Speaker 1: A media. Hey, motherfucky's and motherfuck ats. Wow, that's not
Speaker 1: how I should introduce this anyway. Hello everybody, Robert here,
Speaker 1: and this is our last week of what you might
Speaker 1: call him rerun episodes. We are still on vacation here
Speaker 1: at Cool Zone, having a great time. Actually not on vacation.
Speaker 1: We were on vacation, but this is the week where
Speaker 1: I have to write so that we can catch up
Speaker 1: and have episodes for you all in the new year.
Speaker 1: But you know, because I have one more week of
Speaker 1: blessed relative freedom, here's another fucking rerun. Enjoy it. I
Speaker 1: love you. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. I'm Robert
Speaker 1: Evans and this is part two of our episode on
Speaker 1: Kaiservillehelm the second. Now, before we get into the episode,
Speaker 1: because I think it's important that you know about the
Speaker 1: bastardry being practiced by the host of this show, I
Speaker 1: need to tell everyone that Jamie Loftus is dipping popcorn
Speaker 1: into salad dressing. Okay, goddamn monster, I.
Speaker 2: Got fucking Okay. First of all, yes, that is what
Speaker 2: I'm doing.
Speaker 3: Well, I got dragged the last time I was on
Speaker 3: this show because I mentioned that I dipped bagels in
Speaker 3: ketchup and there was a lot.
Speaker 1: I said that was fine.
Speaker 2: I'm okay with the popcorn dipping into dressing.
Speaker 3: I am not okay with support you because I know
Speaker 3: you have like taste buds that.
Speaker 2: Need more I need I need. Yeah, oh right, yeah
Speaker 2: I have not. I have poor people taste buds.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope, very desperately Jamie, that this makes
Speaker 1: you less judgmental of the Kaiser, because I firmly believe
Speaker 1: that the millions he got killed in the trenches of
Speaker 1: Europe and you dipping your popcorn into salad dressing are
Speaker 1: equivalent crimes.
Speaker 3: They're okay, sir, I it's this.
Speaker 1: Is your battle of the somme.
Speaker 3: This is not ideal. I would prefer to dip popcorn
Speaker 3: in soy sauce.
Speaker 2: There's no soy sauce here. I go for salad dressing.
Speaker 1: Dipping popcorn and soy sauce is your verdune.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
Speaker 3: I like to make dry food wet. I can't explain why.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's a very fucked up motivation behind it.
Speaker 3: But when a food is dry, I'm like, let's moisten
Speaker 3: this up. Let's see what.
Speaker 1: Horrible good, horrible it's good, horrible.
Speaker 2: I've never been so proud to be your friend, Jamie.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It actually I feel bad because I'm sure the solad
Speaker 3: dressing is stinky.
Speaker 2: But no. But nevertheless, I'm ah, there you go, live
Speaker 2: your truth? Baby? Does this make you uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, speaking of living your truth,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what happens when a profoundly damaged young
Speaker 1: man becomes the King of Germany and then gets a
Speaker 1: chance to live his truth.
Speaker 2: I've got his birth chart up. Well, let's figure this out.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: What does it say about people of his astrological sign well,
Speaker 1: beaving the Imperial German military.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing. I did his name chart, but
Speaker 3: that's a little too complicated. What everyone needs to know
Speaker 3: is he's an Aquarius and aquarian leaders you know, they're
Speaker 3: positive traits. They're open minded, right, they're creative. He was
Speaker 3: an artist, right, they're free spirited. Negative traits really bad
Speaker 3: stuff across the board of fur leaders, impulsive, unpredictable, inconsistent, extreme,
Speaker 3: and stubborn.
Speaker 2: So you know it was Foetold.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call him open minded in any way, but
Speaker 1: a lot of that tracks that's crazy.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'll get dragged more for invoking astrology
Speaker 3: than i will for dipping popcorn and salad dressing.
Speaker 1: I know they're both horrible crimes against humanity, you.
Speaker 2: Know what, to each their own. I'm living a very
Speaker 2: vile life over here now.
Speaker 1: The Reich that kaiserville Heilm inherited had been built and
Speaker 1: largely managed by Auto von Bismarck, and above all else,
Speaker 1: Bismarck wanted peace. The system of alliances he crafted for
Speaker 1: Germany were essentially again like I said that Era's version
Speaker 1: of mutually assured distry production. Starting a war with Germany
Speaker 1: would mean fighting with Russia too, and Russia controlled a
Speaker 1: sixth of the planet's surface. This was a pretty good
Speaker 1: system while it lasted. Bismarck was a monster, but not
Speaker 1: a dumb man. Knew what he was doing. But Wilhelm
Speaker 1: came to power with distinct and probably agonizing memories of
Speaker 1: his father's marshal prowess and military victories. He had been
Speaker 1: insecure his entire life because of his arm and the
Speaker 1: complete lack of praise he received from Henspeter. Likewise, his
Speaker 1: wife and Bismarck had succeeded in inculcating a deep antipathy
Speaker 1: of his parents and of England in him. Kaiser Wilhelm
Speaker 1: the second, A concise life, describes the mind sight All
Speaker 1: of this resulted in once the young man came to
Speaker 1: power and was given the world's most powerful land army. Quote.
Speaker 1: Prince Wilhelm's mindset on the threshold of succeeding to the
Speaker 1: throne was characterized by bellicose ambition and contempt for parliaments
Speaker 1: and political parties, indeed for civilians in general. Britain must
Speaker 1: be destroyed was his watchword, and he was already developing
Speaker 1: a passion for the idea of a strong German navy.
Speaker 1: But Harris too had to be destroyed, he railed. Wilhelm
Speaker 1: was naturally very much in favor of war and hopes
Speaker 1: it will break out soon. General walderc noted with Lee
Speaker 1: on twenty fifth January eighteen eighty seven, under the latter's influence,
Speaker 1: the Prince also advocated war with Russia. That young man
Speaker 1: wants war with Russia and would like to draw his
Speaker 1: swords straight away if he could. Chancellor Bismarck recorded with
Speaker 1: Dismay in eighteen eighty eight, so.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, he doesn't come to power until
Speaker 3: he is nearly thirty years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that right?
Speaker 2: So at this point where like this is no long term.
Speaker 1: Tartenty nine, Yeah, yeah, he's not a lot anymore.
Speaker 3: A juvenile young boy who wants to have sex with
Speaker 3: his mother's hand. This is a grown ass, petty man.
Speaker 1: Who wants to have sex with his who wants.
Speaker 2: To have sex with his mother's hand, of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Now, Bismarck was also deeply concerned about the
Speaker 1: young emperor's almost violent hatred of Jewish people. This was
Speaker 1: the result of the influence of one Adolph von Stoker,
Speaker 1: the court chaplain. Now. Stoker was a member of the
Speaker 1: Christian Jinn's Socialist movement, an anti Semitic far right party
Speaker 1: that also hated Catholics. Wilhelm's parents and grandmother had all
Speaker 1: been disgusted by discrimination and had pushed to end it
Speaker 1: in their country, But Wilhelm wanted to blaze a new,
Speaker 1: much more racist path, and he was supported in this
Speaker 1: by the Prussian officer corps, who were also thoroughly bigoted.
Speaker 1: The Kaiser and his new allies wanted to keep the
Speaker 1: German race pure, stop Jewish immigration, and remove Jews from
Speaker 1: positions in schools in public office. Before his ascension, Bismarck
Speaker 1: had rebuked the Prince for his support of anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: This sparked a passive aggressive battle between the two men.
Speaker 1: From vander Kiss's biography of Wilhelm, when Bismarck had articles
Speaker 1: published in the official press taking the religious conservatives to
Speaker 1: task for using Vilhelm, the latter wrote petulantly to Hinzpeter
Speaker 1: that he did not deserve such treatment, as for the
Speaker 1: Chancellor's sake, he had for years locked myself out of
Speaker 1: my parents' house. And about the same time, Wilhelm drafted a
Speaker 1: proclamation to the German princes which was to be published
Speaker 1: in the event of his accession. Bismarck told him to
Speaker 1: burn it. Sulking, Wilhelm replied that when he came to
Speaker 1: the throne, he would have all Jewish influence over the press. Stopped.
Speaker 1: Told that this would be a violation of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: Wilhelm said grandly that they would have to get rid
Speaker 1: of the constitution as well.
Speaker 2: Sounds like someone we know, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: If you look up Kaiser Wilhelm Donald Trump, there's like
Speaker 1: a dozen different articles that different people have written about
Speaker 1: similarities between the two men. I think, for one thing,
Speaker 1: I think that's I don't entirely agree with that for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. One of them is that Wilhelm
Speaker 1: is an infinitely more sympathetic figure than Donald Trump, right,
Speaker 1: But there are some similarities, and that that would definitely
Speaker 1: be one of them.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, there's a whole there's a whole goddamn New
Speaker 3: Yorker article.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a ton of articles about the similarities between
Speaker 1: the two men. Well, I'm again. Yeah. Vilhelm was fond
Speaker 1: of making these sorts of grand threats and pronouncements, like
Speaker 1: the one he made against Russia and England. Fortunately, they
Speaker 1: rarely resulted in anything. He was easy to talk down,
Speaker 1: and he was liable to balk at the last minute
Speaker 1: from acting on any of his rhetoric, but the rhetoric
Speaker 1: itself had a damaging effect on international relations. Wilhelm deeply
Speaker 1: worried the rest of Europe when he made this pronouncement
Speaker 1: to the people of Germany after taking the crown. We
Speaker 1: were born to each other, I and the army, we
Speaker 1: were born for each other and will cleave indissolubly to
Speaker 1: each other. Whether it be the will of God to
Speaker 1: send us to calm or storm, you will soon swear
Speaker 1: fealty and submission to me. And I promise ever to
Speaker 1: bear in mind from the world above, the eyes of
Speaker 1: my forefathers looked down on me, and that I shall
Speaker 1: one day have to stand accountable for them for the
Speaker 1: glory and honor of the army.
