With Franz Joseph now dead and the Romanovs murdered by the Bolsheviks, Kaiser Wilhelm is the lone eagle still standing. German troops move west from the now peaceful Russian front, but the Spring Offensive fails, with the Allies making surprising advances across France and Belgium. Wilhelm’s optimism of his soldier’s fighting will is not fully shared by the General Staff, particularly because of the desperate erosion of the home front. Wilhelm’s cousin Prince Max is made Chancellor as a concession to reform, but that only hastens the clamour for change. The 1918 German revolution finally forces the Kaiser’s abdication, and he flees to exile in the Netherlands.

• John Elliot

• Vernon Dobtcheff
• Miriam Margolyes
• Michael Bryant