German Monarchies Before 1918: Kingdoms Of Prussia, Bavaria & Württemberg 1/3

THE GERMAN MONARCHIES ABOLISHED IN 1918 Part 1. The Kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, and Württemberg When studying European history, the various German monarchies come up a lot. They were figuratively and literally in the middle of everything – the Protestant Reformation, various wars and revolutions, and they married their offspring to royals across the continent. To the extent that most modern monarchs have more German heritage than local. But to call these many German monarchies a Gordian Knot is an understatement. They were constantly shifting borders, merging, dividing, and changing names because of battles, treaties, and dynastic developments. And their allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire and then to Prussia shifted over time. So let's slice through the Gordian Knot and take a closer look at all of the German monarchies that existed at a single point in time when they were abolished following Germany's defeat in World War I. Over three episodes, we'll examine the four kingdoms, five grand duchies, five duchies, and six principalities that existed in 1918. Look back at the dynasties that founded them and notable family members along the way. Find out which monarch was in the hot seat when the revolution came. And meet their modern descendants, who no longer rule, but still have plenty of clout, cash, and castles. Today, we'll explore three of the four biggest chunks of the German Empire, the kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg. But first, let's start with the elephant in the room, the nation that swallowed up so many of the others, the Kingdom of Prussia. This land along the coast of the Baltic Sea was originally inhabited by a people called the Old Prussians. Some have tried to explain why the name Prussia is so confusingly similar to its neighbor, Russia, with a theory that the name comes from the Slavic term po-rus, meaning people near the Rus, or the Russians. But this idea is not well-supported by evidence. In fact, in German, Prussia is called Prussia, and in Russian, Russia is called Russia, not actually that similar. The rise of Prussia as a great world power began not on the wind-swept shores of northern Germany, but under the hot sun of Jerusalem. In 1190, a group of Germanic crusaders formed the Teutonic Order. The fraternity ran hospitals and controlled port tolls. Twenty years later, when Christians were forced out of the Holy Land, the Teutonic Knights moved north to Transylvania, where they helped the Christian King of Hungary push out the Muslim Cumans. But when the Knights tried to set up their own, tax-free state within the borders of Hungary, they were politely asked to get out. They journeyed north again, in pursuit of new opportunities to put pagans to the cross and sword. The mercenaries thrived in this frontier of colonization and brutal Christianization. They all but wiped out the original inhabitants of the Baltic coast, the Old Prussians. The Teutonic Order set up their own state and fought with Poland-Lithuania over its borders. One of the conditions of joining the Order was a vow of celibacy, so the title Grand Master was passed by selection rather than inheritance. By 1510, the Order was in decline, and in an attempt to ally with other powerful dynasties, they selected as their leader Albrecht, third son of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Onsbach. He became enthralled with the teachings of Martin Luther, much to the dismay of his Catholic brethren. Albrecht also wasn't keen on celibacy. He preferred to marry and pass the Prussian throne down his own Hohenzollern family. In 1525, he abandoned the Teutonic Order but kept Prussia. He created the world's first Protestant state and named himself Duke of Prussia. His son, Albrecht Friedrich, had three sons who died in infancy. His five daughters survived, so the duchy went to his son-in-law, Johann Sigismund. He was from the main branch of the Hohenzollerns and was also the Margrave of Brandenburg and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, meaning he was one of the seven nobles who got to elect the new emperor. With him at the helm, Prussia gained all the more power and prestige. From 1618 to 1648, Central Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years' War between Protestants and Catholics. Battle, famine, and disease wiped out 8 million soldiers and civilians, decimating up to 50% of the population in some areas. The conflict ended in a draw, with the Peace of Westphalia redrawing many borders. In the midst of the ashes, Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, pulled his domain out of despair. He liberated Prussia from Poland and rebuilt towns and cities, including Berlin, around rigorous commerce. His appreciative people dubbed him the Great Elector. His son, Friedrich I, named himself the first King of Prussia in 1701. He was a great patron of the arts, while his son, Friedrich Wilhelm I, was more interested in war. He built up the Prussian military to 83,000. To replace dying soldiers, he built schools and hospitals to attract immigrants. Prussia was flooded with Protestant refugees