Was Kaiser Wilhelm II against entering World War 1?

Answer 1

No: He expected Germany to be victorious.

Are you kidding? Andrew Carnegie represented a huge Western consortium of major businesses when he offered Kaiser Wilhelm and Germany a multi-bllion-dollar package of aid to address his stated concerns regarding their parity with other Western European nations. The Kaiser thanked Carnegie, but then waxed on about the German peoples' historical grievances, etc. etc. And on another count, in the Balkans, the Serbs had aquiesced to the Austrian Hungarian rulers there on all but a few remaining points in demands which they had felt strongly about, having to do with preserving their ethnic identity. Even the Austrian & Hungarian leaders told Kaiser Wilhelm in the event that the Serbs could not realistically be expected to back down those last emaining positions, and still retain their honour. But the Kaiser demanded they give in on everything, and this as much as other causes led to war. Along with some historians, I suspect the Kaiser's interest in war was fueled by Britain's difficulties in defeating the Boers of South Africa (nearly 400,000 Brit troops to about 80,000 Boers). If you really wish to delve very deeply into root psychology behind this war, there are credible historians who point out the links going back nearly 300 years to the Thirty Years War, which devastated Germany and its population so badly that it took many generations to begin recovering.