Ferdinand I (Romania)

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Ferdinand of Romania
Bust of Ferdinand of Romania in Timișoara , 2015

Ferdinand von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (also Ferdinand I, the Loyalty ; * August 24, 1865 in Sigmaringen ; † July 20, 1927 in Sinaia , Romania ) was King of Romania from October 10, 1914 until his death in 1927 .

Life

Wedding medal from Anton Scharff. Front.
Wedding medal from Anton Scharff. Back.

Ferdinand was born in Sigmaringen as the second son of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Antonias of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . Prince Ferdinand von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen comes from the Swabian line of the House of Hohenzollern . In 1880 he was proclaimed heir to the throne of his uncle Charles I of Romania (whose only child, a daughter, had died at the age of three). From 1887 to 1889 he studied law at the universities of Tübingen and Leipzig . From 1889 he lived permanently in Romania. On January 10, 1893, Ferdinand married the English Princess Marie of Edinburgh , born as Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was a granddaughter of the British Queen Victoria and the Russian Tsar Alexander II . They had three sons, Carol II , Nicolae , Mircea (who died very early) and three daughters, Elisabeth, Maria, Ileana. On October 10, 1914 he succeeded his uncle King Charles I of Romania to the Romanian throne by swearing loyalty to his adopted country:

"I will rule as a good Romanian."

Although he was a member of the Hohenzollern, the German imperial family, Romania initially remained neutral during World War I and entered the conflict on August 27, 1916 with a declaration of war on Austria-Hungary on the side of the Entente . Because he kept his oath and was supposed to wage war against his native Germany, Ferdinand was nicknamed "the loyalty" by the Romanian people . His wife, Queen Maria, is said to have had considerable influence on Ferdinand's decision in favor of the Allies. After a brief offensive in Transylvania, the Romanian army was forced to retreat to the Carpathian border in September. The breakthrough on the Carpathian front was not achieved by the German and Austro-Hungarian armies until November 1916. Shortly afterwards, troops of the Central Powers occupied Wallachia and Dobruja and in December / January the front stabilized on the Eastern Carpathian - Vrancea - Galați line . In 1917 the German and Austro-Hungarian troops did not succeed in breaking through the Moldau front because their offensive on Mărăşeşti failed. After Russia withdrew from the war, Ferdinand concluded the peace treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers on May 7, 1918 , but its provisions remained unfulfilled because Ferdinand refused to sign the agreement imposed on Romania by the Central Powers. Half a year later, the Central Powers had lost the war. The end of the war brought Romania considerable territorial gains: on October 15, 1922, after the unification of Transylvania , Bessarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom, Ferdinand was crowned King of Greater Romania in the newly built coronation cathedral in Alba Iulia . With the small Entente in 1921 Ferdinand placed the country on the side of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and with the large Entente in 1926 on France.

The most important domestic political issue of Ferdinand's tenure was land reform, which the peasant parties vigorously demanded with reference to revolutionary Russia. With reform laws in 1918 and 1921, Ferdinand did not succeed in increasing agricultural productivity, but at least defused the danger of a communist overthrow. Ferdinand was able to rely on the National Liberal Party , after which he adopted a liberal constitution in 1923, which, among other things, replaced the three-class with universal suffrage.

His son Carol II did not appear to the Liberal Party as an appropriate heir to the throne because of his affair with the divorced Magda Lupescu . Under pressure from Ferdinand and Romanian politics, Carol renounced his claim to the throne in 1926 and went into exile in Portugal. His son, Michael I , succeeded his grandfather at the age of five under the leadership of Ferdinand's second son, Prince Nicolae.

Marriage and offspring

Ferdinand I married Marie von Edinburgh (1875–1938), a daughter of Alfred , from August 1893 ruling Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, as well as Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of Great Britain and Ireland on January 10, 1893 .

membership

tomb

King Ferdinand I of Romania was buried like other Romanian rulers in the Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand I. (Romania)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Register book of Leipzig University: Leipzig University Archives, Rector M 39.
  2. ^ Peter Krause: Studiosus Austriacus. Handbook of the Austrian Corporations. Austrian Association for Student History, 1982, p. 83.
predecessor Office successor
Charles I. King of Romania
1914–1927 		Michael I.
personal data
SURNAME Ferdinand I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ferdinand of Romania; Ferdinand von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; Ferdinand I. the loyalty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION romanian king
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Sigmaringen
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1927
Place of death Sinaia