Emperor William of Germany, and Emperor Franz Josef of Austria

&quot;Taken on the occasion of Emperor William&apos;s visit to the Austro-Hungarian capitol, and showing in detail the elaborate pageantry of the occasion.&quot;

The title needs to be fixed

The image quality is so bad (due to the primitive equipment, this was &quot;filmed&quot; only a few years after Edison had invented it, after all) that you&apos;ll get much more detail and much cleaner images from the surviving stills. And almost every decent biography of these figures (and especially Germany&apos;s last Emperor who loved the camera, were he on the throne of Germany today I&apos;m sure he&apos;d be known as &quot;Der Tabloid Kaiser&quot;) includes such pictures. Giles McDonough&apos;s &quot;The Last Kaiser&quot; has a very, very rare picture of Wilhelm II&apos;s &quot;withered&quot; left arm (the arm was damaged due to a botched forceps delivery occasioned by the baby presenting in the breech position).

Having seen some of this footage from documentaries (as well as the BBC mini-series &quot;Fall of Eagles&quot; about the collapse of Imperial Germany, Austria &amp; Russia), I can say that it has some interest. But probably more for the scholar.

The major goof here is the incongruity of the names. Franz Josef is called by his actual name where as Wilhelm II&apos;s name is Anglicized (Wilhelm probably wouldn&apos;t have minded since he was Queen-Empress Victoria&apos;s grandson and could speak fluent, if idiosyncratic, English).

Also the title doesn&apos;t give Wilhelm II&apos;s regal number. He was, after all, NOT the first German Emperor named Wilhelm. His grandfather, the &quot;founder&quot; of the Empire, was Wilhelm I; the actual work of unification, however, was orchestrated by Bismarck, who, in three wars united Germany under Prussian domination and created the most powerful land power for the next 41 years. (What had taken the &quot;Iron Chancellor&quot; more than a decade to create, Wilhelm II took less four years to destroy.) Also, though it&apos;s rarely used today, Franz Josef&apos;s official name was Franz Josef I (tho&apos;, of course, there never was a II; the last Austrian Emperor was Karl I, who reigned less than 2 yrs before being chased out of Austria by a democratic revolution; the family, after years of enforced exile, now lives in Austria, tho&apos; as private citizens, the Austrian state having confiscated their vast wealth (much of their land had been in countries other than Austria anyway). 

Interestingly, Wilhelm II was able to salvage a good deal of his wealth in a deal with the Weimar Republic. Eventually he was paid some 70,000,000 marks (probably about $15M 1921 US dollars; or $300M+ in our vastly devalued 2008 dollars).

THUS THE TITLE NEEDS TO BE FIXED. It should read: &quot;Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany and Emperor Franz Josef I of the Austria.&quot;

The image quality is so bad (due to the primitive equipment, this was "filmed" only a few years after Edison had invented it, after all) that you'll get much more detail and much cleaner images from the surviving stills. And almost every decent biography of these figures (and especially Germany's last Emperor who loved the camera, were he on the throne of Germany today I'm sure he'd be known as "Der Tabloid Kaiser") includes such pictures. Giles McDonough's "The Last Kaiser" has a very, very rare picture of Wilhelm II's "withered" left arm (the arm was damaged due to a botched forceps delivery occasioned by the baby presenting in the breech position).

Having seen some of this footage from documentaries (as well as the BBC mini-series "Fall of Eagles" about the collapse of Imperial Germany, Austria & Russia), I can say that it has some interest. But probably more for the scholar.

The major goof here is the incongruity of the names. Franz Josef is called by his actual name where as Wilhelm II's name is Anglicized (Wilhelm probably wouldn't have minded since he was Queen-Empress Victoria's grandson and could speak fluent, if idiosyncratic, English).

Also the title doesn't give Wilhelm II's regal number. He was, after all, NOT the first German Emperor named Wilhelm. His grandfather, the "founder" of the Empire, was Wilhelm I; the actual work of unification, however, was orchestrated by Bismarck, who, in three wars united Germany under Prussian domination and created the most powerful land power for the next 41 years. (What had taken the "Iron Chancellor" more than a decade to create, Wilhelm II took less four years to destroy.) Also, though it's rarely used today, Franz Josef's official name was Franz Josef I (tho', of course, there never was a II; the last Austrian Emperor was Karl I, who reigned less than 2 yrs before being chased out of Austria by a democratic revolution; the family, after years of enforced exile, now lives in Austria, tho' as private citizens, the Austrian state having confiscated their vast wealth (much of their land had been in countries other than Austria anyway). 

Interestingly, Wilhelm II was able to salvage a good deal of his wealth in a deal with the Weimar Republic. Eventually he was paid some 70,000,000 marks (probably about $15M 1921 US dollars; or $300M+ in our vastly devalued 2008 dollars).

THUS THE TITLE NEEDS TO BE FIXED. It should read: "Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany and Emperor Franz Josef I of the Austria."

"Taken on the occasion of Emperor William's visit to the Austro-Hungarian capitol, and showing in detail the elaborate pageantry of the occasion."

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Emperor William of Germany, and Emperor Franz Josef of Austria

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