Menu dated 8th April 1911



Breakfast at the Wilhelmspalais, Stuttgart, hosted by Their Majesties King Wilhelm II and Queen Charlotte of Württemberg to celebrate their Silver Wedding Anniversary.

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On the 8th April 1911 the King and Queen of Württemberg celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at their palace in Stuttgart. The royal couple treated their guests to this eight course breakfast that featured breasts of hazel-grouse roasted in Champagne, duck with stewed fruits, tournedos topped with foie-gras and drizzled in a white-wine and tarragon sauce, chocolate and Curaçao pudding and a very German cream-cheese strudel.



The menu reveals that bottles of Möet et Chandon Champagne were brought up from the palace cellars to help toast the royal silver wedding anniversary; for which the Grand Duke of Baden acted as Master of Ceremonies.



King Wilhelm II, who shared his reign name with the German Emperor at the time, was first married in 1877 to Queen Marie of the Waldeck and Pyrmont royal family.  On 8th April 1886, four years after the death of Queen Marie, the King took his second wife, Queen Charlotte, from the Schaumburg-Lippe royal family.



Of this day of the silver-wedding anniversary, The Times (London) reported that:



“The King and Queen of Wurtemberg (sic) yesterday celebrated their silver wedding at Stuttgart.  The streets were crowded all day with the townspeople and peasants from the country.

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Their Majesties drove out in the afternoon and were greeted with loud cheers all along the route. When they returned to the Palace a large crowd had collected outside and the King and Queen appeared repeatedly at the windows and bowed while the people below took up the well-known Wurtemberg song, which begins “Preisend mit viel schönen reden”. – The Times, 9th April 1911.​



Wilhelm II and Charlotte were the last reigning King and Queen of Württemberg; seven years after this breakfast they would abdicate following World War I.