WILLIAM of CUN (de Cuneo, de Cugno). – Jurist of the 14th century. Of French nationality, not Italian as was once believed, he taught civil law at Toulouse from 1316 to 1317 and perhaps at Orléans. He had frequent dealings with the papal court at Avignon and was elected bishop of Comminges; he died in 1335.
To him are attributed lecture courses on the Digestum vetus and on the Codex, works much praised by Diplovatatius and frequently cited by Bartolus. Two short treatises also belong to G. of C.: De numeribus and De securitate.
WILLIAM II, Emperor of GERMANY and King of PRUSSIA. – b. 27 Jan 1859 at Potsdam, d. 4 June 1941 at Doorn (Netherlands). Son of Frederick III of Prussia and Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, he became King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany upon his father’s death in 1888. Once on the throne, he soon found himself in conflict with Bismarck, whose excessive autonomy in directing the Empire’s domestic and foreign policy was intolerable to him given his own egocentric conception of kingship.
The Emperor and the Iron Chancellor clashed violently on two main issues: in domestic policy William intended to issue various social measures and did not wish to renew the anti-socialist law—intentions that Bismarck did not welcome; in foreign policy, the chancellor’s skilful diplomatic edifice, designed to secure Germany’s friendship with Russia (the so-called Reinsurance Treaty of 1887), was not appreciated by the emperor in all its importance and was regarded as irreconcilable with the commitments owed to the powers that, together with Germany, formed the Triple Alliance. Collaboration between Emperor and chancellor grew increasingly difficult day by day: in March 1890 Bismarck was forced to resign. The failure to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia favoured the alliance of St Petersburg with Paris. The emperor’s imprudent declarations, made on many occasions in speeches and newspaper interviews, also alarmed England, which feared German expansionism. These attitudes were reinforced both by the construction of a powerful navy under Tirpitz and by Germany’s interest in Africa and Turkey (the Berlin–Baghdad railway) and by the open sympathy shown to the Boers fighting against England in 1899. These stances influenced, and in a certain sense determined, the outbreak of the First World War. Of absolutist tendencies, William did not revoke—though he had promised to do so—the Prussian three-class electoral system, nor did he take account of the peace motion passed by the Reichstag in 1917. At the end of the war he abdicated and took refuge in the Netherlands, where he remained in exile until his death.
During William’s reign the condition of the Catholic Church improved noticeably. The remaining laws of the Kulturkampf were gradually abolished. In 1904 the law against the Jesuits was also partially repealed.