I long ago concluded that 'Willy' was one of the worst monarchs in the long history of European incompetence, a delusional disaster whose arrogance, militarism, hatred of England, and insecurity was a significant reason the first half of the 20th century turned Europe into a charnel house. Recent scholarship has raised the concept that all of Europe, particularly the Serbs and Russians, were equally at fault. Thus, I decided to check this out - after all, it's only 193 pages. Indeed, it was that same recent scholarship that led the author to "miniaturize" his 4,000-page, three-volume biography, and he begs to disagree. He gets right to the point in the introduction. "Kaiser Wilhelm II, imperious, impulsive, imbued with the antiquated notions of the divine right of kings and of Prussia/Germany's God-given trajectory to greatness, while at the same time insecure and hyper-sensitive to perceived slights to his imperial dignity or his dynastic mission, was arguably the very last person who should have been entrusted with the immense powers of the Hohenzollern military monarchy at such a critical juncture in Germany's and Europe's history." He was the oldest of Queen Victoria's grand children, the son of her daughter Victoria and Crown Prince Frederick. He was breech-born and his left arm was disabled at birth. His mother couldn't stand his deformity and treated him very, very badly. He grew up to despise her English liberalism. Wilhelm was Kaiser at only 29, because his father died of laryngeal cancer only a few months after Wilhelm I died at 90. His ideas and attitudes were a throwback to the 18th century and his first major failure was the dismissal from office of Bismarck, who had managed Germany's awkward constitutional system which had an elected legislature with budgetary powers and ministers appointed by the Kaiser. Without the Iron Chancellor, Willy consolidated more and more power in the military. Whereas Bismarck knew Germany had reached the limits of its size in Europe and worked for peace, Willy wanted to dominate the continent and was ready to go to war to accomplish that. Throughout the quarter century from Bismarck's dismissal to the guns of August, the Kaiser provoked crisis after crisis, by ill-advised off-the-cuff comments, letters not cleared by the Foreign Office, bombastic interviews with newspapermen, and intervention in diplomatic protocol. Many, many people in Germany and around Europe wondered out loud if he was off his rocker. Delusional to the end, he approved of Hitler's Chancellorship and asked the Fuhrer to bring him back and make him the Kaiser again. He relished the success of the Wehrmacht in 1939 and 1940 saying that they were his boys now grown to generals who were conquering Europe. He died a few weeks before Barbarossa.
Two years ago as I walked around Berlin, it occurred to me that the Germans won - just not how they intended to win. They are the 4th largest economy in the world, clearly the leaders of Europe, and Berlin will be the 21st century capital of the continent. It was all so unnecessary and, hopefully, as some have observed, at least in Europe, war is no longer a policy option.
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