March 9, 1888: Death of Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia

Tags

Franco-Prussian War, German Chancellor, German Emperor Wilhelm I, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King of Prussia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Otto von Bismarck, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Wilhelm I (March 22, 1797 – March 9, 1888) was King of Prussia and German Emperor. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV, whose death three years later would make him king.

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

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 the future King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

His mother was Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom and wife of King George III. Her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

When Wilhelm was born his grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm II, was King of Prussia and 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 King Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia

He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Delbrück [de], who was also in charge of the education of Wilhelm’s brother, the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm III. 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.

In 1829, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the daughter of Grand Duke Charles Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Their marriage was outwardly stable, but not a very happy one.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia was the sister of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia who married Princess Charlotte of Prussia (1798–1860), sister of Emperor/King Wilhelm of Prussia.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Princess Charlotte of Prussia took the name Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted to Orthodoxy. Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia.

On January 2, 1861, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV died and Wilhelm ascended the throne as King Wilhelm I of Prussia. In July, a student from Leipzig attempted to assassinate Wilhelm, but he was only lightly injured.

Like Friedrich I, King in Prussia, Wilhelm travelled to Königsberg and there crowned himself at the Schlosskirche. Wilhelm chose the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, October 18 for this event, which was the first Prussian crowning ceremony since 1701 and the only crowning of a German king in the 19th century. Wilhelm refused to comply with his brother’s wish, expressed in Friedrich Wilhelm’s last will, that he should abrogate the constitution.

In 1867, the North German Confederation was created as a federation (federally organised state) of the North German and Central German states under the permanent presidency of Prussia. King Wilhelm assumed the Bundespräsidium, the Presidency of the Confederation; the post was a hereditary office of the Prussian crown.

Not expressis verbis, but in function he was the head of state. Bismarck intentionally avoided a title such as Präsident as it sounded too republican. King Wilhelm became the constitutional Bundesfeldherr, the commander of all federal armed forces. Via treaties with the South German states, he also became commander of their armies in times of war. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm was in command of all the German forces at the crucial Battle of Sedan.

German Emperor

During the Franco-Prussian War, the South German states joined the North German Confederation, which was reorganized as the German Empire (Deutsches Reich). The title of Bundespräsidium was amended with the title of German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser).

Wilhelm is proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, France flanked by his only son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and son in law – Friedrich I, Grand Duke of Baden. Painting by Anton von Werner

This was decided on by the legislative organs, the Reichstag and Bundesrat, and William agreed to this on December 8 in the presence of a Reichstag delegation. The new constitution and the title of German Emperor came into effect on January 1, 1871.

Wilhelm, however, hesitated to accept the constitutional title, as he feared that it would overshadow his own title as King of Prussia. He also wanted it to be “Emperor of Germany” but Bismarck warned him that the South German princes and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria might protest as that title indicated supremacy over all German monarchs.

Wilhelm eventually—though grudgingly—relented and on 18 January 18, he was formally proclaimed as German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. The date was chosen as the coronation date of the first Prussian king in 1701. In the national memory, January 18 became the day of the foundation of the Empire (Reichsgründungstag), although it did not have a constitutional significance.

To many intellectuals, the coronation of Emperor Wilhelm was associated with the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. Felix Dahn wrote a poem, “Macte senex Imperator” (Hail thee, old emperor) in which he nicknamed Wilhelm Barbablanca (whitebeard), a play on the name of the medieval Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (redbeard).

According to the King asleep in mountain legend, Barbarossa slept under the Kyffhäuser mountain until Germany had need of him. Wilhelm I was thus portrayed as a second coming of Barbarossa. The Kyffhäuser Monument portrays both emperors.

In 1872, he arbitrated a boundary dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States, deciding in favor of the U.S. and placing the San Juan Islands of modern-day Washington within U.S. national territory, thus ending the 12-year bloodless Pig War.

In his memoirs, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck describes Wilhelm as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by “female influences”.

This was a reference to Wilhelm’s wife, who had been educated by, among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was intellectually superior to her husband. She was also at times very outspoken in her opposition to official policies as she was a liberal.

Wilhelm, however, had long been strongly opposed to liberal ideas. Despite possessing considerable power as Emperor Wilhelm left the task of governing mostly to his chancellor, limiting himself to representing the state and approving Bismarck’s every policy. In private he once remarked on his relationship with Bismarck: It is difficult to be Emperor under such a chancellor.

