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He must have thought of the Knights of the Sword and the Teutonic Knights, who Germanized the shores of the Baltic, where the Hohenzollerns were to found their Kingdom, and of Friedrich Wilhelm, the Elector of Brandenburg, who helped bring about the Treaty of Westphalia after the Thirty Years' War that reduced Germany to ruin. It was Friedrich Wilhelm who started the Hohenzollerns on the road to the leadership of Germany, and his son, Friedrich I, who persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor to style him King in Prussia. Of Friedrich's grandson, Frederick the Great, the Kaiser must have thought, because it was Frederick the Great who built Europe's first modern army and challenged the power of the Habsburgs. Certainly his thoughts turned to his own grandfather, Wilhelm I, who under the guidance of Bismarck humbled Austria. took Alsace-Lorraine from France, and at Versailles in 1871 was proclaimed Kaiser of a united Germany.
Of Power and Glory. Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert, son of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Germany, was born in 1859, three and one-half years before Bismarck became Chancellor. Bismarck soon weaned him away from his none-too-doting parents, persuaded his Emperor-Grandfather to make him a Lieutenant of Infantry at the age of ten. Bismarck had him riding a horse at twelve in the victory parade when Wilhelm I celebrated the conquest of France.
Young Wilhelm had two infirmities that profoundly affected his life: a withered left arm, injured by forceps at his birth, for which he compensated by showing great physical daring; and otorrhea, an ear infection, which made him irritable and increased a natural tendency to avoid mental exertion. Throughout his life he loved pomp and the physical trappings of power. Throughout his life his brilliance was marred by mental shallowness and arrogance.
He became Kaiser at 29, after his ailing father had ruled for 99 days. Determined to rule in his own right, he dismissed Bismarck two years later, in 1890. Historians blame his dropping of the canny old Chancellor for the fate that ultimately humbled Germany, and certainly Wilhelm's arrogance and indiscretion made him many enemies. He got huffy with his Uncle Bertie (Edward VII of Great Britain) after his father's funeral, and in 1896 enraged all Britain by sending a telegram of sympathy to the Boer leader, Oom Paul Kruger. He refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, through which Bismarck had protected Germany's rear for adventures in Western Europe, and further alienated Russia by supporting Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. He blocked French seizure of Morocco for a while, rattled his sword at France.
On such acts historians blame the creation of the Triple Entente, giving Germany enemies on both sides. Yet history has shown that a deeper, more instinctive fear of the Germans had led Europe always to oppose them. Under the Kaiser, Germany once more swelled with power and pride; once more she threatened to burst her boundaries. Under Wilhelm, Germany built a mighty Navy to threaten Britain, a mightier Army to threaten France and Russia, a mighty economy which threatened to follow the Kaiser's pet Berlin-Bagdad Railway to domination of the Middle East (see p. 22). The Triple Entente was born of this fear. Cried the Kaiser to Reporter Hale in the Bergen fjord in 1908: