Wilhelm II

So it's important to bear that in mind because it has such significance for our own time.

I mean, Kaiser Wilhelm II was the oldest favorite grandson of Queen Victoria.

She literally died in his arms.

This is a man who had very strong connections.

So David Pre-Rowell wrote a book called Seize the Daylight.

And it actually goes back to the Roman Empire, but the way we understand it today, you got to look at people like Benjamin Franklin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Winston Churchill, Kaiser Wilhelm from Germany, and President Roosevelt.

All these people were... making things happen with it, okay? And...

With the

So we saw in the past episode that in November 1918, left-wing revolutionaries rode a popular tide of war weariness and anger at German elites to topple the monarchies that headed the various German states.

So the King of Kings, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was the last to fall.

And he did so with characteristic lack of grace.

So Wilhelm blamed treachery by Jews and socialists within for his demise.

The Treaty of Versailles also gave Hitler so much of his rhetoric and power about the downtrodden and the wrongs done to the German people to create that rise.

So about that, Versailles goes to a negotiated environment, which Kaiser Wilhelm wanted.

You change the whole dynamic.

So what motivates Germany to become the power they become? Absolutely, yeah.

It could fire a 106 kilogram shell over 130 kilometers.

I'm talking about the Kaiser Wilhelm gun.

The Kaiser Wilhelm gun, or Paris gun, was constructed under great secrecy.

Only three were built, but all would be used to shell Paris during 1918, the first time Paris had been hit by artillery since the Franco-Prussian War.

The Germans targeted Paris through four rounds of shelling.

In fact, it is known that Field Marshal Konrad von Utzendorf, Chief of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Staff, would factor the difficulties caused to the British by the Austro-Crisis into his planning when Austria-Hungary decided its response to Serbia when their Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

and what set tongues wagging was that in august nineteen thirteen kaiser wilhelm of imperial germany had actually met sir edward carson in hamburg whilst carson was recuperating from an illness and the kaiser's talk ranged widely he asked about the gardens of mount stuart in county down agreeing that they were beautiful before drawing a comparison between the management of gardens and the management of states observing to carson that britain did too little to consolidate her empire we have our own ideas carson answered referring to home rule we give them self-government the kaiser was reported as confiding to carson his lifelong wish to visit ireland but that his grandmother queen victoria would never allow him Perhaps she thought, he said, that I wanted to take the little place.

When talk moved on to Ulster affairs and the Ulster crisis, which the Kaiser had, it was reported, followed closely.

Carson replied dryly, I think, sir, that you're well out of it, and moved the conversation on to other matters.

They both laughed, but, as ATQ Stewart observes, when the German ruler pressed on indomitably asking about Ulster, Carson adroitly changed the subject.

But another account from the British ambassador, Sir Frank Lascelles, reported that Kaiser Wilhelm and Sir Edward Carson had gotten on very well at that luncheon.

Carson, he said, clearly on good form, had even regaled them all with some of his best tales.

At one point they came to a serious talk about the situation in Ireland and the Kaiser asked, you mean you won't be ruled by the priests? and Carson, quote-unquote, assented.