William I., seventh king of Prussia and first German emperor, was the second son of Frederick-William III. and his queen Louisa, of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was born on the 22d of March 1797, in the palace at Berlin. Although he lived to a great age, he was very delicate in his childhood, and was reared with difficulty. At Christmas 1803 he donned the military uniform of the celebrated regiment now known as the Red Hussars. The prince's education was entrusted first to Privy-councillor Dellbrück and afterwards to Professor Reimann; and in the science of war he had the benefit of the tuition of Generals Von Scharnhorst and Von Knesebeck. His instructor in law was the celebrated international jurist De Savigny; and he took lessons in the plastic arts from Rauch, the sculptor, and Schenkel, Berlin's greatest architect. He formally entered the army in January 1807, and within a year got his first promotion. He received constant instruction in military tactics; and in 1814 the prince crossed the Rhine in the staff of his father, and on the 27th of February received his 'baptism of fire' on French territory, at Bar-sur-Aube. He behaved with such gallantry that the emperor of Russia conferred upon him the Cross of St George, while the king of Prussia awarded him the Iron Cross. As his military career began with the 1814 campaign against the first Napoleon, so was it destined to close with the campaign of 1870-71 against the third Napoleon. The prince entered Paris with the allies on the 31st of March 1814.
Prince William was made a privy-councillor in 1817, and in the following year, on attaining his majority, he was advanced to the rank of a major-general in the army. During the king's absence in Russia he was entrusted with the charge of the whole Prussian military department. In 1825 he went to St Petersburg, conveying the king of Prussia's congratulations to the Czar Nicholas on his accession. In June 1829 the prince was married to the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar. By the accession of his brother, Frederick-William IV., in 1840, he became heir-presumptive, and assumed the customary title of Prince of Prussia. In 1844 he visited England, and formed a friendship with Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, which was cemented by several subsequent visits. During the revolutionary events of 1848 the Prince of Prussia's attitude towards the people was severely criticised, and for a time he was very unpopular at Berlin. He was obliged to quit Prussia, and, proceeding to London, took up his quarters at the Prussian Legation. In two months, however, he received his recall. As deputy for the district of Wirnitz he defended his conduct and policy in the first National Assembly. In 1849 he subdned the disaffection in Baden. In 1855 he presided over the military commission which decided upon the adoption of the needle-gun throughout the Prussian army; and on the 1st of January ensuing he celebrated his fifty years of military service. In 1858 his son, Frederick-William (see FREDERICK III.), married the Princess Royal of England, and the same year the Prince of Prussia received and entertained Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on their visit to Germany. In consequence of the prolonged disable- ment through paralysis of the king of Prussia, the prince was formally appointed regent of the kingdom, October 7, 1858. He carried out searching army reforms, and took an active share in European diplomacy. On the 2d of January 1861 Frederick-William IV. expired at Sans Souci, and the Prince of Prussia succeeded to the throne as William I. Great hopes were entertained of a more liberal policy than was favoured by the deceased monarch, but King William soon manifested his intention of consolidating the throne and strengthening the army rather than launching forth upon a career associated with popular progress. A few months after his accession the king narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a Leipzig student named Oscar Becker.
