✚11630✚ German pre WW1 mounted medal group Centenary Medal Army Award Cross 1866

Original German / Bavarian pre WW1 parade mounted medal group: Prussian Wilhelm II. Centenary Medal 1897, Brandenburg-Prussia Kingdom Commemorative Medal of Kaiser Wilhelm I.'s 100th Birth Anniversary (Brandenburg-Preußen Königreich Erinnerungsmedaille Bronze Zur Hundertjähriger Geburtstagsfeier SM Kaiser Wilhelm I.) 1797-1897 & Bavarian Army Commemorative Award - Bronze Cross 1866 (Armeedenkzeichen / Bronzekreuz), IN WORN CONDITION, GENUINE RIBBONS, MISSING WORKING PIN DEVICE, A GREAT PARADE MOUNTED MEDAL GROUP

HISTORY OF THE AWARDS:

Prussian 1897 Centenary Medal (Zentenarmedaille) was officially titled the Medaille zur Erinnerung an des Hochseligen Kaisers und Königs Wilhelm I., des Großen, Majestät to honor the 100th Birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm I.  It was established by Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kaiser Wilhelm I's grandson) through a Royal Order effective 22 March 1897 and was given to all active duty Imperial German military personnel and veterans of the wars of 1848, 1864, 1866, and 1870-1871.   The recipients promptly dubbed it the Apfelorden (The Order of the Apple, due to it's size and color).   Modern German collectors often call it the Zitronorden  (The Order of the Lemon, again due to it's size and color and partly because they forget the name Apfelorden).  It is interesting to note that any 1870-1871 Kriegdenkmünze (KDM or Franco-Prussian War Medal) with official clasp(s) should be with this medal as well since the clasp issue was after the Centenary. The Centenary Medal is 4.0cm wide and made with bronze French cannons captured in the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War.  The medal was designed by Professor Walter Schott and was made by the firm of L. Ostermann, Berlin (a well known manufacturer of medals).  The obverse shows a raised relief profile portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm I with the inscription WILHELM DEM GROSSE DEUTSCHER KAISER KOENIG VON PREUSSEN (Wilhelm the Great, German Emperor and King of Prussia).  The reverse has the raised relief inscription ZUM ANDENKEN AN DEN HUNDERSTEN GEBURTSTAG DES GROSSEN KAISERS WILHELM I.  1797-22MAERZ-1897 (In Rememberance of the Hundredth Birthday of the Great Emperor Wilhelm I.  1797-22 March-1897).  A design of a laurel leaf spray, oak leave branches, crown, scepter, orb, Bible, and sword arcs from the 3:30 to 11:00 position.  The original silk ribbon is plain yellow (representing gold) which varies in width from 3cm +/- .5cm (depending on the maker). 

Brandenburg-Prussia Kingdom Commemorative Medal of Kaiser Wilhelm I.'s 100th Birth Anniversary (Brandenburg-Preußen Königreich Erinnerungsmedaille Bronze Zur Hundertjähriger Geburtstagsfeier SM Kaiser Wilhelm I.) 1797-1897 - The medal was issued to commemorative the 100th birth anniversary of Kaiser Wilhelm I. in 1897. The medal is cca 33 mm in diameter, weights cca 16 gram, made of bronze, on a red-white-black ribbon. William I, also known as Wilhelm I (full name: William Frederick Louis, German: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig) (22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia (2 January 1861 – 9 March 1888) and the first German Emperor (18 January 1871 – 9 March 1888). Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire. The future king and emperor was born William Frederick Louis of Prussia (Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig von Preußen) in Berlin. As the second son of King Frederick William III and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, William was not expected to ascend to the throne and hence received little education. William served in the army from 1814 onward, fought against Napoleon I of France during the Napoleonic Wars, and was reportedly a very brave soldier. He fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Waterloo and Ligny. He also became an excellent diplomat by engaging in diplomatic missions after 1815. During the Revolutions of 1848, William successfully crushed a revolt that was aimed at his elder brother King Frederick William IV. The use of cannons made him unpopular at the time and earned him the nickname Kartätschenprinz (Prince of Grapeshot). In 1854, the prince was raised to the rank of a field-marshal and made governor of the federal fortress of Mainz.[3] In 1857 Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and became mentally disabled for the rest of his life. In January 1858, William became Prince Regent for his brother. On 2 January 1861 Frederick William died and William ascended the throne as William I of Prussia. He inherited a conflict between Frederick William and the liberal parliament. He was considered a politically neutral person as he intervened less in politics than his brother. William nevertheless found a conservative solution for the conflict: he appointed Otto von Bismarck to the office of Prime Minister. According to the Prussian constitution, the Prime Minister was responsible solely to the king, not to parliament. Bismarck liked to see his working relationship with William as that of a vassal to his feudal superior. Nonetheless, it was Bismarck who effectively directed the politics, domestic as well as foreign; on several occasions he gained Wilhelm's assent by threatening to resign. During the Franco-Prussian War, on 18 January 1871 in Versailles Palace, William was proclaimed German Emperor. The title "German Emperor" was carefully chosen by Bismarck after discussion until (and after) the day of the proclamation. William accepted this title grudgingly as he would have preferred "Emperor of Germany" which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and would also have signalled a claim to lands outside of his reign (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc.). The title "Emperor of the Germans", as proposed in 1848, was ruled out as he considered himself chosen "by the grace of God", not by the people as in a democratic republic. By this ceremony, the North German Confederation (1867–1871) was transformed into the German Empire ("Kaiserreich", 1871–1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares – first among equals) of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, Mecklenburg, Hesse, as well as other principalities, duchies and the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen). In his memoirs, Bismarck describes William as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by "female influences". On 11 May 1878, a plumber named Emil Max Hödel failed in an assassination attempt on William in Berlin. Hödel used a revolver to shoot at the German Emperor, while the 82-year-old and his daughter, Princess Louise of Prussia, paraded in their carriage. When the bullet missed, Hödel ran across the street and fired another round which also missed. In the commotion one of the individuals who tried to apprehend Hödel suffered severe internal injuries and died two days later. The State convicted Hödel after a photographer who took the radical’s picture days before the assassination attempt testified that after he took the picture Hödel said it would sell thousands once a certain piece of information [was] hashed through the world. Hödel was beheaded on 16 August 1878. A second attempt to assassinate Wilhelm I was made on 2 June 1878 by Karl Nobiling. As the monarch drove past in an open carriage, the assassin fired a shotgun at the Kaiser from the window of a house off the "Unter den Linden". William was wounded and was rushed back to the palace and Nobiling shot himself in an attempt to commit suicide. While William survived this attack, the assassin died from his self-inflicted wound three months later.

Bavarian Army Commemorative Award, Bronze Cross (Armeedenkzeichen, Bronzekreuz), 1866 - Oxidised bronze cross pattée alisée, the arms with concentric lines, with laterally-pierced loop for ribbon suspension; the face with a circular central medallion bearing the crowned Bavarian lion on the heraldic Bavarian lozenges, alternately hatched for the heraldic colour azure (blue), within a circular oak wreath; the reverse with a circular central medallion laterally hatched, bearing the date ‘1866’ within a circular oak wreath. The decoration was instituted by King Ludwig II on 25 August 1866 ‘as a commemoration of this year’s campaign, for all those who took part and whose efforts placed them in danger (‘zum Andenken an den Feldzug dieses Jahres für alle diejenigen, welche denselben mitgemacht und an seinen Strapazen und Gefahren teil genommen haben’). The decoration was awarded to those who fought in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 in which Bavaria, like other south German states, was allied with Austria.