EN:Royal Crisis (1885/86)
From Historisches Lexikon Bayerns
The “Royal Crisis” refers to the political and constitutional crisis that began in the autumn of 1885, resulting from the debt of the Royal Cabinet Treasury due to the high expenditures on the personal passions of Ludwig II (1845–1886, King from 1864–1886), particularly his palace constructions. The crisis placed considerable pressure on the system of anti-parliamentary government, which was run by ministers drawn from the ranks of senior civil servants and relied solely on the trust, and in the public's eyes, the prestige of the Crown. The problems were ultimately resolved in June 1886 through the collaboration of this “ministerial oligarchy” with the scientific expert Bernhard von Gudden (1824-1886), who declared the king mentally ill. Prince Luitpold of Bavaria (1821-1912, Prince Regent from 1886 to 1912) reluctantly accepted therole of regent, thereby ensuring the survival of the existing political system.
Early doubts about Ludwig II's ability to govern
Just a few months after the eighteen-year-old Ludwig (1845-1886, King 1864-1886) ascended the throne, reports from diplomats accredited in Munich expressed quiet doubts about his full mental health and, by extension, his ability to govern. Observations of the king's seemingly eccentric and affected behaviour gave rise to these concerns. Further circles of both the Bavarian political elite and the population, particularly in Munich, began to doubt the sanity of their king when, during the political crisis leading up to the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, he first visited Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in Switzerland and then withdrew to the Roseninsel (Rose Island)on Lake Starnberg. The high-profile journey that Ludwig II undertook through the parts of Franconia affected by the war after its conclusion helped dispel these negative perceptions. The king's subsequent retreat from the public eye occurred gradually. His abstinence from actively engaging in politics, which intensified after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, was managed by the “ministerial oligarchy” and concealed from the public as much as possible.
The causes of the Royal Crisis
Structural causes
Political complexity and Ludwig II's style of government
According to the Bavarian Constitution of 1818, the king was authorised and appointed to set the political guidelines. However, the growing complexity of administration and society had already forced King Maximilian II (1811-1864, King 1848-1864) to rely heavily on the expertise of his ministers. Due to Ludwig II’s inexperience and his soon-emerging reluctance to engage in the strenuous work of governance, the actual exercise of royal power passed to the ministers and the cabinet secretary. The latter played a crucial role as an intermediary between the king and the state authorities, especially for a monarch like Ludwig II, who spent much of the year away from his capital later in his reign.
Constitutional system and parliamentary majority relations
The 1818 constitution was based on the "monarchical principle" with a strict separation of powers. In this regard, the reforms of 1848 had only succeeded in achieving minor modifications. This meant that the king was the head of the executive branch, while he held the legislative branch only in conjunction with both chambers of the Landtag (state parliament). In particular, the monarch alone appointed the ministers. Ludwig II, who was influenced by romanticised notions of medieval and absolutist kingship and rejected even the mere appearance of parliamentarisation, consistently appointed liberal, Prussian-friendly ministers after 1866, even though the Catholic-conservative Patriot Party, which had held the majority in the Chamber of Deputies since 1869, was actually politically closer to him. This gave the ministers significant power due to the king's passivity, but they were also dependent on the backing and prestige of the crown for their legitimacy.
Immediate cause: The debt crisis of the Royal Cabinet Treasury
The financial situation
In 1868, King Ludwig II began extensive building projects for the construction of new castles (Linderhof, Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee), in which his dream worlds were to take shape. These were not financed from the State Treasury, but from the Royal Cabinet Treasury instead. This income came from the "civil list,” which was transferred annually by the state to the king (about 4.23 million marks). However, this amount had to be primarily used for the upkeep of the royal court and the existing palaces. The Royal Cabinet Treasury was further bolstered by the income generated by the assets inherited from King Maximilian II (about 500,000 marks annually) and, since 1871, by secret payments made by Otto von Bismarck(1815-1898, Chancellor of the Reich 1871-1890), amounting to 300,000 marks per year. King Ludwig II had about one million marks per year at his disposal for the palace construction and other personal indulgences. However, by around 1877, these funds were no longer sufficient to cover the commissions and orders, leading to the accumulation of debt in the Royal Cabinet Treasury. Creditors were already threatening legal action in the year 1884. This danger was able to be averted through a bank loan of 7.5 million marks, which was facilitated by Emil von Riedel (1832-1906, Finance Minister 1877-1903). Since the King did not subsequently abstain from commissioning construction projects, he amassed new debts of almost 6.5 million marks by the summer of 1885. The Cabinet Treasury was insolvent.
