Part Two: Kaiser Wilhelm: The Saddest Warlord In History

In Part Two, Robert is joined again by Jamie Loftus to continue discussing Kaiser Wilhelm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. I'm Robert Evans and
this is part two of our episode on Kaiservillehelm the
second um. Now, before we get into the episode, because
I think it's important that you know about the bastardry
being practiced by the hosts of the show, I need
to tell everyone that Jamie Loftus is dipping popcorn into
salad dressing. Okay, goddamn monster, I got fucking okay. First

(00:27):
of all, yes, that is an well. I got dragged
the last time I was on this show because I
mentioned that I dipped bagels and catch up and there
was all I said. That was fine. I'm okay with
the popcorn dipping into dressing. I think you have like
taste woods that need more I need I need. Yeah,

(00:48):
oh right, yeah I have. Um note, I have poor
people taste buds. I hope, I hope, very desperately Jamie,
that this makes you less judgmental of the Kaiser, because
I firmly believe that the millions he got killed in
the trenches of Europe and you dipping your popcorn into
salad dressing our equivalent crimes. They're okay, sir, I it's

(01:10):
this is your Battle of the palm. This is not ideal.
I would prefer to dip popcorn in soy sauce. There's
no soy sauce here. I go for salad dressing. Dipping
popcorn and soy sauce is your verdune. Here's the thing.
I like to make dry food wet. I can't explain why.
I'm sure it's a very fucked up motivation behind it.
But when a food is dry, I'm like, let's moisten
this up. Let's see what harribles. Horrible, It's good, horrible.

(01:35):
I've never been so proud to be your friend, Jamie.
Thank you so much. It actually I feel bad because
I'm sure the salad dressing is stinky. But but never nevertheless,
you're board. Yeah, there you go. Live your truth? Baby?
Does this make you uncomfortable? I was just gonna say,
speaking of living your truth, let's talk about what happens

(01:57):
when a profoundly damaged young man and becomes the King
of Germany and then gets a chance to live his truth.
I've got his birth chart up, let's figure this out.
Let's do it. What does it say about people of
his astrological sign leeving the Imperial German military. Well, um,
here's the thing. I did his natal chart, but that's

(02:17):
a little too complicated. What everyone needs to know is
he's an aquarious and uh inquiry and leaders. You know,
they're positive traits, they're open minded, right, they're creative. He
was an artist right there, free spirited, uh, negative traits,
really bad stuff across the board off for leaders, Impulsive, unpredictable, inconsistent, extreme,

(02:39):
and stubborn. So you know, it was foretold. I wouldn't
call him open minded in any way, but a lot
of that tracks. That's crazy. I feel like I'll get
dragged more for invoking astrology than I will for dipping
popcorn and salad dressing. And they're both horrible crimes against humanity,
you know what, To each their own. I'm living a

(03:00):
vile life over here now. The Reich that kaiserville Helm
inherited had been built and largely managed by Otto von Bismarck,
and above all else, Bismarck wanted peace. The system of
alliances he crafted for Germany were essentially again, like I
said that Era's version of mutually assured destruction, starting a
war with Germany would mean fighting with Russia too, and

(03:20):
Russia controlled a sixth of the planet's surface. This was
a pretty good system. While at lasted Bismarck was a monster,
but not a dumb man. Um knew what he was doing.
But Wilhelm came to power with distinct and probably agonizing
memories of his father's martial prowess and military victories. He
had been insecure his entire life because of his arm

(03:41):
and the complete lack of praise he received from hens Peter. Likewise,
his wife in Bismarck, had succeeded in inculcating a deep
antipathy of his parents and of England in him. Kaiserville
Helm the second. A concise life describes the mind side.
All of this resulted in once the young man came
to power and was given the world's most powerful land
army quote Prince Wilhelm's mindset on the threshold of succeeding

(04:03):
to the throne was characterized by bellicose ambition and contempt
for parliaments and political parties, indeed for civilians in general.
Britain must be destroyed was his watchword, and he was
already developing a passion for the idea of a strong
German navy. But Paris, too had to be destroyed. He railed.
Wilhelm was naturally very much in favor of war and
hopes it will break out soon. General Walders noted with

(04:25):
glee on twenty fifth January eighteen eight seven, under the
latter's influence, the prince also advocated war with Russia, that
young man once war with Russia and would like to
draw his swords straight away if he could. Chancellor Bismarck
recorded with Dismay in eighteen eighty eight. So, and to
be clear, he doesn't come to power until he is
nearly thirty years old. Um, is that right? So at

(04:47):
this point where like this is no, yeah, yeah, he's
a juvenile young boy who wants to have sex with
his mother's hand. This is a grown ass, petty man
who wants to have sex with his who wants to
have sex with his mother's hand. Of course, Now, Bismarck
was also deeply concerned about the young emperor's almost violent

(05:09):
hatred of Jewish people. This was the result of the
influence of one Adolf Vaughan Stoker, the court chaplain. Now.
Stoker was a member of the Christian Socialist Movement, an
anti Semitic far right party that also hated Catholics. Philhelm's
parents and grandmother had all been disgusted by discrimination and
had pushed to end it in their country, But Wilhelm
wanted to blaze a new, much more racist path, and

(05:31):
he was supported in this by the Prussian officer corps,
who were also thoroughly bigoted. The Kaiser and his new
allies wanted to keep the German race pure, stopped Jewish immigration,
and remove Jews from positions in schools and public office.
Before his ascension, Bismarck had rebuked the Prince for his
support of anti Semitism. This sparked a passive aggressive battle
between the two men. From vander Kiss's biography of Wilhelm,

(05:53):
when Bismarck had articles published in the official press taking
the religious conservatives to task for using Wilhelm, the latter
wrote petulently to hints Peter that he did not deserve
such treatment, as for the Chancellor's sake, he had for
years locked myself out of my parents house. And about
the same time, Wilhelm drafted a proclamation to the German
princes which was to be published in the event of
his session. Bismarck told him to burn it soaking Wilhelm

(06:16):
replied that when he came to the throne, he would
have all Jewish influence over the press. Stopped told that
this would be a violation of the Constitution, Wilhelm said
grandly that they would have to get rid of the
Constitution as well. It sounds like, yeah, if you look
up Kaiser Wilhelm Donald Trump, there's like a dozen different
articles that different people have written about similarities between the

(06:37):
two men um. I think, for one thing, I think
that's I don't entirely agree with that for a number
of reasons. One of them is that Wilhelm is an
infinitely more sympathetic figure than Donald Trump. Um. But there
are some similarities and that that that would definitely be
one of them. Oh wow, there's a whole there's a
whole goddamn New Yorker article. Yeah, there's a ton of

(07:00):
articles about the similarities between the two men um. Well again, yeah.
Wilhelm was fond of making these sorts of grand threats
and pronouncements like the one he made against Russia and England. Fortunately,
they rarely resulted in anything. He was easy to talk down,
and he was liable to balk at the last minute
from acting on any of his rhetoric, but the rhetoric
itself had a damaging effect on international relations. Wilhelm deeply

(07:23):
worried the rest of Europe when he made this pronouncement
to the people of Germany after taking the crown. We
were born to each other I in the army. We
were born for each other, and will cleave indissolutely to
each other, whether it be the will of God to
send us to calm or storm. You will soon swear
fealty and submission to me, And I promise ever to
bear in mind from the world above the eyes of

