Wilhelm I


Wilhelm I was King of Prussia from 1861 and German Emperor from 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was regent of Prussia from 1858 to 1861 for his elder brother, King Frederick William IV. During the reign of his grandson Wilhelm II, he was known as Emperor 'Wilhelm the Great'.
The second son of Prince Frederick William and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Wilhelm was not expected to ascend to the throne. His grandfather, King Frederick William II died the year he was born, and his father was crowned Frederick William III. Wilhelm fought with distinction during the War of the Sixth Coalition, and afterwards became a prominent figure within the Prussian Army. In 1840, his childless elder brother became King of Prussia, making him heir presumptive. Wilhelm played a major role in crushing the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany, although he was briefly forced into exile in England. Frederick William IV suffered a stroke in 1857 and was left incapacitated, and Wilhelm was formally named Prince Regent a year later. In 1861, Wilhelm ascended to the Prussian throne on his elder brother's death.
Upon ascension, Wilhelm immediately came into conflict with the liberal Landtag over his proposed military budget. In response, he appointed Otto von Bismarck to the post of Minister President in order to force through his proposals, beginning a partnership that would last for the rest of his life. On the foreign front, Wilhelm oversaw Prussian victories in the Second Schleswig War and the Austro-Prussian War, establishing Prussia as the leading German power. In 1871, through Bismarck's maneuvers, the unification of Germany was achieved following the Franco-Prussian War. The German Empire was proclaimed and Wilhelm was granted the title of German Emperor. Even though he had considerable power as Kaiser, Wilhelm largely left the affairs of governance to Bismarck. Later in life he was the target of multiple failed assassination attempts, which enabled Bismarck to push through the Anti-Socialist Laws. In 1888, which came to be known as the Year of the Three Emperors, Wilhelm died at the age of 90 after a short illness and was succeeded by his son Frederick. Frederick, already suffering from cancer, died 99 days later and the throne passed to Wilhelm II.

Early life and military career

The future king and emperor was born Wilhelm Friedrich Louis of Prussia in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin on 22 March 1797. As the second son of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Prince Frederick William, himself son of King Frederick William II, 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 Frederick William III became king. He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by, who was also in charge of the education of Wilhelm's brother, the Crown Prince Frederick William. At age twelve, his father appointed him an officer in the Prussian army.
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 known in Germany as the Befreiungskriege, and was reportedly a very brave soldier. He was made a captain and earned the Iron Cross for his actions at Bar-sur-Aube, although the Prussian Army did not participate in this battle. The war and the fight against France left a lifelong impression on him, and he had a long-standing antipathy towards the French.
In 1815, Wilhelm was promoted to major and commanded a battalion of the 1. Garderegiment. He fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Ligny and Waterloo. In 1817, he accompanied his sister Charlotte to Saint Petersburg, when she married Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, becoming Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
In 1816, Wilhelm became the commander of the Stettiner Gardelandwehrbataillon and in 1818 was promoted to Generalmajor. The next year, Wilhelm was appointed inspector of the VII. and VIII. Army Corps. This made him a spokesman of the Prussian Army within the House of Hohenzollern. He argued in favour of a strong, well-trained, and well-equipped army. In 1820, Wilhelm became commander of the 1. Gardedivision and in 1825 was promoted to commanding general of the III. Army Corps.
Around this time, Wilhelm became romantically linked with his cousin, Polish noblewoman Princess Elisa Radziwill. In 1826, Wilhelm was forced to break off the relationship by his father, who deemed it an inappropriate match. 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 Carl Friedrich Ludwig Dettman and emigrated to Sydney, in 1849. They had a family of three sons and two daughters. Agnes died in 1904.
In 1829, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the daughter of Grand Duke Karl Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Maria Pavlovna, the sister of Nicholas I. Their marriage was outwardly stable, but not a very happy one. In 1834-37 he had the Old Palace in Berlin built as a new family home, in which he continued to live later as king and emperor, while he only used the Berlin Palace for representative purposes.
On 7 June 1840 his older brother became King of Prussia. Since he had no children, Wilhelm was first in line to succeed him to the throne and thus was given the title Prinz von Preußen. Against his convictions but out of loyalty towards his brother, Wilhelm signed the bill setting up a Prussian parliament in 1847 and took a seat in the upper chamber, the Prussian House of Lords.
During the Revolutions of 1848, Wilhelm successfully crushed a revolt in Berlin that was aimed at Frederick William IV. The use of cannons made him unpopular at the time and earned him the nickname Kartätschenprinz. Indeed, he had to flee to England for a while, disguised as a merchant. He returned and helped to put down an uprising in Baden, where he commanded the Prussian army. In October 1849, he became governor-general of the Rhine Province and Province of Westphalia, with a seat at the Electoral Palace, Koblenz.
During their time at Koblenz, Wilhelm and his wife entertained liberal scholars such as the historian Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker, August von Bethmann-Hollweg and. Wilhelm's opposition to liberal ideas gradually softened.
In 1854, the prince was raised to the rank of a field-marshal and made governor of the federal Fortress of Mainz. In 1857 Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and became mentally disabled for the rest of his life. In January 1858, Wilhelm became Prince Regent for his brother, initially only temporarily but after October on a permanent basis. Against the advice of his brother, Wilhelm swore an oath of office on the Prussian constitution and promised to preserve it "solid and inviolable". Wilhelm appointed a liberal, Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, as Minister President and thus initiated what became known as the "New Era" in Prussia, although there were conflicts between Wilhelm and the liberal majority in the Landtag on matters of reforming the armed forces.

