William the Second was not equal to Fate’s crucial moments. - Emil Ludwig

And so the Emperor-King, in his oath, had sworn only to his own actual authority to decide all vital national questions “to the best of his ability”—and on what other principle does any reasonable human being proceed? None the less he remained, whatever the consequences, inviolable, unindictable, or, as it was expressed in other German National Constitutions, “hallowed.” At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Old and the New Worlds, there was—besides the Tsar and the Sultan—no one who possessed such authority as William the Second.

The State has no higher purpose than the protection of its interests. These, however, for Great Powers, are not necessarily identical with the preservation of peace.

Intrigue is always at the bottom of all political activities.