The
Kingdom of Bavaria ( ) was a German
state that
existed from 1806–1918. Elector
Maximilian IV Joseph of the
House of Wittelsbach became the
first King of Bavaria in 1806 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy
would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's
dissolution in 1918.
Most of Bavaria's modern-day borders were
established after 1814 with the Treaty of Paris, in which Bavaria
ceded Tyrol and Vorarlberg
to the Austrian Empire
while receiving Aschaffenburg
and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt
. As a state within the German Empire
, the kingdom was second in size only to the
Kingdom of
Prussia
. Since the
unification of Germany in 1871,
Bavaria has remained part of Germany to the present day.
History
Foundation
The 1805
Peace of Pressburg
recognized Maximilian I's claim to be King of Bavaria. The elector
declared himself to be king on 1 January 1806, officially changing
the
Electorate of Bavaria to
being the Kingdom of Bavaria. The King still served as an
Elector until Bavaria left the Holy Roman
Empire (1 August 1806). The new kingdom faced challenges from the
outset of its creation, relying on the support of
Napoleonic France and having to change its
constitution in accordance with France's wishes.
The kingdom faced war
with Austria
in 1808 and
from 1810 to 1814, lost territory to Württemberg, Italy
, and then
Austria.
However
with the defeat of Napoleon's France in 1814, Bavaria was
compensated for some of its losses, and received new territories
such as the Grand Duchy of
Würzburg, the Archbishopric
of Mainz (Aschaffenburg), parts of the Grand Duchy of
Hesse
, and in 1816, the Rhenish Palatinate from
France.
Between 1799 and 1817 the leading minister Count
Montgelas followed a strict
policy of modernisation and laid the foundations of administrative
structures that survived even the monarchy and are (in their core)
valid until today. On 1 February 1817, Montgelas had been
dismissed; and Bavaria had entered on a new era of constitutional
reform.
Constitution
On 26 May 1818, the constitution of the Kingdom of Bavaria was
proclaimed. The parliament would have two houses, an upper house
comprising the aristocracy and noblemen, including the high-class
hereditary landowners, government officials and nominees of the
crown. The second house, a lower house, would include
representatives of small landowners, the towns and the peasants.
The rights of
Protestants were
safeguarded in the constitution with articles supporting the
equality of all religions, despite opposition by supporters of the
Roman Catholic Church. The
initial constitution almost proved disastrous for the monarchy,
with controversies such as the army having to swear allegiance to
the new constitution.
The monarchy appealed to the Kingdom of
Prussia
and the Austrian Empire for advice, the two refused
to take action on Bavaria's behalf, but the debacles lessened and
the state stabilized with the accession of Ludwig I to the throne
following the death of Maximilian in 1825.
Ludwig I, Maximilian II and the Revolutions
In 1825,
Ludwig I ascended to the throne of
Bavaria. Under Ludwig, the arts flourished in Bavaria, and Ludwig
personally ordered and financially assisted the creation of many
neoclassical buildings and
architecture across Bavaria. Ludwig also increased Bavaria's pace
towards industrialization under his reign. In foreign affairs under
Ludwig's rule, Bavaria supported the
Greeks
during the
Greek War of
Independence with his second son,
Otto being elected
King of Greece in 1832. As for politics,
initial reforms advocated by Ludwig were both liberal and
reform-oriented. However, after the
Revolutions of 1830, Ludwig turned to
conservative reaction. In 1837, the Roman Catholic-supported
clerical movement, the
Ultramontanes,
came to power in the Bavarian parliament and began a campaign of
reform to the constitution, which removed civil rights that had
earlier been granted to Protestants, as well as enforcing
censorship and forbidding the free discussion of internal politics.
This regime was short-lived due to the demand by the Ultramontanes
of the naturalization of Ludwig I's Irish mistress, which was
resented by Ludwig, and the Ultramontanes were pushed out.
Following the
Revolutions of
1848 and Ludwig's low popularity, Ludwig I abdicated the throne
to avoid a potential coup, and allowed his son,
Maximilian II, to become the
King of Bavaria. Maximilian II
responded to the demands of the people for a united German state by
attending the
Frankfurt Assembly,
which intended to create such a state.
Maximilian II stood
alongside Bavaria's ally, the Austrian Empire
, in opposition to Austria's enemy, the Kingdom of
Prussia
, which was to receive the imperial crown of a
united Germany
. This
opposition was resented by many Bavarian citizens, who wanted a
united Germany, but in the end Prussia declined accepting the crown
and the constitution of a German state they perceived to be too
liberal and not in Prussia's interests.
