(crowd cheering)
The crown.
(uplifting music)
Once the ultimate symbol of power
throughout the world.
We want the king.
We want the king!
But today, the very nature
of royalty is under threat.
In this landmark series,
we use specialized archive colorization techniques
to bring to life over 100 years of royalty.
(dramatic music)
And discover why over half the world's royal families
have lost their thrones.
While others have kept their crowns on their heads.
(dramatic music)
In this episode, Britain's King George V
must keep his country safe
from the dangers of fascism and Nazi Germany.
George V realized that
either you were gonna give in to them
or you were gonna take them on.
But his eldest son's affair
with married woman, Wallis Simpson,
is throwing the crown into crisis.
There was a huge worry at the time
it would ruin the monarchy. (dramatic music)
And when the prince befriends Hitler,
the British government and Royal family have
to take drastic action before it's too late.
And so Edward's situation and deep Nazi beliefs
become a very real problem for the British royal family.
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
It's the 1920s.
World War I is over.
It's time to celebrate.
After the First World War,
people were just happy to be alive.
(upbeat music)
We're through the worst of it,
we fought the war to end all wars,
and now we can look to the future.
Europe's major capital cities
like Paris and London catch fire with creativity.
And a new music scene emerges from America.
Jazz.
The young live fast and party hard.
The decade soon becomes known as the Roaring Twenties.
Why were they roaring?
They were roaring because people wanted to let rip.
(people cheering)
(suspenseful music)
But there's another side to this post-war era.
The faces and bodies of the men
who sacrificed themselves for this peace.
So during the 20s,
there was this sort of ghostly element to it.
The men who'd survived in the trenches,
not all of them came back whole.
(people shouting)
The war's survivors are shell-shocked
and many are angry at the royal rulers
who led them into a world war.
Anti-monarchy feelings are sweeping across the continent.
The royal families of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Russia have already lost their thrones.
(suspenseful music)
And in Britain, the monarchy is under threat
from the spread of communist ideas.
(suspenseful music)
King George V has clung on to his power.
But with growing discontent at home after the horrors
of World War I, could he be next?
There's no doubt that George V
was affected by this revolutionary turmoil
at the end of the First World War.
He's seen two of his cousins,
Nicholas and Wilhelm, topple from their thrones.
He knew that if he was going to retain his throne,
he was going to have to do something
to connect with his people.
While George looks for a way
to keep the British public on his side,
he witnesses one of his royal allies in Europe
take a huge political gamble to stay on the throne.
(dramatic music)
King Victor Emmanuel is the ruler of Italy.
Like King George in Britain,
Victor's Italy is also on the winning side in World War I.
But victory has brought Italy nothing but pain.
(suspenseful music)
Italy's a total mess after World War I.
And, like for many participants in World War I,
there is a lot of frustration
that the war did not give Italy what it wanted.
The people have had
to make enormous sacrifices to survive.
And the financial cost of the war
is now causing a political crisis.
(suspenseful music)
Italian democracy is very different
from Britain's at this time.
The Italian king is not just a figurehead.
He has all the power
and is the only person who can appoint the prime minister.
Italy in the 1920s has a form of parliamentary democracy,
but the ultimate authority in the country is still the king.
He decides whether the country goes to war
and, crucially, he appoints the prime minister.
The King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele,
is struggling to keep the country together.
There is a quick succession of governments
and parliamentary votes of no confidence.
And, in fact, no political faction can gain enough tract
and enough support to hold the country together for a while.
Italy is slowly descending into political chaos.
(suspenseful music)
The people of Italy are desperate
for a political alternative.
But if communism takes hold in Italy,
this will put the king in a dangerous position.
Victor Emmanuel's power in Italy after World War I
is fragile because of the revolutionary spread,
particularly the spread of communism,
after the Russian Revolution.
There is no place for monarchs in that system.
(dramatic music)
The Italian king observes
a new right-wing figure emerge from the political chaos.
A man who does believe in hierarchy and social order.
His name is Benito Mussolini,
and he thinks he can make Italy great again.
