In anglosaxon media Wilhelm II is always presented as the evil genius, but very much alike his grandmother Victoria, his uncle Edward VII and his cousin George V he was a ceremonial head of state, be it a very omnipresent one, so much more aware about mass-media than his British relatives.
Even the formal leader of the German Government when WWI broke out, Reichskanzler Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, was no match for the strong and powerful generals as Von Moltke, Von Falkenhayn, Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Especially under the last two generals, both Wilhelm II as well the Government became more and more irrelevant and outmanoeuvred from the decisionmaking. The Oberste Heeresleitung (Supreme Army Command) more and more developed into a military junta, de-facto ruling Germany.
The same phenomenon could be seen in Russia, Austria-Hungary and again in Italy (WWII), all leading to the fall of the monarchy. All these ceremonial figureheads became victims as embodiment of the hopelessly failed military campaigns at the cost of so many lives and which ruined their countries. On itself Wilhelm, Franz-Joseph, Nicholas and Vittorio-Emmanuele were pretty irrelevant in the whole decisionmaking but nevertheless all lost their thrones.
