Jerusalem: The Biography

* Wilhelm’s unpredictable behaviour frequently alarmed his own entourage. His early sex life with its outré tastes, including glove-wearing and sado-masochistic fetishes, had to be concealed. One courtier, a middle-aged Prussian general, died of a heart attack while dancing for the Kaiser in nothing but a tutu and feather-boa, and another entertained him dressed as a begging poodle ‘in shaved tights with, under a real poodle-tail, a marked rectal opening. I can already see His Majesty laughing with us.’ Ultimately his friend Eulenburg was destroyed in a sex scandal when his secret gay life was exposed. Yet Wilhelm was also a priggish Victorian when it came to the morals of others: he never spoke to Eulenburg again.