When we review the facts of the Lippe Succession Crisis in the light of today, it might seem a bit arcane and tedious to think that such waves were created by such supercilious reasons. Yet at the time, it was taken very seriously and caused major ramifications throughout the German Empire.
It brings to mind verbiage that I wrote with regard to the Lippe family in a previous post; therefore, I quote it again here:
‘His Serene & Illustrious Highness Prince Bernhard Kasimir Friedrich Gustav Heinrich Wilhelm Eduard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld was a member of the Lippe-Biesterfeld line of the Princely House of Lippe.
I think we can all agree that a man is usually a direct product of his ancestry, his upbringing and his environment. While this is, of course, basically true, when it comes to detailing Prince Bernhard’s existence it relates so differently today, in such a different world from his progenitors. The world of minor Germany royalty, a world that was even more remote from today in outlook and customs than turbulent Athens or Imperial Rome, or even dark, glowering Carthage
As a matter of fact, so stable and secure was that world that even its most devastating moments seemed only trifle things, so assured was their existence, like the Emperor of Germany turning his back on a princely captain of a crack hussar regiment. And the title “Serene Highness” was more apt than ironical.
It was typical that the German princelings of who we speak lived in romantic castles or small rococo palaces manned by crowds of servants in their family livery and surrounded by the royal forest in which they loved to ride and hunt. In some ways they really were a caste considered “semi-divine,” hedged in by a sort of sacredness which the Romantic Movement in the 19th century literature did nothing to diminish. Even the most ardent democrats of the time secretly and begrudgingly accepted them as a special breed. In fact, the mere progress of democracy added to this effect. For as they lost real power they became even more detached from the mundane struggles of men, and existed on a plane suspended between heaven and earth.
All the circumstances in motion insulated them from reality so successfully that their dream world seemed so real to them and it had persisted for so long that they thought it would go on forever. Who could blame them, Prince Bernhard’s family had ruled Lippe-Detmold for over seven hundred years, ever since Bernhard the First, who fought under the Holy Roman Emperor Lotharius in the 12th century, so expecting it to continue for another seven hundred years was to be not only expected but accepted as well.
Prince Bernhard was the son of Gräf Ernst zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, Regent of the Principality of Lippe, and Gräfin Karoline von Wartensleben, a younger brother of Fürst Leopold IV zur Lippe, the reigning prince of Lippe-Detmold.
Lippe-Detmold was a rugged little principality located between Hanover and Westphalia, in Western Germany . It consisted of 471 square miles of forested mountains and tilled fields and two little medieval towns, inhabited by about 130,000 people. In 1871, it had been absorbed into the new German Empire, but its rulers retained a great deal of local autonomy and all their royal attributes.
Prince Bernhard pursued a career as a soldier, serving in the Prussian Army, and attaining the rank of major. Bernhard had never wanted to be a soldier in the first place; he had a passion for medicine and would have made a dedicated doctor. However his father, Gräf Ernst zur Lippe-Biesterfeld said, “The only possible profession for persons of our rank is the army.” So a soldier he became. It was Prince Bernhard’s profession as a soldier that brought him to the attention of his Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany
Intriguingly, bad blood existed between the Kaiser and the Lippe family and it went back to 1895, when the direct line of the princely rulers of Lippe became extinct with the death of Fürst Woldemar zu Lippe-Detmold. Prince Bernhard’s father, Gräf Ernst zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, was the rightful heir and regent, but, just as in a costume novel of Ruritanian proportions, his cousin Prince Adolph zu Schaumburg-Lippe, who hailed from the little principality of Schaumburg-Lippe just across the Weser River Prussia
When Prince Woldemar died rather suddenly on March 20, 1895, there were dark doings in Schloss Detmold. The story goes that they put the old boy in the ice house and did not announce his death until cousin Adolph got to Detmold
Then without missing a beat, the Kaiser’s obedient Court Marshal proclaimed Adolph as Prince Regent zu Lippe-Detmold. As soon as he heard the news Gräf Ernst came roaring over to claim his rights. First he appealed to the Parliament of Lippe, but twenty-one nervous gentlemen who made up that august body refused to stick their collective necks out and voted to be neutral. Then Ernst took his case to court.
Had Kaiser Wilhelm been the absolute autocrat the world in general believed him to be, Count Ernst would not have had a chance. But in truth, the German Empire was a place where law prevailed above imperial pleasure and justice was done. The court held Gräf Ernst to be the rightful heir, and he triumphantly entered his principality on July 17, 1897. The Kaiser, whose memory was a long as an elephant’s never forgot nor forgave the Lippe-Biesterfelds for supplanting his brother-in-law on the princely throne and for thwarting his wishes and desires!
Eleven years went by. At the Kaiser Review at Paderborn
The Kaiser deliberately turned in his saddle and began chatting with a member of his staff over his shoulder, while along the line of spectators, of ladies in great cartwheel hats and gentlemen in frock coats and toppers, ran audible snicker.
