Version français
Queen Victoria first met her grandson when he was twenty months. "Our darling grandchild, she wrote, came walking in a little white dress with blue bows... he is a fine fat child with beautiful white soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, a very dear face".
Vicky was obsessed with Wilhelm's damaged arm. He sujebcted him to hard excersice routines, gymnastics, horseback riding,etc. She wanted him to beat his handicap, because she felt guilty of it.. She also demanded too much of her son in the intelectual aspect; she was very clever woman, and she wanted her son to be like her, she wanted him to have the same liberal ideas her father, Prince Albert, had tought her. As Wilhelm began to grow to manhood, his grandfather, the German Emperor Wilhelm I, decided to put him appart from his mother liberal influence and that he should begin the military aspect of his preparation for the throne, so Wilhelm was assigned as a liutenant to the First Regiment of Foot Guards. Wilhelm liked the miliatr atmsophere very much, but it affected his character. The young boy, once polite, became rude and brusque. His parents dislike this hardness, but Wilhelm didn't care about their opinion. He only care about his grandfather, the Emperor, who, he said, was the only one who appreciated his passion for the army and for Prussia.
When he was nineteen, he fell in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Hesse, daughter of Vicky's sister Alice, but Ella, as she was called, found him intolerable; he always imposed his will to everyone and he always wanted Ella to to be next to him. She rejected him and Wilhelms interests turned elsewhere; however he never forgot her, and as an old man, he admitted he had spent much time in his youth writing love poetry to his cousin.
On February 27, 1881, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig Holstein, the daughter of Friedrich, duke of Augustenberg, to whom the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had disposed of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Dona, as Augusta was called, was a year older than her husband and was a tall and robust woman; she had received a por education and had few intellectual abilities and interests. Dona gave Wilhelm seven children: Crown Prince Wilhelm, Eitel-Friedrich,Adalbert, August Wilhelm, Oskar, Joachim and one only daughter, Viktoria Louise.
In 1888, Emperor Wilhelm I died and his son suceeded him as as Frederick III. The new emperor had cancer on the throat so his reign only last for three months. At his death on June 15, 1888 his elder son became Kaiser Wilhelm II When his father died Wilhelm inmediately sent his soldiers to surround the palace, forbidding everyone to leave, his mother included, because he wnted to find his father's private papers; he find nothing because Vicky had taken them already to Windsor.
Wilhelm was an ambitious, insecure and troublesome man. Hew didn't keep mournig for bhis father assiting to continuos ceremonies and traveling to all parts of Germany and abroad, fact which infuriated his grandmother, Queen Victoria.
At first, Bismarck saw no menace in Wilhelm autocratic tendencies, altough the kaiser's conduct in oublic irritated him. Wilhelm was very interested in naval affaires and began to interfered in them without consulting the Chief of almiralty, General von Caprivi, who resigned in protest. Difficutlies began to arise between the Kaiser and his Chancellor in the spring of 1889. Wilhelm supported the opinions of his Chief of the Army, General Alfred von Waldersee and of Baron von Holstein, that Russia was a potencial menace for German security. Bismarck didnt' believed this; for almost 30 years he had based his policy in German friendship with Russia. In June 1887, he had signed a Reisnsurance Treaty, in which both nations compromised themselves to remain neutral in any warlike conflict, except in case that Russia atacked Austria or Germany attacked France. The Chancellor didn't want Wilhelm, Holstein and Waldersee to overthrow his 30 years work.
In intern politics, there was also differences between Bismarck and Wilhelm. The Chancellor had established good inssurances an pensions for workers but he didn' t beleive in reducing working hours, and that was exactly what Wilhelm did: he reduced working hours for workers.
In March 1890, Bisamrck resigned and he retired from politics. In 1896, he declared to a newspaper about of hte existence of the Reinssurance Treaty, which Wilhelm had denied to renew in 1890. Wilhelm, infurated, accused Bismarck of treasson and was about to inprission him. Next year, 1897, Bismarck died on the night of July 30.
Th deteriorated relations between Wilhelm and her mother's country, England, began in 1895, with the Kruger telegram affaire. Cecil Rhodes, a British magnate of the Daimond Emporium in South Africa, was one of the main inversionists of the diamond mines in Transvaal. Paul Kruger, president of Transvaal wanted his country to be free from British influence and began to interfere in Rhodes' affairs. Rhodes, without informing the British Government, organized an attack against Kruger's government commanded by Dr. Leader Star Jameson.