In March 1890, the young Kaiser dismissed longtime Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and assumed direct control over his nation's policies, embarking on a bellicose "New Course" to cement Germany's status as a leading world power.

Likewise, his regime did much to alienate itself from other great powers by initiating a massive naval build-up, contesting French control of Morocco, and building a railway through Baghdad that challenged Britain's dominion in the Persian Gulf.

[3] Observing her contractions to be insufficiently strong, Martin administered a dose of ergot extract, and at 2:45 pm saw the infant's buttocks emerging from the birth canal but noticed the pulse in the umbilical cord was weak and intermittent.

[5] Modern medical assessments have concluded Wilhelm's hypoxic state at birth, due to the breech delivery and the heavy dosage of chloroform, left him with minimal to mild brain damage, which manifested itself in his subsequent hyperactive and erratic behaviour, limited attention span and impaired social abilities.

[18] According to adherents of the "Bismarck myth", the young Kaiser rejected the Iron Chancellor's allegedly "peaceful foreign policy" and instead plotted with senior generals to work "in favour of a war of aggression".

They favoured making the anti-Socialist laws permanent, with one exception: giving the German police the power, similarly to the Tsarist Okhrana, to expel alleged Socialist agitators from their homes by decree and into internal exile.

Bismarck, feeling unappreciated by the young Emperor and by his ambitious advisors, once refused to co-sign a proclamation regarding the protection of industrial workers, as was required by the German Constitution, and prevented it from being made law.

In a deeply ironic moment, a mere decade after demonizing all members of the Catholic Church in Germany as (German: Reichsfeinde, "traitors to the Empire") during the Kulturkampf, Bismarck decided to start coalition talks with the all-Catholic Centre Party.

The Kaiser, who always had a warm relationship with Baron von Windthorst, whose decades long defence of German Catholics, Poles, Jews, and other minorities against the Iron Chancellor have since attracted comparisons to Irish nationalist statesmen Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell, was furious to hear about Bismarck's plans for coalition talks with the Centre Party only after they had already begun.

With Bismarck's dismissal, the Russians allegedly expected a reversal of policy in Berlin, so they quickly negotiated a military alliance with the Third French Republic, beginning a process that by 1914 largely isolated Germany.

Sulzberger for the book The Fall of Eagles, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, grandson and heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II, further commented, "Bismarck was certainly our greatest statesman, but he had very bad manners and he became increasingly overbearing with age.

[neutrality is disputed] Wilhelm wanted to preclude the emergence of another Iron Chancellor, whom he ultimately detested as being "a boorish old killjoy" who had not permitted any minister to see the Emperor except in his presence, keeping a stranglehold on effective political power.

The last Kaiser ordered the high command of the armed forces to read United States Navy Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan's book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, and spent hours drawing sketches of the ships that he dreamed of having built.

Thus, Thomas Nipperdey concludes he was: ...gifted, with a quick understanding, sometimes brilliant, with a taste for the modern,—technology, industry, science—but at the same time superficial, hasty, restless, unable to relax, without any deeper level of seriousness, without any desire for hard work or drive to see things through to the end, without any sense of sobriety, for balance and boundaries, or even for reality and real problems, uncontrollable and scarcely capable of learning from experience, desperate for applause and success,—as Bismarck said early on in his life, he wanted every day to be his birthday—romantic, sentimental and theatrical, unsure and arrogant, with an immeasurably exaggerated self-confidence and desire to show off, a juvenile cadet, who never took the tone of the officers' mess out of his voice, and brashly wanted to play the part of the supreme warlord, full of panicky fear of a monotonous life without any diversions, and yet aimless, pathological in his hatred against his English mother.

In South West Africa (now Namibia), a native revolt against German rule led to the Herero and Namaqua genocide, although Wilhelm eventually ordered it to be stopped and recalled its mastermind General Lothar von Trotha.

In the years 1906–1909, Socialist journalist Maximilian Harden published accusations of homosexual activity involving ministers, courtiers, army officers, and Wilhelm's closest friend and advisor,[56] Prince Philipp zu Eulenberg.

In his speech, he even made remarks in favour of Moroccan independence, and this led to friction with France, which was expanding its colonial interests in Morocco, and to the Algeciras Conference, which served largely to further isolate Germany in Europe.

He kept a low profile for many months after the scandal broke, although in July 1909 he took the opportunity to force the resignation of the chancellor, Prince von Bülow, whose defence of him in the Reichstag had been aimed primarily at shifting blame from himself for not stopping the publication of the article.

[67] The new admiral had conceived of what came to be known as the "Risk Theory" or the Tirpitz Plan, by which Germany could force Britain to accede to German demands in the international arena through the threat posed by a powerful battlefleet concentrated in the North Sea.

Naval expansion under the Fleet Acts eventually led to severe financial strains in Germany by 1914, as by 1906 Wilhelm had committed his navy to construction of the much larger, more expensive dreadnought type of battleship.

Wilhelm offered to support Austria-Hungary in crushing the Black Hand, the secret organisation that had plotted the killing, and even sanctioned the use of force by Austria against the perceived source of the movement—Serbia (this is often called "the blank cheque").

On the night of 30 July 1914, when handed a document stating that Russia would not cancel its mobilisation, Wilhelm wrote a lengthy commentary containing these observations:For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves—knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria—to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us ... Our dilemma over keeping faith with the old and honourable Emperor has been exploited to create a situation which gives England the excuse she has been seeking to annihilate us with a spurious appearance of justice on the pretext that she is helping France and maintaining the well-known Balance of Power in Europe, i.e., playing off all European States for her own benefit against us.

[83] The Kaiser's support base collapsed completely in October–November 1918 in the military, the civilian government, and in German public opinion, as President Woodrow Wilson made it very clear that the monarchy must be overthrown before an end of the war could take place.

The request for extradition will not be based on genuine desire on the part of British officials to bring the kaiser to trial, according to authoritative information, but is considered necessary formality to 'save the face' of politicians who promised to see that Wilhelm was punished for his crimes.

[90] Wilhelm first settled in Amerongen, where on 28 November he issued a belated statement of abdication from both the Prussian and imperial thrones, thus formally ending the Hohenzollerns' 500-year rule over Prussia and its predecessor state, Brandenburg.

Hearing of the murder of the wife of former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher during the Night of the Long Knives, Wilhelm said, "We have ceased to live under the rule of law and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and put them up against the wall!

But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics.In the wake of the German victory over Poland in September 1939, Wilhelm's adjutant, Wilhelm von Dommes, wrote on his behalf to Hitler, stating that the House of Hohenzollern "remained loyal" and noted that nine Prussian Princes (one son and eight grandchildren) were stationed at the front, concluding "because of the special circumstances that require residence in a neutral foreign country, His Majesty must personally decline to make the aforementioned comment.

"[102] Wilhelm greatly admired the success which the Wehrmacht was able to achieve in the opening months of the Second World War, and personally sent Hitler a congratulatory telegram when the Netherlands surrendered in May 1940: "My Führer, I congratulate you and hope that under your marvellous leadership the German monarchy will be restored completely."

Cecil concludes: Wilhelm never changed, and throughout his life he believed that Jews were perversely responsible, largely through their prominence in the Berlin press and in leftist political movements, for encouraging opposition to his rule.

For individual Jews, ranging from rich businessmen and major art collectors to purveyors of elegant goods in Berlin stores, he had considerable esteem, but he prevented Jewish citizens from having careers in the army and the diplomatic corps and frequently used abusive language against them.