Speaker 2: Also, why can't you have sex with your mother's hand?
Speaker 2: That should be legal? TTYL.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm, now the Kaiser, had no real military experience and
Speaker 1: no aptitude whatsoever for warfare, but he felt that he
Speaker 1: had to portray himself as a mighty warlord, in part
Speaker 1: because his father and grandfather had been mighty warlords. That
Speaker 1: was kind of Prussia's whole deal. So to compensate for
Speaker 1: being just a dude with a bad arm, Wilhelm collected
Speaker 1: an absurd amount of military uniforms. His cousin, the Queen
Speaker 1: of Romania, wrote that he changed his uniform several times
Speaker 1: a day as a smart woman changes her gown. Now, Vanderkisser,
Speaker 1: I know it's about to get embarrassing her, because Vanderkiss's
Speaker 1: book goes into detail about just how extensive Wilhelm's wardrobe
Speaker 1: really was. In addition to his much cherished foreign uniforms.
Speaker 1: He had a full one for every Prussian regiment over
Speaker 1: three hundred alone, to say nothing of those of Bavaria, Saxony,
Speaker 1: and Wurtemberg, as well as naval and marine uniforms all
Speaker 1: had their own individual badges, sashes, caps, helmets, epaulets, shoulder points, belts, swords, lences,
Speaker 1: and firearms. The resulting wardrobe and armory had to be
Speaker 1: housed in a hall containing huge wardrobes, with a cammerdiner
Speaker 1: on duty from morning to night to select the shortest
Speaker 1: possible notice any out that he might require. According to
Speaker 1: Anne Topham, his daughter's governess, he cut a fine figure
Speaker 1: in military dress, but in civilian clothes the effect was
Speaker 1: completely lacking. Many German gentlemen lost much appearance when out
Speaker 1: of uniform, but none to the extent that their emperor did.
Speaker 1: He no longer had any shred of dignity, and curiously enough,
Speaker 1: that charm of manner was also bereft of its influence
Speaker 1: and merged into what was an offensive wearisome buffoonery. He
Speaker 1: was wise, she added, not to appear before his subjects
Speaker 1: except in uniform.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I like, he's just like, how could I
Speaker 3: possibly not be a War Hero look at all my
Speaker 3: shirts like you're like, yeah, that's not how that works.
Speaker 1: Pause, Pizza's here, so we're back. They received pizza in
Speaker 1: the room and Jamie and I are talking about all
Speaker 1: the articles comparing Kaiservillehelm to Trump, and one of the
Speaker 1: things I noted is that like, nobody ever really defends
Speaker 1: kaiserville Helm. One of my one of my weird hobbies
Speaker 1: is I like to go on YouTube and I like
Speaker 1: to find collections of imperial Prussian and Imperial British and
Speaker 1: Imperial Russian, like court music, like military marches and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and I like to relive comments.
Speaker 2: Very weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I like to read the comments because the
Speaker 1: comments are filled with monarchists, with people who like desperately
Speaker 1: want to return to monarchy in Europe, and they're all
Speaker 1: the saddest, dumbest people in the entire world. And it's
Speaker 1: it's I like to read their arguments between each other.
Speaker 1: But nobody ever defends the Kaiser.
Speaker 2: No, that's good, that's tical.
Speaker 3: I mean, commenters will defend almost anything that's immat Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like to go to the youtubes. It's like, oh
Speaker 2: not the Okay, what am I saying?
Speaker 3: Okay, where you're like looking for a specific song, and
Speaker 3: so you search it on YouTube and then you accidentally
Speaker 3: scroll down to the comments and it's like something that's
Speaker 3: very depressing out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: I forget what song I was looking at recently.
Speaker 3: But the top comment was like, my husband died to
Speaker 3: this song and it's nice that it's on YouTube dot
Speaker 3: com and it was like a dance song.
Speaker 2: But anyways, I love comments.
Speaker 1: There's a story there.
Speaker 2: Where's the Wilhelm Hive, where's the will Hive?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are not buzzing because he was really bad
Speaker 1: at his job, and even the dumbest people in the
Speaker 1: world monarchists can recognize that. Now, as his reign began,
Speaker 1: the Kaiser fell under the influence of a number of
Speaker 1: bad apples. There's the anti Semite Stoker, who we already
Speaker 1: talked about. There was also Count Alfred Voan Waldersey, the
Speaker 1: deputy chief of the German General Staff. Now, he was
Speaker 1: a rabidly pro war nutfuck who supported an immediate attack
Speaker 1: against both France and Russia. Like this was his advice,
Speaker 1: we just invade them both simultaneously, right now.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: When Bismarck heard about the growing friendship between the Kaiser
Speaker 1: and Valderc. He is said to have cried, alas my
Speaker 1: poor grandchildren. So Bismarck, being a smart guy, pretty instantly
Speaker 1: realizes like, oh shit, this dude is going to plunge
Speaker 1: the whole continent into a stupid, stupid war.
Speaker 2: Boy, was he right?
Speaker 1: He was not wrong. Like I said, Bismarck is a
Speaker 1: very is a visionary. He's a man, but he's a
Speaker 1: visionary and he clearly saw what was going to happen.
Speaker 2: I hate when the bad people are smart as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're more effectively bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean in Bismarck's defense, like he was just kind
Speaker 1: of kind of associopath, but he wasn't bad. And like,
Speaker 1: his goals weren't dominate Europe and put all the Jews
Speaker 1: in camp. His goals were insured Germany a place of
Speaker 1: prominence among nations and stop a massive European war. And
Speaker 1: he did gross and manipulative things to ensure that. But
Speaker 1: he wasn't trying to like make the world worse.
Speaker 2: He wasn't doing chaos for chaos's sake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he wasn't like a yeah yeah, his goal
Speaker 1: in the like he just wants things to not break
Speaker 1: into a war and he wants Germany to be popular. Okay,
Speaker 1: well he felt yeah, he definitely did, didn't succeed in
Speaker 1: the long run. Now, Count Eulenberg, the Kaiser's best friend
Speaker 1: and probable crush, also led to the Kaiser's break with Bismarck.
Speaker 1: The Kaiser demanded that a Bismarck promote the Count to
Speaker 1: the position of Prussian envoy in Munich, which was a
Speaker 1: very important job. Now Bismarck balked at giving this job
Speaker 1: to an inexperienced friend of the Kings. The conflict between
Speaker 1: the two men very much embodied a greater conflict within
Speaker 1: German governance. A large chunk of the country, including Bismarck,
Speaker 1: wanted Germany to be a proper nation state with rules
Speaker 1: and laws and checks and balances. They weren't democrats, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean that like the American political since, I
Speaker 1: mean like pro democracy, since at least not all of them.
Speaker 1: But they didn't want an absolute monarchy where the Kaisers
Speaker 1: will determined everything. The Kaiser, on the other hand, didn't
Speaker 1: really see why other people should have a say and
Speaker 1: how he ran Germany. Now, Bismarck warned the Kaiser that
Speaker 1: filling government posts with his buddies would lead to a
Speaker 1: situation wherein he couldn't actually trust any of his ministers
Speaker 1: to give him good information because they'd all be toadies
Speaker 1: at worst, or his friends at best, and in any case,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be trustworthy to actually speak the truth to
Speaker 1: him when the truth needed speaking. The Kaiser ignored Bismarck,
Speaker 1: and over the next few years the positions of the
Speaker 1: ministers and the reich Chancellor. Bismarck's job were demoted to
Speaker 1: what role calls royal lab Oh so yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Throughout eighteen eighty eight and eighteen eighty nine, Wilhelm and
Speaker 1: Bismarck's relationship degraded. Things came to a head in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine when a bunch of miners in the Ruher
Speaker 1: district went on strike for better working conditions. Now Here
Speaker 1: Hinspeter had what you would actually say is a positive influence.
Speaker 1: As odd as it sounds, Kaiser Wilhelm instantly sided with
Speaker 1: the striking workers against their employers. This caused another rift
Speaker 1: between him and Bismarck, because Bismarck's again a piece of
Speaker 1: shit and a chance they didn't but yeah, the Chancellor
Speaker 1: didn't give a fuck about the workers, and obviously cared
Speaker 1: mostly about steel production and his friends who ran the companies.
Speaker 1: But you know, the Kaiser stood for the working people,
Speaker 1: and on May twelfth he charged into a meeting of
Speaker 1: the Prussian Ministry of State and declared that Bismarck was
Speaker 1: wrong for not acceding to their demands, and declared the
Speaker 1: workers were his subjects whom he had to look after.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, this is like, yeah, this is good. Now.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm got his way on the Ruher strike for their
Speaker 1: frustrating the Reich Chancellor. In the summer of eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: he took his yacht out for his first cruise across
Speaker 1: Scandinavian waters. This became a yearly tradition, one he kept
Speaker 1: up for decades. On his first outing he brought walder
Speaker 1: C and Ulenberg with him. The latter was at least
Speaker 1: a sane person who didn't support wars of aggression with
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, but valder C was a
Speaker 1: racist nutfuck, and during their vacation he convinced the Kaiser
Speaker 1: that Bismarck was jew ridden and had been conned into
Speaker 1: giving control of the Reich's monetary policy to a bunch
Speaker 1: of Jews.
