Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1878 — WILLIAM THE FIRST. [ARTICLE]

WILLIAM THE FIRST.

Tbe Retirement of the Aged Emperor of Germany. After having passed the span of years ■Allotted to man, and after a term of twenty-one years spent as Regent and King of Prnssia and Emperor of Germany, says the Chicago Tribune, William 1., lying in his palace and suffering from the wounds of a cowardly assassin, retires from the cares and duties of the throne, and appoints as Regent bis sen, the Crown Prince Frederick William Nicholas Charles, or “Unser Fritz,” as the Germans familiarly call him. The old Emperor has had an eventful life. He was born March 22, 1797, son of Frederick William 111. and Queen Louisa, and as a boy marched with the allies into Paris after the overthrow of Napoleon. Coming into manhood as a soldier, he has always remained one, never giving up his uniform, and always sleeping under his military blankets upon a rude iron couch. When his brother, Frederick William IY., ascended the throne in 1840, he was recognized as the heir apparent. His military predilections gave rise to the idea that he was an absolutist, and so general was this idea that, in the uprising of 1848, he had to leave the country. After an absence of a few months he returned, put down the republican insurrection, and subsequently held several important military positions. In 1857, his brother, being incapacitated by illness, he assumed his functions, and the next year was formally installed as Regent, succeeding as King of Frussia in 1861. From that time until 1870 he accomplished a great work in giving Germany her present military strength and prestige. He reorganized the army as his first step. He made Bismarck Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1862; secured Schleswig and Lauenburg in the Schleswig-Holstein war; in 1866, extinguished Austria as a German power, and added Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort to Prussia, and established the North-Ger-man Confederation; and in 1867 made Bismarck Chancellor. The candidature of the Spanish throne in 1870 precipitated war between France and Germany. The South German States joined the Northern, and the war was marked by a succession of brilliant victories achieved by the German armies, with which he remained from the firing of the first shot to the final surrender of Napoleon at Sedan. On the 18th of January, 1871, at hia military headquarters at Versailles, by the request of the German states, he was crowned Emperor of Germany, and his first proclamation incorporated Alsace and Lorraine in the empire. Since that time he has cemented still stronger the friendship of Germany with Russia, Austria, and Italy, and carried on a prolonged and severe contest with the Roman lieirarchy during the Pontificate of Pius IX. Tilt) dlipoiui iliac* but duo the Princess Louisa, bom in 1838, and married in 1856 to the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden; and one son, Prince Frederick William Nicholas Charles, in whose favor he has retired. The Crown Prince, now Regent, was born in 1831, and graduated from the University of Konigsberg. In 1858 he married Victoria Adelaide, the Princess Royal of Great Britain, by whom he has had six children. Like his father, ho i 3 a great soldier, and has performed distinguished service in two important wars.