Shot #2 Leib Garde Officer, different view.

Nice shot of the Kaiser with his shorter arm tucked into his overcoat pocket. Often he rests it on the sword hilt to cover up this physical imperfection.
 
b.loree said:
Nice shot of the Kaiser with his shorter arm tucked into his overcoat pocket. Often he rests it on the sword hilt to cover up this physical imperfection.
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I wonder how he'd have turned out had he had two 'normal' arms. The imperfection (in a society that praised perfection) must really have preyed upon his mind from an early age.

Yes, NICE photo!

:D Ron
 
Yes, definite psychological ramifications. There is an excellent BBC produced series on the Great War. The very first episode entitled "Young Willie" deals with what the Kaiser had to go through as a child and how it effected him. He underwent "treatments" from an early age. He described them as torture. His biggest hurdle was learning to keep his balance when riding...he kept falling off. His tutor Professor Henspetter (sp??) just kept putting him back on despite his cries. It took weeks of falling off before he got his "seat". I used to show this video to my students as it explains so much of the Kaisers' character. His was a breech birth and they maimed the baby when using forceps to pull him out and thus the deformity. He was also quite envious of his British cousins...especially of their navy. The video quotes Queen Victoria as saying that her grandson was a spoiled bully who needed a good spanking. His uncle Geo V saw him as living in the Middle Ages with no sense of the real modern world. Rather like Mr Putin who seems to think that he is living in the 1930's and can use force and threats to take his neighbours property. Recent events in the Ukraine are scarily similar to the 30's for me as a Historian.
 
This is a very large item that is hanging on our wall. Goes to what you were talking about and is quite unusual.

wpe79799.jpg


Very large litho of Kaiser and son. What makes this different is the use of the Kaiser's left hand. Withered at birth, this litho shows it in full use. Very unusual. The entire arm thing was controversial. His mother, Vicky, blamed herself for a fall during pregnancy. The doctor was blamed for botching a breach birth and injuring the shoulder. Folks were vituperative and it was always someone else's fault. This propaganda litho showed the arm in full use while he could not raise it more than a few inches.
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Excellent Joe. I think that his disability had a lot to do with his aggression pre war. The BBC video pointed out that no one could make fun of the man who had the best army in Europe. He loved to strut upon the world stage and play the great warrior pre war when it was safe. However, his Willie - Nicky telegrams I think showed that he was desperate to stop the juggernaut being unleashed. He proved ineffectual as a military leader during the war and thus Ludendorf and Hindenburg ran the country. There was a belief in the General staff that the time was right for Germany but I really think that blame for the war rests with the Serbs, Austrians and Russians for the most part. The Kaiser was very foolish to give the Austrians carte blanche to punish the Serbs.
 
I can't remember the name, but the Austrian Foreign Minister (?), who continued to push the whole idea of 'punishing the Serbs' for the assassination seems to be the one who kept the ball rolling for mobilization against Serbia. As far as I'm concerned, he's the one who is ultimately to blame along with the Emperor of Austria for not putting a stop to it.
Anyway, the BBC series sounds a lot like the old CBS series. Both are excellent to watch. A lot of historical mistakes, missteps and ironies in WWI... any war, I guess. Add to that the emerging technologies employed and it's a very interesting war, which I'm glad I wasn't in!

:D Ron
 
b.loree said:
Excellent Joe. I think that his disability had a lot to do with his aggression pre war. The BBC video pointed out that no one could make fun of the man who had the best army in Europe. He loved to strut upon the world stage and play the great warrior pre war when it was safe. However, his Willie - Nicky telegrams I think showed that he was desperate to stop the juggernaut being unleashed. He proved ineffectual as a military leader during the war and thus Ludendorf and Hindenburg ran the country. There was a belief in the General staff that the time was right for Germany but I really think that blame for the war rests with the Serbs, Austrians and Russians for the most part. The Kaiser was very foolish to give the Austrians carte blanche to punish the Serbs.
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I can highly recommend Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark and The war that ended peace by Margret McMillan. Both books deal with the underlying reasons of WW1 and especially the different politicians involved. Although no culprit is identified directly in the first book, it is clear that France and Russia are very much to blame for starting WW1. Miss McMillan draws another conclusion, namely: Germany is to blame for the outbreak of WW1. I think its fair to say that even after a century there is no general consensus on who started what.

Regards,

Edwin
 
Those two books have certainly gotten a lot of press. As Sleepwalkers does not blame Germany I understand it has sold 300,000 copies in that country! It does seem to have set the reading world ablaze.

V/R
Joe
 
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