John RÖ¶hl. Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xxi +1287 pp. $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-81920-6.
Reviewed by Kelly McFall (Newman University)
Published on H-German (December, 2005)
What to make of a biography that needs 1067 pages (and which, because of the small font and large pages reads at least half again as long) and 166 pages of notes to address 12 years of its subject's life? John C. G. Röhl's ongoing political biography of Wilhelm II, the second volume of which is reviewed here, is the very definition of a labor of love. It is truly an extraordinary accomplishment, one representing the capstone of a lifetime of research and thinking about Wilhelm II and Germany. Röhl, a longtime professor at the University of Sussex, has spent decades articulating his claim that Wilhelm at the height of his influence was the prime mover of the German political system, a system he terms "personal monarchy." The present biography, originally published in German and now translated with care and verve by Sheila De Bellaigue, represents another salvo in this dispute. We are unlikely to get a more carefully explicated or thoroughly argued case for this claim. Whether it will change anyone's mind is less certain. Regardless, specialists in the political history of the German Empire will want to consult this work carefully. Non-specialists will be better served by a broader synthesis of Röhl's conclusions or by consulting a briefer biography.
The basic question at the heart of this work is a simple one: Who ruled Germany? As Röhl himself lays out in two introductions, one written for the German edition and another, later, for the English translation, one answer has been the Prusso-German elite, who manipulated a weak and ineffective Emperor and effectively governed Germany. Röhl's answer is simpler. Wilhelm II, in the years 1889-1896, took advantage of the support of a number of governmental and court officials and the power given to him by the constitution to create a system of personal monarchy. What this means is explained most completely in a powerful claim made late in the volume. "By the turn of the century there was scarcely a single matter of personnel, domestic, foreign or military policy which was not decided by the Kaiser, scarcely ever a public occasion which he allowed to pass without making a speech, scarcely a field in which he did not feel called to make his strongly held opinions known, scarcely a 'colleague' among the monarchs of Europe whom he did not pester with correspondence and visits and offend with jocular digs in the ribs, scarcely a single diplomatic document which he did not bedeck with crude marginal comments" (pp. 1045-1046). As Röhl writes in the introduction to the English version, this power did not last long (although the details of this transformation are left to the next volume in his biography). Moreover, it was never inevitable but rather contingent on a series of crises and webs of personal relationships. But it was crucial, as it allowed Wilhelm to push Germany politically, militarily, and diplomatically in what Röhl considers a disastrous direction, one that led toward world war and catastrophe.
Comprehensively summarizing Röhl's rendering of the road to personal monarchy would require a book-length manuscript in itself. For our purpose here, it is probably sufficient to suggest it began with the maneuvering to force Bismarck from power, gained traction during the chancellorship of Caprivi, won an important victory by replacing Caprivi with the weak and, in Röhl's eyes, corrupt Hohenloe, hit its most significant road block in the unified opposition of the Prussian Ministers of State to the presence of Ernst Matthias von Köller as Prussian Minister of the Interior, and finally won out after a long, difficult battle against the effort by Walter Bronsart von Schellendorf (supported by most of the political leadership of Prussia) to open court martial proceedings to the public. Throughout this process, three constants remained. The first was Wilhelm's utter certainty that the Emperor of Germany was meant to rule as well as reign. Röhl's characterization of this as an early modern sensibility is thoroughly supported and convincing. Second was the existence of a continually revolving coterie of officials and members of court who (shortsightedly and, in some cases, spinelessly, in Röhl's opinion) supported Wilhelm at every turn. Some did this for personal gain, others out of philosophical conviction, still others because they were blinded by the force of Wilhelm's personality. All, however, provided crucial support, both political and emotional, at important moments during this struggle. The third was Wilhelm's unshakeable conviction that Germany must be a world power and must be recognized as such. It was this ambition that made the struggle for political control so meaningful, for it was Wilhelm, according to Röhl, who launched a series of disastrous diplomatic and military initiatives that ruined Germany's European position.
It is difficult to argue with many of the stones Röhl uses to pave the road to personal monarchy. His familiarity with the personalities involved is extraordinary, and his easy understanding of complex family relationships and dynamic impressive. Moreover, his decades of research mean that he has seen just about every document available, and he cites exhaustively from these to prove his point. Occasionally, he relies too heavily on a small set of sources (the letters from Wilhelm's mother to Queen Victoria, for instance, or the original, unexpurgated version of Waldersee's diary. Indeed, it seems a sizeable fraction of that diary has been reproduced here in support of one argument or another). Nevertheless, Röhl's reconstruction of events and interactions is convincing in almost every case.
