Ferdinand I of Romania

Infobox Romanian Royalty|monarch
name =Ferdinand I
title =King of the Romanians

---

caption =
reign =OldStyleDate|10 October|1914|27 September-20 July, 1927
coronation =
full name =Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern
predecessor =Carol I
successor =Mihai I
spouse =Marie of Edinburgh
issue =Carol II
Elisabeth, Queen of the Hellenes
Marie, Queen of Yugoslavia
Prince Nicholas
Archduchess Ileana of Austria
Prince Mircea
royal house =House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
royal anthem =
father =Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
mother =Antónia of Portugal and Kohary
date of birth =birth date|1865|8|24|df=y
place of birth =Sigmaringen, Germany
date of death =death date and age|1927|7|20|1865|8|24|df=y
place of death =Sinaia, Romania
date of burial =
place of burial=Curtea de Argeş, Romania|

Ferdinand I (24 August 1865 – 20 July 1927) was the King of the Romanians from October 10 1914 until his death.

Early life

Born in Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany, the Roman Catholic Prince Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern, was a son of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Infanta Antónia of Portugal (1845-1913), daughter of Queen Maria II and King Ferdinand II, himself from that Slovakian-originated family.

Following the renunciations of his father and elder brother Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, young Ferdinand became the heir to the throne of his childless uncle, King Carol I of Romania in November 1888. The Romanian government did not require his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy from Catholicism, allowing him to continue with his born creed, but it was required that his children be raised Orthodox, then the state religion of Romania.

Ferdinand's mother's first cousin Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, originally a prince of Kohary, sat on the throne of the neighboring Bulgaria since 1889 and was to become the greatest opponent of the kingdom of his Romanian cousins. The neighboring Emperor Francis Joseph, monarch of Austria-Hungary and as such, ruler of Transylvania, a province with a clear ethnic Romanian majority, was Ferdinand's grandmother's first cousin.

In Sigmaringen on 10 January 1893, Crown Prince Ferdinand married his distant cousin, the Lutheran Princess Marie of Edinburgh, daughter of Anglican Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and the Orthodox Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie and Ferdinand were third cousins in descent from Franz Frederick Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Marie's paternal grandparents were Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Her maternal grandparents were Alexander II of Russia and Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. The reigning Emperor of the neighboring Russia was Marie's first cousin Tsar Nicholas II.Their marriage produced three sons (one of whom Mircea died in infancy) and three daughters, his wife being reportedly adulterous in later stages of the marriage, so Mircea is surmised children of Barbu Ştirbey. Ferdinand reportedly wanted to avoid scandal and did not repudiate the legal paternity.

King of Romania

Ferdinand succeeded his uncle on his death without issue as King of Romania on 10 October, 1914, reigning until his death on 20 July, 1927.

World War I

Though a member of a cadet branch of Germany's ruling Hohenzollern imperial family, Ferdinand presided over his country's entry into World War I on the side of the Triple Entente powers against the Central Powers on August 27, 1916. Thus he gained the nickname "the Loyal", respecting his oath when sworn in before the Romanian Parliament in 1914:

Also as a consequence of this "betrayal" of his German roots, the Kaiser Wilhelm II had his name erased from the Hohenzollern House register.

Despite the setbacks after the entry into war, when Dobruja and Wallachia were occupied by the Central Powers, Romania fought on in 1917 and stopped the German advance into Moldavia. When the Bolsheviks sued for peace in 1918, Romania was surrounded by the Central Powers and forced to conclude the Treaty of Bucharest, 1918. However, Ferdinand refused to sign the treaty. When the Allied advance on the Thessaloniki front knocked Bulgaria out of the war, Ferdinand ordered the re-mobilization of the Romanian Army and Romania re-entered the war on the Triple Entente side.

The outcome of Romania's war effort was the union of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. Ferdinand became the ruler of a greatly enlarged Romanian state in 1918-1920 following the Entente's victory over the Central Powers, a war between the Kingdom of Romania and the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and the civil war in Russia, and was crowned King of Romania in a spectacular ceremony on October 15, 1922 at the historic princely seat of Alba Iulia in Transilvania.

After the war

Domestic political life during his reign was dominated by the conservative National Liberal party led by the brothers Ion and Vintilă Brătianu. The acquisition of Transylvania ironically enlarged the electoral base of the opposition, whose principal parties united in January 1925-October 1926 to form the National Peasant Party.

Ferdinand died in Sinaia in 1927, and was succeeded by his grandson Michael I, under a regency. The regency had three members, one of whom was Ferdinand's second son, Prince Nicholas.

Infobox Monarch styles


royal name=King Ferdinand I of Romania
dipstyle=His Majesty
offstyle=Your Majesty
altstyle=Sir|

Ancestors

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boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;
boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;
boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;
boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe;
1= 1. Ferdinand I of Romania
2= 2. Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern
3= 3. Infanta Antónia of Portugal
4= 4. Charles Anthony, Prince of Hohenzollern
5= 5. Princess Josephine of Baden
6= 6. Ferdinand II of Portugal
7= 7. Maria II of Portugal
8= 8. Charles, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
9= 9. Marie Antoinette Murat
10= 10. Karl, Grand Duke of Baden
11= 11. Stéphanie de Beauharnais
12= 12. Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
13= 13. Maria Antonia, Princess of Koháry
14= 14. Pedro I of Brazil
15= 15. Maria Leopoldina of Austria
16= 16. Anton Aloys, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
17= 17. Princess Amalie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg
18= 18. Pierre Murat
19= 19. Louise d'Astorg
20= 20. Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden
21= 21. Landgravine Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt
22= 22. Claude de Beauharnais
23= 23. Claudine Françoise de Lézay-Marnézia
24= 24. Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
25= 25. Princess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf
26= 26. Friedrich Josef Koháry de Csábrág, 3rd Prince of Koháry
27= 27. Countess Marie Antionette of Waldstein-Wartenberg
28= 28. John VI of Portugal
29= 29. Charlotte of Spain
30= 30. Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
31= 31. Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies

Notes

References

*ro icon Wolbe, Eugen:"Ferdinand I - Întemeietorul României Mari" (Ferdinand I, founder of Greater Romania), Humanitas, 2006.

s-ttl|title=King of Romania
years=1914-1927

External links

* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/romania.html Royal House of Romania]
* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/hohenzollern.html Princely House of Hohenzollern]
* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/saxony.html Ducal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha]
* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/greatbritain.html Royal House of Great Britain]
* [http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/ferdinand_romania.htm A short biography mainly about his role in WW1]