by Theo Aronson
When the Press began its attack on the starets, Alicky talked her husband into ordering a ban on any mention of his name. When the Duma debated his activities, she insisted that the Prime Minister forbid it. If anyone complained to the Tsar about Rasputin, she engineered their downfall. A governesss, demanding that the leering peasant be barred from the young grand duchesses' bedrooms, was dismissed. Two bishops, who had dared to question Rasputin's sincerity, found themselves speedily transferred. A monk, whose criticism was distinctly more outspoken (it was he who had set in circulation the Empress's letters to Rasputin) was secularized. Even Kokovtsov, the Prime Minister, was dismissed because he had drawn up a report on the favourite.
The starets had only to drop a hint in the Empress's ear for her to act. 'Our Friend's' advice was always sacrosanct. Alicky would not rest until she had talked her complaisant husband into carrying out Rasputin's wishes.
And, as Rasputin became steadily more unpopular, so, too, did the Empress. She had always been considered cold, stiff and bigoted; soon she would be accused of being a heartless, power-hungry virago, determined to rule the Tsar and, through him, Russia, along the lines laid down by the 'Holy Devil'.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Moments of Glory
1
With the opening of the second decade of the century, life for Crown Princess Sophie of Greece suddenly began to brighten. In a matter of months, almost, she was to be raised to a position of greatness.
Until then, Sophie's career had not been especially rewarding. The early years of her marriage to Crown Prince Constantine had been fraught with personal problems. She had been shy, bored, lonely and easily depressed. She had had to battle against such things as ill health, inadequate accommodation and a disheartening lack of response to her various charitable enterprises. Later years had brought more serious troubles. The disastrous war against Turkey had embittered her, not only against the Great Powers that had refused to help Greece, but against certain Greeks themselves who, after their defeat, had suddenly turned against the royal family.
Within the family, too, there had been dissension, with her father-in-law, King George I, refusing to concede that his sons were grown men, worthy of trust and responsibility. Her husband's tireless work towards the reorganization of the Greek army after its defeat had been unappreciated. When, in 1909, a group of young army officers calling themselves the 'Military League' seized power, they forced Crown Prince Constantine to resign as Commander-in-Chief. For someone with as Teutonic and orderly an upbringing as Sophie's, these caprices of Greek political life were all but incomprehensible.
Although the claim by the Crown Prince's secretary, George Mélas, that Crown Princess Sophie 'never had any love for Greece' and that 'she never missed an opportunity of saying anything offensive' about the Greeks was grossly exaggerated, she may well have felt periodic disenchantment with her adopted country. To Maurice de Bunsen, at one time First Secretary at the British Embassy in Constantinople, she admitted that her life in Athens was 'a great trial'.
Yet, with her kind heart, Sophie continued to concern herself with the sick and underprivileged. The Union of Greek Women, which dedicated itself to welfare work, was her inspiration. And, having inherited an interest in her surroundings from her mother, the Empress Frederick, Sophie applied herself to the improvement of the Greek capital.
Giving weight to the belief that the Crown Princess had become somewhat embittered was the fact that, with the passing years, she had developed from a mercurial young girl into a woman of considerable force of character. By the year 1913, in which she turned forty-three, Crown Princess Sophie had been married for twenty-four years. Whereas the forty-five-year-old Crown Prince remained the frank, open-hearted, headstrong man he had always been, she had become something of a martinet. As softly spoken, as unaffected and as fair-minded as ever, Crown Princess Sophie could none the less give the impression of a woman of iron resolve.
With her high-piled hair, her erect carriage and her ropes of waist-long pearls, she had an undeniably regal air. Her bearing was dignified; her public manner reserved. This royal reserve, allied to the shyness which she shared with her cousins Alicky, Maud and Ena, made her appear almost unapproachable. She was, says one who knew her well, 'extraordinarily distant in her manner'.
