The Worst Emperor in History

Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan presents a historical overview of the man who did so much to usher in the Great War.

The worst emperor in history

by H. Numan

Who’s that? Though one to answer, what? So many choices. Was it Nero? Caligula? Perhaps a Chinese emperor? Nope. None of those. The very worst emperor in history was German. It was the last German emperor, Wilhelm II. He inherited a stable empire, well on its way to becoming a dominant economic power of Europe. When he was forced to abdicate, his empire lay in tatters. Not only his own empire, mind you. His fall was accompanied and preceded by the empires of Russia, Austria and the Ottomans. His rule influenced current world affairs enormously. Because of his actions the British empire fell a few decades later. And we can thank him for the demise of Western civilization. Due to his actions Hitler was able to rise to power, and in the east Lenin was put in charge. The latter was on his direct orders. Without his personal support Lenin could never have gained power in Russia. Without a communist Russia the People’s Republic of China was not possible.

It all began so well. When Wilhelm ascended his throne, Germany was a well-respected country. The world was (mostly) at peace. Germany was managed very capably by Bismarck. It was allied with Austria and Russia in the Three Emperors’ League. The three countries had a lot in common: none of them was democratic. All of them were ruled by autocrats, and they all were extremely conservative. If one political league was a natural one, this was it. When Austria couldn’t control socialist uprisings in 1848, the Russian Empire sent troops to its aid. Not because they had to. Not because they could grab some Austrian territories. But because the czar felt he was morally obliged to help his colleague ward off evil.

France was recovering from the Franco-Prussian war, but in no position to do something about it. There was no Franco-British alliance. More the opposite: France and England fought for centuries against one another. England’s position on Germany was somewhat indifferent: it wasn’t a naval superpower, that was all that mattered to England. They saw Wilhelm as a sort of clown, who excelled in one thing only: gigantic gaffes. The German foreign affairs department had to work overtime to defuse them.

Broadly speaking, the world was at peace. Colonialism worked. Yes, there were some uprisings here and there, but no national liberation movements. Some colonies became self governing countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) within the British empire.

That more or less peaceful world changed completely when Wilhelm II took control. His first act was to get rid of Bismarck. Who needs a competent if not the best chancellor Germany ever had? Certainly not Wilhelm II. Who needs a league of emperors? So he got rid of that too. Wilhelm II was related to every monarch in Europe. Let’s keep it all in the family!

Wilhelm II fancied yachting. Then and now, a sport for the very rich. That made him an admiral, or so he thought. He read the book by Alfred Mahan, and decided Germany should become a naval superpower. Being Willy 2, he didn’t fancy becoming a naval super power, but of course the naval superpower.

He was in luck. The British made the same mistake as the French before them. The French built La Gloire, the first ocean-going all-steel warship. “Jolly good,” said the British, “we can do that too!” The French capacity to produce steel and warships was not nearly as developed as the British, so they didn’t even bother to try to compete. They knew they were beaten.

Later, the British built the first modern real battleship, HMS Dreadnought. Just as revolutionary as La Gloire, if not a good deal more so. At a stroke, all capital ships of every navy were obsolete, including those of the Royal Navy. Hey, said the emperor. Here’s our (= my) chance. Let’s build a lot of dreadnoughts. We’re gonna be the world’s naval superpower! Yes, openly. It was Germany’s destiny, after all. You don’t make friends that way. There was only one tiny little problem. Like France, Germany lacked the capability to outproduce Britain. Unlike France, Willy 2 refused to accept that fact. He tried to out-build the Royal Navy. In vain and at great cost to his nation.

There was something else, too: at that time, Germany had not one but two separate fleets. The Baltic fleet, obviously patrolling the Baltic Sea. And the North Sea fleet doing likewise in the North Sea. The Royal Navy could easily blockade the Danish passage with a couple of ships, if need be. Until Germany decided to connect the North Sea with the Baltic Sea by digging the Kiel Canal, or in German: the Nord-Ostsee Kanal. Now they could easily maneuver either fleet to become one much bigger fleet. That got Britain’s immediate attention.

The British had three options. They could try to negotiate reasonable fleet numbers, diplomatically asking not to begin an arms race that couldn’t be won by Germany, and finally negotiate a treaty with France. They did all three. Negotiations didn’t work. Perhaps it’s in the nature of Germany to refuse to negotiate anything if they think they can win. Mr. Mustachio (a.k.a. Hitler) did exactly the same a generation later. And he was as trustworthy as his imperial predecessor. Likewise, not much that one could convey diplomatically to the emperor. So, with utter reluctance, Britain negotiated a treaty with France. The feud of a nearly millennium (!) was finally over. All because of one man: Wilhelm II.

You see, British policy has always been to prevent one dominant European superpower. That used to be France, but now Germany tried to dominate the continent. Today is no different. It is no accident Britain left the EU.

On the other side of Germany, Wilhelm’s foreign policy didn’t work, either. The emperor of Russia didn’t like to be spoken to like a little dimwitted boy by his big bright nephew. Yes, he was somewhat slow in the mental department. Even so, he resented Wilhelm’s “big nephew knows best” attitude. So much so that Russia negotiated a treaty of mutual assistance with… France!

At that time, France was the proverbial democracy with a thriving economy. Russia was the most autocratic empire in the world, with a stagnant economy. Politically and economically they couldn’t be further apart. Translated to today: North Korea signing a mutual assistance treaty with the USA, to defend against China. That unlikely. Wilhelm was often nicknamed Willy. It takes a big willy (or a very small one) to accomplish both feats. France and England were unlikely partners, and Russia with France even more so.

We’re not done yet. We have to look at how the Germans waged war. Everybody knows about Blitzkrieg. But that isn’t a German word. The Germans call it Bewegungskrieg or war of movement. The word was created by British journalists during World War 2. The doctrine of Bewegungskrieg is centuries old. Nathan Bedford Forrest summed it up rather nicely: “Get there first with the most.”

It was the only way Prussia, and later Germany, could hold out against highly aggressive neighbors surrounding it. To the east, Russia. To the south, Austria. To the west, France. All of them much bigger than Prussia. And all of them very aggressive. To counter that Prussia professionalized their military and only fought short, fast and ferocious wars. The entire military and economic system of Prussia and Germany was build around that principle. Blitzkrieg wasn’t anything new at all.

It worked, and worked well. But it came at a price. The Bewegungskrieg doctrine requires as many troops as possible surrounding and destroying the enemy army. That automatically means as few as possible occupation troops garrisoned in occupied territories. Every army in history commits atrocities. That’s a given in war. But some commit a lot more than others. The Prussian and German armies fall into that category. Even von Clausewitz teaches that the occupation must be ruthless. He advises to put the fear of God into occupied territories. He doesn’t go into detail, nor does he have to. You get the drift.

There is another price to pay: trustworthiness. Belgium was a strictly neutral country, guaranteed by France, Britain and Germany. Willy with his innumerable gaffes offered Belgium Burgundy if they would allow German troops to pass through Belgium. After the war, and after they had decided to leave Belgium. If that were to happen, something which both kings Leopold and Albert very much doubted. And, of course, he repeated his solemn promise to respect Belgium’s neutrality many times. Hitler didn’t behave any differently, later.

Even during the Franco-Prussian War the German troops misbehaved badly. On purpose, mind you. They needed every capable soldier in the field, and couldn’t afford to waste any with occupational duties. Shoot a few angry looking men, burn some villages, carry a lot of farmers off to do harvesting work in Germany. Your own farmers are now under arms. It’s only natural to draft slave labor. Those fields don’t harvest themselves, you know. And it keeps the peasants from rising up against you. You can’t revolt if you’re dead or harvesting in Germany.

Under Willy the Second it became much, much, MUCH worse. The almost sacred von Schlieffen plan demanded far more troops moving much faster than was actually possible. Add to that the fierce resistance of the Belgian army, which wasn’t expected at all. The Germany army raped, pillaged, looted and executed itself through Belgium and northern France. Visit the areas under German occupation during WW1. You’ll see countless war memorials honoring the thousands of civilians executed by the German army.

What you won’t see are memorials for many more people who were carried off into slavery. Thousands of people were executed as franc-tireurs, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people were carried of into slavery. They were sent to Germany to work in the fields and factories. To keep the war production going. Like WW2 slavery, conditions were harsh. Perhaps not as harsh as in WW2, but nothing to sneer at. Not out of mercy or empathy. It simply wasn’t in Germany’s interest to work those slaves to death. They were worth far more alive.

Wir haben es nicht gewusst (we did not know) is not a line Willy 2 can use. Atrocities were reported by German officers (they weren’t all bad) and many neutral diplomats and reporters to the Oberste Heeresleitung. That was the supreme command of the German armed forces, and for the first half of the war, that included the emperor himself as well. He knew everything. In fact, he applauded the culprits, and basically encouraged them to do much worse. How? All he did was not promote or decorate them. Not immediately after the fact, that is. He never punished an officer for breaking the Geneva Convention. Being accused of atrocities wasn’t even a black mark on your resume. More the opposite.

The Germans were very keen on the Geneva Convention. But only when it suited them. If it didn’t, you could find the Geneva Convention in the outhouse. And yes, that is a direct consequence of what Willy allowed his troops to do.

That behavior opened the very gates of hell. I’ll grant WW1 Germans not setting up concentration camps. And that they didn’t have SS troops in the field. Simply because they didn’t need them. Not because they were incapable of it, or had any moral qualms. It wasn’t the most effective use of manpower, that was all.

