He was the child from hell – born into royalty with a deformity that put a lifelong chip
on his shoulder, he quickly alienated everyone around him.
By the time he became ruler of Germany, this grandson of Queen Victoria had grown to hate
the British, the French and just about every other European power.
Over the next twenty years, he orchestrated the tension that exploded into the nightmare
that was World War One.
In this week’s Biographics, we uncover the mixed-up life of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The Troubled Child The child who was to become Kaiser Wilhelm
II was born Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Hohenzollern.
The date was January 27th, 1859 and the place Potsdam in what was then the state of Prussia.
His father was Prince Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia while his mother was the English princess
Victoria.
The birth was not an easy one, with the doctor having great difficulty getting the baby out
of the birth canal.
As a result, Wilhelm’s left arm was virtually useless, being significantly shorter than
his other arm.
Many historians believe that Wilhelm’s deformity stunted his emotional growth and contributed
to his reckless behavior in later life.
What is certain is that he was extremely self-conscious about his impaired arm and constantly sought
ways to hide the deformity.
Wilhelm was the second in line to be king of Prussia.
He was also the first grandson born to England’s Queen Victoria.
Victoria was fond of the child, considering him to be a well- mannered youngster.
From the start, however, he demonstrated a volatile disposition.
At the age of four, he was taken to England to attend a royal wedding.
Part of his tiny uniform included a small dagger.
During the ceremony, Wilhelm began fidgeting.
His uncle standing alongside nudged him and told him to be still.
But the fiery four-year old was having none of it.
He pulled out the dagger and threatened to stab his uncle.
Then, when the uncle attempted to restrain him, Wilhelm bit him in the leg.
Grandmother Victoria would not have been amused – fortunately she never found out about
the incident.
Wilhelm’s mother was constantly worrying about her son.
In addition to having to contend with his angry manner, she felt guilty about his arm
deformity, irrationally blaming himself for the condition.
She worried that it would prevent from his fulfilling his obligations as heir to the
throne.
One thing she was determined not to let the arm deformity do was to stop her son from
riding a horse.
As a result, she ensured that he began taking horse riding lesson at the age of eight.
The lessons were hell for the future ruler.
He constantly fell from the horse, due largely to the lack of balance caused by his deformed
arm.
Yet, after weeks of persevering, often with tears rolling down his cheeks, he managed
to overcome his limitations, becoming a capable horseman.
In 1871, the German Empire officially came into being.
It was to be ruled by the King of Prussia.
Twelve-year- old Wilhelm was now second in line to become the head of two nations.
In his pre-teen years, Wilhelm had been privately tutored.
From the age of thirteen, however, he was sent to the Freidrichsgymnasium in Kassel.
He proved to be a talented student, performing well in all of his studies.
He graduated at the age of 18 in 1877.
Grandma Victoria was so delighted with her special boy that she awarded him the Order
of the Garter, one of the highest that she could have bestowed.
After graduating, he attended the University of Bonn.
For the next four years he studied law and politics.
On addition to his formal studies, Wilhelm was inculcated into the military ideals of
Prussian manliness.
This concept of the tough, disciplined military man was closely aligned with that of Prussian
nationalism.
Although his mother tried hard to impress the Victorian ideals of liberalism upon him,
Wilhelm shunned them in favor of the Prussian way.
A Military Man Wilhelm’s military service began at the
age of 21.
He was given the rank of first lieutenant in the First Regiment of Foot Guards, based
in Potsdam.
He took to army life like a duck to water, later saying the following about his time
in the military . . . I really found my family, my friends and my
interests – everything of which I up to that time had to do without.
Above all, his time in the military imbued the young prince with self-confidence.
He became surer in his bearing and began to speak with an air of authority.
However, the more he developed as a military man, the more distant he became from his parents.
He viewed them as being too invested in British liberalism at the expense of Prussian nationalism.
Wilhelm was 21 when he met his future wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, who
was known as Dona.
It wasn’t his first foray of the heart.
A couple of years before he had fallen hard for his first cousin, princess Elisabeth of
Hesse-Darmstadt, but she had refused his marriage proposal.
