86. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 376.
87. See G. A. von Müller, Regierte der Kaiser? Aus den Kriegstagebüchern des Chefs des Marinekabinetts im Ersten Weltkrieg Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller (Göttingen, Berlin and Frankfurt, 1959), pp. 33–5. See also H. Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg. Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers (Munich, 2005), p. 11.
88. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, pp. 267–8, 369.
89. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 153.
90. Wilhelm II to Jagow, Neues Palais, 28 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, p. 256 (doc. no. 112); Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 153.
91. Cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 154.
92. Albertini, Origins, vol. 2, p. 467; Geiss, July 1914, p. 222.
93. See Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 27 July 1914, Geiss, July 1914, pp. 238–9 (doc. no. 97).
94. Bethmann to Tschirschky, Berlin, 10.15 a.m., 28 July 1914, ibid., p. 259 (doc. no. 115); Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 401–2.
95. Bethmann to Wilhelm, Berlin, 10.15 p.m., 28 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, pp. 258, 261 (doc. nos. 114, 117).
96. Stevenson, Armaments, pp. 384–5.
97. Falkenhayn diary, 29 July 1914, cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 155.
98. Falkenhayn diary, 31 July 1914, cited ibid., p. 160.
99. Henry to Wilhelm II, 28 July 1914, in M. K. D. Montgelas and W. Schücking (eds.), Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, 2 vols. (Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1919), vol. 1, pp. 328–9.
100. Lichnowsky to Jagow, London, 29 July 1914, in Geiss, July 1914, pp. 288–90 (doc. no. 130).
101. Wilhelm II, notes on Pourtalès to Jagow, St Petersburg, 30 July 1914, ibid., pp. 293–5 (doc. no. 135).
102. Lichnowsky to Foreign Office, London, 31 July 1914 (12.13 and 12.15 p.m.) in Montgelas and Schücking (eds.), Dokumente, vol. 2, pp. 4, 8; Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 206.
103. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 164.
104. Falkenhayn diary, 1 August 1914, cited ibid., pp. 165–6. Falkenhayn’s version of the exchange was broadly supported by Moltke, but may not be entirely trustworthy. According to the memoirs of the aide de camp and eyewitness Max von Mutius, the Kaiser asked Moltke for advice on whether a breach of the borders in the west – specifically the entry of the 16th Division into Luxembourg – could still be stopped. Moltke replied that he did not know, and it was a subordinate from the Operations Department of the General Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Tappen, who affirmed that this was still possible. In short, by this account the Kaiser did not directly overrule Moltke, but remained within the conventional boundaries of his position. In any case, the extant accounts agree on the traumatic effect of this episode on the chief of the General Staff, who returned obsessively to it over the next two years of his life. See Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 13.
105. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 207.
106. A. Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge, 2001), p. 222.
107. Cited in Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 167.
108. Beller, Francis Joseph, p. 214.
109. D. C. B. Lieven, Nicholas II. Emperor of All the Russias (London, 1993), p. 202.
110. R. A. Kann, Dynasty, Politics and Culture: Selected Essays, ed. S. Winter (Boulder, CO, 1991), p. 294.
111. Lieven, Nicholas II, p. 202.
112. On the balance between civilian and military authority within the leaderships of all the Powers, see M. Trachtenberg, ‘The Coming of the First World War: A Reassessment’, in idem, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ, 1991), pp. 47–99.
113. Stevenson, Armaments, p. 407.
114. See Count Kokovtsov, Out of My Past. The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov (Stanford, CT, 1935), pp. 313, 348, 445.
115. Cf. Mommsen, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II’, p. 309.
116. See K. Jarausch, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, 2 (1969), pp. 48–76.
8. WAR, EXILE, DEATH (1914–41)
1. W. Deist, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Context of His Military and Naval Entourage’, in J. C. G. Röhl and N. Sombart (eds.), Wilhelm II. New Interpretations (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 169–92, here pp. 182–3.
2. W. Deist, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II als Oberster Kriegsherr’, in J. C. G. Röhl (ed.) Der Ort Kaiser Wilhelms II. in der deutschen Geschichte (Munich, 1991), pp. 25–42, here p. 26. On the military dimension of Wilhelm’s sovereignty more generally, see E. Fehrenbach, Wandlungen des deutschen Kaisergedankens 1871–1918 (Munich and Vienna, 1969), pp. 122–4, 170–72.
3. Deist, ‘Oberster Kriegsherr’, p. 30; idem, ‘Entourage’, pp. 176–8.
4. E. R. Huber, Heer und Staat in der deutschen Geschichte (2nd edn, Hamburg, 1938), p. 358.
5. Diary entry of 23 July 1904, in H. von Moltke, Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente 1877–1916, ed. E. von Moltke (Stuttgart, 1922), p. 296.