In the
aftermath of the failure of the Frankfurt Assembly, Prussia and Austria
continued to
debate over which monarchy had the inherent right to rule
Germany. A dispute between Austria and the
Electoral Prince of
Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) was used by
Austria and its allies (including Bavaria) to promote the isolation
of Prussia in German political affairs. This diplomatic insult
almost led to war when Austria, Bavaria and other allies moved
troops through Bavaria towards Hesse-Kassel in 1850. However the
Prussian army backed down to Austria and caved in to the acceptance
of dual leadership. This event was known as the
Punctation of Olmütz but also
known as the "Humiliation of Olmütz" by Prussia. This event
solidified the Bavarian kingdom's alliance with Austria against
Prussia. Attempts by Prussia to reorganize the loose and un-led
German Confederation were opposed by Bavaria and Austria, with
Bavaria taking part in its own discussions with Austria and other
allies in 1863, in Frankfurt, without Prussia and its allies
attending.
Austro-Prussian War
In 1864,
Maximilian II died, and his
eighteen year-old son,
Ludwig II, arguably
the most famous of the Bavarian kings, became King of Bavaria as
escalating tensions between Austria and Prussia grew steadily.
Prussia's Minister-President
Otto von
Bismarck, recognizing the immediate likelihood of war,
attempted to sway Bavaria towards neutrality in the conflict.
Ludwig II refused Bismarck's offers and continued Bavaria's
alliance with Austria.
In 1866, violence erupted between Austria and
Prussia and the Austro-Prussian War
began. Bavaria and most of the south German
states, with the exception of Austria and Saxony, contributed far
less to the war effort against Prussia. Austria quickly faltered
after its defeat at the
Battle of Königgrätz and was
totally defeated shortly afterward. Austria was humiliated by
defeat and was forced to concede control, and its sphere of
influence, over the south German states. Bavaria, from this point
on, steadily progressed into Prussia's sphere of influence.
Ludwig II and the German Empire
With
Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the northern German
states quickly unified into the North German
Confederation
, with Prussia's King leading the state.
Bavaria's previous inhibitions towards Prussia changed, along with
those of many of the south German states, after French emperor
Napoleon III began speaking of France's
need for "compensation" from its loss in 1814 and included
Bavarian-held
Palatinate as part
of its territorial claims. Ludwig II joined an alliance with
Prussia, in 1870, against France, which was seen by Germans as the
greatest enemy to a united Germany. At the same time, Bavaria
increased its political, legal, and trade ties with the North
German Confederation. In 1870, war erupted between France and
Prussia in the
Franco-Prussian
War. The Bavarian Army was sent under the command of the
Prussian crown prince against the French army.
With
France's defeat and humiliation against the combined German forces,
it was Ludwig II who proposed that
Prussian King Wilhelm I be proclaimed
German Emperor or "Kaiser" of the German Empire
("Deutsches
Reich"), which occurred in 1871 in German occupied
Versailles, France. The
territories of the German Empire were declared, which included the
states of the North German Confederation and all of the south
German states, with the major exception of Austria.
The Empire also
included the formerly French territory of Alsace-Lorraine
, which was annexed in
large part due to Ludwig's desire to move the French frontier away
from the Palatinate.
Bavaria's entry into the German Empire changed, from jubilation
over France's defeat, to dismay shortly afterward, over the
direction of Germany under the new
German Chancellor and
Prussian Prime Minister,
Otto von Bismarck. The persecution
of the Catholic Church in Bismarck's
Kulturkampf frustrated the predominantly
Catholic southern German states, including Bavaria, although
Bismarck was eventually compelled to moderate his policies.
After
Bavaria's unification into Germany, Ludwig II became increasingly detached
from Bavaria's political affairs and spent vast amounts of money on
personal projects, such as the construction of a number of
fairytale-like castles and palaces, the most famous being the
Wagnerian-style Castle Neuschwanstein
. Although Ludwig used his personal wealth to
finance these projects instead of state funds, the construction
projects landed him deeply in debt. These debts caused much concern
among Bavaria's political elite, who sought to persuade Ludwig to
cease his building; he refused, and relations between the
government's ministers and the crown deteriorated.
At last, in 1886, the crisis came to a head: the Bavarian ministers
deposed the king, organizing a medical commission to declare him
insane, and therefore incapable of executing his governmental
powers.
A
day after Ludwig's deposition, the king died mysteriously after
asking the commission's chief psychiatrist to go on a walk with him
along Lake
Starnberg
(then called
Lake Würm). Ludwig and the psychiatrist were found dead,
floating in the lake. An autopsy listed cause of death as suicide
by drowning, but some sources claim that no water was found in
Ludwig's lungs. While these facts could be explained by
dry drowning, they have also led to some
conspiracy theories of political
assassination.
The crown passed to Ludwig's brother
Otto I, but since Otto had a clear history
of mental illness, the duties of the throne actually rested in the
hands of the brothers' uncle,
Prince Luitpold, serving
as
regent.
