Karl von Wedel

Wedel enlisted in the Hanoverian Army's Guards Regiment in May 1859 before transferring to the Kronprinz Dragoner-Regiment in June of that year as a first lieutenant, first seeing action in the Second Schleswig-Holstein War.[7] During the Austro-Prussian War, Hanover fought on the side of Austria; Wedel took part in the Battle of Langensalza, for which he was awarded the Langensalza Medal by King George V.[8] After Prussia's victory and its annexation of Hanover, which resulted in the absorption of the Hanoverian Army into its armed forces, Wedel was commissioned as an officer for a second time by patent in the service of Prussia in November 1866. He joined the 8th (1st Westphalian) Hussars Regiment,[9][lower-alpha 3] and by January 1870 had risen to the rank of Rittmeister.

When war broke out between Prussia and France in July 1870, Wedel was an active participant as an adjutant in the 25th Hessian Cavalry Brigade, which saw him awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. He was later appointed adjutant on General Count Wilhelm zu Stolberg-Wernigerode's staff of the VII Army Corps' General Command at Münster, before being promoted to major and transferred to the German General Staff in 1876. While serving as a military observer at Russian headquarters during the Russo-Turkish War, he was appointed military attaché to the German embassy in Vienna; in that time he was made aide-de-camp to Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1879 and promoted to colonel in 1886. At the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878, he was part of the German legation, overseeing the negotiations over the borders between the newly-created Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.

As a member of the Kaiser's inner circle, Wedel found himself involved in various court intrigues. In 1885 he met with Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria, who was in Vienna to observe the ongoing military exercises at Pilsen. During their conversation, Alexander mentioned—as Wedel recounted in his letter to Friedrich von Holstein, then-Councilor of Legation in the German Foreign Office—the proposed betrothal made four years ago between him and the crown prince's daughter Princess Viktoria, and how he had made an official declaration renouncing the betrothal under the Kaiser's orders, with Viktoria allegedly making a similar declaration.[10] This incurred the wrath of the crown prince couple and exacerbated the already deep enmity between them and the Bismarcks, as they assumed Wedel had written the letter under Herbert von Bismarck's instigation.[11] The crown princess herself would later refer to Wedel, among others, as "dreadful", "selfish", "ambitious", "dangerous", and "very pernicious".[12]

Upon his return from Vienna in March 1887, Wedel was given command of the 2nd Guards Uhlans and later, the 1st Guards Cavalry Regiments. In 1889, in addition to his promotion to major general, he was appointed Flügeladjutant and made general à la Suite in the court of the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II. During that time he was sent to various courts in Europe on diplomatic matters until 1891, when he was transferred to the German Foreign Office. He later recounted that he initially felt like "a fifth wheel" and hoped that he would soon be assigned an ambassadorial post.[13]

Count Wedel in his office as ambassador to Vienna, c.1903.

In 1892, Wedel was promoted again to lieutenant general and raised to adjutant general to the Kaiser. Under Philipp zu Eulenberg and Holstein, he was sent as an envoy to Stockholm in order to mediate in the steadily escalating conflicts in the Swedish-Norwegian union.[13] A year later he would also organize the Kaiser's first trip to Scandinavia on board the new imperial yacht, the SMY Hohenzollern—which, out of diplomatic considerations at Wedel's advice, did not visit the Norwegian coast, instead heading to Sweden and visiting Gotland, among other places.[14] It was during his stay in Sweden that he met his future wife; after their marriage, he went into temporary retirement from the military. He was recalled to active service in 1897, whereupon he was promoted to General of the Cavalry and appointed Governor of Berlin.

For the next few years he would serve as an ambassador for Germany, firstly to Italy in 1899 and later to Austria-Hungary in 1902. While in Vienna, he met and mentored the future Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, at that time a worker at the embassy.

• À la suite of the 2nd Guards Uhlan Regiment, 25 January 1899[3]

• Stählin, Karl (1928). "Wedel, Karl Leo Julius Fürst von". Deutsches Biographisches Jahrbuch. 2: 475–484.
• Wedel, Erhard Graf von, ed. (1943). Zwischen Kaiser und Kanzler. Aufzeichnungen des Generaladjutanten Grafen Carl von Wedel aus den Jahren 1890–1894 (in German). Leipzig.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Fischer, Christopher J. (2010). Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1939. New York: Bergahn Books. ISBN 9781845457242.
• Gammelien, Stefan (2012). Wilhelm II. und Schweden-Norwegen 1888-1905: Spielräume und Grenzen eines Persönlichen Regiments. Nordeuropäische Studien (in German). Vol. 24. Berlin: Berliner-Wissenschafts-Verlag. ISBN 9783830531227.
• Holstein, Friedrich von (1957). Rich, Norman; Fisher, M. H. (eds.). The Holstein Papers: Diaries. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521053174.
• Holstein, Friedrich von (1961). Rich, Norman; Fisher, M. H. (eds.). The Holstein Papers: Correspondence 1861-1896. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521053181.
• Holstein, Friedrich von (1963). Rich, Norman; Fisher, M. H. (eds.). The Holstein Papers: Correspondence 1897-1909. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521053198.
• Kleist, Bogislav von (1895). Die Generale der Königlich Preußischen Armee von 1840-1890 (in German) (2 ed.). Leipzig: Zuckschwerdt & Möschke.
• Röhl, John C.G. (2004). Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888-1900. Translated by Bellaigue, Sheila de. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521819206.