Sto lat temu Brytyjczycy - za zgodą francuskiego alianta - dokonali próby zamachu na życie cesarza Niemiec Wilhelma II. Modus operandi przedsięwzięcia polegał na przeprowadzeniu - z zaskoczenia - nalotu bombowego przez zespół bombowców De Havilland na zamek należący do francuskiego arystokraty - w którym urządził swoją kwaterę polową Wilhelm II. Zamach się nie udał. W chwili ataku cesarz przebywał na froncie. Zdarzenie jak wyżej nie dziwi w kontekście uwarunkowań II wojny światowej. Jednakże jeżeli chodzi o tę pierwszą - zaskakuje swoim radykalizmem i brutalnością. Wilhelm Ii był przecież głową państwa - stroną w wojnie - oraz, co szczególnie pikantne, bardzo bliskim krewnym brytyjskich "Royals".
O detalach zamachu traktuje podlinkowany materiał. Tu - tytułem ciekawostki - warto dodać, iż przed dokonaniem ataku, alianci zapytali o zgodę francuskiego arystokratę, właściciela zamku - i oficera armii francuskiej. Ten - powodowany patriotyzmem - wyraził zgodę. Co pierwsza wojna, to jednak pierwsza. Świat się jeszcze wówczas totalnie nie zbisurmanił.

"The author of the book, The Kaiser’s Dawn, due for release this weekend, found out about the secret raid from the grandson of one of the RAF pilots.
“As president of the Guild of Battlefield Guides, I was leading a tour of the Western Front and became aware of some unpublished First World War RAF documents. I was astonished. I had stumbled across an historically important treasure trove that revealed secrets which have been largely hidden for a hundred years,” said writer, military historian John Hughes-Wilson, a retired colonel in British Intelligence.
But there are still three major mysteries surrounding the attack.
Trying to assassinate your enemy’s head of state, especially a royal one who was the British king’s first cousin, was to put it mildly, a very serious, sensitive and potentially controversial matter. So who was it in Britain who actually authorised the attack?
It’s very likely that the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, would have had to authorise the mission, especially as it involved the RAF. But there is no proof that he did so, or even that he knew about it beforehand. Deliberately trying to kill an enemy head of state was a very rare event in history
it is not the sort of thing civilised governments were supposed to do. After all, it was an accusation of state complicity in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand – not even of a head of state – that had triggered the war in the first place.
Certainly there is no evidence that Britain ever tried to assassinate a major enemy’s head of state in the many wars of the 18th century, in the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century or even in the Second World War. Indeed, the only British plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler was, in the end, vetoed by Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill. The raid on Trelon in 1918 is therefore potentially unique – and an aberration from normal political and military convention."

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