soon passed away, while trade was fostered by the inclusion of Württemberg in the German Zollverein and by the construction of railways. The revolutionary movement of 1848 did not leave Württemberg untouched, although no actual violence took place within the kingdom. The king was compelled to dismiss Johannes Schlayer (1792-1860) and his other ministers, and to call to power men with more liberal ideas, the exponents of the idea of a united Germany. A democratic constitution was proclaimed, but as soon as the movement had spent its force the liberal ministers were dismissed, and in October 1849 Schlayer and his associates were again in power. By interfering with popular electoral rights the king and his ministers succeeded in assembling a servile diet in 1851, and this surrendered all the privileges gained since 1848. In this way the constitution of 1819 was restored, and power passed into the hands of a bureaucracy. Almost the last act of William's long reign was to conclude a concordat with the Papacy, but this was repudiated by the diet, which preferred to regulate the relations between church and state in its own way.
In July 1864 Charles I. (1823-1891) succeeded his father William as king and had almost at once to face considerable difficulties. In the duel between Austria and Prussia for supremacy in Germany, William I. had consistently taken the part of the former power, and this policy was equally acceptable to the new king and his advisers. In 1866 Württemberg took up arms on behalf of Austria, but three weeks after the battle of Königgrätz her troops were decisively beaten at Tauberbischofsheim, and the country was at the mercy of Prussia. The Prussians occupied the northern part of Württemberg and peace was made in August 1866; by this Württemberg paid an indemnity of 8,000,000 gulden, but at once concluded a secret offensive and defensive treaty with her conqueror.
The end of the struggle was followed by a renewal of the democratic agitation in Württemberg, but this had achieved no tangible results when the great war between France and Prussia broke out in 1870. Although the policy of Württemberg had continued antagonistic to Prussia, the country shared in the national enthusiasm which swept over Germany, and its troops took a creditable part in the battle of Wörth and in other operations of the war. In 1871 Württemberg became a member of the new German empire, but retained control of her own post office, telegraphs and railways. She had also certain special privileges with regard to taxation and the army, and for the next ten years the policy of Württemberg was one of enthusiastic loyalty to the new order. Many important reforms, especially in the realm of finance, were introduced, but a proposal for a union of the railway system with that of the rest of Germany was rejected. Certain reductions in taxation having been made in 1889, the reform of the constitution became the question of the hour. The king and his ministers wished to strengthen the conservative element in the chambers, but only slight reforms were effected by the laws of 1874, 1876 and 1879, a more thorough settlement being postponed. On the 6th of October 1891 King Charles died suddenly, and was succeeded by his cousin William II. (b. 1848), who continued the policy of his predecessor. The reform of the constitution continued to be discussed, and the election of 1895 was memorable because of the return of a powerful party of democrats. King William had no sons, nor had his only Protestant kinsman, Duke Nicholas (1833-1903); consequently the succession would ultimately pass to a Roman Catholic branch of the family, and this prospect raised up certain difficulties about the relations between church and state. The heir to the throne in 1910 was the Roman Catholic Duke Albert (b. 1865).
Between 1900 and 1910 the political history of Württemberg centred round the settlement of the constitutional and the educational questions. The constitution was revised in 1906 on the lines already indicated, and a settlement of the education difficulty was brought about in 1909. In 1904 the railway system was united with that of the rest of Germany.