Apparently, the Lippe blood has an abnormally low boiling-point. Major Prince Bernhard’s was no exception. Angrily he shouted his penultimate order to the 14th Hussars: “By the left! Forward! At the gallop!”
The spectator’s laughter changed to a great gasp. The Kaiser’s face turned from white to red to purple, and his incredulous eyes bulged as the 14th Hussars turned their collective backs on God’s Anointed and followed their commander right off the field.
The next day, Prince Bernhard resigned from the Army before he was thrown out.
On March 4, 1909, Bernhard entered into a morganatic marriage with Baroness Armgard von Sierstorpff-Cramm. Slightly before this marriage, his future wife was granted the title Gräfin von Biesterfeld on February 8, 1909. Armgard was the daughter of Baron Aschwin von Sierstorff-Cramm, Hereditary Chamberlain of the Duchy of Brunswick. Somewhat of a dandy, the baron was one of the top amateur steeplechase riders of Germany Germany Brandenburg Westphalia , and the prince had known her for many years. She was tall and slim with a thin, beautifully modeled face and dark brown hair worn in a pompadour. In her coronet and splendid jewels she looked the epitome of regal beauty. But she was warm and witty and a dead game sport fanatic, who rode at least as well as her husband and was better equipped than he to withstand the shocks which lay just beyond the edge of time.
One shock was that because Armgard had been divorced after a brief marriage to Count Bodo von Oeynhausen, Prince Leopold was refused permission from his brother to marry her. As a result, although married to a prince, she was called Gräfin Armgard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld and her children were mere Gräf’s only, until Leopold finally relented in 1916 and recognized the marriage. On February 24, 1916, she and her two sons Bernhard and Aschwin were created Prinzessin & Prinz zur Lippe-Biesterfeld with the style Serene Highness, the stinging caveat was that they did not belong to the princely house of Lippe, due to the marriage of Bernhard and Armgard having been declared morganatic.
For those historically minded of esoteric, this couple is most notably known for the fact that they were the parents of Prince Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, Prince Consort of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, father of the present reigning Dutch monarch, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.’
When all was said and done, this entire affair became a major comeuppance for Kaiser Wilhelm II, to where the very succession of his own children to the Imperial throne of Germany and the Kingdom of Prussia
This Germanic ‘potboiler’ proved to be such a learned lesson for the Kaiser, that he never had quite the same standing within the German States again, and emerged from this entire debacle with less respect and much less sway with his fellow sovereigns.
What makes such fascinating fodder is that the entire situation arose because of an American woman who by chance married a German count, whose daughter married a sovereign count, and thereby set in motion the culmination of events that led to the Lippe Succession Crisis.
Upon review below, it will not be lost on those of the esoteric mindset, that Count Ernst zur Lippe-Biesterfeld would have loved the distinct irony of satisfaction knowing that his granddaughter, Princess Adelheid of Saxe-Meiningen, would marry the Kaiser’s third son, Prince Adalbert, thereby mixing Count Ernst’s perceived ‘unacceptable’ blood, or so in the Kaiser’s opinion, with that of the Kaiser’s own progeny.
Before we do an esoteric ‘cannonball’ into the rough waves of the Lippe Succession Crisis, we will back paddle a bit to roughly 30 years prior, to get a clearer picture of the environment that allowed such a situation to occur in the first place, with a similar situation that arose over the succession rights of the Duke of Augustenburg, for those of you esoteric who pay close attention will connect the lines from the Augustenburgs’ to the Kaiser!
The Minor States Of Germany
(From The Saturday Review)
The Glasgow
February 6, 1864
Of all the members of the European community, the minor States of Germany are the most despised and the least understood in England
The Duke of Augustenburg is supported, partly because he is the rightful heir to the Danish Duchies, and partly because he represents the endeavor to escape from a position of great national disgrace. In England Denmark Europe to determine that even Homburg or Meiningen should be swept away. The national party is equally strong in supporting the Duke, because it is notorious that the adherence of Prussia and Austria to the Treaty of London was extorted by Russia
The two chief grounds on which the national movement in the minor States rests are, therefore, the conviction that the Duke has as good a legal claim to the Duchies as the Prince of Wales has to succeed his mother; and, secondly, a burning indignation that this title should be set aside by Europe, with the sanction of Austria and Prussia, acting under the coercion of Russia. It is this union of the belief that the law is on their side, with the belief that the law has been set aside in a way most humiliating to Germany, that gives the minor States a coherence which, for the hour, binds them into a league which a very slight provocation would drive into a civil war with the two great German Powers. And their resolution is much confirmed, and their indignation fomented, by the course which has been taken in Austria and in Prussia , and especially by the conduct of Prussia Denmark on the condition of Denmark being a dependent of Prussia Prussia Prussia does not want to encourage and strengthen the minor States, because these States always go with Austria Prussia Prussia has always urged, that, by adopting a free policy in Prussia , the most energetic and influential persons in the minor States would be led to look to Prussia Prussia Prussia Germany
In this season of peril, both the Princes and the people of the minor States appear to be looking to France France than become subjects of Prussia , if Prussia were to appear as a conquering, dominant, reactionary Power in Germany Germany Italy Tuscany Savoy and Nice, but they are not staggered, for they have a Savoy Prussia on the left bank of the Rhine . There is probably much that is erroneous in the passion of the moment they may underrate the dangers of accepting French aid. But the moment is one of passion, and these are the calculations which they are making, and this is the course into which they are drifting.
AMERICAN WOMAN IMPERILS
THE GERMAN SUCCESSION
Strange Position Of The Kaiser Since
He Refused Recognition To The Children
Of The Regent Of Lippe Because Of A Foreign Born Ancestor
EMPEROR’S OWN FAMILY IS IN THE SAME FIX
August 21, 1898
An American woman imperiling the rightful succession of the Kaiser’s sons! ‘Impossible,’ one would say, ‘a romancer’s whim,’ and you think perhaps of Mrs. FitzGeralnd and Nell Gwyn, or of the ‘False Waldemar,’ of the Russian pretenders who posed as Peter the Great’s children, and similar disturbing elements of history. But there are no secret, left-handed, or morganatic marriages, no scandals, there was no exchange of babes, no dillydallying with birth registers, no awful mystery whatever in the shadow of the throne, no wondrously fair mistress cried out her beautiful eyes behind convent walls, no stern majesty condemned young life to die that the principle of legitimacy might live. It’s all so simple, so prosaic, the author of ‘Rupert of Hentzau,’ wouldn’t touch the material, while a publisher of lawyer’s handbooks might revel in it.
The American woman who stands between Crown Prince William of Prussia and the throne, and who, at the same time, blocks to his five brothers the road to succession, died fifty years ago last April. She was born July 9, 1822, in Philadelphia Mannheim , Baden , Count Leopold von Wartensleben, an ex-Lieutenant of the Prussian army, and aspirant for a petty judicial office.
There was never any question about the legality of the marriage. There could not be, for, unlike other German Counts who married Americans – Pappenheim, for instance – the Wartensleben had no place in the first or second section of the Almanach de Gotha, the register of actual and ex-sovereign or semi-sovereigns. In 1844 Countess Mathilde presented her husband with a daughter, Caroline; she departed this life on April 18, 1848, while taking the waters at Baden-Baden
Mathilde Halbach-Bohlen, from Philadelphia, having attained the rank of a Countess by marriage, her daughter Caroline became a Countess also, and married, in the course of time (on September 16, 1869), Ernst, Count and Noble Seigneur of Lippe-Biesterfeld, a gentleman who by right of birth might aspire to the hand of any Royal or Imperial Princess, and who ranks several points higher than his cousin, Adolph of Lippe, the Kaiser’s brother-in-law.
Origin Of All The Trouble
And there is the rub. Some months ago Adolph lost his job as Regent of the principality of Lippe-Detmold. Count Ernst succeeding him and thereby coming into the enjoyment of the dignity and salary, the salary (or civil list) exceeding that of the President of the United States
Of course a loss of 250,000 marks per annum is not to be sneezed at, and the Kaiser, who is obliged to look after his sister and brother-in-law, got wroth with Count Ernst. However, the latter cannot be ousted, yet he is 55 and Adolph 38 years of age, and though the court of arbitration that sat under the Presidency of the King of Saxony gave Count Ernst’s claim precedence over those of Prince Adolph, the question of succession was not passed upon. Therefore if Ernst dies, Adolph may yet be sovereign of Lippe and recipient of a truly princely salary.
So the Kaiser calculated and set to work with his well known diligence to further his scheme of salary grabbing. Officially he could not undertake anything against Count Ernst, but privately he treated his dignified, honorable, and able cousin with studied rudeness, as a sort of poor relation one has to tolerate but cannot quite recognize as an equal. At the same time His Majesty gave orders to the Prussian General garrisoned in the principality to instruct his officers and men that the Royal salute was to accorded to the Regent and his wife, but not to the couple’s children, who live in Detmold – namely: Counts Leopold, Bernard, and Jules and Countesses Carola and Mathilde. The discrimination against the Regent’s sons and daughters was a gross and gratuitous insult to them and their father, yet there must have been a rider to that order which made it even more of an affront, for, as a matter of fact, neither the Regent, nor his wife ever enjoyed the Royal salute. The only recognition the officers and men accord them is that any sub-lieutenant can claim: They merely raise their right hand to their helmet and march on instead of turning about face and standing petrified in the presence of royal radiance until it vanishes with clank of hoofs and clatter of wheels.
Of course that hurt the Regent deeply, but, as it turned out, the withholding of the Royal salute was only a preliminary after all. The Prussian officer’s subsequent refusal to address Count Ernst’s sons and daughters by their title looked serious from the standpoint of Continental royalty, still the Regent decided to treat ‘these needle thrusts by a disappointed and enraged young man’ with the contempt they deserved. Then all of a sudden His Majesty let the cat out of the bag. The subsidized press threatened dreadful disclosures affecting the status of the Regent’s progency, and all Europe turned to the Almanach de Gotha to find out what it was about. Alas, the great book gave no hint of possible discrepancy. Ah, yes, fifty years ago a Count Lippe had married a lady of the lower nobility. But the Court of Arbitration had declared that marriage correct and legitimate.
‘Look further back,’ cried the official press. ‘Consult the Almanach of the Non-Princely Houses, too.’
Not To The Manner Born
And sure enough, no page 1,202,black on white, was recorded this shameless fact: The grandmother of the Regent’s children on their mother’s side was neither ‘Hochgeboren’ (high born) nor ‘Hochwohlgeboren’ ( high and well born) nor ‘Wohlgeboren’ (well born), which is the lowest cast which the Germans recognize. In fact, she was not a ‘née’ at all – merely an American woman – plain Miss Mathilde Halhach-Bohlen, with neither a ‘von’ nor any other distinguishing handle in front of her name.
The fact of this announcement stunned the Regent’s partisans. They had never known of the admixture of blue and red republican blood; though doing a lot of thinking, they did not know what to say. The subsidized press registered the fact that Prince Adolph’s and like the Kaiser’s enemies had fallen into a state of nonplus, or literary coma, and likewise dropped the discussion. Henceforth and for some considerable time it left the case unnoticed, assuming that Count Ernst would drop all pretensions with respect to the sovereign future of his offspring after their legitimacy had been questioned before all the world. The Kaiser, however, subsequently decided to make sure and ordered Prince Adolph to petition the Federal Council of the German Empire to pass the matter. This Adolph did through the agency of the chief of his particular line, the Sovereign Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, a potentate of as many ‘souls’ as live in Peoria – namely: 41, 224, of which 5,620 live in the capital, a place called Buckeburg, where, eight years ago, gaslight was seen for the first time. Then – if ever such a thing was promulgated by a Napoleon of ancient or modern times – the Regent sprang a coup d’état.
By a royal order authorizing the administrator of the State domains to pay towards the expense of the Diet 8,000 marks ($2,000) annually, he persuaded his Parliament, consisting of twenty-one gentlemen good and true, to pass a law conferring the right of succession upon his (Count Ernst’s) male descendants, according to the rule of primogeniture. This happened in a secret session of the Lippe Diet on March 18, 1898 and when it was done the Regent entertained the Deputies at a grand dinner in the Detmold Schloss, where each guest found two bottles of wine before his plate.
News travels slowly in Germany Philadelphia
Looking Up The Antecedents
The Cologne Gazette set the ball rolling by announcing that Mathilde’s father was a ‘mere merchant.’ Next day another paper had information that old man Halbach-Bohlen kept a grocery store with a saloon attachment.’
“An American saloonkeeper’s great-grandson a Prince of the German Empire – absurd, impossible, anarchistic,’ declared the entire conservative press. And the editors continued searching for their inner consciences for disqualifying features in regards of Halbach-Bohlen. They professed to know that before the late Mathilde captured Count Leopold Wartensleben, her family had never intermarried with the nobility. It was plebian to the core – so plebian that none of its members had achieved military honors even. As a matter of fact, the Halbachs had been small merchants, or worse still, common artisans, beginning with the time when they moved into town. Before that, they had belonged to the ‘lowly peasant classes.’
Count Ernst, as Regent of Lippe-Detmold, has one vote in the German Federal Council; the Kaiser, as King of Prussia , has seventeen. No wonder William secured an order from the Federal Council to the Lippe Diet demanding a stay of proceedings in the matter of succession until such a time as the Prince of Schaumburg’s protest be heard and the legitimacy of the Regent’s children established beyond all doubt. When this receipt arrived in Detmold
‘Very well,’ he wrote to the Federal Council,’ investigate the record of my family and my wife’s family down to the meadow where lived the cow that ate the grass that was distilled into milk which the first Lippe sucked from his bottle. But at the same time take notice as a Prince of the Empire, I mean to protest against the legitimacy – for purposes of succession – of the Kaiser’s sons, Crown Prince William, so styled and the Princes Eitel Fritz, Adalbert, August, Oscar and Joachim. For, as in the case of my own heirs, their grandmother was a commoner. The cases are entirely analogous. My children are descended on their mother’s side, from an American commoner, the Kaiser’s have sprung on their mother’s side from a Swedish commoner; therefore, if my sons are unfit for succession; the Kaiser’s are in the same position, which would portend that the Crown of the German Empire and that of Prussia, after William II’s death, must go to his brother, or his brother’s children, according to the Hohenzollern house laws and the constitution of the German Empire.’
Two Horns Of A Dilemma
And so the matter stands. That despised American woman looms up as the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns, sounding the death knell of the Kaiser’s ambition! His Majesty must either take water and throw overboard the divine right theory as applied by him to the case of Mathilde Halbach-Bohlen’s descendants, or expect to have his sons’ disinherited. There are no two ways about it. The Federal Council, to oblige the Kaiser, my delegitimatize the grandchildren of the American woman, but then all German particularists – notably Bavaria and Wurttemberg, the Guelphs, Reuss, and Oldenburg – will turn that decision against its author and act upon the Regent’s threat above recorded.
