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For your consideration is an original 30 November 1908 royal diplomatic letter of King Manuel II of Portugal (18891932), issued at the Pao das Necessidades, Lisbon, to Christian Friedrich Ludwig, Count von Tattenbach (18461910), the departing German Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Portuguese court. Written in formal Portuguese chancery script on a large sheet measuring approximately 18.75 by 15.25 inches, the document bears two blind-embossed Portuguese royal/chancery seals and is personally signed by Manuel II in the large royal form M. Rei. Beneath appears the full countersignature of Francisco Joaquim Ferreira do Amaral, President of the Council of Ministers and head of Manuel IIs first post-regicide government. The lower docket identifies the recipient explicitly as Conde de Tattenbach, Ministro Plenipotenciario de Sua Magestade o Imperador da Allemanha e Rei da Prussia, linking the document directly to the diplomatic service of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The letter is a formal valedictory communication marking Tattenbachs departure from Portugal after more than a decade as Germanys senior representative in Lisbon. Manuel refers to Tattenbachs service at his court, praises his personal and intellectual qualities, and expresses the desire that the cordial relations long existing between Portugal and Germany continue to be maintained and strengthened. Tattenbach was no ordinary envoy: during his diplomatic career he played an important role in German foreign policy, including service connected with the First Moroccan Crisis and the Algeciras Conference, while his long Lisbon posting placed him at the center of commercially and strategically sensitive Portuguese-German relations. The document thus preserves a direct sovereign acknowledgment of one of Imperial Germanys most experienced diplomats at the close of his Portuguese mission.
The date is particularly significant. 30 November 1908 was also the date on which Portugal and Germany concluded their Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, after years of negotiation, with Tattenbach serving as one of the principal German diplomatic figures associated with the agreement. The document was therefore issued at the very end of his Lisbon tenure and on the same day as a major bilateral commercial settlement. It also falls only ten months after the assassination of King Carlos I and Crown Prince Lus Filipe, the event that unexpectedly brought the eighteen-year-old Manuel II to the throne. Tattenbach had served under Carlos I and remained in Lisbon through the regicide and Manuels accession, giving this farewell letter a personal as well as diplomatic dimension. The countersignature of Ferreira do Amaral further anchors the piece within the fragile first government of Portugals last monarch.
Preserved with its original folds and light age-related handling, the letter remains a compelling primary document of the final years of the Portuguese constitutional monarchy. Its importance lies in the convergence of King Manuel II, Prime Minister Ferreira do Amaral, Count von Tattenbach, Kaiser Wilhelm IIs diplomatic service, Portuguese-German commercial relations, and the immediate post-regicide political setting of 1908. More than a routine royal autograph, it is an original sovereign-to-diplomat instrument issued at a precise turning point in European diplomacy and in the brief reign of Portugals last king.
