So, fake news isn't so new?
Robert Toombs was a big time fire eater. Read his speech to the Georgia legislature just before secession and you will have no doubt Georgia left the Union over the slavery issue.
P.S. Princess Victoria, the Queen's eldest, did indeed marry Prince Frederick of Prussia. By all accounts they were very happy. Both were liberals by Prussian standards. Frederick died young, of cancer. A debate still rages whether he would have reformed Germany and avoided WWI had he lived a full life. But, I may be wandering into Henkster's Law territory and speculating that Germans would not act like Germans.
I never realized before that Queen Victoria had grandchildren on the thrones of both Germany (Kaiser Wilhelm) and Great Britain (George V) during WWI. I wonder if she would have played a favorite had she been alive.
Ooops...didn’t read your comment before I posted almost the exact same thought.
No, it’s not a violation of Henkster’s Law. The early and unexpected demise of a major historical actor is an exception. Frederick William appears to have had a moderate view of foreign policy. He was one of the voices who advocated restraint in not humiliating France after the Franco-Prussian War. Had he lived, I doubt he would have deliberately antagonized Britain the way his son did. However, he was not going to live forever, and sooner or later the neurotic William II would send German foreign policy off the rails. Also, WW1 was as much the instigation of von Moltke the Younger and the General Staff as it was of the Kaiser, maybe more so.
So had Frederick William lived a long life, it might have been more likely a postponement of WW1 rather than an avoidance of it.