The kaiser and the paperweight: how Cecil Rhodes helped inspire the first world war

The German monarch's imperial ambitions were fuelled by the British colonialist - as the story behind a recently discovered relic reveals

It was discovered, dusty and damaged, on a warehouse shelf.

Recorded simply as a paperweight" in the depot inventory, it was just one small piece among 30,000 personal items salvaged from Kaiser Wilhelm II's palaces more than a century ago, and sent on to him in a convoy of 64 railway coaches as he abdicated and fled to the Netherlands after Germany's defeat in the first world war.