The celebrated hostess, Roma Lister, meeting the Crown Princess for the first time at the home of Baroness Mathilde Rothschild, wrote of Sophie's somewhat imperious air: 'This Princess was certainly made to play a part in a wider horizon and a greater position than the little kingdom of Greece. I noticed, even in this short hour, a stronger personality than exists in most feminine royalties. She was friendly and gracious to all the party, but there was a latent power hidden in her, as in her brother [Kaiser Wilhelm II] – a reversion to the medieval type of sovereign that pierced through the banalities of life.
'Even in this informal gathering a certain etiquette was observed and all our conversation was carried on in low voices, almost in whispers . . . I have never been with royalty when the natural deference has been so much asked for and conceded.'
Yet there were occasions when, even in public, Sophie could forget her reserve and talk with great spirit and unexpected knowledge. An observer once noticed her in animated conversation with Jean Valaority, a director of the Banque Nationale. When the Princess had passed on, Valaority 'expressed great admiration for her, and observed that he had been positively taken aback by her extensive acquaintance with matters of which he would never have suspected her of knowing anything.'
With the years Sophie had developed something of the methodicalness of the Empress Frederick. It was said that she 'simply worshipped order. The internal arrangements of her palace were perfection itself, and, excellent housewife that she was, she gave her personal attention to the ordering of every detail. This same orderly spirit, this same practical instinct for organization and discipline was applied by her in connection with all the various charitable undertakings on which she conferred her patronage.'
In the upbringing of her children, too, Sophie exercised a great deal of discipline. She was never unkind but she could be firm. Into them she attempted to instil – mainly by example – self-control, good manners and a sense of their duties towards others. Although Mélas's accusation that 'none of her children had a real affection for her, and she, on her side, often exhibited great sécheresse de coeur' is nonsense, Crown Princess Sophie was a strict and conscientious mother.
But, like any mother, she could not help talking about her children. She delighted in repeating their more amusing prattle. She would tell of the occasion when, on her way to a ball, all a-dazzle in jewels and satins, she came to the nursery to say good night to the children.
'Mama is just like a fairy Queen,' enthused one of them.
'No,' exclaimed another. 'She is like God's wife!'
To improve the characters of her children still more, the Crown Princess sent them to English schools. In common with her mother, Sophie had great faith in the character-building qualities of British boarding-schools. They encouraged independence, unselfishness and a sense of fair play. In her determination to have her children educated in England, the Crown Princess came up against the opposition of old King George. If a Greek education had been good enough for his children, argued the King, why should it not be for his grandchildren? But Sophie held firm and a compromise was reached. George, the heir presumptive, would be educated in Greece but his brothers and sisters could spend some time at schools in England. Eastbourne was chosen as the most suitable centre for the Greek royal brood and on summer Sundays Sophie would travel from Windsor to see them. Usually she would put up at the Grand Hotel; sometimes, during the school holidays, she might rent a house at Seaford.
That Crown Princess Sophie loved and admired her grandmother's country there is no doubt. 'The most beloved country in the world,' she would call it. The irrepressible Princess Daisy of Pless once met her at a children's party at Buckingham Palace.
As an Englishwoman living in Germany, Princess Daisy spoke of the difficulties of her life. The German-born Princess Sophie was all sympathy. 'She said she loved England,' writes Daisy, 'and how easy and happy it all was compared with Germany. The true motto of England, she said, was "live and let live", but in Germany it seemed to be: "you must do and think as I do, or die".'
Sophie was referring, of course, to the megalomania of her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II. It might almost have been her mother, the Empress Frederick, speaking.
Sophie's husband, Crown Prince Constantine, Princess Daisy mentioned only briefly. He was, she wrote, 'a dear; a big, fair man'.
A more telling description of the Crown Prince at this time comes from his great friend Princess Paola of Saxe-Weimar. He was 'tall, fair, with an active figure and with soft blue eyes like those of his aunt, Queen Alexandra, eyes in which a quizzical smile constantly appeared even when his face was grave . . . there was a sweetness in his face and a charm in his smile which were reflections of his mind'. In short, Crown Prince Constantine was an attractive and good-natured man.
