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.

On this date in History: June 4, 1941. Death of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

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Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Frederick William IV of Prussia, Friedrich III of Germany, German Emperor, German Empire, Huis Doorn, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Princess Hermine of Reuss-Greiz, the Netherlands, Victoria Princess Royal, Wilhelm I of Germany, Wilhelm II, Wilhelm II of Germany, World War I

Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; January 27, 1859 – June 4, 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from June 15, 1888 to his abdication November 9, 1918. He was the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe, most notably King George V of the United Kingdom and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.

Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia

Wilhelm was born at the Crown Prince’s Palace, Berlin, to Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia (the future Friedrich III) and his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

At the time of his birth, his great-uncle Friedrich-Wilhelm IV was king of Prussia, and his grandfather and namesake Wilhelm was acting as Regent. He was the first grandchild of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, but more important, as the first son of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Wilhelm was second in the line of succession to Prussia, from 1861 onwards and also, after 1871, to the newly created German Empire, which, according to the constitution of the German Empire, was ruled by the King of Prussia. At the time of his birth, he was also sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, after his maternal uncles and his mother.

Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia (Father)

Princess Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom (Mother)

In 1863, Wilhelm was taken to England to be present at the wedding of his Uncle Bertie (later King Edward VII), and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Wilhelm attended the ceremony in a Highland costume, complete with a small toy dirk. During the ceremony, the four-year-old became restless. His eighteen-year-old uncle, Prince Alfred, charged with keeping an eye on him, told him to be quiet, but Wilhelm drew his dirk and threatened Alfred. When Alfred attempted to subdue him by force, Wilhelm bit him on the leg.

First Marriage

Wilhelm and his first wife, Princess Augusta-Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, were married on February 27, 1881. Princess Augusta-Victoria was the eldest daughter of Friedrich VIII, future Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a great-niece of Queen Victoria. She grew up at Dolzig until the death of her grandfather, Christian-August II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, in 1869. The family then moved to Primkenau to a country estate her father inherited.

Princess Augusta-Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein

Wilhelm and Princess Augusta-Victoria had seven children.

Accession

Wilhelm’ s father, Emperor Wilhelm I, died in Berlin on March 9 1888, and Prince Wilhelm’s father ascended the throne as Emperor Friedrich III. Friedrich was already suffering from an incurable throat cancer and spent all 99 days of his reign fighting the disease before dying, which occurred on June 15, of that same year. His 29-year-old son succeeded him as Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

Wilhelm II took control of foreign and military policy with a bellicose “New Course” to cement Germany’s status as a respected world power. However, he frequently undermined this goal by making tactless, bombastic and alarming public statements without seeking his ministers’ advice.

Additionally, his regime did much to alienate itself from the other Great Powers by initiating a massive naval build-up, and challenging French control of Morocco. His turbulent reign ultimately culminated in Germany’s absolute guarantee of military support to Austria-Hungary during the crisis of July 1914, one of the key developments leading to the outbreak of World War I.

A lax wartime leader, he left virtually all decision-making regarding military strategy and organisation of the war effort to the Great General Staff. This broad delegation of authority gave rise to a de facto military dictatorship whose belligerent foreign policy led to the United States’ entry into the war on 6 April 1917. Thereafter Wilhelm’s roll was regulated to that of a figurehead. After losing the support of the German military and his subjects in November 1918, Wilhelm abdicated and fled to exile in the Netherlands.

Second Marriage

Empress Augusta-Victoria known affectionately as “Dona”, was a constant companion to Wilhelm, and her death on April 11, 1921 was a devastating blow. It also came less than a year after their son Prince Joachim committed suicide.

The following January, Wilhelm received a birthday greeting from a son of the late Prince Johann-George of Schönaich-Carolath. The 63-year-old Wilhelm invited the boy and his mother, Princess Hermine of Reuss-Greiz, to Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine very attractive, and greatly enjoyed her company. The couple were wed in Doors on November 9, 1922 , despite the objections of Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters and his children. Hermine’s daughter, Princess Henriette, married the late Prince Joachim’s son, Prince Charles-Franz-Josef, in 1940, but divorced in 1946. Hermine remained a constant companion to the ageing former emperor until his death.

Antisemitism

Wilhelm’s biographer Lamar Cecil identified Wilhelm’s “curious but well-developed anti-Semitism”, noting that in 1888 a friend of Wilhelm “declared that the young Emperor’s dislike of his Hebrew subjects, one rooted in a perception that they possessed an overweening influence in Germany, was so strong that it could not be overcome”. Cecil concludes: Wilhelm never changed, and throughout his life he believed that Jews were perversely responsible, largely through their prominence in the Berlin press and in leftist political movements, for encouraging opposition to his rule.

Exile

On November 10, 1918, Wilhelm II crossed the border by train and went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout the war. Upon the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles in early 1919, Article 227 expressly provided for the prosecution of Wilhelm “for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties”, but the Dutch government refused to extradite him, despite appeals from the Allies. King George V wrote that he looked on his cousin as “the greatest criminal in history”, but opposed Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s proposal to “hang the Kaiser”.

Wilhelm first settled in Amerongen, where on November 28, he issued a belated official statement of abdication from both the Prussian and imperial thrones, thus formally ending the Hohenzollerns’ 400-year rule over Prussia. Accepting the reality that he had lost both of his crowns for good, he gave up his rights to “the throne of Prussia and to the German Imperial throne connected therewith.” He also released his soldiers and officials in both Prussia and the empire from their oath of loyalty to him.

He purchased a country house in the municipality of Doorn, known as Huis Doorn, and moved in on May 15, 1920. This was to be his home for the remainder of his life. The Weimar Republic allowed Wilhelm to remove twenty-three railway wagons of furniture, twenty-seven containing packages of all sorts, one bearing a car and another a boat, from the New Palace at Potsdam.

Wilhelm died of a pulmonary embolus in Doorn, Netherlands, on June 4, 1941, at the age of 82, just weeks before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. German soldiers had been guarding his house. Hitler, however, was angered that the former monarch had an honor guard of German troops and nearly fired the general who ordered them when he found out. Despite his personal animosity toward Wilhelm, Hitler wanted to bring his body back to Berlin for a state funeral, as he regarded Wilhelm a symbol of Germany and Germans during World War I. Hitler felt that such a funeral would demonstrate to the Germans the direct descent of the Third Reich from the old German Empire, thereby giving his regime a sense of continuity.

However, Wilhelm’s wished to return to Germany only after the restoration of the monarchy. The Nazi occupational authorities granted him a small military funeral, with a few hundred people present. The mourners included August von Mackensen, fully dressed in his old imperial Life Hussars uniform, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and Reichskommissar for the Netherlands Arthur Seyss-Inquart, along with a few other military advisers. However, Wilhelm’s request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia be not displayed at his funeral was ignored, and they are featured in the photographs of the event taken by a Dutch photographer.

Wilhelm was buried in a mausoleum in the grounds of Huis Doorn, which has since become a place of pilgrimage for German monarchists. Small but enthusiastic and faithful numbers of them gather there every year on the anniversary of his death to pay their homage to the last German Emperor.

Titles of the German Emperor 1871-1918. Part I.

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Frederick William IV of Prussia, German Emperor, German Empire, German titles, Grand Hall of Mirrors, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Palace of Versailles, Wilhelm I of Germany, Wilhelm II of Germany

German Empire (1848–49)

The first attempt at creating a German Empire was in the wake of the revolutions of 1848. King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia was offered the title “Emperor of the Germans” (German: Kaiser der Deutschen) by the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849. 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.

The title German Emperor was carefully chosen by Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia and Chancellor of the North German Confederation, after 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.