from southern Germany and France. His son, Friedrich II, preferred art, but daddy forced him onto the battlefield, and he became a genius military strategist. He invested four-fifths of state revenue in the army and took them on the road to conquer his neighbors and double the size of Prussia. Voltaire said that while most states have an army, Prussia's army has a state. Among the many former German states swallowed up was Cleves, home of Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne. During the Seven Years' War, Friedrich defended his kingdom against Austria, France, and Russia, putting Prussia on the map as a serious world power. Friedrich the Great was a prime example of an enlightened despot. He sponsored science and humanities, reformed the government, and introduced the potato. He was gay and died childless, so his nephew, Friedrich Wilhelm II, ruled next. In 1806, Napoleon destroyed the Holy Roman Empire and triumphantly entered Berlin. The title elector of Brandenburg was abolished, but Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia joined the coalition which defeated Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna gave Prussia even more territory. Next came the debate over which monarchy should lead the German-speaking world, the ancient but decimated House of Habsburg, who had been downgraded from Holy Roman Emperors to Emperors of Austria, or the upstarts in the north, the Prussians. Naturally, this led to the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. The majority of the German monarchies sided with Austria. This was a mistake, because in just over a month, Prussia won. They annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, which had been ruled by members of the British royal family since King George I. This made the other monarchies understandably nervous, so Prussian President Otto von Bismarck allowed them to keep their thrones, if they joined the North German Confederation. Bismarck pushed through the unification of Germany in 1871. The monarchies were finally united into a single state, under Prussia. Prussian King Wilhelm I became German Emperor, rather than Emperor of Germany, indicating that he was not absolute ruler of Germany, but first among many monarchs. His son, Friedrich III, married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Victoria. He died just 90 days after his father, leaving the throne to their son, Kaiser Wilhelm II. His difficult birth had caused his left arm to be paralyzed. After enduring years of shame and traumatizing medical treatments, he grew to hate his liberal British mother, and became deeply conservative and anti-Semitic. Wilhelm developed ruthless plans to build Germany up as the dominant world power. He allied with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire to form the Central Powers. In 1914, the political tension across Europe broke out into World War I. Nations across the world took sides in the deadliest conflict in history up to that point, with 20 million soldiers and civilians killed. After four years, the Central Powers were on the verge of defeat. The German people had been decimated, and they largely blamed the aristocracy. On October 29, 1918, a group of sailors mutinied. Other soldiers and workers followed, and in 11 days they took control of the government. By the end of November, all 20 of the German monarchs had abdicated. Kaiser Wilhelm was one of the first to abandon his throne and head for the hills, or rather the Low Country. He spent the rest of his life in the Netherlands. In 1939, he wrote to Adolf Hitler to congratulate him on his invasion of restored. During his rise to power, Hitler gained the support of many aristocrats by promising to restore their thrones. But as soon as the Führer was in power, he pushed them out of the way, and even put some in concentration camps. Wilhelm II died in 1941. His son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, was placed under house arrest in Hohenzollern Castle, where he died in 1951. His great-grandson, George Friedrich, is the current claimant to the defunct German throne and the title King of Prussia. He still owns two-thirds of the family's ancient seat, Hohenzollern Castle. He is best known in Berlin for his many lawsuits, attempting to reclaim palaces and land once owned by his family. The Kingdom of Bavaria was home to the Bavarian people, a distinct group of Germanic tribes with their own dialect. The area was ruled from at least 555 by dukes who answered to the Frankish monarchs. In the late 700s, Charlemagne came to the Frankish throne. He conquered and converted people across Central Europe. In his German homeland, the Bavarians were amongst his strongest rivals. After Charlemagne's death, his three grandsons divided up his empire. Ludwig the German elevated Bavaria to a kingdom for 18 years, but it was incorporated into East Francia in 843. Five Stem Duchies, the Bavarians, Franks, Lotharingians, Saxons, and Swabians, joined together to form the Kingdom of Germany. They each got to vote on who among them would be the next King of the Germans. In the Middle Ages, whoever was elected King of the Germans, also called King of the Romans, then had to travel to Rome to get