William I (Emperor of Germany)

The second son of Frederick William III , William was not considered a potential heir to the throne and therefore received a mediocre education. William devoted himself to a military career: he served in the army since 1814, fought against Napoleon , for taking part in the battle of Bar-sur-Ob, February 27, 1814 received the Iron Cross and the Russian Order of St. George 4th degree. The prince also showed excellent diplomatic skills by participating in diplomatic missions after 1815. June 20, 1817 was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called ^[4] .

For the capture of Paris, William was promoted to majors and commanded a guards battalion, in 1817 he was promoted to colonel, in 1818 - to major general with the appointment of commander of the guards brigade, in 1820 he was appointed head of the guard division, and in 1824 - Commander of the III Army Corps and in 1825 was promoted to lieutenant general. However, he was made chairman of the commissions for the revision of cavalry and infantry manuals.

Upon the death of his father in 1840 and due to the childlessness of his brother, King Frederick William IV, William received the title of Prince of Prussia as the alleged heir to the throne, was promoted to general from infantry, and was appointed chairman of the council of ministers and state council.

When the 1848 revolution broke out, he, as a senior member of the state ministry, signed a decree on March 18 promising a constitution, but in view of the barricades erected in Berlin, he demanded that the rebellion be crushed by force of arms. He was considered a reactionary and absolutist; the people treated him extremely insensitively. The king and the ministers considered it more prudent to remove him for a while abroad.

He went to London on March 22, where he was in relations with Prince Albert, Peel , Palmerston , the Prussian envoy Bunsen and other government people, closely monitored the development of Frankfurt constitutional issues and soon, in his own words, “completely found out how his the position and the position of the kingdom. ”

In June, he returned to Berlin and delivered a speech at the Prussian National Assembly, to which he was elected deputy, to explain his constitutional principles, but did not take part in further discussions. In 1849, he was appointed commander in chief of the army in Baden and the Palatinate . On June 12, he happily escaped the assassination attempt made under Nieder-Ingelheim , and for several weeks completely crushed the Republican uprising. Appointed in October 1849 as military governor of the Rhine province and Westphalia , he chose Koblenz as his permanent residence. In addition, he accepted the title of grandmaster of all Prussian Masonic lodges .

In 1850, he had a meeting in Warsaw with the Russian emperor Nicholas and Prince Schwarzenberg and tried to persuade the first of them in favor of the national plans of Prussia, but he did not succeed. The confusion in the Elector of Hesse caused the mobilization of the army, of which William was appointed commander-in-chief; but the Olmutsk deal put an end to this incident. With the unpopularity of the Manteuffel government system with its sharp feudal and clerical tinge, the popularity of Prince William grew from year to year.

In 1854, he received the rank of Colonel General of the Infantry as Field Marshal.

In 1857, Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and lost his legal capacity until the end of his life. In October 1858, Wilhelm assumed the duties of Prince Regent with his brother.

William constantly strove to reform the union constitution in the sense of giving Prussia a more influential role in organizing the military forces of the union. The opposition of Austria and the middle German states convinced Wilhelm that in order to achieve the goal, it was necessary, first of all, to transform the military structure in Prussia itself, which he undertook, entrusting its implementation to the new Minister of War, Roon .

The funds required to bring this plan into effect, the Chamber of Deputies allowed to allocate only temporarily or not at all. Since the prince, convinced of the need for the measures taken, did not make any concessions on this issue and continued to carry out the reorganization of the army, this led to a long-term clash between the government and the chamber, which led to the collapse of the governments of Hohenzollern and Hohenlohe .

Friedrich Wilhelm IV died on January 2, 1861, and Wilhelm ascended the throne under the name Wilhelm I of Prussia, being crowned in Koenigsberg .

Student Oscar Becker , who shot the king in Baden-Baden on July 14, 1861 and inflicted minor injury, announced that the reason for this attempt was his conviction that Wilhelm was not able to fulfill his task regarding German politics. When the constitutional conflict escalated, Otto von Bismarck was placed at the head of the government in the fall of 1862.

Wilhelm’s German policy was becoming clearer and clearer. The recognition of the Kingdom of Italy , the conclusion of the Franco-German trade agreement and the measures taken against the elector of Hesse-Kassel in the Kurgessen constitutional issue, followed even before the appointment of Bismarck. Now, Wilhelm’s refusal to participate in the Frankfurt Congress of the Sovereigns of 1863, the rejection of the Austrian reform project and the beginning of the German-Danish War of 1864 joined in this.

The question of what to do with the three duchies assigned to the concessions of Prussia and Austria for the Vienna World again highlighted the temporary silence with Austria. The convention, concluded at Gastein on August 14, 1865 and leaving Lauenburg behind Prussia, postponed the decision of the feud only for a short time. But Bismarck insisted on a war with Austria. The decision adopted by the Union Sejm on June 14, 1866, made this decisive step easier for the king. In an appeal to his people (June 18), he announced that the fatherland was in danger, since Austria and most of Germany were plotting to humiliate Prussia.

The Austro-Prussian war began. Wilhelm took on July 2 the main command over the army and on July 3 won the victory at Koenigretz . After the conclusion of the preconditions for peace in Nicholsburg, Wilhelm returned to Berlin on 4 August. Significant territories were attached to Prussia. On the basis of the constitution of the North German Union of July 1, 1867, William was appointed its president and assumed military and political leadership over all other North German states. Union treaties concluded with the South German sovereigns, he was also entrusted with the main command over the South German contingents of troops.

On June 5, 1867, William arrived at the Paris World Exhibition and was a guest of Napoleon III . New proposals were made for an alliance with France, but Prussia rejected them. In the winter of 1868-1869, the king approved the plan of war with France presented to him by the chief of the General Staff of Moltke .

The Franco-Prussian war began in July 1870. Wilhelm on August 2 took command in Mainz over the entire German army. On August 11, he crossed the French border, personally commanded in the battles of Gravelott (August 18) and at Sedan (September 1). From October 5, 1870 to March 7, 1871, his main apartment was in Versailles , from where he led military operations in the increasingly expanding theater of operations and political negotiations, which tended to the founding of the German Empire and the conclusion of peace.

After the Franco-Prussian War, on January 18, 1871, William was proclaimed German Emperor in France, in the Palace of Versailles of King Louis XIV . Following this, the North German Union (1867-1871) was transformed into the German Empire ( German: Deutsches Reich , 1871-1918).

The German Empire was a federation; the emperor was the head of state and president ( first among equals ) of the federal monarchs (kings of Bavaria , Württemberg , Saxony , the Grand Dukes of Baden and Hesse, and others, including the senates of the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen ). Wilhelm took the title of German emperor reluctantly, he would prefer to be called the emperor of Germany, but this title did not suit the federal monarchs.

The claims of the clerical pariah and the bishops' refusal to unconditionally recognize state laws led to a complete break with the previous church-political system. A so-called cultural struggle arose during which William signed church laws adopted by the Prussian and German Sejm, and answered Pope Pius IX's letter on September 3, 1873, indicating that the Catholic clergy disobeyed the secular authorities and protested against the claim made by the pope to be the head of all Christianity.

The strengthening of the outside world was facilitated by the friendly relations that Emperor Wilhelm maintained with the most powerful of foreign sovereigns. When he met with the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph in 1871, the feud of 1866 was put to an end and old friendship was restored. When the three emperors met in Berlin from September 6 to September 11, 1872, the consent of the three monarchs was established on all major political issues .

The center of gravity of European politics was moved to Berlin. Among these successes, an attempt was made on the life of Emperor Wilhelm. On May 11, 1878, the apprentice of tin cases, Godel fired two shots at the emperor with a revolver, when William drove in the open carriage, with the Grand Duchess of Baden , along Unter den Linden . The emperor remained unharmed, and the attacker was detained. The result was the introduction of a law on socialists in the Reichstag , but on May 24 it was rejected. On June 2, when the emperor, sitting alone in a carriage, was driving to Tiergarten , two shots were fired at him from the window of the second floor of house No. 18 on Unter den Linden, and the emperor received several serious wounds. The culprit of the attempt, Dr. Karl Eduard Nobilling , inflicting a dangerous wound on himself, was arrested at the crime scene. Godel was beheaded in Berlin on August 16, 1878; Nobiling died on September 10, 1878 from the effects of his wound.

