Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria

by Julia P. Gelardi

  It was a terrible time we went through, & to see his fearful suffering was heartrending—but he was of an angelical patience & never complaining at being ill, he would only make the sign of the cross & beg God to help him, groaning & moaning from pain. In the Orthodox Church one gives children Holy Communion, so twice we let him have that joy, & the poor thin little face with its big suffering eyes, lit up with blessed happiness as the Priest approached him with the Holy Sacrement [sic]. It was such a comfort to us all & we too had the same joy,—without trust & faith implicit in God Almighty’s great wisdom & ineffable love, one could not bear the heavy crosses sent one.25

  Alexandra appreciated her ties to the bishop, whose religious faith and link with England endeared him to her. She was moved to add: “God bless you for your loving Christian friendship, deeply valued as coming as an echo out of the past.—Well do I remember your talks to me in Windsor.” By this time, Alexandra had certainly had her share of blessings and misfortune; yet she remained unequivocal in her belief in the Christian doctrine of eternal life, telling Boyd Carpenter that

  The school of life indeed is a difficult one, but when one tries to live by helping others along the steep & thorny path ones [sic] love for Christ grows yet stronger, always suffering & being almost an invalid, one has so much time for thinking & reading & one realises always more & more that this life is but the preparation to yonder real life where all will be made clear to us.26

  In Greece, after the royal family’s close encounter with insurrection during the Military League’s tenure in power, the family’s fortunes took a turn for the better. By this time, Crown Princess Sophie was the mother of five children: George, Alexander, Helen, Paul, and Irene, now twenty-two, nineteen, sixteen, eleven, and eight, respectively. It seemed as if the family was finally complete. In addition, it looked as if the upheaval in Balkan politics was behind them. On both scores, however, changes were in store.

  Although it still possessed a large swath of territory stretching to the Adriatic, the Ottoman Empire was vulnerable to attack from its Balkan neighbors. These countries were consequently driven to liberate their brothers from the oppressive policies carried out by the empire. Scores were ready to be settled by Turkey’s ambitious—or, more accurately, ravenous—neighbors. Eager to cement their hold once and for all at the expense of Constantinople, the Balkan countries saw an opportunity to do just that when Italy launched a war against Turkey in 1911 over the possession of Tripoli, then in the hands of Ottoman Libya. In October 1912, the Balkan League, which comprised Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro, launched an offensive against the Ottoman Empire.

  Greece had been spoiling for war. Ever since their humiliating defeat in 1897 at the hands of the Turks, many in Greece pined for the day when they could avenge themselves. By 1912, a golden opportunity emerged. Eager to see the dreams of a greater Greece—the megali idea—come to fruition (an idea fostered since the country’s independence in 1830, one that advocated the reunification of Greeks at the Ottoman Empire’s expense); Eleutherios Venizelos deemed the time had come for Greece to assert itself.

  Venizelos, the white-haired, bearded prime minister, appeared as a benign academic to the casual observer. But in reality, he was ambitious—both for himself and his country—and had shown a streak of fearlessness and stubbornness that would come to the fore again. Prince Christopher of Greece described him as “the born political adventurer, piratical and opportunist.”27

  It was understandable that Crown Princess Sophie felt more than a hint of trepidation over this latest deadly round of Greco-Turkish conflict. But unlike the 1897 clash with Turkey, Greece’s army in 1912 was much better prepared to do battle.

  All the training and hard work Prince Constantine had undertaken to improve his country’s forces paid off. Before the year was out, the army had made advances in a war noted for its challenges. Under Constantine’s command, the Greek soldiers battled enemy forces as well as foul weather, mountainous terrain, swollen rivers, and swamps. By the end of a campaign lasting two exhausting months, in which fighting took place every day, Constantine’s army had “fought 30 battles…crossed three great rivers and countless small ones, took 45,000 prisoners and captured 120 guns, 75,000 rifles and a vast quantity of war matériel of every kind.”28

  In November 1912, the crown prince and his troops won a major victory. The Turks showed the white flag, surrendering the ancient city of Salonika to the prince. After centuries under Turkish suzereinity, Salonika—named for Alexander the Great’s sister—was again in Greek hands. In writing of this moment to Paola, Princess of Saxe-Weimar, Constantine could not contain his relief and gratitude for such a victory:

  We are here! Praise to God for His blessing! The city has surrendered to me with almost 20,000 prisoners, so some of our historical ideals have been realized. Yesterday, while making my solemn entry…among the frantic applause of the Greeks whom we had liberated, and who kissed my boots and the edge of my great-coat…I thought to myself: “The moment to die has now arrived! Never again shall we experience a moment of such great joy!”29

  The spectacular capture of Salonika naturally increased the good fortunes of the Greek royal family, who came to be viewed much more positively by their countrymen. No less pleased was Venizelos, who also benefitted from the victories. On 12 November 1912, King George, Crown Prince Constantine, and Eleutherios Venizelos—the three “protagonists of the national drama of renascence”—rode triumphantly through the cheering crowds in Salonika.30

  The outbreak of the First Balkan War galvanized the women of the Greek royal household into aiding the wounded. Queen Olga and Crown Princess Sophie took the lead; both “opened subscriptions for the establishment of hospitals in the capital, and in the towns adjacent to the theatre of war.”31 In so doing, they set an example to fashionable ladies of Athens to follow suit. Sophie and her mother-in-law also ventured out into the countryside to give aid to wounded soldiers. In one excursion from Larissa to Elassona, The Times correspondent who accompanied the queen and crown princess noted that “the inhabitants showed great enthusiasm” for Sophie and Olga.32

  Another member of the royal family, Princess Alice, wife of Prince Andrew, and hence sister-in-law to Sophie, displayed much courage and “manic energy”33 during the First Balkan War, often going to the front lines to nurse the wounded and organize field hospitals. It would appear that Alice’s zealousness ruffled Sophie’s feathers, especially when it came to sending nurses to the front.

  Early in 1913, Crown Prince Constantine led another victory against the Turks, capturing Janina in northern Epirus. Princess Alice, active as ever, wanted to organize firsthand the field hospitals there. This time, however, Sophie’s husband stepped in. Mindful of the row that had erupted over Sophie’s nurses being diverted by Alice to Salonika, the crown prince “suddenly entrusted all the military hospitals in Epirus” to Princess Marie, the wife of Tino’s brother, George. Constantine reportedly was overheard by “the entire staff of the hospital in Philippiada” to exclaim: “Why the devil is Alice coming here to mix up everything as she did in Saloniki?”34

  Fittingly, the capture of Salonika capped King George I’s nearly fifty-year reign. King George had told his sons that the time had come for him to abdicate in the latter half of 1913, once he reached his golden anniversary. When they tried to deter him, he brushed them off, saying: “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 ever I could. He has been born and bred here, while I am always a foreigner.”35“mamma, help me!” 181 Constantine and Sophie did eventually come to the throne in the year King George intended, but not in the manner he envisioned.

  Like his father before him, who allowed himself much latitude when it came to his marital vows, Crown Prince Constantine permitted himself a certain relaxation. Though King George and Queen Olga enjoyed a happy marriage overall, this did not prevent the king from letting his eye wander when it came to the opposi
te sex. When Sophie once asked her father-in-law what she could do about her husband’s wandering eye, King George merely shrugged and told her to ask Queen Olga for advice.

  Although in public the prince maintained the aura of “a stony, cold figure,” in private, when he chose, Constantine could be charming. Crown Princess Sophie’s husband towered over most men. His height, coupled with his athletic build, blue eyes, and illustrious position, made him irresistible to many women, particularly as Constantine could, according to one captivated lady, “charm the socks off you.”3

  One who came to be captivated by Constantine was a divorcée, Paola, Countess von Ostheim (once married to Prince Herman of Saxe-Weimar, later Count von Ostheim). She met the future king in 1912 and soon embarked on an affair with him. But for the most part the king and queen’s domestic life “was happy enough,” and Constantine’s liaison was “accepted tacitly” by his wife.37

  When King George savored the triumphs of his heir and the battlefield victories of Greece, there was little indication that trouble was brewing. On 13 March 1913, George went for a stroll through Salonika’s streets, accompanied only by an aide. As the two walked toward the city center, a man who had been sitting alone on a low-lying stone wall took aim at the king, shooting him in the back. In an instant, George I of the Hellenes was dead, shot through the lungs and heart. The assassin turned out to be a Macedonian lunatic who later threw himself out of a prison window to his death.

