Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Nicholas II of Russia. Wilhelm is wearing a Russian Hussar uniform and Nicholas has a German Army Uniform.

Both of them were incompetent. They make for an airtight case against hereditary absolute monarchs.

Nicholas cared only for himself and nothing for his people. He had a fortune worth billions of dollars while his people suffered. He was an abuser of human rights as well. When people organized a peaceful protest to hand him a petition, he had his soldiers fire upon them. He was a warmonger and lost almost every war he entered. Russia got the worst of WWI, they were destroyed in the Russo-Japanese war, etc. He also had a role in starting WWI by supporting Serbia, and by doing this pulling Britain and France into the war.

As for Wilhelm, he wasn’t as bad, but still incompetent to a degree. He dismissed Otto Von Bismarck, the German Chancellor who dominated European politics and almost singlehandedly built Germany into a world power. He was also a known anti-semite. His gross mishandling of WWI was another factor that leads people to think he was a fool, although Nicholas was the worst of the two.

FUN FACT: They, along with George V of England, were noted for looking remarkably similar (particularly George and Nicholas) because they were all cousins.

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