William II or Wilhelm II (born Prince Frederick William Albert Victor of Prussia; ) (27 January, 1859–4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (German: Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling both the German Empire and Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. It remains unclear how large a role William actually played in leading Germany into the First World War. William is often referred to as Kaiser Bill in the United Kingdom.

William II was born in Berlin to Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, thus making him a grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. He was Queen Victoria's first grandchild. As the son of the Crown Prince of Prussia, William was (from 1861) the second in the line of succession to Prussia, and also, after 1871, to the German Empire, which according to the constitution of the German Empire was ruled by the Prussian King. As with most Victorian era royalty, he was related to many of Europe's royal families.

Traumatic breech birth left him with a withered left arm due to Erb's Palsy, which he tried with some success to conceal. In many photos he carries a pair of white gloves in his left hand to make the arm seem longer, or has his crippled arm on the hilt of a sword or clutching a cane to give the effect of the limb being posed at a dignified angle.

William's relationship with his mother was a difficult one, given Victoria's somewhat cold treatment of the boy, and her guilt-born attempts to "beat" the deformity from his being via a regimen of rigorous exercise. She insisted on calling her sons by their Anglicised names—thus "Wilhelm" was known as "William", and her second son "Heinrich" was called "Henry". The future emperor harboured mixed feelings for Britain and the British throughout his life, many of which may be traced to this very early stage of his development. William was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium and the University of Bonn. William was possessed of a quick intelligence, but unfortunately this was often overshadowed by a cantankerous temper. William also took a certain interest in the science and technology of the age, but though he liked to pose, in conversation, as a man of the world, he remained convinced that he belonged to a distinct order of mankind, designated for monarchy by the grace of God. William was accused of megalomania as early as 1892, by Portuguese man of letters Eça de Queiroz, then in 1894 by German pacifist Ludwig Quidde.

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

William's relationship with the male members of his family was as interesting as that with his mother. Crown Prince Frederick was viewed by his son with a deeply-felt love and respect. His father's status as a hero of the wars of unification was largely responsible for the young William's attitude, as in 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, William came to adopt more ambivalent feelings toward his father, given the perceived influence of William's mother over a figure who should have been possessed of masculine independence and strength. William also idolised his grandfather, William I, and he was instrumental in later attempts to foster a cult of the first German Emperor as "William the Great".

The German Emperor William I died in Berlin on March 9 1888, and Prince William's father was proclaimed emperor as Frederick III. He was already suffering from 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, William'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 with the determination that he was going to rule as well as reign, unlike his grandfather, who had largely been content to leave day-to-day administration to Bismarck.

Early conflicts between William II and his chancellor soon poisoned the relationship between the two men. Bismarck believed that William was a lightweight who could be dominated, and he showed scant respect for William'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.

It was during this time that Bismarck, after gaining a favorable absolute majority toward his policies in the Reichstag, decided to make the anti-socialist laws permanent. His Kartell majority of the amalgamated Conservative Party and the National Liberal Party was favorable to make the laws permanent with one exception: the police power to expel socialist agitators from their homes, a power used excessively at times against political opponents. Hence, the Kartell split on this issue, with the National Liberal Party unwilling to make the expulsion clause of the law permanent. The Conservatives supported only the entirety of the bill and threatened to and eventually vetoed the entire bill in session because Bismarck wouldn't give his assent to a modified bill. As the debate continued, William became increasingly interested in social problems, especially the treatment of mine workers who went on strike in 1889, and keeping with his active policy in government, routinely interrupted Bismarck in Council to make clear his social policy. Bismarck sharply disagreed with William's policy and worked to circumvent it. Even though William supported the altered anti socialist bill, Bismarck pushed for his support to veto the bill in its entirety, but when Bismarck's arguments couldn't convince William, he became excited and agitated until uncharacteristically blurting out his motive to see the bill fail: to have the socialists agitate until a violent clash occurred that could be used as a pretext to crush them. William replied that he wasn't willing to open his reign with a bloody campaign against his subjects. The next day, after realizing his blunder, Bismarck attempted to reach a compromise with William by agreeing to his social policy towards industrial workers, and even suggested a European council to discuss working conditions, presided over by the German Emperor. Despite this, a turn of events eventually led to his distance from William. Bismarck, feeling pressured and unappreciated by the Emperor and undermined by ambitious advisors, refused to sign a proclamation regarding the protection of workers along with William, as was required by the German Constitution, to protest William's ever increasing interference with Bismarck's previously unquestioned authority. Bismarck also worked behind the scenes to break the Continental labor council William held so dear. The final break came as Bismarck searched for a new parliamentary majority, with his Kartell voted from power due to the anti-socialist bill fiasco. The remaining powers in the Reichstag were the Catholic Centre Party and the Conservative Party. Bismarck wished to form a new block with the Centre Party, and invited Ludwig Windthorst, the party's parliamentary leader, to discuss an alliance. This would be Bismarck's last political maneuver. William was furious to hear about Windthorst's visit. In a parliamentary state, the head of government depends on the confidence of the parliamentary majority, and certainly has the right to form coalitions to ensure his policies a majority, but in Germany, the Chancellor depended on the confidence of the Emperor alone, and William believed that the Emperor had the right to be informed before his minister's meeting. After a heated argument in Bismarck's estate over imperial authority, William stormed out, both parting ways permanently. Bismarck, forced for the first time into a situation he could not use to his advantage, wrote a blistering letter of resignation, decrying William's interference in foreign and domestic policy, which was only published after Bismarck's death.

