WILHELM II, GERMAN EMPEROR

The Hun were a very fierce, Asian people who under Attila, defeated the troops of the Roman Empire and sacked several Italian cities. They fought very intensely and terrorized their enemies. The Kaiser came under great criticism from other European powers from urging his soldiers to emulate vicious barbarians with no sense of Christian morality.

At the time, it was the Nazis who dressed in black as did right wing extemists throughout much of the world, In England the Fascists were referred to as “Black Shirts.”

The two were cousins. Wilhelm was a very dominant personality and his cousin quite weak. This quotation shows the tyrannical view of the German Kaiser. The letters were secret but after the execution of the Czar, the Russians released the letters to show the dominant and warlike history of Germany under the Kaiser who was furious that the Russians had made such personal and secret letters public. Russia was in conflict with Japan in what would be called the Russo-Japanese War. The racist views of the German aristocracy was shared with respect to Asians in remembrance of the Mongol invasions of Russia.

The two were cousins. Wilhelm was a very dominant personality and his cousin quite weak. This quotation shows the tyrannical view of the German Kaiser. The letters were secret but after the execution of the Czar, the Russians released the letters to show the dominant and warlike history of Germany under the Kaiser who was furious that the Russians had made such personal and secret letters public. The speech to which the Kaiser referred was one in which the Czar rejected all efforts to reform and limit his power—only driving more Russians to the revolutionary side. See the Czar’s quotation: {614054}

Germany had world power aspirations before Adolf Hitler.

The two were cousins. Wilhelm was a very dominant personality and his cousin quite weak. This quotation shows the tyrannical view of the German Kaiser. The letters were secret but after the execution of the Czar, the Russians released the letters to show the dominant and warlike history of Germany under the Kaiser who was furious that the Russians had made such personal and secret letters public. Russia was involved with the Russo-Japanese war. Both the Russian and German aristocracies had designs on dominating Asia for the memories of the Asian invasions of Europe were still alive.

One of his biggest opponents in this effort was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen, 1815-1898.

The two were cousins. Wilhelm was a very dominant personality and his cousin quite weak. This quotation shows the tyrannical view of the German Kaiser. The letters were secret but after the execution of the Czar, the Russians released the letters to show the dominant and warlike history of Germany under the Kaiser who was furious that the Russians had made such personal and secret letters public.

The two were cousins. Wilhelm was a very dominant personality and his cousin quite weak. This quotation shows the egomaniacal view of the German Kaiser. The letters were secret but after the execution of the Czar, the Russians released the letters to show the dominant and warlike history of Germany under the Kaiser who was furious that the Russians had made such personal and secret letters public.

As it turned out, the suspicions were correct.

They were both children of Queen Victoria of England.

The Germans had been looking for an excuse to send military troops into China to establish German zones of control in China. The Germans were not alone in having areas of control and influence in China. England, France, Italy, Holland, Japan and the United States all were vying to control trade on parts of China. The Germans, under Wilhelm, were just a little more heavy handed and gross than the other powers.

This quotation shows that the racism and master race of Nazi Germany was a norm in Germany well before Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It was an endemic part of the culture. This makes the German post WWII reforms all the more remarkable as the vast majority of an entire nation had to radically change its world and personal views and perceptions.

Russia was expansionistic even before the 1914 Russian Revolution with the Communists prevailing. I this case, they had designs on Korea. However, so did Japan and the two would fight in the Russo-Japanese War. Of course neither were concerned with what the Koreans wanted which was independence.

The question had been asked before German aggression expanded the First World War. But there was great hostility in England for their Emperor and the Germanic authoritarian, militaristic culture

There was deep hostility and suspicion between Germany and England for several years before WWI. See {642066}.

This quotation is important for two reasons. First, it shows that there was a very hostile environment in Europe well before the assassination of the Archduke of Austria that “triggered” WWI. Second, that the Germans were racist before Hitler ever came on the scene. The Emperor demagogued the issue and took it to new extremes, but the evil was there. To the Germans, the Slavs and Russians were a lesser form of humanity than the Germans. The Austrians were threatening to attack Serbia and Russia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled many ethnic Slavs, Russians and Muslims—the lower forms of humanity—and long before Hitler, Wilhelm and other leading Germans thought that the Germanic Peoples should rule that part of the world as the lesser “races” were not fit to rule.

The Germans wanted war with Serbia and used the dispute between Austria and Serbia as an excuse to mobilize and go to war ostensibly to protect their ally, the Austrian Empire, from the Serbs who they knew would be likely supported by Russia which had traditionally supported their fellow Eastern Orthodox against Roman Catholic or Protestant enemies. Russia still tends to protect and support the Serbs. This statement was one of the many that showed that Germany was the major aggressor in the First World War and therefore had to pay reparations to France and others.

The French were culturally not very warlike or militaristic and in the past two centuries had not been very aggressive like the British or the Germans. The Kaiser showed is ethnic ignorance in that the Anglo-Saxons were the merging of two people the English Saxons and the French who under William the Conqueror had defeated the Saxons. However, that was a common perception in racist Germany at the time. Most important however was that the Kaiser and the German military believed it and the fact that France may enter WWI against them was not taken as a serious threat so the German aggression proceeded. The French military gave Germany much more difficulty in the battlefield than they anticipated.

The report was from Heinrich von Tschirschky, the German ambassador to Austria-Hungary. He recommended that Germany persuade Austria-Hungary to not attack Serbia, not realizing the German leaders had already planned a war with Russia and saw the issues between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia was a good excuse to implement their war plans (see {642092}).

Dreadnoughts were huge battleships. Britain had the dominant navy of the world and controlled the seas. A European war would be a land war where a navy would be of little use. Hence, Britain would not want to get involved in such a war where she could not use her greatest military strength. He was wrong about this and so much else. Britain entered WWI when Germany invaded Belgium fulfilling her treaty obligations. The Germans intelligence operators and analysts were well aware of the treaty obligations, but had little understanding of English culture and tradition. The German aggression against a small power like Belgium was morally offensive to many in Great Britain, and Britain had a tradition of fighting for moral principles. The Germans would never militarily disadvantage themselves for the sake of a treaty obligation to a small nation, and they did not believe that the British would be so different and fulfill their treaty obligations even though their strongest military asset—their navy would not be very helpful.

This is the kind of threat that was used by Germany before the First World War. It worked with Turkey, but King Albert realized that being an “ally” of Germany meant losing independence anyway. Belgium would not join Germany, so the Germans invaded Belgium in 1914. Belgians fought with the allies and at the end of WWI, they were able to rebuild their independent state and thrive until they were again invaded by Germany in WWII. Turkey, in contrast, lost their entire empire, as a result of their fighting as German allies in WWI.

The German war plan called for attacking France through Belgium. However, Belgium was intent on remaining neutral. International law prohibited a neutral country from allowing troops of either side to enter and maneuver in its territory. The Kaiser and the German leaders know they were violating International law and rationalized it by stating that after they defeated France, they would treat Belgium well.