Kaiser of Germany
Queen Victoria first met her grandson when he was twenty months old. "Our darling grandchild, she wrote, came walking in a little white dress with blue bows... he is a fine fat child with beautiful white soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, a very dear face".
Vicky was obsessed with Wilhelm's damaged arm. He sujebcted him to hard excercise routines, gymnastics, horseback riding,etc. She wanted him to beat his handicap, because she felt guilty of it. She also demanded too much of her son in the intelectual aspect; she was very clever woman, and she wanted her son to be like her, she wanted him to have the same liberal ideas her father, Prince Albert, had tought her. As Wilhelm began to grow into manhood, his grandfather, the German Emperor, Wilhelm I, decided to put him appart from his mother's liberal influence and that he should begin the military aspect of his preparation for the throne, so Wilhelm was assigned as a liutenant to the First Regiment of Foot Guards. Wilhelm liked the militar atmsophere very much, but it affected his character. The young boy, once polite, became rude and brusque. His parents dislike this hardness, but Wilhelm did not care about their opinion. He only care about his grandfather, the Emperor, who, he said, was the only one who appreciated his passion for the army and for Prussia.
When he was nineteen, he fell in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Hesse, daughter of Vicky's sister Alice, but Ella, as she was called, found him intolerable; he always imposed his will to everyone and he always wanted Ella to to be next to him. She rejected him and Wilhelm's interests turned elsewhere; however he never forgot her, and as an old man, he admitted he had spent much time in his youth writing love poetry to his cousin.
On February 27, 1881, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig Holstein, the daughter of Friedrich, duke of Augustenberg, to whom the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had disposed of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Dona, as Augusta was called, was a year older than her husband and was a tall and robust woman; she had received a poor education and had few intellectual abilities and interests. Dona gave Wilhelm seven children: Crown Prince Wilhelm, Eitel-Friedrich,Adalbert, August Wilhelm, Oskar, Joachim and one only daughter, Viktoria Louise.
In 1888, Emperor Wilhelm I died and his son suceeded him as as Frederick III. The new emperor had cancer on the throat so his reign only last for three months. At his death on June 15, 1888 his elder son became Kaiser Wilhelm II When his father died Wilhelm inmediately sent his soldiers to surround the palace, forbidding everyone to leave, his mother included, because he wnted to find his father's private papers; he find nothing because Vicky had taken them already to Windsor.
Wilhelm was an ambitious, insecure and troublesome man. Hew didn't keep mournig for bhis father assiting to continuos ceremonies and traveling to all parts of Germany and abroad, fact which infuriated his grandmother, Queen Victoria.
At first, Bismarck saw no menace in Wilhelm autocratic tendencies, altough the kaiser's conduct in oublic irritated him. Wilhelm was very interested in naval affaires and began to interfered in them without consulting the Chief of almiralty, General von Caprivi, who resigned in protest. Difficutlies began to arise between the Kaiser and his Chancellor in the spring of 1889. Wilhelm supported the opinions of his Chief of the Army, General Alfred von Waldersee and of Baron von Holstein, that Russia was a potencial menace for German security. Bismarck didnt' believed this; for almost 30 years he had based his policy in German friendship with Russia. In June 1887, he had signed a Reisnsurance Treaty, in which both nations compromised themselves to remain neutral in any warlike conflict, except in case that Russia atacked Austria or Germany attacked France. The Chancellor didn't want Wilhelm, Holstein and Waldersee to overthrow his 30 years work.
In inner politics, there were also differences between Bismarck and Wilhelm. The Chancellor had established good inssurances and pensions for workers but he did not beleive in reducing working hours, and that was exactly what Wilhelm did: he reduced working hours for workers.
In March 1890, Bismarck resigned and he retired from politics. In 1896, he declared to a newspaper about of the existence of the Reinssurance Treaty, which Wilhelm had denied to renew in 1890. Wilhelm, infurated, accused Bismarck of treasson and was about to inprission him. Next year, 1897, Bismarck died on the night of July 30.
Th deteriorated relations between Wilhelm and her mother's country, England, began in 1895, with the Kruger telegram affaire. Cecil Rhodes, a British magnate of the Daimond Emporium in South Africa, was one of the main inversionists of the diamond mines in Transvaal. Paul Kruger, president of Transvaal wanted his country to be free from British influence and began to interfere in Rhodes' affairs. Rhodes, without informing the British Government, organized an attack against Kruger's government commanded by Dr. Leader Star Jameson.
Kruger's troops rejected Jameson, who surrender on January 2 1896. The next day, Kruger received a telegram from Kaiser Wilhelm, congratulating him for havir reestablished peace in his country without the help of foreign Powers. This telegram was not welcomed in Great Britain. Queen Victoria sent a letter to her grandson recriminating him for such unfriendly act towards England.
During the Chancelery of Bernhard von Bullow (of whom Wilhelm said to be his Bismarck) Great Britain tried to estbalished friendly relations with Germany but it was impossible because of the Germans attitude. Wilhelm's greates love was the Navy. He began to improved it by building lots of German Dreadnoughts, which became a menace for the British Navy, Besides Wilhelm could never get along with his uncle Bertie, (future Edward VII), who he referd to as "that old peakock".
