Kaiser wilhelm 2 biography of albert hall

He established a system of personal monarchy in which he, his courtiers and military entourage determined policy and he alone held responsibility for the appointment and dismissal of civilian statesmen. The meeting, to which the Reich Chancellor was not invited, decided to avoid war for at least one to two years, by which time Germany would have a larger army and further naval preparations would be completed.

By spring the Kaiser was urging the Austrians to subjugate Serbia or eliminate it altogether. The Serbs must be swept away and that right soon!

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Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg took this as a signal to set in motion the steps that led to war. On 6 July he left for his annual cruise to avert suspicion of German war planning. At this juncture Wilhelm II seemed ready to support a major war with the aim of establishing German control over the European continent. He knew that Germany had only one military plan — the revised Schlieffen plan — and he understood that its realisation would result in a two front war.

This must have been his expectation if not indeed his hope. Instead of sailing into the Arctic Circle as usual, the imperial yacht Hohenzollern anchored just north of Bergen, from where it could return to Germany within a day or two to allow the Kaiser to sign the mobilisation order. In Norway he engaged in feverish activity to secure the support of Italy , Greece , Romania , Bulgaria , Sweden , and — most important of all — the Ottoman Empire.

On leaving for home on 25 July, Wilhelm ordered the bombardment of the Russian naval bases of Reval Tallinn and Libau Liepaja together with a blockade of the eastern Baltic Sea. His orders were ignored — an early sign of his marginalisation during the war. On 28 July, after his return to Potsdam, Wilhelm was suddenly alarmed at the prospect that Britain would enter the war in support of France and Russia.

Briefly, he tried to avert the wider conflict by proposing a halt to the Austrian invasion of Serbia at Belgrade.