Kaiser Wilhelm
Prussian monarch, mustached
Kaiser Wilhelm refers to either of two German emperors: Wilhelm I, who unified Germany in 1871, or more commonly Wilhelm II, who ruled from 1888 until Germany's defeat in World War I.
Wilhelm II's aggressive foreign policy and military posturing made him a symbol of German militarism.
In English, the name often appears in historical discussions of the war's origins: Kaiser Wilhelm's ambitions destabilized Europe.
- 1888A specific year
- abdicationFormal surrender of power
- Central PowersWWI German-led alliance
- monarchyRule by crowned sovereign
- autocracyRule by one
Prussia · blank check · German Empire · caricature · imperialism · mustache · Netherlands · militarism · spiked helmet · Treaty of Versailles · naval expansion · arms race · Franco-Prussian War · war declaration · armistice · European monarchy · WWI · propaganda
- WWI FiguresWoodrow Wilson, Tsar Nicholas II, King George V, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Winston Churchill
- GermanyBerlin, Munich, Hamburg, Germany, German
- royaltyking, queen, prince, princess, kings
- WWItrenches, no man's land, no mans land, trench warfare, armistice
- 1800sVictorian era, Napoleon, Gilded Age, Queen Victoria, Industrial Revolution
- historical rulersCharlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan
Kaiser Wilhelmcommoner
Non-noble person
Woodrow Wilson · parliamentary democracy · Weimar Republic · republican government · German chancellor
Kaiser WilhelmKing George V
Early twentieth-century British sovereign
Kaiser WilhelmMahatma Gandhi
Queen Victoria · Woodrow Wilson · Emperor Meiji · Dag Hammarskjöld