| Ferdinand I | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| King of Romania | |||||
| Reign | 10 October 1914 – 20 July 1927 | ||||
| Coronation | 15 October 1922 | ||||
| Predecessor | Carol I | ||||
| Successor | Michael I | ||||
| Born | (1865-08-24)24 August 1865 Sigmaringen Castle,Sigmaringen,German Confederation | ||||
| Died | 20 July 1927(1927-07-20) (aged 61) Peleș Castle,Sinaia,Kingdom of Romania | ||||
| Burial | Curtea de Argeș, Romania | ||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue | |||||
| |||||
| House | Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen | ||||
| Father | Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern | ||||
| Mother | Infanta Antónia of Portugal | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Ferdinand I (Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad; 24 August 1865 – 20 July 1927), nicknamedÎntregitorul ("the Unifier"), wasKing of Romania from 10 October 1914 until his death in 1927. Ferdinand was the second son ofLeopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, andInfanta Antónia of Portugal, (daughter ofQueen Maria II of Portugal and ofPrince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Kohary). Hisfamily was part of theCatholic branch of thePrussian royal familyHohenzollern.
In 1886, Ferdinand became heir presumptive to the Romanian throne, following the renunciation of his father (in 1880) andolder brother. From the moment he settled in Romania, he continued his military career, gaining a series of honorary commands and being promoted to the rank of corps general. He married in 1893Princess Marie of Edinburgh, granddaughter of bothQueen Victoria andEmperor Alexander II.
Ferdinand becameKing of Romania on 10 October 1914, under the name Ferdinand I, following the death of his uncle,King Carol I. He ruled Romania duringWorld War I, choosing to side with theTriple Entente against theCentral Powers. This led toKaiserWilhelm II of Germany removing his name from the royal house of Hohenzollern. At the war's end, Romania emerged as a much-enlarged kingdom due toBessarabia,Bukovina andTransylvania and parts ofBanat,Crișana, andMaramureș becoming part of theKingdom of Romania in 1920, and Ferdinand was crowned king of "Greater Romania" in a grand ceremony in 1922. In the years following the establishment of Greater Romania, Romanian society went through a series of major transformations, especially to the application of the agrarian reform and of the universal vote. In 1925, his eldest son,Prince Carol, gave up the rights of succession to the royal crown of Romania leading to a dynastic crisis, as the next prince in line of succession was Carol's 4-year-old son,Prince Michael. This led Ferdinand to remove Prince Carol's name from the royal house of Romania.
Ferdinand died from cancer in 1927 and was succeeded by his grandson Michael under a regency formed by three people:Prince Nicholas of Romania, the younger brother of Prince Carol; patriarchMiron Cristea; and president of the Supreme Court of JusticeGheorghe Buzdugan.
Prince Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was born inSigmaringen in southwestern Germany. The name was later shortened simply to Hohenzollern after the extinction of theHohenzollern-Hechingen branch in 1869. The princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen had ruled theprincipality until 1850, when it was annexed toPrussia.
Ferdinand I was the son ofLeopold, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, andInfanta Antónia of Portugal (1845–1913), daughter ofQueen Maria II of Portugal andPrince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, heir to the Hungarian magnates ofKoháry on his mother's side.[1]
Following the renunciations, first of his father in 1880 and then of his elder brotherPrince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1886, young Ferdinand became the heir-presumptive to the throne of his childless uncle, KingCarol I of Romania, who reigned until his death in October 1914.[2] In 1889, the Romanian parliament recognized Ferdinand as a prince of Romania. The Romanian government did not require his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy from Catholicism, as was the common practice prior to this date, thus allowing him to continue with his born creed, but it was required that his children be raised Orthodox, the state religion of Romania. For agreeing to this, Ferdinand wasexcommunicated from the Catholic Church, although this was later lifted.
Ferdinand's mother's first cousin TsarFerdinand I of Bulgaria sat on the throne of the neighbouring Bulgaria beginning in 1887, and was to become the greatest opponent of the kingdom of his Romanian cousins. The neighboringEmperor Francis Joseph, monarch ofAustria-Hungary and as such, ruler ofTransylvania, was Ferdinand's grandmother's first cousin.
Ferdinand, a complete stranger in his new home, started to get close to one ofQueen Elisabeth's ladies in waiting,Elena Văcărescu. Elisabeth, the Queen consort of Romania, very close to Elena herself, encouraged the romance, although she was perfectly aware of the fact that a marriage between the two was forbidden by the Romanian constitution (according to the1866 Constitution of Romania, the heir-presumptive to the throne was not allowed to marry a Romanian).
The affair caused a sort of dynastic crisis in 1891. The result of this was the exile of both Elisabeth (inNeuwied) and Elena (inParis), as well as a trip by Ferdinand through Europe in search of a suitable bride, whom he eventually found inQueen Victoria's granddaughter, PrincessMarie of Edinburgh.
In Sigmaringen on 10 January 1893, theCatholic Prince Ferdinand of Romania married his distant cousin, theLutheranPrincess Marie of Edinburgh, daughter of theAnglicanPrince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and theOrthodoxGrand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie and Ferdinand were third cousins in descent fromFranz Frederick Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Marie's paternal grandparents wereVictoria of the United Kingdom andPrince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; her maternal grandparents wereAlexander II of Russia andMarie of Hesse and by Rhine. The reigning emperor of neighbouring Russia at the time of the marriage was Marie's uncle, TsarAlexander III, who would be succeeded by his eldest son and Marie's first cousin, TsarNicholas II, the following year.