Not until the years just prior to the First World War, however, did Constantine and Sophie have the chance of putting their undoubted talents to good use. Suddenly, opportunity, for which they had waited so long, opened up before them.
2
In the year 1910 the 'Military League', considering its task of the reorganization of Greek affairs accomplished, retired from the political scene. Its withdrawal was followed by a general election. The election brought to power, as Prime Minister, a politician by the name of Eleftherios Venizelos. An astute, ambitious and patriotic man, Venizelos set himself the task of rehabilitating the Greek nation. He was determined that the humiliating defeat by Turkey be avenged and Greece restored to greatness.
One of Venizelos's first moves was to reinstate Crown Prince Constantine as Commander-in-Chief of the army. Venizelos fully realized how well fitted was Constantine for the post. Not only was he a man of considerable military ability but he was extremely popular with the troops. Constantine's bluntness, his simplicity, even his occasional bursts of temper, were something which the men appreciated. And then, as Diadoch, or heir, he was endowed with an almost mystical prestige. The country could not have wished for a more inspiring Commander-in-Chief.
While Constantine devoted himself to the military preparations, Venizelos applied himself to the diplomatic. In this he had the unqualified backing of King George. Before she could again face Turkey, Greece must come to an understanding with her fellow Christian neighbours, Bulgaria and Serbia. By the summer of 1912, Venizelos had arranged military alliances between the three Balkan states. By October they were at war with Turkey. The First Balkan War was under way.
The campaign, this time, was glorious. Assuming personal command of the reorganized Greek army, Constantine gained one victory after another. Everywhere the Turks were forced back. After four hundred years of Turkish rule, the Macedonian capital of Salonika was liberated. King George, followed by his heir, rode in triumph through the streets to celebrate the great victory with a Te Deum in the Byzantine Cathedral. Four months later, in February 1913, Janina, the capital of Epirus, fell to the Greeks. Turkey, soundly beaten, was obliged to withdraw almost entirely from Europe. Constantinople and its outskirts remained its only European possession.
For the sixty-eight-year-old King George these were rewarding days. He was to celebrate the golden jubilee of his reign that year. After that, he planned to abdicate. 'I shall have reigned fifty years in November, and it's long enough for any king,' he told his sons. 'I think I'm entitled to a little rest in my old age. Besides, Tino will be able to do far more with the country than I ever could. He has been born and bred here, while I am always a foreigner.'
Ever since his triumphal entry into Salonika, King George had been living in the Macedonian capital. On the afternoon of 18 March 1913 he went for his usual walk. As always, he was accompanied only by an equerry. On their way towards the harbour they passed a squalid café outside which sat a raggedly dressed man who looked closely at them as they passed. When they returned that way a couple of hours later, the man was still there. As they passed him, the man drew out a revolver and shot the King in the back. Within seconds, King George was dead.
The assassin turned out to be mentally deranged. While awaiting trial, he committed suicide.
Crown Prince Constantine was at Janina when he heard the news of his father's death. Immediately he set out for Athens to assume the crown.
Crown Princess Sophie, then expecting her sixth and last child, was resting on a settee in her writing room on the evening of the fateful day. There was a knock at the door and the Marshal of the Court entered.
'Your Royal Highness,' he said, 'I bring very bad news.'
Princess Sophie's first thought was of her husband. But the Marshal went on to tell her that the King had been seriously injured.
'You mean . . .' asked Sophie, guessing the truth, 'he is dead?'
'An hour ago,' answered the Marshal, he was shot by an assassin in the streets of Salonika, and died immediately.'
At once Sophie hurried across to the Old Palace to comfort her mother-in-law, Queen Olga. 'It is the will of God,' murmured the heartbroken old Queen.
