Kingdom of Württemberg

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kingdom of Württemberg sent 16,000 soldiers into Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, and only a few hundred returned home. That campaign shows how tightly this small German state had tied itself to a foreign emperor. Its ruler had not always held the title of king. How did a modest duchy come to call itself a kingdom in the first place? How did its rulers hold onto their throne through a French alliance, a war against Prussia, and the rise of a new German Empire? And what finally brought a centuries-old dynasty to an end?

• 2. Born From Napoleon's Favor

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  Duke Frederick ruled a comparatively minor territory until 1803, when the collapse of the old imperial order handed him a windfall. Under a process called German mediatization, or the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, dozens of former church territories and free imperial cities were absorbed into larger states. Frederick was raised to the rank of Elector and used the reshuffling to substantially enlarge his own lands with former imperial cities and church property.

  Three years later, the Holy Roman Empire itself dissolved, and Napoleon organized the Confederation of the Rhine under French protection. Frederick then assumed the title King Frederick I of Württemberg on the 1st of January 1806. Napoleon rewarded loyal German rulers with elevated titles in exchange for their political and military backing, and Frederick fit that pattern exactly. He abolished the existing constitution, merged his older and newly acquired territory into a single state, and put church property under government control. Joining the Confederation of the Rhine brought further gains. It added 160,000 subjects in 1806, and roughly 110,000 more by the Peace of Vienna in October 1809. Administrative reforms modeled on French governance reorganized how the kingdom was run. In exchange, Frederick supplied troops for Napoleon's campaigns against Prussia, Austria, and Russia.

  By 1813, the kingdom's borders had settled into shape. The territory stretched 225 kilometers from north to south and 160 kilometers east to west. It spanned roughly 19,508 square kilometers, with a border some 1,800 kilometers long. Bavaria lay along the east and south, and Baden wrapped around the north, west, and south. The small Prussian province of Hohenzollern sat nearly surrounded within Württemberg's southern reach, and the kingdom's edge just touched Lake Constance.

  That loyalty to Napoleon would soon be tested when his fortunes turned at Leipzig.

• 3. Breaking With The Emperor

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  At the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, Napoleon suffered the defeat that unraveled his German alliances, and Frederick chose to abandon him. By a treaty negotiated with Metternich at Fulda in November 1813, Frederick secured recognition of his royal title. He also kept the territory he had gained under Napoleon. His troops then marched into France alongside the allied powers that had defeated his former patron. In 1815, Frederick joined the new German Confederation, though the Congress of Vienna left the size of his kingdom unchanged. That same year, he presented his subjects with the outline of a new constitution, and they rejected it. Amid the unrest that followed, Frederick died on the 30th of October 1816.

  His son William I succeeded him. After prolonged negotiation, William granted a new constitution in September 1819. It remained in force, with later amendments, until 1918. Some unrest continued after 1830 as demands for greater political freedom persisted. A quieter period followed, during which education, agriculture, trade, and the kingdom's finances all improved, aided by William's personal frugality. Membership in the German Zollverein and the spread of railways further encouraged trade. The revolutionary movement of 1848 reached Württemberg without turning violent. It forced William to dismiss his minister, Johannes Schlayer, and bring in men who favored a united Germany. William proclaimed a democratic constitution, then reversed course once the movement lost momentum, and Schlayer returned to power in October 1849. In 1851, the king and his ministers restricted popular electoral rights. This secured a compliant diet that surrendered the gains made since 1848. The 1819 constitution was restored, and real power shifted to the bureaucracy. Near the end of his reign, William negotiated a concordat with the papacy, only for the diet to reject it.

• 4. Between Austria And Prussia

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  Charles I succeeded his father William as king in July 1864 and immediately faced serious difficulties. Like William before him, Charles sided with Austria in its competition with Prussia for dominance over the German states. War broke out between Austria and Prussia in 1866, and Württemberg took up arms alongside Austria. Three weeks after the allied defeat at the Battle of Königgrätz on the 3rd of July 1866, Württemberg suffered its own defeat. That loss came at the Battle of Tauberbischofsheim. Prussian troops occupied northern Württemberg, and a peace was negotiated in August 1866. Württemberg paid an indemnity of 8,000,000 gulden and signed a secret treaty of offensive and defensive alliance with its former enemy. The kingdom was also a party to the 1864 Geneva Convention and the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868.

