Frederick William III of Prussia

Frederick William III (Template:Langx; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved.

Frederick William III ruled Prussia during the times of the Napoleonic Wars. The king reluctantly joined the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon in the German campaign of 1813. Following Napoleon's defeat, he took part in the Congress of Vienna, which assembled to settle the political questions arising from the new, post-Napoleonic order in Europe. His primary interests were internal – the reform of Prussia's Protestant churches. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches.

The king was said to be extremely shy and indecisive. His wife Queen Louise (1776–1810) was his most important political advisor. She led a mighty group that included Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and Count August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. They set about reforming Prussia's administration, churches, finance, and military. He was the dedicatee of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1824.

Early life

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Frederick William and his mother (1775)

Frederick William was born in Potsdam on 3 August 1770 as the son of Frederick William II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt. He was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations, distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech subsequently came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers. He was neglected by his father during his childhood and suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life.

As a child, Frederick William's father (under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, Countess of Lichtenau) had him handed over to tutors, as was quite normal for the period. He spent part of the time living at Paretz, the estate of the old soldier, Count Hans von Blumenthal, who was a tutor and guardian of his brother, Prince Henry. They thus grew up partly with the count's son, who accompanied them on their Grand Tour in the 1780s. Frederick William was happy at Paretz, and for this reason, in 1795, he bought it from his boyhood friend and turned it into an important royal country retreat. He was a melancholy boy, but he grew up pious and honest. His tutors included the dramatist Johann Jakob Engel.

As a soldier, he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a lieutenant colonel in 1786, a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792–1794. On 24 December 1793, Frederick William married Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had ten children. In the (Crown Prince's Palace) in Berlin, Frederick William lived a civil life with a problem-free marriage, which did not change even when he became King of Prussia in 1797. His wife Louise was particularly loved by the people of Prussia, which boosted the popularity of the whole House of Hohenzollern, including the King himself.

Reign

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Silver coin: 1 thaler Wilhelm III, 1830

Frederick William succeeded to the throne on 16 November 1797. He also became, in personal union, the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel (1797–1806 and again 1813–1840). At once, the new king showed that he was earnest of his good intentions by cutting down the royal establishment's expenses, dismissing his father's ministers, and reforming the most oppressive abuses of the late reign. He had the Hohenzollern determination to retain personal power but not the Hohenzollern genius for using it. Too distrustful to delegate responsibility to his ministers, he greatly reduced the effectiveness of his reign since he was forced to assume the roles he did not delegate. This is the main factor of his inconsistent rule.

Disgusted with his father's court (in both political intrigues and sexual affairs), Frederick William's first and most successful early endeavor was to restore his dynasty's moral legitimacy. The eagerness to restore dignity to his family went so far that it nearly caused sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow to cancel the expensive and lavish project, which was commissioned by the previous monarch Frederick William II. He was quoted as saying the following, which demonstrated his sense of duty and peculiar manner of speech:

Every civil servant has a dual obligation: to the sovereign and the country. It can occur that the two are not compatible; then, the duty to the country is higher.

At first, Frederick William and his advisors attempted to pursue a neutrality policy in the Napoleonic Wars. Although they succeeded in keeping out of the Third Coalition in 1805, eventually, Frederick William was swayed by the queen's attitude, who led Prussia's pro-war party and entered into the war in October 1806. On 14 October 1806, at the Battles of Jena-Auerstädt, the French effectively decimated the Prussian Army's effectiveness and functionality; led by Frederick William, the Prussian army collapsed entirely soon after. Napoleon occupied Berlin in late October. The royal family fled to Memel, East Prussia, where they fell on the mercy of Emperor Alexander I of Russia.

Alexander, too, suffered defeat at the hands of the French, and at Tilsit on the Niemen France made peace with Russia and Prussia. Napoleon dealt with Prussia very harshly, despite the pregnant queen's interview with the French emperor, which was believed to soften the defeat. Instead, Napoleon took much less mercy on the Prussians than what was expected. Prussia lost many of its Polish territories and all territory west of the Elbe and had to finance a large indemnity and pay French troops to occupy key strong points within the kingdom.

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Portrait of Frederick William III during his early reign

Although the ineffectual king himself seemed resigned to Prussia's fate, various reforming ministers, such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, and Count August von Gneisenau, set about reforming Prussia's administration and military, with the encouragement of Queen Louise (who died, greatly mourned, in 1810). After bereavement, Frederick William fell under the influence of a 'substitute family' of courtiers, among whom included Friedrich Ancillon, a Huguenot preacher that provided the king with strong ideological support against political reforms that might restrain monarchical power, Sophie Marie von Voß, an older woman with conservative views and Prince Wilhelm zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein.

