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On November 10th, 2018, 100 years after the events that ended WWI, I was fortunate enough to spend my 14th birthday on the exact spot Kaiser Wilhelm II made his escape to the Dutch border at Eijsden exactly 100 years to the day to the exact moment at 6 AM. Fearing for his life and knowing he couldn't keep his throne, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne a few hours prior as Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia at the German military headquarters in Spa, Belgium. With the army crumbling on the Western Front and with communist uprisings all across Germany, he feared being kidnapped should he return. And with the Entente making their advancements into Belgium, Spa too wasn't safe. Knowing full well what the communists had done to Emperor Nicholas II of Russia as well as suspecting his cousin the Empress Alexandra and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei had also been slaughtered, he knew he must leave immediately to a neutral country. He left the very night of his abdication travelling by train from Spa train station to the first Dutch station across the border which was Eijsden. However between these two locations was the fifth largest city of Belgium, Liège, which experienced the full blow of the German invasion in 1914. Fearing for his life, he took the remainder of the trip with a car, avoiding Liège entirely and crossed this very border crossing at Withuis, to the surprise of the border guards. This was obviously before the European Union where today you can cross freely whenever you desire. The border house today is now a restaurant called De Grens which has some really nice burgers and bitterballen as a nice welcome to Dutch culture. But in 1918, Wilhelm was forced into this very building stating his intent of entering. With orders from Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who was already secretly expecting him, the border guards were ordered to let Wilhelm through the Dutch border in the early morning of the 10th of November 1918, never to set foot or leave the Netherlands ever again. Arriving at Eijsden, he was forced to spend the rest of the 10th at Eijsden station as The Hague was forced to make the decision of what to do with him. taken in Withuis, Limburg, Netherlands by @topicalessay

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