The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II - Hardcover

MacDonogh, Giles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312276737 ISBN 13: 9780312276737

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2001

Synopsis

Prussia's last king and Germany's last Kaiser was born in Potsdam on January 27, 1859, the son of Prince Frederick of Prussia and Princess Vicky, Queen Victoria's eldest child. William was born with a withered arm and suffered from cerebral palsy; many historians have sought in this clue a clue to his behavior later in life. He was believed mad by some, eccentric by others. Possessed of a ferocious temper, he was prone to reactionary statements, often contradicted by his next action or utterance. He was rumored to have sired numerous illegitimate children and yet was by all appearances a prig. A severe Calvinist tutor brought him up, but his entourage spoiled him, allowing him to win at games an maneuvers to compensate for his deformities. This gave him a sense of inherent invincibility.

William became Kaiser at age twenty-nine. Two years later, he drove Bismarck out after the latter had blocked his social policy. He destabilized the Iron Chancellor's foreign policy by failing to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, a decision that opened the way for Russia's alliance with France in 1894. He denied that the fleet he built was targeted at Britain, but there is evidence that German domination of the seas was the aim of William's secretary of state, who was altogether less anxious to please the British than the grandson of Queen Victoria. William idolized the Queen. As soon as he heard she was dying, he rushed to Osbourne House to be at her bedside. his own daughter later said, "The Queen of England died in the arms of the German Kaiser."

William II is widely perceived as a warmonger who seemed to delight in power grabbing, blood-shed, and the belligerent aims of his staff, yet the image he carved out for himself and posterity was that of "emperor of peace." William has historically been blamed for World War I, although he made real efforts to prevent the conflict. he has been branded an anti-Semite, but ironically the Nazis wrote him off as a "Jew-lover." In this fascinating, authoritative new biography, MacDonogh, widely praised for his life of Frederick the Great, takes a fresh look at this complex and contradictory statesmen and the charges against him to find that a=many can no longer be upheld.

About this title

Review:

Praised for a thoughtful reassessment of Frederick the Great in his previous book, Giles MacDonogh tackles another controversial figure in German history, Kaiser Wilhelm II. William (as his British biographer calls him throughout) has often been dismissed as an anti-Semite and a reactionary whose policies, particularly the buildup of the German navy, inevitably led to World War I. MacDonogh's readable and thorough synthesis of current scholarship depicts a more complex man with far more in common with his English mother, Queen Victoria's daughter Vicky, than is usually acknowledged. "He had inherited her memory, her lack of snobbery, openness, vivacity, moodiness, over-estimation of her own importance, her cleverness without wisdom," writes MacDonogh, characteristically listing both good and bad traits without moralizing. William's mixed feelings about his mother indelibly shaped his attitude toward Great Britain: he strove from the moment he became emperor in 1888 for an alliance with England, yet seemed compelled to undermine it due to "a combination of admiration and envy, animosity and affection." Born in 1859, his botched delivery resulted in a withered left arm, the first in a lifelong series of painful physical and mental ailments that may well have been responsible for the intemperate outbursts that have damaged his posthumous reputation. MacDonogh reminds us that William's worst threats--to tear up the German constitution, to have his enemies shot--were never carried out. After Germany's defeat in 1918, he abdicated and retired to a manor house in Holland; he may have disliked Jews, but he viewed the Nazis with distaste and until his death in 1941 gave no indication he supported the Third Reich. MacDonogh's detailed account of William's life and times doesn't so much revise the conventional portrait as add nuance, and it will be welcomed by aficionados of old-fashioned narrative biography. --Wendy Smith

About the Author:

Giles MacDonogh is a historian and journalist. His biography of Frederick the Great was a bestseller in the UK. He contributes regularly to the Financial Times, The Times, Guardian and Evening Standard. He lives in London, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312276737
• ISBN 13: 9780312276737
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544