March 30, 1830: Death of Grand Duke Ludwig I of Baden and the History of Baden and the Succession

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Baden, Charles of Baden, Charles-Friedrich of Baden, Emperor Napoleon, Grand Duchy of Baden, Hereditary Prince Charles Ludwig of Baden, House of Zähringen, Ludwig of Baden, Stéphanie de Beauharnais

Ludwig I (February 9, 1763 – March 30, 1830) succeeded as Grand Duke of Baden on December 8, 1818. Ludwig was the third surviving son of Grand Duke Charles Friedrich of Baden and Langravine Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Baden came into existence in the 12th century as the Margraviate of Baden and subsequently split into various smaller territories that were unified in 1771.

In 1803 Baden was raised to Electoral dignity within the Holy Roman Empire. Upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Baden became the much-enlarged Grand Duchy of Baden.

Charles Friedrich, Grand Duke of Baden

In 1815 it joined the German Confederation. During the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, Baden was a centre of revolutionist activities. In 1849, in the course of the Baden Revolution, it was the only German state that became a republic for a short while, under the leadership of Lorenzo Brentano. The revolution in Baden was suppressed mainly by Prussian troops.

The Grand Duchy of Baden remained a sovereign country until it joined the German Empire in 1871. After the revolution of 1918, Baden became part of the Weimar Republic as the Republic of Baden.

Ludwig’s father, Charles Friedrich of Baden, succeeded his grandfather Charles III Wilhelm as Margrave of Baden-Durlach in 1738 and ruled personally from 1746 until 1771, when he inherited Baden-Baden from the Catholic line of his family. This made him the Protestant ruler of a state that was overwhelmingly Catholic. In 1803, Charles Friedrich became Elector of Baden, and in 1806 the first Grand Duke of Baden with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

Grand Duke Charles Friedrich died in 1811 and his eldest son, Charles Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden died in 1801 and therefore it was his son, Charles, who succeeded his grandfather as Grand Duke upon the latter’s death in 1811.

Incidentally, Charles Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden was an ancestor of Franz Joseph I of Austria, Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, Nicholas II of Russia and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Lord Mountbatten and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, among others.

Charles, Grand Duke of Baden

Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, due to the strong influence of France on the court of Baden, was forced to marry Emperor Napoléon I’s adopted daughter, Stéphanie de Beauharnais, in Paris on April 8, 1806, this despite his own protests and those of his mother and sisters. Charles apparently preferred the hand of his cousin Princess Augusta of Bavaria. It would be five years before the couple would produce an heir.

Charles’s son and heir, Hereditary Grand Duke Alexander of Baden (May 1, 1816 – May 8, 1816) died shortly after birth. As Grand Duke Charles did not have any surviving male children, upon his death in Rastatt, he was succeeded by his uncle Ludwig.

Since Ludwig was the uncle of his predecessor Grand Duke Karl, his death marked the end of the Zähringen line of the House of Baden.

Ludwig secured the continued existence of the University of Freiburg in 1820, after which the university was called the Albert-Ludwig University. He also founded the Polytechnic Hochschule Karlsruhe in 1825. The Hochschule is the oldest technical school in Germany.

Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden

Ludwig’s death in 1830 led to many rumors. His death also meant the extinction of his line of the Baden family. The succession then went to the children of the morganatic second marriage of Grand Duke Charles and Louise Karoline Geyer von Geyersberg, who was created Countess of Hochberg in the Austrian nobility at the personal request of Grand Duke Charles.

After Ludwig’s death, there was much discussion about a mysterious seventeen-year-old man named Kaspar Hauser, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in 1828.

Seventeen years previously, the first son of the future Grand Duke Charles and his French wife Stéphanie de Beauharnais died under what were later portrayed as mysterious circumstances. There was at the time and still is today (in 2007) speculation that Hauser, who died (perhaps murdered) in 1833, was that child.

Working together with architect Friedrich Weinbrenner, Ludwig is responsible for most of the classical revival buildings in the city center and for building the pyramid.

Ludwig had one surviving illegitimate daughter by his mistress Katharina Werner (created Countess of Langenstein and Gondelsheim in 1818), Countess Louise von Langenstein und Gondelsheim (1825-1900) who married in 1848 Swedish aristocrat Carl Israel, Count Douglas (1824-1898).

May 21, 1801: Birth of Princess Sophie of Sweden. Part II.

