Page 35 - All About History - Issue 54-17

Why Blame the Kaiser?

ACCUSATION 2:
HE RESENTED
DEMOCRACY

Wilhelm’s father, Frederick III, had been an
enthusiastic liberal with plans to revise the
democratic structures of the empire while his
grandfather, Wilhelm I, had been a reluctant
reformer spurred on by a desire to stop Germany
from descending back into the revolutions it had
experienced in 1848. Wilhelm II, however, was
anything but a reformer. Addressing a meeting of
labourers from the Rhine, he said that “the Reich
has one ruler and I am he” — a mantra he clearly
stood by throughout his reign.
His very first act as kaiser was to surround the
Neues Palais at Potsdam, where his father had just
taken his last breath. He had all the gates locked
while his soldiers ransacked every room looking
for evidence of a ‘plot’, which involved his mother
and father attempting to reduce the power of
the monarchy. Nothing was found — any notes
that may have incriminated them had already
been stored safely in Buckingham Palace before
Frederick had died. The Minister of Justice An adolescent Wilhelm with
reminded the new kaiser that this was not the his parents and siblings. He
stands second from the right
appropriate behaviour of a modern monarch. Not
that Wilhelm took any notice. linked to the Social Democrats, he’d have them all binding and unalterable — even if this wasn’t quite
Wilhelm also resented the social democratic and shot, much to his mother’s increasing dismay. autocracy, it was wafer-thin democracy. Without
left wing movements that wanted reform and their But while it is clear that the kaiser resented effective democratic scrutiny to pull him back
increasing presence in the Reichstag simply made democracy, it is arguable that he himself was not from the brink, and with a hatred for any watering
him more determined to ignore his parliament. to blame for the lack of Germany’s democratic down of his powers, Wilhelm helped plunge
When coal miners went on strike in Essen in structures that were ultimately unable to hold Germany into war.
1889, Wilhelm — in his usual blunt and erratic way him and his generals to account, thus setting VERDICT: GUILTY
— remarked that if the strikers were in any way the events of 1914 in motion. Suppression of the
reformist Social Democrats, one of the largest blocs
Wilhelm and Hindenburg pose on a Wilhelm often had to hide his
postcard exclaiming ‘Germany’s Pride’ in parliament, through the Anti-Socialist Laws withered arm in photographs
dated back to the reign of Wilhelm I. Wilhelm II
let this legislation lapse, though perhaps only as a
politically expedient way of seeing off Bismarck,
who had been their chief architect.
Wilhelm, however, was savvier than many
people think. Because the kaiser’s role was not
properly defined by the 1871 constitution, it
allowed him to appoint the chancellor. Strong
men like Bismarck were a threat to his authority
and had to be pushed out, while weaker men like
Bernhard von Bülow could be manipulated by the
Reichstag, and this in turn might make him look
weak, gifting parliament more power. Wilhelm
“preferred to rule with mediocrities”, as we can see
with his appointment of the nitpicking Theobald
von Bethmann-Hollweg as Bülow’s replacement.
We can also see the extent to which Wilhelm
manipulated the Reichstag when we consider
Tirpitiz’s naval expansion bills, which were
amended gradually rather than all at once.
Parliament was unlikely to have approved them if
they had been introduced in one go, even though
it was undoubtedly the kaiser’s true intention
to expand the navy to 1914 levels from the start.
Yet once the bills were approved, they were

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