Before his recovery, William entrusted the Crown Prince with the conduct of the highest government affairs. The newly elected Reichstag was opened on September 4, and the Socialist law proposed to it was adopted on October 19, with some amendments. On December 5, the emperor re-took control of the state.

At the end of his reign, William conceived of social reform. He turned to the Reichstag with messages of November 17, 1881 and April 14, 1883, as a result of which the law on cash registers for sick workers was issued in 1883, and the accident insurance law in 1884, and both laws were circulated in 1885 on workers serving in various transport institutions, and in 1886 - on agricultural and forestry workers. In the emperor’s rescript dated January 4, 1882, the opposition parties' desire to introduce a parliamentary form of government was opposed by the constitutional right of the Prussian king to personally lead the policies of his government.

Охлаждение старинной дружбы между Пруссией и Россией, наступившее после Берлинского конгресса , побудило Вильгельма устроить 3 сентября 1879 года свидание с императором Александром II в Александрове . Так как это свидание осталось без результата, то он подписал заключенный князем Бисмарком 15 октября 1879 года с Австро-Венгрией оборонительный союз, к которому в 1883 году присоединилась и Италия . Благодаря ежегодным свиданиям, происходившим между императорами Вильгельмом и Францем-Иосифом в Гаштейне , этот союз становился все тверже и теснее.

В последние годы жизни кайзер Вильгельм пользовался большой популярностью в народе и воплощал в себе образ «старой Пруссии». Он умер после непродолжительной болезни в год трёх императоров 9 марта 1888 года в Старом дворце на Унтер-ден-Линден и был похоронен 16 марта в Мавзолее Шарлоттенбургского дворца .

В своих мемуарах Бисмарк описывал Вильгельма как старомодного, вежливого и обходительного джентльмена и истинного прусского офицера, с большим чувством здравого смысла, но поддающегося «женскому влиянию».

В 1829 году Вильгельм женился на принцессе Августе Саксен-Веймар-Эйзенахской (1811—1890), дочери великого герцога Карла Фридриха Саксен-Веймарского и великой княгини Марии Павловны .

У них родилось двое детей:

• Фридрих III (1831—1888), следующий король Пруссии;
• Луиза (1838—1923), в 1856 году вышла замуж за Фридриха I , великого герцога Баденского.

• 22 марта 1807 — прапорщик
• 24 декабря 1807 — секунд-лейтенант
• 12 июня 1813 — премьер-лейтенант
• 30 октября 1813 — капитан
• 30 мая 1814 — майор
• 30 марта 1817 — полковник
• 30 марта 1818 — генерал-майор
• 18 июня 1825 — генерал-лейтенант
• 10 сентября 1840 — генерал пехоты
• 1 марта 1854 — генерал-полковник пехоты в должности генерал-фельдмаршала

Германская империя ^[5]

Королевство Пруссия

• Орден Чёрного орла
• Орден Красного орла 1-й степени
• Орден « Pour le Mérite »
• Орден Дома Гогенцоллернов , великий командор
• Большой крест Железного креста (04.12.1871)
• Железный крест 1-го класса
• 2nd Class Iron Cross
• Орден Короны 1-го класса
• Орден Святого Иоанна Иерусалимского

Герцогства Ангальт-Бернбург , Ангальт-Дессау , Ангальт-Кётен

• Династический орден Альбрехта Медведя

Королевство Бавария

• Орден Святого Губерта
• Военный орден Максимилиана Иосифа , большой крест

Grand Duchy of Baden

• Орден Верности , большой крест
• Орден Военных заслуг Карла Фридриха , большой крест
• Орден Церингенского льва , большой крест