(07:44):
my forefathers looked down on me, and that I shall
one day have to stand accountable for them for the
glory and honor of the army. Also, why can't you
have sex with your mother's hand? That should be now?
The Kaiser no real military experience and no aptitude whatsoever
for warfare, but he felt that he had to portray

(08:05):
himself as a mighty war lord, in part because his
father and grandfather had been mighty warlords. That was kind
of pruscious whole deal. So to compensate for being just
a dude with a bad arm, Billhelm collected an absurd
amount of military uniforms. His cousin, the Queen of Romania,
wrote that he changed his uniform several times a day
as a smart woman changes her gown. Now, vanderkiss Her,

(08:29):
I know it's about to get embarrassinger because vanderkiss book
goes into detail about just how extensive Wilhelm's wardrobe really was.
In addition to his much cherished foreign uniforms, he had
a full one for every Prussian regiment over three hundred alone,
to say nothing of those of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemburg,
as well as navel and marine uniforms all had their
own individual badges, sashes, caps, helmets, epilepts, shoulder points, belts, swords, lances,

(08:54):
and firearms. The resulting wardrobe and armory had to be
housed in a hall containing huge wardrobes, with a camer
diner on duty from onning tonight to select the shortest
possible notice any outfit he might require. According to Anne Topham,
his daughter's governess, he cut a fine figure in military dress,
but in civilian clothes the effect was completely lacking. Many
German gentlemen lost much appearance when out of uniform, but

(09:16):
none to the extent that their emperor did. He no
longer had any shred of dignity, and curiously enough, that
charm of manner was also bereft of its influence, emerged
into what was an offensive wearisome buffoonery. He was wise,
she added, not to appear before his subjects except in uniform.
Oh God, I like how he's He's just like, how
could I possibly not be a war hero? Look at

(09:37):
all nice shirts? Like You're like, yeah, that's not how
that works. Pause. Pizza's here, so we're we're back. They
received pizza in the room and Jamie and I are
talking about all the articles comparing Kaiserville Helm to trump
Um and uh. One of the things I noted is

(10:01):
that like nobody ever really defends Kayserville. One of my
one of my weird hobbies is I like to go
on YouTube and I like to find collections of imperial
Prussian and Imperial British and Imperial Russian. Uh, like court music,
like military marches and stuff like that. And I like
to read like comments. Very weird. Yeah, I like to

(10:22):
read the comments because the comments are filled with monarchists,
with people who like desperately want to return to monarchy
in Europe. And they're all the saddest, dumbest people in
the entire world, and it's it's I like to read
their arguments between each other. But nobody ever defends the Kaiser. No,
that's that's textually. I mean, commenters will defend almost anything.

(10:45):
I like to go to the YouTube of like okay,
not the okay what am I saying? Okay, where you're
like looking for a specific song and so you search
it on YouTube and then you accidentally scroll down to
the comments and it's like something that's very depressing out
of nowhere. I forget what song I was looking at. Yeah,
but the top comment was like my husband died to
this song and and it's nice that it's on YouTube

(11:07):
dot com and it was like a dance song. But anyways,
I love comments. A story there. Where's the Wilhelm Hive,
Where's the will Hive? Yeah? They they are not not
buzzing um because he was really bad at his job
and even the dumbest people in the world monarchists can
recognize that. Now. As his reign began, the Kaiser fell

(11:30):
under the influence of a number of bad apples. Uh.
There was the anti Semite Stoker who we already talked about.
There was also Count Alfred Valan walder Cy, the deputy
chief of the German General Staff. Now, he was a
rapidly pro war nut funk who supported an immediate attack
against both France and Russia. Um, like this was advice,
we just invade them both simultaneously, right now? Um? Now,

(11:53):
when Bismarck heard about the growing friendship between the Kaiser
and walder Ce, he is said to have cried, alas,
my poor grand children. So Bismarck, being a smart guy,
pretty instantly realizes, like, oh ship, this dude is going
to plunge the whole continent into a stupid, stupid war. Um, boy,
was he right? He was not wrong. Like I said,

(12:14):
Bismarck is a very is a visionary. He's he's a
bad man, but he's a visionary and he clearly saw
what was going to happen. I hate when the bad
people are smart as well. Yeah, effectively bad. Yeah. I
mean in Bismarck's defense, like he was just kind of
kind of a sociopath, but he wasn't. Like his goals
weren't dominate Europe and put all the Jews in camp.

(12:35):
His goals were ensured Germany a place of prominence among
nations and stop a massive European war. And he did
gross and manipulative things to ensure that. But he wasn't
trying to like make the world worse. He wasn't doing
chaos for chaos's sake. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't like a yeah, yeah,
Like he just wants things to not break into a

(12:57):
war and he wants in Germany to be popular. Okay,
well he felt yeah, he definitely did. Didn't succeed in
the long run. Now, Count Uhlenberg, the Kaiser's best friend
and probable crush, also led to the Kaiser's break with Bismarck.
The Kaiser demanded that Bismarck promote the Count to the
position of Prussian envoy in Munich, which was a very
important job. Now Bismarck balked at giving this job to

(13:20):
an inexperienced friend of the Kings. The conflict between the
two men very much embodied a greater conflict within German governance.
A large chunk of the country, including Bismarck, wanted Germany
to be a proper nation state with rules and laws
and checks and balances. They weren't democrats, and I don't
mean that like the American political sense, I mean like
pro democracy sense, at least not all of them. But

(13:40):
they didn't want an absolute monarchy where the Kaiser's will
determined everything. The Kaiser, on the other hand, didn't really
see why other people should have a say and how
he ran Germany now. Bismarck warned the Kaiser that filling
government posts with his buddies would lead to a situation
wherein he couldn't actually trust any of his ministers to
give him good information, because they'd all be toady's at worst,

(14:01):
or his friends at best, and in any case, they
wouldn't be trustworthy to actually speak the truth to him
when the truth needed speaking. The Kaiser ignored Bismarck, and
over the next few years the positions of the ministers
and the reich Chancellor. Bismarck's job were demoted to what
role calls royal lackeys. So yeah yeah. Throughout eighteen eighty
eight and eighteen eighty nine, Bilhelm and Bismarck's relationship degraded.

(14:24):
Things came to a head in eighteen eighty nine when
a bunch of miners in the rural district went on
strike for better working conditions now here hins Peter had
what you would actually say as a positive influence. As
odd as it sounds, Kaiser Villehelm instantly sided with the
striking workers against their employers. Um. This caused another riff
between him and Bismarck, because Bismarck's again a piece of shit,

(14:45):
um chance Yeah, the the chancellor didn't give a funk
about the workers and obviously cared mostly about steel production
and his friends who ran the company's um. But you know,
the Kaiser stood for the working people, and on May
twelve he charged into a meeting the Prussian Ministry of
State and declared that Bismarck was wrong for not acceding
to their demands and declared the workers were his subjects

(15:07):
whom he had to look after. All right, yeah, this
is likely, Yeah, this one, this is good. Now Wilhelm
got his way on the rear strike, for they're frustrating
the Reich Chancellor. In the summer of eighteen eighty nine,
he took his yacht out for his first cruise across
Scandinavian waters. This became a yearly tradition when he kept
up for decades. On his first outing, he brought valder