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Charles-Friedrich of Baden, Congress of Vienna, Grand Duchy of Baden, Gustaf VI Adolph of Sweden, Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt, Leopold of Baden, Louis I of Baden, Louise-Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg, Margrave Charles-Friedrich of Baden, Maximilian of Bavaria

From the Emperor’s Desk: Today’s blog entry on Princess Sophie of Sweden will focus on her husband, Grand Duke Leopold of Baden.

Princess Sophie of Sweden

Leopold (August 29, 1790 – April 24, 1852) succeeded in 1830 as the Grand Duke of Baden, reigning until his death in 1852.

Leopold I, Grand Duke of Baden

Although a younger child, Leopold was the first son of Margrave Charles-Friedrich of Baden by his second, morganatic wife, Louise-Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg. Since Louise-Carline was not of equal birth with the Margrave, the marriage was deemed morganatic and the resulting children were perceived as incapable of inheriting their father’s dynastic status or the sovereign rights of the Zähringen House of Baden. Louise-Caroline and her children were given the titles of baron and baroness, in 1796 Count or Countess von Hochberg.

Baden gained territory during the Napoleonic Wars. As a result, Margrave Carl-Friedrich was elevated to the title of Prince-Elector within the Holy Roman Empire. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Carl-Friedrich took the title Grand Duke of Baden.

Hochberg heir

Since the descendants of Charles-Friedrich’s first marriage to Caroline-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt and Countess Charlotte of Hanau, were at first plentiful, no one expected the Hochberg children of his second wife to be anything except a family of counts with blood ties to the grand ducal family, but lacking dynastic rights.

Charles-Friedrich, Margrave, Elector and later Grand Duke of Baden

Count Leopold von Hochberg was born in Karlsruhe, and with no prospects of advancement in Baden, followed a career as an officer in the French army.

The situation of both the Grand Duchy and the Hochberg children became objects of international interest as it became apparent that the Baden male line descended from Charles-Friedrich first wife was likely to die out. One by one, the males of the House of Baden expired without leaving male descendants. By 1817, there were only two males left, the reigning Grand Duke Charles I, a grandson of Charles-Friedrich, and his childless uncle Prince Ludwig. Both of Charles’s sons died in infancy. Baden’s dynasty seemed to face extinction, casting the country’s future in doubt.

Unbeknownst to those outside of the court at Baden, upon the November 24, 1787 wedding of then-Margrave Charles-Friedrich to Louise-Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg, he and the three sons of his first marriage signed a declaration which reserved decision on the title and any succession rights of sons to be born of the marriage.

Charles-Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden

Although Louise-Caroline’s children were not initially legally recognised as of dynastic rank, on February 20, 1796 their father clarified in writing (subsequently co-signed by his elder sons) that the couple’s sons were eligible to succeed to the margravial throne in order of male primogeniture after extinction of the male issue of his first marriage. The Margrave further declared that his marriage to their mother must “in no way be seen as morganatic, but rather as a true equal marriage”.

On September 10, 1806, after the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire and the assumption of full sovereignty, Charles-Friedrich confirmed the dynastic status of the sons of his second marriage. This act was, yet again, signed by his three eldest sons, but was not promulgated.

Louise-Caroline, Baroness Geyer of Geyersberg

On October 4, 1817, as neither Grand Duke Charles nor the other sons from his grandfather’s first marriage had surviving male descendants, Charles proceeded to confirm the succession rights of his hither-to morganatic half-uncles, elevating each to the title Prince and Margrave of Baden, and the style of Highness.

Grand Duke Charles asked the princely congress in Aachen on November 20, 1818, just weeks before his death, to confirm the succession rights of these sons of his step-grandmother, still known as Countess Louise von Hochberg.

However, this proclamation of Baden’s succession evoked international challenges. The Congress of Vienna had, in 1815, recognised the claims of Bavaria and Austria to parts of Baden which it allocated to Charles-Friedrich in the Upper Palatinate and the Breisgau, anticipating that upon his imminent demise those lands would cease to be part of the Grand Duchy.

Charles, Grand Duke of Baden

Moreover, the Wittelsbach King of Bavaria, Maximilian I Joseph, was married to Grand Duke Charles’s eldest sister, Caroline of Baden. The female most closely related to the last male of a German dynasty often inherited in such circumstances, in accordance with Semi-Salic succession law.

As a result, Maximilian had a strong claim to Baden under the customary rules of inheritance, as well as his claims under a post–Congress of Vienna treaty of April 16, 1816. Nonetheless, in 1818 Charles granted a constitution to the nation, the liberality of which made it popular with the people of Baden and which included a clause securing the succession rights of the offspring of Louise-Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg.