Bismarck resigned at William II's insistence in 1890, at age 75, to be succeeded as Chancellor of Germany and Minister-President of Prussia by Leo von Caprivi, who in turn was replaced by Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst in 1894.

} |} In appointing Caprivi and then Hohenlohe, William was embarking upon what is known to history as "the New Course", in which he hoped to exert decisive influence in the government of the empire. There is debate amongst historians as to the precise degree to which William succeeded in implementing "personal rule" in this era, but what is clear is the very different dynamic which existed between the crown and its chief political servant (the chancellor) in the "Wilhelmine era". These chancellors were senior civil servants and not seasoned politician-statesmen like Bismarck. William wanted to preclude the emergence of another Iron Chancellor, whom he ultimately detested as being "a boorish old killjoy" who had not permitted any minister to see the emperor except in his presence, keeping a stranglehold on effective political power. Upon his enforced retirement and until his dying day, Bismarck was to become a bitter critic of William's policies, but without the support of the supreme arbiter of all political appointments (the emperor) there was little chance of Bismarck exerting a decisive influence on policy.

Something which Bismarck was able to effect was the creation of the "Bismarck myth". This was a view—which some would argue was confirmed by subsequent events—that with the dismissal of the Iron Chancellor, William II effectively destroyed any chance Germany had of stable and effective government. In this view, William's "New Course" was characterised far more as the German ship of state going out of control, eventually leading through a series of crises to the carnage of the First and Second World Wars.

Following the dismissal of Hohenlohe in 1900, William appointed the man whom he regarded as "his own Bismarck", Bernhard von Bülow. William hoped that in Bülow, he had found a man who would combine the ability of the Iron Chancellor with the respect for William's wishes which would allow the empire to be governed as he saw fit. Bülow had already been identified by William as possessing this potential, and many historians regard his appointment as chancellor as being merely the conclusion of a long "grooming" process. Over the succeeding decade however, William became disillusioned with his choice, and following Bülow's opposition to the Emperor over the "Daily Telegraph Affair" of 1908 (see below) and the collapse of the liberal-conservative coalition which had supported Bülow in the Reichstag, William dismissed him in favour of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in 1909.

Bethmann Hollweg was a career bureaucrat, at whose family home William had stayed as a youth. William especially came to show great respect for him, acknowledging his superior foresight in matters of internal governance, though he disagreed with certain of his policies, such as his attempts at the reform of the Prussian electoral laws. However, it was only reluctantly that the Emperor parted ways with Bethmann Hollweg in 1917, after three years of World War I.

William's involvement in the domestic sphere was more limited in the early twentieth century than it had been in the first years of his reign. In part, this was due to the appointment of Bülow and Bethmann—arguably both men of greater force of character than William's earlier chancellors—but also because of his increasing interest in foreign affairs.

German foreign affairs policy under William II was faced with a number of significant problems. Perhaps the most apparent was that William was an impatient man, subjective in his reactions and affected strongly by sentiment and impulse. He was personally ill-equipped to steer German foreign policy along a rational course. It is now widely recognized that the various spectacular acts which William undertook in the international sphere were often partially encouraged by the German foreign policy elite. There were a number of key exceptions, such as the famous Kruger telegram of 1896 in which William congratulated President Kruger of the Transvaal on the suppression of the Jameson Raid, thus aggravating British public opinion. Though its full impact was to be felt many years later, his speech of 27 July 1900 exhorting German troops sent to quell the Boxer Rebellion in China to emulate the ancient Huns is another example of his unfortunate propensity for impolitic public utterances. This weakness made him vulnerable to manipulation by interests within the German foreign policy elite, as subsequent events were to prove. William had much disdain for his uncle, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who was much more popular as a sovereign in Europe.

Following his dismissal of Bismarck, William and his new chancellor Caprivi became aware of the existence of the secret Reinsurance Treaty with the Russian empire, which Bismarck had concluded in 1887. William's refusal to renew this agreement which guaranteed Russian neutrality in the event of an attack by France was seen by many historians as the worst offence committed by William in terms of foreign policy. In reality, the decision to allow the lapse of the treaty was largely the responsibility of Caprivi, though William supported his chancellor's actions. It is important not to overestimate the influence of the Emperor in matters of foreign policy after the dismissal of Bismarck, but it is certain that his involvement helped contribute to the general lack of coherence and consistency in the policy of the German Empire toward other powers.