(15:27):
C and Yuhlenberg with him. The latter was at least
a sane person who didn't support wars of aggression with
the rest of the world. But valder C was a
racist nut fuck, and during their vacation he convinced the
Kaiser that Bismarck was Jew ridden and had been conned
into giving control of the Reich's monetary policy to a
bunch of Jews. His crush, no, no, no, his crush

(15:49):
is a pretty reasonable guy. This is that racist general
who wants him to invade the entire world. The names
are so confusing, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, there's a lot.
Valder C is the racist general, Uhlenberg is his. Now,
so Waldersee convinces the Kaiser that Bismarck had been conned
into giving control of the Reich's monetary policy to a
bunch of Jews. This was a lie, but reality had

(16:10):
very little influence on the Kaiser. Now, this month long
annual cruise around the coast of Norway became one of
the Kaiser's favorite things. And I have to read you
vander kiss description of it because it sounds like the
worst time you can have on a boat. The annual
cruise or Nordland Rice, with its exclusively male company, allowed
him the Kaiser, to indulge in practical jokes and boyish tomfoolery,

(16:31):
like applying a foot to the backside of elderly aids
de camp engaged in physical exercises. Its purpose was originally
to give him a month long break from court life,
but in due course his doctor decided it was counter productive,
as he was physically and mentally upset by the long voyage, diet,
and exhaustion of various kinds, and it did him more
harm than good. His entourage soon tired of these cruises board,
if not repelled by the juvenile atmosphere and behavior of

(16:53):
the Kaiser and some of his officers, who loathed every
childish prank and moment themselves, but were too sycophantic to
say so. God, it sounds like it reminds me of
like that documentary where Jim Carrey goes method, where you're like, oh,
he's just a tyrant. He's been waiting his whole life
to get people trapped in this in this enclosed setting

(17:15):
to be horrible cool. Well, I'm glad you did Franks
on the set of his You wanna you want to
you want to go on a month long prank cruise
with the King Boy with the with the King Boy
who like has a god, imagine just having on a
cruise with him and all of his demons. That's wild. Guarantee.

(17:37):
He never didn't have an erection and he never knew
what it was for. Well, they mean he's just walking
around with a full erection all the time, Like, do
you guys know what? This is? Just kicking people in
the butt? I think, laughing hard as a kicking old
people around what. Okay, well he is officially um you know, well,

(17:59):
I mean he's just a bad He's a batman. He's
a creatively bad man in this case. Yeah, really really
punishing everyone around him in very specific ways. Yeah. Now,
in January of eighteen ninety, Wilhelm told his Crown Council
that he would celebrate his thirty first birthday with two
new proclamations, one to protect working people and limit their

(18:19):
labor hours, and another to call an international summit in
Berlin to improve labor conditions across the continent. So that's
pretty cool, right, yeah, labor crusader. I'm very surprised that
he is like gunning for labor like this. He well,
you know, one of the good things about hint Peter's
he had taken him around to all these factories and
minds and stuff when he was a kid. So the

(18:41):
Kaiser had seen like how tough life was for working people,
and he wasn't He's not like a sociopath or anything.
He had empathy for these people. So he did care
about people. Like he's not a monster. Um, he does
monstrous things, but he's not a monster. Now Bismarck thought
that the Kaiser's love of the working people was super dumb.

(19:02):
The two fought over this, and another fight broke out
in March of eighteen ninety when Bismarck entered into negotiations
with the leader of the Center Party. He's like, why
do you care about the poores? It's such a bad look.
They're the pores, man, Come on, or what what are
you going to get out of that? So Bismarck enters
into negotiations with the leader of the Center Party, a
guy named win Thorst, and their goal is to get

(19:23):
rid of bigoted, anti Catholic legislation in Germany. So again
Bismarck like is trying to fight against discrimination here. So
none of these sides are are simple. Here. Bismarck hates
working people but also hates discrimination. The Kaiser fights for
the working man, but gets furious about removing this anti
Catholic legislation because he's a bigot um. So they're just

(19:44):
like a stalemate. Yeah. Now he's particularly pissed that this
meeting between Bismarck and the leader of the Center Party
had been organized by Bismarck's banker, who was a Jewish man. Now,
to the Kaiser, this was confirmation that the Jews were
secret running his empire via Bismarck. God damn it okay? Next,

(20:04):
according to Kaiser ville Helm the Second a concise life.
Early in the morning of fifteen March eighteen ninety, there
took place one of the most highly charged scenes ever
played out in Berlin's center of government, the wilhelm strassa
Kaiser Willhelm the Second someon the seventy five year old
Reich Chancellor from his bed and upbraided him for receiving Windthorst.
He went on to a complain that Bismarck had dug
out a dusty old cabinet order of eighteen fifty two

(20:24):
that prevented the monarch from receiving ministers except in the
presence of the Minister President. He pre emptorily demanded that
the order to be rescinded, which Bismarck refused to do.
Wilhelm later recounted that Bismarck had become so violent towards
him that he was afraid the Chancellor would throw the
inkstand at my head. After this dramatic quarrel, waldr ce
urged the Kaiser in the presence of the chief of
the military cabinet. The sack Bismarck forthwith the present state

(20:47):
of affairs was quite untenable, he argued, and moreover, the
Chancellor was too closely allied with the Jews. Bismarck first
sent honk Is like military leader, and then the chief
of the civil cabinet, Herman von Lucanus, to the Chancellor,
ordering him to hand in his resignation, which Bismarck finally
did on eighteenth March eighteen ninety. If waldersee Is one
can safely assume expected to take Bismarck's place, he was

(21:09):
in for a bitter disappointment. That same evening, bill Helm
the Second announced the commanding generals assembled in the Berlinish
loss that in order to remain master of the situation,
he had to issue an order to the Chancellor insisting
that he submit. So the Kaiser accepted Bismarck's letter of uh,
you know, he's retired his retirement and made a guy
named capri V who was a lick spittle, um, you know,

(21:32):
the the new chancellor. So he he forces out the
guy who like the political cartoons in Europe at this
time are like, show the Kaiser on a boat kicking Bismarck,
the pilot of the boat off of the ship. Um.
And that's generally how this has seen. Germany has like
jettisoned its pilot in favor of the dumbest monarch in Europe,

(21:53):
the man. What a choice, What a choice. It's not great,
it's not great. I mean, there's no win scenario, but
they did seem to choose the losing er of the two.
They definitely chose the losing ist scenario. But you you
know what's not the losing scenario, Jamie, tell me the
products and services that support this show. Oh, it's true.

