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Index
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Preface
Kaiser Wilhelm II
1 Childhood and Youth
Power in the family
Wilhelm becomes a contender
The Kaiser’s personality
2 Taking Power
Power and the constitution
Kaiser vs chancellor
Banquo’s ghost: Bismarck in ‘retirement’
3 Going It Alone
The nervous nineties
Schools
The confessional divide
Army bill (1893)
The failure of negative integration
The emperor’s friends
Kaiser vs ministers: the Köller crisis
Conclusions: power and constraint
4 Domestic Politics from Bülow to Bethmann
‘Personal rule – in the good sense’?
Crisis of confidence (1905–6)
Bülow’s endgame
Domestic politics to 1914
Conclusions
5 Wilhelm II and Foreign Policy (1888–1911)
‘The sole master of German policy’
Managing the Kaiser
Wilhelm II and the naval idea
Navalism becomes policy
Escape routes (1904–6)
Isolation (1911)
Wilhelm’s impact
6 Power and Publicity
The power of speech
The Daily Telegraph crisis
7 From Crisis to War (1909–14)
Wilhelm, Austria–Hungary and the Balkans
War premeditated?
Wilhelm the warmonger?
July 1914
A word from London
Conclusions: Wilhelm and the outbreak of war What general conclusions can we draw from Wilhelm’s actions during the July crisis? We could begin with the banal observation that, while reluctant to entangle Germany in a continental war, he nevertheless made some of the decisions that helped to bring it about. But it should be noted that the same can be said of his two imperial colleagues, Emperor Franz Joseph and Tsar Nicholas II. Alexander Margutti, aide de camp to Franz Joseph, reported that the Austrian emperor regarded the ultimatum to Serbia as a diplomatic bluff and was deeply shaken when he realized that the Serbian reply was unacceptable.108. Beller, Francis Joseph, p. 214. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was slow to accept the need for military measures and – in a move analogous to Wilhelm’s last-minute efforts to avoid continental war – actually rescinded an order for general mobilization on 29 July after receiving what he took to be a conciliatory message from his German cousin. During a further protracted discussion with Foreign Minister Sazonov on 30 July, the tsar displayed an ‘extreme loathing’ for war and could only be persuaded with the greatest difficulty of the need for an immediate general mobilization.109. D. C. B. Lieven, Nicholas II. Emperor of All the Russias (London, 1993), p. 202. On the other hand, both sovereigns represented – at least in a constitutional sense – the ‘ultimate source of decision’ within their respective political systems, and both were crucially and knowingly involved in the decisions that made war inevitable. It was Franz Joseph whose powerful personal appeal to Wilhelm secured the German promise of support for a military action against Serbia, and it was he who approved Berchtold’s ultimatum, even though he believed such a measure might provoke a widening of the conflict – ‘Yes, I know, Russia cannot tolerate such a note,’ he told Finance Minister Leo von Bilinski on 20 July, when the latter warned him that war was likely.110. R. A. Kann, Dynasty, Politics and Culture: Selected Essays, ed. S. Winter (Boulder, CO, 1991), p. 294. Nicholas II had fully endorsed the hardening of Russia’s line on the Balkan Slavs from early 1914; he was also fully aware that Russia’s general mobilization on 30 July – the first among the Great Powers – made war inevitable and that ‘nothing remained but to wage it with the greatest possible chance of success’.111. Lieven, Nicholas II, p. 202. Both sovereigns were determined not to make any concessions that would compromise the reputation and ‘Great Power position’ of their respective states.
8 War, Exile, Death (1914–41)
Supreme warlord
The decision for unrestricted submarine warfare (USW)
The fall of Bethmann
Public opinion
Exile
Conclusion
Notes
Index
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