A typical example of this was his "love-hate" relationship with the United Kingdom and in particular with his British cousins. He returned to England in January 1901 to be at the bedside of his grandmother, Queen Victoria, and was holding her in his arms at the moment of her death. Open armed conflict with Britain was never what William had in mind—"a most unimaginable thing", as he once quipped—yet he often gave in to the generally anti-British sentiments within the upper echelons of the German government, conforming as they did to his own prejudices toward Britain which arose from his youth. When war came about in 1914 William sincerely believed that he was the victim of a diplomatic conspiracy set up by his late uncle, Edward VII, in which Britain had actively sought to "encircle" Germany through the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904 and a similar arrangement with Russia in 1907. This is indicative of the fact that William had a highly unrealistic belief in the importance of "personal diplomacy" between European monarchs, and could not comprehend that the very different constitutional position of his British cousins made this largely irrelevant.

Similarly, he believed that his personal relationship with his cousin-in-law Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (see The Willy-Nicky Correspondence) was sufficient to prevent war between the two powers. At a private meeting at Björkö in 1905, William concluded an agreement with his cousin which amounted to a treaty of alliance, without first consulting with Bülow. A similar situation confronted Tsar Nicholas on his return to St. Petersburg, and the treaty was, as a result, a dead letter. But William believed that Bülow had betrayed him, and this contributed to the growing sense of dissatisfaction he felt towards the man he hoped would be his foremost servant. In broadly similar terms to the "personal diplomacy" at Björkö, his attempts to avoid war with Russia by an exchange of telegrams with Nicholas II in the last days before the outbreak of the First World War came unstuck due to the reality of European power politics. His attempts to woo Russia were also seriously out of step with existing German commitments to Austria-Hungary. In a chivalrous fidelity to the Austro-Hungarian/German alliance, William informed the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1889 that "the day of Austro-Hungarian mobilisation, for whatever cause, will be the day of German mobilisation too". Given that Austrian mobilisation for war would most likely be against Russia, a policy of alliance with both powers was obviously impossible.

In some cases, William II's diplomatic "blunders" were often part of a wider reaching policy emanating from the German governing elite. One such action sparked the Moroccan Crisis of 1906, when William was persuaded (largely against his wishes) to make a spectacular visit to Tangier, in Morocco. William's presence was seen as an assertion of German interests in Morocco and in a speech he even made certain remarks in favour of Moroccan independence. This led to friction with France, which had expanding colonial interests in Morocco, and led to the Algeciras Conference, which served largely to further isolate Germany in Europe.

Perhaps William's most damaging personal blunder in the arena of foreign policy had a far greater impact in Germany than internationally. The Daily Telegraph Affair of 1908 stemmed from the publication of some of William's opinions in edited form in the British daily newspaper of that name. William saw it as an opportunity to promote his views and ideas on Anglo-German friendship, but instead, due to his emotional outbursts during the course of the interview, William ended up further alienating not only the British people, but also the French, Russians, and Japanese all in one fell swoop by implying, inter alia, that the Germans cared nothing for the British; that the French and Russians had attempted to incite Germany to intervene in the Second Boer War; and that the German naval buildup was targeted against the Japanese, not Britain. (One memorable quote from the interview is "You English are mad, mad, mad as March hares.") The effect in Germany was quite massive, with serious calls for his abdication being mentioned in the press. Quite understandably, William kept a very low profile for many months after the Daily Telegraph fiasco, and later exacted his revenge by enforcing the resignation of Prince Bülow, who had abandoned the Emperor to public criticism by publicly accepting some responsibility for not having edited the transcript of the interview before its publication.

The Daily Telegraph crisis had deeply wounded William's previously unimpaired self-confidence, so much so that he soon suffered a severe bout of depression from which he never really recovered (photographs of William in the post-1908 period show a man with far more haggard features and greying hair), and he in fact lost much of the influence he had previously exercised in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.

Nothing William II did in the international arena was of more influence than his decision to pursue a policy of massive naval construction.

A powerful navy was William's pet project. He had inherited ,from his mother, a love of the British Royal Navy (the world's largest), and once confided to his uncle Edward VII that his dream was to have a "fleet of my own some day", like the British. William's frustration over his fleet's poor showing at the Fleet Review at his grandmother Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, combined with his inability to exert German influence in South Africa following the dispatch of the Kruger telegram led to William taking definitive steps toward the construction of a fleet to rival that of his British cousins. William was fortunate to be able to call on the services of the dynamic naval officer Alfred von Tirpitz, whom he appointed to the head of the Reich Naval Office in 1897.

