Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses German chancellor Otto…

March 1890 CE

Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses German chancellor Otto von Bismarck on March 18, 1890.

Bismarck, feeling pressured and unappreciated by the Emperor and undermined by ambitious advisers, had refused to sign a proclamation regarding the protection of workers along with Wilhelm, as was required by the German constitution.

His refusal to sign was apparently to protest Wilhelm's ever increasing interference with Bismarck's previously unquestioned authority.

Bismarck had also worked behind the scenes to break the Continental labor council on which Wilhelm had set his heart.

The final break came as Bismarck searched for a new parliamentary majority, as his Kartell had beenn voted from power as a consequence of the anti-socialist bill fiasco.

The remaining forces in the Reichstag were the Catholic Centre Party and the Conservative Party.

Bismarck had wished to form a new block with the Centrer Party and invited Ludwig Windthorst, the parliamentary leader, to discuss an alliance.

That had been Bismarck's last political maneuver.

Upon hearing about Windthorst's visit, Wilhelm was furious.

In a parliamentary state, the head of government depends on the confidence of the parliamentary majority and has the right to form coalitions to ensure their policies have majority support.

However, in Germany, the Chancellor dependa on the confidence of the Emperor alone, and Wilhelm believes that the Emperor has the right to be informed before his minister's meeting.

After a heated argument in Bismarck's office, Wilhelm—to whom Bismarck had shown a letter from Tsar Alexander III describing Wilhelm as a "badly brought-up boy"—had stormed out, after first ordering the rescinding of the Cabinet Order of 1851, which had forbidden Prussian Cabinet Ministers from reporting directly to the King of Prussia and required them instead to report via the Chancellor.

Bismarck, forced for the first time into a situation that he could not use to his advantage, had written a blistering letter of resignation, decrying Wilhelm's interference in foreign and domestic policy.

The letter, however, will be published only after Bismarck's death.

Bismarck resigns at Wilhelm II's insistence at the age of seventy-five.

He is succeeded as Imperial Chancellor and Minister President of Prussia by Leo von Caprivi.

After his dismissal he is promoted to the rank of "Colonel-General with the Dignity of Field Marshal", so-called because the German Army does not appoint full Field Marshals in peacetime.

He is also given a new title, Duke of Lauenburg, which he jokes will be useful when traveling incognito.

He will soon be elected to the Reichstag as a National Liberal in Rudolf von Bennigsen's old and supposedly safe Hamburg seat, but he will be so humiliated by being taken to a second ballot by a Social Democrat opponent that he will never actually take up his seat.

Bismarck will enter into resentful retirement, live in Friedrichsruh near Hamburg and sometimes on his estates at Varzin, and wait in vain to be called upon for advice and counsel.