King George's body was brought back to Athens by sea from Salonika and lay in state in the Metropolitan Cathedral. Then it was buried under the fragrant pine trees on a hillock on the family estate at Tatoi. Below shimmered the hot plain of Attica but here, on the hilltop from which the King had often admired the view, it was always cool.
Tino and Sophie were now the King and Queen of the Hellenes. There was very little time, however, for them to accustom themselves to their new status. Constantine had hardly sworn allegiance to the constitution before war broke out once more. Bulgaria, dissatisfied with her share of the spoils from the recent war, now turned on her former allies, Greece and Serbia. Romania, hitherto neutral, decided that she might as well get what she could and promptly declared war on Bulgaria as well. By the summer of 1913, the Second Balkan War was under way.
For King Constantine, this campaign was no less successful than the last. Under his personal command, the Greeks soundly beat the Bulgarians. From the peace conference which followed, Greece, led by Venizelos, emerged triumphant. She now controlled most of Macedonia, Thrace, and the Epirus, the Aegean Archipelago and Crete. The size of the country had more than doubled. It was, indeed, a moment of national glory.
On 5 August 1913, King Constantine returned to Athens. Now the idol of his people, he was given a stupendous welcome. Escorted by the entire Greek fleet, his battle cruiser, Averoff, steamed into Phaleron Bay. On the quayside, in dazzling sunshine, stood Queen Sophie. Together, in an open landau, the King and Queen drove through hysterically cheering crowds into the capital. At the sight of the two of them – he so tall and soldierly and she so erect and proud – it was not difficult to believe that the old prophecy was being fulfilled. Throughout the centuries of Turkish domination, the flame of Hellenism had been kept flickering by the legend that Byzantium would rise again when another Constantine and Sophie sat upon the Greek throne. This new Constantine would reconquer Constantinople and make it once more the capital of a great Hellenic Empire. The 'Great Idea' would be realized.
Already, there existed between the Soldier-King and his men an almost mystical relationship. The troops were devoted to this honest, unaffected giant who had led them to such magnificent victories and won for them such widespread territory. To them, he was known as 'Son of the Eagle'. At the end of the Balkan wars, the King had given each soldier who had served under him a photograph of himself. It showed him in a plain khaki uniform and dusty boots, smoking a cigarette. Each picture carried the handwritten inscription: 'To my gallant fellow soldiers of two glorious wars.' It was signed CONSTANTINE B. (The B, meaning King, always followed the royal name.) Yet, to many of its enraptured recipients, this scrawled B looked more like IB, which in Greek numerals stood f
or XII. The last Emperor of Byzantium had been Constantine XI; had the new King, inadvertently or intentionally, signed himself Constantine XII? Was he destined to lead his people back to Constantinople and there, under the great dome of St Sofia, to wear again the imperial crown of Byzantium? Would Queen Victoria's granddaughter Sophie become Empress of Byzantium?
King Constantine and Queen Sophie were indeed living, in the words of one of Constantine's brothers, through 'glorious moments'.
3
During the early months of 1914, there was talk of a marriage between two of Queen Victoria's great-grandchildren: Olga, the eldest daughter of the Empress and Emperor of Russia, and Carol, the eldest son of the Crown Prince and Princess of Romania. The Grand Duchess Olga turned eighteen that year and Prince Carol twenty.
The reasons for the proposed match were political. Romania, ruled by the Hohenzollern King Carol I, had long been allied to Germany and Austria-Hungary. But with a considerable section of Romania's population being violently anti-Hungarian and with many Romanians being pro-French, Russia was hoping to attract Romania towards the Entente Powers – Russia, France and Great Britain. When old King Carol I eventually died, he would be succeeded by his nephew, the ineffectual Nando, who would, in turn, be ruled – there was no doubt – by his energetic wife, Marie. And as one of Crown Princess Marie of Romania's grandparents had been Queen Victoria and another Tsar Alexander II, there seemed every reason to believe that Romania would one day come over to the Entente camp.