For the history of Württemberg see the Wirttembergisches Urkundenbuch (Stuttgart, 1849-1907); and the Darstellungen aus der württembergischen Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1904 fol.). Histories are those of P. F. Stälin, Geschichte Württembergs (Gotha, 1882-1887); E. Schneider, Württembergische Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1896); Belschner, Geschichte von Württemberg in Wort und Bild (Stuttgart, 1902); Weller, Württemberg in der deutschen Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1900); K. V. Fricker and Th. von Gessler, Geschichte der Verfassung Württembergs (Stuttgart, 1869); Hieber, Die württembergische Verfassungsreform von 1906 (Stuttgart, 1906); and R. Scnmid, Reformationsgeschichte Württembergs (Heilbronn, 1904). See also Golther, Der Staat und die katholische Kirche im Königreich Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1874); B. Kaisser, Geschichte des Volksschulwesens in Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1895-1897); Bartens, Die wirtschaftliche Entwickelung des Königreichs Württemberg (Frankfort, 1901); W. von Heyd, Bibliographie der württembergischen Geschichte (1895-1896), Band iii. by Th. Schön (1907); D. Schäfer, Württembergische Geschichtsquellen (Stuttgart, 1894 fol.); and A. Pfister, König Friedrich von Württemberg und seine Zeit (Stuttgart, 1888).
WURTZ, CHARLES ADOLPHE (1817–1884), French chemist, was born on the 26th of November 1817 at Wolfisheim, near Strassburg, where his father was Lutheran pastor. When he left the Protestant gymnasium at Strassburg in 1834, his father allowed him to study medicine as next best to theology. He devoted himself specially to the chemical side of his profession with such success that in 1839 he was appointed “Chef des travaux chimiques” at the Strassburg faculty of medicine. After graduating there as M.D. in 1843, with a thesis on albumin and fibrin, he studied for a year under J. von Liebig at Giessen, and then went to Paris, where he worked in J. B. A. Dumas’s private laboratory. In 1845 he became assistant to Dumas at the École de Médecine, and four years later began to give lectures on organic chemistry in his place. His laboratory at the École de Médecine was very poor, and to supplement it he opened a private one in 1850 in the Rue Garencière; but soon afterwards the house was sold, and the laboratory had to be abandoned. In 1850 he received the professorship of chemistry at the new Institut Agronomique at Versailles, but the Institut was abolished in 1852. In the following year the chair of organic chemistry at the faculty of medicine became vacant by the resignation of Dumas and the chair of mineral chemistry and toxicology by the death of M. J. B. Orfila. The two were united, and Wurtz appointed to the new post. In 1866 he undertook the duties of dean of the faculty of medicine. In this position he exerted himself to secure the rearrangement and reconstruction of the buildings devoted to scientific instruction, urging that in the provision of properly equipped teaching laboratories France was much behind Germany (see his report Les Hautes Études pratiques dans les universités allemandes, 1870). In 1875, resigning the office of dean but retaining the title of honorary dean, he became the first occupant of the chair of organic chemistry, which he induced the government to establish at the Sorbonne; but he had great difficulty in obtaining an adequate laboratory, and the building ultimately provided was not opened until after his death, which happened at Paris on the 10th of May 1884. Wurtz was an honorary member of almost every scientific society in Europe. He was one of the founders of the Paris Chemical Society (1858), was its first secretary and thrice served as its president. In 1880 he was vice-president and in 1881 president of the Academy, which he entered in 1867 in succession to T. J. Pelouze. He was made a senator in 1881.
Wurtz’s first published paper was on hypophosphorous acid (1842), and the continuation of his work on the acids of phosphorus (1845) resulted in the discovery of sulphophosphoric acid and phosphorus oxychloride, as well as of copper hydride. But his original work was mainly in the domain of organic chemistry. Investigation of the cyanic ethers (1848) yielded a class of substances which opened out a new field in organic chemistry, for, by treating those ethers with caustic potash, he obtained methylamine, the simplest organic derivative of ammonia (1849), and later (1851) the compound ureas. In 1855, reviewing the various substances that had been obtained from glycerin, he reached the conclusion that glycerin is a body of alcoholic nature formed on the type of three molecules of water, as common alcohol is on that of one, and was thus led (1856) to the discovery of the glycols or diatomic alcohols, bodies similarly related to the double water type. This discovery he worked out very thoroughly in investigations of ethylene oxide and the polyethylene alcohols. The oxidation of the glycols led him to homologues of lactic acid, and a controversy about the constitution of the latter with H. Kolbe resulted in the discovery of many new facts
