Prince Heinrich Wilhelm Adalbert of Prussia (29 October 1811 – 6 June 1873) was the son of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg. He was a naval theorist and admiral. He was instrumental during the Revolutions of 1848 in founding the first unified German fleet, the Reichsflotte. During the 1850s, he helped to establish the Prussian Navy.
Contents
Biography
Adalbert was born in Berlin, the son of Prince William, the youngest brother of King Frederick William III.
As a young man, Adalbert entered the Prussian army and by 1839, had become commander of the Guards Artillery brigade, a position he held until 1842. Several journeys led him between 1826 and 1842 to the Netherlands, Britain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Greece, and Brazil. He recognized during his many sea voyages the importance that sea power had for a modern commercial and industrial nation. He studied carefully the theory of naval warfare and in 1836 wrote a plan for the construction of a Prussian fleet, which would be centered on three 1,000-tonne (980-long-ton; 1,100-short-ton) paddle steamers. The cost of the ships meant that it had no chance of being enacted. Prussia at that time was a land power focused on Continental Europe, possessing practically no navy of its own; rather, it relied on the allied powers of Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark. During the First Schleswig War of 1848–1851, however, the failure of this strategy became apparent: Britain and the Netherlands remained neutral and Denmark became the enemy. Within a few days, the Danish navy had destroyed German maritime commerce in the North Sea and the Baltic.
In 1843, upon returning from the cruise to Brazil, Adalbert was made the General Inspector of Artillery. He recruited then-Major Albrecht von Stosch as his adjutant in 1847; Stosch would go on to become the first chief of the German Imperial Admiralty in 1871.