The impending loss of the Crown's reputation
Ludwig II responded to the financial crisis and the extensive halt in the construction of his palaces by attempting to secure new loans, both domestically and abroad, with the help of close confidants from his staff and, at times, dubious and politically questionable intermediaries. These activities did not remain hidden from the press for long and were eventually publicised, initially mostly outside of Bavaria. This threatened to damage the reputation of both the king and the country.
The situation was further exacerbated by the high turnover of servants, caused by payment difficulties and the king's bizarre behaviour.From February 1885 on, the king began detaching chevaulegers (soldiers of the light cavalry) from their units to serve in his immediate surroundings as replacements. This gave new life to long-circulating rumours about Ludwig II's sexual orientation.
The outbreak of the Royal Crisis
The cause: The Nanette Wagner affair
As part of his fundraising efforts, King Ludwig II issued a letter of attorney to a disreputable credit broker from Stuttgart, named Nanette Wagner, on 22 February 1886. Court Secretary Ludwig Klug (1838-1913, Court Secretary from 1885-1886) managed to retrieve the letter with the help of the police, thus preventing any potential compromise of the king. The Council of Ministers, shocked by the incident, decided on March 20 to have King Ludwig II's health condition reviewed. This decision should be viewed in the context of the ministers having been deliberating - with the involvement of Prince Luitpold of Bavaria (1821-1912, Prince Regent from 1886-1912) - on how to control the king's financial behaviour since July 1885. In particular, Johann Baron von Lutz(1826-1890, Minister of Culture from 1869-1890, Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1880-1890) had been considering how to persuade King Ludwig II to abdicate since around the turn of the year 1885/86.
The verdict of the psychiatrist Gudden
Immediately after the decision on March 20 1886, Lutz invited Bernhard von Gudden (1824-1886), professor of psychiatry in Munich and the director of the district mental asylum of Upper Bavaria, to a meeting on March 23. During the meeting, Gudden assured Lutz and his colleague Friedrich Krafft Baron von Crailsheim (1841-1926, Foreign Minister 1880-1903, Chairman of the Council of Ministers 1890-1903) that he believed Ludwig II to be "fundamentally insane”. At the same time, he agreed to prepare an expert report on the matter, provided he was given sufficient file material. Gudden was one of the leading psychiatrists of his time, and his esteemed reputation was coupled with an overconfidence in his own abilities. As one of the "prince's doctors" responsible for treating Ludwig's brother Otto (1848-1916, King 1886-1913), who was undoubtedly mentally ill, he was likely not free from bias, particularly given the suspected hereditary biological connections.
The escalation
The public comes into play
In the spring of 1886, lawsuits for payment against the Royal Cabinet Treasury were filed with the Munich I Regional Court. The first hearings were scheduled for May. The king's mounting debts were also widely discussed in the Bavarian press, with the government no longer making efforts, as it had previously, to prevent such articles by exerting pressure on the publishers. The king's strange habits were also discussed by the public, circulating various rumours damaging to his reputation. The Catholic-conservative press and the public also turned their criticism towards the ministers, accusing them of having stood idly by and allowed the situation to continue for years.
Actions of the king
In addition to further desperate and ineffective attempts to raise money, King Ludwig II also took a political step in early April. Through Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria (1859-1949), one of the few close relatives with whom he had a good relationship, he contacted the conservative Catholic opposition politician Georg Arbogast Baron von Franckenstein (1825-1890, Bavarian Patriot Party, Member of Parliament 1872-1890) to discuss the possibility of securing additional funds from the state parliament. In the 1870s, Franckenstein had been repeatedly considered a candidate for the chair of the Council of Ministers in the event of a political system change. However, he believed there was no prospect of Parliament addressing the royal financial problems unless a guarantee of future financial prudence was provided. In a meeting on 16 April, he urged Lutz to bring the king to his senses by threatening him with the resignation of the ministry. He had no interest in forming a conservative cabinet in the midst of the crisis.