the Pope to crown him Holy Roman Emperor. When the empire was weak, the Bavarian dukes took advantage and expanded their influence from the Alps to the Baltic Sea. But in 1155, Friedrich Barbarossa, a charismatic and powerful emperor, brought the many warring princes to heel. Duke Henry the Lion of Bavaria refused to bend the knee, so Friedrich gave his land to his rival, Otto I. His house of Wittelsbach controlled Bavaria until 1918. In 1314, the electors were divided between two rival candidates for King of the Romans, Ludwig the Bavarian and Friedrich the Fair of the rising Austrian House of Habsburg. The two went to war, and the Bavarians won. But the Pope had backed the Austrians, so he excommunicated Ludwig. He responded by appointing an antipope to crown him Holy Roman Emperor. He tried to dynasty build by handing lands to his son and wife, but he infuriated other nobles who banded together against him. The empire was poised for civil war when Ludwig died of a stroke during a bear hunt. Had things worked out for him, the house of Wittelsbach might have been the great dynasty of the empire. Instead, the Habsburgs rose to power and punished the Bavarians by giving their seat on the electoral council to the Counts of the Palatine. During the Protestant Reformation, Bavaria was among the territories that remained loyal to the church. They joined the Habsburg side in the Thirty Years' War, and Emperor Ferdinand II rewarded Duke Maximilian I by restoring him to Prince Elector. But the one time in 366 years that Habsburg control of the Holy Roman Empire was interrupted, it was at the hands of the and Karl VI had only daughters. Their father had made them sign a pact that the daughters of the elder son would inherit the throne. But after he died of syphilis, Karl spent every waking moment trying to secure the throne for his own daughter, Maria Theresa. Joseph's daughter Maria Amalia married the Prince Elector of Bavaria. He claimed Charlemagne's throne in his wife's name as Emperor Karl VII. But Maria Theresa fought back, took control of Austria, conquered Munich, and had herself crowned Queen of Bohemia. The War of Austrian Succession ended after Karl, bedridden by gout, died at 48. His son Maximilian III Joseph gave up and signed the imperial throne over to Maria Theresa. He died of smallpox and left no heirs, so two branches of the Wittelsbach family fought over Bavaria. One was backed by the Habsburg monarchy, the other by Saxony and Prussia. The War of Bavarian Succession only broke out into a few minor battles, but thousands of soldiers on the march died of diseases and starvation. The conflict was dubbed the Potato Wars. When Catherine the Great threatened to march the Russian army to support Prussia, Maria Theresa backed down, and Karl Theodore was named Prince Elector of Bavaria. In 1806, Napoleon toppled the Holy Roman Empire. Bavaria came out all right and was declared a kingdom for the second time in a thousand years. Maximilian I Joseph and his descendants grew Bavaria's economy through industrialization. They built the first German railway. On October 12, 1810, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria married Theresa of Sachs-Hildburghausen. Throughout history, royal newlyweds have indulged their people with wedding festivals, where the local libations flowed freely. In Bavaria, beer is the potent potable of the people, and it was served liberally to the celebrants. Ludwig also delighted his people with horse races. Bavarians had so much fun that in October 1811, they repeated the festival. Today, Munich's Oktoberfest draws 7 million visitors a year, and Bavarian immigrants have carried the tradition around the world. King Ludwig II was more interested in opera than governing. He never married or had children and was almost certainly gay. He emptied the royal coffers to build fairy castles, including Neuschwanstein. His extravagance was used to declare him insane. The king was taken into custody, and he and his doctor were found floating in a lake. Their deaths remain a great royal mystery. Ludwig III took the throne in 1913. He improved agriculture and transportation, but was unable to stay out of World War I. During the revolution, he feared assassination and fled to Switzerland. Embittered over his lost crown, he died in 1921, aged 76. His wife, Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, was a descendant of King James VII and II, and was next in line in the alternate Jacobite succession to the British throne. Thus, the subsequent Dukes of Bavaria have also been heirs to the Jacobite succession, though the Windsors are pretty unlikely to give them back the throne. Adolf Hitler tried to get Duke Ruprecht's support by promising to restore the Bavarian throne, but he was strongly opposed to the Nazis. King George V of the UK even considered making him a dictator of Bavaria to counteract the Fuhrer, but instead the ducal family was forced to flee to Hungary. The Nazis pursued them. Ruprecht was out of the country, but his wife, Princess Antonia, and their children and grandchildren were captured and sent to Dachau concentration camp. They suffered there for seven months until they were liberated by the US army. Princess Antonia