Wilhelm II (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht von Preußen; English: Frederick William Victor Albert of Prussia) (January 27, 1859 – June 4, 1941) was the German Emperor (Kaiser) and last King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire from June 15, 1888 until his death on June 4, 1941 and the Kingdom of Prussia from June 15, 1888 to January 30, 1934. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe. Crowned in 1888, he dismissed the Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck, in 1890 and launched Germany on a bellicose "New Course" in foreign affairs that culminated in his support for Austria-Hungary in the crisis of July 1914 that led to World War I. Bombastic and impetuous, he sometimes made tactless pronouncements on sensitive topics without