✚5190✚ German patriotic medal WILHELM I DEUTSCHER KAISER 1797 1897 pre WW1

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✚5190✚ German patriotic medal WILHELM I DEUTSCHER KAISER 1797 1897 pre WW1:
$35.75

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Original German patriotic medal WW1 - WILHELM I DEUTSCHER KAISER UND KONIG CENTENARY 1797 - 1897,NICE WORNCONDITION,GENUINE RIBBON, DIAMETER: 33 mm

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There is a great opportunity to save on postage: if you buy anything else, the further item(s) will be posted for free.

I am happy to send more HQ photos by e-mail if required.

William I, also known as Wilhelm I (full name: William Frederick Louis, German: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig) (22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia (2 January 1861 – 9 March 1888) and the first German Emperor (18 January 1871 – 9 March 1888). Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire. The future king and emperor was born William Frederick Louis of Prussia (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig von Preußen) in Berlin. As the second son of King Frederick William III and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, William was not expected to ascend to the throne and hence received little education. William served in the army from 1814 onward, fought against Napoleon I of France during the Napoleonic Wars, and was reportedly a very brave soldier. He fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Waterloo and Ligny. He also became an excellent diplomat by engaging in diplomatic missions after 1815. During the Revolutions of 1848, William successfully crushed a revolt that was aimed at his elder brother King Frederick William IV. The use of cannons made him unpopular at the time and earned him the nickname Kartätschenprinz (Prince of Grapeshot). In 1854, the prince was raised to the rank of a field-marshal and made governor of the federal fortress of Mainz.[3] In 1857 Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and became mentally disabled for the rest of his life. In January 1858, William became Prince Regent for his brother. On 2 January 1861 Frederick William died and William ascended the throne as William I of Prussia. He inherited a conflict between Frederick William and the liberal parliament. He was considered a politically neutral person as he intervened less in politics than his brother. William nevertheless found a conservative solution for the conflict: he appointed Otto von Bismarck to the office of Prime Minister. According to the Prussian constitution, the Prime Minister was responsible solely to the king, not to parliament. Bismarck liked to see his working relationship with William as that of a vassal to his feudal superior. Nonetheless, it was Bismarck who effectively directed the politics, domestic as well as foreign; on several occasions he gained Wilhelm\'s assent by threatening to resign. During the Franco-Prussian War, on 18 January 1871 in Versailles Palace, William was proclaimed German Emperor. The title \"German Emperor\" was carefully chosen by Bismarck after discussion until (and after) the day of the proclamation. William accepted this title grudgingly as he would have preferred \"Emperor of Germany\" which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and would also have signalled a claim to lands outside of his reign (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc.). The title \"Emperor of the Germans\", as proposed in 1848, was ruled out as he considered himself chosen \"by the grace of God\", not by the people as in a democratic republic. By this ceremony, the North German Confederation (1867–1871) was transformed into the German Empire (\"Kaiserreich\", 1871–1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares – first among equals) of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, Mecklenburg, Hesse, as well as other principalities, duchies and the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen). In his memoirs, Bismarck describes William as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by \"female influences\". On 11 May 1878, a plumber named Emil Max Hödel failed in an assassination attempt on William in Berlin. Hödel used a revolver to shoot at the German Emperor, while the 82-year-old and his daughter, Princess Louise of Prussia, paraded in their carriage. When the bullet missed, Hödel ran across the street and fired another round which also missed. In the commotion one of the individuals who tried to apprehend Hödel suffered severe internal injuries and died two days later. The State convicted Hödel after a photographer who took the radical’s picture days before the assassination attempt testified that after he took the picture Hödel said it would sell thousands once a certain piece of information [was] hashed through the world. Hödel was beheaded on 16 August 1878. A second attempt to assassinate Wilhelm I was made on 2 June 1878 by Karl Nobiling. As the monarch drove past in an open carriage, the assassin fired a shotgun at the Kaiser from the window of a house off the \"Unter den Linden\". William was wounded and was rushed back to the palace and Nobiling shot himself in an attempt to commit suicide. While William survived this attack, the assassin died from his self-inflicted wound three months later.

On 29-Jun-13 at 00:53:12 BST, seller added the following information: