Episodes
| # | Title | Time period |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Death Waltz" | 1853-1860 |
| Franz Josef is Emperor of Austria and unmarried. His mother Archduchess Sophie is determined to ensure the Habsburg line and favours her niece Helene as the future empress. Franz, however, has other ideas when he prefers Helene's 15-year-old sister Elisabeth. | ||
| 2 | "The English Princess" | 1858-1871 |
| Queen Victoria's eldest daughter Victoria ("Vicky") marries Prince Frederick ("Fritz") of Prussia. The British princess is unprepared for her new life in Germany, where her liberal views clash with the Prussian doctrine of iron and blood. | ||
| 3 | "The Honest Broker" | 1887-1890 |
| Bismarck's aim of a unified German empire is furthered through a new League of the Three Emperors. His plans also extend to Fritz and Vicky's son Wilhelm, who has become estranged from his parents. Unfortunately, events will prove fatal for Bismarck as, first Wilhelm I and then his successor Frederick III (Fritz), die and the imperious Wilhelm—now Kaiser Wilhelm II—assumes the throne; Bismarck was forced to resign. The elderly Chancellor seeks support from Vicky but she blames him for the estrangement between mother and son. | ||
| 4 | "Requiem for a Crown Prince" | 1889 |
| Tragedy besets the Imperial Family when Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his young mistress Mary Vetsera are found dead at the hunting lodge at Mayerling. The Imperial Family exerts efforts to hide the outcome to the outside world to cover what may be a potential scandal. | ||
| 5 | "The Last Tsar" | 1892-1894 |
| Alexander III of Russia doubts the ability of his son and heir-apparent, Nicholas, to rule Russia. The young Tsarevich is similarly apprehensive. Meanwhile, the autocratic conservatism of the Imperial Government is breeding revolutionaries. | ||
| 6 | "Absolute Beginners" | 1903 |
| Nicholas II has been Tsar for nine years. In Russia, the question is no longer whether revolution, but how and led by whom? In London, Vladimir Lenin is developing his own, more radical, brand of Marxism and manoeuvres to divide the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from his rival Julius Martov. | ||
| 7 | "Dearest Nicky" | 1904-1905 |
| While Nicholas is pre-occupied by war with Japan, the health of his only son Alexei, and the continual unsolicited advice of his cousin the Kaiser, a rising tide of discontent among St. Petersburg's working class leads to the assassination of the interior minister Vyacheslav von Plehve and then to a disastrous demonstration led by police spy Georgy Gapon. | ||
| 8 | "The Appointment" | 1905 |
| When Grand Duke Sergei is murdered, Nicholas dismisses his Police Chief and considers Pyotr Rachovsky as a suitable replacement, even though he is rumoured to use agent provocateurs. Both Sergei Witte and Empress Alexandra also have grave concerns about his methods. | ||
| 9 | "Dress Rehearsal" | 1908-1909 |
| Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky, who has his sights set narrowly on the Dardanelles and the freedom of the Russian fleet rather than peace in the Balkans, find himself diplomatically outmanoeuvred by Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal. | ||
| 10 | "Indian Summer of an Emperor" | 1914 |
| Franz Josef fears for Austria-Hungary's future in the hands of his nephew and heir-presumptive Franz Ferdinand. | ||
| 11 | "Tell the King the Sky is Falling" | 1915-1916 |
| While the Russian army drowns in its own blood, and Russian politicians Alexander Trepov, Alexander Protopopov, and Mikhail Rodzianko thrash about, Nicholas and Alexandra have begun to rely heavily on the advice of faith healer Grigori Rasputin. | ||
| 12 | "The Secret War" | 1917 |
| As World War I rages, Alexander Kerensky incites revolution in Russia, and Lenin and his comrades are stuck in Switzerland. Germany, however, may prove to be an unexpected ally in ending their exile, with the help of Dr Helphand. | ||
| 13 | "End Game" | 1918 |
| As America enters the war and British tanks make advances across France, Kaiser Wilhelm's optimism is not shared by generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff. However, the 1918 mutiny forced the Kaiser's abdication and flees to exile in Holland. |
Read more about this topic: Fall Of Eagles
Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)