starred reign saw them forced to leave their throne not once but twice, both dying in exile. Margaret married a prince of Hesse-Cassel, both became members of the Nazi party, and she lived to see her family and house become victims of theft on a major scale at the hands of occupying forces at the end of the Second World War. Using previously unpublished sources, this is the first biography to tell the lives of all three princesses.

John Van der Kiste has published over forty books including works on royal and historical biography, local history, true crime, music and fiction, and is a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His previous titles include Queen Victoria's Children, Kaiser Wilhelm II and The Romanovs: Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his Family and ‘Alfred―Queen Victoria's Second Son’ and ‘Prussian Princesses’ for Fonthill. He lives in Devon.