Wilhelm II, German Emperor

**Wilhelm II** (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last German emperor (German: *Kaiser*) and King of Prussia from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire and the House of Hohenzollern's 300-year reign in Prussia and 500-year reign in Brandenburg.

Born during the reign of his granduncle Frederick William IV of Prussia, Wilhelm was the son of Prince Frederick William and Victoria, Princess Royal. Through his mother, he was the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. In March 1888, Frederick William ascended the German and Prussian thrones as Frederick III. Frederick died just 99 days later, and his son succeeded him as Wilhelm II.

In March 1890, Wilhelm dismissed Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and assumed direct control over his nation's policies, embarking on a bellicose "New Course" to cement Germany's status as a leading world power. Over the course of his reign, the German colonial empire acquired new territories in China and the Pacific (such as Jiaozhou Bay, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Caroline Islands) and became Europe's largest manufacturer. However, Wilhelm often undermined such progress by making tactless and threatening statements towards other countries without first consulting his ministers. Likewise, his regime did much to alienate itself from other great powers by initiating a massive naval build-up, contesting French control of Morocco, and building a railway through Baghdad that challenged Britain's dominion in the Persian Gulf. By the second decade of the 20th century, Germany could rely only on significantly weaker nations such as Austria-Hungary and the declining Ottoman Empire as allies.

Despite strengthening the German Empire's position as a great power by building a powerful navy, his tactless public statements and erratic foreign policy greatly antagonized the international community and are considered by many to be one of the underlying causes of World War I. Wilhelm's reign culminated in Germany's guarantee of military support to Austria-Hungary during the crisis of July 1914, one of the immediate causes of World War I. A lax wartime leader, Wilhelm left virtually all decision-making regarding strategy and organisation of the war effort to the German Army's Great General Staff. By August 1916, this broad delegation of power gave rise to a de facto military dictatorship that dominated national policy for the rest of the conflict. Despite emerging victorious over Russia and obtaining significant territorial gains in Eastern Europe, Germany was forced to relinquish all its conquests after a decisive defeat on the Western Front in the autumn of 1918. Losing the support of his country's military and many of his subjects, Wilhelm was forced to abdicate during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. The revolution converted Germany from a monarchy into an unstable democratic state known as the Weimar Republic. Wilhelm fled to exile in the Netherlands, where he remained during its occupation by Nazi Germany in 1940. He died there in 1941.

## Biography

Wilhelm was born in Berlin on 27 January 1859—at the Crown Prince's Palace—to Victoria, Princess Royal "Vicky", the eldest daughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, and Prince Frederick William of Prussia ("Fritz" – the future Frederick III). At the time of his birth, his granduncle, Frederick William IV, was king of Prussia. Frederick William IV had been left permanently incapacitated by a series of strokes, and his younger brother Wilhelm was acting as regent. Wilhelm was the oldest of the 42 grandchildren of his maternal grandparents (Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), but more importantly, he was the first son of the crown prince of Prussia. Upon the death of Frederick William IV in January 1861, Wilhelm's paternal grandfather (the elder Wilhelm) became king, and the two-year-old Wilhelm became second in the line of succession to Prussia. After 1871, Wilhelm also became second in the line to the newly created German Empire, which, according to the constitution of the German Empire, was ruled by the Prussian king. At the time of his birth, he was also sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, after his maternal uncles and his mother.

### Traumatic birth

Shortly before midnight on 26 January 1859, Wilhelm's mother experienced labour pains, followed by her water breaking, after which Dr. August Wegner, the family's personal physician, was summoned. Upon examining Victoria, Wegner realised the infant was in the breech position; gynaecologist Eduard Arnold Martin was then sent for, arriving at the palace at 10 am on 27 January. After administering ipecac and prescribing a mild dose of chloroform, which was administered by Victoria's personal physician Sir James Clark, Martin advised Fritz the unborn child's life was endangered. As mild anaesthesia did not alleviate her extreme labour pains, resulting in her "horrible screams and wails", Clark finally administered full anaesthesia. Observing her contractions to be insufficiently strong, Martin administered a dose of ergot extract, and at 2:45 pm saw the infant's buttocks emerging from the birth canal, but noticed the pulse in the umbilical cord was weak and intermittent. Despite this dangerous sign, Martin ordered a further heavy dose of chloroform so he could better manipulate the infant. Observing the infant's legs to be raised upwards and his left arm likewise raised upwards and behind his head, Martin "carefully eased out the Prince's legs". Due to the "narrowness of the birth canal", he then forcibly pulled the left arm downwards, tearing the brachial plexus, then continued to grasp the left arm to rotate the infant's trunk and free the right arm, likely exacerbating the injury. After completing the delivery, and despite realising the newborn prince was hypoxic, Martin turned his attention to the unconscious Victoria. Noticing after some minutes that the newborn remained silent, Martin and the midwife Fräulein Stahl worked frantically to revive the prince; finally, despite the disapproval of those present, Stahl spanked the newborn vigorously until "a weak cry escaped his pale lips".

