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rtrapasso -> RE: THE THREAD!!! (7/26/2009 10:28:14 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mynok
quote:
ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
i thought from reading the book it was Bismarck working his evil charm on Willie... it got Otto the power he wanted (temporarily) but in the long run it also got him pushed out, and it the very long run it resulted in disaster... the weird thing is the Bismarck seem to realize this would also be the outcome of what he did.
It was a small price to pay for a fleeting grip on power, i suppose... [;)]
Fleeting? You punster you! [:D]
My take from the book is that it was just Wilhelm being honestly enamored of ships, especially British ones. Bismarck really didn't give a rats toe about boats, so I don't see him as being a catalyst for the Kaiser's fleet ambitions...maybe his colonial ambitions, sure. And there's a reasonable connection there, but I'll still contend that the bottom line was that Wilhelm wanted a fleet of his own to show off. He certainly had NO intentions of alienating England, and indeed to the very end couldn't understand their great umbrage taken at his construction project. But that was just his total lack of ability to see things 'as others see it' to paraphrase Burns.
i agree that Otto had nothing much to do with the Kaiser's fascination with ships... i think OvB had everything to do with the "total lack of ability to see things 'as others see it'" of the Kaiser... this was a deliberate ploy by Bismarck to undermine Willie's father who was a liberal and constitutional monarch... Willie was tricked into believing he was an all powerful Emperor and started to act like it, leading Germany down the path Bismarck predicted.
So, if he realized what was going to happen, why did B. do it? My guess is he realized what he had done too late to stop it.
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