Rupprecht or Rupert, Crown Prince of Bavaria was the last Bavarian Crown Prince.
Background
Rupprecht was born in Munich, the eldest of the thirteen children of Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria, and of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, a niece of Duke Francis V of Modena. He was a member of the lineage of both Louis XIV of France and William the Conqueror. As a direct descendant of Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I of England, he was claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in the Jacobite succession as Rupert I.
Education
His early education from the age of seven was conducted by Freiherr Rolf Kreusser, an Anglo-Bavarian. In his youth, he spent much of his time at Schloss Leutstetten, Starnberg, and at the family's villa near Lindau, Lake Constance, where he was able to develop a keen interest in sports. His education was traditional and conservative, but he became the first member of the royal house of Bavaria to spend time at a public school, when he was educated at the Maximilian-Gymnasium in Munich, where he spent four years. Apart from his academic studies and his training in riding and dancing, at school he was also obliged to learn a trade, and his choice fell on carpentry.
He embarked on a military career, then took time off to study law, and in 1889 attended the War Academy.
Career
Rupprecht was appointed regimental commander in 1899, brigade commander in the grade of major general the following year, and divisional commander as lieutenant general in 1903. The Bavarian crown prince was promoted general of infantry and given command of the Bavarian I Army Corps in 1906 and, after extensive travels in the Balkans, was promoted colonel general as inspector general of the IV Army Inspectorate at Munich in 1912.
Rupprecht, in August 1914, was entrusted with the German Sixth Army in Lorraine, with General Krafft von Dellmensingen as his chief of staff. Under the auspices of the Schlieffen plan, the army in Lorraine was to conduct a yielding defensive; however, General Helmuth von Moltke had greatly reinforced the Lorraine contingent, yet at the same time had left it without specific battle orders. Rupprecht's attack on French positions at Morhange-Sarrebourg forced the enemy to retreat, but his forces were too weak to envelop the fleeing French by a march through the rugged Vosges. Early in September the crown prince's Sixth Army experienced a costly rebuff near Nancy-Epinal. Thereafter, Rupprecht led a new Sixth Army at the Somme, then at Arras and Lille, and finally in trench warfare at Ypres; by December the front had stabilized in Flanders. The Sixth Army fought at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915, and at La Bassée and Arras in May. In the fall of that year, Rupprecht again engaged the enemy at La Bassée and Arras, holding the Artois front; he was rewarded with the order Pour le mérite. His experiences during these bloody battles transformed him into an outspoken critic of General Erich von Falkenhayn's attritional tactics, and he predicted, to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, defeat if Falkenhayn remained as chief of the General Staff.
Promoted field marshal in July 1916, the following month Rupprecht surrendered command of the Sixth Army to become chief of a new Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht (Sixth, First, and Second armies) at the Somme. Early in 1917 the crown prince led this formation into defensive positions in the so-called Hindenburg line, all the while lamenting General Erich Ludendorff's utter devastation of the abandoned territory (Operation Alberich). In April and May Rupprecht repulsed bloodletting British assaults at Arras and began seriously to consider the need for an end to the war; munitions were in short supply and both the quality and quantity of recruits left much to be desired. As a result, a rankling enmity set in between the crown prince and Ludendorff, which was further fueled in July 1917 when army headquarters mobilized German industrialists and politicians to overthrow Bethmann Hollweg and to replace him with the pliant Georg Michaelis.
As one of Germany's ablest front-line commanders, Rupprecht daily bore witness to the exhaustion of the troops. Neither was he insensitive to the hunger and deprivation rampant at home. This notwithstanding, the crown prince on March 21, 1918, heroically led his army group during the Michael offensive; his forces broke the enemy line at Gouzeaucourt-Vermand-Cambrai and advanced over the old Somme battlefields of 1916 as far as the line Arras-Albert.
The Fourth and Sixth Armies had reached Armentières by April, but Marshal Ferdinand Foch's riposte with fresh American units fell fully upon Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht between the Ancre and Avre rivers. In desperation, Rupprecht on June 1 informed Chancellor Count Georg von Hertling, a fellow Bavarian, that Ludendorff no longer believed in victory and that peace negotiations ought to be begun at once; the vast gains scored in the east would more than offset a settlement on the basis of the status quo in the west. Hertling refused to accept this pessimistic prognosis, and Rupprecht had no choice but to continue the dreary retreat on the western front behind the so-called Hermann line of defense. His troops fought their last battles along the shores of the Scheldt and Lys rivers, in the process coining the bitter phrase: "The Prussians will fight on to the last Bavarian. When his father, King Ludwig III, abdicated on November 8, 1918, Rupprecht withdrew from public life to his estate at Chiemsee and became a patron of the arts.
