chemist to the Freiberg foundries by the elector of Saxony. In 1785 he became assessor to the superintending board of the foundries, and in 1786 chemist to the porcelain works at Meissen. He died at Freiberg on the 26th of February 1793.
In consequence of the quantitative analyses he performed of a large number of salts, he has been credited with the discovery of the law of neutralization (Vorlesungen uber die chemische Verwandtschaft der Korper, 1777). But this attribution rests on a mistake first made by J. J. Berzelius and copied by subsequent writers, and Wenzel’s published work (as pointed out by G. H. Hess in 1840) does not warrant the conclusion that he realized the existence of any law of invariable and reciprocal proportions in the combinations of acids and bases.
WEPENER, a town of the Orange Free State, 82 m. by rail S.E. of Bloemfontein, and 2 m. W. of the Basuto border. Pop. (1904) 1366, of whom 822 were whites. It lies in a rich grain district, and 3 m. north by the Caledon river are large flour mills. The town, named after the leader of the Boers in their war with the Basuto chief Moshesh in 1863, was founded in 1888. In April 1900 it was successfully defended against the Boers under Christiaan de Wet by a Cape force of Irregulars commanded by Colonel E. H. Dalgety.
WERDAU, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Pleisse, in the industrial district of Zwickau, and 40 m. S. of Leipzig. Pop. (1905) 19,473. Its chief industries are cotton and wool-spinning and the weaving of cloth, but machinery of various kinds, paper and a few other articles are also manufactured. In addition to the usual schools, Werdau contains a weaving-school. The town is mentioned as early as 1304 and in 1398 it was purchased by the margrave of Meissen, who afterwards became elector of Saxony.
See Stichard, Chronik der Fabrikstadt Werdau (2nd ed., Werdau, 1865).
Werden, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the river Ruhr, 6 m. by rail S. of Essen. Pop. (1905) 11,029. It has an interesting Roman Catholic church which belonged to the Benedictine abbey founded about 800 by St Ludger, whose stone coffin is preserved in the crypt. The abbey buildings are used as a prison. The manufacture of cloth, woolens, shoes and paper, dyeing, tanning, brewing and distilling are the principal industries. In the neighbourhood are stone quarries and coal mines. Werden grew up around the Benedictine abbey, which was dissolved in 1802. The Codex Argenteus of Ulfilas, now in the university library at Upsala, was discovered here in the 16th century.
See Flugge, Chronik der Stadt Werden (Düsseldorf, 1887); and Fuhrer durch Werden (Werden, 1887).
WERDER, KARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH AUGUST LEOPOLD, Count von (1808–1887), Prussian general, entered the Prussian Gardes du Corps in 1825, transferring the following year into the Guard Infantry, with which he served for many years as a subaltern. In 1839 he was appointed an instructor in the Cadet Corps, and later he was employed in the topographical bureau of the Great General Staff. In 1842–1843 he took part in the Russian operations in the Caucasus, and on his return to Germany in 1846, was placed, as a captain, on the staff. In 1848 he married. Regimental and staff duty alternately occupied him until 1863, when he was made major-general, and given the command of a brigade of Guard Infantry. In the Austrian War of 1866 von Werder greatly distinguished himself at Gitschin (Jičin) and Koniggratz at the head of the 3rd division. He returned home with the rank of lieutenant-general and the order pour le mérite. In 1870, at first employed with the 3rd Army Headquarters and in command of the Württemberg and Baden forces, he was after the battle of Worth entrusted with the operations against Strassburg, which he captured after a long and famous siege. Promoted general of infantry, and assigned to command the new XIVth Army Corps, he defeated the French at Dijon and at Nuits, and, when Bourbaki’s army moved forward to relieve Belfort, turned upon him and fought the desperate action of Villersexel, which enabled him to cover the Germans besieging Belfort. On the 15th, 16th and 17th of January 1871, von Werder with greatly inferior forces succeeded in holding his own on the Lisaine against all Bourbaki’s efforts to reach Belfort, a victory which aroused great enthusiasm in southern Germany. After the war von Werder commanded the Baden forces, now called the XIVth Army Corps, until he retired in 1879. On his retirement he was raised to the dignity of count. He died in 1887 at Grussow in Pomerania. The 30th (4th Rhenish) Infantry regiment bears his name, and there is a statue of von Werder at Freiburg in the Breisgau.
