The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire Part XI: Aftermath

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Bohemia and Croatia, Christian VII of Denmark, Congress of Vienna, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor of Austria, German Confederation, Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, King of Hungary

Aftermath

The Holy Roman Empire, an institution which had lasted for just over a thousand years, did not pass unnoticed or unlamented. The dissolution of the empire sent shockwaves through Germany, with most of the reactions within the former imperial boundaries being rage, grief or shame.

Even the signatories of the Confederation of the Rhine were outraged; the Bavarian emissary to the imperial diet, Rechberg, stated that he was “furious” due to having “put his signature to the destruction of the German name”, referring to his state’s involvement in the confederation, which had effectively doomed the empire.

From a legal standpoint, Franz II’s abdication was controversial. Contemporary legal commentators agreed that the abdication itself was perfectly legal but that the emperor did not have the authority to dissolve the empire. As such, several of the empire’s vassals refused to recognize that the empire had ended. As late as October 1806, farmers in Thuringia refused to accept the end of the empire, believing its dissolution to be a plot by the local authorities.

For many of the people within the former empire, its collapse made them uncertain and fearful of their future, and the future of Germany itself. Contemporary reports from Vienna describe the dissolution of the empire as “incomprehensible” and the general public’s reaction as one of horror.

The German Confederation

In contrast to the fears of the general public, many contemporary intellectuals and artists saw Napoleon as a herald of a new age, rather than a destroyer of an old order. The popular idea forwarded by German nationalists was that the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire freed Germany from the somewhat anachronistic ideas rooted in a fading ideal of universal Christianity and paved the way for the country’s unification as the German Empire, a nation state, 65 years later.

German historian Helmut Rössler has argued that Franz II and the Austrians fought to save the largely ungrateful Germany from the forces of Napoleon, only withdrawing and abandoning the empire when most of Germany betrayed them and joined Napoleon. Indeed, the assumption of a separate Austrian imperial title in 1804 did not mean that Franz II had any intentions to abdicate his prestigious position as the Roman emperor, the idea only began to be considered as circumstances beyond Habsburg control forced decisive actions to be taken.

Compounded with fears of what now guaranteed the safety of many of the smaller German states, the poet Christoph Martin Wieland lamented that Germany had now fallen into an “apocalyptic time” and stating “Who can bear this disgrace, which weighs down upon a nation which was once so glorious?—may God improve things, if it is still possible to improve them!”.

To some, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was seen as the final end of the ancient Roman Empire. In the words of Christian Gottlob von Voigt, a minister in Weimar, “if poetry can go hand in hand with politics, then the abdication of the imperial dignity offers a wealth of material.

The Roman Empire now takes its place in the sequence of vanquished empires”. In the words of the English historian James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce in his 1864 work on the Holy Roman Empire, the empire was the “oldest political institution in the world” and the same institution as the one founded by Augustus in 27 BC.

Writing of the empire, Bryce stated that “nothing else so directly linked the old world to the new—nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much of European history”.

When confronted by the fall and collapse of their empire, many contemporaries employed the catastrophic fall of ancient Troy as a metaphor, due to its association with the notion of total destruction and the end of a culture.

The image of the apocalypse was also frequently used, associating the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire with an impending end of the world (echoing medieval legends of a Last Roman Emperor, a figure prophesized to be active during the end times).

Criticism and protests against the empire’s dissolution were typically censored, especially in the French-administered Confederation of the Rhine. Among the aspects most criticized by the general populace was the removal or replacement of the traditional intercessions for the empire and emperor in the daily church prayers throughout former imperial territory. Suppression from France, combined with examples of excessive retribution against pro-empire advocates, ensured that these protests soon died down.

Official and international reactions

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden, who in 1806 issued a proclamation to his German subjects that the dissolution of the empire “would not destroy the German nation.”

In an official capacity, Prussia’s response was only formulaic expressions of regret owing to the “termination of an honourable bond hallowed by time”. Prussia’s representative to the Reichstag, Baron Görtz, reacted with sadness, mixed with gratitude and affection for the House of Habsburg and their former role as emperors.

Görtz had taken part as an electoral emissary of the Electorate of Brandenburg (Prussia’s territory within the formal imperial borders) in 1792, at the election of Franz II as Holy Roman Emperor, and exclaimed that “So the emperor whom I helped elect was the last emperor!—This step was no doubt to be expected, but that does not make its reality any less moving and crushing. It cuts off the last thread of hope to which one tried to cling”.

Baron von Wiessenberg, the Austrian envoy to the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, reported that the local elector, Wilhelm I, had teared up and expressed lament at the loss of “a constitution to which Germany had for so long owed its happiness and freedom”.

Internationally, the empire’s demise was met with mixed or indifferent reactions. Emperor Alexander I of Russia offered no response and King Christian VII of Denmark formally incorporated his German lands into his kingdoms a few months after the empire’s dissolution.

Franz I, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden (who notably hadn’t recognized the separate imperial title of Austria yet) issued a somewhat provocative proclamation to the denizens of his German lands (Swedish Pomerania and Bremen-Verden) on August 22, 1806, stating that the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire “would not destroy the German nation” and expressed hopes that the empire might be revived.

Possibility of restoration

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was constituted by Franz II’s own personal abdication of the title and the release of all vassals and imperial states from their obligations and duties to the emperor. The title of Holy Roman Emperor (theoretically the same title as Roman Emperor) and the Holy Roman Empire itself as an idea and institution (the theoretically universally sovereign imperium) were never technically abolished. Dissolved yes, abolished no.

The continued existence of a universal empire, though without defined territory and lacking an emperor, was sometimes referenced in the titles of other later monarchs. For instance, the Savoyard Kings of Italy continued to claim the title “Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire (in Italy)” (a title originating from a 14th-century imperial grant from Emperor Charles IV to their ancestor Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy) until the abolition of the Italian monarchy in 1946.

In the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeats in 1814 and 1815, there was a widespread sentiment in Germany and elsewhere which called for the revival of the Holy Roman Empire under the leadership of Emperor Franz I of Austria. At the time, there were several factors which prevented the restoration of the empire as it had been in the 18th century, notably the rise of larger, more consolidated kingdoms in Germany, such as Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg, as well as Prussia’s interest in becoming a great power in Europe (rather than continue being a vassal to the Habsburgs).