Regency
During the regency of Prince-Regent Luitpold, from 1886 to 1913,
relations between Bavarians and Prussians remained cold, with
Bavarians remembering the anti-Catholic agenda of Bismarck's
Kulturkampf, as well as
Prussia's strategic dominance over the empire. Bavaria protested
Prussian dominance over Germany and snubbed the Prussian-born
German Emperor,
Wilhelm II, in 1900, by
forbidding the flying of any other flag other than the Bavarian
flag on public buildings for the Emperor's Birthday, but this was
swiftly modified afterwards, allowing the German imperial flag to
be hung side by side with the Bavarian flag. In 1912, Luitpold
died, and his son, Prince-Regent Ludwig, took over as regent of
Bavaria. A year later, the regency ended when Ludwig declared
himself King of Bavaria and from that point on was known as
Ludwig III.
World War I and the end of the Kingdom
In 1914,
a clash of alliances occurred over Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia
following
the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand
by a Bosnian Serb militant.
Germany
went to the side of its former rival-turned-ally, Austria-Hungary,
while France
, Russia
, and the
United
Kingdom
declared war on Austria-Hungary and Germany.
Initially, in Bavaria and all across Germany, recruits flocked
enthusiastically to the German Army. Over time, with a stalemated
and bloody war on the western front, Bavarians, like many Germans,
grew weary of a continuing war. By 1918, civil unrest was spreading
across Bavaria and Germany; Bavarian defiance to Prussian hegemony
and Bavarian separatism being key motivators. In 1918, the kingdom
attempted to negotiate a separate peace with the allies but failed.
In November 1918,
William
II abdicated the throne of Germany, and Ludwig III, along with
the other German monarchs, issuing the
Anif declaration, followed in abdication
shortly afterwards.
With this, the Wittelsbach dynasty came to an end, and
the former Kingdom of Bavaria became the Free State
of Bavaria
, which it is still named today.
Geography, administrative regions and population

The Kingdom of Bavaria in 1808 which
included Tyrol

The Electorate (1778) and the Kingdom
of Bavaria (1816)
When
Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman
Empire, and Bavaria became a kingdom in 1806, its area
reduplicated.
Tyrol (1805-1814) and Salzburg
(1810-1815) were temporarily reunited with
Bavaria but finally ceded to Austria. In return the
Rhenish Palatinate and
Franconia were annexed to Bavaria in 1815.
The Kingdom of Bavaria was divided from 1837 into 8 administrative
regions called
Regierungsbezirke (singular
Regierungsbezirk).
The regions ("Kreis")
were named after its main rivers before, but King Ludwig I
reorganized the administrative regions of Bavaria in 1837 and
re-introduced the old names Upper
Bavaria, Lower
Bavaria, Franconia,
Swabia, Upper
Palatinate
and Palatinate. He changed his
royal titles to
Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia,
Duke in Swabia and Count Palatinate of the Rhine. His
successors kept these titles. Ludwig's plan to reunite also the
eastern part of the Palatinate with Bavaria could not be realized.
The
Electoral Palatinate, a former
dominion of the Wittelsbach, had been split up in 1815, the eastern
bank of the Rhine with Mannheim
and Heidelberg
was given to Baden, only the
western bank was granted to Bavaria. Here Ludwig founded
the city of Ludwigshafen
as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim.
After the lost Austro-Prussian War (1866) the Kingdom of Bavaria
had to cede several Lower Franconian districts to Prussia.
The duchy
of Coburg
was never
part of the Kingdom of Bavaria since it was united with Bavaria
only in 1920. Also Ostheim
was added to Bavaria (1945) after the end of the
monarchy.
Statistics
- Area = 75,865 km² (1900)
- Population = 3,707,966 (1818) / 4,370,977
(1840) / 6,176,057 (1900) / 6,524,372 (1910)
- Altmühlkreis (1806-1810 / dissolved)
- Eisackkreis (1806-1810 / ceded to Italy)
- Etschkreis (1806-1810 / ceded to Italy)
- Illerkreis (1806-1817 / dissolved)
- Innkreis (1806-1814 / ceded to Austria)
- Isarkreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Upper Bavaria)
- Lechkreis (1806-1810 / dissolved)
- Mainkreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Upper Franconia)
- Naabkreis (1806-1810 / dissolved)
- Oberdonaukreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Lower
Bavaria)
- Pegnitzkreis (1806-1810 / dissolved)
- Regenkreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Upper Palatinate)
- Rezatkreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Middle Franconia)
- Rheinkreis (1815-1837 / transformed into Palatinate)
- Salzachkreis (1810-1815 / ceded to Austria)
- Unterdonaukreis (1806-1837 / transformed into Swabia)
- Untermainkreis (1817-1837 / transformed into Lower Franconia
)
- Upper
Franconia ( ) (Capital:Bayreuth
)
- Middle
Franconia ( ) (Capital:Ansbach
)
- Lower
Franconia ( ) (Capital:Würzburg
)
- Swabia
( ) (Capital:Augsburg
)
- Palatinate ( ) (Capital:Speyer
)
- Upper Palatinate
( ) (Capital:Regensburg
)
- Upper Bavaria (
) (Capital:Munich
)
- Lower Bavaria (
) (Capital:Landshut
)
See also
External links