Mussolini wanted to revive the Roman Empire
and create a massive, shall we say,
Italian space in the Mediterranean
for the Italian race to thrive.
Mussolini's vision for Italy
follows a new ideology called fascism.
Fascism is a ultra-nationalist, authoritarian, racist
political movement that believed in state control
of the economy, the regimentation of society.
And what fascism did not accept is that everyone was equal.
(dramatic music)
When Victor Emmanuel hears about fascism, he's intrigued.
Could Mussolini defend Italy from communism,
and help him stay on the throne?
(suspenseful music) (people shouting)
Mussolini's right-wing party rapidly grows in popularity.
And at a fascist rally in October, 1922,
Mussolini gives his followers a command
to march on the capitol of Italy
and the seat of the king's power, Rome.
(suspenseful music)
(people shouting)
When the fascists arrive in the city, things turn violent.
They demand that their leader
becomes the new prime minister.
By unleashing this, you know,
effectively a coup d'etat against the existing government
in Italy, there is a tremendous threat of bloodshed.
(suspenseful music)
Now Victor Emmanuel must make a choice.
Will he allow the fascists to continue the march
or will he use his military to crush them?
The then prime minister,
who's a liberal prime minister,
says to the king, look,
you know, these guys are marching on Rome, but don't worry.
The military have assured me
we can deal with them, no problem.
You just need to give me the order.
(suspenseful music)
But Victor Emmanuel never gives the command.
Instead the king decides
to make Mussolini his new prime minister.
(dramatic music)
Victor Emmanuel's decision to align himself with fascism
is motivated by a royal instinct to survive.
Vittorio Emanuele may have thought
that Mussolini was his best chance
at bringing some order to Italy.
(suspenseful music)
I think he's beginning to associate in his own mind
with fascism being the way forward.
At first, it seems the plan works.
(suspenseful music)
Mussolini creates effective infrastructure, jobs,
and gets the economy moving enough
to alleviate many of the problems caused
by the economic crisis.
The King of Italy keeps his crown.
But, over time, Mussolini shows his true colors.
His leadership transforms into a dictatorship
and Mussolini changes its title from prime minister
to Il Duce, the leader.
While Victor Emmanuel keeps his crown for now,
it's clear to every Italian who really wields power.
(suspenseful music) (people cheering)
The fate of the King of Italy is a dire warning
for Britain's George V.
Royal flirtations with fascism can backfire.
George needs another way to hold on to power.
They hatch this plan,
the king and his family have to find a way
of really connecting with the British people.
And particularly, interestingly,
the British working classes.
(people cheering)
Although today, of course,
we take it for granted that the royal family
will smile and shake hands and visit hospitals
and chat to people,
that was not the case with the Victorian monarchy.
And it was very much King George V
that moved it into the modern era.
(suspenseful music)
During the 1920s, George V goes further
than just meeting with his people.
He appoints Ramsay MacDonald,
Britain's first prime minister from the Labor Party,
the party for the working people.
In many ways,
George V creates the idea of the British monarchy
as everyone's monarchy,
not just the elites' monarchy.
(people cheering)
Then in 1932, (bright music)
perhaps the most significant change George V makes,
is when he speaks to his subjects personally
through the magic of radio
in what becomes known as the King's Christmas Speech.
(peaceful music)
I speak now from my home and from my heart
to you all.
To all, to each,
I wish a happy Christmas.
God bless you.
Although he had this very ponderous
sort of slow, rather melancholy delivery,
people absolutely loved it.
You have the voice of the empire coming through to you,
directly to you.
You know, it's a sort of magic thing, isn't it?
And it's instantly over the airwaves.
This fantastically important person
is talking straight into your living room.
But behind the scenes is a dark secret.
The king is terminally ill.
Diagnosed with chronic bronchitis,
he is only expected to live a few more years.
George must ensure whoever inherits the throne continues
to win the love and respect of the British people.
The future of the monarchy depends upon it.
(suspenseful music)
King George V's two eldest sons are Prince Edward,
the heir to the throne, and Prince Bertie,
who, as the second oldest son,
is the so-called spare to the throne.