On 6 April, King Ludwig II had also written to Bismarck seeking advice. The Chancellor replied in a letter dated 14 April, advising the King to approach the Landtag through the Council of Ministers. On 17 April, a corresponding directive was issued to the ministers. This order was unpleasant to them. The clear motive was a lack of faith in the king's future moderation; it is disputed, whether concerns that a submission of the directive to parliament might lead to a change in ministers after all, also played a role. In any case, the royal directive was not carried out. Instead, Lutz and Riedel consulted with leading members of parliament from all parties, who assessed that, given the critical public mood towards the king, a renovation loan could be granted at most, and under conditions that would have been incompatible with Ludwig's wishes to receive funds for further construction.
In a letter dated 5 May, the ministers informed the king that there was no prospect of the state parliament granting money. They demanded not only strict austerity but also the dismissal of the chevaulegers and the king's return to Munich. He responded with insults, the dismissal of the cabinet secretary Alexander von Schneider (1845-1909, cabinet secretary from 1883-1886), and gave orders to his confidants, the quatermaster of the royal stables Karl Hesselschwerdt (1840-1902) and his barber Richard Hoppe, to find other ministers who would provide him with money to cover his debts and continue the construction projects.
Actions of the ministers
King Ludwig II's reaction to their letter of 5 May, which demonstrated a complete lack of understanding, prompted the ministers - in a meeting shortly before the middle of the month that was not officially recorded - to decide to establish a regency. The constitution required that in order to do so, the king's incapacity to govern needed to be officially determined. In a meeting with Lutz on 17 May, Gudden again confirmed that he considered Ludwig to be insane. Chief Stable Master Max Count von Holnstein (1835-1895), the superior of the royal stables staff, which largely comprised the king's inner circle, questioned Hesselschwerdt and the valet Adalbert Welker as witnesses regarding the king's strange behaviour. The statements were then made available to Gudden.
Chancellor Bismarck, now informed by the Council of Ministers through the Bavarian envoy in Berlin, advised against the planned covert action and once again recommended that the royal financial problems be brought before the Landtag, which could then also initiate the establishment of the regency. The ministers did not follow this advice; the Chancellor viewed the matter as an internal Bavarian issue, into which the Reich should not intervene.
Prince Luitpold would have preferred to be spared the responsibility of a regency. Ultimately, he agreed to take on the task out of a sense of duty, despite ongoing reservations about the office, which he regarded as a burden. However, he would have preferred it if the initial idea of persuading Ludwig II to abdicate had been pursued further. In that case, he would have had to take over the regency for King Otto, who was undoubtedly mentally ill. Luitpold was not entirely convinced of Ludwig's illness. Lutz also had reservations about basing a psychiatric report solely on the statements of low-ranking servants with little education, especially since some of those requested to testify had refused to do so.
Therefore, on 1 June, additional and more prominent individuals were asked to provide material. The former equerry Richard Hornig (1841-1911), a once close confidant of King Ludwig II who had recently fallen out of favour, along with the former cabinet secretaries Ludwig August von Müller (1846-1895, cabinet secretary 1879-1880) and Friedrich von Ziegler (1839-1897, cabinet secretary 1877-1879, 1880-1883) submitted written reports. Hesselschwerdt and Welker were questioned again in the presence of Gudden and Crailshaim.
The meetings of the Council of Ministers from 7-9 June and the installation of the regency
7 June: The decision in principle
On 6 June, Prince Luitpold had invited the ministers to a "reception" for the following day. He evidently wanted to avoid prematurely assuming royal rights that would only be granted to him as regent. However, the minutes instead refer to a "summons" for a "consultation". It would have been legally correct if Lutz, as the presiding minister, had summoned his colleagues and then requested the prince to attend the meeting. Instead, Lutz was initially absent. Prince Luitpold once again asked Crailsheim whether Ludwig II could be persuaded to abdicate. The answer was that this would require coercion, and moreover, the abdication of a mentally ill person would be invalid. Only then did Lutz and Gudden join them. The latter convinced Luitpold that abdication was not a viable option. However, as he still seemed to have lingering doubts about his nephew's illness, he suggested that the psychiatrist personally examine the king. Lutz opposed this suggestion and instead agreed that the witnesses would be sworn in.
8 June: The order to Gudden and colleagues
After the texts of a regency proclamation and the constitutionally mandated convocation of the Landtag that would follow it had been approved, Gudden and three other psychiatrists were commissioned to prepare an expert report on Ludwig II's mental state. It was also decided to forego a formal announcement of his incapacitation (under private law).
9 June: King Ludwig II's incapacitation and the investiture as regent
Gudden completed the required expert report on 8 June, based on a draft he had prepared the previous night. The three other experts merely signed the document without having contributed to its content. The conclusion, drawn from a lengthy and very unsystematic enumeration of symptoms that Gudden compiled from witness statements and notes by court secretary Klug, was that King Ludwig II was "mentally disturbed to a very advanced degree,” suffering from "paranoia (madness)”. He was therefore deemed incurably mentally ill and permanently unfit to rule. Prince Luitpold and the ministers subsequently resolved to approve the medical report and "proceed with the appointment of the regency [...]". Luitpold then signed the regency proclamation. In accordance with the civil law provisions of the Codex Maximilianeus Bavaricus Civilis of 1756 regarding incapacitated individuals, two curators were also appointed to manage Ludwig II's private assets.
The aftermath
The appointment of the regency seemed to mark the end of the Royal Crisis. However, the first state commission, led by Crailsheim and Holnstein, which was tasked with formally informing King Ludwig II of the establishment of the regency and placing him under medical supervision, failed spectacularly on 10 June. Their compliance with the king’s orders to have them arrested by the local gendarmerie could have dramatically altered the course of events. But the reclusive king neither heeded the advice of his wing adjutant, Alfred Count von Dürckheim (1850–1912), to travel to Munich immediately nor seized the opportunity to flee. In hindsight, this psychologically driven inability to act decisively can be interpreted as evidence of his incapacity to govern, provided by Ludwig II himself, as in the expert opinion dated 8 June had been asserted.
The subsequent tragic events involving the successful capture of King Ludwig II on 12 June, in the second attempt, and his death in Lake Starnberg the following day, no longer belong to the Royal Crisis in the narrower sense. However, they added further strain to the early days of Prince Luitpold's regency and played a significant role in shaping the enduring myth surrounding King Ludwig II.
Context and repercussions
Problems with the process
Throughout the entire Royal Crisis, those involved faced an issue: the Bavarian Constitution of 1818 contained a clear provision outlining who would be entitled to the regency in the event of such a contingency, namely the next adult heir to the throne. Additionally, there was a clause stipulating that a regency should be established if the king were "prevented from exercising the government by any cause whose effect endures for more than a year”. According to the widely accepted interpretation of constitutional law, this included mental illness. However, the Constitution did not contain any provisions regarding how such a determination should be made or who should take the initiative in making it. This legal uncertainty was clearly evident in the convoluted language frequently found in the minutes of the meetings of the Council of Ministers from 7 to 9 June 1886.
Furthermore, the basic legal procedures for incapacitation were ignored. Although the relevant provisions of the Imperial Code of Civil Procedure were not directly applicable to the king, who was described as "sacred and inviolable" by the constitution, responsibility for the factual investigation should, in accordance with the Royal Family Statute of 1819, have been entrusted to the Presidents of the Bavarian Supreme Court and the Munich Higher Regional Court, thereby placing the matter in the hands of a politically neutral authority.
From the perspective of modern psychiatric science, the medical report of 8 June 1886 contains significant flaws. The diagnosis of "paranoia" made at the time is largely no longer supported today, and there is no consensus on an accurate diagnosis. Most experts in the fields of psychiatry and psychology (e.g. Hans Förstl)) believe that King Ludwig II did not suffer from a fully developed psychosis, but rather from a personality disorder.
Research controversies and sources
In historical research - aside from the question of the exact diagnosis of King Ludwig II's illness, which is more of interest from a psychiatric than a historical perspective - two questions in particular have been contentious:
One question concerned who should be regarded as the driving force behind the process of establishing the regency. Contrary to the minority view of psychiatrist Heinz Häfner (1926-2022), who believed it could be identified in Prince Luitpold, historical research today largely agrees that the initiative to remove the king from power came from the Council of Ministers, particularly its chairman. Recently, much emphasis has been placed on the importance of Ludwig II's definitive declaration of insanity by Gudden prior to the examination (Wolfgang Burgmair/Matthias Weber).
The question of what motivated Lutz and his colleagues in their actions against the king remains disputed to this day. The librarian and author Rupert Hacker (1935-2016) was inclined to view their later claim of acting selflessly in the interests of the state as largely credible. Other scholars who have studied the subject (e.g., Hans-Michael Körner) tend to emphasise the more selfish motives. These could have been rooted in their desire to secure or assert their own ministerial positions, on the one hand. On the other hand, it could also be that they were trying to protect their existing system of rule, in which the ministers effectively held power, and which they now needed to defend against the at least theoretically possible alliance between the king and the parliamentary majority.
