Wilhelm I. (Leipzig, 1897; 5th ed. 1905). In English have appeared
William of Germany, by Archibald Forbes (1888), a translation of
Edouard Simon’s The Emperor William and his Reign (2 vols., 1886).
See also Sybel’s Founding of the German Empire (Eng. trans., New
York, 1890–1891).
WILLIAM II. [Friedrich Wilhelm Victor Albert] (1859– ), king of Prussia and German emperor, was born on the 27th of January 1859 at Berlin, being the eldest child of Prince Frederick of Prussia, afterwards crown prince and second German emperor, and of Victoria, princess royal of Great Britain and Ireland. On his tenth birthday he was appointed second lieutenant in the First Regiment of the Guards. From September 1874 to January 1877 he attended the gymnasium at Cassel; he studied for two years at Bonn, and was then for some time chiefly occupied with his military duties. In 1885 he was appointed colonel of the Hussars of the Guard. He was much influenced by the military atmosphere in which his life was spent, and was more in sympathy with the strongly monarchical feelings of the emperor William and Bismarck than with the more liberal views of his own parents, but until the illness of his father in 1887 he took no part in political life. The death of his grandfather was quickly followed by that of his father, and on the 15th of June he became ninth king of Prussia and third German emperor. The chief events of his reign up to 1910 are narrated under Germany: History, but here it is necessary to dwell rather on the personality of the emperor himself. His first act was an address to the army and navy, while that to his people followed after three days. Throughout his reign, indeed, he repeatedly stated that the army was the true basis of his throne: “The soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities, have welded together the German Empire. My confidence is placed on the army.”
From the first he showed his intention to be his own chancellor, and it was this which brought about the quarrel with Bismarck, who could not endure to be less than all-powerful. The dismissal and disgrace of the great statesman first revealed the resolution of the new ruler; but, as regards foreign affairs, the apprehensions felt at his accession were not fulfilled. While he maintained and confirmed the alliance with Austria and Italy, in obedience to the last injunctions of his grandfather, he repeatedly attempted to establish more cordial relations with Russia. His overtures, indeed, were scarcely received with corresponding cordiality. The intimacy of Russia with France increased, and more than a year passed before the Russian emperor appeared on a short visit to Berlin. In 1890 the emperor again went to Russia, and the last meeting between him and Alexander III. took place at Kiel in the autumn of 1891, but was marked by considerable coolness. By his visit to Copenhagen, as in his treatment of the duke of Cumberland and in his frequent overtures to France, the emperor showed the strong desire, by the exercise of his own great personal charm and ability, to heal the wounds left by the events of a generation before. In the autumn of 1888 he visited not only the courts of the confederate princes, but those of Austria and Italy. While at Rome he went to the Vatican and had a private conversation with Pope Leo XIII., and this visit was repeated in 1895 and again in 1903. In 1889 the marriage of his sister, the Princess Sophie, to the duke of Sparta, took him to Athens; and thence he sailed to Constantinople. It was the first time that one of the great rulers of Christendom had been the guest of the sultan. A more active interest was now taken by Germany in the affairs of the Levant, and the emperor showed that he would not be content to follow the secure and ascertained roads along which Bismarck had so long guided the country. It was not enough that Berlin had become the centre of the European system. The emperor was the apostle of a new Germany, which claimed that her voice should be heard in all political affairs, in whatever quarter of the globe they might rise. Once again, in 1898, he went to Constantinople. It was the time when the Armenian massacres had made the name of Abd-ul Hamid notorious, and the very striking friendliness shown towards him scarcely seemed consistent with the frequent claims made by the emperor to be the leader of Christendom; but any scruples were doubtless outweighed by the great impulse he was able to give to German influence in the East. From Constantinople he passed on to Palestine. He was present at the consecration of the German Protestant church of the Redeemer. By the favour of the sultan he was able to present to the German Catholics a plot of ground, the Dormition de la Sainte Vierge, very near to the Holy Places.
The motive of his frequent travels, which gained for him the nickname of Der Reise-Kaiser, was not solely political, but a keen interest in men and things. His love of the sea was shown in an annual voyage to Norway, and in repeated visits to the Cowes regatta. He was a keen yachtsman and fond of all sorts of sport, and, though deprived of the use of his left arm through an accident when he was a child, he became an excellent shot and rider.
At the time of his accession there was a strong manifestation of anti-British feeling in Berlin, and there seemed reason to suppose that the party from which it proceeded had the patronage of the emperor. Any temporary misunderstanding was removed, however, by his visit to England in 1889. For the next six years he was every year the guest of Queen Victoria, and during the period that Caprivi held office the political relations between Germany and Great Britain were very close. While the emperor’s visits were largely prompted by personal reasons, they had an important political effect; and in 1890, when he was entertained at the Mansion House in London and visited Lord Salisbury at Hatfield, the basis for an entente cordiale seemed to be under discussion. But after 1895 the growth of the colonial spirit in Germany and the strong commercial rivalry with Great Britain, which was creating in Germany a feeling that a navy must be built adequate to protect German interests, made the situation as regards England more difficult. And an unexpected incident occurred at the end of that year, which brought to a head all the latent feelings of suspicion and jealousy in both countries. On the occasion of the Jameson Raid he despatched to the president of the Transvaal a telegram, in which he congratulated him that “without appealing to the help of friendly powers,” he had succeeded in restoring peace and preserving the independence of his country. It was very difficult to regard this merely as an impulsive act of generous sympathy with a weak state unjustly attacked, and though warmly approved in Germany, it caused a long alienation from Great Britain. The emperor did not again visit England till the beginning of 1901, when he attended the deathbed and funeral of Queen Victoria. On this occasion he placed himself in strong opposition to the feelings of the large majority of his countrymen by conferring on Lord Roberts the Order of the Black Eagle, the most highly prized of Prussian decorations. He had already refused to receive the ex-president of the Transvaal on his visit to Europe. Meanwhile, with the other great branch of the English-speaking people in the United States, it was the emperor’s policy to cultivate more cordial relations. In 1902, on the occasion of the launching of a yacht built for him in America, he sent his brother Prince Henry to the United States as his representative. The occasion was rendered of international importance by his official attitude and by his gifts to the American people, which included a statue of Frederick the Great. The emperor also initiated in 1906 the exchange of professors between German and American universities.
As regards home policy, the most important work to which the emperor turned his attention was the increase of the German naval forces. From the moment of his accession he constantly showed the keenest interest in naval affairs, and the numerous changes made, in the organization were due to his personal initiative. It was in January 1895, at an evening reception to members of the Reichstag, that he publicly put himself at the head of the movement for making Germany a sea power. In all the subsequent discussions on the naval bills his influence was decisively used to overcome the resistance of the Reichstag. “Our future,” he declared, “is on the water,” and in speeches in all parts of the country he combated the indifference of
