Kaiser Wilhelm II

A proud and stubborn man who did not wish to share power with anyone. Besides wanting to assert his own power, the new kaiser was eager to show the world just how mighty Germany had become. The army was his greatest pride. Wilhelm let his nation’s treaty with Russia lapse in 1890. Russia responded by forming a defensive military alliance with France in 1892 and 1894. Germany would then be forced to fight a two-front war, or a war on both its eastern and western borders. Next, the Kaiser made an effort to make the German navy equal to that of the mighty British fleet. Alarmed, in 1907, Britain made another entente, with France and Russia called the Triple Entente