Speaker 2: Is his crush.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, his crush is a pretty reasonable guy. This
Speaker 1: is that racist general who wants him to invade the
Speaker 1: entire world.
Speaker 2: The names are so confusing, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sorry, there's a lot. Walder C is the
Speaker 1: racist general. Yulenberg is his crush. Now, so Valderc convinces
Speaker 1: the Kaiser that Bismarck had been conned into giving control
Speaker 1: of the Reich's monetary policy to a bunch of Jews.
Speaker 1: This was a lie, but reality had very little influence
Speaker 1: on the Kaiser. Now, this month long annual cruise around
Speaker 1: the coast of Norway became one of the kaisers favorite things.
Speaker 1: And I have to read you Vanderkiss's description of it
Speaker 1: because it sounds like the worst time you could have
Speaker 1: on a boat. The annual Cruise, or nord lynd Rice,
Speaker 1: with its exclusively male company, allowed him the Kaiser to
Speaker 1: indulge in practical jokes and boyish tomfoolery, like applying a
Speaker 1: foot to the backside of elderly aids. De camp engaged
Speaker 1: in physical exercises. Its purpose was originally to give him
Speaker 1: a month long break from court life, but in due
Speaker 1: course his doctor decided it was counterproductive, as he was
Speaker 1: physically and mentally upset by the long voyage, diet, and
Speaker 1: exhaustion of various kinds, and it did him more harm
Speaker 1: than good. His entourage soon tired of these cruises, bored,
Speaker 1: if not repelled by the juvenile atmosphere and behavior of
Speaker 1: the Kaiser and some of his officers who loathed every
Speaker 1: childish prank and moment themselves, but were too sickophantic to
Speaker 1: say so.
Speaker 2: God, it sounds you're going.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of like that documentary where Jim Carrey
Speaker 3: goes Method, where you're like, oh, he's just a tyrant.
Speaker 3: He's been waiting his whole life to get people trapped
Speaker 3: in this, in this enclosed setting to be horrible cool.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you did pranks on the set of his.
Speaker 1: You want to? You want to? You want to go
Speaker 1: on a month long prink cruise with the King Boy.
Speaker 3: With the Yeah, with the King Boy who like has
Speaker 3: a God, imagine just having a cruise with him and
Speaker 3: all of his demons.
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 1: Oh guarantee you. He never didn't have an erection and
Speaker 1: he never knew what it was for.
Speaker 3: Well, he's just walking around with a full erection all
Speaker 3: the time, Like.
Speaker 2: Do you guys know what this is?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Just kicking people in the butt. I think I was laughing.
Speaker 2: Hard as a wrong kicking old people around what.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well he is officially you know, well, I mean
Speaker 3: he's just a bad he's a badman.
Speaker 2: He's a creatively bad man in this case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, really really punishing everyone around him in
Speaker 3: very specific ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: In January of eighteen ninety, Wilhelm told his Crown Council
Speaker 1: that he would celebrate his thirty first birthday with two
Speaker 1: new proclamations, one to protect working people and limit their
Speaker 1: labor hours, and another to call an international summit in
Speaker 1: Berlin to improve labor conditions across the continent. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, right, yeah, all right, is labor crusader.
Speaker 2: I'm very surprised that he is like gunning for labor
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 1: He well, you know, one of the good things about
Speaker 1: Heinz Peters, he had taken him around to all these
Speaker 1: factories and mines and stuff when he was a kid.
Speaker 1: So the Kaiser had seen like how tough life was
Speaker 1: for working people, and he wasn't He's not like a
Speaker 1: sociopath or anything. He had empathy for these people, so
Speaker 1: he did care about people. Like, he's not a monster.
Speaker 1: He does monstrous things, but he's not a monster. Now,
Speaker 1: Bismarck thought that the Kaiser's love of the working people
Speaker 1: was super dumb. The two fought over this, and another
Speaker 1: fight broke out in March of eighteen ninety when Bismarck
Speaker 1: entered into negotiations with the leader of the Center Party.
Speaker 1: He's like, Dinad, why do you care about the poors?
Speaker 1: It's such a bad fuck there. Look they're the poors man.
Speaker 2: Come on, of course, what the foot? What are you
Speaker 2: going to get on it?
Speaker 1: So Bismarck enters into negotiations with the leader of the
Speaker 1: Center Party, a guy named Winthorst, and their goal is
Speaker 1: to get rid of bigoted, anti Catholic legislation in Germany.
Speaker 1: So again Bismarck is trying to fight against discrimination here.
Speaker 1: So none of these sides are simple here, right, Bismarck
Speaker 1: hates working people but also hates discrimination. The Kaiser fights
Speaker 1: for the working man, but gets furious about removing this
Speaker 1: anti Catholic legislation because he's a bigot.
Speaker 2: So they're just like a stalemate.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now he's particularly pissed that this meeting between Bismarck
Speaker 1: and the leader of the Center Party had been organized
Speaker 1: by Bismarck's banker, who was a Jewish Man. Now, to
Speaker 1: the Kaiser, this was confirmation that the Jews were secretly
Speaker 1: running his empire via Bismarck.
Speaker 2: God damn it okay.
Speaker 1: Next, according to Kaiser Vilhelm the Second, a concise life,
Speaker 1: early in the morning of fifteen March eighteen ninety, there
Speaker 1: took place one of the most highly charged scenes ever
Speaker 1: played out in Berlin's center of government. The Wilhelmstrasa Kaiser
Speaker 1: Wilhelm the Second some of the seventy five year old
Speaker 1: reich Chancellor from his bed and upbraided him for receiving Winthorst.
Speaker 1: He went on to complain that Bismarck had dug out
Speaker 1: a dusty old cabinet order of eighteen fifty two that
Speaker 1: prevented the monarch from receiving ministers except in the presence
Speaker 1: of the Minister President. He preemptorily demanded that the order
Speaker 1: be rescinded, which Bismarck refused to do. Wilhelm later recounted
Speaker 1: that Bismarck had become so violent towards him that he
Speaker 1: was afraid the Chancellor would throw the inkstan at my head.
Speaker 1: After this dramatic quarrel, walderse urged the Kaiser in the
Speaker 1: presence of the chief of the military Cabinet, to sack
Speaker 1: Bismarck forthwith the present state of affairs was quite untenable,
Speaker 1: he argued, and moreover, the Chancellor was too closely allied
Speaker 1: with the Jews. Bismarck first sent honk Is like military leader,
Speaker 1: and then the chief of the civil Cabinet, Hermann von Luchannis,
Speaker 1: to the Chancellor, ordering him to hand in his resignation,
Speaker 1: which Bismarck finally did on eighteenth March eighteen ninety. If walderse,
Speaker 1: as one can safely assume, expected to take Bismarck's place,
Speaker 1: he was in for a bitter disappointment. That same evening,
Speaker 1: Wilhelm the Second announced to the commanding generals assembled in
Speaker 1: the berlinsh Lass that in order to remit and master
Speaker 1: of the situation, he had to issue in order to
Speaker 1: the Chancellor, insisting that he submit. So, the Kaiser accepted
Speaker 1: Bismarck's letter of you know, he's retired his retirement and
Speaker 1: made a guy named Kaprivy, who was a Lickspittle, you know,
Speaker 1: the new chancellor, so he forces out the guy who
Speaker 1: like the political cartoons in Europe at this time are
Speaker 1: like show the Kaiser on a boat kicking Bismarck, the
Speaker 1: pilot of the boat off of the ship, and that's
Speaker 1: generally how this is seen. Germany has like jettison to
Speaker 1: its pilot in favor of the dumbest monarch in Europe.
Speaker 2: The man. What a choice?
Speaker 1: What a choice? All right, it's not great, it's not great.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no winning scenario, but they did seem
Speaker 3: to choose the losing er of the team.
Speaker 1: They definitely chose the losingest scenario. Yeah, but you know
Speaker 1: what's not the losing scenario, Jamie, tell me the products
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Speaker 2: Oh, it's true. I love each and everyone, especially the
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Speaker 1: The dick Pills especially, And one of the Behind the
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Speaker 1: War One.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a guarantee no other podcast will give you.
Speaker 3: That's a little wiggle room. That's nice, that's nice.
Speaker 1: Up to seven percent.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll crunch those numbers and then cancel you later.
Speaker 1: All right, here's some ANTSCS Now with Bismarck out Kaiser
Speaker 1: Wilhelm was the unquestioned chief power in Germany, and this
Speaker 1: was not a good thing. Phil Helm was bad at
Speaker 1: every aspect of the job, particularly diplomacy, and he haven't
Speaker 1: been for years.
Speaker 2: It had been for years. It was not a shock
Speaker 2: to anyone.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, Now, he was convinced that his relation
Speaker 1: to the other crowned heads of Europe and his personal
Speaker 1: charisma would allow him to negotiate well with other nations.