On January, 18, 1901, Queen Victoria's son, the Duke of Connaught, was in Berlin in order to attend the Crown Prince's condecoration with the Order of the Black Eagle, when he was advised that his mother was seriously ill. It was by this way that Wilhelm got to know of his grandmother's illness and together with his uncle, the Duke of Connaught, heinmediately travelled to England; his intentions were not to come as the German Emperor but as the Qiueen's grandson. Wilhelm arrived to Osborne, where the dying Queen was, on Monday, January 21. During the last two hours of her grandmother's life, he helped the doctor to support her on the pillow with his right hand under her head. The Queen died at half past six of Tuesday 22. Wilhelm's genuine sorrow won the rest of the familiy's affection. The Kaiser, together with the new King Edward VII, the Duke of Connaught and Prince Arthur of Connaught, lifted the Queen's body into the coffin. His new duties as king forced Edward VII to go to London and Wilhelm took charge of the situation at Osborne. Altough Dona's opposition, Wilhelm stayed in England along the funeral, until the Queen's inhumation at Frogmore Mausoleum on February 4. He had written his wife: "My aunts here are quite alone. I must help them wityh many things. I must give them my advise, whenever advise is necessary. They are so kind to me, they traet me like a brother and a friend instead of like a nephew" (Massie) Chancellor von Bullow and Wilhelm's friend Philip von Eulenburg also opposed and feared about the Kaiser's long stayed in England. When he returned from his grandmother's funeral, Wilhelm was full of pro-British enthusiasm. Seven months later, his mother, the Empress Frederik, died of cancer, and by then his British enthusiasm had dissapeared and acted as his had done on the ocasion of his father's death, trying to find his mother's private papaers, which she had already sent to England before she died.
Twenty years before Queen Victoria's death,three European powers had shown interested in Morocco: France, which had always wished a huge North African Empire, since she ruels in Algeria and Tunisia; England, which possesed Gibraltar, the Morocco western gateway to the Mediterranean; and Spain which had for settlements in the Moroccan coast, across the Mediterranean from the south of Spain. To avoid quarreling, Morocco was excluded from the "Scramble of Africa" by the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1880 by the three European nations plus Germany and Italy. Germany had never shown any interest for Morocco and that was what Kaiser Wilhelm told the new King of England, his uncle Edward VII, and King Alfonso XIII of Spain.
By 1904, France was anxious to incorporate Morocco to her North African Empire. Abdul Aziz, the Moroccan Sultan, had clear preferences for the British, but England had been absorbed by the Boer War in South Africa and was avoiding to reorganize the chaos that Morocco represented. The interest France had shown in undertaking the task, was convenient to England, moreover that the French were well-disposed to let the British to manouver in Egypt, if they (the British) let them (the French) free in Morocco. So on April 8, 1904, England and France signed a treaty according that France could freely manouver in Morocco and England in Egypt.
Morocco was into total chaos and France offered the Sultan to help him to reorganized his army, but he declined. By the end of the year Paris began to demand the French interference in the pacification of Morocco. Abdull Aziz, fearing that he could lose his throne at French hands and that his British friends were not interested in helping him, turned to Germany in search of help. Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow wanted to humilliate France and to provoke the fall of the French Foreign Minister, Teophile Delcasse, so the German's government's answer to the Sultan's petition was that it continued recognizing the independence of the Sultan's government as was established in the Treaty of Madrid. Bulow and Friedrich von Holstein, the German Foreign Minister, feared that a policy of encirclement against Germany was being planned by Edward VII and Delcasse and that France was trying to change the balance of power in Europe, besides they believed that a French protectorate in Morocco was against German commercial interests and prestige. Wilhelm II supported Bulow's ideas. The Chancellor was decided to challange France and he chose the Kaiser as an instrument for his purpose.
Wilhelm wanted to visit Tangier in Morocco, and Bullow and Holstein used this wish to encourage the Kaiser to visit the Sultan to assure him the German support for the independence of his country. Wilhelm agreed and on March 28, 1905 he sailed aboard the steamer Hamburg. During the trip, he changed his mind. He realized that visiting Morocco could be dangeorous for him since Tangier had become a refuge for many European anarchists who might try to kill him. He telegraphed Bulow but the Chancellor answered that it was to late to cancel the visit since the German press had already been announced about it. The Sultan did not attend to welcome Wilhelm. Instead he sent an aged uncle of him. Wilhelm gave the speech Bulow had prepared for the occasion, assuring that Germany recognized the independence of Morocco. He told the French Minister that Germany agrreed with an Open Door in Morocco, for trade by all nations. When the Minister treid to argue Wilhelm said good morning to him, and left him standing. Later he rode on a white stallion, that strange to its rider , almost made him fall. During the few hours the visit lasted, the Kaiser feared all the time that some anarchist could try to kill him. Later he would complain to Bulow, blaming him for having forced him to land.
Delcasse was sure that the Imperial visit to Morocco would not affect the French policy in that country, but the Sultan sured of the German support, refused to submit to the French domination. Delcassè was acussed of having given Egypt without having assured teh Morocco domination. The French Minister was forced to resign his charge. King Edward, for his part, considered Wilhelm's behaviour as deplorable and gave his whole support to Delcasse.
