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What is England's grievance against Germany? In part the grievance of a people which sees another outstripping her in every one of her cherished activities. . . . But it is not so much the direct rivalry that begets for Germany the hostility of England, as it is an historical principle of British diplomacy. Ever since the day of Wolsey, consistently, without ever departing from it, England has founded her foreign policy on the leading principle that she must single out and oppose the Power at the moment paramount on the Continent. . . . This principle has become so firmly a part of British policy that it is nowadays scarcely deliberate. It is instinctive.
Of War and Peace. Wilhelm told Hale, too, that it was Japan at the head of a united Asia which the world ought really to fear. He proposed that Germany and the U.S. act together against Japan. That was the chief theme of the interview. Theodore Roosevelt almost hit the ceiling when it was shown to him. Yet President Roosevelt and the Kaiser had a mutual regard for each other. Two years later Roosevelt visited Berlin, reviewed crack Prussian troops while the Kaiser's cameramen snapped pictures. On the back of one of them Wilhelm wrote: "Kaiser and Rough Rider review German Army—Old Peace-Bore Carnegie go way back and sit down."
Wilhelm did not want World War I, did his belated best to avoid it. The forces of German expansionism behind him, of European fear around him, were too strong for him to stay. The incident that brought it on seemed so slight that after Sarajevo he went off on a three-week cruise. He could not be bothered by Sir Edward Grey's proposal for a conference to avert war. Later he tried to avert Russian mobilization, but by then it was too late.
He failed as a warlord because he would not take advice. In 1916 he dismissed Admiral von Tirpitz, who advocated total submarine warfare. He persisted in believing that the U.S. would stay out; he was ignorant of the realities of U.S. foreign policy, or of how far across the world fear of the forces behind him extended. When he reversed his stand on the U-boat policy the U.S. was as good as in. Yet as late as January 1917 he was uttering a statement which, except for one phrase, would have been less a boast than a prophecy: "Ultimately all Europe, under my leadership, will begin the real war with England—the Second Punic War."
Before the next year was out his Imperial German High Seas Fleet had mutinied and revolution was spreading through Germany. The army was still loyal to him, and he might have turned it against the revolutionaries. As to why he did not, Winston Churchill has given the most charitable answer: he did not want to sacrifice any more lives to make a setting for his own exit. Wilhelm abdicated, fled to The Netherlands, there to live for nearly 23 more years.
An actor always, he grew a beard for the new part he was to play: that of a nice old country squire. He got up and walked before breakfast, read the Bible to his household, chopped wood for two hours, then went up to a little tower study, mounted a hobby horse with an old cavalry saddle and wrote manuscripts vindicating himself of war guilt. After lunch he napped, wrote some more, took a walk. At dinner everybody turned out in full regalia, and Wilhelm never wore the same uniform two successive nights.