(22:15):
I love each and everyone, even especially the dick pills.
The dick pills especially and one of the behind the bastards.
Guarantees is that no more than seven percent of our
sponsors contributed to the outbreak of hostilities in World War One. Wow. Okay,
so that's a guarantee no other podcast will give you.
That's a little wiggle room. That's nice. That's nice up

(22:37):
to Okay, I'll crunch those numbers and then cancel you later.
Al Right, here's some ants now with bis Mark out
of Kayserville. Helm was the unquestioned chief power in Germany,
and this was not a good thing. Phil Helm was

(22:58):
bad at every aspect of a job, particularly diplomacy, and
for years the most he had been four years a
to anyone. Yeah. Now, he was convinced that his relation
to the other crowned heads of Europe and his personal
charisma would allow him to negotiate well with other nations.
The New Yorker summarizes his talent for this part of

(23:19):
the job. Thus, late quote, he called the diminutive King
Victor Emmanuel the third of Italy the dwarf. In front
of the king's own entourage, he called Prince later Csar
Ferdinand of Bulgaria Ferdinando Nasso, on account of his beaky
nose and spread rumors that he was a hermaphrodite. Since
Philhelm was notably indiscreet, people always yeah. Since Wilhelm was

(23:40):
notably indiscreet, people always knew what he was saying behind
their backs. Ferdinand had his revenge after a visit to
Germany in nine nine, during which the Kaiser slapped him
on the bottom in public and then refused to apologize.
Ferdinand awarded a valuable arms contract that had been promised
to the Germans to a French company instead. One of
the many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at,
despite all evidence to the contrary, was personal diplomacy, fixing

(24:04):
foreign policy through one on one meetings with other European
monarchs and statesman. This is one of the reasons people
compare him to Trump a lot. In eighteen ninety, he
let Laps a longstanding defensive agreement with Russia, the German
empires vast and sometimes threatening eastern neighbor. He judged wrongly
that Russia was so desperate for German goodwill that he
could keep it dangling. Instead, Russia immediately made an alliance

(24:24):
with Germany's western neighbor and enemy, France. A single negotiation
that's nasty. It's bad. VILLELM decided he would charm and
manipulate Zar Nicholas the Second, a ninny and a whimperer,
according to Wilhelm, fit only to grow turnips into abandoning
the alliance. In Nicholas told Wilhelm to get lost. The

(24:45):
German Russian alliance withered. So he comes to power and
within a couple of years scraps the alliance with Russia
and Russia immediately allies with France, which means that Germany
is now surrounded on both sides by enemies. So he
went from Germany's entire flank to the east being totally
protected by a military ally, to the nation being surrounded.

(25:09):
He's so bad at this, it's crazy at how I did.
Like the speed at which he's bad at it too,
Like is he not even a slow burned like I
do something shitty everyone Like he's just like expeditiously ruining everything. No,
he is a more stupid, faster guy. Um very much so,
the worst kind of person. Okay, Now, one good thing

(25:31):
you can say for the Kaiser is that he was
better than most modern governance that promoting gay people to
positions of high authority. The downside of this is that
these guys were all his friends and sycophants, and he
almost certainly had no idea they were gay. His best
friend Uhlenberg, of course, occupied high positions in the Reich,
but there were too many rumors about him for him
to be made chancellor. There were a number of like
they were, like trials and like news stories that would

(25:53):
come out. Um So the Kaiser promoted a dude named
Buelow for the job. A letter Buelow wrote in July
eight nine six shows that things within the German government
had degraded exactly the way Bismarck predicted they would quote.
I would be a different kind of chancellor from my predecessors.
Bismarck was a power in his own right, a pipin
a richelieu. Caprivi and Hohenlow regarded or regard themselves as

(26:14):
the representatives of the government and to a certain extent
of the parliament in relation to his majesty. I would
regard myself as the executive tool of his majesty, so
to speak, his political chief of staff. With me. Personal
rule in the good sense would really begin. I'm picturing
this is like an instagram caption Yeah, yeah, Pulo would
have been tweeting sycophantically about his boss in this modern era.

(26:36):
But he's like, he comes to power and immediately promises
I'm going to do everything the Kaiser says and not
represent the rest of the government in any way. Like
that's his promise and these things, that's a good thing.
In an eight letter to his mother, kaiserville Helm exulted
in his ability to gradually wear down the government of
Germany into acting as just an extension of his ego

(26:58):
forever and ever. He exulted in the letter to his
mother in there is only one real emperor in the world,
and that is the German, regardless of his person in qualities,
but by right of a thousand years tradition, and his
chancellor has to obey God. Leave your if nothing else,
leave your poor mother alone. Now you Lenberg, who'd put

(27:21):
blow up for the job, because Uhlenberg, there were too
many rumors about him being gay. Wrote the new chancellor
this advice for working under Kaiser Wilhelm. And again I
have to remind you this man loves Wilhelm right well,
I mean Wilhelm the second takes everything personally, only personal
arguments make any impression on him. He likes to give
advice to others, but is unwilling to take it himself.

(27:43):
He cannot stand boredom, ponderous, stiff, excessively thorough. People get
on his nerves and cannot get anywhere with him. Billhelm
the second wants to shine and decide everything himself. What
he wants to do himself, unfortunately, often goes wrong. He
loves glory. He is ambitious and jealous. To get him
to accept an idea, one has to pretend that the
idea came from him. Never forget that his majesty needs

(28:04):
praise from time to time. He's the sort of person
who becomes sullen unless he has given recognition from time
to time by someone of importance. You will always accomplish
whatever you wish, so long as you do not admit
to express your appreciation. When his majesty deserves it, he
is grateful for it, like a good clever child. If
one remains silent when he deserves recognition, he eventually sees
malevolence in it. We two will always carefully observe the

(28:26):
boundaries of flattery. I mean, who among us has not
worked for someone exactly like absolutely yes, I was working
for someone like this two weeks ago. Yeah, Hollywood is
thirty people like Wilhelm. Yeah, oh god, I mean, but
the fact that that's like one of his closest friends,
He's like, yeah, he's an absolute night marries, the worst

(28:49):
person I know. But also he's my closest friend, so
you know, I love him. Yeah, And the health insurance
is great, so put up with it. Yeah. Now, Wilhelm
had a bad reputation for basically aiding with whatever the
last person he talked to had said. Since a number
of his generals were warmongering racists, this was problematic. In
eighteen ninety six, the Kaiser impulsively sent to congratulatory telegram

(29:11):
to Paul Krueger of the Transvaal Republic South Africa for
his victory over a British raiding party. This is like
in the Bower War period. Now, the Boers are a
Germanic people, and there was great sympathy for them within
the Reich. But England was the world's pre eminent naval power,
and by sending this message, the Kaiser provoked rage from
a country he really needed to keep on his side,

(29:32):
since he'd already alienated Russia. Um, so that's not a
great move, like reaching out to the enemy of the
greatest naval power in the world being like, good job
killing some of their guys, Like it doesn't play well
in England again, petty, petty dumb, petty dumb. Now there
there were numerous other insults and slides like that. He

(29:53):
was Kaiser for like twenty six years before the war,
and this ship happened constantly. I'm just gonna you know,
I'm giving you a couple of example. Well, so you
know the sorts of ship he was up to. Bit
by bit, Wilhelm alienated basically all of Germany's allies. His
advisers and ministers, men like Buloh and Uhlenberg, proved unable
to do anything but praise the Kaiser and hoped to
calm him down and reduce his impulsive swings. They were

(30:15):
often unsuccessful. In nineteen hundred, the Boxer rebellion in China
led to the capture of a number of Europeans, including Germans,
in the city of pe King. Most of Europe's great
powers dispatched soldiers to deal with the situation. The Kaiser
was late in doing so, and his men arrived too
late to participate in the fight, but before they left,
the Kaiser insisted on addressing them personally with a speech

(30:36):
that made him the laughing stock of Europe. It ended
like this, should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated.
No quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken.
Whoever falls into your hands as forfeited. Just as a
thousand years ago, the Huns under their king Attila made
a name for themselves, one that even today makes them
seem mighty in history and legend. May the name German
be affirmed by you in such a way in China

(30:57):
that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross
it at a German. Now you've heard of like how
the Huns, like Germany were referred to as the Huns
in like World War One propaganda by the British and
the Americans and stuff. This speech is why this is
the Huns speech is what people call it. So they
were just getting they were just like roasting filam, indirectly exactly,

(31:19):
but pretty directly. Actually, yeah, I guess that's not even
a subtweet, because like this is seen as really silly.
For one, thing like beating China in this period was
not something to brag about like the European powers had
machine guns and like modern battleships and military tactics, and
the Chinese military just did not um and so it
wasn't really a fight. Um. Also, the Germans arrived too

(31:43):
late to participate in the fight. So this was both
seen as like a man child pretending to be a warrior,
but it was also seen as deeply worrying by the
crowned heads of Europe, the other leaders of the European powers,
because the Kaiser had Europe's most powerful army, and it's
not comforting to hear him say this ship. It's like
somebody with a huge gun collection talking about how he
could carry out a school shooting if he wanted to.

(32:05):
Be like, oh fuck, yeah, this this is a problem.
Maybe I should call the police, but of course there's
no police to call on the Kaiser. No. Don't you
love when someone's above the law and therefore thousands of
people have to die. But yeah, I'm so sorry. Yeah,
millions nations worth? Okay, Now, speaking of the army, they

(32:28):
were the only ones who really gained in power during
Wilhelm's reign. He had a habit of promoting generals to
ministerial positions. He liked being surrounded and consulted by them.
His appointees included General Alfred von Schlieffen, a military tactician
who developed an elaborate plan for how Germany could beat
both Russia and France and a European war. Wasn't it
like a five year plan? It was? What was the duration?

(32:48):
It was very quick. It was very happened in a
matter of months. So basically the idea was that you've
got you're surrounded now because Wilhelm fucked up and made
Russia an enemy, so Germany has to fight both ship
in France at the same time. So Schleepen's idea was
that the vast majority of the German's army, like two
or three million men would invade and conquer Paris very quickly.

(33:10):
Um and then you know, a small chunk of the
German army would hold off the Russian army in the
east until the rest of the army could be freed
up and sent by rail to go fight the Russians.
The only way for them to beat France quickly was
to bypass France's fortresses and like uh like defensive line
on the German French border. And invade through Belgium. Now,

(33:31):
this would necessitate Germany break like basically Belgium's and neutral power.
So this would like necessitate Germany launch a war of
aggression against a neutral power. And Britain had an agreement
with Belgium that they would defend them from this sort
of thing. So basically the nature of the Schleepen plan
essentially guaranteed that Britain would get involved in a war
between France and Germany. Um so it's not a great plan.

(33:56):
It's a very detailed and elaborate plan, but it's not
a good idea DIA and it's just like dot com article.
He's like, all right, here's what I want to do,
and everyone's like, um, well, at least he came up
with a plan. I mean, you could argue that it
was the best possible plan in the impossible situation that
Germany no, no, no, But like if you like, if

(34:19):
you have to try to beat Russia a sixth of
the world and France, the second largest military power in
Europe simultaneously, there's really no good way to do that.
And in in Schleifen's defense, this actually came very close
to working. Like Germany almost won World War One very
early on. They didn't in everything else that happened, have

(34:42):
you had to come to Schlepen's defense. In this way,
it's more just pointing out, like I think it's important
to note how powerful the German army was. The German
army essentially on its own because Austria Hungary was useless
and their allies, the Italians, turned their backs on them
almost immediately. So Germany on their own own conquered a
huge chunk of France, beat Russia, beat Romania, and conquered

(35:06):
the majority like almost one a war against the entire world.
And that's the force that this guy inherits, this like
young man with anger problems. So it's it's it's less
like a guy with a gun collection and a guy
with a new collection. Um like he's he that's the
power of the army that he he gets as birthright,

(35:26):
which maybe means you shouldn't get armies by birthright. Now
there's now there's something to think about. Hold on a second, Yeah, yeah,
so uh, it's a bad it's a bad idea. So basically,
the Sleeping Plan means that by necessity, there would be
no defensive wars for Germany under the Kaiser. So another

(35:48):
general close to the Kaiser was Helm with fun Moltka.
Moltka was one of the relatively few people who was
brave enough to criticize kaiserville Helm to his face. The
cause of his ire in the first case was the
annual German war games, particularly the fact that every year
they were arranged so that the Kaiser would win no
matter what he did. Von moltkea was convinced that the
next European war would be an enormous, bloody affair consisting

(36:11):
of millions of men and entire nations at arms. He
did not think set piece war games like Germany practice
were adequately preparing her for this sort of conflict. And
I'm gonna quote a passage now from von Moltka's memoires,
and this is him talking to the Kaiser. And when
I now look at the strategic war game plans which
are put before your majesty year after year, regularly ending
with the taking prisoner of enemy armies consisting of five

(36:33):
or six hundred thousand men, and that too after only
a few days of operations, I cannot avoid the feeling
that this in no way meets the conditions of war.
I cannot engage in such war games. Your Majesty knows
yourself that the army is led by you, regularly encircled
the enemy, and in this way allegedly in the war
with one blow. In my opinion, these results can only
be brought about by forcefully distorting circumstances in such a

(36:55):
way that the basic principle that the war games should
be a study for real war and should take into
a out all the friction and obstacles that arise in
war is not met. This kind of war game, in
which to a certain extent your Majesty's enemy is at
your mercy with his hands tied from the outset, must
give rise to false ideas which can only be pernicious
when war comes. But in my view this is not

(37:15):
the worst part of it. I hold it to be
even more disturbing that the distorted war games have the
effect of destroying their interest. For the wide circle of
officers involved, everybody has the feeling that it doesn't matter
what you do. A higher destiny controls the business and
brings it one way or another to the desired conclusion.
Your Majesty will have noticed that it becomes increasingly difficult
to find officers who want to exercise command against you.

(37:36):
This is because everyone says, I'll only be wiped off
the map. However, what I complain about most, and what
I must say to your Majesty, is that because of
all this, the officer's confidence in their supreme commander is
severely shaken. The officers say that the Kaiser is much
too clever not to notice how everything is arranged, and
that he shall turn out to win, so that must
be the way he wants it now. The Kaiser express

(37:59):
shocked to that things had been arranged this way, and
claimed to have no idea that the war games he
took part in every year were rigged. Honestly. Yeah, I
think he's just deluded. Yeah, I think that he. I mean,
it's like, given his upbringing and the fact that just
no one has ever pointed anything out to him in
his entire life, like it tracks that he's like, wait

(38:19):
a second, I'm not fucking the coolest person that's ever.
I'm not the best military leader in history, especially at
this point where he's been in charge for so long too,
Like no one has negged him in decades. Yeah, not
since Hince Peter, Yeah exactly. Uh yeah, And that a
great thing. From an early age, Wilhelm the Second had

(38:41):
been obsessed with warships like most boys, But unlike most boys,
he came up to own a nation, and he was
able to indulge in his obsession with naval boats. This
quickly became a problem. See England's thing was being the
best at having a navy. Since they were a tiny
country with a very tiny army, the Royal Navy was
really the only thing that ensured Great britain safety. Germany

(39:02):
was the unquestioned military master of Europe, and the only
reason that Britain didn't worry more was that they had
naval supremacy. But in eighteen ninety seven Wilhelm made an
admiral named Alfred von Turpet's the secretary of the Navy. Now,
his reasons for this were simple. Turpets was good at
praising the Kaiser and making him feel included in naval decisions.
Turpets had realized on their first meeting that the Kaiser

(39:25):
quote did not live in the real world, and had
discovered that he could very easily manipulate the Emperor by
painting a lurid picture of a gallant and unstoppable high
seas fleet. In eight seven, the year after the Kaiser's
disastrous Krueger Telegram where he praised people for killing British soldiers,
Germany passed its first naval bill, announcing a massive expansion

(39:46):
of the fleet. Coming a year after the Kaiser praised
one of Britain's enemies for defeating her soldiers, this was
not seen as a friendly move all right. According to
John sat a professor at the University of Virginia, the
Kaiser often indignantly denied that Germany was challenging Britain's domination
of the seas, but there is clear evidence that this
was in fact the aim of Admiral Alfred von Turpets,

(40:08):
whom he had made Secretary of the Navy in eighteen
ninety seven. When in nineteen o four Britain settled its
outstanding disputes with France, the Kaiser, at Bulow's suggestion, went
to Tangier the following year to challenge France's position in
Morocco by announcing German support from Iroccan independence. His hopes
of thereby showing that Britain was of no value as
an ally to France were disappointed at the nineteen o
six Algiers Conference, in which the Germans were forced to

(40:29):
accept French predominance over Morocco. In nineteen o eight, William
caused great excitement in Germany by giving, after a visit
to England, a tackless interview to the Daily Telegraph, telling
his interviewer that large sections of the German people were
anti English. He had sent the text beforehand to Buelow,
who had probably neglected to read it, and who defended
his master very lamely in the Reichstag. This led will
Help to play a less prominent role in public affairs,

(40:51):
and feeling that he had been betrayed by Buelow, he
replaced him with Theovold Bond Bethman. Holwig beth Man's attempts
to reach agreement with Britain failed because Britain would not
promised neutrality in a war between Germany and France unless
Germany would limit its fleet. This, the Kaiser interprets refused
to do. So, there's a chance to stop Britain from
coming in against Germany and World War One, but he

(41:13):
has to not build a shipload of boats. And the
Kaiser really wants a shipload of toy boats, I mean,
and he's one, and and again. You can track that
way the funk back. His man loves his boats. He
loves his fucking boats. Jesus. Now, that Moroccan crisis that
was talked about in the quote above very nearly resulted
in World War One breaking out in nineteen o six,

(41:35):
and in that case, the Kaiser and everyone were lucky
that cooler heads were able to pull Europe's fat out
of the fire. But the fact that things had gotten
that close was evidence that the Kaiser's utter lack of
competent ministers and gut focused foreign policy was basically the
world's deadliest game of dice. The series of bad decisions
that would lead the world into blood soaked calamity started

(41:56):
in nineteen o nine, when Austria Hungary announced the formal
annexation of Bosnia and Hurtzgovina. These provinces had been administered
by Vienna since eighteen seventy eight, but they were formerly
part of the Ottoman Empire. When the Young Turk rebellions
swept the Ottoman Empire and imposed a constitution on the Sultan,
Austria Hungary saw it as a chance to write what
they saw as a historical wrong. Now the Ottoman Empire

(42:19):
was allied with Germany, and that alliance was one of
Wilhelm's very few successes. But the Kaiser was unhappy with
the Young Turk Revolution because the constitution they forced on
the Sultan was made an imitation of Great Britain, and
Wilhelm took offense to this, backing Austria Hungary in This
was an odd decision, especially given the fact that one
of Wilhelm's later schemes was to try and win the
Muslim world over to his banner. And we're gonna talk

(42:42):
about that Before we talk about how Kaiser Wilhelm tried
to win over the Muslims. Let's talk about how these
products and services are going to try to win over
year dollars. Smooth transition as usual, Robbert may maybe my best. Yeah, products,

(43:04):
we're back now. We're talking about Kaiser Wilhelm's attempt to
make all the Muslims love him. Uh that that may
seem weird, but there's logic behind it. See, the British
Empire ruled a huge chunk of the Muslim world in
the French Empire did as well, and most of those
Muslims were unhappy with this fact. If Wilhelm could earn
their loyalty. He thought it would provide him with another

(43:24):
weapon to use against England. Friendship with the Ottomans also
helped counter Germany's isolation, which was only a thing because
ville Helms sucked at diplomacy. He said, this, and the
present very tense circumstances, when we stand almost alone in
the face of great coalitions which are being formed against us,
our last trump card is Islam and the Mohammedan world.

(43:45):
So Wilhelm saw the young Turks and their Anglo friendliness
as an attack on his hard won courtship of their empire,
so he threw them under the bus to support Austria
Hungary's ambitions. This trend of supporting Austria Hungary, regardless of
what it did, would prove to be all of Europe's undoing,
As Rolls Biography notes, from then onwards, Kaiser Villehelm ardently
supported his allies initiative, and as usuable overshot the mark

(44:07):
in his martial Enthusiasm on the possibility of war between
Austria Hungary and Serbia loomed, he exclaimed, if only it
would start. He was fully aware of the danger that
Germany could be drawn into a war against France and
Russia by a Balkan conflict. Thirteen years earlier, on November eight,
Philhelm the second had assured the Austro Hungarian ambassador, Count
uh let Us law Van, I'm not going to try

(44:28):
to pronounce his sucker's name, the Austro Hungarian ambassador quite
plainly that he would stand at Austria Hungary side with
all the forces at my disposal, without any further inquiry
as to whether there's any cause for war that exists
in our accordance with our Treaty of Alliance. Uh You're
all highest Sovereign France, Joseph may be quite sure that
if at any moment the position of Austro Hungarian monarchy
is an issue, my entire fighting forces will be immediately

(44:50):
and unconditionally at his disposal. So the Kaiser gives Austria
Hungary a blank check to do whatever they want. And
it's this would wind up probably being the key stake
most responsible for plunging Europe into the First World War. Yeah,
it seems to be the popular opinion. Yeah. Yeah. When
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian partisan in

(45:12):
the summer of nineteen fourteen, it made Austria's war against
Serbia inevitable. Russia was bound to come to Serbia's defense,
and the Kaiser had repeatedly promised loudly and publicly to
back Austria Hungary in any such war. Now, there's been
another Balkan crisis in nineteen twelve and thirteen that had
almost led Europe off a cliff into war, but again
cooler heads had talked things down this time. However, in

(45:33):
nineteen fourteen, there were fewer cooler heads available. For one thing,
the Kaiser's best friend, Yuhlenberg was no longer in the picture.
A complex blackmail plot, orchestrated in part by pro war
elements in the German government, had been executed against Yuhlenberg.
The chief cause for this was Uhlenberg's pacifism. Once he
was out of the picture, the Kaiser had no friends
close to him who actually cared about him as a

(45:55):
human being. Yuhlenberg was a lickspittle, but he was a
lickspittle who legitimately had Helm's best interest at heart and
didn't want a war. Sorry, can you unpack the term
lick spittle? Yeah, he's he's a sickophant. He's somebody who
just is going to praise the leader and not going
to question them too much. Is that your word or
is that someone else? No? No, no, no, no, that's
a that's a common word. Yeah, says from the I

(46:17):
learned it from the Simpsons. Says okay, Well, Finelenberg gone.
The Kaiser's next best friend was Prince max Egan of Boten,
who was closely related to the Emperor of Austria Hungary,
which of course had drawn the Kaiser close to the
Austrian royal family, which made him make more and more
dumb promises. I'm simplifying things here by quite a lot