The royal Romanian marriage produced three sons (Carol, Nicholas, and Mircea – the last of whom dying in infancy) and three daughters (Elisabeta, Maria – called "Mignon" – andIleana), but it was unhappy. Indeed, the couple's two youngest children, Ileana and Mircea, are widely believed to have been sired by Marie's long-time lover,Barbu Știrbey.[3][4]
On 10 October 1914, Ferdinand's uncle,Carol I, died without surviving issue. Ferdinand succeeded him as King of Romania, reigning until his own death on 20 July 1927.
Though a member of a cadet branch ofGermany's rulingHohenzollern imperial family, Ferdinand presided over his country's entry intoWorld War I on the side of theTriple Entente against theCentral Powers, on 27 August 1916. Thus he gained the sobriquet "the Loyal", having kept the oath he swore before theParliament of Romania in 1914: "I will reign as a good Romanian."
As a consequence of this "betrayal" of his German origin,German EmperorWilhelm II had Ferdinand's name erased from the Hohenzollern House register.
Despite the setbacks after the entry into war, whenDobruja andWallachia were occupied by the Central Powers, Romania fought in 1917 and stopped the German advance intoMoldavia. When the newBolshevik government of Russiasued for peace in 1918, Romania was surrounded by the Central Powers and forced to concludea peace treaty of its own; however, Ferdinand refused to sign and ratify the Treaty of Bucharest. Allied forces then advanced on theThessaloniki front and they knocked Bulgaria out of the war. Ferdinand ordered the re-mobilization of theRomanian Army, and Romania re-entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente.
The outcome of Romania's war effort was the union ofBessarabia,Bukovina, andTransylvania with theKingdom of Romania in 1918. Ferdinand became the ruler of a greatly enlarged Romanian state in 1918–1920 following the victory of the Entente over the Central Powers, awar between theKingdom of Romania and the newHungarian Soviet Republic, and theRussian Civil War. He was crowned king of "Greater Romania" in a spectacular ceremony on 15 October 1922 in the courtyard of the newly consecrated "Coronation Cathedral" in the historic princely seat ofAlba Iulia in Transylvania.
A new period of Romanian history began on the day of theUnion of Transylvania with Romania (Great Union Day,Marea Unire).[5] This period would come to an end with international treaties, in the years leading to World War II, which ceded parts of Romania to its neighbors. As such, they are widely seen as an attempt to provoke the country into taking sides and joining the war.[6][7][8]
Domestic political life during his reign was dominated by the conservativeNational Liberal Party, which was led by the brothersIon andVintilă Brătianu. The acquisition of Transylvania had the unintended effect of enlarging the electoral base of the opposition, whose principal parties united in January 1925 – October 1926 to form the National Peasant Party.
Ferdinand died fromcolon cancer inSinaia on July 20, 1927 at the age of 61. He was succeeded by his grandsonMichael under aregency (King Michael'sfather having renounced his rights to the throne in December 1925). The regency had three members, one of whom was Ferdinand's second son,Prince Nicholas.
Moldovan sculptorVeaceslav Jiglitchi [pl] installed stools (busts) of the king in different cities of Moldova (Bălți, Curătura,Rezina,Verejeni,Orhei,Nisporeni,Varnița) in 2015-23.[9]
 |  | .svg) | .svg) |
| Coat of Arms of Ferdinand I as King (1914-1922) | Coat of Arms of Ferdinand I as King (1922-1927) | Standard of Ferdinand I as King (1914-1922) | Standard of Ferdinand I as King (1922-1927) |
He received the following honours:[10]
Romania:
Hohenzollern: Cross of Honour of the PrincelyHouse Order of Hohenzollern, 1st Class
Kingdom of Prussia:
Duchy of Anhalt: Grand Cross of theOrder of Albert the Bear,1887[13]
Kingdom of Bavaria:Knight of St. Hubert,1908[14]
Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of theSaxe-Ernestine House Order
Grand Duchy of Hesse: Grand Cross of theLudwig Order,19 April 1894[15]
Kingdom of Saxony:Knight of the Rue Crown[16]
Austria-Hungary:[17]
Belgium: Grand Cordon of theOrder of Leopold
Bulgaria:Grand Cross of St. Alexander
Czechoslovakia:Collar of the White Lion,1925[18]
Denmark:Knight of the Elephant,8 January 1908[19]
France: Grand Cross of theLegion of Honour
Greece:Grand Cross of the Redeemer
Italy:Knight of the Annunciation,30 January 1893[20]
Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Knight of Honour and Devotion[21]
Montenegro: Grand Cross of theOrder of Prince Danilo I
Netherlands:Grand Cross of the Netherlands Lion
Poland:
Kingdom of Portugal: Grand Cross of theSash of the Two Orders
Portuguese Republic:Grand Cross of the Tower and Sword,11 May 1921[23]
Russia:
Serbia:[24]
Sweden:Knight of the Seraphim,18 December 1907[25]
United Kingdom:
Media related toFerdinand I of Romania at Wikimedia Commons
Ferdinand I of Romania Cadet branch of theHouse of Hohenzollern Born: 24 August 1865 Died: 20 July 1927 | ||
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| Preceded by | King of Romania 10 October 1914 – 20 July 1927 | Succeeded by |
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