6. See A. Mombauer, ‘Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, 1998.
7. H. Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg. Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914–1918 (Munich, 2005), p. 20.
8. W. Groener, Das Testament des Grafen Schlieffen. Operative Studien über den Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1930), p. 79.
9. E. von Falkenhayn, General Headquarters and Its Critical Decisions 1914–1916 (London, 1919), p. 4.
10. Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 39.
11. R. Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 33; L. Cecil, Wilhelm II, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1989), vol. 2, Prince and Emperor 1859–1900, p. 209.
12. H. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich, 1994), p. 236.
13. W. Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court. The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller Chief of the Naval Cabinet 1914–1918 (New York, 1959), pp. 26, 28, 40, 41.
14. Cited in Fehrenbach, Wandlungen, p. 216.
15. Adolf Wild von Hohenborn, letter to his wife of 7 June 1915, in idem, Briefe und Tagebuchaufzeichnungen des preussischen Generals als Kriegsminister und Truppenführer im Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. H. Reinhold and G. Granier (Boppard, 1986), p. 64.
16. Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II, pp. 44–5, 53, 83.
17. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 219.
18. Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, pp. 29, 71.
19. Mombauer, ‘Helmuth von Moltke’.
20. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 187.
21. K.-H. Janssen, Der Kanzler und der General. Die Führungskrise um Bethmann-Hollweg und Falkenhayn (1914–1916) (Göttingen, 1967), pp. 58, 62; Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, pp. 237, 238–40.
22. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 227–8;Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, pp. 307–8.
23. H. Herwig, The First World War. Germany and Austria–Hungary 1914–1918 (London, 1997), p. 134; Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, p. 57.
24. W. Pyta, Hindenburg. Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (Berlin, 2007), pp. 156, 163, 164 ‘quotation’.
25. Wilhelm II to Auguste Viktoria, 21 January 1915, cited ibid., p. 164.
26. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 236; Herwig, First World War, pp. 195–6; Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, pp. 431–9; Falkenhayn, General Headquarters, pp. 272–3;Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 49.
27. For details, see K.-H. Janssen, ‘Der Wechsel in der Obersten Heeresleitung 1916’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 7 (1959), pp. 337–71.
28. Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, p. 429. More generally, see R. Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika. Die USA in der Politik der Reichsleitung 1890–1917 (Boppard, 1986), pp. 334–76.
29. Admiral Müller, diary entry of 3 July 1916, in G. A. von Müller, Regierte der Kaiser? Kriegstagebucher, Aufzeichnungen und Briefe des Chefs des Marine-Kabinetts Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller 1914–1918, ed. Walter Görlitz (Göttingen, 1959), p. 200.
30. Pomm
erin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, pp. 334–76.
31. Conversation with Holtzendorff reported in Müller diary, 15 January 1916, in Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court, p. 126. On Wilhelm’s motivations, see also Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 221.
32. Cited in E. R. May, The World War and American Isolation 1914–1917 (Cambridge, MA, 1959), p. 208.
33. Cited ibid., p. 209.
34. Ibid., p. 222.
35. Cited ibid., p. 223. The economic arguments summarized here are those of the Treasury minister Karl Helfferich.
36. Hans Georg von Plessen, diary entry of 10 January 1916, in Afflerbach, Wilhelm II, p. 847.
37. See M. Stibbe, German Anglophobia and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2001).
38. Chickering, Imperial Germany, p. 92.
39. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 241.
40. May, World War, p. 398.
41. Wilhelm II to Bethmann, 31 October 1916, cited ibid., pp. 398–9; Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 242.
42. Müller diary, 17 December 1916, in Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court, p. 224.
43. N. Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, 1998), p. 283; Chickering, Imperial Germany, p. 93; Pommerin, Der Kaiser und Amerika, p. 364.
44. On the financial exhaustion of the Allies, see J. M. Cooper Jr, ‘The Command of Gold Reversed: American Loans to Britain, 1915–1917’, Pacific Historical Review (1975), pp. 209–30, here p. 228; a similar argument is made by G. Ritter, The Sword and the Sceptre: The Problem of Militarism in Germany, trans. H. Norden, 4 vols. (Coral Gables, FL, 1972), vol. 3, p. 325.
45. Report from Wedel (German ambassador in Vienna), cited in Gutsche, Wilhelm II, p. 181.
46. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 246.
47. V. Ullrich, Die nervöse Grossmacht. Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen Kaiserreichs 1871–1918 (Frankfurt, 1997), pp. 522–9.
48. Müller, Regierte der Kaiser?, entries of 16 and 13 July 1917, pp. 304, 303.
49. Fehrenbach, Wandlungen des deutschen Kaisergedankens, p. 218.
50. M. Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (London, 1964), pp. 385–6.
51. T. Wolff, The Eve of 1914, trans. E. W. Dickes (London, 1935), p. 496.
52. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 209.
53. See J. Verhey, ‘The “Spirit of 1914” and the Rhetoric of Unity in World War I Germany’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1992.
54. B. Sösemann, ‘Der Verfall des Kaisergedankens im ersten Weltkrieg’, in Röhl (ed.), Der Ort, pp. 145–170, here p. 150.
55. Fehrenbach, Wandlungen des deutschen Kaisergedankens, p. 217.
56. Wahnschaffe to Valentini, 29 June 1915, GStA Berlin (Dahlem), HA I, Rep. 92 Valentini, Nr 21 (emphases in original).
57. Stuttgarter Tageblatt, Nr 462, 12 September 1918.
58. Kölnische Zeitung, Nr 719, 12 September 1918; Hamburgischer Correspondent, Nr 467, 12 September 1918; Schwäbischer Merkur, Nr 428, 12 September 1918.
59. A large selection of relevant press cuttings can be consulted in GStA Berlin (Dahlem), HA I, Rep. 89, Nr 683. Cf. Balfour, The Kaiser, p. 392.
60. Chickering, Imperial Germany, p. 74; M. Stibbe, ‘Vampire of the Continent. German Anglophobia During the First World War, 1914–1918’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, 1997, p. 100.
61. Pyta, Hindenburg, p. 89.
62. Ibid., pp. 106–7.
63. Cited from a speech by the industrialist Duisberg in Treutler to Bethmann-Hollweg, 6 February 1917, GStA Berlin (Dahlem), HA I, Rep. 92 Valentini, Nr 2.
64. M. Kohlrausch, Der Monarch im Skandal. Die Logik der Massenmedien und die Transformation der wilhelminischen Monarchie (Berlin, 2005).
65. Pyta, Hindenburg, p. 119.
66. See Bethmann to Valentini, Berlin, 11 February 1917, GStA Berlin (Dahlem), HA I, Rep. 92 Valentini, Nr 2.
67. Neue Preussische Zeitung, Nr 466, 12 September 1918.
68. Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht to Chancellor Hertling, 19 August 1917, cited in Sösemann, ‘Verfall’, pp. 159, 163.
69. Lyncker to his wife, Kreuznach, 18 June 1917, in Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 513.
70. Balfour, The Kaiser, p. 400.
71. Lansing to Oederlin, Washington, 14 October 1918, in US Department of State (ed.), Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (suppl. I, vol. 1, 1918), p. 359.
72. A. Luckau, The German Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference (New York, 1941), pp. 21–2; H. Rudin, Armistice, 1918 (New Haven, CT, 1944), p. 173.
73. Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 286.
74. L. Herz, Die Abdankung (Leipzig, 1924); Kohlrausch, Monarch im Skandal, pp. 325–34; Hull, The Entourage, pp. 289–90; Jan Bank, ‘Der Weg des Kaisers ins Exil’, in H. Wilderotter and K.-D. Pohl (eds.), Der letzte Kaiser. Wilhelm II. im Exil (Gütersloh, 1991), pp. 105–12; Balfour, The Kaiser, pp. 401–12; Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 274–95; W. Gutsche, Ein Kaiser im Exil. Der letzte deutsche Kaiser Wilhelm II. in Holland. Eine kritische Biographie (Marburg, 1991), pp. 12–27; idem, Wilhelm II, pp. 187–99.
75. D. Cannadine, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and the British Monarchy’, in T. C. W. Blanning and D. Cannadine (eds.), History and Biography. Essays in Honour of Derek Beales (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 188–202, here p. 200; Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 300–301.
76. For an excellent analysis of the extradition proceedings, see S. Marks, ‘ “My Name is Ozymandias”. The Kaiser in Exile’, Central European History, 16/2 (1983), pp. 122–70.
77. See J. Peers, ‘White Roses and Eating Disorders: A Feminist Re-Reading of Auguste Viktoria of Germany, 1858–1921’, unpublished manuscript of a paper delivered at the twelfth biennial conference of the Australasian Association of European Historians, 1999. I am grateful to Dr Peers for letting me see a copy of this manuscript.
78. Both quotations from Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 311–12.
79. Cited in J. C. G. Röhl, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and German Anti-Semitism’, in idem, The Kaiser and His Court. Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany, trans. T. F. Cole (Cambridge, 1994), p. 210. On Wilhelm’s anti-Semitism, see also Gutsche, Kaiser im Exil, pp. 76–9; L. Cecil, ‘Wilhelm II und die Juden’, in W. E. Mosse (ed.), Juden im wilhelminischen Deutschland, 1890–1914 (Tübingen, 1976), pp. 313–48.
80. Röhl, ‘Wilhelm II and German Anti-Semitism’, p. 191; cf. Hull, The Entourage, pp. 74–5, who argues that Wilhelm’s conversion to a more principled anti-Semitism dates from his encounter with the works of Houston Stewart Chamberlain in 1901–3.
