an international policy with all his might. His plans and aspirations never exceeded the old limit, even after the attainment of the new position and after his victories. To a certain degree his activity remained within the confines of his previous Prussian policy, even when he saw himself at the head of the German Empire. He became more cautious than ever, because his previous boldness was only the result of the fact that the Prussian position had become untenable.
The Emperor William H, on the other hand, had attained so powerful a position from the very beginning as no monarch had inherited since Louis XIV. The two Napoleons had acquired their enormous power for themselves. Among those rulers who possessed as great a power as Germany by virtue of their birth, the Czar of Russia was limited by corruption and the condition of his people, and the King of England was handicapped by the British Constitution.
William II grew up in the consciousness of his enormous power. The knowledge of the developed state of German civilization, her economic resources, her capacity for organization, her numerical strength, together with the consciousness of German fame and the recognition of his own personal qualities, made him feel that he was chosen by God to express in every word and every action the enormous power which he had inherited, and to develop it still further to the advantage of his people and the glorification of his own name. He personified magnificently the whole of the German race at the time of its splendid development.