The new admiral had conceived of what came to be known as the "Risk theory" or the Tirpitz Plan, by which Germany could force Britain to accede to German demands in the international arena through the threat posed by a powerful battlefleet concentrated in the North Sea. Tirpitz enjoyed William's full support in his advocacy of successive naval bills of 1897 and 1900, by which the German navy was built up to contend with that of the United Kingdom. Naval expansion under the Fleet Acts eventually led to severe financial strains in Germany by 1914, as by 1906 William had committed his navy to construction of the much larger, more expensive Dreadnought type of battleship.

William was a friend of Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este, and he was deeply shocked by his assassination on June 28, 1914. William offered to support Austria-Hungary in crushing the Black Hand, the secret organization that had plotted the killing, and even sanctioned the use of force by Austria against the perceived source of the movement—Serbia (this is often called "the blank cheque"). He wanted to remain in Berlin until the crisis was resolved, but his courtiers persuaded him instead to go on his annual cruise of the North Sea on July 6, 1914. It was perhaps realised that William's presence would be more of a hindrance to those elements in the government who wished to use the crisis to increase German prestige, even at the risk of general war — something of which William, for all his bluster, was extremely apprehensive.

William made erratic attempts to stay on top of the crisis via telegram, and when the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered to Serbia, he hurried back to Berlin. He reached Berlin on July 28, read a copy of the Serbian reply, and wrote on it:

"A brilliant solution--and in barely 48 hours! This is more than could have been expected. A great moral victory for Vienna; but with it every pretext for war falls to the ground, and [the Ambassador] Giesl had better have stayed quietly at Belgrade. On this document, I should never have given orders for mobilisation."

Unknown to the Emperor, Austro-Hungarian ministers and generals had already convinced the 84-year-old Francis Joseph I of Austria to sign a declaration of war against Serbia.

On the night of July 30-31, when handed a document stating that Russia would not cancel its mobilisation, William wrote a lengthy commentary containing the startling observations: : "For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves--knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria--to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us. ... Our dilemma over keeping faith with the old and honorable Emperor has been exploited to create a situation which gives England the excuse she has been seeking to annihilate us with a spurious appearance of justice on the pretext that she is helping France and maintaining the well-known Balance of Power in Europe, i.e. playing off all European States for her own benefit against us."

When it had become clear that the United Kingdom would enter the war if Germany attacked France through Belgium, the panic-stricken William attempted to redirect the main attack against Russia. When Helmuth von Moltke (the younger) told him that this was impossible, William said: "Your uncle would have given me a different answer!!."

William is a controversial issue in historical scholarship and this period of German history. He was initially seen as an important figure in German history until the late 1950s, for many years after that, the dominant view was that he had little or no influence on German policy . This has been challenged since the late 1970s, particularly by Professor John C. G. Röhl, who saw William II as the key figure in understanding the recklessness and subsequent downfall of Imperial Germany.

It is difficult to argue that William actively sought to unleash the First World War. Though he had ambitions for the German Empire to be a world power, it was never William's intention to conjure a large-scale conflict to achieve such ends. As soon as his better judgment dictated that a world war was imminent, he made strenuous efforts to preserve the peace—such as The Willy-Nicky Correspondence mentioned earlier, and his optimistic interpretation of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum that Austro-Hungarian troops should go no further than Belgrade, thus limiting the conflict. But by then it was far too late, for the eager military officials of Germany and the German Foreign Office were successful in persuading him to sign the mobilisation order and initiate the Schlieffen Plan. The contemporary British reference to the First World War as "the Kaiser's War" in the same way that the Second was "Hitler's War" is not wholly accurate in its suggestion that William was deliberately responsible for unleashing the conflict. "He may not have been 'the father of war' but he was certainly its godfather' (A. Woodcock-Clarke). His own love of the culture and trappings of militarism and push to endorse the German military establishment and industry (most notably the Krupp corporation), which were the key support which enabled his dynasty to rule helped push his empire into an armaments race with competing European powers. Similarly, though on signing the mobilisation order, William is reported as having said "You will regret this, gentlemen", he had encouraged Austria to pursue a hard line with Serbia, was an enthusiastic supporter of the subsequent German actions during the war and revelled in the title of "Supreme War Lord".

The role of ultimate arbiter of wartime national affairs proved too heavy a burden for William to sustain. As the war progressed, his influence receded and inevitably his lack of ability in military matters led to an ever-increasing reliance upon his generals, so much that after 1916 the Empire had effectively become a military dictatorship under the control of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. Increasingly cut-off from reality and the political decision-making process, William vacillated between defeatism and dreams of victory, depending upon the fortunes of "his" armies. He remained a useful figurehead, and he toured the lines and munitions plants, awarded medals and gave encouraging speeches.

Nevertheless, William still retained the ultimate authority in matters of political appointment, and it was only after his consent had been gained that major changes to the high command could be effected. William was in favour of the dismissal of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in September 1914 and his replacement by Erich von Falkenhayn. Similarly, William was instrumental in the policy of inactivity adopted by the High Seas Fleet after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Likewise, it was largely owing to his sense of grievance at having been pushed into the shadows that William attempted to take a leading role in the crisis of 1918. At least in the end he realised the necessity of capitulation and did not insist that the German nation should bleed to death for a dying cause.