Even then, the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, with a modernized internal political structure, had not been out of reach at the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna (which decided Europe’s borders in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat). However, Emperor Franz had come to the conclusion before the Congress of Vienna convened, that the Holy Roman Empire’s political structure would not have been superior to the new order in Europe and that restoring it was not in the interest of the Habsburg monarchy.

In an official capacity, the papacy considered the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was not restored at the Congress of Vienna (alongside other decisions made during the negotiations) to be “detrimental to the interests of the Catholic religion and the rights of the church”.

In the Holy Roman Empire’s place, the German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on June 8, 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The German Confederation, which was led by the Austrian emperors as “heads of the presiding power” would prove to be ineffective.

The Confederation was weakened by the German revolutions of 1848–1849, where after the Frankfurt Parliament, elected by the people of the Confederation, attempted to proclaim a German Empire and designate Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia as their Emperor.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV himself did not approve of the idea, instead favoring a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs of Austria, though neither the Habsburgs themselves nor the German revolutionaries, still active at the time, would have approved of that idea.

Prussia went to war in 1866 with Austria in an attempt to remove Austria from German politics. With Austria successfully removed from any participation in the affairs of the German states, by 1871 Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the war against France (The Franco-Prussian War 1870-71) to unite the German states into a new German Empire under the authority of the Prussian king as the new German Emperor.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part VII: The Creation of Two New Empires

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Bishop of Rome, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Franz II, Emperor of the French, Imperial Crown of Austria, King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Napoleon Bonaparte, Pope Pius VII, The Holy Roman Empire

The head of the French Republic, Napoleon, assumed the title “Emperor of the French” in 1804. Among others, one of the important figures attending the coronation was Pope Pius VII, probably fearing that Napoleon planned to conquer the Papal States.

Pope Pius VII was aware that Napoleon symbolically linked his imperial coronation with the imperial coronation of Charlemagne and would most likely have caught the similarity between Napoleon’s title and Emperor of the Romans, the title used by Franz II and all Holy Roman emperors before him. Through his presence at the ceremony, Pius VII symbolically approved of the transfer of imperial power (translatio imperii) from the Romans (and thus the Franks and Germans) to the French.

Napoleon’s coronation received a mixed reaction in the Holy Roman Empire. Although a return to monarchy in France was welcomed (though unfortunate in so far that the monarch was Napoleon), the imperial title (instead of a royal one) was not.

In the empire, Napoleon’s title raised fears that it might inspire the Russian Emperor to insist that he was equal to the Holy Roman Emperor and might encourage other monarchs, such as King George III of the United Kingdom, to also proclaim themselves emperors.

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

Relations between the Habsburgs and George III were complicated; in diplomacy, the court at Vienna had for many years refused to refer to the British king as “His Majesty” since he was only a king, not an emperor. The Habsburg diplomat Ludwig von Cobenzl, fearing the consequences of Napoleon’s coronation, is quoted as having advised Holy Roman Emperor Franz II that “‘as Roman Emperor, Your Majesty has enjoyed till now precedence ahead of all European potentates, including the Russian Emperor”.

Though Napoleon’s imperial title was viewed with distaste, Austrian officials immediately realized that if they were to refuse to accept him as an Emperor, war with France would be renewed. Instead, the focus became on how to accept Napoleon as an Emperor while still maintaining the pre-eminence of their own emperor and empire.

France had officially accepted parity with Austria as a distinct state in 1757, 1797 and 1801 and in the same settlements accepted that the Holy Roman Empire outranked both Austria and France. Thus, it was decided that Austria would be raised to the rank of an empire in order to maintain the parity between Austria and France while still preserving the Roman Imperial title as pre-eminent, outranking both.

Empire of Austria

The Imperial Crown of Austria, used until the end of the Habsburg monarchy in Austria and originally made for Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Franz II proclaimed himself as Emperor of Austria (without the need of a new coronation, as he had already had an imperial coronation) on August 11, 1804, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor. Cobenzl advised that a separate hereditary Austrian title would also allow the Habsburg to maintain parity with other rulers (since the Holy Roman title was viewed by Cobenzl as merely honorific) and ensure elections to the position of Holy Roman Emperor in the future.

A myriad of reasons were used to justify the Austrian Empire’s creation, including the number of subjects under the Habsburg Monarchy, the vast extent of his crown lands and the long association between the Habsburg family and the elective Holy Roman imperial title.

Another important point used to justify its creation was that Emperor Franz II was, in the traditional sense, the supreme Christian monarch and he was thus entitled to award himself with any dignities he wished. The title “Emperor of Austria” was meant to associate with all of Franz II’s personal domains (not just Austria, but also lands such as Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia), regardless of their current position within or outside the Holy Roman Empire. “Austria” in this sense referred to the dynasty (often officially called the “House of Austria” instead of the “House of Habsburg”), not the geographical location.

The title of Holy Roman Emperor remained pre-eminent to both “Emperor of the French” and “Emperor of Austria” as it embodied the traditional ideal of the universal Christian empire. Neither the Austrian nor the French title made claims to govern this universal empire and thus did not disturb the traditional and established world order.

The imperial titles of Austria and France were seen as more or less royal titles (as they were hereditary) and in the minds of the Austrians, there still remained only one true empire and one true emperor in Europe. To illustrate this, Francis II’s official imperial title read “elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria”, placing the Austrian title behind the Roman title.

Franz, Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia

Though Napoleon was reluctant to tie his own imperial title to any concessions, he needed recognition from Austria to secure wider recognition and thus agreed to recognize Franz II’s new title. Prior to his own coronation, he sent a personal letter of congratulations to Francis. George III of the United Kingdom recognized the new title in October and although Russian Emperor Alexander I objected to Franz II “lowering himself to the level of the usurper Napoleon”, he recognized the title in November.

The only significant objections to Franz II’s title were raised by Sweden, which through holding Swedish Pomerania, an Imperial Estate, had a place in the Reichstag. The Swedes saw the title as a “clear breach” of the imperial constitution and, invoking their prerogative as a guarantor of the imperial constitution, demanded a formal debate in the Reichstag, a threat that was neutralized by the other parties of the Reichstag agreeing to an extended summer recess until November.