Wilhelm’s funeral procession, 1888

Emperor Wilhelm I died on March 9, 1888 in Berlin after a short illness, less than two weeks before his 91st birthday. He was buried on March 16 at the Mausoleum at Park Charlottenburg.

He was succeeded by his son Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm who was already in ill health himself (suffering from throat cancer). Emperor Friedrich III spent the 99 days of his reign fighting his illness before dying and being succeeded by his eldest son Wilhelm on June 15 as German Emperor and King of Prussia Wilhelm II.

November 21, 1840: Birth of Victoria, Princess Royal and German Empress and Queen of Prussia

Tags

Baron Stockmar, Berlin, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm I, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King of Prussia, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Victoria the Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, St. James’s Palace

From the Emperor’s Desk: In the honor of the Anniversary of Princess Victoria the Princess Royal I will focus on her marriage to German Emperor Friedrich III, King of Prussia.

Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; November 21, 1840 – August 5, 1901) She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and was created Princess Royal in 1841. The Princess Royal was German Empress and Queen of Prussia as the wife of German Emperor Friedrich III. She was the mother of Wilhelm II, German Emperor.

Friedrich III (18 October 1831 – 15 June 1888) was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days between March and June 1888, during the Year of the Three Emperors. Known informally as “Fritz”, he was the only son of Emperor Wilhelm I and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, he was raised in his family’s tradition of military service.

In the German Confederation, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach were among the personalities with whom Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were allies.

The British sovereign also had regular epistolary contact with her cousin Augusta since 1846. The revolution that broke out in Berlin in 1848 further strengthened the links between the two royal couples by requiring the heir presumptive to the Prussian throne to find shelter for three months in the British court.

In 1851, Wilhelm returned to London with his wife and two children (Friedrich and Louise), on the occasion of The Great Exhibition. For the first time, Victoria met her future husband, and despite the age difference (she was 11 years old and he was 19), they got along very well.

To promote the contact between the two, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert asked their daughter to guide Friedrich through the exhibition, and during the visit the princess was able to converse in perfect German while the prince was able to say only a few words in English.

The meeting was therefore a success, and years later, Prince Friedrich recalled the positive impression that Victoria made on him during this visit, with her mixture of innocence, intellectual curiosity and simplicity.

It was not only his encounter with little Victoria, however, that positively impressed Friedrich during the four weeks of his English stay. The young Prussian prince shared his liberal ideas with the Prince Consort. Friedrich was fascinated by the relationships among the members of the British royal family.

In London, court life was not as rigid and conservative as in Berlin, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s relationship with their children was very different to William and Augusta’s relationship with theirs.

After Friedrich returned to Germany, he began a close correspondence with Victoria. Behind this nascent friendship was the desire of Queen Victoria and her husband to forge closer ties with Prussia. In a letter to her uncle, the King Leopold of the Belgians, the British sovereign conveyed the desire that the meeting between her daughter and the Prussian prince would lead to a closer relationship between the two young people.

Engagement and marriage

Friedrich had received a comprehensive education and in particular was formed by personalities like the writer Ernst Moritz Arndt and historian Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann. According to the tradition of the House of Hohenzollern, he also received rigorous military training.

In 1855, Prince Friedrich made another trip to Great Britain and visited Victoria and her family in Scotland at Balmoral Castle. The purpose of his trip was to see the Princess Royal again, to ensure that she would be a suitable consort for hito

In Berlin, the response to this journey to Britain was far from positive. In fact, many members of the Prussian court wanted to see the heir presumptive’s son marry a Russian Grand Duchess. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who had allowed his nephew to marry a British princess, even had to keep his approval a secret because his own wife,, showed strong Anglophobia.

At the time of Friedrich’s second visit, Victoria was 15 years old. A little shorter than her mother, the princess was 4 feet 11 inches. Queen Victoria was concerned that the Prussian prince would not find her daughter sufficiently attractive. Nevertheless, from the first dinner with the prince, it was clear to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that the mutual sympathy of the two young people that began in 1851 was still vivid.

In fact, after only three days with the royal family, Friedrich asked Victoria’s parents permission to marry their daughter. They were thrilled by the news, but gave their approval on condition that the marriage should not take place before Vicky’s seventeenth birthday.

Once this condition was accepted, the engagement of Victoria and Frederick was publicly announced on May 17, 1856. The immediate reaction in Great Britain was disapproval. The English public complained about the Kingdom of Prussia’s neutrality during the Crimean War of 1853–1856.

The Times characterized the Hohenzollern as a “miserable dynasty” that pursued an inconsistent and unreliable foreign policy, with the maintenance of the throne depending solely on Russia. The newspaper also criticised the failure of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to respect the political guarantees given to the population during the revolution of 1848.

