Wilhelm II, German Emperor

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Brendan Simms, The Last King of Prussia; On a dispatch from Paris suggesting the French were eager for peace, the Kaiser scribbled ‘mumbo jumbo!’”  Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2014
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579515600068884272
(book review on John Röhl, Wilhelm II; Into the abyss of war and exile, 1900-1941. Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Quote:

“The scope of Mr Röhl's enterprise is staggering. "Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900-1941," at more than 1,200 pages of text, is the final volume of a biographical project that began with "Young Wilhelm" (1999) and "Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900" (2004). Mr Rohl's first two volumes have been garlanded with praise, and rightly so. The third—published in Germany in 2008 and now substantially revised—is a fitting capstone to a major work of history.

“Mr Roehl ends his biography with the Kaiser's funeral in (German-occupied) Holland in June 1941, attended by Hitler's commissioner for the Netherlands.


Note:
(a) “The victorious powers—Britain, France, Italy and the United States—attempted to put him on trial. In the end, mainly because the government of Holland, whence the Kaiser had fled, refused to extradite him, he was spared prosecution. He would live for an additional two decades, long enough to see the outbreak of another world war.”
(i) Wilhelm II, German Emperor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor
(1859-1941; reign 1888-1918; was the eldest grandson of the British Queen Victoria [his mother being Victoria, the eldest daughter of Britain's Queen Victoria]; Crowned in 1888, he dismissed the Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in 1890; section     7.3 Shadow-Kaiser; section 8 Abdication and flight)
(ii) World War I (July 28, 1914 - Nov 11, 1918)  Wikipedia

(b) “The ‘revisionists’ got to work in the 1920s, adjusting the Kaiser's reputation and Germany's as well. Historians such as SB Fay (‘The Origins of World War’) challenged the notion of German war guilt, arguing that responsibility for the catastrophe of World War I should be distributed more widely. Decades later a very different cohort of scholars, including Fritz Fischer and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, put Germany back in the dock but insisted that it was the German elites rather than one individual who were to blame. More recently, the work of Christopher Clark has generated a more positive view of Prussia, emphasizing its progressive potential, and has put forward the argument that Germany's responsibility for the war, though not inconsiderable, must be seen in the context of the aggressive behavior of other actors, especially Serbia and Russia. The cumulative effect, over time, has been if not to exonerate the Kaiser then at least to reduce his importance in the grand scheme of things.”
(i) For SB Fay, see Sidney Bradshaw Fay
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Bradshaw_Fay
(1876-1967; an American historian)
(ii) Fritz Fischer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Fischer
(1908-1999; a German historian)
(iii) Hans-Ulrich Wehler
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Wehler
(1931- ; a German historian)
(iv) For Christopher Clark, see Chris Clark (historian)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Clark_(historian)
(1960- ; an Australian historian working in England)

(c) “Mr. Röhl vividly depicts the Kaiser's unfortunate personality, which alarmed friend and foe alike. At root deeply insecure, Wilhelm postured tirelessly. His bumptiousness gave constant offense, whether he was kicking an unamused king of Bulgaria in the bottom, cutting through the braces of his adjutant general with a pen-knife in jest, or literally dragging the commanding general of the Guard Corps into a room by the ears.”

bumptious (adj; bump (n; meaning ‘protuberance’) +tious (as in factious)):
“presumptuously, obtusely, and often noisily self-assertive”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumptio

(d) “His political clumsiness was legendary, for example when he sent German soldiers off to suppress the Boxer Rising in 1900 with the injunction that ‘no Chinaman will ever again dare so much as to look askance at a German. . . . Whoever falls into your hands will fall to your sword.’ * * * Kaiser's disastrous decision not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1890, which helped to isolate Germany.”

Reinsurance Treaty
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinsurance_Treaty
(of 1887; an attempt by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to continue to ally with Russia, to prevent a Russian convergence toward France)

(e) During July Crisis (see (g) at the end), “e see the Kaiser on the royal yacht, receiving telegrams and reading dispatches, often writing angry comments in the margins. When a dispatch from Paris suggests that the French are eager for peace, he scribbles ‘rubbish!’ and ‘mumbo jumbo!’ He is aware of the growing danger of war and makes last-minute attempts at mediation. But by Aug. 2, the steady escalation had led to the inevitable: Germany, fearing a Russian attack and following the legendary Schlieffen Plan, demanded transit through Belgium to crush France before France could come to the aid of her ally. Brussels refused. Britain declared war on Germany two days later.”
(i) mumbo jumbo (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mumbo%20jumbo
(ii) Schlieffen Plan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan(created by Count Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905)

(f) “The Kaiser's belligerence drove him to see enemies everywhere, from the Japanese yellow peril in the Far East and the ‘Yankee’ threat across the Atlantic to the menacing Triple Entente of Russia, France and Britain.”

Triple Entente
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Entente
(1907-1918; a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy)

(g) “By Mr Röhl's own evidence, Wilhelm was largely shut out of decision-making during the critical July Crisis of 1914, for all his furious dispatch-reading. Indeed, his advisers had urged him to take the July yacht trip, in part to get him out of the way. The major decisions of the crisis were taken by the chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, and by the military, which was guided by rational if misguided considerations. The Kaiser was mostly a cipher during the struggle itself, with little influence on the deployment of the army, rather more on the use of the fleet.”

July Crisis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Crisis
followed the June 28, 1914 assassination.