The Queen at War : A New Documentary Shows How WWII Made Queen Elizabeth the Leader She Is Today
On April 21, 1947, the then–Princess Elizabeth gave a speech to the entire British Commonwealth for her 21st birthday. “I am thinking especially today of all the young men and women who were born about the same time as myself and have grown up, like me, in terrible and glorious years of the second world war,” she said. “Will you, the youth of the British family of nations, let me speak on my birthday as your representative?”
It’s those “terrible and glorious years” that are the subject of a new documentary, The Queen at War, which premieres tonight on PBS. Interweaving the queen’s coming-of-age and London’s despair and determination during WWII, it aims to show how those tumultuous times made her the dutiful leader she is today.
Those looking for an action-packed retrospective should look elsewhere: the princess and her sister were, well, protected kids during these years. But that’s not to say they were immune from the anxieties and realities of conflict: More than one million women, children, elderly and disabled people were evacuated from London, including the princesses, to escape the Blitz. They spent the war years 45 minutes outside the city, at Windsor Castle, where they could still hear the German planes ominously roaring toward the metropolis. (One of their targets? Buckingham Palace. “Dive Bombers Try to Kill the King and Queen!” read the post-attack headline in The Daily Express. The bombs narrowly missed her parents, and later the Queen Mother wrote a letter to her daughter clarifying her will. “In case the Germans do me in,” she explained.) But the film does provide a fascinating insight into the formation of a steadfast, stiff-upper-lip psyche that defines the queen today.
In 1940, at the age of 14, she made an address to the displaced children of Great Britain. Many were far away from home—shipped away to the countryside, and in the case of 24,000, overseas to places like the United States and Canada. The future queen spoke clearly, confidently, and from the heart: “Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers. My sister, Margaret Rose, and I feel so much for you as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all,” she said. “We know, everyone of us, that in the end all will be well; for God will care for us and give us victory and peace. And when peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place.”
This documentary coincides with two events. One was expected: the 75th anniversary of V-E Day. The second, unintentional: the COVID-19 pandemic. Parallels between the WWII and pandemic eras were drawn by the queen herself: In an April 2020 broadcast concerning COVID-19, the queen showed a flashback to the very speech she made 80 years ago. “Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones. But now, as then, we know deep down that it is the right thing to do,” she said.
While watching The Queen at War, that idea—that history repeats itself—is omnipresent. This time, we’re all waging the same war against an invisible enemy. But that feeling of dragged-on dread, and uncertainty if it’ll ever end, is back. And so is our ability to keep calm and carry on. “The attributes of self-discipline, of quiet-good humored resolve, and of fellow-feeling still characterize this country,” said the queen. “The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future.”
Does the leader make the times, or the times make the leader? The Queen of War argues the latter. “This national crisis turned this young woman into the leader her country needed,” the documentary says. It includes videos of her parents walking through bombed-out London streets and listening to those affected by the Blitz. (Over the course of the war, King George VI and the Queen Mother took more than 300 regional tours of the country.) Queen Elizabeth watched these new clips at Windsor Castle, as a way to keep informed about current events and to train as a future public figure herself. Looking at the way she conducts herself now, it’s easy to see she displays the same stoic compassion as her parents. The similarities don’t stop at royal walkabouts and meet-and-greets: When at 14 she gave that speech from Windsor Castle, the press remarked how much her tone and delivery matched her mother. The young Princess was taking cues. When she turned 18 in 1945, she enlisted in the army as a mechanic. Currently, Queen Elizabeth is the only head of state that served in WWII.
The queen’s coronavirus broadcast received near-universal praise. Later, it was broadcast on billboards in Piccadilly Circus, the “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters of the digital age. Without her life experience during WWII, the queen’s speech wouldn’t have packed the same emotional wallop. Because when she said her oft-repeated line—“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again”—you know she believed it.
Watch The Queen at War on May 5, at 8 p.m., on PBS.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