In the German Confederation, the reactions to the announcement of the engagement were mixed: several members of the Hohenzollern family and conservatives opposed it, and liberal circles welcomed the proposed union with the British crown.

Preparation for the role of Prussian princess
The Prince Consort, who was part of the Vormärz, had long supported the “Coburg plan”, i.e., the idea that a liberal Prussia could serve as an example for other German states and would be able to achieve the Unification of Germany. During the involuntary stay of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in London in 1848, the Prince Consort tried to convince his Hohenzollern cousin of the need to transform Prussia into a constitutional monarchy following the British model. However, the future German emperor was not persuaded; he instead kept very conservative views.

Eager to make his daughter the instrument of the liberalisation of Germany, Prince Albert took advantage of the two years of Victoria and Friedrich’s engagement to give the Princess Royal the most comprehensive training possible. Thus, he taught himself history and modern European politics and actually wrote to the princess many essays on events that occurred in Prussia.

However, the Prince Consort overestimated the ability of the liberal reform movement in Germany at a time when only a small middle class and some intellectual circles shared his views on the German Confederation. Hence, Prince Albert gave his daughter a particularly difficult role, especially facing a critical and conservative Hohenzollern court.

Domestic issues and marriage

To pay the dowry of the Princess Royal, the British Parliament allotted the sum of 40,000 pounds and also gave her an allowance of 8,000 pounds per year.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV provided an annual allowance of 9,000 thalers to his nephew Friedrich. The income of the second-in-line to the Prussian throne proved insufficient to cover a budget consistent with his position and that of his future wife. Throughout much of their marriage, Victoria relied on her own resources.

The Berlin court of the royal couple was chosen by Friedrich’s aunt, Queen Elisabeth, and his mother, Princess Augusta. They summoned people who had been in court service for a long time and were much older than Victoria and Friedrich. Prince Albert therefore asked the Hohenzollerns that his daughter could keep at least two ladies-in-waiting who were her age and of British origin.

His request was not completely denied but, as a compromise, Victoria received two young ladies-in-waiting of German origin: Countesses Walburga von Hohenthal and Marie zu Lynar. However, Prince Albert did succeed in imposing Ernst Alfred Christian von Stockmar, the son of his friend Baron von Stockmar, as his daughter’s private secretary.

Convinced that the marriage of a British princess to the second-in-line to the Prussian throne would be regarded as an honour by the Hohenzollerns, Prince Albert insisted that his daughter retain her title of Princess Royal after the wedding. However, owing to the very anti-British and pro-Russian views of the Berlin court, the prince’s decision only aggravated the situation.

The question of where to hold the marriage ceremony raised the most criticism. To the Hohenzollerns, it seemed natural that the nuptials of the future Prussian king would be held in Berlin. However, Queen Victoria insisted that her eldest daughter must marry in her own country, and in the end, she prevailed. The wedding of Victoria and Friedrich took place at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London on January 25, 1858.

November 8, 1877: Death of Princess Amelia of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony

Tags

Amelia Auguste of Bavaria, Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria, Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, King Friedrich August II of Saxony, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King Johann of Saxony, Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony, Sophie of Bavaria

From the Emperor’s Desk: Since I did not find a lot of information about Princess Amalie I decided to also include some information on her sisters.

Amelia Auguste (November 13, 1801 – November 8, 1877) was a Bavarian princess by birth and Queen of Saxony by marriage to King Johann of Saxony.

Princess Amelia of Bavaria, Queen of Saxony

Amalie was the fourth child of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. She was the identical twin sister of Elisabeth Louise, later Queen of Prussia as wife of Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia.

Here is a list of her sisters

1. Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (June 21, 1788 – May 13, 1851) was the second child and eldest daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt. By marriage, she was a French Princess.

Although promised in marriage to the heir of Baden, Charles, originally, the engagement was broken at the behest of Napoleon I of France. On January 14, 1806 in Munich, Augusta married Eugène de Beauharnais, the only son of Josephine de Beauharnais and Alexandre, vicomte de Beauharnais and stepson of Napoleon. In return, Napoleon raised Bavaria from an Electoral state to a Kingdom. Although a diplomatic marriage, this union would turn out to be a happy one. In 1817, Augusta’s father raised his son-in-law to the title of Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstädt, with the style Royal Highness.

