September 4, 1870: Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared.

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Abdication, Battle of Sedan, Emperor Napoleon III of France, Franco-Prussian War, King Wilhelm I of Prussia, Napoleon III, Otto von Bismark, Second French Empire

Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; April 20, 1808 – January 9, 1873), the nephew of Napoleon I, was the first president of France, from 1848 to 1852, and the last French monarch, from 1852 to 1870. First elected president of the French Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be re-elected, and became the emperor of the French. He founded the Second French Empire and was its only emperor until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He worked to modernize the French economy, rebuilt the center of Paris, expanded the French overseas empire, and engaged in the Crimean War and the Second Italian War of Independence.

The Battle of Sedan was a total disaster for the French—the army surrendered to the Prussians and Napoleon himself was made a prisoner of war. MacMahon arrived at Sedan with one hundred thousand soldiers, not knowing that two German armies were closing in on the city (one from the west and one from the east), blocking any escape.

The Germans arrived on August 31, and by September 1, occupied the heights around Sedan, placed batteries of artillery, and began to shell the French positions below. At five o’clock in the morning on September 1, a German shell seriously wounded MacMahon in the hip. Sedan soon came under bombardment from seven hundred German guns. MacMahon’s replacement, General Wimpffen, launched a series of valiant cavalry attacks to try to break the German encirclement, with no success. During the battle and bombardment, the French lost seventeen thousand killed or wounded and twenty-one thousand captured.

As the German shells rained down on the French positions, Napoleon III wandered aimlessly in the open around the French positions. One officer of his military escort was killed and two more received wounds. A doctor accompanying him wrote in his notebook, “If this man has not come here to kill himself, I don’t know what he has come to do. I have not seen him give an order all morning.”

Finally, at one o’clock in the afternoon, Napoleon emerged from his reverie and ordered a white flag hoisted above the citadel. He then had a message sent to the Prussian King, who was at Sedan with his army: “Monsieur my brother, not being able to die at the head of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of Your Majesty.”

At six o’clock in the morning on September 2, in the uniform of a general and accompanied by four generals from his staff, Napoleon was taken to the German headquarters at Donchery. He expected to see King Wilhelm I of Prussia but instead he was met by Bismarck and the German commander, General von Moltke. They dictated the terms of the surrender to Napoleon.

Napoleon asked that his army be disarmed and allowed to pass into Belgium, but Bismarck refused. They also asked Napoleon to sign the preliminary documents of a peace treaty, but Napoleon refused, telling them that the French government headed by the Regent, Empress Eugénie, would need to negotiate any peace agreement. The Emperor was then taken to the Chateau at Bellevue near Frénois (Ardennes) [fr], where the Prussian King visited him. Napoleon told the King that he had not wanted the war, but that public opinion had forced him into it. The Prussian king politely agreed.

The news of the capitulation reached Paris on September 3, confirming the rumors that were already circulating in the city. When the news was given to the Empress that the Emperor and the army were prisoners, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor’s personal aide, “No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!…They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn’t he kill himself! Doesn’t he know he has dishonored himself?!”.

Later, when hostile crowds formed near the palace, and the staff began to flee, the Empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, who took her to Deauville. From there, on September 7, she took the yacht of a British official to England. On September 4, a group of republican deputies, led by Léon Gambetta, gathered at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris and proclaimed the return of the Republic and the creation of a Government of National Defence. The Second Empire had come to an end.

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).