The Kingdom of Württemberg, a German state since 1083, was a member state of the German Confederation until 1866. Württemberg fought on the side of Austria in 1866, but three weeks after the battle of Königgrätz, her troops were decisively beaten at Tauberbischofsheim. Württemberg paid an indemnity of 8,000,000 Gulden, and at once concluded a secret offensive and defensive treaty with Prussia. The Württemberg military became a contingent of the Prussian army by convention in November 1870. In this convention, the Kingdom of Württemberg was treated similarly to the Kingdom of Saxony from their 1867 agreement. When Württemberg became a member of the German empire in 1871, she retained control of her own post office, telegraphs and railways. In 1904, the railway system was united with that of the rest of Imperial Germany.
Friedrich I was King from 1805 until 1816. Previously, as Duke Friedrich II, he joined Napoleon against Prussia and even married his daughter, Catherine, to Napoleon’s youngest brother. Much was written about Friedrich and his girth. Napoleon allegedly commented that, “God had created the Prince to demonstrate the utmost extent to which human skin could be stretched without bursting.” Friedrich I’s first wife was Augusta of Brunswick, whose mother was the elder sister of George III of Great Britain. Her younger sister was the wife of George IV of the United Kingdom. Her sister-in-law, Friedrich’s sister Sophie, was married to Paul, the future Emperor of Russia.
Augusta and Friedrich’s marriage was not a happy one, and she sought refuge in St. Petersburg. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II, offered Augusta the use of one of her estates, and Augusta became pregnant. She went into premature labor and subsequently died. She was buried in an unmarked grave in the vicinity of Tallinn, Estonia in 1788. Friedrich then married Princess Charlotte, daughter of King George II of Great Britain. They had no surviving children.
Friedrich entered into a treaty with Metternich in 1813 and joined the German Confederation. He died three years later and was succeeded by his son, Wilhelm I, who led an adventurous life. Before ascending to the throne, Wilhelm I ran away to Paris with his mistress and was introduced to some of the more liberal political views of the time. As he matured, his ruling style became more conservative and he advised his son to understand clearly the limits of his constitutional authority. Wilhelm was married three times. His first wife was Princess Charlotte of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I. They were divorced after six years, and he married his first cousin, the Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia. He then became king. Upon her death, he married another first cousin, Pauline Therèse of Württemberg. Wilhelm I ruled until 1864 and was succeeded by his son Charles, whose mother was Pauline. Charles and his wife, Olga Nikolaevna, had no children (it was rumored he was homosexual), and when he died suddenly, his nephew Wilhelm II (not to be confused with Kaiser William II) succeeded him. Wilhelm II was the fourth and final King of Württemberg.
Wilhelm II married twice; first to Princess Marie of Waldeck and Pyrmont and upon her death, he married Princess Charlotte of Schaumburg-Lippe. She was the last queen of Württemberg as well as any German state. Neither King Wilhelm nor his protestant relatives had sons and, as a result, the succession passed to a Roman Catholic branch of the family.
The Württembergs produced a plethora of interesting royals. A number of morganatic marriages ensued between grandsons of King Frederich; perhaps the most famous was the marriage between Franz, Duke of Teck, and Princess Mary of Cambridge (his father’s third cousin) that produced the future British Queen Mary. Another grandson, Paul Wilhelm, visited the United States several times and met Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, whom he invited to Germany. Jean Baptiste spent five years in Europe before returning to the United States.
Württemberg had a hereditary constitutional monarchy with four votes in the Bundesratand seventeen deputies in the Reichstag. The parliament consisted of two chambers known as the Kammer. The upper chamber was appointed and contained various noble, religious, and educated subjects. The lower house had 92 members, with 69 being elected by universal, direct, and secret ballot by all male citizens over 25 years of age. The other 23 members were elected based on proportional representation.
The population in 1910 was 2,437,000, of which 65 percent was Protestant. The kingdom was 19,508 km². The capital was Stuttgart. Most of the soldiers of this kingdom were concentrated in the XIII Army Corps. Similar to Saxony, Württemberg Infantry Regiment 126 was assigned to XV Army Corps in Alsace-Lorraine, unlike the other Württemberg troops that became Army Corps XIII of the Prussian army with its own War Ministry but under the leadership of a Prussian commanding general.