Not so with Dona, with the couple being engaged in 1880.
They were married in 1881 and would go onto have seven children.
Following his marriage, Wilhelm gained a powerful ally in the form of Prussian statesman Otto
Von Bismarck, who saw the prince as a means of advancing his own political career.
He would use the boy as a means of gaining an advantage over their parents.
With Bismark pulling strings, Wilhelm began to be sent on diplomatic missions.
The first was to St, Petersburg to attend a coming of age ceremony for 16-year-old Tsarevich
Nicholas.
But the haughty, arrogant Wilhelm did not make a favorable impression on Tsar Alexander.
Two years later, in 1886, Wilhelm went with his grandfather to visit the Austrian-Hungarian
emperor, Franz Joseph.
This trip went better, largely because Wilhelm was under the ever-watchful eye of his grandfather,
Kaiser Wilhelm I. Becoming Keiser
Meanwhile, Bismark worked at preparing Wilhelm for rulership.
He encouraged him to view all things English with disdain and to reject the world view
of his parents.
Then, on March 9th, 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm I died.
Wilhelm’s father now inherited the role.
But, just a few months into the reign, he succumbed to throat cancer.
Wilhelm now became Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany.
He was 29 years of age and the date was June 15th, 1888.
Immediately upon ascending the throne, Wilhelm came into conflict with his advisors.
Chief among them was Otto von Bismarck.
The experienced statesman advocated a policy of peaceful relations with the other heads
of state of Europe.
But Wilhelm was intent on extending the territorial borders of Germany and was ready to pursue
an aggressive international stance.
Bismarck had been the trusted foreign policy adviser to Kaiser Wilhelm I, but the new Kaiser
had no such trust in the statesman.
For his part, Bismark thought, once Wilhelm ascended to the throne, he would be able to
manipulate and control him.
He soon realized how wrong he had been.
Wilhelm’s tolerance for Bismarck reached its limit when the old man tried to implement
an anti-socialist policy.
Wilhelm opposed the policy at every opportunity.
Eventually the two had a heated encounter which ended with Wilhelm demanding Bismarck's
resignation.
Alienating Nations With Bismark as foreign minister, a balanced
state of peace existed between Germany, France and Russia.
The Russians now had no confidence in Wilhelm’s ability to maintain the peace and so, grew
closer to France.
The peace between Russia and Germany grew increasingly fragile.
In the early 1900s, Wilhelm focused on building up Germany’s navy.
He saw a powerful navy as being a symbol of Germany’s position as a world superpower
and became obsessed with the idea off huge ships.
Many hours were spent drawing his own designs of ships.
He also made sure to let the rest of Europe know how he was building up his nation’s
military might.
At the same time that he was stretching his international muscles, Wilhelm was making
domestic improvements.
He reformed public education to make it available to every child.
He was also an advocate of the arts and sciences, starting the Kaiser Wilhelm Society to advance
scientific research.
Wilhelm had, by now, managed to alienate most of the leaders of Europe.
He was lacking in patience, had an explosive temper and possessed no tact whatsoever.
An infamous example of his ability to alienate others was when, in 1896, he sent a telegram
to President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic in South Africa.
The message congratulated Kruger for his suppression of the British led Jameson raid.
When news of the telegram reached Britain, it caused an outcry of rage against Germany.
Even before this incident, even those in the British Royal family who were related to Wilhelm
didn’t like him.
In addition to his natural arrogance, his overt racism alienated others.
He constantly warned European leaders of the yellow peril, referring to Japan and China.
Building Alliances While he was content to alienate the European
powers, Wilhelm went out of his way to develop cordial relations with the leaders of the
Ottoman Empire.
His first trip to Istanbul was in 1889.
He made a deal to sell guns to the Ottoman army.
Nine years later he undertook a month-long trip through the Holy Land.
Before heading home, he professed his undying friendship for the Turks.
In 1905, Wilhelm committed one of his bigger diplomatic blunders when he visited Tangiers
in Morocco.
There he met with representatives of Sultan Abdelaziz, expressing his support for Moroccan
sovereignty.
