Question ? How did Kaiser Wilhelm II actions bring the world closer to war? Response Kaiser Wilhelm II was born on the 27th January in Berlin, Germany. He was the eldest grandchild to Queen Victoria and had many close connections throughout Europe, growing up he had was taught ideas and concepts of militarism, anti-semitism, and about the glorification of power politics, all these ideas lead to how the Kaiser ended up ruling the newly formed country of Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II ideas went completely against how the Chancellor Bismarck had ruled Germany. The Chancellor had not wanted to expand Germany’s border as he wanted to keep peace in Europe, consequently the great powers in Europe might have seen Germany as an enemy and threat. The Chancellor had worked hard on keeping Europe at peace and he managed to successfully do so from 1870 until 1890. Until the the Kaiser came to power and his actions and badly formulated plans all lead to the breakdown of Europe and brought on the “Great War.” The first mistake that the Kaiser made was his assumptions on the rest of Europe, firstly he believed that Russia would never turn to France, a republic for an alliance, secondly he believed that Britain and Russia would never be able to settle their oversea colonies disputes in Asia, and the most dangerous assumption was that he believed that the other powers in Europe needed Germany as an ally more than Germany needed them. Unfortunately for the Kaiser, all of these assumptions were incorrect. One of the things that Bismarck had done to keep peace in Europe was try to make sure that Russia never became an ally of France because of the fear of a two front war and France gaining power to use against Germany, Bismarck did this by signing many treaties that he hoped would prevent conflict in the Balkans and would have Russia dependent on Germany for economical support, but in 1890 the Kaiser refused to renew the ‘reassurance treaty’ with Russia, Germany continued to decline these requests for four years believing that Russia would still continue to go along with German policy even without the agreements in place. Russia was dependent on Germany for financial aid for it to fund its rapidly growing industry, so the only option Russia had was to turn to France and in 1894 the ‘Franco-Russian’ treaty was in place, mea