The documents underlying the declaration of King Ludwig II's inability to govern and his incapacitation have been fully edited by Rupert Hacker and former public prosecutor and judge Wilhelm Wöbking. No minutes exist for the deliberations of the Council of Ministers, apart from those of the meetings held between 7 and 9 June. The Lutz estate, archived in Department V (Estates and Collections) of the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (Bavarian Main State Archive), provides no insight into the key question of the motives behind his actions.
Consequences of the 1885/86 Royal Crisis for the monarchy in Bavaria
King Ludwig II's posthumous popularity, which the living king had only enjoyed among the population along the Alpine border towards the end, was a complex issue for the Bavarian monarchy, as the glorification of the past inevitably carried elements of criticism towards the present. Although Prince Regent Luitpold, with his dignified yet approachable manner, gradually overcame the initial reservations towards him, he was unable to overcome the deficit of legitimising authority resulting from his diminished position as a mere representative of the absent King Otto. Moreover, the repayment of Ludwig II's debts restricted his ability to pursue cultural initiatives, which had allowed Kings Ludwig I (1786–1868, King from 1825 to 1848) and Max II to bring splendour to the monarchy, in particular. As a result, over the next 26 years, it became evident to everyone what had already occurred under Ludwig II: the governance of the state had shifted to the Ministry of State, as the representative of the ministerial bureaucracy. Whereas, during the Royal Crisis, it had deliberately excluded both the Landtag and the royal family council from all decisions, during the Prince Regent's time, it continued to obstruct the transition to a parliamentary monarchy in order to preserve its own power. When this transition was finally tentatively introduced in 1912, and the regency ended in 1913, there was too little time before the outbreak of the First World War to place the Bavarian monarchy on a new, stable foundation by gradually restructuring the constitutional system, following the example of the Netherlands and Belgium.
References
- Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin, Franckenstein. Eine politische Karriere zwischen Bismarck und Ludwig II., Stuttgart 2003.
- Peter Gauweiler, Bernhard von Gudden und die Entmündigung und Internierung König Ludwig des Zweiten aus juristischer Sicht, in: Hanns Hippius/Reinhard Steinberg (Hg.), Bernhard von Gudden, Heidelberg 2007, 93-107.
- Rupert Hacker, Die Königskrise von 1885/86 und der Weg zur Regentschaft, in: Peter Wolf/Margot Hamm/Barbara Kink u. a. (Hg.), Götterdämmerung. König Ludwig II. und seine Zeit (Veröffentlichungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 59), Augsburg 2011, 44-54.
- Heinz Häfner, Ein König wird beseitigt. Ludwig II. von Bayern, München 2008.
- Oliver Hilmes, Ludwig II. Der unzeitgemäße König, München 2013.
- Gerhard Immler, Die Entmachtung König Ludwigs II. als Problem der Verfassungsgeschichte, in: Peter Wolf/Margot Hamm/Barbara Kink u. a. (Hg.), Götterdämmerung. König Ludwig II. und seine Zeit (Veröffentlichungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 59), Augsburg 2011, 55-59.
- Hans-Michael Körner, Das politische Schicksal Ludwigs II., in: Peter Wolf/Margot Hamm/Barbara Kink u. a. (Hg.), Götterdämmerung. König Ludwig II. und seine Zeit (Veröffentlichungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 59), Augsburg 2011, 17-21.
- Bernhard Löffler, Wie funktioniert das Königreich Bayern? Zur politisch-sozialen Verfassung Bayerns in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, in: Peter Wolf/Margot Hamm/Barbara Kink u. a. (Hg.), Götterdämmerung. König Ludwig II. und seine Zeit (Veröffentlichungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 59), Augsburg 2011, 22-33.
- Hermann Rumschöttel, Ludwig II. von Bayern (Beck'sche Reihe 2719), München 2011.
Sources
- Wilhelm Wöbking, Der Tod König Ludwigs II. von Bayern. Eine Dokumentation (Rosenheimer Raritäten), Rosenheim 2011.
- Bayerische Verfassungsurkunde von 1818, § 9, § 10 Satz 1 und 2 und § 11 des Titels II.
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Cite
Gerhard Immler, Royal Crisis (1885/86), published 19 October 2021, English version published 27 February 2025; in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, URL: <https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/EN:Royal_Crisis_(1885/86)> (17.03.2025)