When We Wind Up the Watch on the Rhine

DESCRIPTION: "When we wind up the Watch on the Rhine, How we'll sing Auld Lang Syne! You and I, 'Hurrah,' we'll cry. Everything will be Potsdam fine." The Germans will go to jail. "The half-a-crown prince must resign." The Allies will have their way
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (recording by Harry Tate and Violet Loraine, according to Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver)
KEYWORDS: soldier derivative
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, pp. 95-96, "The Watch on the Rhine" (1 text)
Roud #V55854
NOTES [153 words]: The reference to the "crown prince" is interesting, because there were multiple "princes" in the German armed forces. According to Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Dictionary of the First World War, 1995 (I use the 2003 Pen & Sword paperback), p. 507, the Kaiser's oldest son, another Wilhelm (1882-1951) was crown prince of Germany as well as commander of the Fifth Army at the start of the war, later going on to still higher commands. But there was also Rupprecht, the Crown Prince of Bavaria (1869-1955), he commanded the Sixth Army at the start of the war, and, according to Pope/Wheal, p. 404 (and everything else I've ever read) he was the best soldier among the various royals in the German army.
Both Crown Princes were out of a job after the war; Wilhelm went into exile with his father the Kaiser, and the Bavarian monarchy was also closed down, so Rupprecht became an ordinary German citizen. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: AWTBW095

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