Wilhelm accepted this title begrudgingly on January 18, having preferred “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, as well as a claim to lands outside his reign (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc.). Many south German sovereigns did not desire to be dominated by the Prussian Hohenzollerns.

“Emperor of the Germans”, as had been proposed at the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, was also 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. But more in general, Wilhelm was unhappy about a crown that looked artificial (like he viewed Napoléon’s crown/title), having been created by a constitution. He was also afraid that the position of Emperor would overshadow the Prussian crown.

Therefore a compromise was reached and the title German Emperor became the official title of the head of state and hereditary ruler of the German Empire. The title was introduced with the January 1st 1871 constitution and lasted until the official abdication of Wilhelm II on November 28, 1918. The Holy Roman Emperor is sometimes mistakenly also called “German Emperor” as derived from the Holy Roman Empire’s official name of “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” from 1512.

Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia

However, the title full titles of the German Emperor did change over the years.

The German Emperors after 1873 had a variety of titles and coats of arms, which in various compositions, became the officially used titles and coats of arms. The title and coat of arms were last fixed in 1873, but the titles did not necessarily mean that the area was really dominated, and sometimes even several princes bore the same title.

This is in tradition when in 1817, new titles were introduced for the King of Prussia, the large title, the mid-length title and the short title, parallel to the large, mid-sized and small coats of arms of Prussia.

General

All nobles carry a nobility title. In the rulers’ titles, all diverse titles which a rule had were united are collected. The title is the public self-representation of the person in their political environment, so names in this title may appear, which merely confirm a claim, but do not correspond to any political reality at the time of their application.

The title emancipated very soon from the function that this expressed, and became a sign of belonging to one sex, so that several persons could lead under the same title at the same time. Thus, the King of Prussia introduced the title “Prince of Pyrmont” from 1868 to Prince Georg Viktor. Therefore, for the owner of the function, the title “ruling prince” was later formed in contrast to the pure title holder. But this too gradually faded, as is the case with the last “ruling Prince of Pyrmont”, who in addition to church matters, had only the right to pardon.

Only in the case of the Emperor, King and Grand Duke, the loss of office also entailed the loss of title. The remaining titles were and are linked to the person in the course of the development so that they did not necessarily fail with the loss of the function.

The Emperor actually had more titles when he was king. In 1864, the king ordered that the number of a little over 50 in the title and in the coat of arms should not be exceeded. The two are therefore a selection, with only the most important ones being mentioned.

March 9, 1888: Death of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany, King of Prussia. Part I.

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Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Elisa Radziwill, Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany, Frederick the Great, Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick William IV of Prussia, King Wilhelm I of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia, Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Wilhelm I (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 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.

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 Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt). Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm himself was the son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. His grandfather died the year he was born, at age 53, in 1797, and his father became King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

Wilhelm was not expected to ascend to the throne. He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Delbrück, who was also in charge of the education of Wilhelm’s elder brother, the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. At age twelve, his father appointed him an officer in the Prussian army. The year 1806 saw the defeat of Prussia by France and the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Queen Louise of Prussia with her two eldest sons (later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and the first German Emperor Wilhelm I), circa 1808

Wilhelm served in the army from 1814 onward. Like his father he fought against Napoleon I of France during the part of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815, Wilhelm was promoted to major and commanded a battalion fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Ligny and Waterloo. He became a diplomat, engaging in diplomatic missions after 1815..

In 1814 the Russian imperial family arranged the marriage of Wilhelm’s sister, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, to Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich of Russia, for political reasons, and in 1817 he accompanied her to Saint Petersburg. The couple married on July 1, 1817. Upon her marriage, Charlotte converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and took the Russian name Alexandra Feodorovna. Ideally matched with her husband, she had a happy marriage that produced a large family; seven of her children survived childhood. Following the death of her brother-in-law, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, in December 1825, Alexandra’s husband became the new Russian emperor, Emperor Nicholas I.

