Between the Nazi propaganda, which portrayed him as an aggressive leader, and that of the British and French, which portrayed him as an irresponsible psychopath, the figure of Wilhelm II was horribly mutilated and reduced to a cartoonish level by Germany. Their Vulcan personality and lack of political views seem to prove them right when viewed from the outside. Few historians have made the effort like Christopher Clark “Kaiser Wilhelm II: A life of power” (The Sphere of Books, 2023) to see it up close, from the heart of an empire that had been much admired before the First World War.
The war made us forget the achievements that Germany had praised for its performance and economic and cultural strength after a powerful technological and industrial boom. between 1871 and 1914 Thanks to government investments. A cradle of thinkers, painters and scientists, Guillermo always tried to be at the center of all these advances, even if he did not always succeed and had no interest in doing so. He knew how to view science as a pillar of his empire and portray himself as an incarnation of a modern, technologically and intellectually advanced state. The bombs caused the carefully constructed facade to collapse…
The First World War unleashed the German warmongering that Bismarck had contained for decades with cunning and ill-advised means. The aggressive foreign policy aimed at regaining its “place under the sun” as a new world power resulted in the outbreak of an unknown war in Europe, which ultimately led to German defeat in the offices rather than on the battlefields. However, the book shows that William was more than that the cause of the conflict As always, he is credited with being one of the few European leaders who tried to retrace the path through his peaceful international agreements to end the crisis in the Balkans or to maintain his promise, expressed as early as 1888, to “peace with the whole “To have the world whenever possible”. In addition, he was the greatest opponent of unrestricted submarine warfare in the German military leadership.
Faced with propaganda that defines him as the missing link between 19th century German nationalism and Nazism, as a “sadist,” “a tyrant,” “a pompous madman,” the author of “Sleepwalker” and “The Iron Kingdom “. an intelligent monarch but with poor judgment, clumsy outbursts, fearful, insecure and impulsive in response to his feelings of weakness. “He would decide on an idea, get excited about it, get bored or discouraged, and then give it up.” One week she was angry with the tsar, but the next she was in love with him. “He reacted with anger to what he thought were insults or provocations, but panicked at the thought of a real confrontation or conflict.”
“One week she was angry with the Tsar, but the next she was in love with him.”
Clark reflects in the pages of “Emperor Wilhelm II.” on the role of the Prussian monarch in the course of events. Because of his prominence, the emperor did not interfere in politics as much as is usually understood. The war only limited his power. Day after day, week after week, he was gradually excluded from decision-making by the military leadership. Despite his title as leader, he was excluded from any active role in the war program and he was unable to act as a constitutional hinge between the civil and military authorities. He was generally unable to be the leader his country needed in its darkest moments.
Cartoon of world leaders dividing China.
“The position of emperor was endowed with extensive executive powers, but whether and how and to what extent he could exercise them depended on variables that were only partially or not at all under his control,” said this professor of History of the University of Cambridge. The demonstrative authority he displayed in public was not at all commensurate with his weight in a system full of complexities and twists and turns. With the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff as leaders of the General Staff, Germany became a de facto military dictatorship and the warlord became a chess king ready to accept checkmate.
By the end of the war, the German was the most hated man in the world and some accredited politicians, such as the British Prime Minister, called for his public execution. After a workers’ revolution in early November 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands. On the 28th of the same month he officially abdicated, ending more than five hundred years of Hohenzollern history in Prussia. He lived in exile until his death in 1941, leaving his dynasty’s reputation in ruins. His hasty escape created an enormous gap in the German imagination, which, as can be summarized, Andreas Graf von Bernstorff In his diary he made us think that “the only thing that can help us now is a dictator who sweeps up all this international parasitic scum with an iron broom.” Oh, if we were like the Germans, a MussolinYo!”. They would have it soon.