As king, you've got to have an heir to inherit everything
and a spare, in case that person dies before you do.
(solemn music)
The two brothers are total opposites
and Edward seems to get all the fun.
(bright music)
Edward is the first in line to the crown
and will be the next King of England.
And that makes him very desirable.
As a young man,
Prince Edward was probably for most eligible bachelor
in the world.
He was somebody who was very good looking.
He was very charming.
He was magnetic to women.
The outwardly dapper, fashionable, very modern.
He's obsessed with America.
He loves jazz.
And he very quickly gets a reputation
as a sort of handsome man about town.
(bright music)
To prepare Edward for his future role of king,
his father sends the prince on foreign tours
of the British Empire, to represent the crown.
And Prince Edward is adored.
You look at the public perception,
of course he was greeted as hugely popular
because he was charming.
He had a wonderful smile.
He had film star good looks.
Prince Edward had this charisma to him.
He was somebody who people could actually warm to.
(upbeat music)
But behind the good looks and charm,
Edward is also haunted by the legacy of World War I.
(suspenseful music)
He served in the British Army
and saw the war's horrors firsthand.
But, unlike other men of his generation,
the prince didn't fight on the front line.
I think there might've been a bit of survivor's guilt.
There was a feeling that,
although he was allowed to join up,
he hadn't been allowed to do the job.
During the 20s and 30s,
the handsome prince gains of reputation as a ladies, man.
It became very clear that actually Edward loved
the company of the various women
that he was meeting on his tours.
Although King George wants his son
to connect with the people,
this is not what he had in mind.
George would like him to marry possibly a princess,
but actually a nice suitable aristocratic English rose.
He gets this sort of horrible feeling,
oh no, here's this sort of loose cannon
in the royal family at a time
where I cannot afford a loose cannon
if we're to keep the monarchy together.
(suspenseful music)
And Edward seems to have a particular choice
in the women he wants.
Married women.
Prince Edward having relationships with married women
makes a lot of sense
because, you know, if an accident happened,
if one of them got pregnant well, so what?
That's normal in a marriage for somebody to get pregnant.
Nobody needs to know that it's the illegitimate son
of the future king.
(people cheering) (suspenseful music)
As King George's illness gets worse,
so do his fears for his playboy son
and the future of the British throne.
He writes to the prime minister of England
and shares a deeply personal wish
that the crown skips Edward
and instead goes to his second son, Bertie.
After I'm dead, the boy will ruin himself
within 12 months.
I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry
and that nothing will come between Bertie and the throne.
He was frightened that his son
would take up all of his hard work and throw it away.
But King George is powerless
to change the line of succession.
After he dies, Edward,
his oldest son, will become King of Britain
and his son will have to face a new threat
to Britain's peace.
This time from abroad.
Adolf Hitler. (suspenseful music)
Since losing World War I,
Germany has abolished its monarchy,
which saw George V's royal cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm,
the Emperor of Germany, thrown out of the country.
And now Adolf Hitler, the leader
of the far right Nazi Party has taken control.
Hitler's leadership style is inspired
by none other than Italy's Benito Mussolini.
Adolf Hitler very much used Mussolini's fascism in Italy
as a template for what he wanted to do in Germany.
Hitler tries to emulate
the ways in which Mussolini speaks,
as a big declamatory style.
Italiani!
And so Hitler, 10 years later,
would also begin speeches decrying, German folk.
And so on and so forth.
He even copied Mussolini's style in a physical sense.
(dramatic music)
Mussolini soon becomes one
of Hitler's closest allies,
and they both build up armed forces
and put on great military shows.
(dramatic music)
One will visit the other,
and there'll be a great display of their armed forces.
You know, this is how powerful we are.
Anyone looking from the outside
and seeing these great displays of military strength
must've imagined that trouble was ahead.
Like Mussolini, Hitler also has ambitions
to create a new empire through territorial expansion.
He is determined to make up for Germany's humiliating defeat
in World War I.