  The Greek people were stunned. At the height of their victories, their king, who had devoted fifty years to their service, was brutally murdered. Attention naturally shifted to the new monarch. At the time of George I’s assassination, his eldest son was in command of Greek troops at Janina. He immediately returned to Athens, where he met Sophie.

  At the outbreak of hostilities in October, Sophie had actively participated in helping the wounded, both in the capital and the countryside. But at the time of her husband’s accession, Sophie could not do much traveling. At forty-two years old, she was seven months pregnant with her sixth child. A marshal of the court came to Sophie, who was resting, to tell her that “His Majesty has met with serious injury.”38 Together with her daughter, sixteen-year-old Princess Helen, Sophie, now Queen of the Hellenes, flew to Queen Olga’s side.

  Although the accession of King Constantine I and Queen Sophie of the Hellenes occurred under the most tragic circumstances, rarely had monarchs ascended the throne with such high expectations. With a Constantine and Sophie reigning once again, the much-vaunted new Byzantium was about to be realized. The hope and anticipation that Greece would finally come into glory and see the much-cherished megali idea materialize was widespread. King Constan-tine’s battlefield exploits and the fall of Turkish territory into Greek hands were seen as indicators of even greater things to come.

  In London, The Times trumpeted its verdict. Greece’s king was “a thorough soldier and devoted to his profession”; moreover, “his brilliant conduct of the recent campaigns is fresh in the memory of all. History, perhaps, has never shown so complete a rehabilitation.…King Constantine will live in history as a soldier monarch and as the first military leader of rejuvenated Greece.”39 The British minister at Athens who reported to London on King Constantine, reached the same conclusion. “He ascended the throne at a moment when his victories had already made him a popular idol, and the successful Bulgarian campaign completed his apotheosis.” And British officials in Athens were convinced that the Greek royal family was secure on the throne, as a report despatched to London in May 1914 stressed: “the rest of the Royal Family have entirely recovered the respect and affection of the people.”40

  Pregnant at time of her accession to the Greek throne, the sudden and shocking circumstances of her ascendancy were certainly more than enough to affect her pregnancy at the age of forty-two. Until the day the new queen gave birth, Mossy was never completely at ease about her sister’s condition. “I cannot help feeling frightfully worried,” she wrote to a friend in April 1913, “as she has been at death’s door with every baby. Thank God she has kept well till now, & is frightfully busy, taking every thing into hand.” But Mossy thought that things were looking up in Greece: “I also think that in many a way the country may become more prosperous, & her [Sophie’s] life more satisfactory”41

  Mossy’s concerns were finally put to rest a month later. In what turned out to be a particularly harrowing year, Queen Sophie was blessed with a girl, Kather-ine, born in May. The baby princess was christened in June and had an illustrious set of godparents: Queen Olga of the Hellenes, King George V, Queen Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. In honor of the armed forces, the king and “mamma, help me!” queen also invited the Greek Navy and Army to act as godparents. It was an appropriate and moving gesture during a time of war.

  The peace that reigned after the First Balkan War did not last long. Less than two months after Queen Sophie gave birth to Princess Katherine, Greece was at war again. This time, the victors aimed their guns against each other in an undignified scramble over the spoils of war, centering upon the distribution of Macedonia. Serbia and Greece, angered by Bulgaria’s unhappiness over its portion of Macedonia, decided to fight together against Bulgaria. In June 1913 Bulgaria’s ruler, King Ferdinand, ordered an attack on the Greek and Serbian soldiers already in Macedonia, marking the opening salvos of the Second Balkan War. Fortunately for Greece, King Constantine’s abilities as a military commander shone forth yet again.

