Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1783–1851)

For the later prince, see Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1906-1940).

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia
Prince Wilhelm of Prussia
Personal details
Born	(1783-07-03)3 July 1783 Berlin
Died	28 September 1851(1851-09-28) (aged 68) Berlin
Spouse(s)	Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg
Religion	Calvinism Evangelical Christian Church (since 1817)

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (born 3 July 1783 in Berlin; died: 28 September 1851 in Berlin) was the son of Frederick William II of Prussia and Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Life

Prince William was the fourth and youngest son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II and Princess Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt. He served in the Guards from 1799 and fought in 1806 at the head of a cavalry brigade at Battle of Jena and Auerstedt. In December 1807, he traveled to Paris, to order to try to reduce the war burdens imposed on Prussia by Napoléon Bonaparte; he only managed to obtain a modest reduction. In 1808, he represented Prussia at the Congress of Erfurt. At the end of 1808, he accompanied his brother, King Frederick William III to St. Petersburg. Later, he had a prominent role in the transformation of Prussia and its army.

During the War of the Sixth Coalition of 1813, he was stationed in Blücher's headquarters. In the Battle of Lützen (1813) on 2 May, he commanded the reserve cavalry in the left wing of the army and during the Battle of Leipzig, he negotiated the union of the Northern army with Blucher's. Later he led the 8th Brigade of the Yorck's army corps on the Rhine and distinguished himself by bravery and military skills at the battles of Château-Thierry, Laon and ouside Paris .

After the Treaty of Paris (1814), the Prince accompanied the king to London and then attended the negotiations of the Congress of Vienna. In 1815 he commanded the reserve cavalry of the Fourth Army Corps. After the second Treaty of Paris, he lived mostly in Paris and sometimes at his Fischbach Castle in Kowary in the Riesengebirge mountains.

From 1824 to 1829 he was governor of the Confederate Fortress at Mainz; from 1830 to 1831 he was governor-general of the Rhine Province and Westphalia. In this capacity, on 20 September 1831 he opened the first rail line on German soil from Hinsbeck via the Deilbach valley to Nierenhof. Until then, the line had been called Deilthaler Eisenbahn ("Deil Valley Railway"); after its opening it was allowed to call itself Prinz-Wilhelm-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft.

In March 1834 he was appointed general of cavalry and re-appointed as governor of the federal fortress at Mainz. He should not be confused with his nephew of the same name, the future emperor William I, who was governor of the same fortress in 1854.

After the death of his wife, Marie Anna on 14 April 1846, he withdrew from public life at his Fischbach castle.

Marriage and issue

He married Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg, daughter of the Landgrave Frederick V Louis of Hesse-Homburg, and had seven children:

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Amalie Friederike Luise Karoline Wilhelmine	4 July 1805	23 November 1805	died in infancy
Irene	3 November 1806	3 November 1806	stillborn
unnamed son	30 August 1809	30 August 1809	stillborn
Friedrich Tassilo Wilhelm	29 October 1811	9 January 1813	died in infancy
Heinrich Wilhelm Adalbert	29 October 1811	6 June 1873	married morganatically, 1850, Therese Elssler; had issue
Friedrich Wilhelm Tassilo	15 November 1813	9 January 1814	died in infancy
Marie Elisabeth Karoline Viktoria	18 June 1815	21 March 1885	married, 1836, Prince Karl of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue
Friedrich Wilhelm Waldemar	2 August 1817	17 February 1849
Marie Friederike Franziska Hedwig	15 October 1825	17 May 1889	married, 1842, King Maximilian II of Bavaria; had issue

References

• Herman Peter Dorff (1898). "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB)" (in de). Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. pp. 171 – 177. 
• Franz Joseph Adolph Schneidawind (1856). "Prinz Wilhelm von Preußen in den Kriegen seiner Zeit". Verlag der Deckerschen Geheimen Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei. , Complete text at Google Books