William II

Emperor of Germany and king of Prussia (r. 1888-1918)

• Born: January 27, 1859
• Birthplace: Berlin, Prussia (now in Germany)
• Died: June 4, 1941
• Place of death: Doorn, the Netherlands

After a quarter of a century of straining the patience and tolerance of his fellow rulers with his ill-advised antics, it was William II’s misfortune to lead the German Empire during World War I. Although certainly not solely responsible for that conflict, it is hard to deny that his inability to cope with the demands of the modern state helped to create the climate of instability that eventually led to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Early Life

Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert later known as William II was the eldest son of Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife, Princess Victoria, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. His delivery was difficult, and his left arm was severely injured. His hand and arm, although healthy, never grew to normal size, thereby producing a lack of bodily balance. This disability drove the young prince to try harder than his fellows to succeed in areas that required physical stamina, especially in athletics.

In contrast to his autocratic grandfather, who would in 1871 become the first emperor of Germany, William’s parents were liberals who were determined that their son would be educated to govern a democratic state, not an absolute monarchy. Consequently, at the age of sixteen he became the first member of his family to attend a school open to the general public. Having been carefully prepared for entry into the gymnasium at Kassel, William did quite well academically, but he was carefully isolated from his fellow students. Beginning in 1877, he spent four semesters at the University of Bonn, but his real interest lay with the army and not the university.

William began his military training late in 1879 at Potsdam, near Berlin. There William came in close contact with the most conservative elements in German society, the Prussian nobility and the corps of professional officers. At last he could rebel against the ideas and concepts that his parents had tried to instill in him since childhood. His rebellion brought him into conflict with his mother, who was as willful and determined as he was. This tension continued until her death in 1901 and gave rise to a number of unfounded rumors about relations between William and other members of his mother’s family.

As was the custom among European royalty, William’s marriage was arranged for him, and in February, 1880, he was engaged to Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenberg. Reared to concern herself with children and home, she did not provide William with either the intellectual companionship or direction that he so desperately needed. Yet the marriage, which was solemnized in February, 1881, proved a happy one, and the couple had six sons and one daughter.

During the years that followed his marriage, William was rarely in the public eye, but he was considered important enough to be cultivated by his grandfather’s chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. The young prince was flattered by the attention from one whom he greatly admired, and during the last years of the old emperor’s life, he seemed to grow closer to the man whom neither his father nor his mother trusted. Then on March 9, 1888, William I died and Fredrick III ascended the throne. His reign was brief; on June 15, 1888, he died of cancer of the throat. At the age of twenty-nine, William II inherited the crown of Germany and began a reign that would last until 1918.

Life’s Work

Almost completely ignorant of foreign affairs and uncertain of his ability to understand the endless ramifications of his ministers’ domestic policies, William II was nevertheless determined to bring under his personal control every aspect of government. Bismarck was equally convinced that to entrust such weighty matters to the care of an immature monarch whose impatience and lack of tact were proverbial might endanger the continued peaceful evolution of the German state. Resolved to manage the young kaiser, and sure of his own indispensable position, Bismarck invoked a long-forgotten cabinet order of 1850 that forbade individual ministers to report to the monarch save in the presence of the chancellor. Having endured Bismarck’s arrogance for almost two years, William dismissed him on March 10, 1890.

With the departure of Bismarck, William II assumed complete control of the government, but the only thing consistent about his policies was their inconsistency. Often his instincts were correct, but, aware of his lack of real experience, he repeatedly allowed himself to endorse a course of action that eventually proved injurious to the interests of Germany. Thus, shortly after Bismarck left office, the kaiser was persuaded not to renew the vital Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. This rejection of one of the cornerstones of Bismarck’s foreign policy forced Russia into an alliance with France in 1894. This blunder ended the diplomatic isolation of France and left Germany surrounded by potential enemies. The climate of opinion thus created allowed proponents of a two-front war, such as Alfred von Schlieffen, the opportunity to convince William of the inevitable armed conflict with France and Russia.