In 1826 Wilhelm was forced to abandon a relationship with Polish noblewoman Princess Elisa Radziwill. Princess Elisa was a daughter of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł and Princess Louise of Prussia (the second daughter of August Ferdinand of Prussia by his wife Margravine Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt), niece of King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia. Therefore Prince Wilhelm was when he met with and fell in love with her.

Princess Elisa Radziwill

Wilhelm’s father, King Friedrich Wilhelm III was actually fond of the relationship between Wilhelm and Elisa, but some in the Prussian court had discovered historical allegations that her ancestors had bought their princely title from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. In the eyes of certain people, she was not deemed of sufficiently high nobility to marry the heir to the Prussian throne.

Princess was not considered royal, because her father was not a reigning prince. Wilhelm’s older brother, the future Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was married to Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, the daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Caroline of Baden.and Elisabeth was descended from both Bogusław Radziwiłł and Prince Janusz Radziwiłł. A way was sought to make Elisa more acceptable to those that felt she was unsuitable.

Thus in 1824, the King of Prussia turned to the childless Emperor Alexander I of Russia to adopt Elisa, but the Russian ruler declined. The second adoption plan by Elisa’s uncle, Prince August of Prussia likewise failed as the responsible committee considered that adoption “does not alter the blood” (a principle which governs noble and royal connections to the present day). Another factor was the influence of the Mecklenburgish kinsmen of the deceased Queen Louise in the German and Russian courts who were not fond of Elisa’s father and opposed the possible marriage.

Eventually, in June 1826, Wilhelm’s father was obligated to demand the renunciation of a potential marriage to Elisa. Wilhelm spent the next few months looking for a more suitable bride, but did not relinquish his emotional ties to Elisa.

It is alleged that Elisa had an illegitimate daughter by Wilhelm who was brought up by Joseph and Caroline Kroll, owners of the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, and was given the name Agnes Kroll. She married a Charles Friedrich Ludwig Dettman (known as “Louis”) and emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1849. They had a family of three sons and two daughters. Agnes died in 1904. Wilhelm saw his cousin, Elisa, for the last time in 1829. Elisa was later engaged to Prince Friedrich of Schwarzenberg, but the engagement failed. She died, unmarried, in 1834, of tuberculosis while at a spa seeking a cure.

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Eventually, Wilhelm asked for the hand of Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, fourteen years his junior, the daughter of Grand Duke Charles Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess María Pavlovna of Russia, sister of Emperor Alexander I and Nicholas I of Russia. Augusta met her future husband in 1826 when she was only fifteen years old and Prince Wilhelm 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 had already married. Above all, it was Wilhelm’s father who pressed him to consider Augusta as a potential wife.

Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Augusta’s sister and wife of Prince Charles of Prussia, Wilhelm’s brother)

Their marriage which took place on on August 29, 1826 was outwardly stable, but not a very happy one. 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.

Historian Karin Feuerstein-Prasser has pointed out, on the basis of evaluations of the correspondence between both fiancées, the different expectations Wilhelm had of both marriages: In a letter which Wilhelm wrote on January 22, 1831 to his sister Empress Alexandra Feodorovna regarding Elisa Radziwill, that “One can love only once in life, really”, but confessed regarding Augusta that “the princess is nice and clever, but she leaves me cold.” Wilhelm also noted to his sister his mixed feelings were also due to his wife’s “lack of femininity”.

Wilhelm and Augusta did have two children. Friedrich Wilhelm (later Emperor Friedrich 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.

King Frederick William IV of Prussia

Friedrich Wilhelm III died on June 7, 1840 in Berlin, from a fever, survived by his second wife (In 1824 Friedrich Wilhelm III remarried morganatically Countess Auguste von Harrach, Princess of Liegnitz. They had no children) Friedrich Wilhelm III’s eldest son, Frederick William IV, succeeded him. Since the new king had no children, Willem was first in line to succeed him to the throne and thus was given the title Prinz von Preußen (Prince of Prussia).

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part IV

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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.