Wilhelm II

Volume 1: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900

Lamar Cecil

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780807865187, 9780807818282
• eBook ISBN: 9781469639802
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Wilhelm II (1859-1941), King of Prussia and German Emperor from 1888 to 1918, reigned during a period of unprecedented economic, cultural, and intellectual achievement in Germany. Unlike most European sovereigns of his generation, Wilhelm was no mere figurehead, and his imprint on imperial Germany was profound. In this book and a second volume, historian Lamar Cecil provides the first comprehensive biography of one of modern history’s most powerful — and most misunderstood — rulers.

Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900 concentrates on Wilhelm’s youth. As Cecil shows, the future ruler’s Anglo-German genealogy, his education, and his subsequent service as an officer in the Prussian army proved to be unfortunate legacies in shaping Wilhelm’s behavior and ideas.

Throughout his thirty-year reign, Wilhelm’s connection with his subjects was tenuous. He surrounded himself with a small coterie of persons drawn from the government, the military, and elite society, most of whom were valued not for their ability but for their loyalty to the crown. They, in turn, contrived to keep Wilhelm isolated from outside influences, learned to be accomplished in catering to his prejudices, and strengthened his conviction that the government should be composed only of those who agreed with him. The day-to-day conduct of Germany’s affairs was left in the hands of these loyal followers, for the Kaiser himself did not at all enjoy work. Rejoicing instead in pageantry and the superficial trappings of authority, he was particular about what he did and what he read, eliminating anything that was unpleasant, difficult, or tedious. He never learned to listen, to reason, or to make decisions in a sound, informed manner; he was customarily inclined to act solely on the basis of his personal feelings.

Many people believed him to be mad. Even courtiers who admired Wilhelm recognized that he was responsible for the diplomatic embarrassment in which Germany found itself by 1914 and that the Kaiser’s maladroit behavior endangered the prestige of the Hohenzollern crown. His is the story of a bizarre and incapable sovereign who never doubted that he possessed both genius and divine inspiration.

Originally published in 1989.

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Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

Manuscript Sources

The Bibliography of Manuscript Sources gives a complete alphabetical list of archives used in this study, with details of location and the nature of the holdings. In the notes, personal papers are cited by name of depositor, e.g., Albedyll Papers. Government documents, including the papers of the English and German royal households, are listed by depository, abbreviated as follows:

BPHA	Brandenburg-Preussisches Haus Archiv
FO	Foreign Office Papers (British)
GFM Papers	German Foreign Ministry Papers
HHStA	Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv
RA	Royal Archives

Published Sources

BD	G. P. Gooch and H. W. V. Temperley, eds. British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914. 11 vols. London, 1925–38.
Berghahn	Volker R. Berghahn. Der Tirpitz-Plan: Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen Krisenstrategie unter Wilhelm II Düsseldorf, 1971.
Bülow	Bernhard von Bülow. Denkwürdigkeiten. 4 vols. Berlin, 1930–31.
Bussmann	Walter Bussmann, ed. Staatssekretär Graf Herbert von Bismarck: Aus seiner politischen Privatkorrespondenz. Göttingen, 1964.
DDF	Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1871–1914. 40 vols. Paris, 1929–59.
Ebel	Gerhard Ebel, ed. Botschafter Graf Paul von Hatzfeldt: Nachgelassene Papiere, 1838–1901. 2 vols. Boppard, 1976.
Fuchs	Walther Peter Fuchs, ed. Grossherzog Friedrich I. von Baden und die Reichspolitik, 1871–1907. 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1968–80.
GP	Johannes Lepsius, Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Friedrich Thimme, eds. Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette. 40 vols. Berlin, 1922–27.
GuE	Otto von Bismarck, Gedanken und Erinnerungen. Vol. 3. Berlin, 1923.
GW	Herman von Petersdorff et al., eds. Bismarck: Die gesammelten Werke. 15 vols. Berlin, 1923–33.
Hohenlohe	Friedrich Curtius, ed. Denkwürdigkeiten des Fürsten Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. 2 vols. Stuttgart, 1907. Karl A. von Müller, ed. Fürst Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst: Denkwürdigkeiten der Reichskanzlerzeit. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1931. Curtius’s edition is cited as Hohenlohe 1 and 2; Müllems edition is cited as Hohenlohe 3.
HP	Norman Rich and M. H. Fisher, eds. The Holstein Papers. 4 vols. Cambridge, 1955–63.
Kennedy	Paul M. Kennedy. The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914. London, 1980.
Röhl	John C. G. Röhl, ed. Philipp Eulenburgs Politische Korrespondenz. 3 vols. Boppard, 1976–83.
Schulthess	Schulthess’ Europäischer Geschichtskalendar. 79 vols. Munich, 1860–193 8.
Tirpitz	Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Erinnerungen. Leipzig, 1919.
Waldersee	Heinrich O. Meisner, ed. Denkwürdigkeiten des General-Feldmarschall’s Alfred Grafen von Waldersee. 3 vols. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1923–25.
Wedel	Count Erhard von Wedel, ed. Zwischen Kaiser und Kanzler: Aufzeichnungen des General-adjutanten Grafen Carl von Wedel aus den Jahren 1890–1914.... Leipzig, 1943.
Winzen	Peter Winzen. Bülows Weltmachtkonzept: Untersuchungen zur Frühphase seiner Aussenpolitik, 1897–1901. Boppard, 1977.