The causes which would eventually lead to the disinheriting of the Kaiser’s sons are almost ancient history by this time, but not much more ancient than those pretending the disqualification of Count Ernst’s children. The grandfather of the present Empress of Germany, Duke Christian of Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, married, on September 19, 1820 (that is some twenty years before Mathilde Halbach-Bohlen was born in Philadelphia), Louise, the daughter of Count Danneskiold-Samsoe, a Swedish gentleman of precarious title, who even in his own country was reckoned a member of the lower nobility only. Louise and her ducal husband had seven children, among them the father of Empress Auguste Viktoria, Prince Christian, the husband of Prince Helena of Great Britain and Ireland, and Frau von Esmarch, the wife of the great medical professor of that name residing in Kiel. No one has ever doubted the legitimacy of Prince Christian and his sister, but the late Prince Bismarck in 1861 called together a council of eighteen eminent jurists to determine whether Frederick, the Duke Pretender of Holstein-Augustenburg, being the fruit of an illegitimate marriage – between a royal person and a mere commoner – should be considered as capable of succession in the Schleswig-Duchies. That investigation held under Prussian auspices, ended in a verdict which denied Duke Frederick’s rights to the throne and stamped him a usurper. At that time, the Duke had no male issue, only two girls, the present Empress and the present Duchess of Glucksburg. To these girls Bismarck denied even the Princely title, contending that, like their grandmother, they were mere Countesses, and as the present Empress was then the heiress presumptive of the shaky Augustenburg pretensions, the Bismarck Bismarck
The case against the Emperor’s sons, then, seems to be complete, particularly as it was subsequently passed upon by the Prussian House of Lords and approved by the great Bismarck Frederick Frederick Frederick desired the Schwedt
And Mathilde Halbach-Bohlen of Philadelphia
THE LIPPE-DETMOLD SENSATION
The Evening Post
November 18, 1898
As the Press Association has considered the matter of the Lippe-Detmold trouble of sufficient importance to cable twice within the last few days, Mr. J. H. O. Schwartz sends us the following note as to the cause of the friction, which, as we were advised yesterday, has led to free public criticisms of the Emperor William: - Briefly then, on 19, November, 1890, Princess Victoria, sister of the Emperor, married Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe. Four weeks previously the then reinging Prince, Woldemar, in a secret proclamation, had decreed that after his death Prince Adolph (who was fourth son of Prince Schaumburg) should undertake the regency of Lippe-Detmold, as Woldemar’s brother, Karl Alexander; the heir to throne, was, for reasons of health, unfit to undertake the responsibilities falling to him. Prince Woldemar also declared that he did not recognize the right of succession of the branches of Lippe-Biestefeld and Weissenfeld, the attempts to regulate the right of succession in the Detmold Parliament having proved abortive. Prince Woldemar died on the 20th of March 1895. Although the event took place at 7 a.m. the news was not published until 11 a.m., as his wife had promised that Prince Adolph should be immediately called on his decease. The same night the latter arrived and the secret proclamation was then published. Against this proclamation and the succession, Parliament and the Counts of Biesterfeld and Weissenfeld at once protested. No one had any doubt that the proclamation was illegal, and Prince Adolph, therefore, not entitled to the succession. The efforts of the claimants resulted in the dispute being referred to a Court of Arbitration, with the King of Saxony as President. On the 22nd June, 1897, this Court decreed that Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld must be acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Lippe-Detmold. On 10th July Prince Adolph, resigned, having occupied the place of legitimate Prince for two years and three months. The Emperor sent him a telegram in which he stated that Prince Adolph’s regency had certainly been a blessing for the country, and that Lippe-Detmold would never obtain a better and worthier sovereign, add ‘Greetings to Victoria, and my warmest Imperial thanks for the faithful fulfillment of your duties.’ This telegram was generally taken as a sign of the Emperor’s dissatisfaction and a desire to take part against the new Regent. This was made plain in military matters. When the new sovereign entered Detmold Detmold
His Sister’s Husband In Detmold
By Edward Breck
The New York Times
December 4, 1898
Now William II is an intensely human man, and it is therefore by no means surprising that he was extremely enraged at this turn of affairs. Very likely he only consented to the marriage of his sister to such a petty Prince as Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe because it was taken for granted that the Prince of Schaumburg would unite the two principalities and thus be able to lay out a race course without hiring some of the territory of adjacent sovereigns, and go a-hunting without being in danger of shooting over his frontiers and hitting the cows of the Duke of Brunswick or the King of Prussia. Just now, however, there seems a strong possibility, if not probability, that Schaumburg-Lippe will never reign in Detmold
It is difficult to see what His Majesty can do in regard to placing the Schaumburgs on the throne of Lippe, for the King of Saxony’s commission found that the Biesterfelds were perfectly ebenbürtig or equal birth. The Schaumburgs claimed, indeed, that certain marriages of the Biesterfelds, that for instance of the grandfather of Count Ernst with a Fräulein von Unruh, had destroyed the equality of birth, because the wives in question had been members of the lesser noblesse. Just here I will remark that the fact that the mother of the Countess Ernst was Miss Halbach-Bohlen, an American, and hence a commoner, has nothing to do with the case, inasmuch as her father was a Count von Wartensleben, and her equality in this case depends on him. The commission of the King of Saxony proved however that in all the branches of the Lippe family marriages with members of the lesser nobility does not lie in the title, but depends upon whether the family in question possessed actual sovereignty, including the privileges of independence (Reichstandshaft) at the liquidation of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