Speaker 1: The orchard summarizes his talent for this part of the
Speaker 1: job thusly quote. He called the diminutive King Victor Emmanuel
Speaker 1: the third of Italy the dwarf. In front of the
Speaker 1: king's own entourage, he called Prince later Czar Ferdinand of
Speaker 1: Bulgaria Ferdinando Nasso on account of his beaky nose and
Speaker 1: spread rumors that he was a hermaphrodite. Since Philhelm was
Speaker 1: notably indiscreet, people always yeah, Since Wilhelm was notably indiscreet,
Speaker 1: people always knew what he was saying behind their backs.
Speaker 1: Ferdinand had his revenge after a visit to Germany in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine, during which the Kaiser slapped him on
Speaker 1: the bottom in public and then refused to apologize. Ferdinand
Speaker 1: awarded a valuable arms contract that had been promised to
Speaker 1: the Germans to a French company instead. One of the
Speaker 1: many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at,
Speaker 1: despite all evidence to the contrary, was personal diplomacy, fixing
Speaker 1: foreign policy through one on one meetings with other European
Speaker 1: monarchs and statesmen. This is one of the reasons people
Speaker 1: compare him to Trump a lot. In eighteen ninety he
Speaker 1: let lapse a long standing defensive agreement with Russia, the
Speaker 1: German empires vast and some I'm threatening eastern neighbor. He
Speaker 1: judged wrongly that Russia was so desperate for German goodwill
Speaker 1: that he could keep it dangling. Instead, Russia immediately made
Speaker 1: an alliance with Germany's western neighbor and enemy, France.
Speaker 2: I don't like him single negotiation.
Speaker 1: That's nasty, it's bad.
Speaker 2: Wipe it.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm decided he would charm and manipulate Zar Nicholas the Second,
Speaker 1: a ninny and a whimperer, according to Wilhelm, fit only
Speaker 1: to grow turnips into abandoning the alliance. In eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Nicholas told Wilhelm to get lost. The German Russian alliance withered.
Speaker 1: So he comes to power and within a couple of
Speaker 1: years scraps the alliance with Russia and Russia immediately allies
Speaker 1: with France, which means that Germany is now surrounded on
Speaker 1: both sides by enemies. So he went from Germany's entire
Speaker 1: flank to the east being totally protected by a military ally,
Speaker 1: to the nation being surrounded.
Speaker 2: Jesus, he's so benefit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy how I did like the speed at
Speaker 3: which he's bad at it too, Like he's not even
Speaker 3: a slow burn, Like, ah, I do something shitty everyone
Speaker 3: Like he's just like expeditiously ruining everything.
Speaker 1: No, he is a more stupid, faster guy, very much.
Speaker 2: So, the worst kind of person.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, one good thing you can say for the
Speaker 1: Kaiser is that he was better than most modern governance
Speaker 1: that promoting gay people to positions of high authority. The
Speaker 1: downside of this is that these guys were all his
Speaker 1: friends and sycophants, and he almost certainly had no idea
Speaker 1: they were gay. His best friend Yulenberg of course occupied
Speaker 1: high positions in the Reich, but there were too many
Speaker 1: rumors about him for him to be made chancellor. There
Speaker 1: were a number of like they were like trials and
Speaker 1: like news stories that would come out. So the Kaiser
Speaker 1: promoted a dude named Bulah for the job. A letter
Speaker 1: Bulou wrote in July eighteen ninety six shows that things
Speaker 1: within the German government had degraded exactly the way Bismarck
Speaker 1: predicted they would. Quote, I would be a different kind
Speaker 1: of chancellor for my predecessors. Bismarck was a power in
Speaker 1: his own right, a pepin a Richelieu, Caprivi and Hohenlow
Speaker 1: regarded or regard themselves as the representatives of the government
Speaker 1: into a certain extent of the parliament in relation to
Speaker 1: his majesty. I would regard myself as the executive tool
Speaker 1: of his majesty, so to speak, his political chief of
Speaker 1: staff with me. Personal rule in the good sense would
Speaker 1: really begin.
Speaker 2: I'm picturing this as like an Instagram caption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Buloh would have been tweeting sycophantically about his
Speaker 1: boss in this modern era. But he's like he comes
Speaker 1: to power and immediately promises I'm going to do everything
Speaker 1: the Kaiser says, and not represent the rest of the
Speaker 1: government in any way. Like that's his promise. Wow, and
Speaker 1: he thinks that's a good thing now s In an
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight letter to his mother, Kaiser Wilhelm exalted
Speaker 1: in his ability to gradually wear down the government of
Speaker 1: Germany into acting as just an extension of his ego
Speaker 1: forever and ever. He exulted in a letter to his
Speaker 1: mother in eighteen ninety eight, there is only one real
Speaker 1: emperor in the world, and that is the German, regardless
Speaker 1: of his person in qualities, but by right of a
Speaker 1: thousand years tradition, and his chancellor has to obey.
Speaker 3: Oh God, leave your if nothing else, lee of your
Speaker 3: poor mother alone.
Speaker 1: Now Eulenberg, who'd put Bulo up for the job because
Speaker 1: Ulenberg there were too many rumors about him being gay,
Speaker 1: wrote the new chancellor this advice for working under Kaiser Wilhelm.
Speaker 1: And again I have to remind you this man loves Wilhelm.
Speaker 2: Right well, I mean you.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm the second takes everything personally. Only personal arguments make
Speaker 1: any impression on him. He likes to give advice to others,
Speaker 1: but is unwilling to take it himself. He cannot stand boredom, ponderous, stiff,
Speaker 1: excessively thorough. People get on his nerves and cannot get
Speaker 1: anywhere with him. Wilhelm the second wants to shine and
Speaker 1: decide everything himself. What he wants to do himself, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: often goes wrong. He loves glory. He is ambitious and jealous.
Speaker 1: To get him to accept an idea, one has to
Speaker 1: pretend that the idea came from him. Never forget that
Speaker 1: his majesty needs praise from time to time. He is
Speaker 1: the sort of person who becomes sullen unless he has
Speaker 1: given recognition from time to time by someone of importance.
Speaker 1: You will always accomplish whatever you wish, so long as
Speaker 1: you do not admit to express your appreciation. When his
Speaker 1: majesty deserves it, he's grateful for it, like a good
Speaker 1: clever child. If one remains silent when he deserves recognition,
Speaker 1: he eventually seens malevolence in it. We too, will always
Speaker 1: carefully observe the boundaries of flattery.
Speaker 2: I mean, who among us has not worked for someone
Speaker 2: exactly like this?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was working for someone like this two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hollywood is thirty percent people like this.
Speaker 2: Thirty percent Wilhelm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh god, I mean, but the fact
Speaker 3: that that's like one of his closest friends. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's an absolute night. Mary's the worst person I know.
Speaker 3: But also he's my closest friend, so.
Speaker 1: You know, I love him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the health insurance is great, so put up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, wil Helm had a bad reputation for basically sighting
Speaker 1: with whatever the last person he talked to had said.
Speaker 1: Since a number of his generals were warmongering racists, this
Speaker 1: was problematic. In eighteen ninety six, the Kaiser impulsively sent
Speaker 1: a congratulatory telegram to Paul Krueger of the Transvaal Republic
Speaker 1: South Africa for his victory over a British raiding party.
Speaker 1: This is like in the Boer War period. Now, the
Speaker 1: Boers are a Germanic people and there was great sympathy
Speaker 1: for them within the Reich. But England was the world's
Speaker 1: pre eminent naval power, and by sending this message, the
Speaker 1: Kaiser provoked rage from a country he really needed to
Speaker 1: keep on his side since he'd already alienated Russia. So
Speaker 1: that's not a great move like reaching out to the
Speaker 1: enemy of the greatest naval power. In the world being like,
Speaker 1: good job killing some of their guys, Like it doesn't
Speaker 1: play well in England.
Speaker 2: Again, petty petty dumb, petty dumb.
Speaker 1: Now, there were numerous other insults and slights like that.
Speaker 1: He was the Kaiser for like twenty six years before
Speaker 1: the war, and this shit happened constantly. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: you know, I'm giving you a couple of examples, so
Speaker 1: you know the sorts of shit he was up to.
Speaker 1: Bit by bit, Wilhelm alienated basically all of Germany's allies.
Speaker 1: His advisors and ministers, men like Bulou and Ulenberg, proved
Speaker 1: unable to do anything but praise the Kaiser and hoped
Speaker 1: to calm him down and reduce his impulsive swings. They
Speaker 1: were often unsuccessful. In nineteen hundred, the Boxer rebellion in
Speaker 1: China led to the capture of a number of Europeans,
Speaker 1: including Germans, in the city of Peking. Most of Europe's
Speaker 1: great powers dispatched soldiers to deal with the situation. The
Speaker 1: Kaiser was late in doing so, and his men arrived
Speaker 1: too late to participate in the fight. But before they left,
Speaker 1: the Kaiser insisted on addressing them personally with a speech
Speaker 1: that made him the laughing stock of Europe. It ended
Speaker 1: like this, should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated.
Speaker 1: No quarter will be given, Prisoners will not be taken.
