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Kaiser Wilhelm II

In one speech by Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, quoted in the book, My Ideas and Ideals, the German emperor said, “The best word is the blow—the army and the navy are the pillars of the state.”

Wilhelm (frequently and flippantly called “Kaiser Bill” in American newspapers) often portrayed himself as a man of peace. From the outside, though, this seemed a contradiction, because the Kaiser was also thoroughly devoted to a German military build-up, and made the construction of a German navy to rival that of Britain’s one of the central goals of his reign. Kaiser Wilheml II Photo courtesy of Great War Primary Document Archive, www.gwpda.org/photos.)But he saw a strong German military as a key to European peace and he did seek to avoid military conflict. He rose to the German throne in 1888, and within two years, kicked out warmongering chancellor Otto von Bismarck and succeeded in enacting progressive social reforms in Germany.

Before America entered the war, Kaiser Wilhelm II was often labeled, “the most interesting man in Europe.” A book called, The Kaiser, hit the shelves just after the start of World War I in 1914, and described Wilhelm: “He is simple enough. The Kaiser is only an excellent businessman out of place. A sovereign by Divine right is now 300 years too late. It needs to be insisted that the Kaiser as a human being is not a bad fellow. … His chivalrous disposition, his indomitable energy, his wholesome delight in living, his perpetual interest in new discoveries and his admirable illusions as to his own artistic appreciation—all these are endearing human qualities.”

Of course, that view of the Kaiser as an interesting man changed as America was dragged into the war. The Kaiser became a hated and reviled figure here, an oft-burned and drowned effigy. By 1918, merely having known him in the past or saying anything complimentary of him would likely land an American citizen in prison.

Wilhelm was largely responsible for igniting the war, nudging Austria-Hungary to take revenge on Serbia for the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (a good friend of the Kaiser). As that conflict began to escalate, though, Wilhelm claimed he tried to pull Germany back to prevent war, but was prevented by other German politicians and by the mobilization of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Wilhelm later recalled in his memoir, “Our entire diplomatic machine failed. The menace of war was not seen because the Foreign Office was so hypnotized with its … belief in peace at any cost, that it had completely eliminated war as a possible instrument of Entente statesmanship from its calculations, and, therefore, did not rightly estimate the importance of the signs of war.”

When Germany’s defeat in World War I was evident, in November 1918, Wilhelm abdicated and took exile in Holland, which refused to extradite him for war crimes. He died in Holland at 83 on June 4, 1941, by which time Adolf Hitler had taken primacy as Western Europe’s hated German leader. In fact, an article in the New York Times just after his death was headlined, “Kaiser was pitied by British people.”

The obituary went on to present him as a reluctant belligerent, “As his importance increased, the Kaiser himself appeared more and more to have lost his sense of values. He was genuinely surprised when at last he was brought face to face with the facts and realized that the tragedy at Sarajevo was to be the signal for the breaking of the storm. In the last days of 1914 he signed fateful documents with a trembling hand.”

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