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William I (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig; 22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), or Wilhelm I, was King of Prussia from 1861 and German Emperor from 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his ...
Bismarck was born in 1815 at Schönhausen, a noble family estate west of Berlin in Prussian Saxony.His father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bismarck (1771–1845), was a Swabian-descendant Junker estate owner and a former Prussian military officer; his mother, Wilhelmine Luise Mencken (1789–1839), was the well-educated daughter of a senior government official in Berlin whose family produced ...
William, crowned King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved the crisis in favor of the war minister. [67] The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this ...
The expression "Kaiser Wilhelm" avoided the precise, constitutional title "German Emperor", which Wilhelm would not accept. The rulers of the Grand Duchy of Hesse , the Duchy of Brunswick and the Principalities of Reuss ( Younger and Older Line), Schwarzburg-Sonderhausen , Waldeck-Pyrmont , Lippe were not represented at the imperial ...
Wilhelm II[b] (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty's 300-year rule of Prussia. Born during the reign of his granduncle Frederick William IV of Prussia ...
Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888–1918) was keen for Germany to expand its colonial holdings. Bismarck's immediate successor in 1890, Leo von Caprivi, was willing to maintain the colonial burden of what already existed, but opposed new ventures. [66]
Bismarck's successors did not pursue his foreign policy legacy. For instance, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who dismissed the chancellor in 1890, let the treaty with Russia lapse in favor of Germany's alliance with Austria, which finally led to a stronger coalition-building between Russia and France. [48]
Emperor Wilhelm I. The empire was officially defined as a federation of the member states under the permanent presidency of Prussia. The presidency of the Confederation (Bundespräsidium) was a hereditary office of the King of Prussia. From 1 January 1871 onward, he was granted the additional title of German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser).