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Frederick Charles of Hesse-Cassel, German Emperor, German Empire, Grand Duchy of Finland, Kingdom of Finland, The Instrument of Government of 1772, Wilhelm II of Germany, World War I
There was an earlier attempt at creating the Kingdom of Finland in 1742 that I will address in another post.
Lithuania had already taken a similar step in July 1918, electing Wilhelm-Charles, Duke of Urach and Count of Württemberg, as King Mindaugas II of Lithuania. In Latvia and Estonia, a “General Provincial Assembly” consisting of Baltic-German aristocrats had called upon the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, to recognize the Baltic provinces as a joint monarchy and a German protectorate. Adolf-Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was nominated Duke of “the United Baltic Duchy” by the Germans.
Crown of Finland
There was an attempt to establish a monarchy in Finland in 1918. In the aftermath of the Finnish Declaration of Independence from Russia in December 1917 and the Finnish Civil War from January–May 1918, the victorious Whites in the Parliament of Finland considered making the newly independent Finland a kingdom and creating a monarchy. The attempt came to naught; the king-elect never reigned nor came to Finland, and republican victories in the next election ensured the proposal was abandoned.
During the Finnish Civil War of 1918, Finnish Reds on friendly terms with Soviet Russia fought Finnish Whites who allied with the German Empire. Direct aid from the German Baltic Sea Division aided the Whites who won the war. The provisional government established after the Grand Duchy of Finland’s declaration of independence leaned heavily toward the Finnish right and included a number of monarchists.
The Finnish parliament drew up plans to create a monarchy on the legal theory that the Swedish Constitution of 1772 was still in effect, but there had been an extended interregnum with no monarch on the throne. The Instrument of Government of 1772, adopted under King Gustaf III of Sweden, when Finland had been a part of the Kingdom of Sweden. The same constitutional document had also served as the basis for the rule of the Russian Emperors, as Grand Dukes of Finland, during the 19th century.
Prince Friedrich-Charles of Hesse, King-Elect of Finland
Prince Friedrich-Charles of the Electoral Hesse branch (formerly Hesse-Cassel) was elected to the throne of Finland on October 9, 1918 by the Finnish parliament. Finland’s position vis-a-vis Germany was already evolving towards that of a protectorate by spring 1918, and the election of Prince Frriedrich-Charles, who happened to be the brother-in-law of Wilhelm II, was viewed as a confirmation of the close relations between the two nations. The strongly pro-German prime minister, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, and his government offered the crown to Prince Friedrich-Charles in October 1918. However, he never took the position nor traveled to Finland.
Almost immediately after the election, Finnish leaders as well as the population belatedly came to understand the grave situation their German allies were in, and the wisdom of electing a German Prince their new leader as Germany was about to lose World War I was called into question. Germany itself became a republic and deposed Emperor Wilhelm II, and signed an armistice with the Allies in November.
The victorious Western powers informed the Finnish government that the independence of Finland would only be recognized if it abandoned its alliance with Germany. However, warnings received from the West convinced the Finnish government of Prime Minister Lauri Ingman – a monarchist himself – to ask Prince Friedrich-Charles to give up the crown, which he had not yet come to wear in Finland.
As a result, the King-Elect, Friedrich-Charles renounced the throne on December 14, 1918. Mannerheim, the leader of the Whites during the Finnish Civil War, was appointed as Regent, and the Baltic Sea Division withdrew from Finland.
Princess Margaret of Prussia, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel
In the March 1919 election, Republican parties won three-quarters of the parliament’s seats in the election of 1919 and Finland adopted a republican constitution. In July 1919, Finland’s first president Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg replaced Mannerheim as the first President of the Republic. Finland’s status as a republic was confirmed in the Finnish Constitution of 1919.
Biographical information on Prince Friedrich-Charles
Friedrich Charles Ludwig Constantine, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse (May 1, 1868 – May 28, 1940), was born at his family’s manor, Gut Panker, in Plön, Holstein. He was the third son of Friedrich-Wilhelm of Hesse, Landgrave of Hesse, and his second wife Princess Anna of Prussia, daughter of Prince Charles of Prussia and Princess Marie-Louise of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
His father, Friedrich-Wilhelm of Hesse, Landgrave of Hesse Danish military officer, had been one (and perhaps the foremost) of the candidates of Christian VIII of Denmark in the 1840s to succeed to the Danish throne if the latter’s male line died out, but renounced his rights to the throne in 1851 in favor of his sister, Louise. Louise was married at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen on May 26, 1842 to her second cousin Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg who eventually succeeded to the Crown of Denmark as King Christian IX.
On January 25, 1893, Friedrich-Charles married Princess Margaret of Prussia, daughter of Friedrich III, German Emperor and Victoria, Princess Royal, and the younger sister of Emperor Wilhelm II and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United. They had six children, all sons, including two sets of twins.
Prince Philipp, Landgrave and Princess Mafalda, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel
Landgrave Alexander-Friedrich of Hesse abdicated as the head of the House of Hesse on 16 March 1925, and was succeeded by Friedrich-Charles, his younger brother.
At Prince Friedrich-Charles’s in death 1940, his eldest surviving son, Prince Philipp, succeeded him as head of the House of Hesse and titular Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.
However, according to certain family documents and correspondence, his successor as King of Finland would have been his second surviving son Prince Wolfgang of Hesse (1896–1989), apparently because Wolfgang was with his parents in 1918 and ready to travel to Finland, where a wedding to a Finnish lady was already in preparation for the coming Crown Prince.
Philipp was in the military and unable to be contacted at the time. This choice of the younger of the twins, however, was not intended to mean that in future generations, the kingship would have been passed on through secundogeniture, with the eldest son always succeeding to the Hesse title (according to Dr. Vesa Vares).
On the contrary, it is practically inconceivable that succession of a kingdom would depend on secondary consideration. The source Viini 2/2007 (in Finnish) indicates a view that until his death Moritz of Hesse was the current successor, and Prince Donatus was the heir.