(dramatic music)
Over in Britain, King George V is deeply worried.
He hasn't forgotten the horrors of World War I.
And now another global war is on that horizon
that could threaten his crown.
George V undoubtedly was concerned
about this type of display of military strength
by the fascist powers.
Because he realized that, ultimately,
if they were gonna get what they wanted,
either you were gonna give in to them,
or you were gonna take them on.
If you were gonna take them on,
that was gonna lead to war.
Hitler begins building up
one of the most powerful armies the world has ever seen.
(dramatic music)
And by 1936,
with the collapse of the democratic republic in Spain,
fascism is starting to spread here too.
A fascist leader called General Franco takes control
of part of the country.
While Britain braces itself for war,
disaster strikes at home.
(bell clangs)
(melancholy music)
King George V,
who has led Britain through the last war, dies.
His oldest son inherits the throne
and becomes King Edward VIII.
But while his father rejected fascism,
what does Edward think? (melancholy music)
Everybody was looking at him thinking,
what's he going to do next?
Where could this go?
At his father's funeral,
Edward faces his first test of character.
He becomes the target of a fascist plot
that could destabilize the British throne.
(suspenseful music)
His German cousin, the Duke of Coburg,
has been sent on a secret mission
to try and turn Edward into a supporter of Hitler.
The duke is a devout Nazi,
and even turns up to King George's funeral
in a Nazi uniform. (dramatic music)
He was a believer and a close friend of Hitler.
And he had been trying many times to get close to Edward.
Because, if the rumors are true,
Edward is more open to siding with Germany
than his father was.
He'd gone on many tours to Germany
when he was a young man.
So he had friends, he had relations, he had families.
He could speak German fluently.
He'd said, I see no reason
for there to be any difficulty between our two countries.
You know, the bad feeling about the First World War
is now over and hopefully we can get on and have peace.
Edward doesn't see the danger in fascism
and feels that Hitler actually doing a good job.
(suspenseful music)
He believed the Hitler was a vigorous reformer.
And what he believed was
that somebody like Hitler was needed for Britain.
Edward and the Duke of Coburg
strike up a friendship
and he invites the new king to visit Hitler in Nazi Germany.
He was interceding,
trying to use both his genuine belief in Hitler
and his understanding that Edward,
if not actually a Nazi,
certainly a believer in German friendship
and a believer in fascism.
(dramatic music)
He wasn't just making idle chit chat.
He was actually trying
to have potentially the first Nazi king there'd ever be
and ever could be.
Unlike his father,
Edward is easily influenced and susceptible to flattery.
Could Edward really be turned into a Nazi king?
(dramatic music)
After Edward becomes King of Britain,
another big questions swirls around him.
Who will he make his queen?
Without a wife or an heir to the throne,
the line of succession is under threat.
Everyone wants to know who will he make his princess bride?
At a royal ceremony proclaiming his accession to the throne,
Edward stuns the world when he watches it from a window
with a mysterious woman by his side.
(suspenseful music)
A photographer manages to catch a picture,
an image of a shadowy woman by his side.
And, of course, this woman is quickly identified.
Her name is Wallis Simpson.
But at first, she is kept a secret.
This was thought to be so scandalous,
the leading newspaper publisher of the day made sure
that it was kept out of every single newspaper.
Although it was commonly known in America
and in Europe that the king had his special friend,
it wasn't actually known in Britain at all.
So who is Wallis Simpson?
She's born on the other side of the world,
near the East Coast American city of Baltimore.
Her father died when she was very young
and her mother tried to bring her up
as a very feisty, independent woman.
(suspenseful music)
She was somebody who was ambitious for money.
She was ambitious for jewels.
And I think you could argue she was ambitious
for love as well.
Although Wallis's first marriage
ends in divorce,
she moves to London with her second husband, Ernest Simpson.
The ambitious couple quickly become a part
of the royal social scene. (suspenseful music)
Half of her wanted security.
Half of her wanted to reach for the stars
and she recognized that in herself.
