Friedrich Wilhelm of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel (9 October 1771-16 June 1815) was Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel from 16 October 1806 to 8 July 1807 (succeeding Ferdinand of Brunswick) and Duke of Brunswick from 26 October 1813 to 16 June 1815 (preceding Karl II).
Biography[]
Friedrich Wilhelm was born in Braunschweig, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Germany on 9 October 1771, the fourth son of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick and the cousin and brother-in-law of Prince Regent George IV of Britain. He served in the Prussian army as a Major-General during the Napoleonic Wars, fighting at the 1806 Battle of Jena, in which his father was killed. As his eldest brother had died childless two months earlier and his other two older brothers were mentally incapacitated, Friedrich Wilhelm succeeded to the Duchy of Brunswick-Luneburg and Wolfenbuttel. In 1807, his duchy was annexed to Westphalia, and he went into exile in Baden. In 1809, at the start of the War of the Fifth Coalition, Friedrich Wilhelm created a partisan corps called the "Black Brunswickers", who wore black uniforms in mourning for their occupied country. Friedrich Wilhelm mortgaged his principality in Oels so that he could personally finance his corps, and he briefly retook Braunschweig in August 1809 before being named a Lieutenant-General in the British Army by his brother-in-law George. His troops were taken into British pay and was largely destroyed during the Peninsular War, but, in December 1813, he was reinstated as Duke of Brunswick after the War of the Sixth Coalition enabled Prussia to liberate much of Germany from French occupation. Friedrich Wilhelm raised fresh troops to help the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blucher crush Napoleon's resurgency in 1815, but he was shot and killed at the Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815.