This was a direct challenge to the French, who had a large military presence in Morocco.
It further alienated the Kaiser from the international community.
What became known as the Moroccan crisis also served to bring previous life-long rivals
France and Britain together in their opposition to the aggressive stance of the German ruler.
In 1908, Wilhelm agreed to an interview for the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph,
seeing it as an opportunity to strengthen Anglo-German relations.
During the interview, his fiery temper got the better of him and he managed to insult
the British people numerous times, as well as insinuating that the Russians and French
had tried to pull Germany into the Second Boer War.
The whole interview was a disaster and it greatly embarrassed the German people.
Calls were even made for Wilhelm to abdicate.
In the wake of the fall-out from the interview, Wilhelm laid low.
After a month he re-emerged to immediately forced his chancellor, Prince Bulow to resign,
blaming him for authorizing the disastrous interview in the first place.
This was a terrible move and it lost him any of the internal support that he had remaining.
The Road to War This episode stole away any of the self confidence
that Wilhelm still had.
He fell into a deep state of depression.
His whole energies were thrown into his pet project of building up the German navy.
His obsession with building more powerful battleships than the British got his country
into serious financial hardship.
By the beginning of 1914, Wilhelm had managed to alienate all of the major powers in Europe,
undoing all of the work that Bismarck had done when Wilhelm I was Kaiser.
One of the few friends he had was Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria.
The assassination of Ferdinand on June 28th, 1914 deeply affected Wilhelm.
When it was revealed that an underground movement called the Black Hand was behind the murder,
he extended his full support in hunting them down.
He also urged Austria-Hungary to use force against Serbia, implying that he would back
them up.
Egged on by Wilhelm, Franz Joseph I of Austria made demands of Serbia that were impossible
to meet.
When the deadline to meet the conditions passed without satisfaction, Austria declared war
on Serbia.
In response to this, Russian troops began to mobilize in order to defend Serbia from
attack.
Wilhelm learned of the Russian mobilization on July 30th.
He knew that his treaty obligations with Austria meant that he was bound to declare war on
Russia.
He was also convinced that England, Russia and France had conspired to knock out Germany.
This meant that he would be faced with attack from two fronts – the Russians from the
east and the British and French from the west.
Back in 1905, a prominent German general by the name of von Schlieffen had devised a plan
for am attack on France.
Now, the general’s nephew, Helmuth von Moltke, adapted the plan to fight a two-front war.
The plan called for a pre-emptive strike on the weaker country.
That weaker country was France.
Once that attack had been successfully carried out, the focus could switch to Russia.
Wilhelm was sold on this plan – but not so with his generals.
They were convinced that Russia was not prepared for war and wanted to strike to the east first.
The reality was that the Russians were, indeed, ready and had their army mobilized to defend
the Serbians.
Wilhelm got his way and the Schlieffen plan was put into action.
It proved to be a disaster.
As the German war effort lurched on, Wilhelm’s influence became less and less as Germany’s
top military officials, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff
took the reins.
The Kaiser busied himself with awarding medals and officiating at military ceremonies.
His moods followed a manic-depressive pattern, fluctuating between euphoria that Germany
was about to crush the Allies and despair that all was lost.
As the war drew to a conclusion in the closing months of 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson,
announced that the German Kaiser would not be permitted to take part in any peace negotiations.
This effectively made Wilhelm a lame duck leader.
Abdication As German capitulation drew ever nearer, a
revolt broke out in Germany.
The vast majority of the people were sick and tired of their arrogant, bungling leader.
There were prominent calls for his abdication.
Still, Wilhelm vacillated.
Even without any support at all, he thought that he could retain at least one of his two
crowns.
But the constitution had stipulated that the two crowns were to forever be intertwined.
Abdication from one throne meant abdication from both of them.
On November 9th, Chancellor Prince Max von Baden announced that Wilhelm was abdicating.
He did this in order to stem the tide of revolution.
But the Chancellor’s efforts backfired, and he himself was forced to resign.
However, the next day, November 10th, Wilhelm fled to the Netherlands.
