The Three Cousins of WWI: Part 2 - The Kaiser

I was going to begin this by saying that the road to World War I was paved by three leaders - a king, a tsar, and a kaiser. While it's arguably true, I can't write that in good conscience. The world was going through a number of changes, and like the progression from a child to an adult, the process was fraught with confusion, violence, and a strange, paradoxical concoction of overconfidence and low self-esteem coming from the leadership. (Or brain, if you wish to continue the metaphor. Further, they also both contain an awkward moustache component.) There's a part of me that thinks the Great War was due to take place almost inevitably, and while it was largely the work of incompetent leadership, if it didn't happen under them it would have happened a decade or two later.

The Kaiser had a brief bout as a wax figurine.

European countries in the early 1900s were the powers of the world, unquestionably. They were also vying for the same territory, were devoted imperialists, and all involved in a high-stakes game of one-upmanship where the way to keep up with the Joneses was to take over another country. The fact that they were also led by people with no right to lead beyond heredity was the icing on the cake. Learning how they came to rule, as well as the decisions they made, is a baffling and shocking ordeal. 

We'll start with Germany, specifically in Prussia. Things didn't quite pan out for them.

Prussia was a strange place, back before the 1900s. Much of it was still locked in the feudal system with the poor slaving away on farms right next door to high-culture elites. Splitting it further was that half of it was crawling towards Russia and the other half was digging in their heels and pulling towards Britain. Queen Victoria wanted the latter half to grow larger, so she does what any good, diplomatic country does in a situation such as this. She sends her seventeen-year-old daughter (also named Victoria) to marry a prince, and hope everything works out all peachy-keen. Somehow, and this was what I said about baffling decisions, that made sense back then. Take two large, powerful countries and put the diplomatic relations in the hands of a teenager.

Her first order of business (and as it was for women back then, pretty close to her only order of business) was to have a bunch of kids and guide them towards Britain. One such child was born with a permanently withered arm due to a birth defect. Fredrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert, the future Kaiser, Wilhelm II. His early life subjected him to bizarre medical treatments in an attempt to cure his arm, such as having him rest it on a dead rabbit (it didn't make it worse, so partial credit) and having to be hooked up to a full body-length machine to try to fix a tilt he had from overcompensating for the arm. Further, his tumultuous birth briefly cut the oxygen to his brain, which may have actually caused some degree of brain damage, which would explain a heck of a lot of the stuff he did later.

Wilhelm would often rest
one arm on his sword to make
it appear normal. If only he had
a more positive body image. This
is why we need Dove's Campaign
for Real Beauty, folks.

With his mother breathing down his neck, Wilhelm still had a strange relationship with not only England but Russia as well. Most often he would cozy up to the latter as their militaristic style appealed to him. This was of course contrary to his mother's wishes, but almost everyone was against poor Victoria. Being far too British for the Prussians, she was unpopular and had little going for her in the way of public opinion, shifting Wilhelm to the Russian side. However, that would rarely last for long. The majority of his life was going back and forth between love and hate of the British, often disrespecting them but clearly reaching for their approval, like a child acting out to get his parents to notice him. Whenever one insulted his pride he would switch to the other, basing national diplomacy on real or imagined slights.

Even then, it was pride that was his greatest curse, and one that was used by both Britain and Russia to get him on their side. A prime example is when he didn't acknowledge his uncle while on a vacation and started an international fuss. The British press and a few of the family members took offense, which bothered Wilhelm (swing to Russia). They got him back by promising him an admiral's uniform and title (swing to Britain). His uniform was a strange source of pride, and taking the "honour" to the nth degree, he would wear it frequently and ensure that it - and he - looked immaculate.

Kaiser Wilhelm in his later, surprisingly
dapper years. This picture was taken just days
before donning a white suit and becoming
 Colonel Sanders.

There are countless stories like this one, but I chose it in particular because it's what happens after that so exemplifies Wilhelm's narcissism. The uniform was obviously a formality, but he nevertheless took it oddly seriously. He suddenly became a self-described expert in the field, and would send messages to the British admiralty suggesting changes which only served to cause a few laughs down in England.

It was that pompous, bombastic style of his that would get him in trouble in the media world, as well. Unable to keep his trap shut, he would often run his mouth at the wrong times, giving strange press releases that would say far too much or speak terribly out of turn. The British and occasionally the German press would roast him for it, and the other leaders would have to roll their eyes and hope he would only be speaking like that just for show. But his paranoia really would get the better of him. Anyone signing a treaty around him would cause him to think it was a sign of a coming war. If he gets wind of an alliance somewhere, it's a betrayal to Germany.

It wasn't so bad when he was just a prince. Things can get glossed over, words forgotten, and so forth. But when his grandfather died and his father was in the later stages of throat cancer, he was set to take the throne. Germany was about to get the full leadership of the mad Kaiser. This was the person set to take over one of the most powerful countries in the world; a narcissistic warmonger, quick to change his mind and so easily won over by praise. Maybe people knew it was a bad idea, but with the ways of hereditary monarchies, there's not a heck of a lot you can do.

When things started going south in the war, the Kaiser was eventually first pushed out of discussions and then fully pushed out of office. Left to rot in disgrace and exile, he was sent to the Dutch town of Amerongen where he would remain for the rest of his life. Right down to the end of his miserable life, he would complain of his mistreatment (he died still having the equivalent of $60,000,000 in today's currency) and remorselessly throw the blame around to anyone who would listen.