epaulet

This is one of the best photographic portraits of Kaiser Wilhelm I've ever seen. And one of the few bare headed.

kind of an idiot.

You can see the family resemblance to Queen Victoria and her family, that is for sure.

The reason you can't see his left arm is because it was crippled and he was ashamed of that.

Please, befö: A mild form of madness was an hereditary chance, and the last(?) Kaiser may have inherited that. He did not want the Great War. He had been kept apart from his parents by Bismarck Bismarck was an unfit Chancellor - involving the Kaiserreich in alliances that did not work out as planned. His dismissal was far too late but quit proper, as he was doing the unthinkable: He was failing to consult his Kaiser on matters of national importance.

Wife of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia. Fomer Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alexandra_Victoria_of_Schl...

swang: Thank you for the additional information on Princess Alexandra Victoria. We will add some of it to the record for the image when we update.

another Bain Collection photo of the general:



Some background:
"Unlike the Germans, the French could not agree on the best plans for war. In the years before the war, prominent generals had argued over how to prepare for a war with Germany. One-time commander in chief General Victor Michel guessed that the German attack would come through Belgium and proposed that the first French action should be to cut off the Germans in Belgium before they could reach French territory. Michel's plan, which was unpopular with political leaders but turned out to be absolutely correct, cost him his job. His replacement, General Joseph Joffre (1852–1931), called instead for a direct attack on German positions in the formerly French territories of Alsace-Lorraine. (He called for a smaller force to monitor German activities in Belgium.) Joffre's plan was adopted by his country, and it left France highly vulnerable to the German Schlieffen plan. Joffre also underestimated the number of German troops the French armies would face and overestimated the impact that Russian battles would have on the conflict. Joffre's faulty vision of how the war would unfold cost the French dearly in the early stages of the conflict."

find.galegroup.com/gic/infomark.do?contentSet=EBKS&do...

His wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William,_Prince_of_Hohenzollern Her wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Adelgunde_of_Bavaria_%2818...

LOC , note title transcription error. "Hohenzollen"

Another picture of Wilhelm in the Bain Collection and a 1904 portrait of Adelgunde:

Thanks to both of you for your research. We'll correct the spelling of his name and add her name the next time we update the record.