# Are there any Kaiser v. RMS Titanic conspiracies?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-kaiser-v-rms-titanic-conspiracies/918280>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 16, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-kaiser-v-rms-titanic-conspiracies/918280 "2020-08-16T21:00:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-kaiser-v-rms-titanic-conspiracies/918280/21 "2020-08-17T17:41:15Z")

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> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> And at that time, Germany was quite friendly with Britain. The Kaiser was related to the Royal family, he was made a Knight of the Garter, etc. It wasnt until later that the British started a propaganda war ve “The Hun” as Silly Willy was building a navy to match theirs and they couldnt allow that. Idiot Kaiser thought that the British would be honored.

Your timeline is off. [The Tirpitz plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Naval_Laws) for building big military and merchant navies went into effect in 1898. In 1912, the tensions between Britain and Germany had already been very strong for years because the German Navy was already remarkable enough to be a threat and a steady provocation for Britain.

ETA: the fact that the German Navy was totally useless in WW I is ironic, but couldn’t be totally anticipated at that point in time.

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**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-kaiser-v-rms-titanic-conspiracies/918280/22 "2020-08-17T18:17:50Z")

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Asides from the impracticability, even if the Kaiser had had such a crazy plan, the military and other German officials wouldn’t have followed through. In 1912, Willi already was a lame duck. He never had been a dictator or an absolute ruler anyway (though he always had the ambitions to be), but after 25 years of his reign, his recurrent embarrassing blunders and scandals led to the fact that at that time, he was already much reined in by parliament, chancellor and most of all, the military. The last straw had been the [Daily Telegraph affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Telegraph_Affair). The German elite was not dumb and like everybody else in Europe knew that Kaiser Willhelm was a delusional narcissist.

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-kaiser-v-rms-titanic-conspiracies/918280/23 "2020-08-18T14:36:42Z")

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> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> Hold my beer.  
> …

Bravo Sir, well played!

And, ref [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/978/) it won’t be long before we see this one all over teh inerwebs. Just substitute “SDMB” for “wiki”. At least for the first lap around the diagram.

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