He had still not abdicated.
Over the next weeks days, however, his top military adviser, Paul von Hindenburg advised
abdication.
The general made it clear that Wilhelm did not enjoy the support of the army and that
they would not back him when they returned from the war.
Realizing that his situation was untenable, Wilhelm faced reality and abdicated on November
28th, 1918.
The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended the war, was signed on June 28th, 1919.
It branded Kaiser Wilhelm as a war criminal and stipulated that he be prosecuted for ‘a
supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties’.
The Netherlands government, however, refused to extradite Wilhelm.
This situation was actually pleasing to President Wilson who felt that the trial and prosecution
of the Keiser would only prolong tensions between Germany and the rest of Europe.
The best thing would be for Wilhelm to remain in the Netherlands.
Life in Exile Wilhelm purchased a house in the municipality
of Doorn.
He would remain there for the rest of his life.
The new German Weimar Republic allowed him to transport some of his possessions there
from his old palace near Potsdam.
He now made it his life’s mission to clear his name of wrongdoing when it came to the
war.
In April, 1921, Wilhelm’s wife, Dona, died.
A few months earlier, their son, Joachim, had committed suicide.
These deaths were a devastating blow to the exiled Kaiser.
In 1922, Wilhelm wrote a memoir in which he defended his international policy and put
forth his case that he was not responsible for a war that had led to ten million deaths.
At the same time, he became socially active in the Netherlands, entertaining high-profile
guests and engaging his passions for archeology and hunting.
He also started a new hobby – wood chopping.
Despite his withered arm, he became quite proficient at it, chopping down thousands
of trees during the last two decades of his life.
In Mid-1922, Wilhelm met Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz.
There was an immediate mutual attraction and they were married on November 9th.
Rise of the Nazis During the 1930’s, Wilhelm paid close attention
to the rise of Nazism.
He never embraced the party or its leader but did hold out the hope that Hitler would
eventually restore the monarchy.
It was his vain hope that his oldest grandson would be appointed as Kaiser once that occurred.
His wife, Hermine, even sent a request to that effect to Adolf Hitler.
But the Fuhrer wasn’t interested.
In fact, he held a special hatred for Wilhelm, blaming him for the disastrous defeat in the
war.
As Hitler’s actions became more extreme, the former leader of Germany, observing from
his exiled home on the Netherlands, became increasingly alarmed at what was taking place
under Nazi rule.
When he heard that Hitler had ordered the murder of the wife of a chancellor, he commented
. . . We have ceased to live under the rule of law
and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and
put them up against the wall.
Wilhelm’s antipathy toward Hitler became personal.
He believed that the Fuhrer was turning his cherished military into a gang of thugs.
However, as Hitler began to rack up international military victories, Wilhelm changed his tune
and began to heap praise upon him.
When the Netherlands were occupied in May, 1940, he received the following message from
Wilhelm . . . My Fuhrer, I congratulate you and hope that
under your marvelous leadership the German monarchy will be restored completely.
Hitler wasn’t amused.
In fact, he referred to Wilhelm as an idiot.
That impression was reinforced when, following the fall of Paris, he received this message
. . . Congratulations, you have won using my troops.
Under the German occupation, Wilhelm’s house was kept under German guard.
This was more to provide protection for the old Kaiser, who was now 82, than to imprison
him.
It was done at the behest of a Nazi general and when Hitler found out about it, he was
furious.
He had the general fired.
Death of a Kaiser Kaiser Wilhelm II died on June 4, 1941 of
a pulmonary embolism.
In the death, Adolf Hitler saw an opportunity to make political capital.
He ordered that the body be returned to Berlin for a state funeral.
He saw this as a way of showing to the German people that the Third Reich was a continuation
of the old German Empire.
But Hitler’s wished were denied.
Wilhelm had made it clear to the Dutch authorities that he would never return to Germany until
the monarchy was restored.
The Dutch government acceded to these wishes and the body remained in the Netherlands where
he was given a military funeral.
He was buried in a mausoleum on the property in Doorn that was his Dutch home.
There he remains to this day.