To defend the title, imperial representatives argued that it did not infringe on the imperial constitution as there were already other examples of dual monarchies within the empire, states such as Prussia and Sweden were not part of the empire, but their possessions within the empire were.

From the period of August 11, 1804 to August 6, 1806 Franz II was the only double Emperor in recorded history.

August 3, 1770: Birth of Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg

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Congress of Vienna, Elector of Brandenburg, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Franz of Austria, Friedrich-Wilhelm II of Prussia, George III of Great Britain, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Napoleonic Wars

Friedrich Wilhelm III (August 3, 1770 – June 7, 1840) was King of Prussia from November 6, 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until August 6, 1806, when the Empire was dissolved.

Friedrich Wilhelm III was born in Potsdam on August 3, I1770 as the son of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, the daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken. She was born in Prenzlau. She was the sister of Grand Duchess Louise of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, (wife of Charles August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach)
as well as Grand Duke Ludwig I of Hesse and by Rhine.

Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia

Parents Marriage

Frederica Louisa was selected to marry Friedrich Wilhelm II immediately after his divorce from Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg, after Margravine Philippine of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Albertina of Sweden had been suggested. Her mother was highly admired by Friedrich II the Great of Prussia. The wedding was performed on July 14, 1769 at the Charlottenburg Palace.

The future Friedrich Wilhelm II was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations, distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech subsequently came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers. He was neglected by his father during his childhood and suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life.

As a child, Friedrich Wiilhelm’s father (under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, Countess of Lichtenau) had him handed over to tutors, as was quite normal for the period. He spent part of the time living at Paretz, the estate of the old soldier Count Hans von Blumenthal who was the governor of his brother Prince Heinrich.

They thus grew up partly with the Count’s son, who accompanied them on their Grand Tour in the 1780s. Friedrich Wilhelm was happy at Paretz, and for this reason, in 1795, he bought it from his boyhood friend and turned it into an important royal country retreat. He was a melancholy boy, but he grew up pious and honest. His tutors included the dramatist Johann Engel.

As a soldier, he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a lieutenant colonel in 1786, a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792–1794.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (“Louise” in English) was born on March 10, 1776 in a one-storey villa, just outside the capital in Hanover. She was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt, eldest daughter of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt, second son of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Falkenburg-Dagsburg.

Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte (wife of George III, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover).

Her maternal grandmother, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of Great Britain served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

At the time of her birth, Louise’s father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (he would not succeed his brother as Duke until 1794), and consequently she was not born in a court, but rather in a less formal home. Charles was field marshal of the household brigade in Hanover, and soon after Louise’s birth he was made Governor-General of that territory by his brother-in-law George III, king of the United Kingdom and Hanover.

The family subsequently moved to Leineschloss, the residence of Hanoverian kings, though during the summer they usually lived at Herrenhausen.

In 1793, Marie Louise took the two youngest duchesses with her to Frankfurt, where she paid her respects to her nephew King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Louise had grown up into a beautiful young woman, possessing “an exquisite complexion” and “large blue eyes,” and was naturally graceful. Louise’s uncle, the Duke of Mecklenburg, hoped to strengthen ties between his house and Prussia.

Consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the Duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the king’s son and heir, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. The crown prince was twenty-three, serious-minded, and religious. Louise made such a charming impression on Friedrich Wilhelm that he immediately made his choice, desiring to marry her.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Frederica caught the eye of his younger brother Prince Ludwig Charles, and the two families began planning a double betrothal, celebrating a month later, on April 4, 1793 in Darmstadt. Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise were subsequently married on December 24 that same year, with Ludwig Charles and Frederica marrying two days later.

Louise who bore Friedrich Wilhelm ten children. In the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince’s Palace) in Berlin, he lived a civil life with a problem-free marriage, which did not change even when he became King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia in 1797. Queen Louise was particularly loved by the Prussian people, which boosted the popularity of the whole House of Hohenzollern, including the King himself.

Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise

Reign

As King, Friedrich Wilhelm III ruled Prussia during the difficult times of the Napoleonic Wars. The king reluctantly joined the coalition against Napoleon in the Befreiungskriege.

Queen Louise was his most important political advisor. She led a mighty group that included Baron vom Stein, Prince von Hardenberg, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and Count von Gneisenau. They set about reforming Prussia’s administration, churches, finance, and military.

On July 19, 1810, while visiting her father in Strelitz, the Queen died in her husband’s arms from an unidentified illness. Lieutenant-General Baron De Marbot, in his Memoirs, records that the Queen in later life always wore a thick wrapping around her neck. It was to conceal a botched operation for goitre, which left an open sore, which eventually killed her.

The queen’s subjects attributed the French occupation as the cause of her early death. “Our saint is in heaven”, exclaimed Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Louise’s untimely death left her husband alone during a period of great difficulty, as the Napoleonic Wars and need for reform continued. Louise was buried in the garden of Charlottenburg Palace, where a mausoleum, containing a fine recumbent statue by Christian Daniel Rauch, was built over her grave.

In 1813, following Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, Friedrich Wilhelm turned against France and signed an alliance with Russia at Kalisz. However, he had to flee Berlin, still under French occupation. Prussian troops played a crucial part in the victories of the allies in 1813 and 1814, and the King himself traveled with the main army of Charles Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, along with Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Franz of Austria.

At the Congress of Vienna, Friedrich Wilhelm III’s ministers succeeded in securing significant territorial increases for Prussia. However, they failed to obtain the annexation of all of Saxony, as they had wished.

Following the war, Friedrich Wilhelm III turned towards political reaction, abandoning the promises he had made in 1813 to provide Prussia with a constitution.
His primary interests were internal – the reform of Prussia’s Protestant churches.

He was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches.

In 1824 Friedrich Wilhelm III remarried (morganatically) Countess Auguste von Harrach, Princess of Liegnitz. They had no children.

In 1838 the king distributed large parts of his farmland at Erdmannsdorf Estate to 422 Protestant refugees from the Austrian Zillertal, who built Tyrolean style farmhouses in the Silesian village.

