Ludwig III of Bavaria - King of Bavaria

King of Bavaria

Ludwig's short reign was conservative and influenced by the Catholic encyclical Rerum Novarum. Prime Minister Georg von Hertling, appointed by Luitpold in 1912, remained in office.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Ludwig sent an official dispatch to Berlin to express Bavaria's solidarity. Later Ludwig even claimed annexations for Bavaria (Alsace and the city of Antwerp in Belgium, to receive an access to the sea). His hidden agenda was to maintain the balance of power between Prussia and Bavaria within the German Empire after a victory.

A popularly accepted account holds that within a day or two after Germany's declaration of war, Ludwig received a petition from a 25-year-old Austrian, asking for permission to join the Bavarian Army. The petition was promptly granted, and Adolf Hitler thereupon joined the Bavarian Army, eventually settling into the 16th Reserve Bavarian Infantry Regiment, where he served the remainder of the war.

In 1917, when Germany's situation had gradually worsened due to World War I, Hertling became German Chancellor and Prime Minister of Prussia and Otto Ritter von Dandl was made Minister of State of the Royal Household and of the Exterior and President of the Council of Ministers on 11 November 1917, a title equivalent to Prime Minister of Bavaria. Accused of showing blind loyalty to Prussia, Ludwig became increasingly unpopular during the war. As the war drew to a close, the German Revolution broke out in Bavaria. On 7 November 1918, Ludwig fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich with his family. He was the first of the monarchs in the German Empire to be deposed.

On 12 November 1918, Prime Minister Dandl went to Schloss Anif, near Salzburg, to see the King and obtain what is known as the Anifer Erklärung (Anif declaration) in which the King released all government officials, soldiers and civil officers from their oath to him, but made no declaration of abdication. The newly-formed republican government of Kurt Eisner interpreted this as an abdication. The declaration was published by the Eisner government when Dandl returned to Munich the next day, interpreting it, somewhat ambiguously, as the end to Wittelsbacher rule.