The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich

The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich by Alan Palmer

As I write this review of a book I finished about 3 weeks ago, I’m slightly embarrassed and puzzled that there’s not much about this book that I actually remember. Although that’s not a good thing, I do recall that I enjoyed the book. This is one of those books that I read on a Kindle (not sure if there’s a physical copy even in existence. Maybe there is, but Amazon says nothing of such). The description page on Amazon does say that it’s slightly over 300 pages, but many eBooks don’t have page numbers. I remember that about half of the volume was indices, source notes, bibliography, etc. so the book may have been significantly shorter than the advertised 300 pages.  Why am I droning on about page length? Because it did seem a rather short book.  So maybe my lack of recollection is due to the fact that there wasn’t that much to remember in the first place.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (‘William’, as he’s mainly referred to here) has a bit of a bad rap. Many would say that he was the Hitler of the first World War.  After all, he was the German leader, and the Germans were the ‘bad’ guys. So…..  After reading this book, I didn’t feel he was evil at all.  Power hungry, maybe, and definitely incompetent. I would argue most monarchs during this time were just as incompetent though, so Wilhelm was in pretty good company, so to speak.

History tells us that he was actually England’s Queen Victoria’s grandson. Her other grandchildren were Russian’s Tsar Nicholas and, of course, King George V of England. Apparently, the desire back then was to arrange such marriages between powerful countries to form alliances. That doesn’t seem such a bad idea, but the plan doesn’t work during the years leading up to World War I. Wilhelm comes across as a bit of a spoiled brat. Such is the case when a monarchy is in place – it’s a crap shoot how good the leader will be. So we see Wilhelm throughout his whole life acting very pompous, peacocking his feathers, and bragging how strong the German navy is. One is led to believe he wasn’t pleasant company at a cocktail party.

There’s very little in this book about his wife and children. Most of the book focuses on relations with the various German chancellors (none good) and his attempt to form strong relations with other countries. The details can get a bit wearisome – the book is a lot of fact and not much feeling, but as I mentioned, the overall length is short, so it never gets a chance to drag you down too much.

Did Wilhelm cause the first World War?  I would say he did not, although he was certainly influential. Plus, being a poor leader of such a strong nation is never a good thing. After Germany’s defeat in 1918, he’s forced to abdicate and live in exile in the Netherlands for the rest of his life. He quietly wishes that the monarch will be reinstated during the 1930s, but once Hitler is in charge, all of his dreams go out the window. It should also be noted that Wilhelm never cared for Hitler, and felt he was ruining Germany. The Kaiser died in 1941.

I would recommend this book as it was a fairly quick read. There are a lot of names and places to digest, but this is usually the case with biographies about historical figures. It was refreshing to read about Germany’s “other” World War leader, and I felt I learned an awful lot about the man, the monarch, and the times.