During the later stages of the war, the German army decided to allow Lenin to return to Russia, to foment his revolution. By then the power of Willy was as big as his … willy, but nevertheless, it was a decision he and nobody else had to take. He did so with little hesitation.

I’ll happily admit Lenin did far worse than the Germans could wished for. But it was emperor Wilhelm who made everything possible. The same goes for Mr. Mustachio (Hitler). He didn’t come up with the stab-in-the-back-myth. German army officers after WW1 did. Willy never denied it, and actively promoted that idea. Of course, he didn’t admit guilt over anything at all. What else can you expect from a man who had his private war bulletins printed in gold ink? At the same time, his subjects were eating turnips — provided they had some. Most didn’t. Starvation was very real in Germany and Austria during WW1.

Could he foresee the fall of the British empire, colonialism, Western civilization and nihilism today? Of course not. We can, looking back with hindsight. At the time, nobody could. Least of all Willy with the bird brain he had. He was extremely ambitious and utterly ruthless. Much more than other emperors. Not himself personally, but in what he allowed other to do. He opened Pandora’s box. We can’t blame him for the consequences, but can blame him for opening the box in the first place.

The Russian Revolution would have happened anyway, but not the Bolshevik revolution. World War One probably would have happened, too, perhaps a bit later for a different reason. Austrian troops behaved just as atrociously in the Balkans and on their eastern front. But it was the methodical scale of German atrocities that made it possible. Later during World War Two it got much worse. Under Hitler methodical became industrial. Even there they were beaten by the sheer scale of Japanese and later communist Chinese atrocities. But you have to begin somewhere first.

Quite understandably the colonies (India, Africa) wanted to have a lot more to say about their governance, after their enormous sacrifices. National liberation movements began after WW1 almost everywhere. The horrors of war disillusioned not just a generation, but it still disillusions us now, today. Today’s nihilism can be attributed directly to World War One.

Those first modest beginnings were simply because of the actions of one man: Emperor Wilhelm II. No other ruler in history influenced the entire world that much and that bad.

— H. Numan

15 thoughts on “The Worst Emperor in History

  1. What an intelligent and amazing analysis about a subject (and ruler) I knew very little about. If only our American State Department were this wise.

    Unfortunately, they are not, nor do they seem to want to be.

    And China benefits.

    Trump understands (and would have continued to fix the problem), had not his reelection been stolen.

  2. For a counter-point to this thesis, I’d suggest reading Pat Buchanan’s book.

  3. That was an interesting and easy to follow explanation of the Kaiser for the average uninformed boobus americanus.

    A much more in depth study on the man and the political and military machinations of the era in which he lived is the book “Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War” by Robert K. Massie.

    Wilhelm was deeply insecure due to a withered arm which had been damaged by the botched use of forceps to extract him from his mother during a difficult childbirth. The injury permanently damaged the nerves in one arm and caused it to be much shorter than his other arm. He was a physically weak child in a court surrounded by military men whom he was one day expected to lead. He compensated by being aggressively masculine in appearance and activities, especially with regards to martial camaraderie, to try and disguise his disability. Regardless of his physical infirmity and overcompensation, he was a first class anus surrounded by sycophants who stroked his ego and flattered him on his intelligence and masculinity when in fact he was grossly deficient in both categories.

  4. There’s also something that people seem to forget or even are not aware off.
    I think it was in 1896 when Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner and a bunch of other “Round Table” guys already planned War with Germany.
    And if I remember correctly Winston Churchill told his friends in the Arms Manufactoring in early 1913 to prepare for a War with Germany by August 1914.

    There’s a book out, that the establisment tried to suppress, by Thorsten Schulte, called “Fremdbestimmt: 120 Jahre Lügen und Täuschung” (External determination: 120 years of lies and deception)

    PDF to some Secret British Documents of that time – https://www.fremdbestimmt.com/pdf/britischegeheimdokumente.pdf

    He made it freely available to download the PDF – https://pdfbuchers.jdevcloud.com/3947/pdf-fremdbestimmt-thorsten-schulte-kostenlos-bucher-online-lesen-downloaden/

    This is the introduction to the PDF – Download.

