William II -- Emperor of Germany

William II (German: Wilhelm II von Deutschland, January 27, 1859 to June 4, 1941), formerly known as Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Hohenzollern, was the last emperor of the German Empire and the last king of Prussia (who was in office from June 15, 1888 to November 9, 1918). He is the eldest son of William I, Friedrich III and Princess Victoria. Because of breech delivery at birth, he suffered from Erb's Palsy and left arm atrophy. To make up for this physiological defect, William received strict military training since childhood, and was especially good at horsemanship. In 1877, as the eldest grandson of the emperor, he entered the famous university of Bonn, specializing in law and national science. Received a bachelor's degree in 1881.
He is the main planner of World War I and the founder of Blitzkrieg. Under the pressure of defeat and domestic revolution, William II abdicated on November 28, 1918. In 1941, William II died of illness in Toronto, the Netherlands, and was buried in Toronto Manor.

Adolescence
He was with his father Frederick when he was young.
He was with his father Frederick when he was young.
On January 27, 1859, Prince Friedrich William Victor Albert, later William II, was born in the womb of Berlin's Bodhi Avenue. He was the eldest son of William I, the eldest son of Friedrich III and Princess Victoria. However, three days after birth, the nurse found that he suffered from Erb's Palsy and left arm atrophy due to breech delivery at birth. [2] Prince William was baptized at the Peace Church in Potsdam on March 4. However, a series of medical and sports treatment measures that followed did not achieve the desired effect, but left him with the pain and suffering that he could not forget after many years. To make up for this physiological defect, William received strict military training since childhood, and was especially good at horsemanship.
After Bismarck became prime minister in 1862, the then Prussian King William I and the conservatives represented by the prime minister and the liberals represented by the prince and his wife (later Friedrich III&Princess Victoria) broke out fierce conflicts around the "constitutional struggle". This awkward power pattern will inevitably lead to the conflict of William II's educational ideas: one side is pro-British and liberal, and pays attention to the importance of public interests; The other side is pro-Russian and conservative, focusing on aristocratic values and the cultivation of military skills. Her mother Queen Victoria tried to instill her passion for the sea, Britain and freedom in William II, and tried to take full responsibility for the child care of her father who was busy with military affairs. But the king and queen are also trying to exert their influence on William II. Victoria is disappointed to complain that her children have become "public property" [3-4]. Therefore, in the following years, William II was influenced by complex values in the family education conducted by nannies, governesses and parents themselves. When William II was seven years old, in order to dispel the "terrible Prussian pride and ambition" he had grown up [5], his parents believed that education should be entrusted to a tutor with an enlightened political concept and responsible for multidisciplinary training. After careful search and discussion, Prince Friedrich chose Dr. George Hintspeter, 39. [6]
Because William II was born in breech position, he suffered from Erb's Palsy, resulting in atrophy of his left arm. So many times when he takes photos, he deliberately sidesteps his body, cleverly highlights the right hand with normal function, and covers the defective left hand. In many photos, William II often wears gloves on his left hand to make his left hand look slender. He also likes to lean on his sword or crutch with his left hand to make himself look more decent.
In 1873, Hinzpeter's idea of sending his children to complete secondary school catered to the parents' desire to send the William brothers away from the court. The prince also believes that the experience of learning and living together with children of the same age from different classes will help eliminate the negative impact of pure family education. After the investigation, Sinzpeter chose a complete middle school in Kassel, a suburb of Berlin. The motion of "no precedent" in Hohensolen's tradition was opposed by the emperor. He believed that the most important duty of the Prince of Prussia was to become an excellent soldier, and staying in the capital would help this progress. After hard persuasion, the emperor reluctantly compromised and decided that William would enter the army after receiving two and a half years of education in Kassel. [7] On September 12, 1874, Hinzpeter led William and his brother Heinlich to Kassel, accompanied by General Gothberg, the housekeeper specially arranged by the emperor. After experiencing the test of Cassell for one or two semesters, William had already felt the extreme dogmatism, rigidity and heaviness of the secondary school education system at that time. This, together with the same harsh educational method of Sinzpeter, has had a very negative impact on William's personality development. In 1877, as the eldest grandson of the emperor, he entered the famous university of Bonn, specializing in law and national science. Received a bachelor's degree in 1881.
Get involved in politics
In the late 1870s, Princess Victoria suffered a series of personal life shocks. The early death of her two children left her in a state of pain and self-pity. Due to the constant suffering from headache and rheumatism, her health was damaged, resulting in her strict demands on William. She could no longer see the advantages of her eldest son. At the same time, the emperor and his wife were full of praise for William's performance. They have a natural affinity with William. This made the prince and his wife, who had already fallen into loneliness and anxiety in the conservative Berlin court, even more alert - especially because the prince never established the same intimate relationship with his father William I. The development of the situation in the near future will make the intergenerational conflict truly political, and the relationship between William and his parents will become irreparable.
