In Long to Reign?, A. W. Purdue wrote: Emperor Wilhelm II could have perhaps saved the Hohenzollern dynasty by abdication in the late summer of 1918 in favor of his grandson, the twelve-year-old Prince Wilhelm.    
Prince Wilhelm was the son of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany.  
Who would have been the regent: Crown Prince Wilhelm or one of his brothers?

By late summer 1918 Germany's position was fairly hopeless. If Wilhelm II had abdicated then, any change in the succession (eg in favour of his grandson), if it was to have a chance of permanence, would have had to be made with an eye to the imminent end of the war. Accordingly it would almost certainly have had to take into account the views not just of the German government, army and people - who were already starting to rebel against the monarchy - but also the allies (Britain, France, Italy, the USA ... Russia etc). I can't see a monarch, whether it be Wilhelm's grandson or another Hohenzollern, successfully sat on the German throne unless it was with the agreement of the, very-soon-to-be victorious countries, and they in turn would have had to accommodate the views of the German people if there was to be any lasting stability.

To my mind any sons or grandsons of Willhelm II would have been seen as far too close to the Kaiser to have been acceptable as either king or regent or even as interim president of a republic. The British might possibly have accepted some remote German princeling - especially if he was closely related to the British royal family and pro-British - but I can't see that the French would ever have entertained the idea. So if Wilhelm II had abdicated in favour of his grandson (and assuming the lad accepted the crown having recently seen his cousins the Tsar and Tsesarevich executed by revolutionaries), I feel the poor boy would barely have had time to get his 12 year-old bum on the throne before he in turn was forced to abdicate, either as a result of revolution or at the demand of the victorious allies, or both. The choice of a possible regent therefore becomes rather irrelevant.

You've obviously read Purdue's work (I haven't) ... so why does he think the Kaiser's grandson would be an acceptable successor?

Prince Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Joseph Olaf was the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm. Wilhelm Friedrich was born July 4, 1906. From reading Purdue, I have the impression that Purdue believed because Wilhelm Friedrich was only twelve when the War ended, he, Wilhelm Friedrich, would not have had decades of political and governmental training. He would be more easy to influence.

At this time of the war the ordinary German probably was more interested in getting enough food to survive the blockade-forced bleakness, than in who was the formal head of state.

The Army was still in a relatively organized state, but mutiny was rife in the Imperial Navy and it spread to Army, and to the populace in general, as seen by the civil-war like circumstances immediately following the armistice and the armies returned to be disbanded according to the Versailles Treaties.

The disorderly situation was, imho, most clearly shown by the governments of the day having to depend on various Freikorps to fight insurgencies all over the place*), the following inflation, and eventually moving the Reichshauptstadt to Weimar.

* Note: Some years ago I saw a German TV production trying to look into how many people disappeared as results of these local civil wars, I seem to remember that no actual number could be reached.

Nielsen wrote:

mutiny was rife in the Imperial Navy

That was key. It’s often thought that the naval mutinies were a result of inactivity among the sailors and this is partly true. But it is something of a popular myth (particularly in the UK) that following the Battle of Jutland, the German surface fleet was ‘holed up in port’ for the rest of the war. German naval ships actually took part in several actions in the Baltic Sea and also off the coasts of Denmark and Norway and even off the coast of England right up until 1918. That said (and whereas the development of the u-boat in the First World War and its devastating use in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is well known) less well known is the fact that British submarines were active in the Baltic for much of the First World War and seriously inhibited the activities of the Imperial German Navy in that theatre. One might have imagined, for example, that the Russian Imperial Fleet in the Baltic would have been seriously imperilled by the German fleet during the First World War. Yet in 1915 the Russian fleet (supported by British submarines) had repulsed the Germans during the Battle of Gulf of Riga in what in some ways was a precursor to the Battle of Jutland the following year. And a year after Jutland the first mutiny in the German navy occurred in the summer of 1917 involving sailors aboard the battleship SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in Wilhelmshaven following 6 months of relative inactivity.

In 1914 Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl (the then commander of the German High Seas Fleet) had wanted to engage the British immediately in the Thames Estuary and the Straits of Dover on 4 August (i.e. on the first day of war between the 2 countries) but had been restrained by the Kaiser. In a twist of irony, in the last weeks of the war another commander of the fleet, Franz von Hipper had wanted to similarly engage the British (i.e. in the Thames Estuary) but was restrained by the sailors themselves who mutinied first at Wilhelmshaven and then at Kiel. Needless to say that the Kiel mutiny was the first stage of a revolution which spread though Germany resulting in the abdication of Wilhelm II nine days later.

Following the Armistice, the German fleet moved to Scapa Flow in Orkney which they had been led to believe would be a temporary staging post before moving on to a neutral harbouring (in Norway or the Netherlands or some such) while their future was decided. Over 6 months later, however, they were still there with morale among the remaining skeleton crews at rock bottom. It had become clear to the commander Admiral Ludwig von Reuter that the British had no intention of allowing them to leave. Consequently, in a last act of defiance by the once proud fleet and in what is often considered to be the final act of the First World War, von Reuter ordered the 74 German ships to be scuttled on 21 June 1919.
     


The masts and funnels of a Derfflinger-class battlecruiser protruding above the waves after the scuttling.

I didn't know that, Vizzer though I had heard of Scapa Flow .  I feel a certain grudging admiration for Admiral von Reuter in his defiant act.  For A level (both the attempt at school where I got another O level  [which I already had] and when I retook it at night school and passed with an okay grade, a B [an A would have been better but a B was okay]) I studied from about the reign of Charles II to about the time  of the Act which extended the franchise (though not to women) in the nineteenth century.  What has that to do with Wilhelm II - not much but I do tend to get my Wilhelms and my Williams mixed up.  I once got a book out of the library about William of Orange thinking it was about the man who married Queen Mary (James II's daughter) of England but it turned out to be about William the Silent - who never became king of England but was interesting in his own right.  I think many of the leaders of the Netherlands were "of Orange" though I don't know if the Dutch royal house is still thus titled.  (I can google it after typing this I suppose).

