Frederick III 1831-88
King of Prussia and German emperor

The only son of Wilhelm I, he was born in Potsdam. In 1858 he married Victoria, Princess Royal of England. As crown prince of Prussia (from 1861) he protested against Bismarck's reactionary policy in relation to constitutional questions and the press. In the Franco-Prussian War he commanded the third army and was made field marshal (1870). He became crown prince of the German Empire (1871) and in 1878, when Emperor Wilhelm I was wounded by an assassin, he was appointed provisional regent. He became Emperor Frederick III on Wilhelm's death (1888), but he died at Potsdam three months later, of cancer of the throat. He had a great horror of war and of autocratic ideas, and he sought to liberalize German institutions.