Having discharged the duty of addressing his own subjects, the Emperor's next care, after a stay at Kiel where a German Emperor and King now for the first time in history appeared in the uniform of an admiral, was personally to announce his accession at the courts of his fellow-European sovereigns. We find him, accordingly, paying visits to Alexander II in St. Petersburg, to King Oscar II in Stockholm (where he received a telegram announcing the birth of his fifth son), to Christian IX in Copenhagen, to Kaiser Franz Joseph in Vienna and to King Humbert in Rome. To both the last-mentioned he presented himself in the additional capacity of Triplice ally.
In August of the year following his accession he paid his first visit as Emperor to England. It was a very different thing, one may imagine, from the earliest recorded visit of a German Emperor to the English Court. That was in 1416, when the Emperor Sigismund (1411-1437) arrived there and was received by Henry V. Henry postponed the opening of Parliament specially on his account, made him a Knight of the Garter, and signed with him at Canterbury an offensive and defensive alliance against France. How poor the German Empire and the German Emperor were at that epoch may be judged from the fact that on his way home Sigismund had to pawn the costly gifts he had received in England.
On the present occasion a grand naval review of over a hundred warships, with crews totalling 25,000 men, was held in honour of the Emperor at Osborne. This was followed, a few days afterwards, by a parade of the troops at Aldershot under the command of General Sir Evelyn Wood. On this occasion, after expressing his admiration for the British troops, the Emperor concluded: "At Malplaquet and Waterloo, Prussian and British blood flowed in the prosecution of a common enterprise." In a little speech after the review the Emperor spoke of the English navy as "the finest in the world." The impression made by the Emperor on Sir Evelyn has been recorded by that general. "The Emperor is extremely wide-awake," he writes to a friend, "with a decided, straightforward manner. He is a good rider. His quick and very intelligent spirit seizes every detail at a glance, and he possesses a wonderful memory." The Emperor was now nominated an honorary Admiral of the British navy and as a return compliment made Queen Victoria honorary "Chef" of his own First Dragoon Guards. At the naval review a journalist asked an English naval officer what would happen if the Emperor, in command of a German fleet, should meet a British fleet in time of war between England and Germany?--"Would the British fleet have to salute the Emperor?" "Certainly," replied the naval officer; "it would fire 100 guns at him."