History of Baden - Baden in The German Empire

Baden in The German Empire

The political tendency of Baden, meanwhile, mirrored that of all Germany. In 1892 the National Liberals had but a majority of one in the diet; from 1893 they could maintain themselves only with the aid of the Conservatives; and in 1897 a coalition of Ultramontanes, Socialists, Social Democrats and Radicals (Freisinnige) won a majority for the opposition in the chamber.

Amid all these contests the wise and statesmanlike moderation of the Grand Duke Frederick won him universal esteem. By the treaty under which Baden had become an integral part of the German Empire in 1871, he had reserved only the exclusive right to tax beer and spirits; the army, the post-office, railways and the conduct of foreign relations passed under the effective control of Prussia.

In his relations with the German empire, too, Frederick proved himself rather a great German noble than a sovereign prince actuated by particularist ambitions; and his position as husband of the emperor William I's only daughter, Louise (whom he had married in 1856), gave him a peculiar influence in the councils of Berlin. When, on September 20, 1906, the Grand Duke celebrated at once the jubilee of his reign and his golden wedding anniversary, all Europe combined to do him honour. King Edward VII sent him, by the hands of the Duke of Connaught, the order of the Garter. But more significant, perhaps, was the tribute paid by Le Temps, the leading Parisian paper:

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the sterile paradox of the Napoleonic work than the history of the Grand Duchy. It was Napoleon, and he alone, who created this whole state in 1803 to reward in the person of the little margrave of Baden a relative of the emperor of Russia. It was he who after Austerlitz aggrandized the margravate at the expense of Austria; transformed it into a sovereign principality and raised it to a Grand Duchy. It was he too who, by the secularization on the one hand and by the dismemberment of Württemberg on the other, gave the Grand Duke 500,000 new subjects. He believed that the recognition of the prince and the artificial ethnical formation of the principality would be pledges of security for France. But in 1813 Baden joined the coalition, and since then that nation created of odds and ends ("de bric et de broc") and always handsomely treated by us, had not ceased to take a leading part in the struggles against our country. The Grand Duke Frederick, Grand Duke by the will of Napoleon, has done France all the harm he could. But French opinion itself renders justice to the probity of his character and to the ardour of his patriotism, and nobody will feel surprise at the homage with which Germany feels bound to surround his old age.

Grand Duke Frederick I died at Mainau on September 28, 1907; his son, the Grand Duke Frederick II (ruled 1907 - 1918, died 1928), succeeded him.