But then Wallis meets the then king-in-waiting
and Edward soon falls head over heels for Wallis
and finds her lack of deference of big turn on.
She doesn't respect monarchy very much
and she doesn't respect him for being a monarch.
And he finds this dazzling.
His entire life has been about, you know,
inheriting the throne.
And here's a woman who doesn't see him for that
and sees him for him.
And wants him romantically.
Now Edward is king,
he wants to marry Wallis and make her Queen of England.
But there's a big problem.
She's still married to Ernest Simpson,
who seems aware of this relationship as well,
because they're not hiding it.
They're flaunting it.
For Edward to marry Wallis,
Wallis would need to get a divorce
for the second time in her life.
But the Church of England is strictly against divorce.
And as the new head of state,
this also makes Edward head of the Church of England.
And if you have the head of the state
who obviously does not respect Christian values,
does not respect marriage,
which is between God and a man and a woman.
If he doesn't respect vows in church,
why should he respect the vows he makes as king?
(dramatic music)
His late father's worst fears are coming true.
The British people are split about what they think
their king should do.
But it is Edward that must choose the woman he loves
or his duty to the crown.
A nation awaits.
(birds chirping)
Windsor Castle.
Edward positions himself in front of a microphone.
Millions tune in to listen
as Edward lets his people know his decision.
You must believe me
when I tell you that I have found it impossible
to carry the heavy burden of responsibility
and to discharge my duties as king
as I would wish to do
without the help and support of the woman I love.
(suspenseful music)
Edward is the first king in British history
to voluntarily give up the throne.
And he throws the monarchy into crisis.
And Edward choosing to do that meant
that most of his public, not everyone,
but most of the country essentially saw him
and they thought, he could have been such a brilliant king.
So we have to consider the idea
that the monarchy was at this very, very precarious stage.
(dramatic music)
This royal crisis couldn't have come
at a worse time for Britain.
Hitler and Mussolini are threatening war in Europe.
Britain needs a strong ruler to steer its people
through the storm ahead.
And it gets Edward's younger brother,
Prince Bertie.
Prince Bertie is 18 months younger than Edward,
but, unlike his brother,
is already happily married to British aristocrat,
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, with two daughters,
Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.
(melancholy music)
But although the younger brother
has a greater sense of duty,
he doesn't have the same natural charisma as Edward
and is chronically shy.
You know, he's a classic second son.
You know, plays second fiddle his whole childhood.
He's not as good looking.
He's not as flamboyant.
Bertie was born with knocked knees.
And, while a child,
his father made him wear a painful leg brace
to correct the abnormality.
And he has a stammer.
Which is made much worse by the fact
that every time he stammers in front of his father,
his father says, you know, what?
Get it out!
Spit it out!
But Bertie has hidden qualities
that could help endear him to the British public.
Bertie's strength is that he is ordinary and dutiful.
And so he represents really much more the ordinary man.
Bertie's ordinariness
could make him a safe choice of monarch.
Well, who do you want to inherit the throne?
We are living at a time when
there's a lot of social upheaval.
To keep the monarchy,
you need to make sure
that the king doesn't do anything strange,
doesn't do anything to risk this institution.
(suspenseful music)
After Edward gives his abdication speech,
the crowd is passed on to Bertie,
who shows respect to his late father
when he becomes known as King George VI.
The British people have a new king on the throne.
The third king that year.
As the first act of his reign,
the new monarch gives his brother a new royal title.
It had to be decided what you would call the ex-king.
Couldn't be just a prince.
He couldn't be an ex-king.
They needed to come up with a title for him.
Edward becomes His Royal Highness, the Duke of Windsor.
A duke is the highest ranking title in the British nobility.
A new king, a new duke.
But is it the new beginning the British royal family needs?
(suspenseful music)
Britain has just survived
its biggest royal upset in generations.
King George's own family's secure.
His wife and two daughters
mean the future succession is guaranteed.
But tensions between King George and his brother, Edward,
soon boil over.
In June, 1937, Edward and Wallis marry.
Not in Britain, but in France,
at the home of one of their millionaire friends.