The crowr prince was generally hailed as the "secret king" of Bavaria after the war, but he refused to condone a militant restoration of the Wittelsbach monarchy. Specifically, he declined to participate in Adolf Hitler's beerhall Putsch in November 1923, partly because of the presence of General Ludendorff, whose violent attacks on religion in general and Catholicism in particular repulsed him. Only briefly in 1933 did Rupprecht consider a monarchist restoration in Bavaria with the aim of heading off the imminent Nazi seizure of power. Rupprecht took his wife and children to Italy at the start of the Second World War; he returned to Bavaria in 1945 and died in Leutstetten on August 2, 1955.
Politics
Rupprecht was never enticed to join the far right in Germany, despite Hitler's attempts to win him over through Ernst Röhm and promises of royal restoration. He helped persuade Gustav von Kahr to not support Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler confided in private to a personal dislike of the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince in turn confessed to King George V at a lunch in London in the summer of 1934 that he considered Hitler to be insane.
With the worsening of the Great Depression in 1932, a plan was floated to give Rupprecht dictatorial powers in Bavaria under the title of Staatskommissar. The plan attracted support from a wide coalition of parties, including the SPD and the post-war Bavarian Minister-President (First Minister) Wilhelm Hoegner but the legal appointment of Hitler as Reichskanzler in 1933 by Hindenburg and the hesitant Bavarian government under Heinrich Held ended all hopes for the idea.
Rupprecht continued to believe that restoration of the monarchy was possible, an opinion he voiced to the British ambassador Eric Phipps in 1935.
It was at this time that H.G. Wells wrote his vision of future history, The Shape of Things to Come, in which a "Prince Manfred of Bavaria" in the later part of the 20th century was depicted as the leader of a widespread rebellion against the rise of a world government and its unification of the world. Presumably, Wells envisioned that "Prince Manfred" to be a descendant of Prince Rupprecht and an heir to Rupprecht's ambitions.
Connections
Rupprecht married twice and had a total of eleven children:
Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria, daughter of Duke Karl-Theodor in Bavaria (9 October 1878 – 24 October 1912), married on 10 July 1900 in Munich
Luitpold Maximilian Ludwig Karl, Hereditary Prince of Bavaria (8 May 1901 – 27 August 1914); died of polio.
Princess Irmingard Maria Therese José Cäcilia Adelheid Michaela Antonia Adelgunde of Bavaria (21 September 1902 – 21 April 1903); died of diphtheria.
Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria (3 May 1905 – 8 July 1996).
Stillborn daughter (6 December 1906).
Prince Rudolf Friedrich Rupprecht of Bavaria (30 May 1909 – 26 June 1912); died of diabetes.
Princess Antonia of Luxembourg, daughter of William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg — (7 October 1899 – 31 July 1954), married on 7 April 1921 in Lenggries
Prince Heinrich Franz Wilhelm of Bavaria (28 March 1922 – 14 February 1958). Married non-dynastically Anne Marie de Lustrac (1927–1999). No issue. Heinrich was killed in an auto accident in Argentina. His wife Anne was killed in a similar accident in Milan forty years later.
Princess Irmingard Marie Josefa of Bavaria (29 May 1923 – 23 October 2010). Married her first cousin Prince Ludwig of Bavaria (1913–2008) and had issue.
Princess Editha Marie Gabrielle Anna of Bavaria (16 September 1924 – 4 May 2013). Married first Tito Tommaso Maria Brunetti (1905–1954) and second Prof. Gustav Christian Schimert (1910–1990). Had issue by both.[20]
Princess Hilda Hildegard Marie Gabriele of Bavaria (24 March 1926 – 5 May 2002). Married Juan Bradstock Edgar Lockett de Loayza (1912–1987) and had issue.
Princess Gabrielle Adelgunde Marie Theresia Antonia of Bavaria (b. 10 May 1927). Married Carl, Duke of Croÿ (1914–2011), and has issue.
Princess Sophie Marie Therese of Bavaria (b. 20 June 1935). Married Jean-Engelbert, Prince and 12th Duke of Arenberg (1921–2011) and has issue.