Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein
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| Augusta Victoria | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:InfoboxImage/data' not found. Empress Augusta Victoria in 1913 | |||||
| German Empress consort Queen consort of Prussia | |||||
| Tenure | 15 June 1888 – 9 November 1918 | ||||
| Born | Script error: No such module "person date". Dolzig Palace, East Brandenburg, Prussia | ||||
| Died | Script error: No such module "person date". Huis Doorn, Doorn, Netherlands | ||||
| Burial | 19 April 1921 Antique Temple, Potsdam, Germany | ||||
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| House | Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg | ||||
| Father | Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein | ||||
| Mother | Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg | ||||
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Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (Auguste Viktoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny; 22 October 1858 – 11 April 1921) was the last German Empress and Queen of Prussia by marriage to Wilhelm II, German Emperor.
Early years
Augusta Victoria was born at Dolzig Castle, the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, future Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, and Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg,[1] a niece of Queen Victoria, through Victoria's half-sister Feodora. She grew up at Dolzig until the death of her grandfather in 1869, where they then lived at Primkenau Castle. She was known within her family as Dona.[2]
At the end of 1863, a crisis over the Duchy of Holstein intensified because the Danish government sought to remove Holstein from its constitutional union with Denmark and Schleswig. In response, her father returned there to assert his dynastic claims, following the earlier example of his own father, Christian August II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. He was initially welcomed after Prussian and Saxon troops occupied Holstein in the course of the federal execution.
When Prussia and Austria defeated Denmark in the Second Schleswig War (1864) and annexed Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, the Austrian administrators initially allowed her father some authority. However, after Prussia expelled Austria from Holstein in 1866, he was politically sidelined and forced to leave. The family thereafter lived alternately in Gotha and at Primkenau Castle in the Sprottau district, which had belonged to her grandfather since 1853.
The eventual marriage of Augusta Victoria to the Prussian-German heir helped officially reconcile the Augustenburg family with the new German state.
Marriage and children
Prince Wilhelm had first met Augusta in 1868 at Reinhardsbrunn Palace in Thuringia. Their acquaintance was renewed by their parents' friendship in the summer of 1878 in Potsdam. The engagement on 14 February 1880 in Gotha (shortly after the death of her father) was fully supported by the Prussian Crown Prince and Crown Princess as part of family politics, but opposed by the Prussian court and initially even by Kaiser Wilhelm I, who considered the match inappropriate because her family was not deemed equal in rank (due to a bourgeois great-grandmother and a grandmother who had only been a countess). There was also concern about political complications for Prussia due to the 1866 annexation of the duchies, as Duke Friedrich VIII still maintained his claims. However, Otto von Bismarck was a strong proponent of the marriage, believing that it would end the dispute between the Prussian government and Augusta's father. In the end, Wilhelm's intransigence, the support of Bismarck, and a determination to move beyond the rejection of his proposal to Ella, led the reluctant imperial family to give official consent.[3] For these reasons the engagement was not officially announced until 2 June 1880.
On 27 February 1881, Augusta married her half-second cousin Prince Wilhelm of Prussia. Augusta's maternal grandmother Princess Feodora of Leiningen was the half-sister of Queen Victoria, who was Wilhelm's maternal grandmother. Wilhelm had earlier proposed to his first cousin, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (known in the family as "Ella"), a daughter of his mother's sister, but she declined. He did not react well, and was adamant that he would soon marry another princess.
Issue
Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Augusta Victoria had six sons and one daughter:
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia | 6 May 1882 | 20 July 1951 | married 1905, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; had issue |
| Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia | 7 July 1883 | 8 December 1942 | married 1906, Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg; had no issue |
| Prince Adalbert of Prussia | 14 July 1884 | 22 September 1948 | married 1914, Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; had issue |
| Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia | 29 January 1887 | 25 March 1949 | married 1908, Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; had issue |
| Prince Oskar of Prussia | 27 July 1888 | 27 January 1958 | married 1914, Countess Ina Maria von Bassewitz; had issue |
| Prince Joachim of Prussia | 17 December 1890 | 18 July 1920 | married 1916, Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt; had issue |
| Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia | 13 September 1892 | 11 December 1980 | married 1913, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick; had issue |
German Empress
When her husband ascended the throne on 15 June 1888, Augusta became German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Her husband, who often suffered from bouts of melancholia, was often emotionally supported by her. At the same time she was widely believed to have exerted a harmful political influence over the Emperor; Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt called her "the evil spirit of Wilhelm II."[4]
Augusta was known as "Dona" within the family. She had a somewhat lukewarm relationship with her mother-in-law, Empress Victoria, who had hoped that Dona would help to heal the rift between herself and Wilhelm; this was not to be the case. Victoria was also annoyed that the title of head of the Red Cross went to Dona, who had no nursing or charity experience or inclination (though in her memoirs, Princess Viktoria Luise paints a different picture, stating that her mother loved charity work). Augusta often took pleasure in snubbing her mother-in-law, usually small incidents, such as telling her that she would be wearing a different dress than the one Victoria recommended, that she would not be riding to get her figure back after childbirth as Wilhelm had no intention of stopping at one son, and informing her that Augusta's daughter, Viktoria, was not named after her (though, again, in her memoirs, Viktoria Luise states that she was named after both her grandmother and her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria).
Augusta and her mother-in-law grew closer for a few years when Wilhelm became emperor, as Augusta was often lonely while he was away on military exercises and turned to her mother-in-law for the companionship of rank, although she never left her children alone with her lest they be influenced by her well-known liberalism. Nevertheless, the two were often seen riding in a carriage together. Augusta was at Victoria's bedside when she died of breast cancer in 1901.
Augusta was deeply religious, a devout adherent of the Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union, and a representative of strict moral conduct. She had a strong aversion to divorced women and generally refused to receive them at court. Likewise, she had less than cordial relationships with some of Wilhelm's sisters, particularly the recently married Crown Princess Sophie of Greece. In 1890, when Sophie announced her intention to convert to Greek Orthodoxy, Dona summoned her and told her that if she did so, not only would Wilhelm find it unacceptable as the head of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, but she would be barred from Germany and her soul would end up in Hell. Sophie replied that it was her business whether or not she did. Augusta became hysterical and gave birth prematurely to her son, Prince Joachim, as a result of which she was overprotective of him for the rest of his life, believing that he was too delicate. Evidently, so did Emperor Wilhelm; he wrote to his mother that if the baby had died, Sophie would have murdered it. In 1893 the Empress could not reconcile with her conscience to visit Pope Leo XIII during a trip to Rome, though repeated entreaties from the Foreign Office and her husband eventually persuaded her to make the visit so as not to cause an international complication.[5]
Under Augusta's patronage the Evangelical Church Aid Society was founded soon reorganised as the Evangelical Church Construction Association and she energetically promoted the construction of Protestant churches in Berlin, primarily in the new workers' quarters, and also elsewhere. After accompanying her husband on his Palestine journey in 1898, the evangelical "Augusta Victoria Foundation" in Jerusalem was able in 1914 to consecrate the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives. Her strong support for Protestant church building earned her the nickname "Kirchenjuste."
Augusta was also highly engaged in the social sphere; for this reason she was more popular and esteemed than her husband, whose public actions were often criticised and ridiculed by the population.[6] She supported the women's movement and worked, thanks to suggestions from Marie Martin, for improved education for girls and young women.[7] Through her support for charitable and church-related efforts within the German Reich she came into contact with Christian reform movements led by Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder and Adolf Stoecker.[8]
During the First World War she was active in charitable organisations and especially concerned with hospital work.
In late 1918, as Germany was collapsing toward defeat in World War I and revolutionary unrest was spreading, Kaiser Wilhelm II was under increasing pressure from his government and political leaders to abdicate the throne to avoid further chaos. After President Woodrow Wilson's third note of 23 October 1918, it became increasingly clear that Wilhelm's abdication would be necessary to secure tolerable peace conditions for his people. At that point, Augusta Victoria strongly insisted that Wilhelm should not step down and tried to block abdication efforts.[9] On 1 November she reportedly telephoned Chancellor Prince Maximilian of Baden, threatening to publicly expose his homosexuality if he continued to push her husband toward abdication; he then suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be sedated for several days with opium-based medicine.[10][11]
Exile and death
In the course of the November Revolution, on 27 November 1918 after a brief stay at the Villa Ingenheim, owned by her son, Prince Eitel Friedrich, she followed her husband into Dutch exile and by 1920 took up residence with him at Huis Doorn in the province of Utrecht. Wilhelm II wrote in 1922:
"The revolution broke the Empress's heart. She aged visibly from November 1918 onward and could no longer muster the physical resistance she once had. Thus her decline began. She bore the longing for German soil most heavily. Nonetheless she sought still to comfort me ..."[12]
She had already suffered a stroke in 1918, which greatly impaired her health. The press speculated late that year that she "would hardly live to see the new year."[13] In July 1920, her youngest son Prince Joachim died by suicide, about which Wilhelm commented, "That rascal has done that to us and especially to his mother as well!"[14]
The shock of exile and abdication, with the breakdown of Joachim's marriage and his subsequent suicide, proved too much for Augusta's health. She died on 11 April 1921 at Huis Doorn at Doorn in the Netherlands, from a severe heart attack. Some of her last reported words were, "I must not die; I cannot leave the Kaiser alone."