(46:39):
because we only have so much time. But I think
this paints the essential picture of what went on to
bring pille Helm to a point where he was willing
to make these bad, bad, bad calls. I mean, it
is kind of remarkable, this hearing it all out in order,
Like how long a massive conflict was avoided? Like that's
there's been There's so many close scrapes before something actually
starts yep, yep, yep. And yeah, there were a lot

(47:01):
of other things going on. One of them was cold,
ugly math. The German general staff had this fabulous plan
cooked up by Schleief and to win a two front
war in Europe, and they kept careful tabs on both
the Russian and French armies, and they calculated that nineteen
fourteen was basically the best year possible for them to
have a war like this if it was inevitable, which
they thought it was because both nations had started revamping

(47:22):
their field armies. So this exact sequence of events that
led to the outbreak of hostilities in World War One
is too long a story to fit in at the
end of an episode, and kaiserville Helm's exact level of
blame is heavily debated to this day. Um Rolf's book
paints him as an eager belligerent wringing his hands in anticipation.
Um he was not excited for war precisely, but he
was excited for a major diplomatic victory that would humble

(47:45):
Russia in Britain without a shot being fired. Fighting, Yeah, exactly.
He understood fighting might result, and he was willing to
take that risk, but he didn't want it to come
to that. He attempted to mediate between Austria and Serbia
and was briefly optimistic of peace once Serbians yielded the
most of Austria's demands, but then his ally decided to
go to war anyway, and the Kaiser backed him. Still now,

(48:07):
vander Kiss's biography paints a more reticent picture of Wilhelm.
His belligerent words and threats of violence were the same
sort of impulsive passing fancies that had steered him his
entire life. He was a rich kid with poor impulse control,
but he ultimately didn't want war, and when it came,
he was horribly anxious over the whole affair. Writing years later,
Buello recalled no German, and above all, no English pacifist

(48:28):
was filled with a profounder or more honest love of
peace than was William the Second. It was his own
and our misfortune that his words and his gestures never
coincided with his real attitude in the manner when he
boasted or even threatened people in words, it was often
because he wanted to allay his own timidity. I think
that's right. He's like, he's an awkward, sad, insecure kid

(48:49):
who winds up boasting and threatening because he doesn't he's
fundamentally insecure, and because he's a crowned head of a nation,
it helps lead to war. I feel like, yeah, that
does like kind of the story of World War One
in a lot of ways, where it's like the the
you know, the social conflicts are generally directing stuff, but
then the funked up inbred leaders, are you know, able

(49:12):
to be manipulated accordingly? Yeah, and you know there was.
There was a big debate and has been for it
still continues as to who is responsible for World War One.
The nation of Germany was forced to take responsibility in
the Treaty of her Saille, which was not fair. Um,
Germany and the Kaiser are not mostly responsible for World
War One because there's so much blame to be shared

(49:32):
by different nations. But you could make a strong case
that the single individual with the largest share of the
blame is kaiserville Helm the second you can make that case. Yeah,
I mean, and it was like he was It feels
like his whole life is setting him up to do
this level of exactly you can see it coming from
so far away. It's infuriating. Yeah. Now, once war was joined,

(49:57):
the Kaiser was hopeful that it would be a short,
satively bloodless affair and would leave the overall map of
Europe relatively unchanged. He's not a Hitler type guy. He
doesn't want to conquer France, and he doesn't want to
own and hold Belgium forever. He wants to move through
Belgium and then eventually leave. He wants to beat France
in a war and then sign a treaty with them,
take a little bit more of their land, maybe, but
he wants France to still exist. He doesn't really want

(50:19):
to destroy England as a as a nation. He doesn't
want to conquer. He doesn't want to conquer the entire world,
you know, he just wants to He wants to funck
his mom, and he wants to be seen as a
military hero. I mean, don't we all in a way? Yeah? Yeah,
we all in a way do now. Vilhelm believed he'd

(50:40):
be able to arrange peace when it was necessary at
basically any point, by just working things out one on
one with his royal cousins. He noted that mere democracies
could never make a peace conference work because war was
a royal sport to be indulged in by hereditary monarchs
and concluded at their will. This was part of the
idea about war at the time time, which was that

(51:01):
war between kings never is that bad because kings are
all friends at the end, and you know, all soldiers
will kill each other for a while. But I don't
want you to lose your crown. I don't want things
to be that bad for you. We're just having a
spat and you know, once this has concluded satisfactorily, we
can go back to being friends. And then Bill hilps
idea at the start of this Yeah, well because he's yeah,
because he's like talking with his cousins, like it's like

(51:25):
being yeah, with just no awareness for the fact that
there is a rest of the world that this effects. Yeah,
and this is not how things worked out. Um. And
World War One was instant no, no, no, like a
quarter of a million Germans die in the first week
of fighting. Um like it's it's like hundreds of thousands
of people are dead as soon as the fighting starts,

(51:48):
and the Kaiser, you know, as the situation grows more serious,
the Kaiser is very quickly sidelined by his generals. He
actually had almost no role in the conduct of the
war throughout the vast majority of it. Um. It was
basically ceremonial you know, he'd address factory workers and soldiers,
and he's spent a lot of his time on vacations
at his farm. Germany increasingly became a military dictatorship, and

(52:09):
by the end of it, the Kaiser was as much
of a figurehead as the King of England. And of course,
when the war ended in Yeah, when the war ended
in German defeat in seventeen million deaths, Wilhelm the Second
was forced to abdicate and flee the country. He spent
the rest of his life in Dorn in the Netherlands,
living the quiet life of a country gentleman and a
global pariah until his death in nineteen forty one from

(52:31):
being old as shit in the end, I think the
best epitaph for this man was written by journalist Charles Lowe,
a foreign correspondent for The Times. He called Wilhelm quote
the chief creator of the war spirit which he found
it impossible to exercise or resist, and was thus, so
to say, devoured by his own offspring. For at the
last moment, when shrinking from the results of his own
creative handiwork, he allowed the sword in his own phrase,

(52:54):
to be thrust into his hand, which was just as
much as if he had drawn out of his own accord,
thus proving himself to be a weak willed and criminal ruler,
the most nefarious of his kind whoever sat upon a throne.
There it is that hand comparison again, Sorry to see it,
you hate to see it. The hand comes back to
the hands, always back to hands with this guy. Well, yeah,

(53:15):
you know what, what a coward that was set up
to be a fucking loser. That would cost millions of
people their lives. Yep, yep. And that's why monarchists to
the dumbest people in the world. Yeah, they're horrible in there,
and and I and I hate that. There's usually an

(53:36):
inn to feel kind of bad for them because you're like, oh,
you're well, why would you not be horrible monarchs like
monarchs themselves? Like I absolutely you have to have sympathy
for a guy like phil Helm because like funk Man,
there's no good ending to this story. But like the
people who want to go back to having a monarchy,
I baffles me. I can't figure out. I'm like, do

(53:57):
you just like tabloids? Like what you like fancy costumes?
That's what this ship's about it. I mean, like you
can still have that. There's a lot of people that
will wear a lot of fancy. You should just start
watching drag Grays. If you're a Marcist, just start watching
drag Grays gay like you'll you'll get what you want,
and so are you. I'm sorry, no, no, that's that's