  At the Battle of Kilkis, Constantine commanded the army, routing the Bulgarians in the process. The Greeks suffered over eight thousand casualties, while the Bulgarians incurred seven thousand, with another six thousand men taken prisoner. Kilkis marked the high point for Greece in the Second Balkan War. By August 1913, an armistice was agreed upon and the Treaty of Bucharest was signed. Greece emerged victorious, nearly doubling in size by gaining huge chunks of territory that included Kavalla, Salonika, Drama and Serres, southern Epirus and southern Macedonia. Venizelos, who represented Greece in the treaty negotiation, was congratulated by his king, who sent a telegraphed message: “The country is grateful to you.” Moved by these words, Venizelos showed the telegram to his Greek colleagues, murmuring through tears, “Constantine is good.”42

  King Constantine’s victories sent his countrymen into paroxysms of elation. Upon his return to Athens in early August accompanied by Crown Prince George, the returning hero and the eldest son were greeted by a proud Queen Sophie at Phaleron. Together in state carriages, the royal family made their way through crowds of excited Athenians. So full of “fervent emotionalism” was the tumultuous greeting that eyewitnesses described the procession “as seeming to be some great Greek religious ceremony”43 Never in its eighty-year history as an independent state had Greece enjoyed such “a degree of unity and internal peace.”44

  Everything seemed to augur well for Constantine and Sophie. After all, was there not a prophecy that said when a Constantine and a Sophie reigned, Greece would again rise to new heights of glory? The hope for a new Byzantium thus rested on the shoulders of Tino and Sophie. But would expectations prove to be too high?

  Sophie of Greece was not the only Balkan royal who took it upon herself to help care for the injured during the battles that raged through the region. Romania’s own crown princess set another example of selfless devotion to her people. When Romanian soldiers marched into Bulgaria, they found more prosperous counterparts whose land was better utilized than those in Romania; but they also found cholera raging in their midst.

  During a visit to Red Cross hospitals along the Danube, Missy was struck by the inadequate care being received by the sick and dying soldiers, prompting her to write, “I saw sights which made my blood run cold.” Some villages were so short of help that men died needlessly. “This was,” she noted, “my first contact with a horrible and deadly reality. The effect it had on me was galvanizing.” Dismayed by such needless suffering, the princess was driven to improve conditions. Possessing what she her
self described as “nerves of steel,”45 Marie set about making her own significant contribution to Romania in the battle against the deadly cholera outbreak.

  Marie rightly assessed the need for a cool-headed leader, who could rally round the disheartened. She obtained King Carol’s permission to help at Zimnicea, aided by Marie’s son, Carol, and by Sister Pucci, a heroic nun from the Order of St. Vincent de Paul. For two long weeks, under the most oppressive conditions in which the intense heat was broken only by torrential rain that turned the ground into muddy trenches, Marie made her rounds from one wooden barrack to another. Oblivious of the danger, the crown princess ignored the strong possibility that she might contract the highly contagious disease. Marie brought gifts, encouragement, and cheer to all—whether the sick or the volunteer doctors and nurses.

  Moved by the plight of her soldiers, in awe of the inspiring work done by the volunteers, especially Sister Pucci and her fellow nuns, whom Missy affectionately called “mes Soeurs Cyclamen because their white wimples reminded her of the flowers, the princess came to share in the daily deprivations endured by all. Marie, who had lived a pampered life in the palaces of kings, nibbled rations in the middle of a muddy field surrounded by men dying in horrendous conditions. The experience was a turning point, prompting her to admit that “my life & interests have changed…I don’t feel myself at all, I am a changed person.”47

  Marie of Romania’s valiant efforts in alleviating the suffering of cholera victims at the time of the Second Balkan War were a taste of things to come. In the ensuing conflagration soon to engulf Europe, Marie would again rise to the challenge, and in the process emerge as Romania’s warrior queen.

  Sixteen

  BEFORE THE STORM