biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1839–1914)
|
| biography:
| The first King of Romania (1881–1914), born in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. He was elected Prince of Romania in 1866 and became king when his country received independence from the Ottoman Empire. He promoted economic development and military expansion, and brutally crushed a peasant rebellion in 1907. He married Princess Elizabeth of Wied (1869), a prolific writer under the pseudonym Carmen Sylva. At the outset of World War 1, he declared Romanian neutrality, but his successor (his nephew King Ferdinand I) declared for the Allies in 1916. |
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