Death

Friedrich Wilhelm III died on June 7, 1840 in Berlin, from a fever, survived by his second wife. His eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, succeeded him. Friedrich Wilhelm III is buried at the Mausoleum in Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin.

Emperor’s Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany, descendants of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia

Friedrich Wilhelm III was the closest common ancestor of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Emperor Nicholas II is a descendant of Friedrich Wilhelm III through his daughter, Princess Charlotte, who married Emperor Nicholas I of Russia who was Emperor Nicholas II’s great-grandfather.

Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia is a descendant of Friedrich Wilhelm III through his second son, Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia, who was Wilhelm II’s grandfather.

This means that Nicholas II and Wilhelm II were second cousins once removed.

July 6, 1796: Birth of Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland

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Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Charlotte of Prussia, Decemberist Revolt, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Emperor Paul of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, King of Poland

Nicholas I (July 6, 1796 – March 2, 1855) reigned as Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 1825 until his death in 1855.

Nicholas was born at Gatchina Palace in Gatchina to Grand Duke Paul Petróvich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia (née Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg). Sophie Dorothea was Daughter of Duke Friedrich Eugene of Württemberg and Princess Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt.

Five months after his birth, his grandmother, Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia died and his parents became Emperor Paul and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. He was a younger brother of Emperor Alexander I of Russia, who succeeded to the throne in 1801, and of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia. Riasanovsky says he was, “the most handsome man in Europe, but also a charmer who enjoyed feminine company and was often at his best with the men.”

In 1800, at the age of four years, Nicholas was named Grand Prior of Russia and entitled to wear the Maltese cross.

February 1814, Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich and his brother Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, visited Berlin. Arrangements were made between the two dynasties for Nicholas to marry Charlotte, then fifteen years old, to strengthen the alliance between Russia and Prussia.

Charlotte’s parents were Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Nicholas was only second in line to the throne, as the heir was his brother Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich who, like Emperor Alexander I, was childless. On a second visit the following year, Nicholas fell in love with the then-seventeen-year-old Princess Charlotte.

Nicholas was tall and handsome with classical features. The feeling was mutual, “I like him and am sure of being happy with him.” She wrote to her brother, “What we have in common is our inner life; let the world do as it pleases, in our hearts we have a world of our own.”

Hand-in-hand, they wandered over the Potsdam countryside, and attended the Berlin Court Opera. By the end of his visit, in October 1816, Nicholas and Charlotte were engaged.

On June 8, 1817 Princess Charlotte came to Russia with her brother Wilhelm. After arriving in St. Petersburg she converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and took the Russian name “Alexandra Feodorovna”.

Charlotte of Prussia, Grand Duke Alexandra Feodorovna

On her nineteenth birthday, July 13, 1817, she and Nicholas were married in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace. “I felt myself very, very happy when our hands joined,” she would later write about her wedding. “With complete confidence and trust, I gave my life into the hands of my Nicholas, and he never once betrayed it.”

Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia.

With two older brothers, it initially seemed unlikely Nicholas would ever become tsar. However, as Alexander and Constantine both failed to produce legitimate sons, Nicholas remained likely to rule one day.

In 1825, when Alexander I died suddenly of typhus, Nicholas was caught between swearing allegiance to his brother as the new Emperor Constantine and accepting the throne for himself.

Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich was the heir-presumptive for most of his elder brother Alexander I’s reign.

However, he had secretly renounced his claim to the throne in 1823 although this information was not widely known, it was especially unknown to the court. Therefore, for 25 days after the death of Alexander I, from December 1, 1825 to December 26, 1825 he was known as His Imperial Majesty Constantine I, Emperor and Sovereign of Russia, although he never reigned and never actually acceded to the throne.

The interregnum lasted until Constantine, who was in Warsaw at that time, confirmed his refusal of the Imperial Crown.

Additionally, on December 25, Nicholas issued the manifesto proclaiming his accession to the throne. That manifesto retroactively named December 1, the date of Alexander I’s death, as the beginning of his reign. During this confusion, a plot was hatched by some members of the military to overthrow Nicholas and seize power.

While some of the army had sworn loyalty to Nicholas, a force of about 3,000 troops tried to mount a military coup in favour of Constantine. The rebels, although weakened by dissension between their leaders, confronted the loyalists outside the Senate building in the presence of a large crowd.

In the confusion, the Emperor’s envoy, Mikhail Miloradovich, was assassinated. Eventually, the loyalists opened fire with heavy artillery, which scattered the rebels. Many were sentenced to hanging, prison, or exile to Siberia. The conspirators became known as the Decembrists.

Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrist Revolt on the very first day of his reign, Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society. The Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery ran a huge network of spies and informers with the help of Gendarmes. The government exercised censorship and other forms of control over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life.

He appointed Alexander Benckendorff to head this Chancellery. Benckendorff employed 300 gendarmes and 16 staff in his office. He began collecting informers and intercepting mail at a high rate. Soon, because of Benckendorff, the saying that it was impossible to sneeze in one’s house before it is reported to the emperor, became Benckendorff’s creed.

Marriage and Divorce of King Gustaf IV Adolf and Frederica of Baden. Conclusion

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Abdication, coup d'état, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Exile, Frederica of Baden, Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden, King Carl XIII of Sweden, Royal Divorce

Coup

On March 12, 1809, King Gustaf IV Adolf left her and the children at Haga Palace to deal with the rebellion of Georg Adlersparre. The day after he was captured at the royal palace in Stockholm in the Coup of 1809, imprisoned at Gripsholm Castle and deposed May 10 in favor of his uncle, who succeeded him as Carl XIII of Sweden on June 6. According to the terms deposition made on May 10, 1809, she was allowed to keep the title of queen even after the deposition of her spouse.

Frederica and her children were kept under guard at Haga Palace. The royal couple was initially kept separated because the coup leaders suspected her of planning a coup. During her house arrest, her dignified behavior reportedly earned her more sympathy than she had been given her entire tenure as queen.

Her successor, Queen Charlotte, who felt sympathy for her and often visited her, belonged to the Gustavians and wished to preserve the right to the throne for Frederica’s son, Gustaf.

Queen Charlotte was born as Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp (1759 – 1818) was also a famed diarist, memoirist and wit. She is known by her full pen name (above), though her official name as queen was Charlotte (Charlotta).

