Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach - Meeting With Wilhelm

Meeting With Wilhelm

Augusta was only fifteen years old when, in 1826, she and her future husband met. Wilhelm thought of the young Augusta as having an "excellent personality," yet was less attractive than her older sister Marie (whom Wilhelm's younger brother, Karl, had already married). Above all, it was Wilhelm's father who pressed him to consider Augusta as a potential wife.

At the time, Wilhelm was in love with the Polish Princess, Elisa Radziwill. The Crown Prince at the time was Wilhelm's elder brother, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (later King Frederick William IV), however, he and his wife Elisabeth had as yet had no children. Wilhelm was thus heir presumptive to the throne and expected to marry and produce further heirs. Frederick William III was fond of the relationship between Wilhelm and Elisa, but the Prussian Court had discovered that her ancestors had bought their princely title from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and she was not deemed noble enough to marry the Heir to the Prussian Throne. Interestingly, Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, who was considered to be of correct rank, was descended from both Bogusław Radziwiłł and Janusz Radziwiłł.

In 1824, the King turned to childless Alexander I of Russia to adopt Elisa, but the Russian Tsar declined. The second adoption plan by Elisa's uncle, Prince Augustus of Prussia, likewise failed because the responsible committee considered that adoption does not change "the blood." Another factor was the Mecklenburg relations of the deceased Queen Louise's influence in the German and Russian courts (she was not fond of Elisa's father).

Thus, in June 1826, Wilhelm's father felt forced to demand the renunciation of a potential marriage to Elisa. Thus, Wilhelm spent the next few months looking for a more suitable bride, but did not relinquish his emotional ties to Elisa. Eventually, Wilhelm asked for Augusta's hand in marriage on 29 August (in writing and through the intervention of his father). Augusta happily agreed and on 25 October 1828, they were engaged. Wilhelm saw Elisa for the last time in 1829. Elisa was later engaged to Friedrich of Schwarzenberg, but the engagement failed and she died, unmarried, in 1834, of tuberculosis.

Historian Karin Feuerstein-Prasser has pointed out on the basis of evaluations of the correspondence between both fiancées, what different expectations Wilhelm had of both marriages: Wilhelm wrote to his sister Charlotte, the wife of Nicholas I of Russia, with reference to Elisa Radziwill: "One can love only once in life, really" and confessed with regard to Augusta, that "the Princess is nice and clever, but she leaves me cold." Augusta was in love with her future husband and hoped for a happy marriage, but the unhappy relationship between Wilhelm and Augusta was known to Elisa Radziwill, and she believed herself to be a suitable substitute for him.

On 11 June 1829, after a strenuous three-day trip from Weimar to Berlin, Wilhelm married his fiancée, fourteen years younger than he was, in the chapel of Schloss Charlottenburg.