Modern medical assessments have concluded Wilhelm's hypoxic state at birth, due to the breech delivery and the heavy dosage of chloroform, left him with minimal to mild brain damage, which manifested itself in his subsequent hyperactive and erratic behaviour, limited attention span and impaired social abilities. The brachial plexus injury resulted in Erb's palsy, which left Wilhelm with a withered left arm about six inches (15 centimetres) shorter than his right. He tried with some success to conceal this; many photographs show him holding a pair of white gloves in his left hand to make the arm seem longer. In others, he holds his left hand with his right, has his disabled arm on the hilt of a sword, or holds a cane to give the illusion of a useful limb posed at a dignified angle. Historians have suggested that this disability affected his emotional development.

### Early years

In 1863, Wilhelm was taken to England to be present at the wedding of his Uncle Bertie (later King Edward VII), and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Wilhelm attended the ceremony in a Highland costume, complete with a small toy dirk. During the ceremony, the four-year-old became restless. His eighteen-year-old uncle Prince Alfred, charged with keeping an eye on him, told him to be quiet, but Wilhelm drew his dirk and threatened Alfred. When Alfred attempted to subdue him by force, Wilhelm bit him on the leg. His grandmother, Queen Victoria, missed seeing the fracas; to her Wilhelm remained "a clever, dear, good little child, the great favourite of my beloved Vicky".

His mother, Vicky, was obsessed with his damaged arm, blaming herself for the child's handicap and insisted that he become a good rider. The thought that he, as heir to the throne, should not be able to ride was intolerable to her. Riding lessons began when Wilhelm was eight and were a matter of endurance for Wilhelm. Over and over, the weeping prince was set on his horse and compelled to go through the paces. He fell off time after time but despite his tears, was set on its back again. After weeks of this he was finally able to maintain his balance.

Wilhelm, from six years of age, was tutored and heavily influenced by the 39-year-old teacher Georg Ernst Hinzpeter. "Hinzpeter", he later wrote, "was really a good fellow. Whether he was the right tutor for me, I dare not decide. The torments inflicted on me, in this pony riding, must be attributed to my mother."

As a teenager he was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium. In January 1877, Wilhelm finished high school and on his eighteenth birthday received as a present from his grandmother, Queen Victoria, the Order of the Garter. After Kassel he spent four terms at the University of Bonn, studying law and politics. He became a member of the exclusive *Corps Borussia Bonn*. Wilhelm possessed a quick intelligence, but this was often overshadowed by a cantankerous temper.

As a scion of the royal house of Hohenzollern, Wilhelm was exposed from an early age to the military society of the Prussian aristocracy. This had a major impact on him and, in maturity, Wilhelm was seldom seen out of uniform. The hyper-masculine military culture of Prussia in this period did much to frame his political ideals and personal relationships.

Wilhelm was in awe of his father, whose status as a hero of the wars of unification was largely responsible for the young Wilhelm's attitude, as were the circumstances in which he was raised; close emotional contact between father and son was not encouraged. Later, as he came into contact with the Crown Prince's political opponents, Wilhelm came to adopt more ambivalent feelings toward his father, perceiving the influence of Wilhelm's mother over a figure who should have been possessed of masculine independence and strength. Wilhelm also idolised his grandfather, Wilhelm I, and he was instrumental in later attempts to foster a cult of the first German Emperor as "Wilhelm the Great". However, he had a distant relationship with his mother.

Wilhelm resisted attempts by his parents, especially his mother, to educate him in a spirit of British liberalism. Instead, he agreed with his tutors' support of autocratic rule, and gradually became thoroughly 'Prussianized' under their influence. He thus became alienated from his parents, suspecting them of putting Britain's interests first. The German Emperor, Wilhelm I, watched as his grandson, guided principally by the Crown Princess Victoria, grew to manhood. When Wilhelm was nearing 21, the Emperor decided it was time his grandson should begin the military phase of his preparation for the throne. He was assigned as a lieutenant to the First Regiment of Foot Guards, stationed at Potsdam. "In the Guards," Wilhelm said, "I really found my family, my friends, my interests—everything of which I had up to that time had to do without." As a boy and a student, his manner had been polite and agreeable; as an officer, he began to strut and speak brusquely in the tone he deemed appropriate for a Prussian officer.

When Wilhelm was in his early twenties, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck tried to separate him from his parents, who opposed Bismarck and his policies, with some success. Bismarck planned to use the young prince as a weapon against his parents in order to retain his own political dominance. Wilhelm thus developed a dysfunctional relationship with his parents, but especially with his English mother. In an outburst in April 1889, Wilhelm angrily implied that "an English doctor killed my father, and an English doctor crippled my arm—which is the fault of my mother", who allowed no German physicians to attend to herself or her immediate family.

As a young man, Wilhelm fell in love with one of his maternal first cousins, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse-Darmstadt. She turned him down, and in time, married into the Russian imperial family. In 1880 Wilhelm became engaged to Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, known as "Dona". The couple married on 27 February 1881, and remained married for 40 years, until her death in 1921. In a period of 10 years, between 1882 and 1892, Augusta Victoria bore Wilhelm seven children, six sons and a daughter.

