WILLIAM I., Emperor of Germany, and King of Prussia, son of Frederick William III., by Princess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and brother of Frederick William IV.; born in Berlin, March 22, 1797, received a military education, and took part in the cam paigns of 1813 and 1815 against France. In 1840 he was appointed governor of Pomerania, which post he held till the revolution of 1848, when he sought refuge in England. He was elected a member of the Constituent As sembly in May of the same year, when he returned to Berlin. In 1849, as Com mander-in-Chief of the Prussian army, he acted against the revolutionary Badeners; and in 1858, on the lunacy of his brother, the king, becoming mani fested, Prince William was appointed regent. This position he occupied till Frederick William's death, in 1861, when he succeeded to the throne, crowning him self with his own hands, at Konigsberg, on which occasion he emphatically as serted the doctrine of the "divine right of kings." Actuated by this spirit, and selecting as his ministers men of well known reactionary principles, of whom the chief was Count Bismarck, William speedily embroiled himself and govern ment with the liberal parliamentary body of that day ; and this to so critical a degree, after the accession of Bismarck to the premiership in 1862, that the rupture threatened to end in revolution or civil war. A diversion from this state of things was, however, happily effected by the war which Prussia, con jointly with Austria, declared against Denmark. In 1866, war was next de clared by Prussia against her old ally, Austria; and after a short campaign, in which the king and the royal princes took part, Austria was compelled to make a humiliating peace. The terrible effect
of the needle gun created quite a panic in the Austrian army, and her generals found it would be useless to prolong the struggle. By this war Prussia obtained supremacy in Germany. In July, 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III., taking umbrage at Prussian interference with the succession to the vacant Spanish throne, or prompted by other motives, rashly declared war against Prussia, a power long prepared for such a con tingency. On this, William, forming an alliance with the south German states, and constituting himself Commander-in Chief of the united German armies, crossed the Rhine, and in a short but brilliant campaign, defeated the French in a series of battles, took Napoleon and his principal commanders prisoners, and received the capitulation of Paris, in February, 1871. Peace was finally de clared by a treaty entered into at Ver sailles, by which Prussia acquired the province of Alsace, part of that of Lor raine, including the city of Metz, along with a war indemnity of $1,000,000,000. His success in the war with France led to an offer from the German states of the imperial crown of Germany, which he accepted. He was crowned Emperor of Germany at Versailles, Jan. 18, 1871. His 90th birthday was celebrated throughout Germany, March 22, 1887, and he died March 9, 1888. He was succeeded by his son Frederick, who was succeeded in the same year by his son William, as William II.