This rich and compelling volume describes the life of Kaiser Wilhelm II from his birth in 1859 to his accession to the Prusso-German throne in 1888, a story so extraordinary that it will fascinate anyone interested in the psychology and the throng of personalities of the period. Its aim is to set the characters on the stage and let them speak for themselves, which in their letters and diaries the Victorians and Wilhelminians did with quite extraordinary clarity and persuasive power. The central theme is the bitter conflict between the handicapped Prince and his liberal parents, and in particular with his mother, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and the utter failure of a daring educational experiment intended to turn the young Prince into a liberal Anglophile.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941) was a key figure in German history as it followed its fatal course from Bismarck to Hitler, and this book presents a detailed account of the first half of his reign. Concerned primarily with the question of who controlled Germany's powerful machinery of government, the text focuses on how the country's domestic and foreign policy was decided upon, and the issue of the continuity (or inevitability) of German history from the foundation of the Second Reich by Bismarck to Hitler's Third Reich.

This final volume of John C. G. Rohl's acclaimed biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II reveals the Kaiser's central role in the origins of the First World War. The book examines the Wilhelm's part in the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, the naval arms race with Britain and Germany's rivalry with the United States as well as in the crises over Morocco, Bosnia and Agadir. It also sheds new light on the public scandals which accompanied his reign from the allegations of homosexuality made against his intimate friends to the Daily Telegraph affair. Above all, John Rohl scrutinises the mounting tension between Germany and Britain and the increasing pressure the Kaiser exerted on his Austro-Hungarian ally from 1912 onwards to resolve the Serbian problem. Following Germany's defeat and Wilhelm's enforced abdication, he charts the Kaiser's bitter experience of exile in Holland and his frustrated hopes that Hitler would restore him to the throne..