Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Born Princess Maria Luise Augusta Katharina of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; 30 September 1811 – 7 January 1890), was Queen of Prussia and the first German Empress as the wife of William I, German Emperor.

A member of the Grand Ducal House of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and closely related to the Russian Imperial House of Romanov through her mother Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, in June 1829, Augusta married Prince William of Prussia. The marriage was tense; Wilhelm actually wanted to marry his cousin, Elisa Radziwiłł, who was judged to be unsuitable by the Prussian court, and the political views and intellectual interests of the two spouses were also far apart. Despite personal differences, Augusta and William often worked together to handle correspondence and social gatherings at court. In 1831 and 1838, they had two children, Frederick William and Louise. After the death of her father-in-law King Frederick William III of Prussia in 1840, Augusta became the wife of the heir presumptive to the Prussian throne.

It was not an official position that gave Augusta political influence, but rather her social relationships and dynastic proximity to William. An important role was played by extensive correspondence with her husband, other princes, statesmen, officers, diplomats, clergy, scientists and writers. She saw herself as her husband's political advisor and saw the Prussian Prime Minister and German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as her main political enemy. While Bismarck biographies sometimes characterize the Empress's political views as anti-liberal or as destructive directed solely against Bismarck's policies, more recent research classifies them as liberal. Accordingly, Augusta did not succeed overall in convincing her husband to restructure Prussia and Germany along the lines of United Kingdom's constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, she certainly had political leeway in raising the heir to the throne, as an advocate for the Catholic population and through her access to the king and anti-militaristic representation. Exactly how far Augusta's influence as a monarch's wife went in the 19th century is still being debated in historiography.

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