According to this theory Prince Bismarck belongs to the lesser, the Counts of Lippe to the greater nobility, although the title of Prince is of course much higher than that of Count. The only hope of the Schaumburgs lies in the fact that a commission decides only upon a given point, in this case the equality of birth of Count Ernst, had nothing was said concerning his children. Hence, although the natural inference of the commission’s judgment is that his children are also equal of birth, the Schaumburgs, backed up by the Emperor, will undoubtedly endeavor to bring the question up once more in the hope of getting a commission that has more respect for the supreme lex, which, as the Kaiser declared publicly on certain celebrated occasion is the voluntas regis. This phase of the controversy has to do, therefore, at present, not with the Count Regent, but his with his children, and will be decided later, probably by the Federal Council.
The other more acute question, which has a close connection with the first, concerns the demand of the Count-Regent Ernst that members of his family all receive the military honors (salutes, presentations, &c.,) due to the members of princely families, and this claim gave the Emperor the opportunity he desired, in the first place to vent his personal spite upon the Regent, and, secondly, to make public his championship of the Schaumburg standpoint that the family of the Regent had not yet been proved equal of birth and capable of succession. The Regent appealed to the Emperor, and received in return, as we now know, a pungent telegram the last words of which were: ‘To the Regent his due: nothing more. Moreover, I wish distinctly to forbid all communications from you in the tone in which you have found it good to address me.’ Surely no sharper communication has ever been personally addressed from one reigning Prince to another, for it must be understood that Count Ernst is as much a sovereign in the Principality of Detmold as William II is in Prussia
There remains to Count Ernst nothing but to lay the matter before the Federal Council, which he has now done, and this question will undoubtedly soon occupy that august body. The publication of the correspondence between Count Ernst, the Emperor, and the Federal Council by some indiscreet Councilor has complicated matters and undoubtedly greatly embittered the Emperor, although Count Ernst declares that the publication of the documents occurred without his consent. There has never been much doubt that His Majesty of the Sacred Person has always considered himself, and has been considered by others, as the biggest toad in the German puddle, but it remains to be seen whether he is big enough to meddle with impunity in the affairs of a Federal State
COUNT REGENT OF LIPPE
MAKES TROUBLE
The Milwaukee
December 8, 1898
The conflict between the Kaiser and the Count Regent of Lippe, continues to occupy the attention of the press and public in Germany
‘It is possible,’ says Berlin Borsen Courier, ‘that this solution represents the views of the principal princes of the Empire and that they hoping an olive branch from Palestine is in the Kaiser’s baggage and that it will make its way to the Teutoburg Forest.’
The Saxon Journal, Das Vaterland, which is credited with close relations with the government of that kingdom is strongly opposed to the question of the rights of the Lippe-Biestefeld family being submitted to the Federal council. It will be rememberd that the King of Saxony, as the senior Federal prince of the Empire, already gave his verdict as arbiter in favor of the claims of Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld to the regency against those of Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe, the brother-in-law of the Kaiser. The Vaterland says: ‘If a second investigation of the rank of the house of Lippe-Biesterfeld should be undertaken by the Federal Council this would constitute not only a serious disregard for the judgment rendered by the King of Saxony, both parties having undertaken to abide by it, but would be an infringement of rights such as would administer a severe blow to the sense of justice of the German nation. One circumstance of the greatest importance we cannot pass over in silence. The punctilious care with which Kaiser Wilhelm I observed every article of the Versailles convention created a feeling of confidence in the disinterestedness and the impartiality of the head of the Empire, which suppressed any suspicion of a resumption on the part of Prussia
The Berliner Tagelblatt says: ‘The facts are as follows: After a long struggle Count Ernst of Lippe-Biestefeld got an impartial arbitration court constituted under the Presidency of the King of Saxony. The decision was given in the Count’s favor, whose purity of birth is now legally established. In the course of the judgment it was stated that in all the lines of the House of Lippe the marriage of its members with ladies of a lower order of nobility was hot held to constitute inequality of birth of the off-spring. It is notorious that the grandfather of the Count Regent married a Fräulein Modest von Unruh. The wife of the Regent is also of the lower nobility (Caroline, Countess von Wartensleben, whose mother was Miss Halbach-Bohlen of Philadelphia Holy Roman Empire . The list of those possessing this rank was drawn up in 1806. From this point of view, Prince Bismarck belonged to the lower nobility, and Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld to the higher.
‘Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe now challenges the birth of the sons of the Count Regent on account of the lower nobility of their mother. No court gives general decisions, but only decides the actual cases submitted to it. As a consequence, the arbitration court under the King of Saxony only decided the question of the Count Regent’s birth, as the birth of his sons was not then challenged.’
THE LIPPE-DETMOLD AFFAIR
Resume Of The Kaiser’s Squabble
With Lesser German Princes
A Brother-In-Law At Stake
The Emperor Will Make One More Heroic Attempt To Reinstate
TO DECIDE SUCCESSION
Emperor William And A Court
A PERSONAL DISPUTE
Federal Government Agree That The
Lippe-Detmold Principality
Settle The Matter
Delicate Point At Issue
The Morning Herald
December 12, 1898
In order to understand the serious nature of the present conflict between the Emperor and the Count Regent of Lippe, it is necessary to explain the peculiar constitution of the present German Empire.
Before the War of 1870 Germany consisted of 23 independent States, the Kingdoms of Prussia, Saxony , Bavaria , Wurttemberg , six Grand Duchies, five Duchies, seven principalities, and the Union of the Hansa, or free cities of Lubeck , Bremen and Hamburg Prussia Austria , when Prussia Hanover Versailles
Independent States
For in this difference lies the kernel of the whole question now at stake between the Kaiser and the Count Regent of Lippe. By the Imperial Constitution each State was left independence in internal affairs. Each has its own ruler, its own Parliament and Ministers for the management of domestic matters. They four great states – Prussia , Bavaria , Wurttemberg , and Saxony – have each their own armies under the direct and independent command of their sovereigns. The Kaiser is only War Lord, that is, whenever war is declared, all these independent commands cease, ‘ipso facto’ and the King of Prussia , German Emperor, takes command of the whole.
The Imperial Parliament, or Reichstag, which meets at Berlin
When the organization of the military resources of the Empire came to be considered, the lesser States, being too small for independence, placed themselves under Russia Prussia
A Serous Quarrel
What has embittered this dispute is the fact that behind the constitutional question lies a personal one, and it is the introduction of this into affairs of state that renders the conflict so serious, as there is serious danger that the other sovereigns will espouse the cause of the Count Regent, and that the quarrel will then become one between the King of Prussia and the other sovereigns and States of the Empire.
The origin of the private conflict is as follows: The Lippe family consists of four lines – Lippe proper, Lippe-Biesterfeld, Lippe-Weissenfeld and Schaumburg-Lippe. The reigning Prince of Lippe, Prince Woldemar, died in 1895. He was succeeded by his brother, Prince Charles Alexander, who is unmarried. After his accession he showed signs of mental disease and was confined in a lunatic asylum. A regency therefore became necessary.
Two families claim the succession and the regency – the Lippe-Biesterfeld, represented by Count Ernst, and Schaumburg-Lippe, represeneted by Prince Adolf. The latter is a member of the adjacent principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, and is brother-in-law of the Emperor. It is to this latter fact that all the present trouble is ascribed.
When the regency was declared open it was assumed by Prince Adolf. Count Ernst opposed this action. The matter was referred to the arbitration of the King of Saxony; who decided in favor of the regency of Count Ernst, without, however, deciding as to the ultimate succession after the death of the reigning prince. This question is thus in abeyance.
Married An American
The chief claim of the Schaumburg-Lippes to have Count Ernst’s claim refused is a somewhat curious one. In 1869, Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld married Caroline, Countess von Wartensleben. The Countess was a daughter of Count Leopold von Wartensleben, who married in 1841 Miss Mathilde Halbach-Bohlen, of Philadelphia , U. S. A.
The Kaiser, however, by his orders regarding Count Ernst seems to have taken it upon himself to regard it as already decided in favor of his brother-in-law. The matter is therefore, a very nice point of law, and His Majesty’s interference has caused considerable umbrage among his brother sovereigns, many of whom already look with jealousy upon the preponderance of Prussia
THE KAISER’S MORAL DEFEAT
The New York Times
November 20, 1905
The German Emperor has suffered a severe moral defeat by the verdict of the Court of Arbitration appointed by the Federal Council to decide the celebrated Lippe succession dispute. His Majesty’s advocacy of the claims of his own brother-in-law, Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe, to the throne of the Principality was described long ago as a blunder of the first order by no less a person than Prince Bismarck. Even if the claims of Prince Adolf were sound, observed the Iron Chancellor, the Emperor would be ill-advised to support them. The advice of the ‘hodbearer’ was, however, ignored, and Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfled, who by virtue of a verdict pronounced by a Court of Arbitration under the King of Saxony dispossessed Prince Adolf of the Regency, seemed to think it an act of presumption for anyone to assert his justified rights in opposition to a member of the Imperial family. Count Ernst was annoyed in every conceivable way, and when he died his son, Count Leopold, at once received an intimation from the Emperor couched in the hardest terms, informing him that until the legal situation had been cleared up his Regency would not be recognized. A year has elapsed since then, and in the meantime the insane Prince of Lippe-Detmold has died. By the verdict the son of Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld has been pronounced heir to the throne. Count Leopold, now Prince, immediately mounted the throne and notified his accession to the Emperor, who replied, as he could not otherwise do, in a telegram wishing him a prosperous reign!