never recovered and died a few months later. Ruprecht spoke with the American authorities about having his throne restored so that he could rebuild southern Germany. They declined, but General Eisenhower provided a special plane to fly the crown prince back to Munich. In 1955, he was given a monarch's funeral. His grandson Franz is the current Duke of Bavaria, head of the House of Wittelsbach and claimant to the Jacobite succession. He was 11 when he was imprisoned in Dachau. Today he is a modern art collector. In 2021, 88-year-old Franz appeared alongside his longtime partner, Thomas Grinwald, in an official portrait. He is the first head of a European dynasty to publicly acknowledge a same-sex partner. His heir is his brother, Prince Max. He has five daughters, the eldest of which, Sophie, is married to hereditary prince Alois of Liechtenstein. She will eventually become heir to the Jacobite succession, but as the Bavarian succession does not recognize women, her cousin, Prince Ludpold, will likely become Duke of Bavaria. The Wittelsbach family still owns a great deal of forest, farmland, and real estate, Nymphenburg Palace, and several other castles. They also own Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory and two breweries, the Ducal Bavarian Brewery and the King Ludwig Brewery. The Kingdom of Württemberg Württemberg Hill rises above the rolling, vine-lined fields of Germany's southern wine country. In 1081, a knight called Conrad built a castle on the hill and named himself after it. At the time, Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV was quarreling with his nobles and the Pope, to the extent that he was excommunicated twice. He supposedly performed black masses on the naked body of his second wife, Euphraxia of Kiev. When she escaped to tell her tale, nobles rose up against the Emperor in favor of his son, Heinrich V, first husband of Matilda of England. Among the prince's allies was Conrad of Württemberg. He was rewarded by being named a Count. Counts administered the Emperor's laws in their county, and they owed taxes and military service back to the Emperor. The Württemberg family would continue to control the area until 1918. Their neighbors, the Hohenstaufen, were Dukes of Swabia, one of the Stem Duchies that emerged after Charlemagne. The powerful family had produced several Emperors, but over the years they had become more concerned with claiming the Holy Lands than managing their German possessions. Sixteen-year-old Duke Conrad III of Swabia was calling himself King of Jerusalem, though his ancestors had been driven out years ago. In 1268, the Duke and his best friend, Friedrich I, Mulgrave of Baden, decided it would be great fun to lead an army to retake the Kingdom of Sicily, a crucial launching point for crusades. But the headstrong teenage lords were defeated in battle, captured and beheaded. With the Hohenstaufen dynasty buried, the Württembergs took over their duchy. In 1495, Emperor Maximilian I elevated Count Eberhard V to Duke. In 1515, Duke Ulrich fell in lust with the wife of a knight and murdered her husband. His Duchess, Sabina of Bavaria, was furious and ran away. Her brother and the Emperor avenged her by driving Ulrich from Württemberg. While he was in exile, the cunning Duke saw an opportunity to regain his realm. He converted to Lutheranism and got other Protestant monarchs to support him retaking Württemberg. Much like Henry VIII of England, Ulrich converted his people by force, seizing the wealth of churches and monasteries along the way. Friedrich I joined the French in their campaign against Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Napoleon elevated the duchy to an electorate, and then a kingdom in 1806. Wilhelm II inherited the throne in 1891. He was married to Princess Marie of Weidach and Pullmont, but she died giving birth to a stillborn daughter. Wilhelm was heartbroken, but in order to further the dynasty, he married Charlotte of Schomburg-Lippe. They never had children. Wilhelm was popular with his people. When walking his dogs in the public park, his subjects greeted him as Herr König, Mr. King. Wilhelm served as a field marshal general during World War I. After the November Revolution, he remained in Württemberg, where he died in 1921, age 73. Now reduced back to a dukedom, his title was inherited by his distant Catholic cousin, Albrecht. His descendant, Wilhelm, inherited the title in 2021 at the age of 28. He is in training to take over the family's business in real estate, land, and wine, and he's single. In the next episode, we'll hear from the Sax section. Not those Saxes. The Kingdom of Saxony and the other Sax monarchies, as the name suggests, are all related. But they weren't just related to each other. For centuries, their many offspring married into the grandest royal houses of Europe, earning the Saxes the nickname, the breeding pens of European royalty. Want even more tea on history? Check out the History Tea Time podcast. Don't want to wait to see the next episode? Patrons get exclusive early access to all of my multi-part series. If you would like to join my Patreon and help me make more fascinating videos, click on the link in the description. Thank you for watching!