William Gustav of Anhalt-Dessau


William Gustav of Anhalt-Dessau was a German prince of the House of Ascania and heir to the principality of Anhalt-Dessau.
He was born in Dessau, the eldest son of Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, by his morganatic wife Anna Louise Föhse.

Life

In 1706 the eight-year-old William Gustav was appointed a captain and accompanied his father in his campaign against France in 1712. In 1713 he obtained the post of chief of the Prussian regiment of gene d'armes. In 1719 he participated in the Turk's War in Hungary. Between 1734 and 1735 he served under Prince Eugene of Savoy as a volunteer in the war against France.

Marriage and issue

William Gustav fell in love with Johanna Sophia Herre , a commoner. They married secretly in Dessau on the night of 14 March 1726, after which she lived in Kleckewitz. They had nine children:
  1. William , a Prussian lieutenant-colonel.
  2. Leopold Louis , a Prussian general and bearer of the Order of the Black Eagle; married on 1 November 1763 to Karoline Elisabeth Antoinette von Printzen ; they had one daughter:
  3. #Countess Wilhelmine Sophie Karoline of Anhalt, married on 6 June 1797 to Julius von Bonge.
  4. Gustav , a grenadier captain.
  5. Johanna Sophie , Abbess of Mosigkau.
  6. Frederick , General Adjutant of the Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia.
  7. Wilhelmine , married on 8 April 1772 to August Wolfrath von Campen, illegitimate son of Albert Wolfgang, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe.
  8. Albert , a Prussian major-general; married on 24 June 1764 to Sophie Luise Henriette von Wedel. They had five children:
  9. #Countess Frederica Ferdinandine Wilhelmine of Anhalt.
  10. #Count Frederick Henry Leopold Albert of Anhalt.
  11. #Countess Louise Karoline Casimira Sophie of Anhalt, married in Dessau on 20 May 1787 to Count Franz John George of Waldersee, illegitimate son of Prince Leopold III of Anhalt-Dessau.
  12. #Count Frederick Henry William of Anhalt.
  13. #Count Augustus Gustav of Anhalt.
  14. Henry , a Prussian captain.
  15. Leopoldine Anna , married on 10 November 1773 to George Dietrich von Pfuhl.
In 1737, during Johanna Sophia's ninth and last pregnancy, William Gustav came down with smallpox and, wanting to see her before his death, he had her and his eldest son brought to Dessau, revealed the secret marriage and children to his father, and entrusted their care to him. Prince Leopold raised the eldest son at his court and gave a secret pension to the widow and her other children in Kleckewitz. Leopold was succeeded by his younger son Leopold Maximiliam, who gave his brother's widow a house in Dessau and obtained for his children from the Emperor the title of "Counts of Anhalt" on 19 September 1749, without any rights of succession.
At the same time, King Frederick II of Prussia raised the two illegitimate sons whom William Gustav sired with one "Henriette Marianne Schardius" to the rank of nobility with the surname "of Anhalt":
  1. Karl Philipp of Anhalt, a Prussian major-general; he married Frederica Albertine von Wedel and had two sons, Frederick William Karl and William Karl Frederick, and a daughter, Auguste,.
  2. Henry William of Anhalt, a Prussian general; on 10 December 1768 he married Caroline Frederica von Wedel; they had a son, Frederick William, and a daughter, Christiane Frederica Wilhelmine, who after the divorce of her first husband in 1797 married for a second time to Jules Gabriel of Seigneux, later the possible father of the eldest illegitimate son of Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld ; this second marriage also ended in divorce in 1805.