[1][2] Alexander joined the army at a young age, and was attached to the headquarters of Crown Prince Frederick William during the Austro-Prussian War.

[5] A contemporary figure once recounted that: "The charitable disposition of Prince Alexander of Prussia, the Emperor's cousin... is so well-known and often so appealed to in Berlin, that his secretary must have acquired great experience in answering begging questions.

He passes the greater part of the year in Switzerland and at Burg Rheinstein, his castle on the Rhine".

[7] In November 1852, Alexander went to visit his very ill friend the Duchess of Orleans at her estate at Lausanne, Switzerland, though she survived for six more years.

I remember that one day, at my mother-in-law's house, he managed to decoy into an empty room a certain Madame von Wildenbruch, the wife of an illegitimate son of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, and began kissing her with fervour, to the extreme stupefaction and anger of the lady in question, who, it must be added, was at that time nearly seventy years of age".