2. Princess Caroline Augusta of Bavaria (February 8, 1792 – February 9, 1873) was Empress of Austria by marriage to FranzI of Austria. She married first Crown Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg, whom she divorced, and then married Emperor Franz I of Austria.

3. Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria (November 13, 1801 – December 14, 1873) was Queen of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William IV. She was known within her family as Elise. The marriage was childless.

Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria twin sister to Princess Amelia Auguste of Bavaria

4. Princess Sophie of Bavaria (January 27, 1805 – 28 May 1872) The identical twin sister of Queen Maria Anna of Saxony, Sophie became Archduchess of Austria by marriage to Archduke Franz Karl of Austria. Her eldest son Franz Joseph reigned as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; her second son Maximilian briefly reigned as Emperor of Mexico.

5. Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria (January 27, 1805 – September 13, 1877), known as ‘Marie’ was Queen of Saxony from 1836 to 1854 as the second wife of King Friedrich August II of Saxony. Friedrich August II died without an heir was succeeded by his younger brother Johann.

During a journey in Tyrol, he had an accident in Brennbüchel in which he fell in front of a horse that stepped on his head. On August 8, 1854, he died in the Gasthof Neuner.

6. Princess Ludovika of Bavaria (August 30,1808 – January 25,1892). Ludovika married Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria, whose father Duke Pius August in Bavaria was her cousin, on September 9, 1828 in Tegernsee. Ludovika was always frustrated that, unlike her elder sisters who married kings and Austrian archdukes, she would not be marrying someone with a grand title, but rather a peculiar and childish duke who had a fondness for circuses.

However, Ludovika was determined to create dynastic marriages for her daughters. She and her husband had ten children, including Elisabeth, known as Sisi who married her cousin Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Maria Sofia who married King Francisco II of the Two Sicilies.

