German Memories - Kaiser William II & The First World War

William gave the German nation an extra strength on the international level only by constructing a powerful navy which he had inherited from his mother, a love of the British Royal Navy, the world's largest at that time. He made a reality of what he once confided to his uncle Edward VII that his dream was to have a "fleet of my own some day" like the British. William's personal "likes and dislikes" caused by his fleet's poor show in front of his grandmother Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations led him to take steps towards the construction of a powerful navy against his cousins in Britain.

William well utilised the talents of the dynamic naval officer Alfred von Tirpitz. He appointed him as the head of the Reich Naval Office in 1897 and the new admiral had come out with his Tirpitz Plan, the "Risk theory" where he advocated how Germany could force Britain to accede to German demands in the international arena through the threat posed by a powerful battle-fleet concentrated in the North Sea. But building this powerful fleet of more expensive Dreadnought type of battleships cost a lot to Germany imposing financial strains in the coming years.

William got into the trap of the First World War when his close friend the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered on June 28, 1914. William offered Austria-Hungary to crush the secret organization that had plotted and slayed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He encouraged Austria to use force against the suspected Serbian movement which was responsible for his murder. But he was further trapped by his exploitative elites in Berlin by sending him away to his annual cruise of the North Sea on July 6, 1914, as they wanted to manipulate things in his absence for war to increase German dominance in Europe. They feared William might undermine their war effort - something of which William, for all his bluster, was extremely apprehensive.

William made erratic attempts to stay on top of the crisis via telegram, and when the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered to Serbia, he hurried back to Berlin. He reached Berlin and started his last minute attempt to avert the war.

But beyond his knowledge and control in Austria the warring-attempts were in full swing. Unknown to the Emperor, Austro-Hungarian ministers and generals had already convinced the 84-year-old Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria to sign a declaration of war against Serbia.

When William learnt that the First World War was unavoidable by a document stating that Russia would not cancel its mobilization on the event of Austro-Hungarian mobilization against Serbia, he wrote a lengthy commentary containing the startling observations: "For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves........knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria.......to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us.......Our dilemma over keeping faith with the old and honorable Emperor has been exploited to create a situation which gives England the excuse she has been seeking to annihilate us with a spurious appearance of justice on the pretext that she is helping France and maintaining the well-known Balance of Power in Europe for her own benefit against us."