Beginning in 1884, Bismarck began advocating that Kaiser Wilhelm send his grandson on diplomatic missions, a privilege denied to the Crown Prince. That year, Prince Wilhelm was sent to the court of Tsar Alexander III of Russia in St. Petersburg to attend the coming of age ceremony of the 16-year-old Tsarevich Nicholas. Wilhelm's behaviour did little to ingratiate himself to the tsar. Two years later, Kaiser Wilhelm I took Prince Wilhelm on a trip to meet with Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. In 1886, also, thanks to Herbert von Bismarck, the son of the Chancellor, Prince Wilhelm began to be trained twice a week at the Foreign Ministry.

## Accession

Kaiser Wilhelm I died in Berlin on 9 March 1888, and Prince Wilhelm's father ascended the throne as Frederick III. He was already experiencing an incurable throat cancer and spent all 99 days of his reign fighting the disease before dying. On 15 June of that same year, his 29-year-old son succeeded him as German Emperor and King of Prussia.

Although in his youth he had been a great admirer of Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm's characteristic impatience soon brought him into conflict with the "Iron Chancellor", the dominant figure in the foundation of his empire. The new Emperor opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy, preferring vigorous and rapid expansion to protect Germany's "place in the sun". Furthermore, the young Emperor had come to the throne determined to rule as well as reign, unlike his grandfather. While the letter of the imperial constitution vested executive power in the emperor, Wilhelm I had been content to leave day-to-day administration to Bismarck. Early conflicts between Wilhelm II and his chancellor soon poisoned the relationship between the two men. Bismarck believed that Wilhelm was a lightweight who could be dominated, and he showed scant respect for Wilhelm's policies in the late 1880s. The final split between monarch and statesman occurred soon after an attempt by Bismarck to implement a far-reaching anti-Socialist law in early 1890.

## Rift with Bismarck

The young Kaiser allegedly rejected Bismarck's "peaceful foreign policy" and instead plotted with senior generals to work "in favour of a war of aggression". Bismarck told an aide, "That young man wants war with Russia, and would like to draw his sword straight away if he could. I shall not be a party to it."

Bismarck, after gaining an absolute majority in the Reichstag in favour of his policies, decided to push through legislation making his Anti-Socialist Laws permanent. His *Kartell*, the majority of the amalgamated German Conservative Party and the National Liberal Party, favoured making the laws permanent, with one exception: the police power to expel Socialist agitators from their homes. The *Kartell* split over this issue and nothing was passed.

As the debate continued, Wilhelm became more and more interested in social problems, especially the treatment of mine workers who went on strike in 1889. He routinely argued with Bismarck in the council to make it clear where he stood on social policy. Bismarck, in turn, sharply disagreed with Wilhelm's pro-labor union policies and worked to circumvent them. Bismarck, feeling pressured and unappreciated by the young Emperor and undermined by his ambitious advisors, refused to sign a proclamation regarding the protection of workers along with Wilhelm, as was required by the German Constitution.

While Bismarck had previously sponsored landmark social security legislation, by 1889–90, he had become violently opposed to the rise of organized labor. In particular, he was opposed to wage increases, improving working conditions, and regulating labour relations. Moreover, the *Kartell*, the shifting coalition government that Bismarck had been able to maintain since 1867, had finally lost its majority of seats in the Reichstag.

The final break between the Iron Chancellor and the Monarchy came when Bismarck searched for a new parliamentary majority after his *Kartell* was voted from power due to the Anti-Socialist Laws fiasco. The remaining powers in the Reichstag were the Catholic Centre Party and the Conservative Party.

In most parliamentary systems, the head of government depends upon the confidence of the parliamentary majority and has the right to form coalitions to maintain a majority of supporters. In a constitutional monarchy, however, the Chancellor also cannot afford to make an enemy of the monarch, who has plenty of means at his or her disposal of quietly blocking a Chancellor's policy objectives. For these reasons, the Kaiser believed that he had the right to be informed before The Iron Chancellor began coalition talks with the Opposition.

In a deeply ironic moment, a mere decade after demonizing Germany's Catholics as traitors during the *Kulturkampf*, Bismarck decided to start coalition talks with the all-Catholic Centre Party, and invited that party's leader in the Reichstag, Baron Ludwig von Windthorst, to meet with him to begin the negotiations. Despite having a warm relationship with Baron von Windthorst, Kaiser Wilhelm was furious to hear about the plans for coalition talks only after they had already begun.

After a heated argument at Bismarck's estate over the latter's alleged disrespect for the monarchy, Wilhelm stormed out. Bismarck, forced for the first time in his career into a crisis that he could not twist to his own advantage, wrote a blistering letter of resignation, decrying Wilhelm's involvement in both foreign and domestic policy, which was published only after Bismarck's death.

At the opening of the Reichstag on 6 May 1890, the Kaiser stated that the most pressing issue was *the further enlargement of the bill concerning the protection of the labourer.* In 1891, the Reichstag passed the Workers Protection Acts, which improved working conditions, protected women and children and regulated labour relations.