81. W. E. Mosse, ‘Wilhelm II and the Kaiserjuden. A Problematical Encounter’, in J. Reinharz and W. Schatzberg (eds.), The Jewish Response to German Culture. From the Enlightenment to the Second World War (Hanover, NH, 1985), pp. 164–94; also Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court, p. 151.
82. W. König, Wilhelm II. und die Moderne. Der Kaiser und die technisch-industrielle Welt (Paderborn, 2007), p. 167.
83. D. Frymann (pseud.), Wenn ich der Kaiser wär’. Politische Wahrheiten und Notwendigkeiten (5th edn, Leipzig, 1914), p. 35.
84. S. Malinowski, Vom Kaiser zum Führer (Berlin, 2003), p. 136; König, Wilhelm II. und die Moderne, p. 167.
85. J. C. G. Röhl, Germany Without Bismarck. The Crisis of Government in the Second Reich, 1890–1900 (London, 1967), p. 148.
86. Gutsche, Kaiser im Exil, p. 76; see also W. J. Mommsen, Bürgerstolz und Weltmachtstreben. Deutschland unter Wilhelm II. 1890 bis 1918 (Berlin, 1955), p. 140.
87. See Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 312, 314.
88. Gutsche, Kaiser im Exil, p. 79.
89. Cited in Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times, p. 419; Gutsche, Kaiser im Exil, p. 208.
90. S. von Ilsemann, Der Kaiser in Holland. Aufzeichnungen des letzten Flügeladjutanten Kaiser Wilhelms II., ed. H. von Königswald, 2 vols. (Munich, 1968), vol. 2, p. 154.
91. Ibid., pp. 179, 192–5.
92. See, e.g., ibid., pp. 226, 229, 230, 231, 234–5, 244.
93. Cited in Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, p. 3
43; see also Ilsemann, Der Kaiser in Holland, vol. 2, p. 248.
94. Ilsemann, Der Kaiser in Holland, vol. 2, pp. 344–5.
95. Cited in Cecil, Wilhelm II, vol. 2, pp. 330, 352.
CONCLUSION
1. E. Goldstein, ‘Great Britain: The Home Front’, in M. F. Boemeke, G. D. Feldman and E. Glaser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles. A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 147–66, here pp. 155–6.
2. M. Muret, L’Evolution belliqueuse de Guillaume II (Paris, 1918), p. 10; H. Mazel, La Psychologie du Kaiser (Essai Historique) (Paris, 1919), pp. 186, 189.
3. This phrase occurs in a British Foreign Office document calling for the exiled Kaiser’s trial, see S. Marks, ‘ “My Name is Ozymandias”: The Kaiser in Exile’, Central European History, 16/2 (1983), pp. 122–70.
4. Harry Graf Kessler, diary entry of 11 November 1928, in idem, Tagebücher, 1918–1937, ed. W. Pfeiffer-Belli (Frankfurt, 1961), p. 578.
5. This characterization is a medley drawn from J. C. G. Röhl, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Suitable Case for Treatment?’, and ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and German Anti-Semitism’, both in idem (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court. Wilhelm II and the Governance of Germany, trans. T. F. Cole (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 9–27 and 190–212, esp. 14–15, 26–7, 191; T. Kohut, Wilhelm II and the Germans. A Study in Leadership (New York, 1991), esp. pp. 8–9, 39–40, 43; W. Gutsche, Wilhelm II. Der letzte Kaiser des deutschen Reiches (Berlin, 1991), esp. pp. 144–6; L. Cecil, Wilhelm II, 2 vols., (Chapel Hill, NC and London, 1989), vol. 2, Prince and Emperor, 1859–1900, p. 1; see also Noel Annan, ‘The Abominable Emperor’, New York Review of Books, 6 June 1996, pp. 20–27. ‘Puffed-up… fool’ and ‘nemesis of world history’ are citations from contemporary sources that are endorsed in recent works by John Röhl.
6. N. Sombart, Wilhelm II. Sündenbock und Herr der Mitte (Berlin, 1996).
7. Cited in J. C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II. Der Aufbau der persönlichen Monarchie (Munich, 2001), pp. 28–9.
8. Kohut, Wilhelm II, p. 230.
9. Cited in Eckart Conze, Von deutschem Adel. Die Grafen von Bernstorff im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert (Munich, 2000), pp. 164, 166; for two interesting, divergent accounts of the linkage between monarchy and Führerkonzept, see S. Malinowski, Vom Kaiser zum Führer (Berlin, 2003), and M. Kohlrausch, Der Monarch im Skandal. Die Logik der Massenmedien und die Transformation der wilhelminischen Monarchie (Berlin, 2005).
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