National self-identification made rulers subject to popular verdicts of treason
Evidence
If Kaiser Wilhelm II cast himself as ‘No. 1 German,’ he implicitly conceded that he was one among many of the same kind as himself, that he had a representative function, and therefore could, in principle, be a traitor to his fellow-Germans (something inconceivable in the dynasty’s heyday. Traitor to whom or to what?). In the wake of the disaster that overtook Germany in 1918, he was taken at his implied word. Acting in the name of the German nation, civilian politicians (publicly) and the General Staff (with its usual courage, secretly) sent him packing from the Fatherland to an obscure Dutch suburb. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 346
Categorization
- CANDY: The Wilhelm II anecdote — casting himself as ‘No. 1 German’ then being sent packing by his own nation — is a compact illustrative story.
- XREF: connects to: Jews and nobility shared pre-national allegiances that the nation-state attacked; Dynasts who adopted national identities became vulnerable to charges of betraying their nations — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 346; Sacral monarchy’s legitimacy declined, forcing rulers to adopt standardized national forms — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 79