See von Conrady, Leben des Grafen A. von Werder (Berlin, 1889).
WERGELAND, HENDRIK ARNOLD (1808–1845), Norwegian poet and prose writer, was born at Christiansand on the 17th of June 1808. He was the eldest son of Professor Nikolai Wergeland (1780–1848), who had been a member of the constitutional assembly which proclaimed the independence of Norway in 1814 at Eidsvold. Nikolai was himself pastor of Eidsvold, and the poet was thus brought up in the very holy of holies of Norwegian patriotism. He entered the university of Christiania in 1825 to study for the church, and was soon the leader of a band of enthusiastic young men who desired to revive in Norway the spirit and independence of the old vikings. His earliest efforts in literature were wild and formless. He was full of imagination, but without taste or knowledge. He published poetical farces under the pseudonym of “Siful Sifadda”; these were followed in 1828 by an unsuccessful tragedy; and in 1829 by a volume of lyrical and patriotic poems, Digte, forste Ring, which attracted the liveliest attention to his name. At the age of twenty-one he became a power in literature, and his enthusiastic preaching of the doctrines of the revolution of July made him a force in politics also. Meanwhile he was tireless in his efforts to advance the national cause. He established popular libraries, and tried to alleviate the widespread poverty of the Norwegian peasantry. He preached the simple life, denounced foreign luxuries, and set an example by wearing Norwegian homespun. But his numerous and varied writings were coldly received by the critics, and a monster epic, Skabelsen, Mennesket og Messias (Creation, Man and Messiah), 1830, showed no improvement in style. It was remodelled in 1845 as Mennesket. From 1831 to 1835 Wergeland was submitted to severe satirical attacks from J. S. le Welhaven and others, and his style improved in every respect. His nationalist political propaganda lacked knowledge and system. His partisans were alienated by his inconsistent admiration for King Carl Johan, by his unpopular advocacy of the Jewish cause, and by the extravagance of his methods generally. His popularity waned as his poetry improved, and in 1840 he found himself a really great lyric poet, but an exile from political influence. In that year he became keeper of the royal archives. He died on the 12th of July 1845. In 1908 a statue was erected to his memory by his compatriots at Fargo, North Dakota. His Jan van Huysums Blomsterstykke (1840), Svalen (1841), Jøden (1842), Jødinden (1844) and Den Engelske Lods (1844), form a series of narrative poems in short lyrical metres which remain the most interesting and important of their kind in Norwegian literature. He was less successful in other branches of letters; in the drama neither his Campbellerne (1837), Venetianerne (1843), nor Søkadetterne (1848), achieved any lasting success; while his elaborate contribution to political history, Norges Konstitutions Historie (1841–1843), is forgotten. The poems of his later years include many lyrics of great beauty, which are among the permanent treasures of Norwegian poetry.
Wergeland’s Samlede Skrifter (9 vols., Christiania, 1852–1857) were edited by H. Lassen, the author of Henrik Wergeland og hans Samtid (1866), and the editor of his Breve (1867). See also H. Schwanenflugel, Henrik Wergeland (Copenhagen, 1877); and J. G. Kraft, Norsk Forfatter-Lexikon (Christiania, 1857), for a detailed bibliography.
WERGILD, Wergeld or Wer, the Anglo-Saxon terms for the fine paid by, e.g. a murderer to the relatives of the deceased in proportion to the rank of the latter. The wer was part of the early Teutonic and Celtic customary law, and represented the substitution of compensation for personal retaliation, resulting from the rise in authority of the power of the community as such. (See Criminal Law, Homicide, and Teutonic Peoples.)