And none of the British royal family attend.
Suddenly, they had become non-people.
And when their closest friends had asked
if they could come to the wedding and be part of it,
the king and queen made it very clear
that if they went to the wedding,
they would be cut off.
As Edward's wife,
the marriage makes Wallis the Duchess of Windsor.
But his brother, King George VI,
refuses to give Wallis the royal title
of Her Royal Highness or HRH.
The HRH title confers royalty.
It means you're royal.
Subjects of the crown, the male ones bow their head to you.
The females curtsy.
They treat you as a royal.
And this meant that,
although Edward was a royal, Wallis wasn't.
Edward minded that Wallis wasn't given HRH,
probably more than anything else in his life.
He saw it as an ongoing snub.
He saw it as an insult from his country.
(suspenseful music) (people shouting)
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor turn
their backs on Britain and start a new life in France.
King George VI now fears what his brother might do next
to damage the royal family's reputation
and put the British crown in jeopardy.
Just 10 months after George has become king,
his brother Edward decides to go on a trip with Wallis.
An unsanctioned trip to Nazi Germany.
(ominous music)
Edward's Nazi uncle, the Duke of Coburg, hosts the two
and arranges a high-profile meeting
between the newlyweds and Hitler.
They are treated like royalty.
Edward wanted his wife to be treated
with all the respect and courtesy of a member
of the royal family
and the one people who were willing to do that
were, of course, the Nazis.
Hitler is charmed by Wallace
and tells his interpreter
that the duchess would have made a good queen.
Photographs of Edward shaking his hand,
of all of them being photographed
with Wallis standing next to him,
that was the best possible propaganda
that Hitler could have had.
When King George learns
about his brother's trip to meet Hitler, he's mortified.
He calls it a bombshell, and a bad one too.
Relations between Britain and Germany are already
on a knife edge.
And now his brother is befriending the enemy.
But worse is yet to come.
(dramatic music)
September, 1939.
World War II finally kicks off
after Hitler invades Poland.
Britain comes to the help of their Polish ally
and declares war on Germany.
Britain and France attempt
to stop Hitler's advance across Europe,
but they're no match for the German Army.
I mean, the early stages of the Second World War
are one of an unbroken run of successes for Germany.
(artillery booming) (suspenseful music)
And in less than eight months,
Hitler's army has control of most of Central Europe.
In May, 1940 at the instruction of senior politicians,
King George appoints Winston Churchill as prime minister
to lead Britain's fight against Hitler.
But after a humiliating defeat in France,
British troops are forced to evacuate
from the beaches of Dunkirk.
Nazi Germany now occupies most of France.
And this is a huge concern for King George
because his brother, Edward, lives
in the French capital, Paris.
Is the former British king
about to be captured by the Nazis?
(suspenseful music)
The British royal family expect Edward
to support his fellow countrymen
and return to England immediately.
(guns popping)
(plane buzzing) (ominous music)
So it would have made perfect sense
for Edward to have gone to England
and to have found some sort of accord with his family.
But, Edward being Edward,
he never did the sensible or the decent thing.
Instead of supporting the British troops
and his British family,
Edward goes to the south of France
before heading to fascist Spain.
George sees his brother's disloyalty
as the ultimate betrayal. (suspenseful music)
Churchill is furious.
It's always been termed a betrayal
because he didn't do his duty.
For King George,
this has now gone beyond a family feud.
(siren wails)
Edward is now seen as a threat
to not just the survival of the British crown,
but to the very fabric of the nation.
(dramatic music)
By June, 1940,
the Nazis have control of mainland Europe
and are now thinking of their next step,
how to conquer Britain.
Churchill marshals Britain's defenses,
but they have a critical weakness.
The former King Edward has left France
and he's now in fascist Spain.
(dramatic music)
Fleeing to Spain at the time
that England seems to need people
and need people to be there,
if only for purely symbolic reasons,
it was either an act of cowardly pragmatism
or simply of cowardice,
depending on which way you look at it.
The Nazis now see an astonishing opportunity
to win the former King of England over to Hitler's side.
And if he won't come willingly,
they have plans to kidnap him.
Hitler launches on operation, codename Willi.
Operation Willi has always
been slightly shrouded in mystery.
What he intended to do was to launch an operation
whereby Edward and Wallis would be taken from Spain
and brought to Germany. (suspenseful music)
The Nazis want to use Edward
to bargain a peace settlement with Britain.
And if they succeed,
they'll dethrone his brother, King George,
and restore Edward to the British throne.
And to use the king as a kind of puppet
and to present him as the true ruler of Britain.
But what they hoped
was that Edward could be persuaded not
to have to be kidnapped, that he could come willingly.
Hitler might have plans for Edward and Wallis,
but so too do Prime Minister Churchill and King George.
They want Edward out of the picture.
So, Winston Churchill sends Edward a telegram,
instructing him to take a new job
as governor of the Bahama Islands.
The British-owned islands are over 4,000 miles away
from Britain and, crucially, Nazi Germany.
The question is, will Edward go?
Initially, Edward and Wallis
were very distrustful of the choice
to send them off to The Bahamas.
(dramatic music)
While Edward delays his departure,
Hitler sends in one of his most effective undercover agents,
Walter Schellenberg. (suspenseful music)
He was somebody who was a kind of a Nazi James Bond,
I suppose is the easiest way of describing him.
He was this Nazi secret agent who was very suave.
Schellenberg attempts to scare the couple
into staying in Europe by feeding Edward's worst fears,
that the British are out to get him.
And the appointment in The Bahamas is a death trap.
The key to Operation Willi was to play
on the suspicions and indeed paranoia
that the Windsors had
about British intelligence wanting to assassinate them.
At one point, Walter Schellenberg actually paid people
to throw stones at the windows
of the house that the Windsors were staying in.
But Schellenberg's mind games fail.
The Windsors depart for their position in The Bahamas
and set sail from Europe.
And King George VI can breathe easy.
His brother is out of Hitler's reach.
For now. (dramatic music)
As Edward suns himself in The Bahamas,
King George and Britain now face the full force
of Hitler's war machine.
His Luftwaffe air force
launch daily attacks on cities all over Britain.
For 57 days, London is bombed from the air.
(dramatic music)
(melancholy music)
King George and his wife, Queen Elizabeth,
work hard to show the British royal family are not blind
to the country's suffering.
Bertie was a very, very shy private man.
And he was suddenly thrust into the limelight,
the biggest limelight there was,
during a time where Britain was in crisis.
George VI makes public visits
to bomb sites and refuses to leave London,
even when Buckingham Palace becomes a bombing target.
(dramatic music)
This was a hugely important part of Bertie as a man.
As King George VI, he represented his people.
He was brave with his people.
He stayed in London and he appeared in front of them.
(dramatic music)
Although the king's advisors
recommend Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret
evacuate to America,
the family decide to stay to form a united front.
When Princess Elizabeth turns 18,
she gets behind the war effort,
training as a truck driver and a mechanic.
The whole family work hard to boost morale
and get the country through its darkest hours.
(suspenseful music)
I mean, it was really bad.
The rationing was abhorrent.
People were dying every night in bombing raids.
You had, you know,
the king and queen going from place to place,
encouraging everyday people to work their hardest,
to appreciate them,
knowing how important that was to them.
(suspenseful music)
But while George's family keeps up morale
on the home front,
his brother continues to cause trouble for the royals.
(suspenseful music)
Now, the Windsors are in The Bahamas,
they're quick to integrate themselves
within a tight-knit circle of millionaires
and Nazi sympathizers.
Edward continues to cause trouble for Britain
when he gives a pro-Hitler interview to the American press
in December, 1940. (suspenseful music)
He'd made quite unguarded comments,
in which he'd say that he felt that England
should have sought terms with Germany
or that his brother was somebody
who wasn't the best king he could have been.
(suspenseful music)
He also had a complete lack of belief in Britain's victory
in the Second World War.
And so, as a result,
he did say some extremely stupid and embarrassing things.
