Ancestral Trails 2016 » Wilhelm Karl von URACH (1864-1928)

Persoonlijke gegevens Wilhelm Karl von URACH 

• Hij is geboren op 30 mei 1864 in Monaco.
• Titel: King of Lithuania (under name of Mindaugas II)
• Titel: Count of Württemberg, 2nd Duke of Urach
• (Ancestry) : House of Württemberg.
• Hij is overleden op 24 maart 1928 in Rapallo, Genova, Liguria, Italy, hij was toen 63 jaar oud.
• Hij is begraven maart 1928 in Ludwigsburg Palace Church, Ludwigsburg, Germany.
• Een kind van Wilhelm Alexander Ferdinand von WURTTEMBERG

Gezin van Wilhelm Karl von URACH

(1) Hij heeft/had een relatie met Wiltrud von BAVARIA.

(2) Hij is getrouwd met Amalie Maria von BAVARIA.

Zij zijn getrouwd op 4 juli 1892 te Tegernsee, Miesbach, Bayern, Germany, hij was toen 28 jaar oud.

Kind(eren):

1. Wilhelm von URACH  

Notities over Wilhelm Karl von URACH

Prince Wilhelm of Urach, Count of Württemberg, 2nd Duke of Urach (Wilhelm Karl Florestan Gero Crescentius) 30 May 1864 - 24 March 1928), was a German prince who was elected in June 1918 as King of Lithuania, with the regnal name of Mindaugas II. He never assumed the crown, however, as German authorities declared the election invalid; the invitation was withdrawn in November 1918. From 17 July 1869 until his death, he was the head of the morganatic Urach branch of the House of Württemberg.

Born as Wilhelm Karl Florestan Gero Crescentius, Count of Württemberg, he was the elder son of Wilhelm, 1st Duke of Urach (the head of a morganatic branch of the Royal House of the Kingdom of Württemberg), and his second wife, Princess Florestine of Monaco, occasional Regent of Monaco and daughter of Florestan I, Prince of Monaco.

At the age of four, Wilhelm succeeded his father as Duke of Urach. He was born and spent much of his childhood in Monaco, where his mother Florestine often managed the government during the extended oceanographic expeditions of her nephew, Prince Albert I. Wilhelm was culturally francophone.

King of Lithuania
On 4 June 1918, the Council of Lithuania voted to invite Wilhelm to become the king of a newly independent Lithuania. Wilhelm agreed and was elected on 11 July 1918, taking the name Mindaugas II. His election can be explained by several factors:
he was Roman Catholic (the dominant religion in Lithuania);
he was not a member of the House of Hohenzollern, the family to which belonged the German Emperor William II, who wanted Lithuania to be a monarchy in personal union with Prussia;
the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918 had established Germany's power in the region, for the time being;
he had had a successful military career;
if the Central Powers were to win the war, Lithuania could have expected German protection in the event of future intrusions by Russia.
According to Wilhelm's agreement with the Council of Lithuania, he had to live in Lithuania and learn to speak its language.

From the beginning, Wilhelm's reign was controversial. The four socialists of the twenty members of the Council of Lithuania left in protest. The German government did not recognize Wilhelm's selection as king, although the influential publicist and politician Mattias Erzberger, also a Catholic from Württemberg, supported the claim. Wilhelm never had the chance to visit Lithuania; he remained instead at Lichtenstein Castle, his home south of Stuttgart. He did start to learn the Lithuanian language, however. Within a few months of his election, it became clear that Germany would lose World War I, and on 2 November 1918, the Council of Lithuania reversed its decision.

In the tiny chapel of Lichtenstein Castle is a framed letter from Pope Benedict XV welcoming Wilhelm's selection as the future king of Lithuania. In 2009 Wilhelm's grandson Inigo was interviewed on television in Vilnius, and said: "...if he was honoured with a proposal to assume the throne of Lithuania, he would not refuse it." The German anti-war novelist Arnold Zweig set his 1937 novel Einsetzung eines Königs (The Crowning of a King) around the election of Mindaugas in 1918.

Marriage and children
Wilhelm was married twice. In 1892, he married Duchess Amalie in Bavaria (1865-1912), daughter of Karl-Theodor, Duke in Bavaria, a niece of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and a direct descendant of the Lithuanian princess Louise Caroline Radvila of Biržai. Nine children were born of this marriage:

Princess Marie Gabriele (1893-1908)
Princess Elizabeth (1894-1962) who married Prince Karl of Liechtenstein (1878-1955), an uncle of Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein, and had issue.
Princess Karola (1896-1980)
Prince Wilhelm (1897-1957), who morganatically married Elisabeth Theurer (1899-1988) and had two daughters, Elisabeth and Marie Christine, neither of whom married.
Karl Gero, Duke of Urach (1899-1981), 3rd Duke of Urach, who married Countess Gabriele of Waldburg-Zeil (1910-2005); no issue.
Princess Margarete (1901-1975)
Prince Albrecht (1903-1969), a diplomat; former artist turned journalist, and expert on the Far East. Married first Rosemary Blackadder and second Ute Waldschmidt, divorced both of them and had issue by both. His daughter Marie-Gabrielle (aka Mariga) was the first wife of Desmond Guinness. Albrecht's marriages were also considered morganatic, but his descendants use as surname Furst von Urach.
Prince Eberhard (1907-1969), who married Princess Iniga of Thurn and Taxis (1925-2008) and had issue.
Princess Mechtilde (1912-2001), who married Friedrich Karl, Prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst and had issue.

Though Wilhelm's first wife had died in 1912, two of her ancestors had been elected to rule the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century: August III the Saxon and Stanisław Leszczyński. In 1924, Wilhelm married Princess Wiltrud of Bavaria (1884-1975), daughter of King Ludwig III of Bavaria. This marriage was childless.

Prince Eberhard's son Inigo made a sentimental journey to Lithuania in November 2009, which was covered by the local media.

Bypassed for the throne of Württemberg
In 1921 the former king Wilhelm II of Württemberg died, without leaving a male heir. While the 2nd duke of Urach was technically the senior male descendant from the Württemberg royal family, it had already been decided that the succession would pass to his cousin Duke Albrecht because of the morganatic marriage of the parents of the first duke of Urach.
SOURCE: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Karl,_Duke_of_Urach

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