Frederick William IV of Prussia

Frederick William IV of Prussia (15 October 1795 in Berlin - 2 January 1861 in Potsdam) was the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III, King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861..

Biography

Frederick William IV was born in the new palace of Sanssouci, Frederick's favorite seat. Federico Guillermo inherited the indestructible joy of his ancestors, the happy occurrences of Federico Guillermo I, the satirical vein of Federico el Grande and Federico Guillermo IV; to his father, the Emperor Wilhelm, he owes the German rectitude, discretion, courage and chivalry of the Hohenzollerns, all those gifts that characterize Old Prussia; and to his mother, the Empress Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Weimar, delicacy of sentiment and universal contemplation. His childhood playmate was Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia who amused himself with him in erecting trenches in the park of Babelsberg (Pots-dam); and his teacher and assistant was our great strategist, Major de Molthe. In Prussia liberal hopes were briefly awakened in 1840 by the accession to the throne of King Frederick William IV of Prussia, and by steps taken towards the formation of the union of the Provincial Diets, which came together in April 1847; notwithstanding the debate of the constitutional reforms, previous connection for the granting of funds, provoked a deadlock, and the Diet was dissolved. In practice, Frederick William IV proved not to be a liberal monarch, but rather an oblivious ruler fond of grand gestures. When Frederick William IV heard about the revolutionary events in Austria, he announced his willingness to convene a national parliament, but in the fighting between the soldiers and the Berlin crowd, the former misinterpreted the king's orders not to shoot and the riot broke out. struggle; Not knowing how to resolve the situation, the king tried to prevent a civil war by ordering the troops to withdraw. Undecided, and seized with a romantic desire to join his people, the monarch concluded that if he could not defeat the revolutionaries, it was better to join them, and on March 21 he rode through Berlin on horseback wrapped in black, red and gold, the revolutionary colors: soon a liberal regime was established in Berlin. He continued the reactionary policy started by his father. During the revolutions of 1848, and despite a series of concessions that he initially made to the revolutionary movement, when the Frankfurt Parliament offered him the imperial crown of Germany, he rejected it, disrupting the liberal projects for a federal and parliamentary monarchy and opening the way to the conservative reaction, whose symbol would be the policy initiated by Otto von Bismarck.

In these years, his mental capacity became unstable: in 1858 his brother, Prince William, began to rule as regent. Federico Guillermo died in 1861 without having left offspring, so his brother succeeded him on the throne. With Catalina von Tiesenhausen, granddaughter of the Russian marshal Mikhail Prince Kutuzov, he will be the father of Felix, in turn grandfather of Rasputin's murderer, Prince Felix Yusupov.

In 1844 he tried to refound the old Order of the Swan founded by his predecessor Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg in the 15th century.

Honors

German decorations

Foreign decorations

Ancestors

Predecessor: Federico Guillermo III	King of Prussia 1840-1861	Successor: Guillermo I
Predecessor: Federico Guillermo III	Prince of Neuchâtel 1840-1857	Successor: Neuchâtel crisis
Predecessor: Federico Guillermo III	Grand Duke of Posen 1840-1848	Successor: Attached to Prussia