William was at the Imperial Army headquarters in Spa, Belgium, when the uprisings in Berlin and other centres took him by surprise in late 1918. Mutiny among the ranks of his beloved Kaiserliche Marine, the imperial navy, profoundly shocked him. After the outbreak of the German Revolution, William could not make up his mind whether or not to abdicate. Up to that point, he was confident that even if he were obliged to vacate the German throne, he would still retain the Prussian kingship. The unreality of this claim was revealed when, for the sake of preserving some form of government in the face of anarchy, William's abdication both as German Emperor and King of Prussia was abruptly announced by the Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, on November 9, 1918. (Prince Max himself was forced to resign later the same day, when it became clear that only Friedrich Ebert, leader of the SPD could effectively exert control). William consented to the abdication only after Ludendorff's replacement, General Wilhelm Groener, had informed him that the officers and men of the army would march back in good order under Paul von Hindenburg's command, but would certainly not fight for William's throne on the home front. The monarchy's last and strongest support had been broken, and finally even Hindenburg, himself a lifelong royalist, was obliged, with some embarrassment, to advise the Emperor to give up the crown.

The following day, the now former German Emperor William II crossed the border by train and went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout the war. Upon the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles in early 1919, Article 227 expressly provided for the prosecution of William "for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties", but Queen Wilhelmina refused to extradite him, despite appeals from the Allies. The erstwhile emperor first settled in Amerongen, and then subsequently purchased a small castle in the municipality of Doorn on 16 August, 1919 and moved in 15 May, 1920, which was to be his home for the remainder of his life. From this residence, Huis Doorn, William absolved his officers and servants of their oath of loyalty to him; however he himself never formally relinquished his titles, and hoped to return to Germany in the future. The Weimar Republic allowed William to remove twenty-three railway wagons of furniture, twenty-seven containing packages of all sorts one bearing a car and another a boat, from the New Palace at Potsdam.

The telegrams that were exchanged between the General Headquarters of the Imperial High Command, Berlin, and President Woodrow Wilson are discussed in Ferdinand Czernin's Versailles, 1919 (New York: G. P. Putnam's & Sons, 1964).

The following telegram was sent through the Swiss government and arrived in Washington, D.C., on October 5, 1918 [p. 6]:

: "The German Government requests the President of the United States of America to take steps for the restoration of peace, to notify all belligerents of this request, and to invite them to delegate positions for the purpose of taking up negotiations. The German Government accepts, as a basis of peace negotiations, the Program laid down by the President of the United States in his message to Congress of January 8, 1918, and his subsequent pronouncements, particularly in his address of September 27, 1918. : In order to avoid further bloodshed the German Government requests to bring about the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land, on water, and in the air. : Max, Prince of Baden, Imperial Chancellor"

In the subsequent two exchanges, Wilson's allusions "failed to convey the idea that the Kaiser's abdication was an essential condition for peace. The leading statesmen of the Reich were not yet ready to contemplate such a monstrous possibility." [p.7]

The third German telegram was sent on October 20. Wilson's reply on October 23 contained the following:

: "If the Government of the United States must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany now, or if it is likely to have to deal with them later in regard to the international obligations of the German Empire, it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender. Nothing can be gained by leaving this essential thing unsaid." [Emil Ludwig, Wilhelm Hohenzollern (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1927), p. 489]

According to Czernin [p. 9]:

: "... Prince Hohenlohe, serving as councilor in the German Legation in Berne, Switzerland, cabled the German Foreign Office that 'a confidential informant has informed me that the conclusion of the Wilson note of October 23 refers to nothing less than the abdication of the Kaiser as the only way to a peace which is more or less tolerable."

The abdication of William was necessitated by the popular perceptions that had been created by the Entente propaganda against him, which had been picked and further refined when the U.S. declared war in April 1917.

A much bigger obstacle, which contributed to the five-week delay in the signing of the armistice and to the resulting social deterioration in Europe, was the fact that the Entente Powers had no desire to accept the Fourteen Points and Wilson's subsequent promises. As Czernin points out [p. 23]:

: "The Allied statesmen were faced with a problem: so far they had considered the 'fourteen commandments' as a piece of clever and effective American propaganda, designed primarily to undermine the fighting spirit of the Central Powers, and to bolster the morale of the lesser Allies. Now, suddenly, the whole peace structure was supposed to be built up on that set of 'vague principles,' most of which seemed to them thoroughly unrealistic, and some of which, if they were to be seriously applied, were simply unacceptable."