    This book is a warning call to all Europeans!
    Kurt Tucholsky wrote in 1931: “The people misunderstand most things; but it feels most of it right. ”
    More and more people feel that the future of Germany and Europe is in danger, but do not yet understand the causes.
    Therefore, the full extent of deception and heteronomy must be exposed.
    Only in this way can we see what threatens us today, why the government is obviously against the will of the majority and what we can do about it. In this book Thorsten Schulte unmasked the historiography of the winners, uncovered falsehoods, half-truths and the omission of important facts in our media.
    He exposes the distorted view of history, which still leads to a guilt complex of the Germans with devastating consequences.
    Only then will his risk analysis in this book be understandable for today’s Germany. We need to know our story – the real story.
    The New York Times paid homage to the last German Kaiser in June 1913 with the now unthinkable headline: “Kaiser, 25 years ruler, celebrated as a peacemaker”.
    The Germans are demonstrably deliberately denied which US representative met the future German dictator on November 20, 1922 and described him as a “fabulous demagogue”.
    Former US President Harry S. Truman remarked about Germany and Russia in June 1941: “Let them exterminate each other as much as possible”.
    Did the German Chancellor Willy Brandt receive funds from the US secret service CIA?
    Have top Green politicians been trained abroad?
    The French newspaper Le Figaro wrote in 1992 about the Maastricht Treaty, which paved the way for the euro: “Maastricht, that is the Versailles Treaty without war”.
    Who was able to make Angela Merkel cry while trying to rescue the euro in 2011?
    Germany’s future is threatened if we don’t act.
    We Germans have to use our eyes to see now, so that we don’t use them to cry later.
    Courage for the truth for our children and grandchildren!
    We Germans have to use our eyes to see now, so that we don’t use them to cry later.

    I haven’t read the Book yet, because I was only told about the Free PDF download yesterday by a friend after I complained that I cannot get it here in South Africa and that I refuse to buy it over Amazon.

  5. Sorry, the one Secret British Document PDF File are the ones from 1971 about the “EU”.

    I deletd by mistake, several weeks ago, some of my folders and haven’t been able to retrieve everything that was lost.

    Here’s another PDF –
    Sustainability of German Fiscal Policy and
    Public Debt: Historical and Time Series Evidence
    for the Period 1850-2010
    https://www.fremdbestimmt.com/pdf/ifo.pdf

  6. I disagree with some statements of this article.

    The German Fleet was not supposed to be bigger than the Royal Navy.
    It was a Risk Fleet.
    a) Wilhelm wanted a strong navy so that the British could see there was someone who could support them.
    b) If there was war between GB and Germany then the Royal Navy would be able to destroy the entire High Sees Fleet but they would experience such casualties that the Royal Navy would tell the british Prime Minister: Dont go to war against Germany, We win, but after destroying the HSF the French will have a bigger Fleet then what is left of the Royal Navy.

    Panthersprung: Please read about the First and Second Moroccon Crises. There were a treaty that France broke and Germany reacted. Yes, Willy overreacted, but France broke the agreement first.

    And to the Hague / Geneva Conventions: Werent the Allies the ones that demanded their people to do guerilla warfare?
    The French suffered guerilla warfare supported by the british in Spain during Napoleons rule.
    And I might add: I have many times asked on forums people who complained about german counter insurgency warfare about the correct and proper way of how to fight and end enemy guerilla warfare. I never received an answer. They all shied away. Maybe they realised that the Duke of Wellington was right: Only an idiot opens Pandoras box of guerilla warfare.

    And to the Fall of the British Empire:
    Entropy wins. Always.
    All Empires fall. I once found a study that an Empire lives for about 250 years before its demise. And the long-lived roman empire was divided into eras that were all about 200-250 years.

  7. You forgot to bloody mention all the damn British intrigue in getting the rest of Europe into war as well. If it wasn’t for the damn Brits, WW1 wouldn’t have happened.

  8. Et tu, Brute? Even if the above comes across as almost satirical, every single sentence in it requires to be examined for its truth value lest you want to be called no better than those we thought to hold as common enemies. But I’m tired. I’m just so tired.

    Only a short search away is material which does a better job at this, beginning with a few items such as the purported atrocities in Belgium:
    https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20283223.html
    Do yourself a favour and the rest as homework. If I had to assume that you actually know, the conclusion would be worse.

  9. Good article. It’s worth noting that the Kaiser was not the only problem. Germany was dominated by Prussia, which had a militaristic outlook. Bismarck – who started three wars himself – spent his final years acting as a brake on the more aggressive instincts of German politicians.

    • I will go even further: it was the German military who wanted this war. They were afraid Russia would finish her railroad system soon. Not that the civilian government objected. After they lost the war, the best and most aggressive officers were kept in the army. They couldn’t really say: well, we lost that one. Because of us. So they came up with the stab in the back myth and prepared for the next war. Hitler only speeded things up a bit.

  10. I am also from ‘that neck of the woods’. It should be noted, by those not too stupid to be affected by facts, that Wilhelm tried to avoid the general mobilisation of Europe but could find no peace avenue. This is not surprising since the Anglo-french-russo alliance would entertain none because of Serbia’s intransigence. As it happened Wilhelm, honouring his treaties with Austria was the last major european leader to declare war. If you are going to pontificate get your facts straight.

    • I’d like you (and the others defending the German position) to explain the invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg to me.

      • Oh that is simple, to keep the bloody so called allies from invading Germany, DUH!

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