But the cumulative impact of this assault is less conclusive. That Wilhelm played an independent role as a powerful political actor is apparent. But, once this is granted, the argument becomes more about definitions and shades of emphasis than dialectical opposites. And here the case is less clear. Much depends on one's definition of "personal monarchy." Röhl occasionally reminds the reader that personal monarchy is not absolute monarchy, and that William's power was not unchecked. The overall impression one gets from his prose, however, is that he believes William's power was nearly unlimited. Yet, his own discussion of political decision making (for instance, the navy bills of 1898 and 1900) demonstrates the very real limits the Reichstag placed on Wilhelm's wishes. Certainly, Wilhelm lashed out verbally against these limits time and time again, and worked hard to remove certain decisions from the competence of the Reichstag. Nevertheless, most of the time, Wilhelm had to work within the parliamentary constraints created by the constitution.
Moreover, the natural limits of a biography, with its focus on Wilhelm and the highest levels of policymaking, make it difficult to evaluate the overall functioning of a political system and the evolution of policy. There were clearly lots of things going on at the Imperial, and especially the local level, that even so comprehensive a biography must ignore. And the growing importance of party organizations and electioneering that allowed Germans to, as Margaret Lavinia Anderson terms it, "practice democracy" also escapes Röhl's gaze.[1] This is not really a criticism, but rather an indication that the reader must flesh out this top-down approach with a variety of additional studies to fully evaluate Röhl's claims.
Indeed, this book fits a bit uncomfortably between the genres of biography and political history. While a work of such length could never be contained in a single volume, the reader will not completely understand what motivates Wilhelm or what drives the family dynamics so crucial to his actions without reading the first volume. Standing alone, it does not really accomplish the first task of a biography, offering the reader insights into who Wilhelm was and what made him tick. Admittedly, Röhl likely does not intend it to stand alone. But few will have the time and endurance to read the complete biography. More seriously, by concentrating so heavily on Wilhelm and those in close contact with him, it fails to convey the full complexity of foreign relations as practiced in Imperial Germany. This is most obvious in understanding the growing antagonism between England and Germany. While Röhl praises Paul Kennedy's comprehensive The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism,[2] his prose concentrates largely on the role Wilhelm and his relatives played in this process. Specialists will acknowledge the need to integrate other resources, but even educated readers may be left thinking this antagonism arose simply from family dynamics.
And yet, Röhl succeeds brilliantly in other ways. His detailed discussion of the way the tension between Wilhelm and his English relatives affected policy is the best reminder I have yet read of the critical role personal ties and relationships had on policy at a national level at the turn of the century. And his extensive quotations from Waldersee, Philip Eulenberg, and others reminds us of how tenuous the unification of Germany really was. The idea of a coup d'etat, or the fear of disenchantment among the federal princes, was never far from the minds of Wilhelm and his advisors. Finally, whatever one thinks of his emphasis on Wilhelm's singularity in driving foreign policy at the end of the decade, he successfully explains how and why Wilhelm turned toward the "strategy" of naval building and bombast that proved so disastrous.
Finally, the sheer length of the biography deserves brief mention. Röhl, who never met an adverb he didn't want to use, deserves some of the blame. But the book would have benefited from more careful editing. With the controversy that has swirled around this issue in the past, one understands Röhl's desire to make the work comprehensive. Yet, a significant part of this biography, from the lengthy lists of the persons accompanying Wilhelm on expeditions to less relevant portions of exact quotations and even whole sections of his text, could have been excised without affecting the argument at all. Beyond simple considerations of time and efficiency, the book is so large that reading it quickly becomes physically uncomfortable. One wonders if, in the future, presses will require (allow?) authors to include source documents in an accompanying CD rather than quoting significantly from them, or perhaps include them as links on a website as a way of solving this problem.
Nevertheless, while these criticisms are not negligible, they should not detract from Röhl's very real accomplishment. While generalists should look elsewhere, specialists will find this biography both engaging and enlightening.
Notes
[1]. Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
[2]. Paul Kennedy, The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism (London: Unwin Hyman, 1981).
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Citation:
Kelly McFall. Review of RÖ¶hl, John, Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
December, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11288
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