William and Bismarck
William and Bismarck
William said goodbye to Bonn in 1879 and went to Potsdam to resume service until around 1883. This was the period when William gradually gained independent status and established good political relations with the pro-Russian conservative camp represented by his grandfather and Bismarck. Shortly after re-entering the barracks, William began to perform his military obligations seriously, seriously and enthusiastically, and was completely intoxicated with it. Soon after, William II was engaged to Princess Augusta Victoria (nicknamed "Donna"), the daughter of Archduke Schleswig-Holstein. [8] In February 1881, their marriage finally marked that William became a relatively independent factor in German political life and further alienated from his parents, because the princess would soon regret her daughter-in-law's complete conservative tendency, while the personal relationship between Emperor William I, Bismarck and William became closer. By around 1883, this change had finally borne fruit that was not conducive to the prince's camp.
From 1883 to around 1886, William began to perform some foreign affairs independently, and these activities will ultimately benefit the conservative camp. The first signal was that William, by writing a letter to request the intervention of "my dear grandfather", refused his father's request to visit Spain with his entourage, thus taking the initiative to use his relationship with his grandfather to target his father for the first time. The first political achievement of cooperation with the conservative camp was William's successful mission to Russia in the summer of 1884. Because of the prince's "absurd anti-Russian stance" [9], William is generally considered to be a more suitable candidate to visit Russia, but the prince, who was only informed afterwards, felt the father's indifference and the son's betrayal. In 1885, the dispute over the marriage between Princess Victoria, the sister of William, and Prince Bartenbeck of Bulgaria continued to deepen this contradiction. Friedrich and his wife were in favor of marriage for anti-Russian purposes, while the emperor and Prime Minister Bismarck were naturally opposed. William also joined the latter camp. The emperor and prime minister highly appreciated William's performance, and the reward was his rising military position and his second mission to Russia in. In August 1886, William was able to meet Bismarck for the first time and enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for internship with the help of the Prime Minister's eldest son Herbert. For this reason, the Prince and Bismarck had a fierce conflict, but in vain. [10]
1887 and 1888. This is the period when William launched his final sprint to the peak of power. At the beginning of 1887, the prince suddenly suffered from aphasia, and the prospect of Prince William's succession, which was originally out of reach, suddenly came into sight. After consultation, several German medical experts believed that the prince had throat cancer and advocated immediate surgery. However, this is a radical and dangerous plan, because the operation may cause the prince to lose his voice completely - thus shattering his hope of becoming king, and even threatening his life. On November 10, 1887, the joint consultation of experts from Britain and Germany confirmed that the prince was suffering from throat cancer, but at this time, even surgery may not be able to save his life. Finally, the prince decided not to operate and let nature take its course. This doomed that the reform carried out by Prince Friedrich during his short reign could not be deepened and lasted for a long time. It is noteworthy that with William becoming the center of political attention, his relationship with Bismarck has also undergone subtle changes. Wadsey, from the military standpoint, Stoker, from the anti-capitalist Christian social care standpoint, and Oerlenburg, from the personal emotional standpoint, all tried to worsen the relationship. Although William himself has never purposefully and systematically opposed the prime minister, the complex policy and personal differences formed between him and Bismarck in these disputes that will soon be settled have remained.

Successive emperor
Portrait of William II
Portrait of William II (2)
After the death of William I on March 9, 1888, his father was crowned Emperor Friedrich III, but died of throat cancer 99 days later. In June of the same year, 29-year-old William II became emperor. Because Friedrich III was misdiagnosed by a quack doctor and died, William once said angrily: "The British doctor killed my father!"
In the court documents of the early 20th century, there was a record of his birth: William may have suffered from serious disease, leading to brain function problems. His health problems may make him ambitious and impulsive in the future, as well as arrogant in dealing with others.
Does this hinder his political future and daily life? Historians have not yet reached a final conclusion. If this argument is true, William's political maladies must be caused by his personality, such as dismissing Bismarck. His mother, Princess Victoria, was too strict with him, giving his parents-in-law, William I and his wife a chance to sow discord in front of William II. His mother, based on her guilt about his son's physical defects, kept asking William II to exercise more frequently. However, it led to a very bad relationship between William II and his mother. In addition, since Queen Frederick was born in the British royal family, she often instilled the concept of British supremacy into her son. She insisted on calling her son's English name only: William was called "Wilhelm" in German, but she called it "William"; The second son's name is "Heinrich", which is called "Henry". The future emperor William II had a very complex feeling about Britain since he was young, and may change his foreign policy towards Britain.
