The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Charles I. (Roumania)

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1860008The American Cyclopædia — Charles I. (Roumania)

CHARLES I., prince of Roumania, born in Prussia, April 20, 1839. He is a son of Prince Anthony of Hohenzollern, and a brother of Prince Leopold, who was proposed for the Spanish throne in 1870, and belongs to a junior and mediatized branch of the Prussian royal family. He was educated in Dresden, entered the Prussian army in 1857, and served during the Schleswig-Holstein campaign in 1864. After Couza's downfall in 1866, and the refusal of the count of Flanders, brother of Leopold II. of Belgium, to become the ruler of Roumania, Prince Charles was elected in April to that position, with hereditary rights, by a plebiscite of the Roumanian people. He reached Bucharest on May 20, in disguise, in order to avoid complications with Austria, which, on the eve of war with Prussia, had protested against the elevation of a Prussian to the sovereignty of the Danubian principalities. He assumed the government on May 22, and was formally recognized on Oct. 24 by the sultan and by the other powers, who had guaranteed the treaties relating to the status of Roumania. Disgusted with the factious spirit of the opposition in the chambers, and insulting anti-Prussian manifestations during the Franco-German war, he declared in 1871 his readiness to resign, but was persuaded to desist from this determination.