Page 34 - All About History - Issue 54-17

W
?
Why Blame the Kaiser?

MAKING A

MONARCH

Inside the troubled
mind of Wilhelm II

DISABILITY
The kaiser suffered from a visibly
withered arm, a condition today
known as Erb’s Palsy, due to a
traumatic birth, as well as torti-
collis. As a child he was forced
to undergo a series of horrific
treatments in a bid to cure him,
including having his arm being
pushed inside a dead hare and
using a neck-stretching machine
every day.

A MOTHER’S
(UNREQUITED) LOVE FREDERICK’S
His mother increasingly rejected DEMISE
him as he grew older. Desperate
for attention, aged 16 he wrote a When Wilhelm’s father, who
series of letters bordering on the QUEEN VICTORIA’S suffered from throat cancer,
incestuous in which he obsessed GOLDEN BOY took the German throne in 1888,
over kissing her hands. It was a it was with the expectation that
desperate cry for help, but the Wilhelm always said he was his reign would be short. As it
shame of disability in the 19th Queen Victoria’s favourite turned out, he ruled for less
century meant that his mother grandson and, as the firstborn than 100 days and had it been
would never stop feeling like her son of her eldest daughter, he for longer, things might have
son was a failure. spent a lot of time in England. been different. Instead, just 29
Although she understood his years old, Wilhelm succeeded
fiery temperament and they to the second largest empire in
often clashed — she banned him Europe. Power went straight
from her Diamond Jubilee and to his head.
80th birthday celebrations — by
the end of her life they had
reconciled and he was present
at her deathbed.

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