Speaker 1: Whoever falls into your hands has forfeited, just as a
Speaker 1: thousand years ago the Huns under their king Atilla made
Speaker 1: a name for themselves, one that even today makes them
Speaker 1: seem mighty in history and legend. May the name German
Speaker 1: be affirmed by you win such a way in China
Speaker 1: that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross
Speaker 1: eyed at a German. Now you've heard of like how
Speaker 1: the Huns, like Germany were referred to as the Huns
Speaker 1: in like World War I propaganda by the British and
Speaker 1: the Americans and stuff.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: This speech is why the Hun speech is what people
Speaker 1: call it.
Speaker 3: So they were just getting They were just like roasted
Speaker 3: filim indirectly.
Speaker 1: Exactly, but pretty directly.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, I guess that's not even a subtweeen, because
Speaker 3: like this is seen as really silly.
Speaker 1: For one, thing like beating China in this period was
Speaker 1: not something to brag about, Like the European powers had
Speaker 1: machine guns and like modern battleships and military tactics, and
Speaker 1: the Chinese military just did not, and so it wasn't
Speaker 1: really a fight. Also, the Germans arrived too late to
Speaker 1: participate in the fight, so this was both seen as
Speaker 1: like a manchild pretending to be a warrior, but it
Speaker 1: was also seen as deeply worrying by the crownheads of
Speaker 1: Europe the other leaders of the European powers, because the
Speaker 1: Kaiser had Europe's most powerful army, and it's not comforting
Speaker 1: to hear him say this.
Speaker 3: Shit.
Speaker 1: It's like somebody with a huge gun collection talking about
Speaker 1: how he could carry out a school shooting if he
Speaker 1: wanted to. Oh, he'd be like, oh fuck, yeah, this
Speaker 1: might this is a problem. Maybe I should call the police,
Speaker 1: but of course there's no police to call on the Kaiser.
Speaker 3: No, don't you love when someone's above the law, And therefore,
Speaker 3: yeahs of people have to die, millions, but yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, millions.
Speaker 1: The nation's worth okay. Now, speaking of the army, they
Speaker 1: were the only ones who really gained in power during
Speaker 1: Wilhelm's reign. He had a habit of promoting generals to
Speaker 1: ministerial positions. He liked being surrounded and consulted by them.
Speaker 1: His appointees included General Alfred von Schlieffen, a military tactician
Speaker 1: who developed an elaborate plan for how Germany could beat
Speaker 1: both Russia and France in a European war.
Speaker 2: Wasn't it like a five year plan? It was? Or
Speaker 2: what was the duration?
Speaker 1: It was very quick. Happened in a matter of months.
Speaker 1: So basically the idea was that you've got you're surrounded
Speaker 1: now because Wilhelm fucked up and made Russia an enemy,
Speaker 1: so Germany has to fight both Russia and France at
Speaker 1: the same time. So Schleifen's idea was that the vast
Speaker 1: majority of the Germans army, like two or three million men,
Speaker 1: would invade and conquer Paris very quickly, and then you know,
Speaker 1: a small chunk of the German army would hold off
Speaker 1: the Russian army in the east until the rest of
Speaker 1: the army could be read up and sent by rail
Speaker 1: to go fight the Russians. The only way for them
Speaker 1: to beat France quickly was to bypass France's fortresses and
Speaker 1: like like defensive line on the German French border and
Speaker 1: invade through Belgium. Now, this would necessitate Germany break like
Speaker 1: basically Belgium's a neutral power. So this would like necessitate
Speaker 1: Germany launch a war of aggression against a neutral power,
Speaker 1: and Britain had an agreement with Belgium that they would
Speaker 1: defend them from this sort of thing. So basically the
Speaker 1: nature of the Schliefen Plan essentially guaranteed that Britain would
Speaker 1: get involved in a war between France and Germany. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's not a great plan. It's a very detailed
Speaker 1: and elaborate plan, but it's not a good idea, and.
Speaker 2: It's just like article.
Speaker 3: He's like, all right, here's what I want to do,
Speaker 3: and everyone's like, well, at least he came up with
Speaker 3: a plan.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could argue that it was the best
Speaker 1: possible plan in the impossible situation that the Kaiser could
Speaker 1: get German. No, no, no, But like, like, if you
Speaker 1: have to try to beat Russia a sixth of the world,
Speaker 1: and France, the second largest military power in Europe, simultaneously,
Speaker 1: there's really no good way to do that. And in
Speaker 1: Schliffen's defense, this actually came very close to working. Like
Speaker 1: Germany almost won World War One very early on. They
Speaker 1: didn't in everything else that happened.
Speaker 2: Have you had a cumber Schleifen's defense.
Speaker 1: In this way, it's more just pointing out, like I
Speaker 1: think it's important to note how powerful the German army was.
Speaker 1: The German army essentially on its own because Austria Hungary
Speaker 1: was useless and their allies, the Italians, turned their backs
Speaker 1: on them almost immediately. So Germany on their own conquered
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of France, beat Russia, beat Romania, and
Speaker 1: conquered the majority, like almost won a war against the
Speaker 1: entire world. And that's the force that this guy inherits,
Speaker 1: this like young man with anger problems. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: it's less like a guy with a gun collection and
Speaker 1: a guy with a new collection, like he's he that's
Speaker 1: the power of the army that he gets as birthright right,
Speaker 1: which maybe means you shouldn't get armies by birthright.
Speaker 2: Now there's something to think about. Yeah, hold on a second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So it's a bad it's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: So basically, this Schleefen plan means that by the necessity,
Speaker 1: there would be no defensive wars for Germany under the Kaiser.
Speaker 1: So another general close to the Kaiser was helm With
Speaker 1: von Moltke. Moltke was one of the relatively few people
Speaker 1: who was brave enough to criticize Kaiservillehelm to his face.
Speaker 1: The cause of his ire in the first caise was
Speaker 1: the annual German war games, particularly the fact that every
Speaker 1: year they were arranged so that the Kaiser would win
Speaker 1: no matter what he did. Von Moltke was convinced that
Speaker 1: the next European war would be an enormous, bloody affair
Speaker 1: consisting of millions of men in entire nations at arms.
Speaker 1: He did not think set piece war games like Germany,
Speaker 1: we're adequately preparing her for this sort of conflict. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote a passage now from von Moltke's memoires,
Speaker 1: and this is him talking to the Kaiser. And when
Speaker 1: I now look at the strategic war game plans which
Speaker 1: are put before your Majesty year after year, regularly ending
Speaker 1: with the taking prisoner of enemy armies consisting of five
Speaker 1: or six hundred thousand men, and that too after only
Speaker 1: a few days of operations, I cannot avoid the feeling
Speaker 1: that this in no way meets the conditions of war.
Speaker 1: I cannot engage in such wargames. Your Majesty knows yourself
Speaker 1: that the army is led by you regularly encircle the enemy,
Speaker 1: and in this way allegedly in the war with one blow.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, these results can only be brought about
Speaker 1: by forcefully distorting circumstances in such a way that the
Speaker 1: basic principle that the wargames should be a study for
Speaker 1: real war and should take into account all the friction
Speaker 1: and obstacles that arise in war is not met. This
Speaker 1: kind of wargame, in which to a certain extent your
Speaker 1: Majesty's enemy is at your mercy with his hands tied
Speaker 1: from the outset, must give rise to false ideas which
Speaker 1: can only be pernicious when war comes. But in my
Speaker 1: view this is not the worst part of it. I
Speaker 1: hold it to be even more disturbing that the distorted
Speaker 1: wargames have the effect of destroying their interest. For the
Speaker 1: wide circle of officers involved, everybody has the feeling that
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you do. A higher destiny controls
Speaker 1: the business and brings it one way or another to
Speaker 1: the desired conclusion. Your Majesty will have noticed that it
Speaker 1: becomes increasingly difficult to find officers who want to exercise
Speaker 1: command against you. This is because everyone says, I'll only
Speaker 1: be wiped off the map. However, what I complain about most,
Speaker 1: and what I must say to your majesty, is that
Speaker 1: because of all this, the officer's confidence in their supreme
Speaker 1: commander is severely shaken. The officers say that the Kaiser
Speaker 1: is much too clever not to notice how everything is arranged,
Speaker 1: and that he shall turn out to win, so that
Speaker 1: must be the way he wants it. Now. The Kaiser
Speaker 1: expressed shocked to Moltka that things had been arranged this way,
Speaker 1: and claimed to have no idea that the wargames he
Speaker 1: took part in every year were rigged.
Speaker 2: I honestly believe that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's just diluted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that he.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, given his upbringing and the fact
Speaker 3: that just no one has ever pointed anything out to
Speaker 3: him in his entire life, it tracks that he's like,
Speaker 3: wait a second, I'm not fucking the coolest person that's ever.
Speaker 1: I'm not the best military leader in.
Speaker 3: History, especially at this point where he's been in charge
Speaker 3: for so long too, like known as negdam in decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not since Henspeter.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that a great thing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: From an early age, Wilhelm the Second had been obsessed
Speaker 1: with warships like most boys, but unlike most boys, he
Speaker 1: came up to own a nation and he was able
Speaker 1: to indulge in his obsession with naval boats. This quickly
Speaker 1: became a problem. See England's thing was being the best
Speaker 1: at having a navy. Since they were a tiny country
Speaker 1: with a very tiny army, the Royal Navy was really
Speaker 1: the only thing that ensured Great Britain's safety. Germany was
Speaker 1: the unquestioned military master of Europe, and the only reason
Speaker 1: that Britain didn't worry more was that they had naval supremacy.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen ninety seven, Wilhelm made an admiral named
Speaker 1: Alfred von Turpetz the Secretary of the Navy. Now, his
Speaker 1: reasons for this were simple. Turpets was good at praising
Speaker 1: the Kaiser and making him feel included in naval decisions.