(54:19):
the end of my call to action for the monarchists.
Has your level of sympathy or feeling about kaiserville Helm
changed at all over the course of these episodes, I
honestly my sympathy for him went up. Like I knew,
I knew. I knew that everyone, you know, all all
the monarchy like that were involved in the beginning of

(54:41):
World War One. We're dumb as rocks, you know. But
dumb is a bag of dead horses. But the but
the specificity of yeah, like how how that how they
even got that far is oh, it's it just sucks.
It sucks. I you know, he just wanted to his

(55:03):
mom to be in love with him. He just wanted
to fuck his mom's hand and get a metal. I
feel for her, and I feel for Germany and that, yeah, God,
that there I'm feeling. I'm not feeling as like indignant
and angry as I usually am. At the end of
this I'm just feeling empty. I feel like a husk, Robert, Yeah,

(55:26):
absolute husk right now. I watched an interesting movie on
Netflix last night called The Exception, which is based on
a book called The Kaiser's Last Kiss, and it's it's
a fictional story about a German s S officer who
is the head of Wilhelm's bodyguard when Germany conquers the
country where he's staying Um at the start of the

(55:46):
Second World War. And it's also about this like British
spy and it's the movie is more sympathetic towards Wilhelm
Um than I think the book is. The guy who
wrote the book had like has a very deep knowledge
of the man's Really it's a fun it's an interesting
book that I think gives a good a very fair
um like accounting of the man's personality and doesn't make

(56:10):
him into a demon or a good guy. He's just like.
One of the phrases that it says about him is
that he was half genius and half child. Um. Yeah,
and says he's there's another Do we feel he was
a genius in anyway? Is that? Is that? Do we
give him that I don't. I didn't see that. I

(56:30):
didn't see it. Yeah, I didn't see it. There were
some parts like his his understanding of labor rights and
like them, like that sort of thing, like he was
really good about certain things throughout his reign, but he
was on the whole not a good leader. But he was, um,
he wasn't. Like. The point this guy is making is
that the things about him that he wasn't smart about

(56:52):
led him to make a lot of his worst decisions. Mustache,
like I mean mustache. Yeah, And when you're full of
yes men, you know, when you're surrounded by yes men
who won't tell you you're dumbest shit, you end up
with that mustache and that life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's
there's there's a lot of good quotes in that book.
I mean, I'm reading the book right now and it's fun. Um,

(57:14):
so maybe check that out if you want more Kaiser
Vilhelm in your life. Um, that's a hard he if
you'll pardon the phrase, he drew a rough hand in life.
Oh don't say, don't mention hands in front of him.
He loses it and then he played that hand for

(57:35):
shit God, and then he's just like shaking his operational
fist at the sky. You hate to see it. He
might be the worst at a job that anyone's ever been. Yeah,
like really really bad. Why you shouldn't just be given
the most consequential jobs, not a job that should have existed. Nope,

(57:58):
certainly not and you get the fielding. If he'd been
a ceremonial monarch like the King of England is today,
he'd been great at it. He loved marching around and
wearing uniforms, outfit like outfits on Instagram monarch. He would
have been very happy if he'd never had to make
a real decision. He if he was just posting fit
checks every day, like he would be happy as a

(58:21):
little clam first posting about the Russian Army. Fine about
his mom, Yeah, just another pick of me and mama.
Uh yeah no. But you know, you know, monarchists, Um,
you're idiots, you're dumb, you're unnoticed. See in the comments section. Yeah,

(58:43):
we're going to really bring the monarchist listeners behind the
bastards out of the world work. Yeah, it's one of
those things. I had this opinion before I started doing
this research that kings were basically the same as dictators.
Um and I don't feel that way anymore, in part
because of all this reading about how hopelessly everyone watched

(59:05):
this guy slouched towards being in power and couldn't stop it,
which like a dictator sees his power generally um and
like there's not really a question about it, Like they
take the power and even if everyone, like a lot
of people know they're bad at it, like they take it.
Whereas with this everyone's like, yeah, this guy's going to
be a disaster, too bad, there's nothing to do about it, right.

(59:25):
That's the thing is, Like it seems like if he
had had been if he had been given away out
or that wouldn't have resulted in an eternal shame upon
him and his family, he absolutely would have taken it
if he could still have been the Kaiser, but not
have had to make Maybe I don't know, prins he
just wanted to be a fashion king. Yeah, I do

(59:45):
think he wanted he wanted to be a military power
too though, and like I don't think he wanted to
in that. I don't think it was inherently a military
kind of guy, but because his whole family had raised
him to believe that it's shameful to be a Prussian
and not be a great warrior. Yeah, like, yeah, it's fucked, man,
it's a bummer of a story. It's it's definitely fucked.

(01:00:06):
I hate that. I feel for him, but you kind
of can't. And it doesn't mean he didn't get millions
of people killed and isn't a piece of shit, But
like it also means that, like, well, fuck you. You
plug anybody into that job with that kind of upbringing,
how how does it end well? How does Yeah? It's
as I blame society, Robert, I blame very specific assholes,

(01:00:32):
not society in general. I blame a bunch of people society,
that's my whole point. I blame George Hints, Peter, Queen Victoria, Uh,
the Empariss, Augusta Um and a couple of other terrible
assholes and some bad, bad doctors. I blame that the

(01:00:54):
doctor's Oh, I blame the arms stretcher. Whoever made that
stretch that didn't they really have a lot to answer for,
all right, And it didn't work, first of all, and
second of all, it was deeply humiliating, and and you
can sort of trace the death of many people to
the humiliation from the arms stretcher. So um by an

(01:01:16):
arms stretcher. By the way, this podcast is supported by
arm stretch. Ad came on for an arms stretcher right now, child,
the Prince of Prussia is his arm g strate out
of course, good lord boy, yeah he is. You do
have to You can't really understand him, nless you understand

(01:01:36):
that he was also a disabled man who was abused
by a bigoted medical establishment, right and and there was
like no option or ability for him to be accepted
as as he was. It's yeah, it sucks. It fucking sucks.
You know, it doesn't suck. Jamie what you're that's well,

(01:01:59):
wait and see getting they're great. Um. You can follow
me on Twitter at Jamie christ or no, at Jamie
Lofta's help. Uh, you can listen to I'm releasing a
short form podcast called My Year in MENSA that's about
my horrible year in the MENSA organization. So excited. I'm
very Robert your voice is in it. I was editing

(01:02:22):
it in just yesterday. It comes out on Thanksgiving. It's
a full blown nightmare. I hope people listen to it.
And uh, yeah, then you can listen to the Bechtel
Cast every Thursday and that's and those are my plugies.
Listen to the Bechtel Cast, Listen to My Year in Mensa,
which is Jamie's year in Mensa, not my year, not
your year. But you know you could if you wanted to,

(01:02:44):
but you know, yeah, I no, no, I could not. Um.
Find us on the internet behind the bastards dot com
or we'll love all the sources for this. Find us
on Twitter and Instagram at at bastards pod um and
find some room in your heart to buy a next
stretching machine. Or the young infant child in your life
today and I'm sure they grow up just like the Kaiser.

(01:03:04):
I gotta go get a stretch in right now, right
after I write my mom the scariest letter I've ever
wrote in my life. Everybody write your mom's about their sexy,
sexy hands. Everyone writing about their mom's sexy hands. No shame,
just don't hit scent. It's it's that robbery throws shaming
people horny for their mom's hands. I'm a little more

(01:03:25):
open minded. That's the fucking episode by you