Kaiser Wilhelm in the Netherlands

At five in the morning of 10 November 1918 the court train of Kaiser Wilhelm II set off towards the Dutch border from Spa in Belgium, where the headquarters of the German army was located. The day before, revolution had broken out in Berlin, the chancellor had announced the abdication without his consent, and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg had declared that he could no longer vouch for the monarch’s safety among the troops. Fearing that the conspicuous train might be attacked, after a few kilometres the Kaiser changed into one of the cars of his entourage, from which the imperial pennants had been removed.

Early in the morning the cars reached the border crossing at Eijsden, south of Maastricht. The Dutch authorities, however, had not been effectively forewarned, so the border guards would not let the Kaiser in without orders from The Hague. Wilhelm II had to wait at the railway station, where Belgian workers insulted him, shouting “Down with Wilhelm, the murderer!”. The stationmaster finally allowed him to take refuge in his office. According to accounts, he spent the night in his train, which had meanwhile arrived at the station.

Meanwhile in The Hague the government of Prime Minister Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck deliberated with Queen Wilhelmina about what to do with the unexpected guest. The royal palaces were out of the question, as it was not even certain whether the Kaiser had really abdicated. It was a Sunday and it was hard to reach anyone by telephone. Only in the afternoon did Count Godard van Aldenburg-Bentinck agree to receive Wilhelm II at his castle at Amerongen in the province of Utrecht, although he did not know him personally. Dutch officials, accompanied by the German minister Friedrich Rosen, came to Eijsden and announced that the government had unanimously decided to grant the Kaiser asylum. On 11 November, the day the armistice was signed, Wilhelm II arrived at Amerongen.

The matter was not simple. Formally the Kaiser had still not abdicated, and so he was the supreme commander of the armed forces of a state at war. Throughout the war the neutral Netherlands had interned soldiers of all sides who crossed its border. As early as 10 November the British minister demanded that Wilhelm II be interned, and the French government reacted in the same way. The Dutch, however, regarded the newcomer as a private person to whom they were extending hospitality on condition that he did not engage in politics. In Germany many, including supporters of the monarchy, regarded the flight as desertion. Two days later the Kaiser’s son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, also crossed the Dutch border and settled on the island of Wieringen.

Wilhelm II lived at Amerongen for a year and a half, and in 1920 moved to nearby Doorn, where he died in 1941. Despite the demands of the victorious powers, which in the Treaty of Versailles announced that he would be put on trial, the Netherlands never handed him over.