Speaker 1: Turpets had realized on their first meeting that the Kaiser
Speaker 1: quote did not live in the real world, and had
Speaker 1: discovered that he could very easily manipulate the Emperor by
Speaker 1: painting a lurid picture of a gallant and unstoppable high
Speaker 1: seas fleet. In eighteen ninety seven, the year after the
Speaker 1: Kaiser's disastrous Krueger Telegram, where he praised people for killing
Speaker 1: British soldiers. Germany passed its first naval bill, announcing a
Speaker 1: massive expansion of the fleet, coming a year after the
Speaker 1: Kaiser praised one of Britain's enemies for defeating her soldiers.
Speaker 1: This was not seen as a friendly move.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: According to John Setier, a professor at the University of Virginia,
Speaker 1: quote the Kaiser often indignantly denied that Germany was challenging
Speaker 1: Britain's domination of the seas, but there is clear evidence
Speaker 1: that this was in fact the aim of Admiral Alfred
Speaker 1: von Turpetz, who he had made Secretary of the Navy
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety seven. When in nineteen oh four Britain
Speaker 1: settled its outstanding disputes with France, the Kaiser, at Beulou's suggestion,
Speaker 1: went to Tangier the following year to challenge France's position
Speaker 1: in Morocco by announcing German support from Iroccan independence. His
Speaker 1: hopes of thereby showing that Britain was of no value
Speaker 1: as an ally to France were disappointed at the nineteen
Speaker 1: oh six Algiers conference, in which the Germans were forced
Speaker 1: to accept French predominance over Morocco. In nineteen oh eight,
Speaker 1: William caused great excitement in Germany by giving, after a
Speaker 1: visit to England, a tactless interview to the Daily Telegraph,
Speaker 1: telling his interviewer that large sections of the German people
Speaker 1: were anti English. He had sent the text beforehand to Bulah,
Speaker 1: who had probably neglected to read it, and who defended
Speaker 1: his master very lamely in the Reichstag. This led Wilhelm
Speaker 1: to play a less prominent role in public affairs, and,
Speaker 1: feeling that he had been betrayed by Buloh, he replaced
Speaker 1: him with theovald On Bethman. Holwig Bethmann's attempts to reach
Speaker 1: agreement with Britain failed because Britain would not promise neutrality
Speaker 1: in a war between Germany and France unless Germany would
Speaker 1: limit its fleet. This, the Kaiser, interprets, refused to do.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: There's a chance to stop Britain from coming in against
Speaker 1: Germany and World War One, but he has to not
Speaker 1: build a shitload of boats. And the Kaiser really wants
Speaker 1: a sh shitload of toy boats.
Speaker 2: I mean, and he's one and again you can track
Speaker 2: that way. The fuck bag. Yes, man loves his boats.
Speaker 1: He loves his fucking boats.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now, that Moroccan crisis that was talked about in the
Speaker 1: quote above very nearly resulted in World War One breaking
Speaker 1: out in nineteen oh six, and in that case, the
Speaker 1: Kaiser and everyone were lucky that cooler heads were able
Speaker 1: to pull Europe's fat out of the fire. But the
Speaker 1: fact that things had gotten that close was evidence that
Speaker 1: the Kaiser's utter lack of competent ministers and gut focused
Speaker 1: foreign policy was basically the world's deadliest game of dice.
Speaker 1: The series of bad decisions that would lead the world
Speaker 1: into blood soaked calamity started in nineteen oh nine, when
Speaker 1: Austria Hungary announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Speaker 1: These provinces had been administered by Vienna since eighteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: but they were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. When
Speaker 1: the Young terp Rebellion swept the Ottoman Empire and imposed
Speaker 1: a constitution on the Sultan, Austria Hungary saw it as
Speaker 1: a chance to write what they saw as a historical wrong.
Speaker 1: Now the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany, and that
Speaker 1: alliance was one of Wilhelm's very few successes, but the
Speaker 1: Kaiser was unhappy with the Young Turk Revolution because the
Speaker 1: constitution they forced on the Sultan was made an imitation
Speaker 1: of Great Britain, and Wilhelm took offense to this, backing
Speaker 1: Austria Hungary in This was an odd decision, especially given
Speaker 1: the fact that one of Wilhelm's later schemes was to
Speaker 1: try and win the Muslim world over to his banner.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about that. But before we
Speaker 1: talk about how Kaiser Wilhelm tried to win over the Muslims,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how these products and services are going
Speaker 1: to try to win over your dollars.
Speaker 2: A smooth transitions usual, Robert.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe my best. Yeah, products, we're back.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking about Kaiser Wilhelm's attempt to make all
Speaker 1: the Muslims love him. That may seem weird, but there's
Speaker 1: logic behind it. See, the British Empire ruled a huge
Speaker 1: chunk of the Muslim world. French Empire did as well,
Speaker 1: and most of those Muslims were unhappy with this fact.
Speaker 1: If Wilhelm could earn their loyalty, he thought it would
Speaker 1: provide him with another weapon to use against England. Friendship
Speaker 1: with the Ottomans also helped counter Germany's isolation, which was
Speaker 1: only a thing because Wilhelm sucked at diplomacy. In nineteen
Speaker 1: oh five, he said, this and the present very tense circumstances,
Speaker 1: when we stand almost alone in the face of great
Speaker 1: coalitions which are being formed against us, our last trump
Speaker 1: card is Islam and the Mohammadan world. So Wilhelm saw
Speaker 1: the young Turks and their Anglo friendliness as an attack
Speaker 1: on his hard won courtship of their empire, so he
Speaker 1: threw them under the bus to support Austria Hungary's ambitions.
Speaker 1: This trend of supporting Austria Hungary, regardless of what it did,
Speaker 1: would prove to be all of Europe's undoing, As Rolls
Speaker 1: Biography notes, from then onwards, Kaiser Wilhelm ardently supported his
Speaker 1: allies initiative, and as usual overshot the mark in his
Speaker 1: martial enthusiasm, and the possibility of war between Austria Hungary
Speaker 1: and Serbia loomed, he exclaimed, if only it would start.
Speaker 1: He was fully aware of the danger that your he
Speaker 1: could be drawn into a war against France and Russia.
Speaker 1: By a Bulkan conflict. Thirteen years earlier, on November eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, Philhelm the Second had assured the Austro Hungarian ambassador,
Speaker 1: Count Ledislaw Vaughan. I'm not going to try to pronounce
Speaker 1: this fucker's name. The Austria Hungarian ambassador quite plainly that
Speaker 1: he would stand at Austria Hungary's side with all the
Speaker 1: forces at my disposal, without any further inquiry as to
Speaker 1: whether there's any cause for war that exists in our
Speaker 1: accordance with our Treaty of Alliance, Your all highest Sovereign
Speaker 1: Franz Joseph, may be quite sure that if at any
Speaker 1: moment the position of Austro Hungarian monarchy is at issue,
Speaker 1: my entire fighting forces will be immediately and unconditionally at
Speaker 1: his disposal. So the Kaiser gives Austria Hungary a blank
Speaker 1: check to do whatever they want, and it's this would
Speaker 1: wind up probably being the key mistake most responsible for
Speaker 1: plunging Europe into the First World War.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, seems to be the popular opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a
Speaker 1: Serbian partisan in the summer of nineteen fourteen, it made
Speaker 1: Austria's war against Serbia inevitable. Russia was bound to come
Speaker 1: to Serbia's defense, and the Kaiser had repeatedly promised loudly
Speaker 1: and publicly to back Austria Hungary in any such war. Now,
Speaker 1: there'd been another Balkan crisis in nineteen twelve and thirteen
Speaker 1: that had almost led Europe off a cliff into war,
Speaker 1: but again cooler heads had talked things down this time. However,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, there were fewer cooler heads available. For
Speaker 1: one thing, the Kaiser's best friend, Julenberg was no longer
Speaker 1: in the picture. A complex blackmail plot, orchestrated in part
Speaker 1: by pro war elements in the German government, had been
Speaker 1: executed against Ulenberg. The chief cause for this was Ulenberg's pacifism.
Speaker 1: Once he was out of the picture, the Kaiser had
Speaker 1: no friends close to him who actually cared about him
Speaker 1: as a human being. Ulenberg was a lickpittle, but he
Speaker 1: was a lixpittle who legitimately had Whilhelm's best interests at
Speaker 1: heart and didn't want a war.
Speaker 2: Sorry, can you unpack the term lickspittle?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a sickophant. He's somebody who just is going
Speaker 1: to praise the leader and not going to question them
Speaker 1: too much.
Speaker 2: Is that your word or is that someone else?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, no, no, that's a common word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I learned.
Speaker 1: It from the I learned it from the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: Says oh, okay, well fine.
Speaker 1: Now with Yulenberg gone, the Kaiser's next best friend was
Speaker 1: Prince max Egon of Baden, who was closely related to
Speaker 1: the Emperor of Austria Hungary, which of course had drawn
Speaker 1: the Kaiser close to the Austrian royal family, which made
Speaker 1: him make more and more dumb promises. I'm simplifying things
Speaker 1: here by quite a lot because we only have so
Speaker 1: much time. But I think this paints the essential picture
Speaker 1: of what went on to bring Veilhelm to a point
Speaker 1: where he was willing to make these bad, bad, bad calls.
Speaker 3: I mean, it is kind of remarkable just hearing it
Speaker 3: all out in order, Like how long a massive conflict
Speaker 3: was avoided? Like that's yeah, there's been there's so many
Speaker 3: close scrapes before something actually starts.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep. And yeah, there were a lot of
Speaker 1: other things going on. One of them was cold, ugly math.
Speaker 1: The German general staff had this fabulous plan cooked up
Speaker 1: by Schleief and to win a two front war in Europe,
Speaker 1: and they'd kept careful tabs on both the Russian and
Speaker 1: French armies, and they had calculated that nineteen fourteen was
Speaker 1: basically the best year possible for them to have a
Speaker 1: war like this if it was inevitable, which they thought
Speaker 1: it was because both nations had started revamping their field armies.
Speaker 1: So this exact sequence of events that led to the
Speaker 1: outbreak of hostilities in World War One is too long
Speaker 1: a story to fit in at the end of an episode,
Speaker 1: and Heiser Wilhelm's exact level of blame is heavily debated
Speaker 1: to this day. Rolfe's book paints him as an eager
Speaker 1: belligerent wringing his hands in anticipation. He was not excited
Speaker 1: for war precisely, but he was excited for a major
Speaker 1: diplomatic victory that would humble Russia and Britain without a
Speaker 1: shot being fired fighting. Yeah, exactly. He understood flightding might result,
Speaker 1: and he was willing to take that risk, but he
Speaker 1: didn't want it to come to that. He attempted to
Speaker 1: mediate between Austria and Serbia and was briefly optimistic of
Speaker 1: peace once the Serbians yielded to most of Austria's demands,
Speaker 1: but then his ally decided to go to war anyway,
Speaker 1: and the Kaiser backed him. Still now, Vanderkiss's biography paints
Speaker 1: a more reticent picture of Wilhelm. His belligerent words and
Speaker 1: threats of violence were the same sort of impulsive passing
Speaker 1: fancies that had steered him his entire life. He was
Speaker 1: a rich kid with poor impulse control, but he ultimately
Speaker 1: didn't want war, and when it came, he was horribly
Speaker 1: anxious over the whole affair. Writing years later, Beulah recalled
Speaker 1: no German and above all, no English pacifist was filled
Speaker 1: with a profounder or more honest love of peace than
Speaker 1: was William the Second. It was his own and our
Speaker 1: misfortune that his words and his gestures never coincided with
Speaker 1: his real attitude in the manner when he boasted or
Speaker 1: even threatened people in words, it was often because he
Speaker 1: wanted to allay his own timidity. I think that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he's an awkward, sad, insecure kid who winds up
Speaker 1: boasting and threatening because he doesn't he's fundamentally insecure, and
Speaker 1: because he's a crowned head of a nation it helps
Speaker 1: lead to war.
Speaker 3: I feel like, Yeah, that does seem like kind of
Speaker 3: the story of World War One in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: where it's like the you know, the social conflicts are
Speaker 3: generally directing stuff, but then the fucked up inbred leaders.
Speaker 2: Are you able to be manipulated accordingly?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know. There was a big debate and has been
Speaker 1: for it still continues as to who is responsible for
Speaker 1: World War One. The nation of Germany was forced to
Speaker 1: take responsibility in the Treaty of Versailles, which was not fair.
Speaker 1: Germany and the Kaiser are not mostly responsible for World
Speaker 1: War One because there's so much blame to be shared
Speaker 1: by different nations. But you could make a strong case
Speaker 1: that the single individual with the largest share of the
Speaker 1: blame is Kaiservillehelm the second you can make that case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it was like he was It
Speaker 3: feels like his whole life is setting him up to
Speaker 3: do this level to fuck up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: You can see it coming from so far away. It's infuriating.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, once war was joined, the Kaiser was hopeful
Speaker 1: that it would be a short, relatively bloodless affair and
Speaker 1: would leave the overall map of Europe relatively unchanged. He's
Speaker 1: not a Hitler type guy. He doesn't want to conquer France,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want to own and hold Belgium forever.
Speaker 1: He wants to move through Belgium and then eventually leave.
Speaker 1: He wants to beat France in a war and then
Speaker 1: sign a treaty with them, take a little bit more
Speaker 1: of their life and maybe, but he wants France to
Speaker 1: still exist. He doesn't really want to destroy England as
Speaker 1: a nation. He doesn't want to conquer. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to conquer the entire world, you know.
Speaker 2: No, he just wants to suck his mom.
Speaker 1: He wants to fuck his mom, and he wants to
Speaker 1: be seen as a military hero.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't we all in a way?
Speaker 1: Yeah now? Yeah, we all in a way do yeah. Now.
Speaker 1: Wilhelm believed he'd be able to arrange peace when it
Speaker 1: was necessary at basically any point, by just working things
Speaker 1: out one on one with his royal cousins. He noted
Speaker 1: that mere democracies could never make a peace conference work
Speaker 1: because war was a royal sport to be indulged in
Speaker 1: by hereditary monarchs and concluded at their will. This was
Speaker 1: part of the idea about war at the time, which
Speaker 1: was that war between kings never is that bad because
Speaker 1: kings are all friends at the end, and you know,
Speaker 1: our soldiers will kill each other for a while. But
Speaker 1: I don't want you to lose your crown. I don't
Speaker 1: want things to be that bad for you. We're just
Speaker 1: having a spat and you know, once this is concluded satisfactorily,
Speaker 1: we can go back to being friends. This is Bill
Speaker 1: Help's idea at the start of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well because he's yeah, because he's like talking with
Speaker 3: his cousins, like exactly, it's like being yeah, with just
Speaker 3: no awareness for the fact that there is a rest
Speaker 3: of the world.
Speaker 2: Of this effects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is not how things worked out. And
Speaker 1: World War One was instant no, no, no, like a
Speaker 1: quarter of a million Germans die in the first week
Speaker 1: of fighting, Like it's like hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: are dead as soon as the fighting starts. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the Kaiser, you know, as the situation grows more serious,
Speaker 1: the Kaiser is very quickly sidelined by his generals. He
Speaker 1: actually had almost no role in the conduct of the
Speaker 1: war throughout the vast majority of it. It was basically ceremonial.
Speaker 1: You know, he'd address factory workers and soldiers, and he
Speaker 1: spent a lot of his time on vacations at his farm.
Speaker 1: Germany increasingly became a military dictatorship, and by the end
Speaker 1: of it the Kaiser was as much of a figurehead
Speaker 1: as the King of England. And of course, when the
Speaker 1: war ended in yeah, when the war ended in German
Speaker 1: defeat in seventeen million deaths, Wilhelm the Second was forced
Speaker 1: to abdicate and flee the country. He spent the rest
Speaker 1: of his life in Dorn in the Netherlands, living the
Speaker 1: quiet life of a country gentleman in a global pariah,
Speaker 1: until his death in nineteen forty one from being old
Speaker 1: as shit in the end, I think the best epitaph
Speaker 1: for this man was written by journalist Charles Lowe, a
Speaker 1: foreign correspondent for The Times. He called Wilhelm quote the
Speaker 1: chief creator of the war spirit which he found it
Speaker 1: impossible to exercise or resist, and was thus, so to say,
Speaker 1: devoured by his own offspring. For at the last moment,
Speaker 1: when shrinking from the results of his own creative handiwork,
Speaker 1: he allowed the sword, in his own phrase, to be
Speaker 1: thrust into his hand, which was just as much as
Speaker 1: if he had drawn it of his own accord, thus
Speaker 1: proving himself to be a weak willed and criminal ruler,
Speaker 1: the most nefarious of his kind whoever sat upon a throne.
Speaker 3: There it is that hand comparison again. I'm sorry, you
Speaker 3: hate to see it.
Speaker 2: You hate to see it.
Speaker 1: The hand is all comes back to the fucking hands.
Speaker 2: Oh, always back to hands with this guy.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, what what a coward that was set up
Speaker 3: to be of a fucking loser that would cost millions
Speaker 3: of people their lives.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep. And that's why monarchists are the dumbest
Speaker 1: people in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're horrible in there, and I and I hate that.
Speaker 3: There's usually an end to feel kind of bad for them,
Speaker 3: because you're like, oh, you're well, why would you not
Speaker 3: be horrible?
Speaker 2: Why? Oh would be good?
Speaker 1: Monarchs like monarchs themselves? Like I absolutely you have to
Speaker 1: have sympathy for a guy like phil Helm because like,
Speaker 1: fuck man, there's no good ending to this story, right,
Speaker 1: But like the people who want to go back to
Speaker 1: having a monarchy, I baffles me.
Speaker 2: I can't figure out. I'm like, do you just like tabloids, like.
Speaker 1: Where you like fancy costumes? That's what this shit's about
Speaker 1: I mean, like.
Speaker 3: You can still have that. There's a lot of people
Speaker 3: that will wear a lot of fancy. You should just
Speaker 3: start watching drag Race. If you're a marcust just start
Speaker 3: watching drag Race.
Speaker 2: You'll get You'll get what you want. And so are you.
Speaker 1: I got sorry?
Speaker 3: No, no, I guess that's the end of my call
Speaker 3: to action for the monarchists.
Speaker 1: Has your level of sympathy or feeling about Kaiservillehelm changed
Speaker 1: it all over the course of these episodes.
Speaker 3: I honestly my sympathy for him went up, Like I knew,
Speaker 3: I knew, I knew that everyone, you know, all all
Speaker 3: the monarchy like that were involved in the beginning of
Speaker 3: World War One were dumb as rocks.
Speaker 1: You know, but dumb as a bag of dead horses.
Speaker 3: But the but the specificity of yeah, like how how
Speaker 3: that how they even got that far?
Speaker 2: Is Oh, it just sucks. It sucks.
Speaker 3: I you know, he just wanted to his mom to
Speaker 3: be in love with him.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to fuck his mom's hand and get
Speaker 1: a medal.
Speaker 3: I feel for her, and I feel for Germany and that, yeah,
Speaker 3: God that I'm feeling. I'm not feeling as like indignant
Speaker 3: and angry as I usually am at the end of this.
Speaker 2: I'm just feeling empty.
Speaker 3: I feel like a husk, Robert, Yeah, absolute husk right now.
Speaker 1: I watched an interesting movie on Netflix last night called
Speaker 1: The Exception, which is based on a book called The
Speaker 1: Kaiser's Last Kiss, and it's it's a fictional story about
Speaker 1: a German SS officer who is the head of Wilhelm's
Speaker 1: bodyguard when Germany conquers the country where he's staying at
Speaker 1: the start of the Second World War. And it's also
Speaker 1: about this like British spy and it's the The movie
Speaker 1: is more sympathetic towards Wilhelm than I think the book is.
Speaker 1: The I wrote the book like it has a very
Speaker 1: deep knowledge of the man. So really it's a fun
Speaker 1: It's an interesting book that I think gives a good
Speaker 1: a very fair like accounting of the man's personality and
Speaker 1: doesn't make him into a demon or a good guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's just like. One of the phrases that it says
Speaker 1: about him is that he was half genius and half child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and says he's there's another.
Speaker 2: Do we feel he was a genius in any way?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that? Do we give him that?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I didn't see that. I didn't see it. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: didn't see it.
Speaker 1: There were some parts like his his understanding of labor
Speaker 1: rights and like the like that sort of thing, like
Speaker 1: he was really good about certain things throughout his reign,
Speaker 1: but he was on the whole not a good leader,
Speaker 1: but he was he was in Like the point this
Speaker 1: guy's making is that the things about him that he
Speaker 1: wasn't smart about led him to make a lot of
Speaker 1: his worst decisions.
Speaker 2: Like that mustache, Like I mean mustache.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're full of yes men, you know, when
Speaker 3: you're surrounded by yes men who won't tell you you're dumbest shit,
Speaker 3: you end up with that mustache and that life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: quotes in that book. I I'm reading the book right
Speaker 1: now and it's fun. So maybe check that out if
Speaker 1: you want more Kaiser Vilhelm in your life. That's a
Speaker 1: hard he if you'll pardon the phrase, he drew a
Speaker 1: rough hand in life.
Speaker 2: Oh don't say, don't mention hands in front of him.
Speaker 1: He loses it and then he played that hand for shit.
Speaker 3: O god, and then he's just like shaking his operational
Speaker 3: fist at the sky.
Speaker 2: You hate to see it.
Speaker 1: He might be the worst at a job that anyone's
Speaker 1: ever been. Yeah, like really really bad.
Speaker 2: Why you shouldn't just be given the most consequential.
Speaker 1: Jobs, not a job that should have existed.
Speaker 2: Nope, certainly not.
Speaker 1: And you get the feeling. If he'd been a ceremonial
Speaker 1: monarch like the King of England is today, he'd have
Speaker 1: been great at it. He loved marching around and wearing uniforms.
Speaker 3: Outfits an Instagram monarch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he would have been very happy if he'd never
Speaker 1: had to make a real decision.
Speaker 3: He if he was just posting fit checks every day,
Speaker 3: like he would be happy as a little clam.
Speaker 1: First posting about the Russian Army.
Speaker 3: Fine about his mom, Yeah, just another pick of me
Speaker 3: and mamah. Yeah no, but uh, you know, you know, monarchists,
Speaker 3: you're idiots, You're dumb, You're unnoticed, dumb.
Speaker 2: See you in the comments section.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna really bring the monarchist listeners to behind
Speaker 1: the bastards out of the.
Speaker 2: Words for folks.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those things. I had this opinion
Speaker 1: before I started doing this research that kings were basically
Speaker 1: the same as dictators, and I don't feel that way anymore,
Speaker 1: in part because of all this reading about how hopelessly
Speaker 1: everyone watched this guy slouch towards being in power and
Speaker 1: couldn't stop it, which like a dictator sees his power
Speaker 1: generally and like there's not really a question about it,
Speaker 1: like they take the pow and even if everyone, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people know they're bad at it, like
Speaker 1: they take it. Whereas with this everyone's like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: guy's going to be a disaster, too bad, there's nothing
Speaker 1: to do about it, right.
Speaker 3: That's the thing is it seems like if he had
Speaker 3: had been if he had been given a way out
Speaker 3: or that wouldn't have resulted in eternal shame upon him
Speaker 3: and his family, he absolutely would have taken it.
Speaker 1: If he could still have been the Kaiser, but not
Speaker 1: have had to make maybe I don't know, maybe a prince.
Speaker 2: He just wanted to be a fashion king.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think he want He wanted to be
Speaker 1: a military power too though, and like I don't think
Speaker 1: he wanted to in that. I don't think it was
Speaker 1: inherently a military kind of guy, but because his whole
Speaker 1: family had raised him to believe that it's shameful to
Speaker 1: be a Prussian and not be a great warrior. Yeah, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fucked, man, it's a bummer of a story.
Speaker 3: It's it's definitely fucked. I hate that. I feel for him,
Speaker 3: but I.
Speaker 1: Don't it kind of can't. It doesn't mean he didn't
Speaker 1: get millions of people killed and isn't a piece of shit,
Speaker 1: But like it also means that, like, well, fuck you.
Speaker 1: You plug anybody into that job with that kind of upbringing,
Speaker 1: how how does it end? Well?
Speaker 2: How does it appear?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's as I blame society, Robert, I.
Speaker 1: Blame very specific assholes, not society in general. I blame.
Speaker 2: We live in a society. That's my whole point.
Speaker 1: I blame George Hinspeter, Queen Victoria, uhh, the Empress Augusta,
Speaker 1: and a couple of other terrible assholes, and some bad,
Speaker 1: bad doctors.
Speaker 3: I blame the doctor's own. I blame the arm stretcher.
Speaker 3: Whoever made that that. They really have a lot to
Speaker 3: answer for, all right, And it didn't work, first of all,
Speaker 3: and second of all, it was deeply humiliating, and and
Speaker 3: and you can sort of trace the death of many
Speaker 3: people to the humiliation from the arms stretcher.
Speaker 1: So by an arm stretcher. By the way, this podcast
Speaker 1: is supported by an arm stretcher.
Speaker 2: I came on for an arm stretcher right now.
Speaker 1: Oh, your child, the Prince of Prussia is his arm
Speaker 1: gimp stretched out of course? Good lord, oh boy, yeah
Speaker 1: he is. You do have to you can't really understand him,
Speaker 1: nless you understand that he was also a disabled man
Speaker 1: who was abused by a bigoted medical establishment.
Speaker 2: Right bye bye.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and there was like no option or ability
Speaker 3: for him to be accepted as he was.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it sucks. It fucking sucks.
Speaker 1: You know what doesn't suck? Jamie what your pluggables?
Speaker 2: That's well wait and see, no kidding, they're great.
Speaker 3: You can follow me on Twitter at Jamie christ or
Speaker 3: no at Jamie Loftus help.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You can listen to I'm releasing a short form podcast
Speaker 3: called My Year in MENSA. That's about my horrible year
Speaker 3: in the MENSA organization.
Speaker 1: So excited.
Speaker 2: I'm very Robert your voice is in it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I was editing it in just yesterday. It comes out
Speaker 3: on Thanksgiving. It's a full blown nightmare. I hope people
Speaker 3: listen to it. And yeah, then you can listen to
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Cast every Thursday, and that's and those are
Speaker 3: my plugies.
Speaker 1: Listen to the Bechdel Cast, Listen to My Year in Mensa,
Speaker 1: which is Jamie's year in Mensa, not my year.
Speaker 2: Not your year. But you know you could if you
Speaker 2: wanted to, But yeah.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I could not find us on the internet at behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards dot com or we'll level the sources for this.
Speaker 1: Find us on Twitter and Instagram at bastards pod and
Speaker 1: find some room in your heart to buy a next
Speaker 1: stretching machine for the young infant child in your life
Speaker 1: today and be sure they grow up just like the Kaiser.
Speaker 3: I gotta go get a stretch in right now, right
Speaker 3: after I write my mom the scariest letter I've ever.
Speaker 1: Wrote in my life. Everybody write your mom's about their sexy,
Speaker 1: sexy hands.
Speaker 3: Everyone writing about their mom's hands. No shame, Just don't
Speaker 3: hit send. It's so shameful.
Speaker 1: It's that shame.
Speaker 3: Robert is pro shaming people horny for their mom's hands.
Speaker 2: I'm a little more open minded.
Speaker 1: That's the fucking episode.
Speaker 2: Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.