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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Wilhelm I Biography WILLIAM I (Ger. WILHELM) (1797-1888). King of Prussia, and German Emperor. He was the second son of Frederick William III of Prussia and Queen Luise, and was born March 22, 1797. He took part in the campaigns of 1814 and 1815 against Napoleon. On the accession of his elder brother, Frederick William IV (q.v.), to the Prussian throne in 1840, William received the title of Prince of Prussia and became Governor of Pomerania. His Absolutist attitude provoked such popular enmity that on the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he had to flee to England. He returned some months later, and was elected to the Prussian National Assembly, where in a brief address he placed himself on record as favoring a constitution, but took no further part in the discussion. In 1849 he commanded the Prussian forces sent to put down the revolutionists in the Palatinate and Baden. In October, 1857, the King having become mentally incapacitated, William assumed charge of the government temporarily, and in October, 1858, became Regent. While Regent he contended steadily, against the opposition of the Diet, for the reorganization of the Prussian army. On the death of his brother, Jan. 2, 1861, William became King of Prussia, and at his coronation, at Königsberg, October 18, he declared that he "ruled by the favor of God, and of no one else." The result of the elections to the Prussian Diet being in favor of the Liberal party, William declared in his address at the opening of the chambers that he "never could permit the progressive development of our inner, political life to question or to endanger the rights of the crown and the power of Prussia." This principle he maintained and the contest over the army continued. At last, in 1862, he found Bismarck a Minister who was able to govern without a parliamentary majority. The struggle between the King and the Liberal majority in the chambers was thrown into the background at the close of 1863, by the strategy of Bismarck, who made Prussia champion the cause of Schleswig-Holstein against Denmark-an intervention in which Austria was forced to participate-and, contriving to make the Schleswig-Holstein question one of German interest, silenced, for the time being, the Liberal opposition in Prussia. In 1866 came the war between Prussia and Austria, in which the King took the field as commander in chief of the Prussian forces. William became the head of the North German Confederation in 1867. At Ems, in July, 1870, took place the memorable interviews between William and the French ambassador, Benedetti, which resulted in the sending of the famous Ems Dispatch to Bismarck. Bismarck's tinkering with this telegram precipitated the outbreak of the Franco-German, War (q.v.). William was at the head of the united German army, and commanded personally at the decisive battles of Gravelotte and of Sedan. On Jan. 18, 1871, he was proclaimed German Emperor in the palace of the French kings at Versailles. On March 21 he opened in Berlin the first Reichstag of the new German Empire. (For the events of his reign as German Emperor, see GERMANY, BISMARCK, KULTURKAMPF, SOCIAL- and POLITICAL PARTIES, section on Germany.) In 1878 two attempts were made on the life of the Emperor. The second time he was seriously wounded. These attempts were attributed, directly or indirectly, to Socialist influence. William married, June 11, 1829, the Princess Augusta of Weimar, by whom he had two children. The son, Frederick William, succeeded his father as Frederick III (q.v.). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 576-577. |