  Democratic agitation revived once the 1866 fighting with Prussia ended. It had produced no concrete results by the time a new war broke out in 1870. Despite lingering resentment toward Prussia, Württemberg shared in the national enthusiasm sweeping across Germany. Its army performed well at the Battle of Wörth and in other engagements. In 1871, Württemberg entered the newly formed German Empire. It kept control of its own post office, telegraph service, and railways. The kingdom also retained special tax privileges and an autonomously maintained army within the Imperial German Army. For roughly the next decade, the kingdom enthusiastically backed the new imperial order. Important financial reforms followed, though a plan to merge its railways with the rest of Germany's failed. After tax cuts in 1889, further constitutional changes were debated. Charles hoped to strengthen conservative representation in the chambers, but the laws passed in 1874, 1876, and 1879 changed very little.

• 5. The Machinery Of Government

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  Four votes in the Federal Council and seventeen seats in the Imperial Diet defined how much weight Württemberg carried within the German Empire's national bodies. The kingdom's constitution traced back to a law of 1819, amended in 1868, 1874, and 1906. The king himself received an annual civil list equivalent to 103,227 pounds sterling in the early 20th century.

  Württemberg's legislature, known as the Estates, had two chambers. The upper chamber drew on many sources. It included adult princes of the blood and heads of noble families ranked count or higher. It also seated representatives of territories that had once held votes in the old imperial diet. Up to six royal nominees and eight members of knightly rank filled further seats. Six ecclesiastical dignitaries sat alongside single representatives from the University of Tübingen and the Stuttgart University of Technology. Delegates from commerce, agriculture, and handicrafts filled the remaining seats. The lower chamber, called the Abgeordnetenhaus, seated 92 members. 63 came from the kingdom's administrative divisions, and six came from Stuttgart, chosen by proportional representation. Six more represented the chief provincial towns, and seventeen came from two larger electoral divisions, also elected proportionally. The king appointed the upper chamber's president, while after 1874 the lower chamber elected its own chairman. Members of both chambers had to be over 25, terms ran six years, and all male citizens over 25 could vote.

  Executive authority rested with the Ministry of State, made up of six ministers: justice, foreign affairs, the interior, public worship and education, war, and finance. A privy council of ministers and appointed councillors advised the king. A special State Tribunal guarded the constitution, partly elected by the chambers and partly appointed by the crown. The kingdom itself was divided into four departments, subdivided into 64 administrative divisions, each run by a head man assisted by a local council.

  Between 1900 and 1910, political debate centered on constitutional and educational questions. In 1906, Württemberg became the first German state to adopt proportional representation for its Second Chamber. That year's election left the two Liberal parties roughly matched against the Catholic Centre and Conservatives, leaving the Social Democrats holding the balance of power. Prime Minister Karl von Weizsäcker held office through these shifts until October 1918. That month, constitutional change under the chancellorship of Prince Maximilian of Baden forced the Württemberg government to yield, and the Weizsäcker Ministry resigned.

  Currency in the kingdom shifted twice: the gulden circulated until 1873, alongside the Vereinsthaler introduced in 1857, before both gave way to the gold mark. State revenue for 1909 to 1910 totaled an estimated £4,840,520, nearly matched by expenditure. Roughly one-third of that revenue came from railways, forests, and mines. About £1,400,000 came from direct taxation, and the rest from indirect taxes, the post office, and other sources. By 1909, public debt had reached £29,285,335, more than £27,000,000 of it tied to railway construction. Of total spending, over £900,000 went to public worship and education, and more than £1,200,000 covered interest and debt repayment. The kingdom also paid £660,000 into the treasury of the German Empire. Under a military convention signed the 25th of November 1870, Württemberg's troops joined the Imperial German Army as its thirteenth, or Royal Württemberg, corps.

• 6. Faith, People, And Learning

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  Authority over the Evangelical State Church in Württemberg rested with the king, who served as its guardian for as long as he belonged to it. Below him, a consistory and a synod, working under the Minister of Religion and Education, ran the church's affairs. The consistory consisted of a president, nine councilors, and a general superintendent or prelate drawn from each of six principal towns. The synod brought together both lay and clerical representatives. The kingdom's Catholic population answered to the Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, who in turn reported to the Archbishop of Freiburg im Breisgau. Political oversight was handled by a government-appointed Catholic council. After 1828, a state-appointed council regulated Jewish religious life, forming the Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg.

  Between 1900 and 1905, Württemberg's population grew at an estimated 1.22% a year. About 8.5% of births in the kingdom occurred outside marriage. By around 1905, roughly 69% of the population was Protestant, about 30% Roman Catholic, and around 0.5% Jewish. Protestants were concentrated in the Neckar district, and Catholics predominated in the Danube district. Ethnic background also varied by region: people in the north-west traced Alemannic roots, the north-east was Franconian, and the center and south were predominantly Swabian. The densest settlement lay in the Neckar valley north of Esslingen.

  Württemberg claimed universal literacy among citizens over the age of 10. Higher education centered on the University of Tübingen and the Stuttgart University of Technology. Other institutions included a veterinary college, a commercial college in Stuttgart, and an agricultural college at Hohenheim. Gymnasia and other secondary schools operated in the larger towns, every commune maintained a primary school, and numerous institutions educated women. The kingdom also ran a school of viticulture. The education system as a whole was overhauled in 1909.

• 7. Pigs, Steel, And Zeppelins

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  In 1910, agriculture employed 506,061 people in Württemberg. Industrial occupations employed 432,114 more, and 100,109 people worked in trade and commerce. This economic activity centered on a handful of large towns. They included Stuttgart, joined with Bad Cannstatt, plus Ulm, Heilbronn, Esslingen am Neckar, and Reutlingen. Ludwigsburg, Göppingen, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Tübingen, Tuttlingen, and Ravensburg rounded out the list.

  Farmland and gardens covered 44.9% of the kingdom's territory, with vineyards accounting for 1.1%, meadows and pasture 17.9%, and forest another 30.8%. Rich meadowland, cornfields, orchards, and vine-covered hills supported crops of oats, spelt, rye, wheat, barley, hops, peas, beans, maize, cherries, apples, beets, and tobacco. Livestock included cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. Red wine production centered on the Neckar valley and its tributaries: the Rems, Enz, Kocher, and Jagst. The kingdom grew grape varieties distinct from those found elsewhere in Germany.

  On the orders of King William I, masked pigs were imported from central China in 1820 and 1821 to improve local breeding stock. This crossbreeding effort succeeded especially well in the Hohenlohe region and around Schwäbisch Hall, producing the traditional Mohrenköpfle breed.

  Iron ore had been mined in the kingdom since earlier centuries, at sites including the Heuberg and Oberdigisheim. A shortage of coal, though, slowed the iron industry's growth. Salt, by contrast, rose to prominence at the start of the 19th century and became one of the kingdom's two most important minerals alongside iron. Granite, limestone, ironstone, and fireclay were also extracted.

  Esslingen built a strong reputation for locomotives as manufacturing expanded rapidly in the kingdom during the later 19th century, aided by government support and skilled metalworking. The Mauser factory at Oberndorf am Neckar produced small arms, Stuttgart made pianos, and the Black Forest was known for clocks. Textile production, especially linen, wool, and cotton, centered on Esslingen and Göppingen, while paper making was prominent in Ravensburg and Heilbronn.

  Gottlieb Daimler, credited as the first car manufacturer, incorporated his business as the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in 1900. Its successor, Mercedes-Benz, kept its plants near Stuttgart ever after. At Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin built airships from 1897 until his death in 1917. The kingdom's main exports included cattle, cereals, wood, pianos, salt, oil, leather, cotton and linen fabrics, beer, wine, and spirits. Trade centered chiefly on Stuttgart, Ulm, Heilbronn, and Friedrichshafen. By 1907, Württemberg had 2,000 kilometers of railway, all but 256 kilometers of it state-owned. In 1904, its rail network was integrated with the rest of Germany's.

• 8. The Last King

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  King Charles died suddenly on the 6th of October 1891, and the throne passed to his nephew, William II, who continued his uncle's policies. Constitutional debate continued, and the election of 1895 returned a strong bloc of democrats. William had no sons, and his only Protestant kinsman, Duke Nicholas, who lived from 1833 to 1903, offered no alternative heir. Succession therefore threatened to pass to a Roman Catholic branch of the family, raising thorny questions about the relationship between church and state. By 1910, the recognized heir was Duke Albert, born in 1865, of the Altshausen family. An older Catholic line, the House of the Duke of Urach, had already been bypassed. The reason was a morganatic marriage contracted in 1800. A Protestant morganatic line, meanwhile, included Mary of Teck, who married George V of the United Kingdom.

  William II abdicated on the 30th of November 1918, after Germany's First World War defeat, bringing a dynasty of 837 years to a close. The Free People's State of Württemberg took the kingdom's place. After the Second World War, the territory was split between American and French occupation zones and reorganized into two new states, Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern. In 1952, those two states merged with South Baden to form the modern state of Baden-Württemberg within the Federal Republic of Germany. Families that had served the kingdom's civil administration remained prominent in German public life long after the crown itself was gone. They included the Weizsäckers, the von Neuraths, and the von Stauffenbergs, along with individuals such as Matthias Erzberger and Friedrich von Payer.