Many German newspapers marked the death announcement with black borders. Her passing after three years in exile was mourned by her supporters as the loss of a national mother. Her body was transported back to Germany for burial at the Antique Temple in the park of Sanssouci Palace (Potsdam); though Wilhelm II and the Crown Prince were not permitted to attend the funeral on 19 April 1921, high dignitaries such as Paul von Hindenburg, Erich Ludendorff, and Alfred von Tirpitz were present. Thousands followed her coffin.[15]
Shortly before her death, Augusta expressed a wish that the Kaiser remarry after her passing. Wilhelm II honored this by marrying on 5 November 1922, about 18 months after her death, the similarly widowed Princess Hermine of Schönaich-Carolath.[16]
In literature
The funeral of Augusta Victoria is reflected upon in the novel by Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools. In it, a German passenger silently reminisces on the funeral and its cinematic showing to a small colony of Germans living abroad in Mexico and describes the outpouring of public grief that was seen within that community. Augusta Victoria's passing is viewed among Germans who lived through the First World War as the ending of a great epoch, the conclusion of which forever divorces them from their maternal country and enshrines Augusta Victoria as a venerable saint and symbol of a Germany long past.[17]
Augusta Victoria was portrayed by Sunnyi Melles in the 2018 miniseries Kaisersturz ("Kaiser's Fall"), depicting the German Revolution and the subsequent fall of the German monarchy.
Gallery
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German State Prussia, Wedding Medal 1881 Prince Wilhelm and Auguste Victoria, obverse.
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The reverse shows the couple in Medieval costumes in front of 3 squires carrying the shields of Prussia, Germany, and Schleswig-Holstein.
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Portrait of the Queen of Prussia, by Philip de László, 1908.
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Portrait of Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (1858-1921), Wife of Wilhelm II (1859-1941), King of Prussia and Emperor (1898) by German artist Felix Ehrlich
Honours
- National honours[18]
- Knight Grand Cordon with Collar of the Imperial and Royal Order of the Black Eagle 25 June 1888[19][20][21]
- Knight Grand Cordon of the Imperial and Royal Order of the Red Eagle[22][23]
- Grand Mistress Dame of the Imperial and Royal Decoration of Louise, Special Class[19]
- Knight Grand Cordon of the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint John[19]
- Grand Mistress Dame of the Imperial and Royal Decoration of the Cross for Merit, Special Class
- Grand Mistress Dame of the Imperial and Royal Decoration of the Cross of Merit, Special Class
- Knight of the Imperial and Royal Decoration of the Red Cross, 1st Class, 22 October 1898[24]
- Knight of the Imperial and Royal Decoration of the Cross of Jerusalem
- Template:Flagicon Bavarian Royal Family: Dame of the Royal Decoration of Saint Elizabeth, Special Class
- Template:Flagicon Bavarian Royal Family: Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Theresa
- Template:Flagicon Bavarian Royal Family: Dame of the Royal Decoration of Saint Anne, Special Class
- Template:Flagicon Saxonian Royal Family: Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sidonia
- Template:Flagicon Saxonian Royal Family: Dame of the Royal Decoration of Maria Anna, Special Class
- Template:Flagicon Württembergian Royal Family: Dame of the Royal Decoration of Olga, Special Class, 1889[25]
- File:Flagge Fürstentum Lippe.svg Lippean Princely Family: Dame of the Princely Decoration of Bertha, Special Class
- Foreign honours[18]
- Template:Flagicon Austrian Imperial and Royal Family:
- Dame Grand Cross of the Imperial and Royal Order of Elizabeth, in Diamonds, 1900[26]
- Dame of the Imperial and Royal Order of the Starry Cross, 1st Class
- Template:Flagicon Portuguese Royal Family: Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Saint Isabel
- Template:Flagicon Romania: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Carol I
- Template:Flagicon Russian Imperial Family: Dame Grand Cordon of the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine[27]
- Template:Flagicon Spanish Royal Family: 830th Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Queen Maria Luisa, 16 May 1881[28]
- File:Merchant flag of Japan (1870).svg Empire of Japan: Dame Grand Cordon of the Order of the Precious Crown, 13 April 1902[29]
- Template:Flagicon Turkey: Dame Grand Cordon with Chain of the Order of Charity, Special Class[30]
- File:Flag of the United Kingdom (1-2).svg United Kingdom: Dame of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, 1st Class[19][31]
- File:Flag of the United Kingdom (1-2).svg United Kingdom: Recipient of the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Medal
Arms
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Coat of arms of Empress Augusta Victoria
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Imperial monogram of Empress Augusta Victoria
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Variation of Empress Augusta Victoria's monogram
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Monogram of the Königin Augusta Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Nr.4
Ancestry
See also
- The Empress of Germany's bird of paradise, Paradisaea raggiana augustavictoriae, was named in her honour.
- The Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem was built by Wilhelm II and named after her.
- There is a white rose cultivar named after her, the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria (Peter Lambert, 1891).
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch nebst diplomatisch-statistischem Jahrbuch: 1873 (in Deutsch). Gotha. 1873. p. 30. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Littell, Eliakim; Littell, Robert S. (1921). "The Last Hohenzollern Empress". The Daily Telegraph. 309. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
- ^ Radziwill, p. 30.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Machtan, Lothar (2008). Die Abdankung: Wie Deutschlands gekrönte Häupter aus der Geschichte fielen. Berlin: Propyläen. pp. 133–140, esp. 135.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Röhl, John C. G. (2001). Wilhelm II. Der Aufbau der Persönlichen Monarchie, 1888–1900 (in Deutsch). pp. 698–699. ISBN 3-406-48229-5.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Angelika Obert (2011). Kaiserin Auguste Victoria. Wie die Provinzprinzessin zur Kaiserin der Herzen wurde (in Deutsch). Wichern.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Angelika Schaser (2010). Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer. Eine politische Lebensgemeinschaft (in Deutsch). Köln: Böhlau. pp. 121–122.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Harenberg, ed. (1992). Harenbergs Personenlexikon 20. Jahrhundert, Daten und Leistungen (in Deutsch) (1. Auflage ed.). Dortmund: Harenberg Lexikon-Verlag. p. 61. ISBN 3-611-00228-3.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Machtan, Lothar (2018). Kaisersturz. Vom Scheitern im Herzen der Macht (in Deutsch). Darmstadt: wbg Theiss. pp. 48, 128, 222. ISBN 978-3-8062-3760-3.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Machtan, Lothar (2018). Der Endzeitkanzler. Prinz Max von Baden und der Untergang des Kaiserreichs (in Deutsch). Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag. pp. 440–444. ISBN 978-3-8062-3660-6.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Schmidt, Rainer F. (2021). Kaiserdämmerung. Berlin, London, Paris, St. Petersburg und der Weg in den Untergang (in Deutsch). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. p. 765. ISBN 3-608-98318-X.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Machtan, Lothar (2018). Die Abdankung: Vom Scheitern im Herzen der Macht. Darmstadt: WBG Theiss. pp. 48, 128, 222.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Erkrankung des gewesenen Deutschen Kaiserpaares". Wiener Zeitung. 23 December 1918. p. 4.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The most bizarre quotes of Kaiser Wilhelm II: "blood must flow"". Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved February 12, 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Röhl, John C. G. (2008). Wilhelm II. Band 3: Der Weg in den Abgrund, 1900–1941. Munich. p. 1264.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.den Toom, Friedhild; Klein, Sven Michael. Hermine – The Second Wife of Wilhelm II.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Porter, Katharine Anne (1984). Ship of Fools. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company. pp. 81-82. ISBN 978-0-316-71390-0.
- ^ a b Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Preußen (1886–87), Genealogy p. 2
- ^ a b c d Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Empress Augusta Victoria wearing Orders and Decorations". C7.alamy.com. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Image" (JPG). C7.alamy.com. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Image" (JPG). C7.alamy.com. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Image" (JPG). C7.alamy.com. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Image" (JPG). C7.alamy.com. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Rote Kreuz-Medaille", Königlich Preussische Ordensliste (in German), 1895, p. 268 – via hathitrust.org
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg (1907), "Königliche Orden" p. 136
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Ritter-orden", Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, Vienna: Druck und Verlag der K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1918, p. 328
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Image". Media.gettyimages.com. Archived from the original (JPG) on 27 March 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Guía Oficial de España". Guía Oficial de España: 166. 1887. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.刑部芳則 (2017). 明治時代の勲章外交儀礼 (PDF) (in 日本語). 明治聖徳記念学会紀要. p. 157.
- ^ Script error: No such module "template wrapper".
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Joseph Whitaker (1894). An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord ... J. Whitaker. p. 112.
Sources
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Radziwill, Catherine (1915). The Royal Marriage Market of Europe. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company. OCLC 457445686.
- Van der Kiste, John: The last German Empress: A life of Empress Augusta Victoria, Consort of Emperor William II. CreateSpace, 2015
- Thomas Weiberg: … wie immer Deine Dona. Verlobung und Hochzeit des letzten deutschen Kaiserpaares. Isensee-Verlag, Oldenburg 2007, Template:ISBN.
External links
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- Historical footage of the burial of Auguste Viktoria in April 1921, filmportal.de
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- Portraits of Augusta Victoria, Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia at the National Portrait Gallery, LondonTemplate:Edit at Wikidata
- Empress Augusta Victoria at IMDbTemplate:Edit at Wikidata
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