Shattered Crowns - The Scapegoats

 “In the past,” Archduke Franz Ferdinand said, “I believed that kings and emperors made all the decisions for their people. Now, though, I see it very differently. For the most part, monarchs are merely the actors who take centre-stage. Their lines are scripted for them and their movements are stage-managed by faceless people whom the audience never sees. Even in an autocracy like Austria-Hungary, so much goes on behind the scenes where ministers and politicians plot and intrigue among themselves. They see their monarchs as little more than puppets. They make plans that suit their personal ambitions and increase their own sense of power, and they manipulate their emperors into accepting and implementing those plans at whatever cost to their countries. Then comes the cruellest part of all: when the drama turns into tragedy, these people withdraw into the shadows leaving the emperor to shoulder all the blame…””

 From 'The Scapegoats' - the first book in the Shattered Crowns trilogy - a series of novels portraying   the Royal Families of Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania in the First World War.