Queen Charlotte was the daughter of Duke Friedrich August I of Holstein-Gottorp and Princess Ulrike of Hesse-Cassel. She married her cousin Prince Carl, Duke of Södermanland, in Stockholm on July 7, 1774 when she was fifteen years old.

The marriage was arranged by King Gustaf III to provide the throne of Sweden with an heir. The King had not consummated his marriage at that time and had decided to give the task of providing an heir to the throne to his brother.

Frederica told Queen Charlotte that she was willing to separate from her son for the sake of succession, and requested to be reunited with her spouse. Her second request was granted her after intervention from Queen Charlotte, and Frederica and her children joined Gustaf Adolf at Gripsholm Castle after the coronation of the new monarch on June 6. The relationship between the former king and queen was reportedly well during their house arrest at Gripsholm.

During her house arrest at Gripsholm Castle, the question of her son crown prince Gustaf’s right to the throne was not yet settled and a matter of debate.

There was a plan by a Gustavian military fraction led by General Eberhard von Vegesack to free Frederica and her children from the arrest, have her son declared monarch and Frederica as regent of Sweden during his minority.

These plans were in fact presented to her, but she declined: “The Queen displayed a nobility in her feelings, which makes her worthy of a crown of honor and placed her above the pitiful earthly royalty. She did not listen to the secret proposals, made to her by a party, who wished to preserve the succession of the crown prince and wished, that she would remain in Sweden to become the regent during the minority of her son… she explained with firmness, that her duty as a wife and mother told her to share the exile with her husband and children.” The removal of her son from the succession order, however, she nevertheless regarded as a legally wrongful.

The family left Sweden on December 6, 1809, via three separate carriages. Gustaf Adolf and Frederica traveled in one carriage, escorted by general Skjöldebrand; their son Gustaf traveled in the second with colonel baron Posse; and their daughters and their governess von Panhuys traveled in the last carriage escorted by colonel von Otter.

Frederica was offered to be escorted with all honors due to being a member of the house of Baden if she traveled alone, but declined and brought no courtier with her, only her German chamber maid Elisabeth Freidlein. The family left for Germany by ship from Karlskrona on December 6.

Exile

After having been denied to travel to Great Britain, the former king and queen settled in the duchy of Baden, where they arrived February 10, 1810. After having become private persons, the incompatibility between Frederica and Gustaf Adolf immediately became known in their different view in how to live their lives.

Gustaf Adolf wished to live a simple family life in a congregation of the Moravian church in Christiansfeld in Slesvig or Switzerland, while Frederica wished to settle in the palace Meersburg at Bodensee, which was granted her by her family.

Their sexual differences was also brought to the surface, as Frederica refused sexual intercourse because she did not wish to give birth to exiled royalty. These differences caused Gustaf Adolf to leave alone for Basel in Switzerland in April 1810, from which he expressed complaints about their sexual incompatibility and demanded a divorce.

The couple made two attempts to reconcile in person: once in Switzerland in July, and a second time in Altenburg in Thüringen in September. The attempts of reconciliation was unsuccessful and in 1811, Gustaf Adolf issued divorce negotiations with her mother, stating that he wished to be able to marry again.

Frederica was not willing to divorce, and her mother suggested that Gustaf Adolf entered some kind of secret morganatic marriage on the side to avoid the scandal of divorce. Gustaf Adolf did agree to this suggestion, but as they could not figure out how such a thing should be arranged, a proper divorce was finally issued in February 1812.

In the divorce settlement, Gustaf Adolf renounced all his assets in both Sweden and abroad, as well as his future assets in the form of his inheritance rights after his mother, to his children; he also renounced the custody and guardianship of his children.

Two years later, Fredrica placed her children under the guardianship of her brother-in-law, the Russian Tsar Alexander. Frederica kept in contact through correspondence with Queen Charlotte of Sweden, whom she entrusted her economic interests in Sweden, as well as with her former mother-in-law, and while she did not contact Gustaf Adolf directly, she kept informed about his life and often contributed financially to his economy without his knowledge.

Frederica settled in the castle Bruchsal in Baden, but also acquired several other residences in Baden as well as a country villa, Villamont, outside Lausanne in Switzerland. In practice, she spent most of her time in the court of Karlsruhe from 1814 onward, and also traveled a lot around Germany, Switzerland and Italy, using the name Countess Itterburg after a ruin in Hesse, which she had acquired.

In accordance with the abdication terms, she kept her title of queen and had her own court, headed by the Swedish baron O. M. Munck af Fulkila, and kept in close contact with her many relatives and family in Germany. According to her ladies-in-waiting, she turned down proposals from her former brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Oels, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

She was rumoured to have secretly married her son’s tutor, the French-Swiss J.N.G. de Polier-Vernland, possibly in 1823.

In 1819, her daughter Sophia married the heir to the throne of Baden, Frederica’s paternal half-uncle, the future Grand Duke Leopold I of Baden.

Her last years were plagued by weakened health. She died in Lausanne of a heart disease. She was buried in Schloss and Stiftskirche in Pforzheim, Germany.

Emperor Paul I of Russia. Conclusion

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Assassination, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Napoleon of France, Emperor Paul I of Russia, Empress Catherine II of Russia, France, Great Britain, Nikolay Zubov, St. Michael's Castle

Emperor Paul’s early foreign policy can largely be seen as reactions against his mother’s foreign policy. In foreign policy, this meant that he opposed the many expansionary wars she fought and instead preferred to pursue a more peaceful, diplomatic path. Immediately upon taking the throne, he recalled all troops outside Russian borders, including the struggling expedition Catherine II had sent to conquer Iran through the Caucasus and the 60,000 men she had promised to Britain and Austria to help them defeat the French.

Paul hated the French before their revolution, and afterwards, with their republican and anti-religious views, he detested them even more. In addition to this, he knew French expansion hurt Russian interests, but he recalled his mother’s troops primarily because he firmly opposed wars of expansion. He also believed that Russia needed substantial governmental and military reforms to avoid an economic collapse and a revolution, before Russia could wage war on foreign soil.