In 1922 William published the first volume of his memoirs—a disappointingly slim volume which nevertheless revealed the possession of a remarkable memory (William had no archive on which to draw). In them, he asserted his claim that he was not guilty of initiating the Great War, and defended his conduct throughout his reign, especially in matters of foreign policy. For the remaining twenty years of his life, the ageing emperor regularly entertained guests (often of some standing) and kept himself updated on events in Europe. Much of his time was spent chopping wood (a hobby he discovered upon his arrival at Doorn) and observing the life of a country gentleman. It would seem that his attitude towards Britain and the British finally coalesced in this period into a warm desire to ape British custom. On his arrival from Germany at Amerongen Castle in the Netherlands in 1918, the first thing William said to his host was, "So what do you say, now give me a nice cup of hot, good, real English tea". No longer able to call upon the services of a court barber, and partly out of a desire to disguise his features, William grew a beard and allowed his famous moustache to droop. William even learned the Dutch language.

William developed a penchant for archaeology during his vacations on Corfu, a passion he harboured into his exile. He had bought the former Greek residence of Austrian Empress Elisabeth after her murder in 1898. He also sketched plans for grand buildings and battleships when he was bored, although experts in construction saw his ideas as grandiose and unworkable. One of William's greatest passions was hunting, and he bagged thousands of animals, both beast and bird. During his years in Doorn, he largely deforested his estate, the land only now beginning to recover.

In the early 1930s, William apparently hoped that the successes of the Nazis would stimulate interest in the revival of the monarchy. His second wife, Hermine (see below), actively petitioned the Nazi government on her husband's behalf, but the scorn which Adolf Hitler felt for the man whom he believed contributed to Germany's greatest defeat, and his own desire for power would prevent William's restoration. Though he hosted Hermann Göring at Doorn on at least one occasion, William grew to distrust Hitler. He heard about the Night of the Long Knives of 30 June, 1934 by wireless and said of it, "What would people have said if I had done such a thing?" and hearing of the murder of the wife of former Chancellor Schleicher, "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!" . William was also appalled at the Kristallnacht of 10-11 November, 1938 saying, "I have just made my views clear to Auwi in the presence of his brothers. He had the nerve to say that he agreed with the Jewish pogroms and understood why they had come about. When I told him that any decent man would describe these actions as gangsterisms, he appeared totally indifferent. He is completely lost to our family ..."" William though greatly admired the success which Hitler was able to achieve in the opening months of the Second World War, and even sent a congratulatory telegram on the fall of Paris stating "Congratulations, you have won using my troops.". Nevertheless, after the Nazi conquest of the Netherlands in 1940, the aging William retired completely from public life.

The entry of the German army into Paris stirred painful, deep seated emotions within him. In a letter to his daughter Viktoria Luise, the Duchess of Brunswick, he wrote:

: "Thus is the pernicious entente cordial of Uncle Edward VII brought to nought."

Concerning Hitler's persecutions of the Jews, the Emperor remarked: "For the first time I am ashamed to be a German."

William II died of a pulmonary embolus in Doorn, The Netherlands on June 4, 1941, with German soldiers at the gates of his estate. Hitler, however, was reportedly angry that the former monarch had an honour guard of German troops and nearly fired the general who ordered them there when he found out. Despite his personal animosity toward William, Hitler, ever the canny politician, nonetheless hoped to bring William's body back to Berlin for a state funeral for propaganda purposes. (Hitler felt this would demonstrate to Germans the direct succession of the Third Reich from the old Kaiserreich.) However, William's wishes of never returning to Germany until the restoration of the monarchy were nevertheless respected, and the Nazi occupation authorities granted a small military funeral, the mourners at which included the hero of the First World War August von Mackensen, along with a few other military advisors. William's request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia not be displayed at the final rites was ignored, however.

He was buried in a mausoleum in the grounds of Huis Doorn, which has since become a place of pilgrimage for German monarchists, though there is concern at its growing popularity with adherents of the extreme right. To this day, small but enthusiastic numbers of German monarchists gather at Huis Doorn every year on the anniversary of his death to pay their homage to the last German Emperor.

William and his first wife, Princess Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, were married on February 27, 1881. They had seven children:

1) Crown Prince William (1882-1951). ** Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1906-1940), he renounced his succession right. *** Princess Felicitas of Prussia (b.1934) *** Princess Christa of Prussia (b.1936) ** Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1907-1994) ** Prince Hubertus of Prussia (1909-1950) *** Princess Anastasia of Prussia (b.1944) *** Princess Marie-Christine of Prussia (1947-1966) ** Prince Frederick of Prussia (1911-1966) *** Prince Frederick Nicholas of Prussia (b.1946) *** Prince Andrew of Prussia (b.1947) *** Princess Victoria of Prussia (b.1952) *** Prince Rupert of Prussia (b.1955) *** Princess Antonia of Prussia (b.1955) ** Princess Alexandrine of Prussia (1915-1980) ** Princess Cecilie of Prussia (1917-1975)

2) Prince Eitel Friedrich (1883-1942)

3) Prince Adalbert (1884-1948)