Life as King

On 2 January 1861, Frederick William IV died and Wilhelm ascended the throne as Wilhelm I of Prussia. In July, a student from Leipzig attempted to assassinate Wilhelm, but he was only lightly injured. Like Frederick I of Prussia, Wilhelm travelled to Königsberg and there crowned himself at the Schlosskirche. Wilhelm chose the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, 18 October, for this event, which was the first Prussian coronation ceremony since 1701 and the only coronation of a German king after 1806. Wilhelm refused to comply with his brother's wish, expressed in Frederick William's last will, that he should abrogate the constitution.
Wilhelm inherited a conflict between Frederick William and the liberal Landtag. He was considered to be politically neutral as he intervened less in politics than his brother. In 1862 the Landtag refused an increase in the military budget needed to pay for the already implemented reform of the army. This involved expanding the peacetime army from 150,000 to 200,000 men and the annual number of new recruits from 40,000 to 63,000. However, the truly controversial part was keeping the length of military service at three years. When his request was refused, Wilhelm first considered abdicating, but his son, the Crown Prince, advised strongly against it. Then, on the advice of Roon, Wilhelm appointed Otto von Bismarck as Minister President in order to force through the proposals. Under the Prussian constitution, the Minister President was responsible solely to the king, not to the Landtag. Bismarck, a conservative Prussian Junker and loyal friend of the king, liked to see his working relationship with Wilhelm as that of a vassal to his feudal superior. Nonetheless, it was Bismarck who effectively directed affairs, domestic as well as foreign; on several occasions he gained Wilhelm's assent by threatening to resign.
During his reign, Wilhelm was the commander-in-chief of the Prussian forces in the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. During the latter war, his army defeated the Austrians at Königgratz. After the latter was won by Prussia, Wilhelm wanted to march on to Vienna and annex Austria, but was dissuaded from doing so by Bismarck and his son Crown Prince Frederick. Bismarck wanted to end the war quickly, so as to allow Prussia to ally with Austria if it needed to at a later date; Frederick was also appalled by the casualties and wanted a speedy end to hostilities. During a heated discussion, Bismarck threatened to resign if Wilhelm continued to Vienna; Bismarck got his way. Wilhelm had to content himself with becoming the de facto ruler of the northern two-thirds of Germany. Prussia annexed several of Austria's allies north of the Main, as well as Schleswig-Holstein. Saxe-Lauenburg was already in a personal union with Prussia since 1865.
In 1867, the North German Confederation was created as a federation of the North German and Central German states under the permanent presidency of Prussia. Wilhelm assumed the Bundespräsidium, the presidium 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. Wilhelm became also the constitutional Bundesfeldherr, the commander of all federal armed forces. Via secret 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, as well as at the Battle of Gravelotte.