The most original aspect of Paul I’s foreign policy was his rapprochement with France. Several scholars have argued that this change in position, radical though it seemed, made sense, as Bonaparte became First Consul and made France a more conservative state, consistent with Paul’s view of the world.

Paul also decided to send a Cossack army to take British India, as Britain itself was almost impervious to direct attack, being an island nation with a formidable navy, but the British had left India largely unguarded and would have great difficulty staving off a force that came over land to attack it.

The British themselves considered this enough of a problem that they signed three treaties with Persia, in 1801, 1809 and 1812, to guard against an army attacking India through Central Asia. Paul sought to attack the British where they were weakest: through their commerce and their colonies. Throughout his reign, his policies focused reestablishing peace and the balance of power in Europe, while supporting autocracy and old monarchies, without seeking to expand Russia’s borders.

Paul’s premonitions of assassination were well founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury.

As he had revoked Catherine’s decree allowing corporal punishment of the free classes, and directed reforms that resulted in greater rights for the peasantry and provided for better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, many of his policies greatly annoyed the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organized, some months before it was executed, by Counts Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and Admiral de Ribas, with the alleged support of the British ambassador in Saint Petersburg, Charles Whitworth.

The death of de Ribas in December 1800 delayed the assassination; but, on the night of March 23, 1801, a band of dismissed officers murdered Paul at the newly completed palace of Saint Michael’s Castle. The assassins included General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and General Yashvil, a Georgian.

They charged into Paul’s bedroom, flushed with drink after dining together, and found the emperor hiding behind some drapes in the corner. The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and Nikolay Zubov struck him with a sword, after which the assassins strangled and trampled him to death.

Paul’s successor on the Russian throne, his 23-year-old son Alexander, was actually in the palace at the time of the killing; he had “given his consent to the overthrow of Paul, but had not supposed that this would be carried out by means of assassination”. General Nikolay Zubov announced his accession to the heir, accompanied by the admonition, “Time to grow up! Go and rule!” Alexander I did not punish the assassins, and the court physician, James Wylie, declared apoplexy the official cause of death.

Legacy

There is some evidence that Paul I was venerated as a saint among the Russian Orthodox populace, even though he was never officially canonized by any of the Orthodox Churches.

Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Grand Duchess of Russia. Conclusion

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Annulment, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia, Grand Dutchess Anna Fyodorovna of Russia, Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold of Saxe-Cobu-Gotha, Morganatic Marriage, Patron of the Arts

Despite her misery in her marriage to Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the young Grand Duchess began to grow up and became more and more attractive to the Russian court, who nicknamed her the “Rising Star”. This made Constantine extremely jealous, even of his own brother Alexander.

Constantine forbade Anna to leave her room, and when she had the opportunity to come out, Constantine took her away. Countess Golovina recalled: The married life of Anna Fyodorovna was hard and impossible to maintain, in her modesty, she needed the friendship of Elizabeth Alexeievna (Louise of Baden, wife of her brother-in-law Alexander), who was able to smooth things out between the frequent quarrelling spouses…”. During the difficult years in the Russian court, Anna became close to Grand Duchess Elizabeth, of similar age.

In 1799 Anna left Russia for medical treatment and didn’t want to return. She went to her family in Coburg; however, they didn’t support her, as they feared for the reputation of the Ducal family and their finances. Anna left Coburg to have a water cure; but at the same time, the St Petersburg’s court made their own plans. Under the pressure of the Imperial family and her own relatives, the Grand Duchess was forced to return to Russia. In October 1799 the weddings of Grand Duchesses Alexandra and Elena were celebrated. Anna was forced to attend.

The assassination of Emperor Paul I on March 23, 1801 gave Anna an opportunity to carry out her plan to escape. By August of that year, her mother was informed that the Grand Duchess was seriously ill. Once informed about her daughter’s health, Duchess Augusta came to visit her. In order to have a better treatment she took Anna to Coburg, with the consent of both the new Emperor Alexander I and Grand Duke Constantine. Once she arrived to her homeland, Anna refused to come back. She never returned to Russia.

Life after separation

Almost immediately after her return to Coburg, Anna began negotiations for a divorce from her husband. Grand Duke Constantine wrote in response to her letter:

You write to me that I allowed you to go into foreign lands because we are incompatible and because I can’t give you the love which you need. But humbly I ask you to calm yourself in consideration to our lives together, besides all these facts confirm in writing, and that in addition to this other reason you don’t have.

By 1803 the divorce was still refused, because Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna feared that her son Constantine could contract a second morganatic marriage, and the official separation would damage the reputation of the Grand Duchess.

At first, the grand duchess feared an unfavorable opinion about her conduct among the European courts; however, they showed their sympathy. Still legally married, Anna, eager to have a family, found solace in clandestine affairs.

On 28 October 1808, Anna gave birth to an illegitimate son, named Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe. The father of this child may have been Jules Gabriel Émile de Seigneux, a minor French nobleman and officer in the Prussian army. Eduard was ennobled by his mother’s younger brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname von Löwenfels by decree on 18 February 1818.

Later, Anna moved to Bern, Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in 1812, a daughter, named Louise Hilda Aglaë d’Aubert. The father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and chamberlain of Anna’s household from 1812 to 1837. In order to cover another scandal in Anna’s life, the baby was adopted by Jean François Joseph d’Aubert, a French refugee. After the affair ended, Schiferli maintained a tender and close friendship with the Grand Duchess until his death.

Two years later, in 1814, during the invasion of France by Russian troops, Emperor Alexander I expressed his desire of a reconciliation between his brother and Anna. Grand Duke Constantine, accompanied by Anna’s brother Leopold, tried to convince her to return with him, but the Grand Duchess categorically refused. That year, Anna acquired an estate on the banks of Aare River and gave it the name of Elfenau. She spent the rest of her life there, and, as a lover of music, made her home not only a center for domestic and foreign musical society of the era but also the point of reunion of diplomats from different countries who were in Bern.

Finally, on March 20,1820, after 19 years of separation, her marriage was officially annulled by a manifesto of Emperor Alexander I of Russia. Grand Duke Constantine remarried two months later morganatically with his mistress Countess Joanna Grudzińska and died on June 27, 1831. Anna survived her former husband by 29 years.

In 1835, her son Eduard married his cousin Bertha von Schauenstein, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke Ernest I; this was one of the few happy events in Anna’s last years – she soon lost almost all the people she loved: her parents, her sisters Sophie and Antoinette, her own daughter Louise (who, married Jean Samuel Edouard Dapples in 1834 died three years later in 1837 at the age of twenty-five), her former lover and now good friend Rodolphe de Schiferli (just a few weeks after their daughter’s demise), her protector Emperor Alexander I, her childhood friend Empress Elizabeth…at that point the Grand Duchess wrote that Elfenau became the House of Mourning.

Anna Fyodorovna died in her Elfenau estate in 1860, aged 79. In her grave was placed a simple marble slab with the inscription, “Julia-Anna” and the dates of her birth and death (1781-1860); nothing more would indicate the origin of the once Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Grand Duchess of Russia. Through the five children of her son Eduard she has many descendants.

Alexandrine of Baden, wife of her nephew Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha wrote:

Condolences must be universal, because Aunt Juliane was extremely loved and respected, because much involved in charity work and in favor of the poor and underprivileged.

September 23, 1781: Birth of Princess Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Part I.

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Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Empress Catherine II of Russia, Empress Catherine the Great, Grand Duchess Ana Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, House of Romanov, House of Wettin, Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, King Fernando II of Portugal, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (September 23, 1781 – August 12, 1860), also known as Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna of Russia, was a German princess of the ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (after 1826, the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) who became the wife of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia.

Family

She was the third daughter of Franz Friedrich Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Countess Augusta Caroline of Reuss-Ebersdorf. King Leopold I of the Belgians was her younger brother, while Queen Victoria of United Kingdom was her niece and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was her nephew and King Fernando II of Portugal was her great nephew.

Marriage Plans

Empress Catherine II of Russia began to search for a suitable wife for her second grandson, Grand Duke Constantine after the marriage of her eldest grandson, Grand Duke Alexander, with Louise of Baden in 1793. The empress spoke of pride about the young grand duke as an enviable match for many brides in Europe, as he was the second in line to succession to the Russian Empire.

Soon a marriage offer arrived from the court of Naples: King Ferdinand I and Queen Maria Carolina of Naples ans Sicily, suggested a marriage between the Grand Duke and one of their many daughters, which the Empress immediately rejected.

In 1795, General Andrei Budberg was sent in a secret mission to the ruling European courts, to find a bride for Grand Duke Constantine. Constantine Pavlovich (May 8, 1779  – June 27, 1831) was a Grand Duke of Russia and the second son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

Constantine had a huge list of candidates, but during his trip he became ill and was forced to stay in Coburg. He was attended by the Ducal court doctor, Baron Stockmar, who, once he knew the real intention of his trip, drew the general’s attention to the daughters of Duke Franz. Budberg wrote to Saint Petersburg that he found the perfect candidates, without visiting any other courts.

After a little consideration, Empress Catherine II consented. Duchess Augusta, once she knew that one of her daughters would be a Grand Duchess of Russia, was delighted with the idea: a marriage with the Imperial Russian dynasty could bring huge benefits for the relatively small German Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

However, in Europe there were other views; for example, Charles-François-Philibert Masson, in his Secrets Memoirs of the court of Saint-Petersburg, wrote about the unenviable role of German brides in the Russian court:

“‘Young touching victim, which Germany sends as a tribute to Russia, as did Greece who sent their maids to the Minotaur…”

Juliane, along with her mother and two elder sisters, Sophie and Antoinette, travelled to Saint Petersburg at the request of Empress Catherine II of Russia. After the first meeting, the Empress wrote:

“The Duchess of Saxe-Coburg was beautiful and worthy of respect among women, and her daughters are pretty.

It’s a pity that our groom must choose only one, would be good to keep all three. But it seems that our Paris give the apple to the younger one, you’ll see that he would prefer Julia among the sisters…she’s really the best choice.”

However, Prince Adam Czartoryski, in his Memoirs, wrote:

“He was given an order by the Empress to marry one of the princesses, and he was given a choice of his future wife.”

This point of view was confirmed by Countess Varvara Golovina, who also wrote:

After three weeks, the Grand Duke Constantine was forced to make a choice. I think that he did not want to marry.

After the young Grand Duke chose Juliane, she began her training as a consort. On February 2, 1796, the 14-year-old German princess took the name of Anna Fyodorovna in a Russian Orthodox baptismal ceremony and 20 days later, on February 26, she and Constantine were married. Constantine was 19 years old at the time.

The Empress Catherine II died nine months later, on 6 November 6, 1796. By virtue of her wedding, she was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem.

Grand Duke Constantine was the heir-presumptive for most of his elder brother, Emperor Alexander I’s, reign, but had secretly renounced his claim to the throne in 1823.

For 25 days after the death of Alexander I, from 19 November 19 to December 14, 1825 he was known as His Imperial Majesty Constantine I, Emperor and Sovereign of Russia, although he never reigned and never acceded to the throne. His younger brother Nicholas became Emperor in 1825. The succession controversy became the pretext of the Decembrist revolt.

July 6, 1796: Birth of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.

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Catherine the Great, Decembrist Revolt, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Empress Catherine II of Russia, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, Russia, Russian Empire

Nicholas I (July 6, 1796 – March 3, 1855) reigned as Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855. He was also the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He has become best known for having been a reactionary whose controversial reign was marked by geographical expansion, economic growth and massive industrialisation on the one hand, and centralisation of administrative policies and repression of dissent on the other.

Nicholas was born at Gatchina Palace in Gatchina to Grand Duke Paul, and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia (née Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg). Five months after his birth, his grandmother, Empress Catherine II the Great, died and his parents became Emperor and Empress of Russia. He was a younger brother of Emperor Alexander I of Russia, who succeeded to the throne in 1801, and of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia.

Nicholas had a happy marriage that produced a large family; all of their seven children survived childhood. On July 13, 1817, Nicholas married Princess Charlotte of Prussia (1798–1860), who thereafter went by the name Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted to Orthodoxy. Charlotte’s parents were Friedrich-Wilhelm III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of Friedrich-Wilhelm I of Prussia.

His biographer Nicholas V. Riasanovsky said that Nicholas displayed determination, singleness of purpose, and an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very hard work. He saw himself as a soldier—a junior officer totally consumed by spit and polish.

A handsome man, he was highly nervous and aggressive. Trained as an engineer, he was a stickler for minute detail. In his public persona, stated Riasanovsky, “Nicholas I came to represent autocracy personified: infinitely majestic, determined and powerful, hard as stone, and relentless as fate.” He was the younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I.

With two older brothers, it initially seemed unlikely Nicholas would ever become tsar. However, as Emperor Alexander I and Grand Duke Constantine both failed to produce sons, Nicholas remained likely to rule one day. In 1825, when Alexander I died suddenly of typhus, Nicholas was caught between swearing allegiance to Constantine and accepting the throne for himself.

The interregnum lasted until Constantine, who was in Warsaw at that time, confirmed his refusal of the Russian Imperial Throne.

Additionally, on December 25, Nicholas issued the manifesto proclaiming his accession to the throne. That manifesto retroactively named December 1, the date of Alexander I’s death, as the beginning of his reign. During this confusion, a plot was hatched by some members of the military to overthrow Nicholas and to seize power. This led to the Decembrist Revolt on December 26, 1825, an uprising Nicholas was successful in quickly suppressing.

Nicholas I was instrumental in helping to create an independent Greek state, and resumed the Russian conquest of the Caucasus by seizing Iğdır Province and the remainder of modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan from Qajar Persia during the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. He ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 successfully as well. Later on, however, he led Russia into the Crimean War (1853–1856), with disastrous results. Historians emphasize that his micromanagement of the armies hindered his generals, as did his misguided strategy. William C. Fuller notes that historians have frequently concluded that “the reign of Nicholas I was a catastrophic failure in both domestic and foreign policy.” On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its geographical zenith, spanning over 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles), but had a desperate need for reform.

June 11, 1829: Marriage of Wilhelm I of Prussia and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

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Eliza Radziwill, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick William IV of Prussia, Prince Charles of Prussia, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Wilhelm I of Germany

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Augusta Marie Luise Katharina; September 30, 1811 – January 7, 1890)
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Augusta was the second daughter of Charles-Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie-Dorothea of Württemberg.

Wilhelm I (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig; March 22, 1797 – March 9, 1888) of the House of Hohenzollern was King of Prussia from January 2, 1861 and the first German Emperor from 18 January 18, 1871 to his death. Wilhelm was the first head of state of a united Germany, and was also de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858 to 1861, serving as regent for his brother, Friedrich-Wilhelm IV.

Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Meeting with Wilhelm

Augusta was only fifteen years old when, in 1826, she first met her future husband, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia who was more than fourteen years older than her. Wilhelm thought the young Augusta had an “excellent personality,” yet was less attractive than her older sister Marie, whom Wilhelm’s younger brother, Charles of Prussia, had already married. Above all, it was Wilhelm’s father who pressed him to consider Augusta as a potential wife.

While the marriage of Augusta and Willem was bumpy the marriage of Marie and Charles was happy. Although they had married for family and dynastic reasons, their marriage had been happy and harmonious, and they had been deeply attached to each other.

Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

At this time, Wilhelm was in love with the Polish Princess Elisa Radziwill. The Crown Prince at the time was Wilhelm’s elder brother, Crown Prince Friedrich WilhelM (later King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV). He and his wife Elisabeth Ludovika, daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his Queen Friederike, Margravine of Baden, had been married three years and had no children. Although it was not anticipated that they would remain childless (which turned out to be the case), the court did expect that Wilhelm, as heir presumptive to the throne, should make a dynastic marriage and produce further heirs.

King Friedrich-Wilhelm III was indulgent of the relationship between his son Wilhelm and Elisa, but the Prussian court had discovered that her ancestors had purchased their princely title from Emperor Maximilian I, and she was not deemed noble enough to marry a potential King of Prussia. Ironically, Crown Princess Elisabeth Ludovika, who as a Bavarian princess was considered to be of correct rank, counted both Bogusław Radziwiłł and Janusz Radziwiłł among her ancestors, albeit through female descent.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

It was suggested by some courtiers that if Eliza Radziwill was adopted by a family of adequate rank, then a marriage with Prince Wilhelm was possible. In 1824, the Prussians turned to the childless Emperor Alexander I of Russia to adopt Elisa, but the Russian Emperor declined. The second adoption plan by Elisa’s uncle, Prince August of Prussia, likewise failed because the responsible committee considered that adoption does not change “the blood.” Another factor was the Mecklenburg relations of the deceased Queen Louise’s influence in the German and Russian courts (she was not fond of Elisa’s father).

Thus, in June 1826, Wilhelm’s father felt compelled to demand the renunciation of a potential marriage to Elisa. Thus, Wilhelm spent the next few months looking for a more suitable bride, but did not relinquish his emotional ties to Elisa. Eventually, Wilhelm asked for Augusta’s hand in marriage on August 29, (in writing and through the intervention of his father). Augusta agreed and on October 25, 1828, they were engaged.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Historian Karin Feuerstein-Prasser has pointed out on the basis of evaluations of the correspondence between both fiancées, what different expectations Wilhelm had of both marriages: He wrote to his sister Charlotte, the wife of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, with reference to Elisa Radziwill: “One can love only once in life, really” and confessed with regard to Augusta, that “the Princess is nice and clever, but she leaves me cold.” Augusta liked her future husband and hoped for a happy marriage, in the end, it was an inwardly happy marriage despite outward appearances.

On June 11, 1829, Wilhelm married his fiancée in the chapel of Schloss Charlottenburg.

Married life

The first weeks of marriage were harmonious; Augusta was taken favorably in the Prussian King’s court, however, Augusta soon started to be bored with its military sobriety, and most courtly duties (which may have counteracted this boredom) were reserved to her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Elisabeth.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Queen of Prussia and German Empress

In a letter which Wilhelm wrote on January 22, 1831 to his sister Charlotte, he has mixed feelings of his wife’s “lack of femininity”. Prince Friedrich (later Emperor Frederick III of Germany), was born later that year on October 18, 1831, three years after their marriage and Louise, was born on December 3, 1838, seven years later.