Determined to counter the Franco-Russian alliance with a diplomatic coup of his own, William used every device at his disposal to form a permanent arrangement with Great Britain. Instead of creating a lasting friendship with the foreign power he most admired, William seemed to lurch from one crisis to another. The African and Asian policies of the two countries were not incompatible, but, when the kaiser finished his diplomatic offensive, relations between the two countries were almost openly hostile. As the possibility of an Anglo-German rapprochement became increasingly remote, William encouraged the passage by the Reichstag of a naval bill that would create a German war fleet. While it was intended to protect Germany’s merchant fleet and serve the empire, the British regarded the naval building program as a threat to their continued hegemony on the high seas. All hope of an alliance, formal or informal, was destroyed by the kaiser’s continued public support of the Boers in South Africa and his enthusiastic endorsement of the building of a railroad from Berlin to Baghdad.

William’s grasp of domestic affairs during the first decade of his reign was equally unsuccessful. In the early days of the empire, Berlin was slowly transformed from a mere royal capital into a city of world stature. Unfortunately, William was completely out of touch with the cultural trends that were sweeping Germany into the mainstream of European life. He turned from the exciting new Berlin of artists and intellectuals, poets and playwrights, politicians and reformers to an older Berlin that still celebrated the martial virtues. Surrounding himself with military personnel, William became increasingly remote from his civilian advisers, a trend that had dire consequences in the early years of the twentieth century.

To their dismay, German diplomats learned of the Entente Cordiale between France and Great Britain in 1904. Undaunted, William proceeded the following year to execute his plan for dislodging the British from their potential alliance with the Third French Republic. Bismarck had encouraged the French to develop a sphere of influence in North Africa, but now William sought to reverse that policy while reawakening British distrust of French colonial ambitions. He recognized the sultan of Morocco as an independent ruler and paid a visit to Tangier in 1905. To prevent an escalation of this manufactured crisis, the great powers assembled at Algeciras in Spain the following year. The conference was a diplomatic victory for France. It received a free hand in Morocco, the arrangement with Great Britain was strengthened, and in 1907, after months of negotiations begun at Algeciras, Russia was persuaded to settle a number of long-standing differences with Great Britain.

William provoked a second Moroccan crisis in 1911 by sending a German warship to the port of Agadir to protest the French occupation of the city of Fez. The European powers came very close to war, but somehow peace was maintained. Actual fighting in the Balkans the following year had a sobering effect on Europe’s leaders, and even the kaiser began to work for the maintenance of peace. The months that followed saw an easing of tensions, and the gala wedding of William’s daughter, Viktoria Luise, to Ernst August of Hannover in May, 1912, seemed to mark the beginning of a new era of tranquillity and cooperation. It was to be the last time that the royalty of Europe would assemble socially, but on that happy occasion war was far from their minds. The development of a rational and peaceful approach to the Continent’s problems was welcomed by people of every nationality.

In June, 1914, the kaiser was on holiday when Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated. Shocked at the loss of an old friend, he promised Germany’s moral support to Austria-Hungary, never dreaming that his ally would use that offer to force Serbia into a diplomatic position that could only result in a declaration of war. Ignorant of the exact details of the ultimatum, William nevertheless felt honor-bound to defend Austria-Hungary. Once committed to war, albeit reluctantly, the kaiser threw himself into the fray with his usual energy. His fits of bombastic rhetoric gave the Allies grist for their propaganda mills, but the German people remained loyal until the end. Like all the belligerent powers, Germany censored the news from the front and successfully edited the truth to convince the people of their ultimate victory. The rumor of the armistice and Germany’s subsequent admission of defeat seemed to paralyze the nation. Republican elements then seized the opportunity to overthrow the monarchy, which was tainted with failure. On November 10, 1918, William, the last member of the House of Hohenzollern to govern in Germany, crossed the frontier into the Netherlands, an exile.

For more than twenty years, William pursued the life of a country gentleman in the charming castle at Doorn, which he purchased in 1920. Despite repeated Allied demands, the Dutch government refused to extradite him as a war criminal. To ensure his safety, William had only to promise his Dutch hosts that he would abstain from all political activity. This he did, although he never ceased to hope for a restoration. Unfortunately, the suicide of his son Joachim in 1920 and the death of the empress in 1921 made his early years of exile bleak. His marriage to Hermine, the widow of Prince Schonaich-Carolath in November, 1922, marked the beginning of a much happier phase of his life. As the years passed, the former kaiser’s public image began to soften, and, with the rise of Hitler, many in Germany and abroad longed for his return. Forgotten were the diplomatic blunders and his open hostility to liberal trends and ideas; instead, his integrity, his patriotism, and his devotion to duty were remembered. When, in November, 1938, William denounced the savagery of Kristallnacht, many of his critics revised their opinions of their former adversary.

