Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Painting of Frederick William, "The Black Duke", by Johann Christian August Schwartz in 1809

Frederick William (German: Friedrich Wilhelm; October 9, 1771 – June 16, 1815) was a German Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Oels. Nicknamed "The Black Duke", he was a military officer who led the Black Brunswickers against Napoleonic domination in Germany. He briefly ruled the state of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1806-1807.

[edit] Life

Frederick William was born in Braunschweig as the fourth son of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Princess Augusta Charlotte of Wales. He was the cousin and brother-in-law (from 8 April 1795) of his friend George IV, Prince-regent of the United Kingdom (from 1811).

He joined the Prussian army in 1789 as a captain and participated in battles against Revolutionary France. In 1805, after his uncle, Frederick Augustus, Duke of Oels, had died childless, Frederick William inherited the Duchy of Oels, a small mediatized principality subordinate to the King of Prussia.

Statue of Frederick William at Braunschweig

In October 1806, Frederick William participated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt as a major general of the Prussian army, of which his father was the field marshal. His father died from a wound he received in this battle, and Frederick William inherited Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, since his eldest brother had died childless two months earlier, and both the second and third brother were mentally retarded. After the defeat of Prussia in the Fourth Coalition, his state remained under the control of France, however, and was formally made a part of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. Frederick William fled to his parents-in-law in Bruchsal in the Grand Duchy of Baden, which had remained a sovereign state with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 by Francis II, where he lived for the next few years.

When the War of the Fifth Coalition broke out in 1809, Frederick William used this opportunity to create a corps of partisans with the support of the Austrian Empire. This corps was called the Black Brunswickers because they wore black uniforms in mourning for their occupied country. He financed the corps independently by mortgaging his principality in Oels, and made his way from Austrian Bohemia through the French-allied states of Saxony and Westphalia to the North Sea coast.

Frederick William briefly managed to retake control of the city of Braunschweig in August 1809, which gained him the status of a local folk hero. He then fled to England to join forces with his brother-in-law, later to be King George IV. His corps of originally 2,300 soldiers was largely destroyed in battles in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War.

Frederick William returned to Braunschweig in December 1813, after Prussia had ended French domination in Braunschweig-Lüneburg. When Napoleon returned to the political scene in 1815 during the Hundred Days, Frederick William raised fresh troops. He was killed by a gunshot at the Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June.

[edit] Ancestors

[edit] Family

Frederick William married Mary, daughter of Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden, in 1802. They had the following children that reached adulthood:

• Charles (1804-1873)
• William (1806-1884)

[edit] References

• At the House of Welf site
• Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 7, p. 508-514