Another dispute was resolved by Baden’s agreement to cede a portion of the county of Wertheim, already enclaved within Bavaria, to that kingdom.

To further improve the status of Prince Leopold, his half-brother the new Grand Duke Ludwig I arranged for him to marry his great-niece, Sophie of Sweden, daughter of former King Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden by Grand Duke Charles’s sister, Fredrica. Since Sophie was a granddaughter of Leopold’s oldest half-brother, Hereditary Prince Charles-Ludwig, this marriage united the descendants of his father’s (Grand Duke Charles-Friedrich) two wives. Sophie’s undoubted royal blood would help to offset the stigma of Leopold’s morganatic birth.

Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden

Finally, on July 10, 1819, a few months after Charles’s death, the Great Powers of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia joined with Bavaria and Baden in the 1819 Treaty of Frankfurt which recognized the succession rights of the former Hochberg morganatic line.

When Ludwig I died on March 30, 1830, he was the last male of the House of Baden not descended from the morganatic marriage of Charles-Friedrich and Louise-Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg. Leopold von Hochberg now succeeded as the fourth Grand Duke of Baden.

This date in History: December 3, 1838. Birth of Princess Louise of Prussia.

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Frederick III of Germany, German Empire, Grand Duchy of Baden, Grand Duke Frederick I of Baden, Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden, Otto von Bismark, Princess Louise of Prussia, Queen Victoria of Sweden, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Wilhelm I of Germany, Wilhelm II of Germany

Princess Louise of Prussia (December 3, 1838 – April 23, 1923)

Princess Louise of Prussia in 1856, portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Louise Marie Elisabeth was born on December 3, 1838 to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (future German Emperor Wilhelm I) and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the second daughter of Carl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Louise was named after her grandmothers, Louise, Queen of Prussia and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia and was known as “Vivi” in her family.

Her parents were an unhappy and tense couple, and Louise had only one other sibling, Prince Friedrich (future German Emperor Friedrich III, “Fritz”) and she was the aunt of Wilhelm II of Germany. Louise was seven years younger than her brother and two years older than his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal, the daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Upon her birth, her mother Augusta declared that her duty in perpetuating the Hohenzollern dynasty was complete.

While Wilhelm showed some outward affection to his only son, he lavished attention on Louise, and often his unexpected visits to her schoolroom resulted in them playing together on the floor. Mother and daughter however were not close, with Augusta’s presence filling Louise up with awe; one account states that when Augusta encountered her daughter, Louise “involuntarily drew herself up to her full height, and sat stiff and constrained as for her portrait, while she inwardly trembled lest her answers should prove incorrect”.

Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden

Louise was betrothed to Friedrich, Prince Regent of Baden in 1854, and they married September 20, 1856 at Neues Palais in Potsdam. Friedrich had been regent because of his brother Ludwig’s insanity, and was proclaimed Grand Duke of Baden when doctors declared that there was no chance of recovery. As the only daughter of the Prussian crown prince (and later German Emperor), their marriage caused Baden to gain a great deal of importance, and even more so once the German Empire was founded.

Within a few weeks of their marriage, the new grand duchess was already pregnant with their first child, Hereditary Grand Duke Friedrich (future Grand Duke Friedrich II). Louise was a happy wife and mother, writing to a friend that “since we last met, my life has become so much more beautiful, more precious, to me, my happiness is so much richer and deeper than before”.

Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden

Louise and Friedrich disliked the stiffness of the Karlsruhe court, and gladly escaped to their castle on the island of Mainau. They were popular in Baden, and everyone spoke with affectionate pride of their grand duke and duchess in Constance, where the couple had a summer residence.

The couple had three children.

1. Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden (9 July 1857 – 9 August 1928), married Princess Hilda of Luxembourg; no issue
2. Queen Victoria of Sweden (7 August 1862 – 4 April 1930), married King Gustav V of Sweden; had issue
3. Prince Ludwig of Baden (12 June 1865 – 23 February 1888), died unmarried; no issue

Louise was a great friend of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, her sister-in-law’s younger sister; i.e., Alice was the sister of Crown Victoria of Prussia (Louise’s brother Friedrich’s wife) both sisters being daughters of Queen Victoria. The two often visited each other. In Queen Victoria’s letters, she and Frederick were always referred to with pleasure or sympathy as good Fritz and Louise of Baden. Though friends as young girls, Louise and her sister-in-law Victoria, Princess Royal (“Vicky”) always had a “none-too-friendly rivalry”, particularly when comparing their children: while Vicky’s eldest son Crown Prince Wilhelm was born with a deformed arm, Louise apparently could not resist bragging that her three children were healthier and bigger at the same age.

