Frederick William III of Prussia

Frederick William III (German: Friedrich Wilhelm III.) (3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel (1797–1806 and again 1813–1840).

Early life

Frederick William was born in Potsdam in 1770 as the son of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederika 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, however, was considered to be ideal for military leaders.^[1]

As a child, Frederick William's father (under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, Countess of Lichtenau) had Frederick William 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 the governor of his brother Prince Heinrich. 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 Johan Engel.

As a soldier he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792-1794. On December 24, 1793, Frederick William married Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who bore him ten children. In the Kronprinzenpalais (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.

Reign

Frederick William succeeded to the throne on 16 November 1797 and at once gave earnest of his good intentions by cutting down the expenses of the royal establishment, dismissing his father's ministers, and reforming the most oppressive abuses of the late reign. Unfortunately, however, he had all the Hohenzollern determination to retain personal power without the Hohenzollern genius for using it. Too distrustful to delegate responsibility to his ministers, he was too infirm of will to strike out and follow a consistent course for himself.

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

At first Frederick William and his advisors attempted to pursue a policy of neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars. Although they succeeded in keeping out of the Third Coalition in 1805, eventually Frederick William was swayed by the belligerent attitude of the queen, who led Prussia's pro-war party, and entered into war in October 1806. On 14 October 1806, at the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt, the French defeated the Prussian army led by Frederick William, and the Prussian army collapsed. The royal family fled to Memel, East Prussia, where they fell on the mercy of Emperor Alexander I of Russia (who, rumour has it, had fallen in love with Queen Louise).

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 personal interview with the French emperor. Prussia lost many of its Polish territories, as well as all territory west of the Elbe, and had to finance a large indemnity and to pay for French troops to occupy key strong points within the Kingdom.

Although the ineffectual King himself seemed resigned to Prussia's fate, various reforming ministers, such as Baron vom Stein, Prince von Hardenberg, Scharnhorst, and Count Gneisenau, set about reforming Prussia's administration and military, with the encouragement of the Queen (who died, greatly mourned, in 1810).

In 1813, following Napoleon's defeat in Russia, Frederick William turned against France and signed an alliance with Russia at Kalisz, although he had to flee Berlin, still under French occupation. Prussian troops played a key part in the victories of the allies in 1813 and 1814, and the King himself travelled with the main army of Prince Schwarzenberg, along with Alexander of Russia and Francis of Austria.

At the Congress of Vienna, Frederick William's ministers succeeded in securing important territorial increases for Prussia, although 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 supply Prussia with a constitution.

He died on 7 June 1840. His eldest son, Frederick William IV, succeeded him.

Issue

Ancestry

Further reading

• Hans Haussherr: Friedrich Wilhelm III.. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 5. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, p. 560–563. (German)
• v. Hartmann: Friedrich Wilhelm III.. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 7. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, p. 700–729. (Wilhelm III. (König von Preußen).html full text online) (German)
• Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann: König in Preußens großer Zeit. Friedrich Wilhelm III., der Melancholiker auf dem Thron. Siedler, Berlin 1992.
• Dagmar von Gersdorff: Königin Luise und Friedrich Wilhelm III. Eine Liebe in Preußen. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2001. ISBN 3-499-22615-4.
• Claudia von Gélieu, Christian von Gélieu: Die Erzieherin von Königin Luise. Salomé de Gélieu. Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2043-2.
• Carsten Peter Thiede, Eckhard G. Franz: Jahre mit Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Archiv für hessische Geschichte und Altertumskunde Bd. 43. Darmstadt 1985.

See also

• Kingdom of Prussia
• Prussian Union (Evangelical Christian Church)

Notes