January 18, 1871 – King Wilhelm I of Prussia is proclaimed German Emperor.

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Emperor of Germany, Emperor of the Germans, Franco-Prussian War, Frankfurt Parliament, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, German Emperor, Hall of Mirrors, Otto von Bismarck, Palace of Versailles, Wilhelm I of Germany, Wilhelm I of Prussia

After the Holy Roman Empire was abolished on August 6, 1806, the first attempt at creating a unified German Empire came in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848. In 1849 the liberal Frankfurt Parliament offered the title and position of “Emperor of the Germans” (German: Kaiser der Deutschen) to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia.

However, the King declined to accept the title and the office of Emperor with the belief it was “not the Parliament’s to give.” Friedrich Wilhelm IV believed that only the German Princes had the right to make such an offer, in accordance with the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire.

This new German Empire forged by Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia and Chancellor of the North German Confederation, would be a federal monarchy; the emperor would be the head of state and president of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hesse, among others, as well as the principalities, duchies and of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen).

King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who was to be the Emperor of this new state, also had difficulty accepting the Imperial title. One of the issues at hand was what would be the official title of this new Emperor?

The title “Emperor of the Germans,” which we have seen had been proposed by the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, was ruled out by Wilhelm for the similar reasons his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia refused the title.

Wilhelm considered himself a king who ruled by divine right and was chosen “By the Grace of God,” and not by the people in a popular monarchy. But more in general, Wilhelm was unhappy about a title that looked artificial (like he viewed Napoléon’s title), having been created by a constitution. He was also afraid that the position of Emperor would overshadow the Prussian crown.

Despite Wilhelm’s hesitation at becoming Emperor he did prefer the title “Emperor of Germany” (German: Kaiser von Deutschland). However, that title would have signaled a territorial sovereignty over the other German kings and princes which was unacceptable to the South German monarchs, such as Ludwig II of Bavaria. Many south German sovereigns did not desire to be dominated by the Prussian Hohenzollerns.

A compromise was needed. The title German Emperor was carefully chosen by Otto von Bismarck, after intense discussion which continued up until the proclamation of King Wilhelm I of Prussia as Emperor at the Palace of Versailles during the Siege of Paris.

Since the title “Emperor of Germany” suggested sovereignty over the other German states, the title German Emperor was a title that meant to signified the Emperor was a first among equal and fellow sovereigns.

Proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles

Wilhelm accepted this title begrudgingly and on January 18, 1871 Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (France) towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. The title German Emperor became the official title of the head of state and hereditary ruler of the German Empire.

The title had been initially introduced earlier within the January 1st 1871 constitution and lasted until the official abdication of Wilhelm II on November 28, 1918.

Under the imperial constitution, the empire was a federation of states under the permanent presidency of the king of Prussia. Thus, the imperial crown was directly tied to the Prussian crown.

January 18, 1871: Proclamation of the German Empire.

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Emperor of Germany, Emperor of the Germans, Frankfurt Parliament, Frederick III of Germany, German Chancellor, German Emperor, German Empire, Great Hall of Mirrors, Otto von Bismark, Palace of Versailles, Revolutions of 1848, Wilhelm I of Germany, Wilhelm II of Germany

The future king and emperor was born Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin on March 22, 1797. As the second son of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and King Friedrich Wilhelm III, himself son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, Wilhelm was not expected to ascend to the throne. His grandfather died the year he was born, at age 53, in 1797, and his father Became the King of Prussia.

Ever since the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 uniting the German lands into a modern Nation State, a new empire, was the goal of many statesman as well as the populace of the multi German states that had made up the Holy Roman Empire.

The first attempt to create the Second German Reich occurred in 1848. In the wake of the revolutions of 1848 that swept across Europe, where the people of the many autocratic monarchies demanded that their governments be ruled by laws granted in a Constitution, the liberal Frankfurt Parliament offered the title “Emperor of the Germans” (German: Kaiser der Deutschen) to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia in 1849 but he declined it citing that it was “not the Parliament’s to give.” Friedrich Wilhelm further stated he would not “stoop down in the gutter to pick up a crown” for he strongly believed that only the German princes had the right to make such an offer, in accordance with the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire.

German Emperor Wilhelm I

Despite this false start creating a German Empire was still the ultimate goal. After a series of wars orchestrated by the ultra conservative Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia and Chancellor of the North German Confederation; which culminated in uniting the North and South German Confederations at the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor in the Great Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on January18, 1871. However, creating the title of Emperor and convincing the King of Prussia to take the crown proved almost as difficult as forging the Empire itself.

The German Emperor (German: Deutscher Kaiser [ˈdɔʏtʃɐ ˈkaɪzɐ]) became the official title of the head of state and hereditary ruler of the German Empire. The title German Emperor was in direct contrast to both Emperor of the Germans or even Emperor of Germany (German: Kaiser von Deutschland).

The title was carefully chosen by Otto von Bismarck, after a discussion which continued until the proclamation of King Wilhelm I of Prussia as emperor at the Palace of Versailles during the Siege of Paris. Wilhelm accepted this title grudgingly on January 18 having preferred “Emperor of Germany.” However, that would have signaled a territorial sovereignty and superiority over all German monarchs and this was particularly unacceptable to the South German monarchs, as well as a claim to lands outside his reign (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc.).

“Emperor of the Germans”, as had been proposed at the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, was ruled out by Wilhelm as he considered himself a king who ruled by divine right and chosen “By the Grace of God”, not by the people in a popular monarchy. This was an identical stance held by his brother, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. But more in general, Wilhelm was unhappy about a crown that looked artificial (like Napoléon’s), having been created by a constitution. He was afraid that it would overshadow the Prussian crown.

