25 quotes
Intrigue is always at the bottom of all political activities.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
The logic of the machine checkmates its constructor and makes him its slave.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
His extreme vanity soon led him to imagine that he was really among the most remarkable of men.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
To Eulenburg Bülow owed his whole career—which, when all is said, remains the only statesmanlike one of the William the Second’s reign.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
Wealth, as such, impressed him deeply; his unromantic spirit respected this modern form of power—riches, no matter how acquired, were a sufficient attraction.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
His versatility turns out to be mere superficiality; his private life is narrowly watched, and the general conclusion is that he spends most of his time in amusing himself.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
The State has no higher purpose than the protection of its interests. These, however, for Great Powers, are not necessarily identical with the preservation of peace.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
His mother said: “Don’t for a moment imagine that my son ever does anything from any motive but vanity.”
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
All these blunders were, in war as in peace, the outcome of the deceptive selection and presentation of news.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
In only one respect were the Foreign Office and the Emperor completely in accord—each thought and said that the other was crazy.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
So in this matter also he attributed his own perfidy to others, vindicating thus his own political propensities.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
They did this on the contemptible pretext, pleaded by all unscrupulous and ambitious placemen, that the country stood in need of their services.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
The responsibility of the Sovereign was supreme, and as a consequence the whole extent of the various failures, or even the final defeat, is primarily attributable to him.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
A sacred duty is imposed by Heaven on us Christian Kings and Emperors—to uphold the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
William the Second was not equal to Fate’s crucial moments.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
A great and peaceable people, conscious of its subjection to a boastful little monarch, was obliged to pay for the claptrap of its vainglorious sovereign, who only degraded them with the title of Huns that he might ape an Attila.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
When so markedly egotistic a nature dominates a realm, the consequences can be nothing but catastrophic; and we are heading straight for a period which will decide whether the age or the Emperor is the stronger. I am afraid it will not be he.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
“Our policy”—so Brandenburg pronounces—“was a petty one, dictated partly by uneasiness, partly by greed and considerations of prestige. Once more, great perdurable things were forgotten in trivialities.”
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
When Lyncker at about this time took over the Military Cabinet, the Emperor said to him in a pathetically pleading tone: “But, dear Lyncker, you won’t bring me nothing but musty papers, will you? Now and again some funny little story or another!” This is a shocking example of his aversion from anything practical, for the speaker was a man of fifty, who still was called the young Emperor.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)
The Balkan War of October 1912 convulsed the European Powers. They all lied freely, differing only in the manner of it—which in Petersburg was brazen, in London cautious, in Vienna frivolous, in Berlin stupid.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern: The Last of the Kaisers (1926)