The Willy–Nicky correspondence was a series of letters and telegrams relayed between Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia from 1894 to the immediate days leading to the First World War in 1914.

Context and background Wilhelm II and Nicholas II were third cousins (both were great-great-grandsons of Paul I of Russia) as well as being second cousins once removed (both were descended from Frederick William III of Prussia). Wilhelm was also a first cousin of Nicholas's wife, Alix of Hesse, and the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was a grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark and a nephew of Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, as his mother, the Empress Maria Feodorovna, was Queen Alexandra's sister.

The two emperors corresponded in English and were accustomed to calling each other "Willy" and "Nicky" but would use their counterparts' formal names in formal communications.

Letters The Willy-Nicky letters consist of 75 messages Wilhelm sent to Nicholas between 8 November 1894 (Letter I) and 26 March 1914 (Letter LXXV). The majority were sent from Berlin or the Neues Palais in Potsdam, and others from places as diverse as Rominten, Coburg, Letzlingen, Wilhelmshöhe, Kiel, Posen, Pillau, Gaeta, Corfu (where Wilhelm had a summer retreat), Stamboul, and Damascus. Discovered in the Russian archives in Petrograd, they were transcribed by Russian-American journalist Isaac Don Levine and published in 1920 as Letters from the Kaiser to the Tsar: Copied from government archives in Petrograd unpublished before 1920 (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1920).

Telegrams The Willy-Nicky telegrams consist of a series of ten messages wired between Wilhelm and Nicholas on 29, 30 and 31 July and 1 August 1914.The second telegram was actually written first (by Wilhelm) and dated 28 July, but it was not sent until 1:45 a.m. on the 29th, 45 minutes after Nicholas sent the first telegram. The two messages crossed one another in transmission. (A similar crossing occurred in the transmission of the seventh and eighth telegrams on 31 July.) Their source is The German White Book, In full Das Deutsche Weißbuch über den Ausbruch des deutsch-russisch-französischen Krieges, or The German White Book on the Outbreak of the German-Russian-French WarThe World War I Document Archive: The German White BookSome sources (e.g. World War I Document Archive), mistakenly cite the book edited in 1920 by Isaac Don Levine, Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar, as the source of the telegrams. a pamphlet of official documents published to justify the German government's position after the outbreak of war. The term "Willy-Nicky Telegrams" is derived from The Willy-Nicky Correspondence, the title of a book by Herman Bernstein published in 1918 which revealed the personal telegraphic correspondence between the two emperors during the period of June 1904 to August 1907.Bernstein, Herman (1918) The Willy-Nicky Correspondence: Being the Secret and Intimate Telegrams Exchanged between the Kaiser and the Tsar.. Knopf, New York. ,

The telegrams start with a plea from Nicholas to Wilhelm to try to stop the serious developments that led up to World War I. An excerpt (29 July 1914, 1 a.m.):

Ultimately, the correspondence changes tone and the two leaders warn each other of impending mobilisation due to factors out of their control, while retaining the notion that mobilisation does not mean war. An excerpt of the last telegram (1 August 1914):

Representatives of belligerent nations discussed the telegrams during the war,James M. Beck The Evidence in the Case. A Discussion of the Moral Responsibility for the War of 1914, as Disclosed by the Diplomatic Records of England, Germany, Russia, France, Austria, Italy and Belgium(Beck had been the Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S. and was the author of The War and Humanity), (p.81, p.106)Henry Van Dyke (1917) Fighting for peace New York: Charles Scribner's sons. (pp.132-133)F. L. Paxson, E. S. Corwin, S. B. Harding and G. S. Ford. A Handy Reference on the Great War, first published in 1918 (War Cyclopedia – N)(re-released as: A Handy Reference on the Great War Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2004) during the Paris Peace Conference,Arthur L. Frothingham. Handbook of War Facts and Peace Problems 1919M.G. Palaeologus "Tsarist Russia during World War" Moscow: International Relations, 1991 (page 155, 156 - in Russian); previously published as M.G. Paléologue La Russie des Tsars pendant la grande guerre Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1922. (Chapter XII); Maurice Paléologue. An ambassador's memoirs Volume 1, Chapter VIII (see Sunday, January 31, 1915)G. Buchanan. (1923) My Mission to Russia and other diplomatic memories, p. 200 and on into the interwar years,Winston Churchill. (1931) The unknown war. London: Charles Scribner's Sons, p.170James Oliver Murdock, Harold J. Tobin, Henry S. Fraser, Francis O. Wilcox and Willard B. Cowles. "International Judicial Settlement Trends" Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1921-1969) Vol. 34, (May 13–15, 1940) (p. 125-148) and beyond.Robert K. Massie. Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: 1967; Moscow 2003 (pp. 84, 320 in Russian edition)Martin Gilbert. The First World War: A Complete History, 1994, p. 27John Keegan. The First World War, 1998, p. 63 In recent years academic historians have reassessed the exchange.Hew Strachan. The First World War, Vol I: To Arms, 2001, p. 85Richard F. Hamilton, Holger H. Herwig. Origins of World War One. Cambridge University Press, 2003 (p. 514)Andrei Zubov (ed.) History of Russia. XX Century (Volume I, 1894-1939). Moscow: AST Publishers, 2010 (p. 291) They paid special attention to the telegram of Nicholas dated July 29, 1914, 8:20 p.m.:

In this telegram, on 29 July 1914, Nicholas suggested submitting the Austro-Serbian problem to the Hague Conference (in the Hague tribunal) – Wilhelm did not address this in his subsequent telegram. According to James M. Beck,James M. Beck The Evidence in the Case. A Discussion of the Moral Responsibility for the War of 1914, as Disclosed by the Diplomatic Records of England, Germany, Russia, France, Austria, Italy and Belgium, (p.106) the German Foreign Office omitted this telegram in publishing the correspondence between Wilhelm and Nicholas. After the publication of this telegram by the Russian government on 31 January 1915 in the Official Gazette Governmental Herald, the German Foreign Office explained that they regarded this telegram as too "unimportant". In contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry (Sergey Sazonov), as well as the French Ambassador in Russia (Maurice Paléologue) believed the telegram was very important.Georges Maurice Paléologue Tsarist Russia during World War. Moscow: International Relations, 1991 (pp.155, 156 - in Russian); originally published as: Maurice G. Paléologue La Russie des Tsars pendant la grande guerre. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1922. Chapter XII pp.309-335 Georges Maurice Paléologue. An ambassador's memoirs (Volume 1, Chapter VIII)(see Sunday, January 31, 1915) Paléologue, Beck, and some other authors accused Wilhelm in that he had not supported the proposal of Nicholas to submit the Austro-Serbian problem to the Hague Tribunal for adjustment, and thus abandoned the chance for a peaceful resolution to this problem.

A "flurry of telegrams" between Wilhelm and Nicholas led to the cancellation of Russian general mobilisation by the latter on 29 July, but under pressure from Sazonov this was resumed two days later, and on 1 August 1914, both Germany and Russia found themselves at war.

Notes and references

External links The Willy-Nicky Letters - Full text at www.gwpda.org (World War I Document Archive) The Willy-Nicky Telegrams - Full text at the World War I Document Archive