Friedrich Wilhelm III (3 August 1770-7 June 1840), also called Frederick William III or William III was the King of Prussia from 1797 until his death in 1840. He was best known for his involvement in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt as an ally of the Fourth Coalition against the French Empire, and although he lost the battle, Prussia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars contributed to Napoleon's downfall in 1815. Friedrich Wilhelm also had personal command of Prussian forces in the capture of Hessen in 1805. King Friedrich Wilhelm modernized Prussia's army, and his son Wilhelm I of Germany would use this army to conquer Austria and France in the 1860s and 1870s.
Biography[]
Friedrich Wilhelm in general's uniform
Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern was the son of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and his wife Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt. He was a shy and reserved boy, and was scholared in Paretz. He came to love the town and turned it into a royal country home. Friedrich Wilhelm came into maturity in 1784 when he became a Lieutenant in the Prussian Army and from 1792 to 1794 he fought in the French Revolutionary Wars against France. In 1793 he married Luise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and had a problem-free marriage.
He succeeded to the Prussian throne in 1797 upon the death of his father and led a policy of Prussian neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars. He chose to stand on the sidelines of the conflict and watch how the wars turned out, hoping to eventually have the choice to side with France or the Austrian Empire in order to gain more lands. In the meantime, he built up his borders with German states, annexing Saxony, Hesse-Kassel, and Oldenburg in 1805. When Napoleon I of France declared war on Prussia in 1805 he added Hannover and the Netherlands to his empire, reaching from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea. Mecklenburg, his wife's country, built up their armies, so Friedrich Wilhelm decided not to attack them.
Friedrich Wilhelm was eventually forced to flee from Berlin to Warsaw with the royal family when Napoleon stormed the Prussian capital in 1806, following Friedrich Wilhelm's personal defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstadt. The King and the House of Hohenzollern were also evicted from Warsaw, whose rebellious subjects were liberated by France and formed the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. King Friedrich Wilhelm then fled to Konigsberg in East Prussia, his last stronghold apart from Danzig in West Prussia. Danzig fell to Napoleonic forces first, then Konigsberg. The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 made Prussia lose all of its Polish territories and all territory west of the Elbe, while Friedrich Wilhelm's ally of Russia was forced to become a French ally.
Friedrich Wilhelm did not come to the aid of the Fifth Coalition of 1809, which was heavily defeated at the Battle of Wagram by Etienne-Jacques MacDonald's French army near Vienna. Prussia was allied with France at the time of the 1812 Patriotic War against Russia, but Friedrich Wilhelm allowed his generals to declare themselves neutral once Marshal MacDonald left Prussian units at the mercy of Russia's armies in Lithuania. When Napoleon's armies surged home across Poland in late 1812 and early 1813, Friedrich Wilhelm III made an alliance with Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Great Britain against France to form the Sixth Coalition.
The Prussian forces were soundly defeated in the June 1813 Battle of Dresden, but they won at the Battle of the Nations (Leipzig) and crushed Napoleon's army. By January-April 1814, Prussian forces under General Gebhard von Blucher were advancing into France itself and Friedrich Wilhelm III was able to reclaim all lost territory and more. Prussian forces occupied France as Napoleon was sent into exile on the island of Elba, and Blucher was a hero. Thanks to Friedrich Wilhelm's modernization of the country, the Prussian army triumphed over all adversities and crushed Europe's largest empire to date.
In 1815, Napoleon was finally finished off at the Battle of Waterloo and France was restored to a monarchy. Friedrich convened with Russia and Austria at the Congress of Vienna, where his attempts to reinstate Prussian rule over Saxony failed, and the agreement forced Prussia to led Saxony gain its independence. Friedrich Wilhelm later betrayed his promise to make Prussia a constitutional monarchy and remained an absolute ruler until his death in 1840.