CHAPTER 1

1. Elizabeth Longford, Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed (New York, 1964), pp. 172, 226.

2. Richard Kühn, ed., Kaiserin Augusta. Bekenntnisse an eine Freundin: Aufzeichnungen aus ihrer Freundschaft mit Jenny von Gustedt (Dresden, 1935), pp. 243, 249.

3. Letter to Sophie, Crown Princess of the Hellenes (26 Aug. 1892), in Arthur G. Lee, ed., The Empress Writes to Sophie, Her Daughter, Crown Princess and Later Queen of the Hellenes: Letters, 1889–1901 (London, n.d. [1955]), p. 121.

4. Count Egon Corti, Wenn ... : Sendung und Schicksal einer Kaiserin (Graz, 1954), p. 35.

5. Horst Kohl, ed., Briefe des Generals Leopold von Gerlach an Otto von Bismarck (Stuttgart, 1912), p. 291; also Wilhelm v. Schweinitz, ed., Denkwürdigkeiten des Botschafters General v. Schweinitz, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1927), 2:97.

6. Undated letter (ca. 19 Feb. 1858) in Corti, Wenn, pp. 69–70.

7. RA Zi/6 (27 Feb. 1858). This letter is printed on p. 64 of Roger Fulford, ed., Dearest Child: Letters between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, 1858–1861 (New York, 1964), which begins a series of volumes concluding with Beloved Mama: The Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1878–1885 (London, 1981). Since Fulford has printed only a fraction of the Princess’s letters to her mother, I have throughout cited all letters from the Princess by the Royal Archives signature. All RA letters cited without writer are by the Princess Royal and, unless otherwise noted, are addressed to Queen Victoria.

8. Anton von Werner, Erlebnisse und Eindrücke, 1870–1890 (Berlin, 1913), p. 508.

9. RA Z21/38 (12 May 1868).

10. RA Z 3/50 (to Prince Albert, 15 Dec. 1860). See also RA Z4/15, 36 (to Prince Albert, 27 Apr., 16 Nov. 1861); Z IO/64 (4 Mar. 1861); and Z14/30 (12 Jan. 1863).

11. For the King’s criticism of Vicky and his son, see Herbert Bismarck to Rantzau (18 Dec. 1886) and to Otto Bismarck (9 Nov. 1886) in Bussmann, pp. 414 and 403, respectively; Albert von Mutius to Friedrich Thimme (1 Feb. 1934), Thimme Papers, no. 16; Johannes Haller, ed., Aus 50 Jahren: Erinnerungen, Tagebücher und Briefe aus dem Nachlass des Fürsten Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld (Berlin, 1923), pp. 187–88.

12. Grand Duke to Gelzer (20, 21, 31 Mar. 1872), Fuchs, 1:54–55, 64.

13. RA Z2/19 (to Prince Albert, 3 May 1859), Z21/38 (12 May 1868).

14. Heinrich O. Meisner, ed., Peter von Meyendorff, ein Russischer Diplomat an den Höfen von Berlin und Wien: Politischer und privater Briefwechsel, 1826–63, 3 vols. (Berlin and Leipzig, 1923), 3:376. Fritz apparently did not like his mother much even though Vicky encouraged him to regard her with more favor. RA Z21/55 (4 July 1868), RA Z63/42 (Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe-Langenburg to Prince Albert, 9 Mar. 1858); HP, 2:171.

15. Marie von Bunsen, Kaiserin Augusta (Berlin, 1940), p. 262. Augusta’s complaints about Vicky are in RA Z63/42 (Princess Feodora to Prince Albert, 9 Mar. 1858).

16. RA Z7/118 (25 Apr. 1859); Rowland Prothero, Baron Ernie, “The Empress Frederick,” The Nineteenth Century and After 106 (Sept. 1929): 404–5.

17. RA Z2/19 (to Prince Albert, 3 May_/1859).

18. Malet to Lady Malet (22 Mar. 1888), Malet Papers, no. A-33.

19. On her unorthodox religious views, see RA Z 25/49 (30 Jan. 1871); Mutius to Thimme (1 Feb. 1934), Thimme Papers, no. 16; Mary J. Lyschinska, ed., Henriette Schrader-Breymann: 1hr Leben aus Briefen und Tagebüchern zusammengestellt und erläutert, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1927), 2:31; Hans Delbrück, “Kaiserin Friedrich,” in his Erinnerungen, Aufsätze und Reden (Berlin, 1905), pp. 621–22; Ernst von Dryander, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 2d rev. ed. (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1922), p. 227; Franz Ayme, Kaiser Wilhelm II und seine Erziehung: Aus den Erinnerungen seines französischen Lehrers (Leipzig, 1898), p. 96.

20. Bülow Papers, no. 110:18–19.

21. For her disparaging remarks about the Berlin court, see her letter to Countess Dönhoff (7 Jan. 1885), Bülow Papers, no. 169; RA Z2/31 (to Prince Albert, 6 Aug. 1859), Z5/18 (15 Feb. 1858), Z9/55 (27 Apr. 1860). On the china and food, see Richard Boschau, ed., Aus Hannover und Preussen: Lebenserinnerungen aus einem halben Jahrhundert von Julie von Albedyll-Alten (Potsdam, 1914), p. 221.

22. Letter to Countess Dönhoff (7 Jan. 1885), Bülow Papers, no. 169.

23. RA Z9/11 (30 Dec. 1859), Z13/37 (19 July 1862); also Z14/11, 35 (8 Nov. 1862, 31 Jan. 1863).

24. RA Z15/36 (3 July 1863).

25. Diary (23 Sept. 1862), in Heinrich O. Meisner, ed., Kaiser Friedrich III: Tagebücher von 1848–1866 (Leipzig, 1929), p. 161.

26. RA Z18/68 (16 July 1866). See also her praise of Prussia in her letters to Gustav Freytag (28 Dec. 1869, 13 Feb. and 21 Aug. 1870...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Names Appearing in Text and Notes
• One | The Heir
• Two | The Education of a Prince
• Three | A Potsdam Lieutenant
• Four | The end of a Reign
• Five | The Ninety-Nine Days of Kaiser Friedrich III
• Six | Bismarck in Trouble
• Seven | 1890
• Eight | Caprivi, Eulenburg, and the Fall of Waldersee
• Nine | Caprivi and the “New Course”
• Ten | Uncle Chlodwig
• Eleven | Clearing the Decks, 1895-1897
• Twelve | Our Arrogant Cousin, Albion
• Thirteen | Rule Germania
• Fourteen | Greatness and Eternal Glory
• Notes
• Bibliography of Manuscript Sources
• Index