The United States are officially neutral
at this stage,
but the interview causes so much attention
that the couple come under the surveillance of the FBI.
(dramatic music)
Well, the main reason why the Windsors
were under surveillance by U.S. intelligence
was for fear that they were actually Nazis.
(suspenseful music)
And what had happened with Operation Willi,
with Edward's visit to Germany,
with the constant belief that he had these Nazi sympathies
was that it was not known what he was going to do.
(dramatic music)
(plane rumbling)
But not long after Edward's interview,
America enters the war on the side of the British.
And the tides of war begin to turn against Germany
and their fascist ally, Italy.
(suspenseful music)
In July, 1943,
Allied troops begin to take back mainland Europe.
They start by landing on the Italian island of Sicily
and then work their way up
through Italy's mainland peninsula.
Mussolini's army fails to stop them.
(suspenseful music)
So even though Mussolini claimed to have prepared Italy
for war and for nationalist triumph,
by 1943, Italy is falling apart.
Mussolini's Armies are really on the verge of collapse.
They'd been defeated in North Africa.
They'd been defeated in Russia.
(suspenseful music)
It's the beginning of the end.
The Italian Army
has already suffered huge losses in the war.
And public opinion is turning against Mussolini.
(suspenseful music)
Victor Emmanuel realizes that,
to survive on the Italian throne,
he must get rid of the Mussolini.
The king attempts to distance himself from fascism
and has Mussolini arrested.
After the collapse of Mussolini's fascist regime,
Italy soon turns its back on Hitler
and swaps to the Allies' side.
When the war finally draws to a close two years later,
Mussolini falls into the hands of the angry Italian mob.
(solemn music)
Mussolini's end is particularly grisly.
And you could say, you know,
in some ways, a deserved fate for such,
you know, a bombastic and aggressive dictator.
(solemn music) (people shouting)
They're hung upside down from a burnt-out petrol station
in Piazzale Loreto in Northern Milan
for all of Milan to see.
Just two days after Mussolini's execution,
Adolf Hitler accepts Germany has lost the war
and commits suicide.
With the two fascist leaders dead,
World War II in Europe comes to a bloody end.
People across Europe celebrate the end of the fighting
and now look to an uncertain future.
(people cheering) (uplifting music)
Victor Emmanuel of Italy
has tried to distance himself from Mussolini,
but the people of Italy won't easily forget.
Victor Emmanuel has attempted to save his throne
and the monarchy by disassociating himself
with Mussolini and the fascists.
But, frankly, it's too little too late.
Around 25 million Italians vote
on whether to keep their royal family
or become a republic.
Italy becomes a republic,
and so Vittorio Emanuele and the House of Savoy
become normal citizens.
Emmanuel loses his crown
and goes into exile in Egypt,
where he dies a few years later.
But he's not alone. (solemn music)
The monarchs of countries like Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,
and Romania also lose their thrones
during the aftermath of World War II.
But King George VI survives
and celebrates the victory
from the Buckingham Palace balcony.
(crowd cheering) (uplifting music)
George VI is rightly regarded
as one of Britain's greatest rulers.
(people cheering)
George resisted the allure of fascism
and avoided the mistakes of the Italian royal family.
I think he's not regarded so much as a great ruler
because he was comfortable being king,
but because he was the right man at the right time.
I think that we were very lucky as a country
that we lost an awful king and gained a great one.
(uplifting music)
But George is not out of the woods just yet.
If his brother Edward's link to Hitler is discovered
by the public, it could be the death
of the British monarchy.
How far will the royal family go
to keep their fascist secrets hidden?
In this post-war world
where fascists face trial and execution,
fascism is the dirtiest of words
(dramatic music)
For any royal family to survive,
they must go to extremes to get their people
to forget their wartime pasts.
They must adapt to a new world order,
dominated by a different kind of war.
(dramatic music)
A war not of attacks and invasions,
but a war of propaganda and espionage.
(dramatic music)
A war between East and West.
Between the USA and the USSR.
The Cold War.
(dramatic music)