When World War II came in September, 1939, William declined an offer of sanctuary in England, preferring to remain at Doorn. He spent his last months a virtual prisoner of his Nazi guards, but he refused to allow his death on June 4, 1941, to be used to serve the propaganda aims of the Hitler government. He was buried at Doorn, not Berlin. The notice of his death was lost amid the war news, but for those who longed for the return of order and honor he became a symbol of better times.

Significance

Although William II was hardly the quintessence of evil portrayed in Allied propaganda during World War I, he does bear a portion of the blame for the outbreak of that tragic modern conflict. Nevertheless, he was also a victim of the system that sucked the great powers into the vortex of war in the second decade of the twentieth century. The last kaiser of Germany was intelligent and had a potential for deeply understanding the workings of the modern state that was unparalleled among his fellow rulers, but his erudition was a facade and his learning superficial. William had flair but no substance.

By rebelling against the ideals of his parents, William rejected the chance to aid in the transformation of Germany into a modern constitutional monarchy and chose instead to ally himself with those who espoused the outmoded and potentially dangerous military virtues that had helped to unite Germany in 1871. With the death of his father in 1888, William assumed the responsibility of leading his nation into the new century. He was neither professionally trained nor emotionally prepared to bear that burden. Indecisive and hopelessly naïve when it came to international relations, blind to the forces that were transforming Germany, he clung to the past and refused to embrace the future. He was a good and courageous man who was chosen to perform a task beyond his capacity. He might have been one of the great individuals of his time; instead he was one of its greatest failures.

Bibliography

Balfour, Michael. The Kaiser and His Times. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. Written in the decade when historians first began to examine World War I and the years that preceded it with real objectivity, this biography remains one of the best treatments of William and his time. The exceptional bibliography, the careful notation, and the charts provided at the end of this work enhance a very scholarly and yet readable book.

Hull, Isabel V. The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. This fascinating study explores in detail the influence exercised on the kaiser by his friends, family, and government officials during the thirty years of his reign. Particular attention is given to the often destructive nature of the military elements in William’s government and household. The kaiser emerges not as a monster but as a man plagued by indecision and the legacy of Bismarck.

MacDonogh, Giles. The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001. A comprehensive biography that seeks to debunk some of the myths of previous books.

Röhl, John C. G. Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser’s Early Life, 1859-1888. Translated by Jeremy Gaines and Rebecca Wallach. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. The first of two books in a massive, multivolume biography. The first book examines William’s life from his birth until his accession to the German throne.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Wilhelm II: The Kaiser’s Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900. Translated by Sheila de Bellaigue. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. The second book in the planned multivolume biography discusses the first half of William’s reign.

Röhl, John C. G., and Nicolaus Sombart, eds. Kaiser Wilhelm II, New Interpretations: The Corfu Papers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. This collection of eleven essays covers a number of topics ranging from William’s relations with his parents and his family in Germany and England to the nature of the empire that he governed for a generation. The questions raised by these scholarly papers delivered at Corfu, the kaiser’s favorite vacation retreat, will provide a new generation of historians with subjects for a whole new series of books.

Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962. This is without a doubt one of the finest books ever written dealing with the crisis that led to the beginning of World War I. It is the product of thorough scholarship, but it reads like a work of fiction, proving that history is more exciting than any novel.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Proud Tower. New York: Macmillan, 1965. In this fascinating portrait of an age, Tuchman explores the glittering world that existed in the years before the tragedy of World War I. It is, however, a work of limited depth and intended more for the general reader than the serious scholar. Both of these works by Tuchman are useful supplements for the student who wishes to place William in the context of his age.

Viktoria Luise, Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneburg. The Kaiser’s Daughter. Edited and translated by Robert Vacha. London: W. H. Allen, 1977. This one volume is the English version of the three-part autobiography of the kaiser’s only daughter, and it presents an entirely different view of William. In a frank and lively style, Princess Viktoria Luise portrays her father as a devoted husband and father and a patriot with high standards of morality.