Герцогство Брауншвейг

• Орден Генриха Льва , большой крест

Королевство Вюртемберг

• Орден Вюртембергской короны , большой крест

Grand Duchy of Hesse

• Орден Людвига , большой крест
• Орден Филиппа Великодушного , большой крест

Великое герцогство Мекленбург-Шверин

• Крест «За военные заслуги»

Grand Duchy of Oldenburg

• Орден Заслуг герцога Петра-Фридриха-Людвига , большой крест

Герцогства Саксен-Альтенбург , Саксен-Кобург-Гота , Саксен-Мейнинген

• Орден Саксен-Эрнестинского дома , большой крест

Великое герцогство Саксен-Веймар-Эйзенах

• Орден Белого сокола , большой крест

Королевство Саксония

• Военный орден Святого Генриха , большой крест
• Орден Рутовой короны

Иностранные ^[5]

Австрийская империя , Австро-Венгрия

• Королевский венгерский орден Святого Стефана , большой крест (1829) ^[6]

Belgium

• Орден Леопольда I , большой крест ^[7]

Brazil empire

• Орден Южного Креста , большой крест

Британская империя

• Орден Подвязки (01.01.1857) ^[8]
• Орден Бани , большой крест (12.04.1861) ^[9]

Королевство Гавайи

• Орден Камехамехи I , большой крест (1876)

Королевство Ганновер

• Орден Святого Георгия
• Королевский Гвельфский орден , большой крест

Ландграфство Гессен-Кассель

• Орден Золотого льва

Королевство Греция

• Орден Спасителя , большой крест

Denmark

• Орден Слона (27.02.1841) ^[10]

Spain

• Орден Золотого руна (1853) ^[11]

Герцогство Нассау

• Орден Золотого льва Нассау

Netherlands

• Военный орден Вильгельма , большой крест
• Орден Нидерландского льва , большой крест

Королевство обеих Сицилий

• Орден Святого Януария
• Орден Святого Фердинанда и заслуг , большой крест

Королевство Португалия

• Тройной орден
• Орден Башни и Меча , большой крест

Российская империя

• Орден Святого апостола Андрея Первозванного (20.06.1817)
• Орден Святого Георгия 1-й степени (26.11.1869)
• Орден Святого Георгия 4-й степени (03.08.1814)
• Орден Святого Владимира 1-й степени
• Орден Святого Александра Невского (20.06.1817)
• Орден Белого орла

Сардинское королевство , Королевство Италия

• Высший орден Святого Благовещения (1850)
• Орден Святых Маврикия и Лазаря , большой крест (1850)
• Орден Короны Италии , большой крест
• Золотая медаль «За воинскую доблесть» (1866) ^[12]

Сиам

• Орден Королевского дома Чакри (01.09.1887)

Французская империя

• Орден Почётного легиона , большой крест (14.05.1857) ^[13]

Шведско-норвежская уния

• Орден Серафимов (08.01.1847)
• Орден Карла XIII
• Орден Полярной звезды

Ни одному другому монарху не было воздвигнуто так много памятников, как Вильгельму I. Первая конная статуя тогда ещё только короля Пруссии Вильгельма была создана берлинским скульптором Фридрихом Драке в 1867 году. Национальный памятник кайзеру Вильгельму в Берлине был установлен у Городского дворца в 1897 году. Прусский институт памятников насчитал 63 скульптурных изваяния, изображающих кайзера на коне, 231 — стоящим, 5 — сидящим и 126 бюстов Вильгельма I. Одна из самых монументальных статуй находится в городе Кобленце, у слияния рек Мозеля и Рейна (см. Немецкий угол ).

•  

  Памятник Вильгельму I на мосту Гогенцоллернов в Кёльне

•  

  Памятник Вильгельму I перед Кёнигсбергским замком , работа Фридриха Ройша 1894 года, после Второй мировой войны переплавлен

•  

  Памятник Вильгельму I в Билефельде (фото 1908 года, арх. В. фон Теттау , монумент не сохранился)

•  

  Monument to Emperor of Germany William I in Breslau on an archive postcard , destroyed

• Wilhelm I of Germany // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Wilhelm I // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.