In 1813, following Napoleon's defeat in Russia and pressured by the Convention of Tauroggen, Frederick William turned against France and signed an alliance with Russia at Kalisz. However, he had to flee Berlin, still under French occupation. Prussian troops played a crucial part in the victories of the allies in 1813 and 1814, and the king himself traveled with the main army of Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, along with Alexander of Russia and Francis of Austria.

At the Congress of Vienna, Frederick William's ministers succeeded in securing significant territorial increases for Prussia. However, they failed to obtain the annexation of all of Saxony, as they had wished. Following the war, Frederick William turned towards political reaction, abandoning the promises he had made in 1813 to provide Prussia with a constitution.

Prussian Union of Churches

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Portrait of Frederick William III of Prussia by Thomas Lawrence, c. Template:Trim

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Equestrian portrait of Frederick William III by Franz Krüger (1831)

Frederick William was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches. The merging of the Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) confessions to form the United Church of Prussia was highly controversial. Angry responses included a large and well-organized opposition. Especially the "Old Lutherans" in Silesia refused to abandon their liturgical traditions. The crown responded by attempting to silence protest. The stubborn Lutheran minority was coerced by military force, their churches' confiscation, and their pastors' imprisonment or exile. By 1834 outward union was secured based on common worship but separate symbols—the opponents of the measure being forbidden to form communities of their own. Many left Prussia, settling in South Australia, Canada, and the United States. The king's unsuccessful counterattack worsened tensions at the highest levels of government. The crown's aggressive efforts to restructure religion were unprecedented in Prussian history. In a series of proclamations over several years, the Church of the Prussian Union was formed, bringing together the majority group of Lutherans and the minority group of Reformed Protestants. The main effect was that the government of Prussia had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading bishop.

In 1824 Frederick William III married for the second time, to Countess Auguste von Harrach zu Rohrau und Thannhausen. At the time of their marriage, the House of Harrach was still not recognized as equal to other European royal families for dynastic purposes. The marriage was therefore morganatic and she was created Princess of Liegnitz. They had no children.

In 1838 the king distributed large parts of his farmland at Erdmannsdorf Estate to 422 Protestant refugees from the Austrian Zillertal, who built Tyrolean style farmhouses in the Silesian village.

Death

Frederick William III died on 7 June 1840 in Berlin, from a fever, survived by his second wife. His eldest son, Frederick William IV, succeeded him. Frederick William III is buried at the Mausoleum in Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin.

Issue

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
(daughter, no name)	1 October 1794	1 October 1794	stillborn
Frederick William IV of Prussia	15 October 1795	2 January 1861	married Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria (1801–1873), no issue.
Wilhelm I, German Emperor	22 March 1797	9 March 1888	married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1811–1890), had issue.
Princess Charlotte of Prussia	13 July 1798	1 November 1860	married Nicholas I of Russia (1796–1855), had issue including the future Alexander II of Russia
Princess Frederica of Prussia	14 October 1799	30 March 1800	died in childhood
Prince Charles of Prussia	29 June 1801	21 January 1883	married Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1808–1877), had issue.
Princess Alexandrine of Prussia	23 February 1803	21 April 1892	married Paul Friedrich, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1800–1842), had issue.
Prince Ferdinand of Prussia	13 December 1804	1 April 1806	died in childhood
Princess Louise of Prussia	1 February 1808	6 December 1870	married Prince Frederik of the Netherlands (1797–1881), had issue.
Prince Albert (Albrecht) of Prussia	4 October 1809	14 October 1872	married Princess Marianne of the Netherlands (1810–1883), had issue; married second to Rosalie von Rauch (1820–1879), Countess of Hohenau, had issue.

Honours

Template:Ill is a German march dedicated to Frederick William III, it was written by a local residence in Torgau for his royal visit on 24 June 1817.

Siblings

• Frederica Charlotte (1767–1820), who became Duchess of York by her marriage to Frederick, Duke of York
• Christine (1772–73)
• Louis Charles (1773–96)
• Frederica Louisa Wilhelmina (1774–1837), wife of William of Orange, afterward King William I of the Netherlands
• Augusta (1780–1841), wife of William II, Elector of Hesse
• Henry (1781–1846)
• William (1783–1851)

Works

Marches

• , 1806

Further reading

• Template:Cite EB1911
• Clark, Christopher. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2006) pp 298–320.
• Richardson, Constance. Memoirs of the Private Life and Opinions of Louisa, Queen of Prussia, Consort of Frederick William III (London, R. Bentley, 1847) online.
• Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770–1866 (1989).
• Wright, Constance. Beautiful Enemy: A biography of Queen Louise of Prussia (Dodd, Mead, 1969) online.
• . (Friedrich Wilhelm III. (König von Preußen).html full text online).

External links

• Template:Sister-inline