Of course I've heard of "Kaiser Bill" but haven't heard him addressed that often by his correct title of Wilhelm II.  Unless it has affected something which has particularly piqued my interest or a period I had to study at school/night school I haven't studied military history particularly so it's interesting to get a point of view from members of Res Hist who know more about those things than myself.

Vizzer, thank you very much for this survey of which I did know a lot, but learned quite some new facts as you mentioned about the Baltic. And yes the submarines in WWI where already a serious treath, as I learned from my recent search on these boards about the Ostend German submarine base and the more important Bruges (Zeebruges) base.

Kind regards from Paul.

Lady,

I can understand it with all those Princes of Orange (prince of the French "Orange")...

"Of course I've heard of "Kaiser Bill" but haven't heard him addressed that often by his correct title of Wilhelm II.  Unless it has affected something which has particularly piqued my interest or a period I had to study at school/night school I haven't studied military history particularly so it's interesting to get a point of view from members of Res Hist who know more about those things than myself."
Correct title: William III "Willem III van Oranje"
You have to say to an Orangist of Northern Ireland that you made a II of him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England
But yes now I see that he was William II of Scotland.
https://www.amazon.com/William-III-Stadholder-King-Political-Biography/dp/0754650715

But "the" William in my opinion for the Dutch was William I of Orange: Willem de Zwijger (for "zwijgen" there seems not to exist a word in English...are they always talking?...stay silent?) William who didn't say that much? We here in Belgium call him "de Zwijger", while Dirk once said to me "Willem de Stomme"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Silent

Kind regards from Paul.

William I of Orange's nickname is translated as "William the Silent".  He is the one about whom the story is told that his wife (or one of them - he was married more than once I believe) had an affair with the father of the painter Rubens.  Rubens Senior was spared because his wife begged William to forgive him.  That was in the book about him I read - unless it turns out to be just another story.

Not so much to do with any potential abdication of Wilhelm II, but when I was thinking this morning about laws which should have been obsolete but were suddenly revived, I came across an article that I can't find now referring to the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 whereby the heir to the UK throne would henceforth be the eldest child of the King/Queen irrespective of whether that child were male or female.  Someone has wryly observed that if the law had been changed thus in Queen Victoria's time, and her daughter (another Victoria who was older than Edward who became Edward VII) had succeeded her, the younger Victoria's heir would have been Kaiser Bill.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Not so much to do with any potential abdication of Wilhelm II, but when I was thinking this morning about laws which should have been obsolete but were suddenly revived, I came across an article that I can't find now referring to the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 whereby the heir to the UK throne would henceforth be the eldest child of the King/Queen irrespective of whether that child were male or female.  Someone has wryly observed that if the law had been changed thus in Queen Victoria's time, and her daughter (another Victoria who was older than Edward who became Edward VII) had succeeded her, the younger Victoria's heir would have been Kaiser Bill.

 
Nice what if Lady.

And another what if
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/november-6-1817-death-of-princess-charlotte-of-wales-in-childbirth-and-its-impact-on-the-succession-to-the-british-throne/
Princess Charlotte hadn't had a childbirth and she and our later Belgian Saksen-Coburg-Gotha still in the run? No scramble for heirs?
And our Charles V from Ghent had also some luck with his heirs. If someone is interested in the story....?

Kind regards from Paul.

It might be interesting to know about Charles V, Paul, though I'm not sure if this is the appropriate thread.  I've sometimes been accused of derailing threads.

I will start a new thread Lady about: "Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube"
https://www.habsburger.net/en/stories/tu-felix-austria-nube
And thank you for the interest.

Kind regards from Paul.

I shall follow this with interest, Paul, as for some quirk in my head I've made a list of 'things to read on 'the Provinces of the United Netherlands', and, where possible, look at the articles - especially wiki - in whatever languages I may have knowledge of.
Earlier on this have given me opportunities for speculation. 

One such matter started when I re-read 'The Black Tulip', by Dumas pére, who wrote of the happenings in the novel from a French - royalist - point of view, where English and German articles might - then - have held different views.

A question perhaps, what were the position in Western Europe of the farmers between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of Charlemagne - the Migration Period or die Völkerwanderungen - and the rise of Feudalism. 
What I have heard of so far seem to be translations of monasterial accounts on what was owed or granted to abbeys and nunneries, but were the farmers free men or serfs or even slaves, or a mix of all three?

Nielsen,

just a quick reply, while I am on duty tomorrow early in the morning.

"A question perhaps, what were the position in Western Europe of the farmers between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of Charlemagne - the Migration Period or die Völkerwanderungen - and the rise of Feudalism. 
What I have heard of so far seem to be translations of monasterial accounts on what was owed or granted to abbeys and nunneries, but were the farmers free men or serfs or even slaves, or a mix of all three?"

I have done research in the time for the "Flemish Plain" with the sea transgressions, but don't find it immediately back.
Found a book about that period about the South-West of nowadays Germany about the Franks and Allemani...
Some first founds
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/merovingian-franks
And about the Merovingian period in the Netherlands and you can nearly extrapolate it to the nowadays Belgium...in fact those Franks, the Weser Franks, came from the region around Limburg (Tongeren) and the nowadays Nordrhein-Westfalen...
https://medium.com/@ceesroffelsen/history-of-the-netherlands-the-merovingian-dynasty-481-751-d8c9cdd5f178

See you tomorrow and kind regards.

PS will make a new thread of it