Prince Augustus of Prussia

Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich August of Prussia (19 September 1779 - 19 July 1843), known in English as Prince Augustus, was a Prussian general. Born on Friedrichsfelde Palace, he was the youngest son of Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, the brother of King Frederick the Great, and Margravine Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt.

Prince August
An 1817 portrait of Prince Augustus standing next to the portrait of Juliette Récamier, by Franz Krüger
Born(1779-09-19)19 September 1779
Friedrichsfelde
Died19 July 1843(1843-07-19) (aged 63)
Bromberg
Burial
Staats- und Domchor Berlin
HouseHohenzollern
FatherPrince August Ferdinand of Prussia
MotherMargravine Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt

Military career

August joined the Prussian army as a young man, earning the rank of captain by eighteen years old. In 1803, he became a major and was granted an infantry battalion of his own. Three years later, now a lieutenant colonel, he and his battalion took part in the Battle of Auerstedt. His brother, Prince Louis Ferdinand, had been killed by the French army under Napoleon I four days earlier. August himself was captured and held by the French until 1807.

In March 1808, his cousin, King Frederick William III of Prussia, made him brigadier general. The Prince spent the next five years reorganizing the Prussian artillery together with Gerhard von Scharnhorst. Seven years after the failure of the Prussian army at Auerstedt, the Prince distinguished himself at the Battle of Leipzig. He continued his campaign against Napoleon throughout 1814. In the winter 1814-1815, August attended the Congress of Vienna. He moved to the north of France in June 1818 and then back to Berlin after the war had ended.

He spent his last years inspecting artillery units in various garrison towns. He died suddenly in Bromberg during one such trip, and was buried in Staats- und Domchor Berlin.

Relationships and estate

Although he was one of the richest landowners in Prussia, his estates reverted to the Crown upon his death, since he never left any legitimate heirs. His first mistress, Karoline Friederike Wichmann, with whom he cohabited from 1805 until 1817, bore him four children. She was ennobled as Baroness von Waldenburg. His second mistress was Auguste Arend, later ennobled as Baroness von Prillwitz. They were together from 1818 until her death in 1834, and had seven children. Shortly after Baroness Von Prillwitz's death he began a relationship with and morganatically married Emilie von Ostrowska, a Polish noblewoman. They had a daughter, Charlotte, who was five when her father died, and was raised by her father's Jewish tailor.[1]

Ancestry
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References
  1. Haas, Eve (2013). The Secrets of the Notebook. Arcade Publishing. p. 273.
  2. Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. p. 19.
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