Since 1867, the presidency of the North German Confederation had been a hereditary office of the kings of Prussia. The new constitution of January 1, 1871, following Reichstag and Bundesrat decisions on December 9/10, legally transformed the North German Confederation into the German Empire. This empire was a federal monarchy; the emperor was head of state and president of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hesse, among others, as well as the principalities, duchies and of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen).

German Emperor Friedrich III

Under the imperial constitution, the empire was a federation of states under the permanent presidency of the King of Prussia. Thus, the imperial crown was directly tied to the Prussian crown—something Wilhelm II discovered in the aftermath of World War I. He erroneously believed that he ruled the empire in personal union with Prussia. With the war’s end, he conceded that he could not remain emperor, but initially thought he could at least retain his Prussian crown.

However, his last chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, knew this was legally impossible, and announced Wilhelm II’s abdication of both thrones on November 9, 1918, two days before the Armistice. Realizing his situation was untenable, Wilhelm II went into exile in the Netherlands later that night. It was not until November 28 that Wilhelm II formally gave up all claim to “the throne of Prussia and to the German imperial throne connected therewith.”

German Emperor Wilhelm II

Full titles of the German Emperor

The German Emperors had an extensive list of titles and claims that reflected the geographic expanse and diversity of the lands ruled by the House of Hohenzollern.

His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm I, By the Grace of God, German Emperor and King of Prussia; Margrave of Brandenburg, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Count of Hohenzollern; sovereign and supreme Duke of Silesia and of the County of Glatz; Grand Duke of the Lower Rhine and of Posen; Duke of Saxony, of Westphalia, of Angria, of Pomerania, Lunenburg, Holstein and Schleswig, of Magdeburg, of Bremen, of Guelders, Cleves, Jülich and Berg, Duke of the Wends and the Kassubes, of Crossen, Lauenburg and Mecklenburg; Landgrave of Hesse and Thuringia; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia; Prince of Orange; Prince of Rügen, of East Friesland, of Paderborn and Pyrmont, of Halberstadt, Münster, Minden, Osnabrück, Hildesheim, of Verden, Cammin, Fulda, Nassau and Moers; Princely Count of Henneberg; Count of Mark, of Ravensberg, of Hohenstein, Tecklenburg and Lingen, of Mansfeld, Sigmaringen and Veringen; Lord of Frankfurt.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part IV

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Conservative, Frankfurt Parliament, Frederick William IV of Prussia, French Revolution, German Empire, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Liberal, Nicholas I of Russia, Prussia

When the 1848 revolutions swept Germany many Liberals sought to unify Germany under a liberal constitution. However, King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia was not sympathetic toward the revolutionaries. The king initially moved to repress it with the army, but on March 19 the king had a change of heart and recalled the troops and place himself at the head of the revolutionary movement.

The king committed himself fully to the ideal of German unification. The king formed a liberal government, convened a national assembly, and ordered that a constitution be written. It would seem the conservative Prussian king had become a liberal. Or had he? These actions did calm the tensions in the State and once his position was more secure again, however, he quickly had the army reoccupy Berlin and in December dissolved the Liberal assembly.

Although the king’s change from conservatism to liberalism was a ruse to keep order, He did, however, remain dedicated to unification for a limited period of time. In reality his support for German Unification was paper-thin. When the moment came to unify Germany as a Liberal state, the king blinked. On April 3rd, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament offered Freidrich-Wilhelm IV the Imperial Crown of Germany. The King flatly refused saying that he would not accept “a crown from the gutter”.

It is interesting to note that the king did not want to unify Germany under his Hohenzollern dynasty. The King had romantic aspiration were to re-establish the medieval Holy Roman Empire, comprising smaller, semi-sovereign monarchies under the limited authority of a Habsburg emperor. Therefore Friedrich-Wilhelm IV would only accept the imperial crown if he had been elected by the German princes, as per the former empire’s ancient customs. He would not accept the crown from German politicians whom the king did not believe had the authority to create an emperor. He expressed this sentiment in a letter to his sister the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (wife of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia), in which he said the Frankfurt Parliament had overlooked that “in order to give, you would first of all have to be in possession of something that can be given.” In his eyes, only a reconstituted College of Electors (consisting of princes of the Empire) could possess such authority.

After the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament even King Freiedrich-Wilhelm IV began considering a Prussian-led union where all German states, excluding those ruled by the Habsburgs, would be unified under Hohenzollern authority. However, Friedrich-Wilhelm IV abandoned the idea of German Unity after the Punctuation of Olmütz on November 29, 1850, in the face of renewed Austrian and Russian resistance to the notion of a Hohenzollern controlled German Empire. The German Confederation remained the common government of German Europe.

One of the benefits of these failures was that Friedrich-Wilhelm IV promulgated a new constitution that created a Parliament of Prussia with two chambers, an aristocratic upper house and an elected lower house. The lower house was elected by all taxpayers, but in a three-tiered system based on the amount of taxes paid, so that true liberal principle of universal suffrage was denied. The constitution also reserved to the king the power of appointing all ministers, reestablished the conservative district assemblies and provincial diets, and guaranteed that the civil service and the military remained firmly in the hands of the king. This was a more liberal system than had existed in Prussia before 1848, but it was still a conservative system of government in which the monarch, the aristocracy, and the military retained most of the power. This constitution remained in effect until the dissolution of the Prussian kingdom in 1918.

After 1850, the increasingly depressed king withdrew from the public eye and began surrounding himself with advisers who preached absolute orthodoxy and conservatism in religious and political matters. In 1857 a stroke left the king partially paralyzed and largely mentally incapacitated, and his brother (and heir-presumptive) Prince Wilhelm served as regent from 1858 until the king’s death in 1861, at which point the regent acceded to the throne himself as Wilhelm I of Prussia.

Next week. German unification under Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismark.