MideSau

Wilde Sau (“Wild Boar”). German night fighter visual interception of bombers silhouetted by fires at the target.

Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands (1880-1962). Reigned 1890

1948. During the German invasion of Holland in 1940 the Queen was transferred by a British warship to England, probably as a result of a misunderstanding. She then became the symbol of Dutch resistance and after the liberation of Holland was welcomed back to the throne with the utmost enthusiasm.

Wilhelmshaven. Chief German naval base on the North Sea. British planned a carrier strike on the German fleet there for 1919. The RAF launched unescorted bomber raids against ships there in 1939 which lost heavily. The town later suffered devastating raids.

William (Wilhelm), Crown Prince of Prussia and Germany (18821951). Ger. Born in Potsdam, the son of Prince William (later to be Kaiser William II). With the outbreak of World War I, the Crown Prince was given command of the Fifth Army. His lack of experience was plain, but he made a promising start, winning his first battle decorations after the Battle of Longwy. In early September 1914, Fifth Army retreated behind the Aisne, and the Prince set up headquarters at Stenay on the Marne, where he was to remain for two years.

In February 1916 he oversaw the German attack on Verdun, but he fell out with the cos von Knobelsdorf over the conduct of the assault, which was finally abandoned after the loss of 337,000 troops. With Falkenhayn’s replacement by Hindenburg, the German Western Front was divided into two, the Prince taking command of the southern army group. In the spring of 1917 his troops fought defensive actions at Aisne, Champagne and Chemin des Dames, and in March 1918 achieved a breakthrough at St Quentin-la Fere. Following attacks at Chemin des Dames and Noyon by Seventh and Eighteenth Armies, he led an attack in the Marne Champagne sector, but with Foch’s counterattack was forced to retreat. Battles followed against the French and the Americans in Champagne and on the Meuse.

With his father’s abdication, the Prince was relieved of his military position and went into exile in Holland. He returned to his estate at Gels in 1923, living there as a private citizen during the Weimar Republic. His attitude to Hitler was ambivalent. Fearing the Russian advance in 1944 he left his estate for Bavaria, where he was captured by the French in May

1945. His last days were spent in obscurity in Hechingen. SLB.

William (Wilhelm) II Kaiser

(1859-1941; reigned 1888-1918). Ger. Emperor and King of Prussia. William ascended the throne in 1888, and soon clashed with Bismarck, whom he dismissed in 1890. The Reinsurance Treaty with Russia was subsequently allowed to lapse, thus thwarting Bismarck’s aim of keeping Russia and France from allying. The Kaiser’s naval expansionism under von Tirpitz placed a severe strain on Anglo-German relations, as did a series of diplomatic blunders, such as the dispatch of a congratulatory telegram to Kruger after the Jameson Raid. With the assassination at Sarajevo, the Kaiser issued Austria the famous blank cheque for a confrontation with Serbia, but later tried to interpret Serbia’s conciliatory reply as a “moral victory for Vienna”. Within days these attempts to avert the crisis had failed.

The Kaiser spent most of the War at the Imperial Headquarters, but his leadership was by now merely nominal. He succeeded in keeping the German battlefleet from conflict in the North Sea until 1916, but displayed his customary vacillation over the U-boat question and in his failure to initiate peace talks with Russia.

With Germany’s capitulation, the Kaiser tried desperately to save his throne, appointing Prince Max of Baden chancellor with the promise of constitutional reform. But with the outbreak of the German Revolution, the troops’ disenchantment with the monarchy was made plain, and despite aggrieved protestations, the Kaiser was made to abdicate, to face 20 years of exile in Holland. SLB.

Wilson, Field Marshal Lord Henry Maitland (“Jumbo”), (18811964). Br. Commander British troops, Egypt, at the outbreak of war with Italy until February 1941; Commander of the British Expeditionary Force to Greece (Force W), February-April 1941; Commander Palestine and Transjordan from May 1941, responsible for the Anglo-French invasion of Syria in June-July 1941; c-in-c, Persia and Iraq Command from August 1942; c-in-c. Middle East Land Forces from March 1943, responsible for mounting the Eastern Task Force for the invasion of Sicily and for British operations in the Aegean; succeeded Eisenhpwer as Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean, in January 1944; handed over to Alexander in December 1944, succeeding the late Field Marshal Sir John Dill as British member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington where he remained for the rest of the war. WGFJ.