Wilhelm II, German Emperor despite appeals from the Allies. King George V wrote that he looked on his cousin as "the greatest criminal in history", but opposed Prime Minister David Lloyd George's proposal to "hang the Kaiser". President Woodrow Wilson of the United States opposed extradition, arguing that prosecuting Wilhelm would destabilize international order and lose the peace. Wilhelm first settled in Amerongen, where on 28 November he issued a belated statement of abdication from both the Prussian and imperial thrones, thus formally ending the Hohenzollerns' 400-year rule over Prussia. Accepting the reality that he had lost both of his crowns for good, he
SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II from this role in February 1915, after which she served as a command ship for the High Seas Fleet, based in Wilhelmshaven. Following the end of the war in November 1918, "Kaiser Wilhelm II" was stricken from the navy list and sold for scrap in the early 1920s. Her bow ornament is preserved at the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden. After the German "Kaiserliche Marine" (Imperial Navy) ordered the four s in 1889, a combination of budgetary constraints, opposition in the "Reichstag" (Imperial Diet), and a lack of a coherent fleet plan delayed the acquisition of further