About Hohenzollern
Located in southern Germany, the former principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and
Hohenzollern-Hechingen had lost their sovereign status in 1849 and became a province of
the Kingdom of Prussia. The princes were distant cousins of the Hohenzollern branch which had
become the rulers of Prussia, and managed to retain certain privileges, including the
awarding of the House Order of Hohenzollern.
The eminent Fürst von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen who ceded sovereignty to Prussia was
Carl Anton, who was prince from 1848 to 1885. The Hechingen line would die out in 1869, at which
point Carl Anton became simply Fürst von Hohenzollern. He was Minister-President of
Prussia from 1858 to 1861. His eldest son Leopold would succeed him as prince, serving from
1885 to 1905, but his candidacy for the throne of Spain was opposed by France. This
dispute served as a proximate cause of the Franco-Prussian War.
Carl Anton's second son, Carl Eitel Friedrich, became Prince Carol of Romania in 1866
and was elevated to King Carol I in 1881. King Carol was childless, and the status of heir to the
Romanian throne was offered in 1888 to his brother Fürst Leopold and to Fürst Leopold's eldest
son Wilhelm. Both turned it down, and Fürst Leopold's second son, Ferdinand, became heir,
and on Carol's death in 1914, King Ferdinand I of Romania, ruling until 1927.
Wilhelm had succeeded Fürst Leopold in 1905 and was a general in the German Army.
Initially remaining neutral, King Ferdinand would in 1916 side with his subjects and his \
English wife's family rather than his German relatives. Romania entered World War One on the
Allied side on August 27, 1916. Despite losing rather badly on the field of battle, the
Romanians would emerge on the victorious side, and add three million ethnic Romanian
subjects from territorial acquisitions in the former Austro-Hungarian provinces of
Transylvania and Bukovina.
One piece of Hohenzollern military trivia may be of some interest: when Benjamin Franklin
recruited Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben in 1777 to help train the nascent American
Army, von Steuben was serving as Lord Chamberlain (Hofmarschall) in the court of the
prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, where he had served since shortly after leaving the
Prussian Army in 1763.
Füsilier-Regiment Fürst Karl Anton von Hohenzollern
The German Army's Füsilier-Regiment Fürst Karl Anton von Hohenzollern
(Hohenzollernsches) Nr.40 (FR40) was raised in the former principalities and the regimental
chief was the head of the princely house of Hohenzollern. In 1914, the regiment was garrisoned in
Rastatt in Baden, however, and was assigned with the Infanterie-Regiment Markgraf
Ludwig Wilhelm (3. Badisches) Nr.111 (IR111), a Baden unit, to the 56th Infantry Brigade.
Along with the 55th Infantry Brigade, made up of two other Baden infantry regiments, and
the 28th Cavalry Brigade, comprising two Baden dragoon regiments, they formed the
core of the 28th Infantry Division. The division's 28th Artillery Brigade was also made up of
Baden field artillery regiments. The division, along with the 29th Division, also comprised
primarily of Baden regiments, made up the XIV Army Corps, which was formerly Baden's army.
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