Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg
Friedrich Eugen, Duke of Württemberg (21 January 1732 – 23 December 1797) was the fourth son of Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, and Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis (11 August 1706 – 1 February 1756).[1] He was born in Stuttgart. From 1795 until 1797 he was Duke of Württemberg.
Frederick II Eugene
20 May 1795 – 23 December 1797
21 January 1732
Stuttgart, Württemberg, Holy Roman Empire
23 December 1797 (aged 65)
Hohenheim, Württemberg, Holy Roman Empire
Soldier[edit]
After serving with Frederick the Great during the Seven Years' War, he took up residence in 1769 at his family's exclave, the County of Montbéliard, of which he was also made lieutenant-general in March 1786 by his eldest brother, Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg,[1] who had begun to come into the inheritance of portions of the County of Limpurg in the 1780s. He bought the castle and lordship of Hochberg in 1779, but re-sold it in 1791 to his brother.[1] The next year he was named governor of the margraviate of Ansbach-Bayreuth by King Frederick William II of Prussia, to whom it had been sold by the last prince of that branch of the House of Hohenzollern.[1] Montbéliard was taken over by the short-lived Rauracian Republic in 1792, then annexed by the French Republic in 1793.
Duke[edit]
His elder brothers had only daughters, so following Charles Eugene's death in 1793 and then that of their brother Duke Ludwig Eugen (1731–1795), Frederick Eugene became reigning duke until his own death two years later.[1] He acquiesced to the Treaty of Paris (7 August 1796) (de) with revolutionary France, in which his claims to Montbéliard and all other territories on the left bank of the Rhine River were renounced.[1] Frederick Eugene retained, however, France's recognition of the integrity of the duchy of Württemberg itself.