Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, 1797 - 1888, served on Blucher's staff at the Battle
of Waterloo, became Regent of Prussia in 1857 and King on the death of his brother,
King Friederich Wilhelm V, in January, 1861. He led Prussia and the North German
Confederation to victory over Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and
founded the Second German Empire in 1871. He has been overshadowed in history by
his brilliant prime minister, Otto von Bismark, who actually bullied Wilhelm into
becoming Kaiser, or Emperor, and his hapless grandson, Wilhelm II, who lost World
War I and the empire.
Wilhelm's primary interests were the Army and hunting.
He enjoyed boring everyone around him with endlessly repeated stories of his service
at Waterloo. Because of his military interests, Wilhelm was vilified by the German
liberals, and called the "gunpowder prince". He was actually very cautious,
unassuming, and unagressive. Wilhelm seems to have considered the Army to be, not
a tool of statecraft but his own personal collection of toy soldiers, and he didn't
want to take any risks with them. Bismark soon found he could push Wilhelm around,
and brilliantly maneuvered Prussia into confrontations with Denmark, Austria, and
France that Wilhelm would rather have avoided. The title "Emperor IN
Germany" was an insult to Wilhelm by Bismark. Bismark considered appeasing the
Austrian emperor, who had pretentions to the title "Emperor of the Germans",
more important than giving Wilhelm that title which he desired.
When Wilhelm
I died in 1888, his son, Friederich, the Crown Prince, lay dying of throat cancer.
Friederich III ruled only 90 days, and Wilhelm's grandson, a blustering, thoughtless
bully with an inferiority complex who had cruelly harassed his dying father to give
up his rights to the throne in his favor, became Kaiser Wilhelm II.
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