Determined to press forward his new scheme for increasing the army, and making its strength immediately available, the king discovered in Prince Bismarck (q.v.) an able instrument for effecting his purposes. Bismarck was placed at the head of the ministry, with Roon—the author of the new army system—as war minister. The scheme was very unpalatable to the parliament, but the minister-president forced it upon the nation, with the necessary increased expenditure, by overriding the constitution. In 1864 the Sleswick-Holstein difficulty led to a war with Denmark (q.v.), in which the Prussian and Austrian troops were victorious; and in 1866 the two allied powers quarrelled over the spoils, and struggled for the supremacy amongst the German states. Austria (q.v.) was crushed by the battle of Sadowa, which closed the Seven Weeks' War, and Prussia gained in territory and prestige by her victories. France, alarmed by the growing ascendancy of Prussia in Europe, endeavoured to form a confederacy of the South-German states, but the project failed. The affair of the duchy of Luxemburg nearly led to a war between France and Prussia in 1867, but the difficulty was adjusted by the treaty of London, which declared the duchy to be a neutral state. Shortly afterwards King William and Prince Bismarck visited the Emperor Napoleon at Paris, the Great Exhibition furnishing the occasion for this peaceable réunion. In 1870, however, the inevitable struggle between France and Prussia was precipitated. The Spanish throne having become vacant, Prince Leopold, son of the Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was put forward as a candidate. The prince agreed to accept the Spanish crown if the Cortes chose him. As King William was the head of the House of Hohenzollern, this gave great umbrage to the war party in France, who bitterly denounced Bismarck as the promoter of Prince Leopold's candidature. Although the candidature was withdrawn, Napoleon III. still forced a quarrel on Prussia, by making impossible demands upon the king, and war was declared between the two countries. William took the field on July 31, and issued a proclamation affirming that a neighbouring state had declared war against Prussia without any cause. In the deadly struggle which ensued King William, who was then seventy-three years of age, acted as real commander-in-chief of the Prussian army. The French forces were defeated almost everywhere with great slaughter; Napoleon capitulated at Sedan; and by the end of September the city of Paris was invested. While William was at Versailles in December, the North-German parliament, together with the princes of Germany, pressed upon him the acceptance of the imperial crown of Germany, and on the 18th of January 1871 he was proclaimed as German emperor. Peace was signed on February 26—Germany receiving a large war indemnity and recovering Alsace and Lorraine; and on March 1 the German troops entered Paris.
Interviews between the German and Austrian emperors in August–September 1871 were supposed to indicate the formation of an Austro-German alliance, which was strengthened by the adhesion of the czar in 1873. The Emperor William visited Victor Emmanuel at Milan in 1874; and the peace of Europe was further assured by the strict neutrality of Germany during the Russo-Turkish war of 1876–77. During this period the emperor and Prince Bismarck were engaged in consolidating the fabric of Teutonic unity. For some years, nevertheless, there was great friction between the Vatican and the court of Berlin on the question of the imperial jurisdiction over German Catholic subjects; but on the accession of Pope Leo XIII. a more amicable spirit prevailed, and the dispute was finally closed in 1883 by concessions to the ultramontane party. The rapid rise of Socialism in Germany led to severe legislative measures, and in 1878 the emperor's life was twice attempted by adherents of the Socialist party—first by a mechanic named Max Hödel, and secondly by Dr Karl Nobiling. On the latter occasion the aged emperor was seriously wounded, but he recovered his health in a surprising manner.
The emperor celebrated his golden wedding June 11, 1879. On the 15th of October 1880 he was present at the opening of Cologne Cathedral, and on the 28th of September 1883 he unveiled the great national monument on the Niederwald, near Rudesheim. Here another attempt was made upon his life, which was followed by still more stringent measures against the Socialists. The ninetieth anniversary of the emperor's birth was celebrated with great rejoicings throughout Germany on the 22d of March 1887. The veteran monarch, however, did not long survive the celebration, as he died on the 9th of March 1888. William I., though holding tenaciously to the prerogatives of the kingly office, was of a simple and unassuming personal character. He was frank, open-hearted, generous, sincere, and pious; withal he had an inflexible will, and high moral and physical courage. Humane and magnanimous, he was yet a born ruler of men.
See Schmidt and Otto's Kaiser Wilhelm und seine Zeit; Lowe's Prince Bismarck: a Historical Biography; E. Simon, The Emperor William and his Reign (trans. from the French, 1886); the present writer's William I. and the German Empire (1887); A. Forbes, Life of Emperor William (1889); Politische Korrespondenz Kaiser Wilhelms I. (1890); S. Whitman's Imperial Germany (1891); and W. Oncken, Das Zeitalter des Kaisers Wilhelm (2 vols. 1892).