Or
‘Tainted Ancestry’ Of
Countess Caroline von Wartensleben
1. Gräfin Karoline von Wartensleben.
6 Apr 1844, Mannheim - 10 Jul 1905, Detmold
Parents:
2. Graf Leopold von Wartensleben.
7 Apr 1818, Koblenz - 5 May 1846, Potsdam
m. 6 May 1841, Mannheim
3. Mathilde Halbach.
9 Jul 1822, Philadelphia USA - 18 Apr 1848, Baden-Baden
Grandparents:
4. Graf Cäsar von Wartensleben.
8 Apr 1785, Marienburg - 29 Dec 1851, Krippitz.
m. 20 Jun 1808, Kunzendorf/Przybor
5. Friederike von Gfug, Heiress of Osniszczewo.
3 May 1789, Przybor; d. 9 Feb 1831, Osniszczewo
6. Arnold
3 Jul 1787, Müngsten bei Remscheid - 16 May 1860, Baden-Baden
m. 3 Sep 1821, Emmerich
7. Caroline Bohlen.
13 Jul 1800, Amsterdam - 21 Feb 1882, Karlsruhe
Great Grandparents:
8. Graf Leopold von Wartensleben.
29 Oct 1743, Berlin - 24 Oct 1822, Breslau
m. 29 Oct 1771, Danzig
9. Caroline Louise Dorothea von der Recke.
8 Aug 1753, Preuss.-Holland, East-Prussia - 3 Apr 1825, Breslau
10. Carl Georg Friedrich von Gfug.
1741, Langensalza - 14 Jun 1816, Herrnstadt
m.
11. Johanna Juliane von Lestwitz.
1753, Gross Wirsewitz - 31 Mar 1824, Breslau
12. Johannes Arnold Halbach.
23 Oct 1745, a.d.Neuenhammer nr Remscheid
m. 4 Oct 1786, Remscheid
13. Maria Gertrud Hilger.
est 1762; c. 29 Apr 1762, Remscheid
14. Bohl Bohlen.
26 Sep 1754, Schiffdorf, Kr.Geestemünde - 11 Oct 1836, Philadelphia
m. 29 Nov 1789, New York
15. Johanna Magdalene Oswald.
1 Aug 1770, New York - 13 Feb 1805, Amsterdam
Great-Great Grandparents:
16. Graf Alexander von Wartensleben.
1 Oct 1710, Berlin - 21 Sep 1775, Berlin
m. 24 Mar 1737, Berlin
17. Anna Friederike von Kameke.
4 Mar 1715, Berlin - 22 Nov 1788, Berlin
18. Jakob Ernst von der Recke.
19 Nov 1721, Neuenburg - 25 Aug 1758, Zorndorf
m. 5 Jul 1751, Kilgis, Kr.Preuss.-Eylau
19. Louise Gottliebe von Kalnein.
16 Sep 1735, Sudnicken - 14 Jan 1806, Kilgis
20. Karl Heinrich von Gfug.
est 1710; c. 12 Jun 1710, Militsch - 17 Jul 1768, Przybor
m. 18 Mar 1734, Pegau
21. Freiin Karoline von Schütz zu Pflummern und Hohenstein.
1715 - 27 Mar 1767, Berlin
22. Adam Friedrich von Lestwitz.
24 Aug 1712, Ellguth - 14 Jan 1754, Gr.-Wirsewitz
m. 29 Jan 1747, Breslau
23. Rosine Charlotte von Goldbach.
1720 - ????
24. Johannes Halbach.
14 Mar 1711, Honsberg - 28 Oct 1789, Neuenhammer
m. 2 Nov 1741, Remscheid
25. Maria Catharina Hasenclever.
est 1717; c. 30 Dec 1717, Remscheid
26. Johann Peter Hilger.
22 Jan 1720, Cronenfeld - 18 Mar 1788, Hasten nr Remscheid
m. 1 Aug 1741, Remscheid
27. Anna Maria Gertrud Hütz.
est 1719; c. 12 May 1719, Remscheid - 24 Mar 1788, Remscheid
28. Hinrich Bohlen.
24 Dec 1711, Schiffdorf - 10 Oct 1780, Schiffdorf
m. 10 Oct 1750, Schiffdorf
29. Katharina Lührs.
est 1725; c. 18 Oct 1725, Geestendorf - 29 Jun 1807, Lehe
30. Philipp Jakob Oswald.
1736 - 21 Mar 1805, New York
m. 2 Dec 1767, New York
31. Katharina Hahn.
1748, New York
NR
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