The German Empire held sway over far less territory than the Russian Empire or the French colonial empire and certainly far less than the massive British Empire which ruled one fourth of the total land and population of the world. Moreover, were the German people really that fond of fighting wars? In the years since the fall of Napoleon up until the Summer of 1914 Germany and Austria had fought only 3 wars. Their allied enemies, however, had a far different record. The French had fought 5 wars, Russia had fought 7 wars and the British had fought 10 wars over the same span of time. Such statistics hardly make the Germans appear to be the nation of warmongers. Moreover, while the chattering class in Britain was accusing the Germans of being dominated by Prussian militarism, Russia had the largest army in the world at that time and France had a much larger percentage of her population under arms than the Germans did. On the naval front which Britain was so concerned with, even though the Imperial German Navy was the second strongest in the world after Great Britain one should keep in mind that at the height of her strength the German navy was less than half the size of the British navy. How then were the Germans accused of being a warlike nation by her enemies? At the time of the outbreak of World War I Germany had not gone to war in 43 years and Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had been on the throne for 25 years, had not fought a single war. Considering that, it seems absurd that the Kaiser should be condemned as a warmonger.
Yet, some might still say, all those years should be disregarded and that World War I should be focused on alone. Even then, all the evidence shows that Kaiser Wilhelm II, along with Nicholas II of Russia, Francis Joseph of Austria and George V of England for that matter, was totally against the war and in almost all of his biographies is portrayed as a man trapped by events and circumstances around him. Even Winston Churchill, who denounced the Kaiser as a warmonger bent on world domination in 1914, later had to admit that this had been false and that the loss of the Kaiser had been a disaster, not only for Germany but for Europe as a whole. Of course even that seems odd considering that Churchill had fought in more wars than the Kaiser and that Churchill was one of those urging his country to war in 1914 while the Kaiser was desperately trying to find a way to avoid it.
The Kaiser could be blamed for giving Austria a "blank check" of support against Serbia after the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and yet, few could be too critical considering that it is an undisputed fact that there were members of the Serbian government involved in the plot. Wilhelm II did have the wisdom to advise the Austrians to move quickly if they were going to take action before other nations could respond but his advice was not followed. When he saw that Serbia had agreed to most of the Austrian demands the Kaiser said that the cause for war was gone and even when the Austrians began to move against Serbia he urged them to "stop at Belgrade". It was the decision of Russia to intervene on behalf of Serbia that turned a potential Balkan war into a potential world war. The Kaiser tried to dissuade his cousin Tsar Nicholas II against getting involved while at the same time the French ambassador was hammering him with the opposite advice. Wilhelm also wrote to his cousin King George V trying to obtain a promise of French neutrality in a war between Austria and Germany against Russia and Serbia. He knew that war with France would mean the invasion of Belgium which would likely mean war with the British Empire. This is the last thing he wanted as, despite all the antagonism, he never ceased voicing his admiration for Great Britain.
Even at the very last minute, when the German troops were marching toward the western frontier the Kaiser tried to stop the whole thing and ordered Field Marshal von Moltke to halt the troops only to have his general tell him that such a thing was impossible. Wilhelm bitterly replied, "Your uncle would have given me a different answer", calling to mind the great Graf von Moltke who had defeated France in 1870. The Kaiser laid much of the blame for the current disaster on his late uncle King Edward VII who had arranged the alliance between Britain, France and Russia which encircled Germany. The Kaiser continued to send messages to London and St Petersburg to stress that the war was not his desire and that Germany had no desire to fight these two countries. It is the height of absurdity to think that Germany, even with her impressive army and navy, could have seriously considered conquering the world and overcoming the vast empires of Britain, France, Russia, the USA and Japan. Yet, as long as the Kaiser tried to avoid war his general staff was working just as furiously to get things moving so that Germany was not crushed between France and Russia due to slowness to mobilize.
For those with an historical mind, like the Kaiser, this was an especially bitter pill to swallow as they would remember that in the war against Napoleonic France it was Prussia, Russia and Britain who were on the same side. During the reign of the celebrated Frederick the Great, during the Seven Years War, it had been Prussia and Great Britain fighting against almost the whole of Europe and they had emerged triumphant. The far-reaching war aims of Germany such as the "September Programme" were only drawn up after Great Britain had declared war. The Kaiser had made it very clear that if Britain could keep France from threatening Germany from the west he would have been delighted to leave both countries untouched and confine the conflict to an eastern European war. If this had happened it is unlikely that Russia would have gone on as well and we would have been left with simply another Balkan war between Austria and Serbia in which most sympathy would have naturally been with Austria because of Serb complicity in the assassination of the Hapsburg heir to the throne. Yet, if this last point is sufficient to judge one a warmonger, what does that make the Allies who were quick to gobble up every overseas German colony and divide the territories of Germany, Austria and Turkey between them? The Kaiser did not start World War I, he did not want war and the Germans had been the least aggressive of any of the major powers in Europe. Those are the facts.
