Hello and welcome to a History of Europe Key Battles podcast.

My name is Carl Rilett, and this is part eight on the series of the First World War.

It is entitled Countdown to Catastrophe.

On the 20th of May 1910, huge crowds estimated at between 3 and 5 million gathered on the streets of London.

The mood was somber for the occasion was the funeral procession of their king, Edward de 7th, who had passed away a few days before.

Three days before the funeral, his coffin had been taken in procession to Westminster Hall, where there was a public lying in state.

On the first day, thousands of members of the public queued patiently in the rain to pay their respects.

Some 25,000 people were turned away before the gates were closed late in the evening.

The funeral was the largest gathering of European royalty ever to take place,

with representatives of 70 states, and was the last before many royal families were deposed in the First World War and its aftermath.

Edward V. 7th was related by ties of blood or of marriage to most of the sovereigns of Europe, many of whom

gathered for the funeral. Among the assembled dignitaries were the late king's nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm,

of Germany, two of his brothers-in-law, the kings of Greece and Denmark, his nephew, the king

of Norway, his nephew-in-law, the king of Spain, and various other members of the House of Saxo-Koburg and Gerta.

Also present was Grand Duke Michael of Russia, a younger brother of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the late King's nephew.

And also Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination would later go on to trigger the First World War.

The gathering demonstrated how closely knit all the European royal families were.

The year 1910 in Europe was relatively quiet politically, the calm before the storm in a continent which had seemed to be lurching from one crisis to another since the dawn of the 20th century.

In London there was a general spirit of reconciliation, in particular between Britain and Germany, whose Emperor Wilhelm had been close to his late uncle and grandmother, Queen Victoria.

However, tensions quickly ratcheted up the next year when the great powers were in dispute over North Africa.

The Balkans, soon after, descended into war and the rest of Europe was not far behind.

Unaware of what lay ahead in many ways the people of Europe had good reason to feel pleased with the recent past and confident about the future.

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