Cousins, Identical Cousins

General consensus is that Kaiser Wilhelm II (“Willy”) did not start the first world war, but no one can bring themselves to find anyone who contributed more to its having come about. Surely his cousin King George V (“Georgie”) was not entirely innocent, nor was Tsar Nicholas II (“Nicky”--who, although not a grandchild of Queen Victoria like the other two, was married to one). As a result of anti-German sentiment in 1917, George V up and decided to change the family name to Windsor after Windsor Castle on the outskirts of London. The name Battenberg was also Anglicized, to Mountbatten. The House of Windsor had been called the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ever since Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840.


So where is this Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Duchy-thingie? As it turns out, it is/was adjacent to Bavaria. The map on the left below shows the states of Bavaria (purple), Thuringia (green) and Saxony (pink). The map on the right shows the configuration of the same areas, Bayern, Thuringen and Sachsen as they call them here, from 1826 to 1918.


Seems simple enough, except you’ll notice that Thuringia was not consolidated yet (this happened in 1920)...and what about Saxe-Coburg-Gotha anyway? Here’s a close-up of the Herzogtum (Duchy...a Herzog is a Duke) Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was formed in 1826, after Prince Albert’s father, Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, took Gotha and changed his title to Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (although the two duchies remained technically separate).


Coburg is now in Bavaria, and Gotha is now in Thuringia. Descendants of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ruled all over Europe (as did descendants of a million other tiny, little principalities), notably in Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal and Bulgaria. The current head of the House of Bulgaria is the former King Simeon II, who now goes by the name Simeon Sakskoburggotski. Sakskoburggotski has been Bulgaria's Prime Minister since 2001 (his party’s 20% to the Socialists’ 31% in elections two weeks ago could mean he’s on his way out, but not if they have any dreams about ever becoming an EU member), he is the first monarch in history to get back into power by a democratic election.