Louise doted on her nephew however, and Vicky wrote to her mother that the grand duchess “spoilt him quite dreadfully”. Often supporting him against his parents, her and Wilhelm’s close relationship would carry on to his adulthood, and he would later write in his memoirs that Louise “possessed considerable political ability and a great gift for organisation, and she understood excellently how to put right men in the right place and how to employ their strength serviceably for the general benefit”.

The Austro-Prussian War caused a degree of friction between Baden and Prussia, as the former, despite their close familial connections to Berlin, chose to support the Austrians. As the daughter of the Prussian king, Baden was not included in the list of states forced to pay excessive indemnities to Prussia. Her father’s strongly anti-Catholic chancellor Otto von Bismarck disliked Baden however, as it was one of Germany’s most important Catholic states; he saw its religion as threatening the stability of the new German Empire. Suspicious of the grand duchess’ influence on her father, he did his best to block her request for clemency on behalf of Alsace Catholics to the emperor.

Within two years, four of Louise’s closest family members died – her father, brother, younger son and mother. Vicky, now Dowager Empress Friedrich, took sympathy on Louise and persuaded her mother to confer Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, First Class, on her.

Grand Duke Friedrich died on September 28, 1907, and their eldest son succeeded as Grand Duke Friedrich II. That same year, their only daughter Victoria succeeded as Queen consort of Sweden, as the spouse of King Gustaf V of Sweden and Norway, the son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and Sofia of Nassau.

Louise, now Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, lived to see her duchy become absorbed into the new state of Germany under the Revolution of 1918-19 that took place at the end of World War I. At the time of the revolution, her daughter, Queen Victoria of Sweden, was visiting her. After the abdication of the German emperor, riots spread in Karlsruhe on November 11. The son of a courtier led a group of soldiers up to the front of the palace, followed by a great crowd of people, where a few shots were fired. Louise, as well as the rest of the family, left the palace the backway and left for the Zwingenberg palace in the Neckar valley. By permission of the new government, they were allowed to stay at the Langenstein Palace, which belonged to a Swedish count, Douglas.

During these events, Louise was said to have kept her calm and never uttered a word of complaint. The government gave the order that the former Grand Ducal family was to be protected, and that Langenstein be excepted from housing the returning soldiers, because Louise’s daughter, the Queen of Sweden, was in their company and Baden should not do anything to offend Sweden. In 1919, the family requested permission from the government to reside in Mainau, and was met with the answer that they were now private citizens and could do as they wished.

The new republican government gave her permission to live out the rest of her life in retirement at Baden-Baden, where she died on April 24, 1923, (aged 84). She was the last surviving non-morganatic grandchild of Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

HIM German Emperor Wilhelm II: Part 3

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Crown Prince Wilhelm, Field Marshall, Friedrich Ebert, General Erich Ludendorff, German Empire, Grand Duchy of Baden, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Prussia, Morocco, Otto von Bismark, Paul von Hindenburg, Philipp Scheidemann, Prince Maximilian of Baden, Princess Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Social Democrats, Sultan Abdelaziz of Morocco, Tangier, The First Moroccan Crisis, Triple Alliance, Triple Entente, Wilhelm Groener, Woodrow Wilson, World War I

This is the final part of my feature on Germany’s Kaiser. Today I will look at his abdication and then look more on the personal side of the Kaiser along with his life in exile and his legacy.

As World War I raged on the Kaiser lost most of his political power and influence. By 1916 Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were the virtual military dictators of the German Empire. Toward the end of the war it was evident how much power the Kaiser had lost and how much power Hindenburg and Ludendorff wielded. Throughout the spring and summer of 1918 the German staff could no longer deny that the war was lost and that peace should be sought after.

Georg von Hertling was the Chancellor of the German Empire and seen as a puppet of Hindenburg and Ludendorff and when it was realized he could no longer control the splintering empire on the verge of collapse he was forced to resign. The Kaiser, whose responsibility it was to appoint the Chancellor had no say in selecting von Hertling’s replacement. Prince Maximilian of Baden, heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden. Prince Max was seen as a liberal and by amending the constitution to where it would favor a Parliamentary system instead of the authoritarian system constructed by Bismark. Prince Max also included the Social Democrats, Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann in the formation of the government. These were steps that were thought would make it easier for the allies to sue for peace. It was well known that US President Wilson would not deal with a Germany with the Kaiser at its head.