** Stillborn (1915-1915) ** Princess Victoria Marina (1917-1981) ** Prince Wilhelm Victor (1919-1989) *** Princess Marie Louise (b.1945) *** Prince Adelbert (b.1948) **** Alexander (b.1984) **** Christian (b.1986) **** Philipp (b.1986)

4) Prince August Wilhelm (1887-1949)

** Prince Alexander Ferdinand (1912-1985) *** Stephan Alexander (1939-1993) **** Stephanie (b.1966)

5) Prince Oskar (1888-1958)

** Prince Oskar (1915-1939) ** Prince Burchard (1917-1988) ** Princess Herzeleide-Ina-Marie (1918-1989) ** Prince Wilhelm-Karl (1922-2007) *** Princess Donata-Viktoria (b.1952) *** Prince Wilhelm-Karl (b.1955) *** Prince Oskar (b.1959) **** Prince Oskar (b.1993) **** Princess Wilhelmine (b.1995) **** Prince Albert (b.1998)

6) Prince Joachim (1890-1920) ** Prince Karl Franz Joseph (1916-1975) *** Prince Franz Wilhelm (b.1943), married 1976 to Maria Vladimirovna (b.1953), titular Empress of Russia. **** Prince George Wilhelm (Grand Duke George Mihailovich of Russia) (b.1981) *** Prince Friedrich Christian (1943-1943) *** Prince Franz Friedrich (b.1944) **** Christine (b.1968) *** Alexandra (b.1960) *** Desiree (b.1961)

7) Princess Viktoria Luise (1892-1980); married 1913 to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick

Known affectionately as "Dona", Augusta was a close and constant companion to William throughout his life, and her death on April 11, 1921 was a devastating blow. It also came less than a year after their son, Joachim, had committed suicide, unable to accept his lot after the abdication of his father, the failure of his own marriage to Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt, and the heavy depression felt after his service in the Great War.

The following January, William received a birthday greeting from a son of the deceased Prince Johann George Ludwig Ferdinand August Wilhelm of Schönaich-Carolath (11 September 1873 - 7 April 1920). 63 year old William invited the boy and his widowed mother, Princess Hermine Reuss (17 December 1887 - 7 August 1947), to Doorn. Princess Hermine was the daughter of Prince Henry XXII Reuss. William found her very attractive, and greatly enjoyed her company. By early 1922, he was determined to marry the 34 year old mother of five, and the couple was eventually wed on November 9, 1922, despite grumblings from William's monarchist supporters and the objections of his children. Hermine's daughter, Henriette, eventually married William's grandson, Prince, Joachim's son, Karl Franz Josef, (William's step-daughter and grandson respectively). Hermine remained a constant companion to the ageing emperor until his death.

William was implicated in some degree in the scandal over his aide and great friend, Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg-Hertefeld, which revealed homosexual activities (then illegal under German law) within William's inner circle (the Harden-Eulenburg Affair). Bismarck, among others, suggested that there was an inappropriate relationship between William and Eulenburg. There is no conclusive evidence to prove that the Emperor and Eulenburg's relationship went beyond friendship.

* William owned a vast collection of uniforms. He wore different ones for each occasion, often 4 or more a day. This habit made people joke that when eating plum pudding he dressed himself as a British Admiral (an honorary rank he had been awarded by his grandmother in 1889). * As a young man, Franklin D. Roosevelt was invited onto the Emperor's yacht. He stole a pen. * When Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show visited Germany, William, then a crown prince, had Annie Oakley shoot the ashes off of a cigarette he was holding. * The Emperor loved all things Norwegian. He often spent his summer holidays on his yacht, cruising Norway's coast. When the city of Ålesund was demolished by a great fire in 1904, he oversaw and partially financed its restoration in Jugendstil architecture. * He had a yacht called the Meteor, which was outpaced in a regatta at Kiel in 1900 by Whitaker Wright. He regularly beat his uncle Edward VII of the United Kingdom at yachting. * Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the young Wilhelmina of the Netherlands visited William, who boasted to the child Queen that "my guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder high to them." Wilhelmina smiled politely and replied: "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!" After the armistice ending the Great War, William had to swallow his pride and seek Wilhelmina's aid in the Netherlands, this time as a political exile. * William paid for a marble sarcophagus for the Muslim hero Saladin. Although it is in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, next to the old tomb, Saladin's remains are not interred in it, but lie in the original wooden coffin in which he was interred. * While in exile, he developed a hobby of cutting down trees. During his years in Doorn, he largely deforested his estate. * Following the fall of Paris to the Nazis in 1940, William sent a telegram to Hitler congratulating him on capturing Paris with his (i.e. William's) troops, much to the annoyance of Hitler. * William enjoyed the themes of the music of Richard Wagner, and although his patronage of the composer and his Bayreuth Festival never approached the fanatical levels of King Ludwig II of Bavaria or later of Hitler, the horn of the German Emperor's first automobile played Donner's "Heda! Heda! Hedo!" motif from Das Rheingold. William himself thought that Wagner's music made "too much noise". * Through his grandmother, Queen Victoria, William was a first cousin to many of the crowned heads of Europe with whom he went to war, most notably George V of the United Kingdom and Nicholas II of Russia (through his consort, the Empress Alexandra). All three spoke English fluently and called each other Georgie, Willy and Nicky respectively. * Edward VII of the United Kingdom once remarked that William was "the most brilliant failure in history". * Upon hearing that his cousin George V had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor, he remarked that he planned to see Shakespeare's play "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha". * Prior to the outbreak of hostilities of WWI, William hosted Theodore Roosevelt in a review of the German army on parade. Roosevelt is purported to have said to the future adversary, "My God, if I had an army like that, I could rule the world!" * William II ranks at No. 130 on the Unsere Besten list of greatest Germans. * In 1895 he opened the Kiel Canal, an event that was captured by British director Birt Acres in his film The Opening of the Kiel Canal. * His last surviving grandchild, Prince Wilhelm Karl of Prussia, died on April 9, 2007 at the age of 85. http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=6242 * The Emperor Tamarin is a tamarin allegedly named for its similarity with the German Emperor William II. The name was first intended as a joke, but has become the official scientific name. * A popular World War I joke goes: Kaise Bill ran up a hill to take a peak at France. Kaiser Bill came down the hill with bullets in his pants.

*His Royal Highness Prince William of Prussia (1859-1888) *His Imperial and Royal Highness The German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia (1888) *His Imperial and Royal Majesty The German Emperor, King of Prussia (1888-1941)

His Imperial and Royal Majesty William the Second, by the Grace of God, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Count of Hohenzollern, Duke of Silesia and of the County of Glatz, Grand Duke of the Lower Rhine and of Posen, Duke in Saxony, of Angria, of Westphalia, of Pomerania and of Lunenburg, Duke of Schleswig, of Holstein and of Crossen, Duke of Magdeburg, of Bremen, of Guelderland and of Jülich, Cleves and Berg, Duke of the Wends and the Kashubians, of Lauenburg and of Mecklenburg, Landgrave of Hesse and in Thuringia, Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia, Prince of Orange, of Rugen, of East Friesland, of Paderborn and of Pyrmont, Prince of Halberstadt, of Münster, of Minden, of Osnabrück, of Hildesheim, of Verden, of Kammin, of Fulda, of Nassau and of Moers, Princely Count of Henneberg, Count of the Mark, of Ravensberg, of Hohenstein, of Tecklenburg and of Lingen, Count of Mansfeld, of Sigmaringen and of Veringen, Lord of Frankfurt. http://regiments.org/biography/royals/1859wilG.htm

Despite the continuing debate over the precise nature of his impact upon history, William has been the focus of many biographies, of which the first (by Emil Ludwig) is still one of the most accessible. * Ludwig, Emil. "Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers", G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1927 (translated by Ethel Colburn Mayne). (1970 edition, Ames Press). ISBN 0-404-04067-5. * Röhl, John C. G.. "The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany", trans. Terence F. Cole, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-40223-9.

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* Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964. * E. F. Benson, The Kaiser and English Relations, London: Longmans, Green, 1936. * Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. * Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Emperor and Exile, 1900-1941, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. * Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888-1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. * Thomas A. Kohut, Wilhelm II and the Germans: A Study in Leadership, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. * Giles Macdonogh, The Last Kaiser: William the Impetuous, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001. * Annika Mombauer & Wilhelm Deist (eds), The Kaiser: New Research on Wilhelm II's Role in Imperial Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. * Alan Palmer, The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978. * James Retallack, Germany in the Age of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Basingstoke: St. Martin's Press, 1996. * John C. G. Röhl & Nicholaus Sombart (eds), Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations − the Corfu Papers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982 (reprinted 2005). * John C. G. Röhl, Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser's Early Life, 1859-1888, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (Volume I of Röhl's massive new biography). * John C. G. Röhl, The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004 (Volume II of Röhl's massive new biography). * John Van der Kiste, Kaiser Wilhelm II: Germany's Last Emperor, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999. * Tyler Whittle, The Last Kaiser: A Biography of William II, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, London: Heinemann, 1977. * Wilhelm II tried to stop the bombing of Belgrade http://www.terravista.pt/guincho/2104/1914_e.html'>History of the Last Days before the day of fate, documentary by German Historian Guido Knopp, February 1999, as History of Ultimatum to Serbia repeated. * Wilhelm II (WWI Biographical Dictionary).

*The German Emperor as shown in his public utterances * My Memoirs: 1878-1918 by Wilhelm II, London: Cassell & Co., 1922. *The German emperor's speeches : being a selection from the speeches, edicts, letters, and telegrams of the Emperor William II *Commemorative Silk Bookmark of Kaiser Wilhelm II from 1913

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