Postcard of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph, in the Secessionist style. Kaiser Wilhelm is wearing the uniform and shako of the Death's Head Hussars.

Völkerkrieg (people's war)

1914; In Treue Fest



People's War

Firm in Loyalty

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Tuesday, June 30, 1914

"Tschirschky: I frequently hear expressed here, even among serious people, the wish that at last a final and fundamental reckoning should be had with the Serbs.

Kaiser Wilhelm: Now or never.

Tschirschky: . . . I take opportunity of every such occasion to advise quietly but very impressively and seriously against too hasty steps.

Kaiser Wilhelm: . . . it is solely the affair of Austria, what she plans to do in this case. . . . Let Tschirschky be good enough to drop this nonsense! The Serbs must be disposed of, and that right soon!"

Quotation Context

Count Heinrich Leopold von Tschirschky und Bögendorff, German Ambassador in Vienna delivered a written report to German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg on a conversation Tschirschky had with Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold. Berchtold had said that the threads of the conspiracy ran together at Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany annotated the report.

Source

July, 1914; the Outbreak of the First World War; Selected Documents by Imanuel Geiss (Editor), 64, 65, copyright © 1967 Imanuel Geiss, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967

Tags

Kaiser Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Wilhelm, Wilhelm II