By November the German Empire was on the verge of collapse. There were socialist uprisings as well as rumblings in the military of mutiny. There were calls for the Kaiser to abdicate but that he refused to do so. In 1918 the German Staff had moved its headquarters to Spa, Belgium and it was there that Wilhelm spent his last days as emperor. All attempts to save the monarchy were lost but Wilhelm was not convinced. On November 9, 1918 Prince Max was in Berlin and the only thing he could do to stave off complete collapse and revolution was to announce the abdication of the Kaiser himself. When word reached Wilhelm that his abdication had been announced in Berlin he was outraged and never forgave Prince Max. Prince Max knew that he himself also had to go as it was seen that only Friedrich Ebert could restore order so the very same day the Kaiser’s abdication was announced Prince Max turned over the Chancellorship to Ebert.

Wilhelm was still not convinced all was lost. Ever the Prussian militarist Wilhelm had a delusional idea that he would lead the German Army, who was ever loyal to him, back into Berlin to crush any rebellion and restore his power. It took General Wilhelm Groener, Ludendorff’s replacement, to convince the emperor that the Army would not support him. It was only then that he agreed to seek exile and leave. The night of July 10th the Kaiser left Spa by train to seek asylum in the Netherlands. He was granted asylum by Queen Wilhelmina () and eventually settled in Doorn where he stayed for the rest of his life. His cousin, George V of the United Kingdom, called him the worst criminal in history. Many nations called for his extradition and wanted the Kaiser hung for war crimes. Eventually even president Wilson agreed that to extradite the Kaiser would destabilize the tentative peace.

Bismark mention in how he saw the Kaiser: he wanted every day to be his birthday—romantic, sentimental and theatrical, unsure and arrogant, with an immeasurably exaggerated self-confidence and desire to show off, a juvenile cadet, who never took the tone of the officers’ mess out of his voice, and brashly wanted to play the part of the supreme warlord, full of panicky fear of a monotonous life without any diversions, and yet aimless, pathological in his hatred against his English mother.

Reading one of the leading biographers of the Kaiser, John C. G. Röhl, found he blamed many others for his downfall and he had a streak of antisemitism in him as well.

Kaiserin August Victoria of Germany

He had married for the first time in 1881, HSH Princess Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1858-1921). There have not been many kind words written about her. She was devoted to her husband in an almost hero-worshiping fashion and was seen as rather plain and unintelligent. Her devout Christian conservative views also created more negative images of her. She bore the Kaiser 6 sons and one daughter to whom he was devoted to. His eldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, was a womanizing playboy and this did not sit well with the emperor. The two strong willed men had many conflicts. One son, Prince Joachim, who was divorced shortly after the war never recovered from his loss of position and life as a royal and committed suicide in 1920. A year later his wife, Empress Augusta Victoria, died at the age of 62.

The Kaiser remarried in 1922. On his birthday in January of that same year Wilhelm received a birthday card from a son of the late Prince Johann George of Schönaich-Carolath. Wilhelm invited the boy and his mother, born Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, to Doorn. While meeting the former kaiser Wilhelm found Hermine very attractive and the two got on well. They were wed November 9, 1922 in spite of very vocal objections his children, who were about the same age as their new stepmother, and also from Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters who were eager for the restoration of the monarchy. Hermine, who was called the empress within the corridors of Huis Doorn was similarly devoted to her husband as was his first wife.

The Kaiser passed away on June 4, 1941. He saw the first few years of World War II. He eventually distance himself from Hitler and would not allow himself to be used for Nazi Propaganda and would not allow himself to be buried in Germany unless the monarchy was restored. To this day his remains lie in a mausoleum on the grounds of Huis Doorn.

Although I didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about the last Kaiser yet I do find him fascinating. He was a complex character that was steering the ship when the German Empire ran aground. Historians say that World War I changed a way of life for the aristocracy that had existed in Europe for centuries. There are also some historians who say that the 20th century didn’t actually begin until the end of the First World War. As a monarchist it presents an opportunity to understand why the monarchy ended. I am of the belief that if the kaiser had been more open to change and willing to go the way of constitutionalism that the other monarchies had gone, there is a strong chance that Germany would still be a monarchy today.