Although William had admired Bismarck before he became emperor, he immediately clashed with the iron-blooded prime minister after he ascended the throne. The root cause was that Germany was entering the imperialist society directly from the feudal society, and the old bureaucracy represented by Bismarck could not adapt to the change of production relations and the resulting social changes. Thus, as the highest representative of the German imperialist class, William II ordered Bismarck to resign in 1890. Later, he appointed Count Caprivi, Hohenloe and Bernhardt von Biro to succeed him. In 1909, Teobaden von Batman Holwig became Prime Minister. William particularly respected the opinions of Bertman Holwig and affirmed his vision for internal affairs, such as his reform of the Prussian electoral law. Three years after the war, William reluctantly parted ways with him in 1917. [11]
It is worth noting that these prime ministers are senior civil servants, not political veterans like Bismarck. William wanted to avoid the appearance of the second Bismarck, because he thought that Bismarck was too overbearing - all officials could only meet the emperor with him. After Bismarck retired, he has been fiercely criticizing William's policies.
William II
William II
William II was impulsive and reckless by nature, so he failed to maintain rationality in Germany's foreign policy. One example is that he has a love-hate relationship with his cousin who ruled Britain and Britain. For William II, the armed conflict with Britain was "the most unimaginable thing"; However, with the start of William II's plan to expand the navy, the rise of Germany made Britain very worried. In 1914, when the war broke out, he believed that he was involved in the war because of the diplomatic trap set by his uncle. In fact, William did not expect that his reckless behavior had damaged his image as an emperor. In 1896, President Kruger of Transvaal successfully suppressed Jason's expedition, and William II unexpectedly congratulated President Transvaal by telegraph. At that time, the relationship between the Boer people and the UK was tense, so the UK was extremely angry at the Kruger telegram. In the event of the Allied Forces of Eight countries, he made a speech encouraging the German troops participating in the campaign to attack China like the Huns. The German army was nicknamed "Hun" in the later war.
He tried to defend his foreign policy, but made serious mistakes repeatedly, which made the foreign relations worse. The most famous example is his interview with the Daily Telegraph in 1908. He would like to take this opportunity to publicize the friendly relations between Germany and Britain. However, he was so quick that he offended Britain, France, Russia and Japan. He pointed out that the Germans did not like the fact that the British, France and Russia had incited Germany to intervene in the second Boer War, and that Germany's naval expansion was aimed at Japan, not Britain. (He also said, "You Englishmen are really crazy.") Because of his radical remarks, even his subordinates were silent. William II himself kept a low profile for several months after the incident. Bilo was dismissed by William because he did not properly edit and reject the record of the day's visit.
Nevertheless, the royal families of Germany and Britain still maintain good relations. William ranked first in the attendance list for the funeral of King Edward VII.
However, the incident reported this time has taken a serious psychological blow to William II. During his last ten years of rule, he rarely participated in government affairs, which was unexpected in the society at that time.
In 1910, William (third from the right in the back row) and European monarchs
In 1910, William (third from the right in the back row) and European monarchs
Before the war, William no longer continued the policy of isolating France advocated by Bismarck. Although William II was not sincere enough, he also tried to repair France. However, because France had been greatly humiliated by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, William II's plan to break the ice for the relationship between the two countries was extremely limited.
William tried to ease France's revenge, but, like the establishment of foreign policy towards Britain, he failed in the end because he really lacked the ability to adapt to circumstances. In 1906, the first Moroccan crisis occurred - when he visited Tangier, he inadvertently put forward the statement of support for Moroccan independence, which angered France who wanted to expand its sphere of influence in the region. Fortunately, the excellent performance of the diplomatic officials made it possible to avoid a head-to-head confrontation between Germany and France and their allies at the Algeciras Conference. After dismissing Bismarck, the Reinsurance Treaty signed with Russia expired in 1890. William II did not actively negotiate with Russia on how to continue the treaty. This made Germany lose the support of Russia, and there was no guarantee that Russia would remain neutral in the event of conflict between Germany and France. William's character and opinion have made Germany's foreign policy towards Britain, France and Russia always wavering. On the one hand, he insisted on the alliance with the Austria-Hungary Empire; In addition, Germany cooperated with Britain, and even wanted to form a strong European Union with France and Russia. William thought that after meeting with Czar Nicholas II in 1905, he had received Russian support.