The Guelphic Legion (German : Welfenlegion) was an irregular, volunteer military unit founded and maintained at the expense of the deposed Welf king George V of Hanover, after the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by Prussia in 1866.
The Guelphic Legion (German : Welfenlegion) was an irregular, volunteer military unit founded and maintained at the expense of the deposed Welf king George V of Hanover, after the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by Prussia in 1866.
After the Austro-Prussian War, in the autumn of 1866, victorious Prussia annexed four former allies of the defeated Austrian forces north of the Main line: Hanover as well as Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and the Free City of Frankfurt. While the former kingdom was incorporated as the Province of Hanover without any referendum or consultation; protests by the affected population led to the foundation of the anti-Prussian German-Hanoverian Party.
Upon the Hanoverian surrender after the Battle of Langensalza on 29 June 1866, the kingdom was occupied by Prussian troops and formally annexed on September 20. During the Luxembourg Crisis between Prussia and France in spring 1867, a rising number of Hanoverian soldiers gathered at Arnhem in the Netherlands at the behest of exiled King George V and his newly established court at the Villa Hügel in Hietzing near Vienna. However, when a war was once again averted by the Treaty of London signed on May 11, the Dutch government ordered all foreign troops to leave the country. After being raised as a sizeable force, the Legion migrated to Switzerland, where its numbers swelled to 700. [1]
King George V, who never abandoned his claim to the Hanoverian throne, continued to maintain the Legion at his own expense while in exile in France. In February 1868 the unit moved from Switzerland to France at the same time as George V and Marie of Saxe-Altenburg celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in Paris. In 1869 the Prussian House of Representatives passed a law sequestering the funds of the former King of Hanover (Welfenfonds) in retaliation for his enmity and deployment of the Guelphic Legion. [2]
The Guelphic Legion was formally dissolved on 15 April 1870. Each of the 1,400 legionnaires received 400 francs upon discharge and additional traveling expenses as needed. Many returned to Hanover, but some migrated to the United States or to other parts of Europe. [1] George V, unreconciled and embittered, died in Paris on 12 June 1878.
The Austro-Prussian War, also by many variant names such as Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as Deutscher Krieg, Deutscher Bruderkrieg and by a variety of other names, was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.
The House of Hanover, whose members are known as Hanoverians, is a European royal house of German origin that ruled Hanover, Great Britain, and Ireland at various times during the 17th to 20th centuries. The house originated in 1635 as a cadet branch of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, growing in prestige until Hanover became an Electorate in 1692. George I became the first Hanoverian monarch of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714. At Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the throne of the United Kingdom passed to her eldest son Edward VII, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The last reigning members of the House of Hanover lost the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 when Germany became a republic.
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1866 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Its capital was Berlin.
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was the tenth child and seventh son of King George III and Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom. He held the title of Duke of Cambridge from 1801 until his death. He also served as Viceroy of Hanover on behalf of his brothers George IV and William IV.
George V was the last king of Hanover, reigning from 18 November 1851 to 20 September 1866. The only child of King Ernest Augustus and Queen Frederica, he succeeded his father in 1851. George's reign was ended by the Austro-Prussian War, after which Prussia annexed Hanover.
Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, was the eldest child and only son of George V of Hanover and his wife, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg. Ernest Augustus was deprived of the throne of Hanover upon its annexation by Prussia in 1866 and later the Duchy of Brunswick in 1884. Although he was the most senior male-line descendant of George I, II, and III, the Duke of Cumberland was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with Germany in World War I.
Ernest Augustus ; 17 November 1887 – 30 January 1953) was Duke of Brunswick from 2 November 1913 to 8 November 1918. He was a grandson of George V of Hanover, thus a Prince of Hanover and a Prince of the United Kingdom. He was also a maternal grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and the son-in-law of German Emperor Wilhelm II. The Prussians had deposed King George from the Hanoverian throne in 1866, but his marriage ended the decades-long feud between the Prussians and the Hanoverians.
Hanover is a territory that was at various times a principality within the Holy Roman Empire, an Electorate within the same, an independent Kingdom, and a subordinate Province within the Kingdom of Prussia. The territory was named after its capital, the city of Hanover, which was the principal town of the region from 1636. In contemporary usage, the name is used only for the city. Most of the historical territory of Hanover forms the greater part of the German state of Lower Saxony but excludes certain areas.
The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Hanover, and joined 38 other sovereign states in the German Confederation in June 1815. The kingdom was ruled by the House of Hanover, a cadet branch of the House of Welf, in personal union with Great Britain since 1714. Since its monarch resided in London, a viceroy, usually a younger member of the British royal family, handled the administration of the Kingdom of Hanover.
The Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent. It takes its name from the House of Guelph, of which the Hanoverians were a branch. Since Hanover and the United Kingdom shared a monarch until 1837, the order was frequently bestowed upon British subjects.
The Electorate of Hanover was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. For most of its existence, the electorate was ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland following the Hanoverian Succession.
The German-Hanoverian Party, also known as the Guelph Party, was a conservative, federalist political party in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic.
The Battle of Langensalza was fought on 27 June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, near Bad Langensalza in what is now modern Germany, between the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia. The Hanoverians won the battle but were then surrounded by a larger and reinforced Prussian army. Unable to link up with their Bavarian allies to the south, the Hanoverians surrendered.
Marie of Saxe-Altenburg was Queen of Hanover from 18 November 1851 until 20 September 1866 as the wife of King George V. George V was a grandson of George III of the United Kingdom and his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Eduard Ernst Friedrich Hannibal Vogel von Fal(c)kenstein was a Prussian General der Infanterie.
The Stade Region emerged in 1823 by an administrative reorganisation of the dominions of the Kingdom of Hanover, a sovereign state, whose then territory is almost completely part of today's German federal state of Lower Saxony. Until 1837 the Kingdom of Hanover was ruled in personal union by the Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Order of Ernst August was founded 15 December 1865 by King George V of Hanover in memory of his father Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover. The order was awarded for both civil and military merit. It was divided in five classes:
The Hanoverian Army was the standing army of Hanover from the seventeenth century onwards. From 1692 to 1803 it acted in defence of the Electorate of Hanover. Following the Hanoverian Succession of 1714, this was in conjunction with the British Army with which it shared a monarch. Hanoverian troops fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, Seven Years' War and American War of Independence during the eighteenth century.
Georg Herbert Fürst zu Münster von Derneburg , also known by his earlier title of Count of Münster-Ledenburg, was a Hanoverian and later German diplomat and politician. He served as ambassador to London 1873–1885 and Paris (1885–1900).
The Invasion of Hanover in 1803 during the Napoleonic Wars saw a French army under Édouard Mortier invade and occupy the Electorate of Hanover in Northern Germany following the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens. Hanover was under the rule of George III was in a personal union with Britain, the principal enemy of Napoleon's French Empire. One consequence was the formation of the exiled King's German Legion in British service. Hanover remained under French control until its liberation in 1813.