History Memes

I didnt find a specific wikipedia entry for the coal miner strike itself in english, just this part of Bismarcks entry:

As the debate continued, Wilhelm became increasingly interested in social problems, especially the treatment of mine workers during their strike in 1889. Keeping with his active policy in government, he routinely interrupted Bismarck in Council to make clear his social views. Bismarck sharply disagreed with Wilhelm's policies and worked to circumvent them. Even though Wilhelm supported the altered anti-socialist bill, Bismarck pushed for his support to veto the bill in its entirety. When his arguments could not convince Wilhelm, Bismarck became excited and agitated until uncharacteristically blurting out his motive to see the bill fail: to have the socialists agitate until a violent clash occurred that could be used as a pretext to crush them. Wilhelm countered that he was not willing to open his reign with a bloody campaign against his own subjects

Just to add to that: while Wilhelm II. stance here was definitely the right one, social problems were manifold during his reign and his egocentric desire to bring Germany to its "deserved" place "under the sun" was one of the reasons for the first world war.