Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany had a way of uniting people who normally didn’t agree on anything. They all agreed they despised him. He was a tin-eared, boorish bully who managed to insult someone every time he opened his mouth. In July 1914, his years of strutting around and threatening others led to a fatal error.
Wilhelm II became Kaiser in 1888, the third and final leader of the German Empire created by Bismarck in 1871. Wilhelm followed a Germany First policy and demanded a “place in the sun” for Germany, meaning respect from others. His demand for national respect may have been a projection of his own inferiority feelings.
He was self-conscious about his withered left arm and usually disguised it by posing with his left hand on a sword hilt. He developed an excruciatingly strong grip with his right hand and delighted in crushing the hands of his generals, government ministers and foreign dignitaries when they shook hands.
Wilhelm loved military parades because he could showcase the power of Germany. It also allowed him to strut around in a uniform. His speeches bristled with vague threats to use his army, jangling nerves in national capitals around Europe.
When England faced labor unrest, Wilhelm offered to send a regiment to London to teach the rioters a lesson. The military was his answer to every political question. These sorts of off-the-cuff comments left his foreign office staff scrambling to spin his comments to reduce the political damage.
No one in Germany had the ability to muzzle the Kaiser. His ministers were sycophants chosen for their loyalty or principled men who broke under the strain of trying to save Germany from his unpredictable behavior. His generals were underwhelmed; the Kaiser’s threats to send in the troops always ended with him backing down when challenged.
During the Kaiser’s reign England, Germany and the U.S. competed to build the biggest navy. At the same time, his generals built a huge army based on Krupp weapons and a clever plan to avoid a two-front war with Russia and France. Everyone said they opposed a war but believed it was inevitable. As the arms race accelerated, national capitals buzzed with spies and government negotiators seeking mutual defense alliances.
In 1908 the Kaiser granted an interview to the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper. Like a sports analyst predicting the coaches’ strategy in the big game on Sunday afternoon, Wilhelm babbled about which countries should be allies if there was a war. His rambling interview caused a global uproar. Worse, it pushed France and England into a military understanding which was what the Germans wanted to avoid.
Public opinion in Germany also turned against him as people openly speculated about his sanity. The clueless Kaiser spent three weeks sick in bed, never understanding why everyone was so offended. He simply couldn’t learn from his mistakes
In the summer of 1914 Grand Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia went for a drive in Sarajevo. Their murders led to Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia. Serbia called in its ally, Russia, who looked for help from its ally, France. France reminded England that it had agreed to help the French.
In July 1914, Wilhelm announced that Germany supported Austria and declared war on Russia, forgetting that his generals had planned for a war against France. German troops were already on the border waiting to advance into France. An hour before the advance was to begin the Kaiser tried to cancel the attack on France and order an attack against Russia.
That’s when his generals lost patience. They explained there was no way to turn everyone around to head east into Russia. In the end it didn’t matter because France announced its support for Russia and Germany declared war on France.
At that point, Germany faced a two-front war against Russia, France and England, the fate it feared the most. Although this dire situation wasn’t totally the Kaiser’s fault his loose cannon actions over the years probably made it inevitable. Germany lost the war and signed a humiliating surrender. Wilhelm II was deposed in 1918 and died in exile in 1941.
The Proud Tower, by Barbara W. Tuchman (1962) provides social and political context on the eve of World War I. The Guns of August, also by Tuchman (1962) is a detailed description of how Europe blundered into the opening phase of WWI.
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