Princess Maria Sofia of Bavaria

Princess Elisabeth (Sisi) of Bavaria.

~~~~~~~~~

In 1851 Amalie Auguste became chairwoman of Women’s Association of Dresden (Frauenverein zu Dresden), an organisation founded by her sister, the then queen. Three years later, her husband inherited the throne and she became queen. In 1859 she reorganized the association as the Zentralausschuß obererzgebirgischen und der vogtländischen Frauenvereine and established a legal basis for it, under which the organisation continued until 1932.

Marriage and issue

Amalie Auguste married on November 21, 1822 Prince Johann of Saxony, who reigned as King of Saxony between 1854 and 1873. Johann and Amelia had nine children, of whom six died at young ages and predeceased her.

March 21, 1871: Otto von Bismarck is created Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire

Tags

Franco-Prussian War, German Emperor Wilhelm I, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Imperial Chancellor of Germany, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of Prussia, Unification of Germany

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, (April 1, 1815 — July 30, 1898) was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. Later created Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg

In 1847, Bismarck, aged thirty-two, was chosen as a representative to the newly created Prussian legislature, the Vereinigter Landtag. There, he gained a reputation as a royalist and reactionary politician with a gift for stinging rhetoric; he openly advocated the idea that the monarch had a divine right to rule.

In March 1848, Prussia faced a revolution (one of the revolutions of 1848 across Europe), which completely overwhelmed King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The monarch, though initially inclined to use armed forces to suppress the rebellion, ultimately declined to leave Berlin for the safety of military headquarters at Potsdam. Bismarck later recorded that there had been a “rattling of sabres in their scabbards” from Prussian officers when they learned that the King would not suppress the revolution by force.

The King offered numerous concessions to the liberals: he wore the black-red-gold revolutionary colours (as seen on the flag of today’s Germany), promised to promulgate a constitution, agreed that Prussia and other German states should merge into a single nation-state, and appointed a liberal, Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen, as Minister President.

Bismarck had at first tried to rouse the peasants of his estate into an army to march on Berlin in the King’s name. He travelled to Berlin in disguise to offer his services, but was instead told to make himself useful by arranging food supplies for the Army from his estates in case they were needed.

The King’s brother, Prince Wilhelm, had fled to England; Bismarck tried to get Wilhelm’s wife Augusta to place their teenage son Friedrich on the Prussian throne in Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s place. Augusta would have none of it, and detested Bismarck thereafter, despite the fact that he later helped restore a working relationship between Wilhelm and his brother the King.

In 1849, Bismarck was elected to the Landtag. At this stage in his career, he opposed the unification of Germany, arguing that Prussia would lose its independence in the process. He accepted his appointment as one of Prussia’s representatives at the Erfurt Parliament, an assembly of German states that met to discuss plans for union, but he only did so to oppose that body’s proposals more effectively.

The parliament failed to bring about unification, for it lacked the support of the two most important German states, Prussia and Austria. In September 1850, after a dispute over Hesse (the Hesse Crisis of 1850), Prussia was humiliated and forced to back down by Austria (supported by Russia) in the so-called Punctation of Olmütz; a plan for the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, proposed by Prussia’s Minister President Radowitz, was also abandoned.

In 1851, Friedrich Wilhelm IV appointed Bismarck as Prussia’s envoy to the Diet of the German Confederation in Frankfurt. Bismarck gave up his elected seat in the Landtag, but was appointed to the Prussian House of Lords a few years later.

Bismarck’s eight years in Frankfurt were marked by changes in his political opinions, detailed in the numerous lengthy memoranda, which he sent to his ministerial superiors in Berlin. No longer under the influence of his ultraconservative Prussian friends, Bismarck became less reactionary and more pragmatic.

He became convinced that to countervail Austria’s newly restored influence, Prussia would have to ally herself with other German states. As a result, he grew to be more accepting of the notion of a united German nation. He gradually came to believe that he and his fellow conservatives had to take the lead in creating a unified nation to keep from being eclipsed. He also believed that the middle-class liberals wanted a unified Germany more than they wanted to break the grip of the traditional forces over society.

In October 1857, Friedrich Wilhelm IV suffered a paralysing stroke, and his brother Wilhelm took over the Prussian government as Regent. Wilhelm was initially seen as a moderate ruler, whose friendship with liberal Britain was symbolised by the recent marriage of his son Friedrich to Victoria, Princess Royal, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter. As part of his “New Course”, Wilhelm brought in new ministers, moderate conservatives known as the Wochenblatt after their newspaper.

Prince Wilhelm became King of Prussia upon his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s death in 1861. The new monarch often came into conflict with the increasingly liberal Prussian Diet (Landtag).

A crisis arose in 1862, when the Diet refused to authorize funding for a proposed re-organization of the army. The King’s ministers could not convince legislators to pass the budget, and the King was unwilling to make concessions.

Wilhelm threatened to abdicate in favour of his son Crown Prince Friedrich, who opposed his doing so, believing that Bismarck was the only politician capable of handling the crisis. However, Wilhelm was ambivalent about appointing a person who demanded unfettered control over foreign affairs.

It was in September 1862, when the Abgeordnetenhaus (House of Deputies) overwhelmingly rejected the proposed budget, that Wilhelm was persuaded to recall Bismarck to Prussia. On September 23, 1862, Wilhelm appointed Bismarck Minister President and Foreign Minister.

Despite the initial distrust of the King and Crown Prince and the loathing of Queen Augusta, Bismarck soon acquired a powerful hold over the King by force of personality and powers of persuasion. Bismarck was intent on maintaining royal supremacy by ending the budget deadlock in the King’s favour, even if he had to use extralegal means to do so.

Under the Constitution, the budget could be passed only after the king and legislature agreed on its terms. Bismarck contended that since the Constitution did not provide for cases in which legislators failed to approve a budget, there was a “legal loophole” in the Constitution and so he could apply the previous year’s budget to keep the government running. Thus, on the basis of the 1861 budget, tax collection continued for four years.

Bismarck masterminded the unification of Germany. He cooperated with King Wilhelm I of Prussia to unify the various German states, a partnership that would last for the rest of Wilhelm’s life.

Bismarck provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France. Following the victory against Austria, he abolished the supranational German Confederation and instead formed the North German Confederation as the first German national state, aligning the smaller North German states behind Prussia, and excluding Austria. Receiving the support of the independent South German states in the Confederation’s defeat of France, he formed the German Empire – which also excluded Austria – and united Germany.

Bismarck served as the Chancellor of Prussia from 1862 until 1867 when he became Chancellor of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1871 and with the creation of the German Empire in 1871 Bismarck was also appointed as the first Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire on March 21st 1871, but retained his Prussian offices, including those of Minister-President and Foreign Minister. He also continued to serve as his own foreign minister. Because of both the imperial and the Prussian offices that he held, Bismarck had near complete control over domestic and foreign policy.

Bismarck on his death bed

Bismarck resigned at Wilhelm II’s insistence on 18 March 18, 1890, at the age of seventy-five. retired to write his memoirs (Thoughts and Memories). In the memoirs Bismarck continued his feud with Wilhelm II by attacking him, and by increasing the drama around every event and by often presenting himself in a favorable light.

Bismarck’s health began to fail in 1896. He was diagnosed with gangrene in his foot, but refused to accept treatment for it; as a result he had difficulty walking and often used a wheelchair. By July 1898 he was a full-time wheelchair user, had trouble breathing, and was almost constantly feverish and in pain. His health rallied momentarily on the 28th, but then sharply deteriorated over the next two days.

He died just after midnight on July 30, 1898, at the age of eighty-three in Friedrichsruh, where he is entombed in the Bismarck Mausoleum. He was succeeded as Prince Bismarck by his eldest son, Herbert. Bismarck managed a posthumous snub of Wilhelm II by having his own sarcophagus inscribed with the words, “A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I”.

The Life of Victoria of the United Kingdom, Princess Royal, German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Part II.

Tags

English-style gardens, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, German Empress, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Prince Albert, Princess Royal, Queen of Prussia, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria’s move to Berlin began a large correspondence between the princess and her parents. Each week, she sent a letter to her father that usually contained comments on German political events. The majority of these letters have been preserved and have become a valuable source for knowing the Prussian court.

But these letters also show the will of Queen Victoria to dictate her daughter’s every move. She demanded that Victoria appear equally loyal to her homeland and her new country. But this quickly became impossible, and the most insignificant events confronted the princess with insoluble problems.

For example, the death of the Duchess of Orléans, a distant relative of the British and Prussian royal houses, brought a month of mourning in London, while in Berlin the mourning period lasted only one week. Victoria was bound to respect the period of mourning in use among the Hohenzollerns, but this earned her the criticism of her mother, who believed that, as a Princess Royal and daughter of the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Victoria should follow the custom in use in England.

Concerned about the effect of the continual maternal criticism on Victoria’s psychological health, Baron von Stockmar asked Prince Albert to intervene and ask the queen to moderate her demands. However, the baron was unable to reduce the attacks that the princess suffered from the Russophilic and Anglophobic circles of the Berlin court.

For most of the 19th century, Russia and Britain were not just geopolitical rivals in Asia, but also ideological opponents as many in both nations believed autocratic Russia and democratic Britain were destined to battle each for world domination. In Prussia, the Junkers tended to see much in common with the ordered society of Imperial Russia, and disliked British democracy. She was often hurt by unkind comments from the Hohenzollern family.

A keen amateur gardener, Victoria’s attempts to import English-style gardens into Prussia prompted what became known as the “Anglo-Prussian garden war” as the court fought from 1858 onward against Victoria’s attempts to change the gardens at the Sanssouci palace into something more English. The simple, unadorned English-style geometric garden designs favored by Victoria were out of favor with the Prussian court which favored the Italianate style, and which ferociously resisted Victoria’s attempts to create English-style gardens.

Official duties

At 17 years old, Victoria had to perform many tedious official duties. Almost every evening, she had to appear at formal dinners, theatrical performances or public receptions. If foreign relatives of the Hohenzollerns were located in Berlin or Potsdam, her protocolary duties widened. Sometimes she was forced to greet guests of the royal family at the station at 7:00 in the morning and be present at receptions past midnight.

Upon the arrival of Victoria in Berlin, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV gave to Friedrich and his wife an old wing of the Berlin Royal Palace. The building was in very bad condition, and it did not even contain a bathtub. The couple moved to the Kronprinzenpalais in November 1858. In summer, they resided at the Neues Palais.

First childbirth

A little over a year after her marriage, on January 27, 1859, Victoria gave birth to her first child, the future German Emperor Wilhelm II. The delivery was extremely complicated. The maid responsible for alerting doctors to the onset of contractions delayed giving notice. Moreover, the gynecologists hesitated to examine the princess, who was wearing only a flannel nightgown. The baby was in breech, and the delayed delivery could have caused the death of both the princess and her son.

Finally, doctors managed to save both mother and child. The baby, however, suffered damage at the brachial plexus, and the nerves in his arm were injured. As he grew, it failed to develop normally, and by the time Wilhelm was an adult, his left arm was fifteen cm shorter than his right. There is also speculation that the difficult labour caused fetal distress, which deprived the future emperor of oxygen for eight to ten minutes and might have brought about other neurological problems.

The doctors tried to calm both Victoria and Friedrich, affirming that their baby could recover fully from his injuries. Still, the couple chose not to inform the British court of Wilhelm’s condition. However, over the weeks it became clear that the child’s arm would not recover, and, after four months of doubts, Victoria decided to give the sad news to her parents. Fortunately for the princess, the birth of her second child, Princess Charlotte, on July 24, 1860, took place without difficulty.