Wilhelm II Becomes Kaiser

June 15, 1888

Within ninety-nine days, three German emperors sat on the throne: old Wilhelm I died in March, his dying son Friedrich III in June, and the crown passed to Friedrich's twenty-nine-year-old son Wilhelm II. Impulsive, theatrical, and contemptuous of Bismarck, the new Kaiser would dismiss the Iron Chancellor within two years and pilot Germany toward 1914.