Instead, Russia immediately made an alliance with Germany’s western neighbor and enemy, France. He judged, wrongly, that Russia was so desperate for German good will that he could keep it dangling. In 1890, he let lapse a long-standing defensive agreement with Russia-the German Empire’s vast and sometimes threatening eastern neighbor. The Kaiser viewed other people in instrumental terms, was a compulsive liar, and seemed to have a limited understanding of cause and effect. In fact, Wilhelm could do neither the personal nor the diplomacy, and these meetings rarely went well. One of the many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at, despite all evidence to the contrary, was “personal diplomacy,” fixing foreign policy through one-on-one meetings with other European monarchs and statesmen. After a visit to Germany, in 1909, during which the Kaiser slapped him on the bottom in public and then refused to apologize, Ferdinand awarded a valuable arms contract that had been promised to the Germans to a French company instead. Since Wilhelm was notably indiscreet, people always knew what he was saying behind their backs. He called Prince (later Tsar) Ferdinand, of Bulgaria, “Fernando naso,” on account of his beaky nose, and spread rumors that he was a hermaphrodite. He called the diminutive King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy “the dwarf” in front of the king’s own entourage. A particular specialty was insulting other monarchs. One of the few things that Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, had a talent for was causing outrage. Photograph by Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis via Getty During Kaiser Wilhelm II’s reign, the upper echelons of the German government began to unravel into a free-for-all, with officials wrangling against one another.
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