Later years

Princess Louise of Prussia in 1856, portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, 1860s

Louise was a great friend of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, her sister-in-law's younger sister; i.e., Alice was the sister of Victoria, Louise's brother Frederick William's wife, both sisters being daughters of Queen Victoria. The two often visited each other.^[6] In Queen Victoria's letters, she and Frederick were always referred to with pleasure or sympathy as good Fritz and Louise of Baden.^[7] Though friends as young girls, Louise and her sister-in-law Victoria, Princess Royal ("Vicky") always had a "none-too-friendly rivalry", particularly when comparing their children: while Vicky's eldest son Crown Prince Wilhelm was born with a deformed arm, Louise apparently could not resist bragging that her three children were healthier and bigger at the same age.^[1] Louise doted on her nephew however, and Vicky wrote to her mother that the grand duchess "spoilt him quite dreadfully".^[1] Often supporting him against his parents, her and Wilhelm's close relationship would carry on to his adulthood, and he would later write in his memoirs that Louise "possessed considerable political ability and a great gift for organisation, and she understood excellently how to put right men in the right place and how to employ their strength serviceably for the general benefit". He continued that his aunt "learned admirably to combine the Prussian element with the Baden character, and she developed into a model sovereign princess".^[1] Louise and Vicky's relations grew even more distant when the former wanted her son Crown Prince Frederick to marry Vicky's niece Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine; the princess instead married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, and Louise felt her family had been snubbed.^[1] However, Vicky's own son, Wilhelm had too been rejected by Elisabeth, which Louise seemed unaware of.

The Austro-Prussian War caused a degree of friction between Baden and Prussia, as the former, despite their close familial connections to Berlin, chose to support the Austrians. As the daughter of the Prussian king, Baden was not included in the list of states forced to pay excessive indemnities to Prussia.^[1] Her father's strongly anti-Catholic chancellor Otto von Bismarck disliked Baden however, as it was one of Germany's most important Catholic states; he saw its religion as threatening the stability of the new German Empire.^[1] Suspicious of the grand duchess' influence on her father, he did his best to block her request for clemency on behalf of Alsace Catholics to the emperor.^[1]

Philanthropic activities

Because of her status as Grand Duchess, Louise was very involved in her duchy's charitable organizations, particularly issues concerning women. She helped found a welfare charity for women called the Baden Frauenverein, which focused on providing hospitals and homes to children.^[1] With the support of the Women's Association, Louise founded the first Badenese housewifery school in Karlsruhe, carrying on Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder's goal of women receiving special domestic training.^[8]

Louise maintained a correspondence with Florence Nightingale, who believed the grand duchess' letters could have been written by "any administrator in the Crimean War".^[9] The grand duchess also had a lifelong friendship with Clara Barton, whom she met during the Franco-Prussian War.^[1] They organized military hospitals, and helped found sewing factories for women to aid the war effort; at Louise's suggestion, Barton was awarded the Iron Cross of Merit after the war by recently crowned Emperor Wilhelm.^[1]

Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden in later life.

Despite her old age, Louise was present to welcome back wounded German soldiers upon their return to Germany from French prison camps.^[10]

Widowhood

Within two years, four of Louise's closest family members died - her father, brother, younger son and mother. Vicky, now Dowager Empress Frederick, took sympathy on Louise and persuaded her mother to confer Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, First Class, on her.^[1]

Frederick died on 28 September 1907, and their eldest son succeeded as Frederick II. That same year, their only daughter Victoria succeeded as Queen consort of Sweden.

Louise, now Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, lived to see her duchy become absorbed into the new state of Germany under the Revolution of 1918-19 that took place at the end of World War I. At the time of the revolution, her daughter, Queen Victoria of Sweden, was visiting her. After the abdication of the German emperor, riots spread in Karlsruhe on 11 November. The son of a courtier led a group of soldiers up to the front of the palace, followed by a great crowd of people, where a few shots were fired.^[11] Louise, as well as the rest of the family, left the palace the backway and left for the Zwingenberg palace in the Neckar valley. By permission of the new government, they were allowed to stay at the Langenstein Palace, which belonged to a Swedish count, Douglas.^[11] During these events, Louise was said to have kept her calm and never uttered a word of complaint.^[11] The government gave the order that the former Grand Ducal family was to be protected, and that Langenstein be exempted from housing the returning soldiers, because Louise's daughter, the Queen of Sweden, was in their company and Baden should not do anything to offend Sweden.^[11] In 1919, the family requested permission from the government to reside in Mainau, and was met with the answer that they were now private citizens and could do as they wished.^[11]

The new republican government gave her permission to live out the rest of her life in retirement at Baden-Baden, where she died on 24 April 1923.^[1] She was the last surviving non-morganatic grandchild of Frederick William III of Prussia.