Frederick III, German Emperor

Biography

Frederick was born at the New Palace in Potsdam in 1831, the only son of the future Wilhelm I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar. Besides the military training expected of a Hohenzollern prince, his mother insisted on a broad classical education, and from 1850 to 1852 he broke with family custom by studying history, law and government at the University of Bonn. In 1858 he married Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria.

He became Crown Prince of Prussia when his father took the throne in 1861 and German Crown Prince after unification in 1871. He commanded the Second Army in the 1866 war with Austria and the Third Army in the Franco-Prussian War. In politics he and his wife favoured liberal, British-style constitutional government, and he often opposed Bismarck, including his policy of uniting Germany by force.

By the time Wilhelm I died on 9 March 1888, Frederick had cancer of the larynx. He reigned as German Emperor and King of Prussia for only 99 days and died on 15 June 1888, aged 56; his son Wilhelm II succeeded him. Historians still debate whether a longer reign would have made the empire more liberal.