Wilhelm II, Kaiser (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor Albrecht)

b. 1859; d. 1941

German Emperor and King of Prussia; born in Berlin; eldest son of the Crown Prince Frederick (afterwards Frederick III) and of Victoria, Princess Royal of Great Britain; and grandson of Wilhelm I. He received a military training and married Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.

On the death of his father he succeeded as 9th King of Prussia and 3rd German Emperor, 15 June 1888. His obvious intention of reducing the Chancellor to a mere instrument of his own will led to Bismarck's resignation on 20 March 1890. He attempted, however, to pursue the main lines of Bismarck's policy without possessing Bismarck's skill or powers of adaptability. Wilhelm, like Bismarck, disliked parliaments and relied on the army. Wilhelm's chief ambition was to strengthen Germany's power in Europe by colonial expansion. Too much has been made perhaps of his responsibility for the catastrophic failure of Germany's foreign policy or for the tremendous development of its internal prosperity and its position as a great power, for in many respects he acted as a constitutional sovereign, and the blunders of his ministers were not his. In his strenuous endeavours to widen German influence, he visited Abdul-Hamid at Constantinople in 1889 and 1898; and while maintaining the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy, he tried for some years to cement a friendship with Russia.

He was a frequent and welcome visitor to Britain until 1895, but the British resented his congratulatory telegram to President Kruger after the Jameson Raid in 1896. Relations between Germany and Britain had improved by 1907; but an interview Wilhelm granted to the Daily Telegraph in 1908, concerning naval co-operation, caused him trouble with his own subjects and for a while he showed more reticence.

Wilhelm was at Kiel regatta on 28 June 1914, when news of the Sarajevo assassination reached him. Probably he personally did not desire, at this stage anything more than a short localised war. But he pushed on with war preparations so openly, and showed such complete disregard of the most solemn international agreements, that Russia, France, and Great Britain were soon irrevocably committed, and a world conflict was inevitable. This had been the aim of the extreme militarists in Germany, and Wilhelm thus played entirely into their hands. At first he directed operations and selected the leaders; bur after a few months he was virtually subordinate to Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

On 3 October 1918, when defeat of the German forces was imminent, he appointed Prince Max of Baden to the chancellorship. In November Prince Max demanded his abdication, and announced it as a fact on 9 November. Wilhelm thenceforth resided at Doorn Castle in Holland. There was at first talk, especially in Britain, of bringing him to trial; but, as the peace temper revived, the idea of holding him individually responsible for the war took on an aspect of absurdity that killed the project.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com

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