Marie, on the other hand, relished the imperial visit, as it gave her a chance to play a leading public role, from which she did not shy away, unlike her more retiring and dour cousin. Eugene de Schelking, a member of the Russian imperial family’s entourage that day, recalled how the crown princess dazzled her way through the visit, impressing him with her immense popularity with the Romanian people. “Wherever she appeared,” noted an admiring de Schelking, “driving, riding or walking, beautiful…smiling and waving her handkerchief in response to the cheers of the people, the enthusiasm of the crowd for their princess was immense.”29
During the evening banquet, Gilliard noticed that Tatiana, Marie, and Anas-tasia found their sister’s predicament highly amusing. The grand duchesses “lost no chances of leaning towards me and indicating their sister with a sly wink.”30
After the banquet and fireworks display, which the exhausted tsarina did not attend, the Standart set sail for Odessa. The trip had been a dismal failure. Carol and Olga did not become engaged. The day after they left, Gilliard heard that there was to be no marriage, correctly concluding: “Olga Nicolaevna had won.”31
The one-day visit to Romania had taken such a toll on the tsarina that it was “enough to make [her] collapse entirely”32 Nevertheless, she must have been relieved that Olga did not become engaged. “I think with terror,” Alexandra once told Sergei Sazanov, Russia’s foreign minister, “that the time draws near when I shall have to part with my daughters,” adding, “I could desire nothing better than they should remain in Russia after their marriage.” She went on to explain the predicament royal families so often found themselves in: “You know how difficult marriages are in reigning families. I know it by experience, although I was never in the position my daughters occupy”33
Then Alexandra’s mind wandered back to the time when Queen Victoria nearly ordered her to marry Prince Eddy of Wales. “Still, I was once threatened with the danger of marrying without love or even affection, and I vividly remember the torments I endured.”34 The tsarina did not want her daughters to undergo the same sort of unpleasantness. Instead, like any loving mother, Alexandra wanted her daughters to enjoy the loving relationship she herself had enjoyed as the cherished wife of Nicholas II. Alexandra had once exclaimed to her husband: “Oh, if only our children could be as happy in their married life.”35 All the more reason for her to feel it was her duty “to leave my daughters free to marry according to their inclination. The Emperor will have to decide whether he considers this or that marriage suitable for his daughters, but parental authority must not extend beyond that.”36
As Queen of the Hellenes, Sophie continued to take a special interest in promoting one of her favorite causes, replacing the vulnerable forests around Athens and the Greek countryside, always under threat from summer fires and wild animals. Sophie’s daughter, Lady Katherine Brandram, later recalled that because the queen “adored trees, she did all the plantations around Athens.” But this was not the only major project undertaken by Queen Sophie. “She started the [Society for the] Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Greece. She was the first foundress.” “Very many” soup kitchens were also opened at Sophie’s initiative. All these good works—reforestation, soup kitchens, orphanages, hospitals, the training of Greek nurses, animal welfare—were done because quite simply, “she loved the people.”37
Sadly for Queen Sophie, as one historian points out, “notwithstanding the good omen of her name, the Greeks would never trust her since she was the Kaiser’s sister; they refused to accept that her relations with the Kaiser were often strained and ignored her professions of total loyalty to Greece.”38 Queen Sophie also remained loyal to her second home, England. Like her mother before her, Sophie was an ardent admirer of things English, and this admiration extended to the realm of education. Once her marriage was blessed with children, it was not long before Sophie wanted them to have an English education. Lady Katherine remembered that “she talked Greek very well…perfectly,” in fact, but with her children, the language spoken was “always English.”39
Queen Sophie’s two younger sons, Alexander and Paul, as well as her daughters Helen and Irene, attended school in England in the summers. So for years, a portion of the crown princess’s summers were spent at Eastbourne in Sussex, on the south coast, often with her children in tow. Sophie usually spent her Sundays visiting them. She would come from Windsor and stay the night at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne’s large Victorian hotel, noted for its commanding views of the sea. Soon, however, these visits were set to end.
For Queen Maud, life in Norway before the outbreak of World War I remained relatively calm. Untouched by major internal upheavals, untainted by intrigues or scandal, Maud could count her good fortune in comparison to her other cousins. Only one dispute marred an otherwise tranquil existence. It centered on an ongoing and lingering difference of opinion over Maud’s marriage settlement. Queen Maud’s trustees, among them Colonel Sir Henry Knollys, her comptroller, worked endlessly for several years on her behalf at the behest of King Haakon. Knollys was an exemplary protector of Maud’s interests, never relaxing his role and forever diligently informing King Haakon of the details and fight for the queen’s cause.
The dispute concerned sums of money owed to Maud from King Edward VII’s marriage settlement for her. The amount of £39,000 was settled on Maud during the king’s lifetime; but the sum was later reduced by £9,000, and it was not to be touched until Edward VII died. Maud, however, was to receive interest on the £30,000. After the king died, an additional sum was to be added from the king’s estate, all in all amounting to £80,000. There were further details, but it was agreed that the dispute arose over monies owed to Maud because of a badly worded settlement. This legal wrangling lasted for years, stretching into the reign of Maud’s brother, George V.
Maud was aware of the negotiations, but was not involved in the dealings on her behalf. In 1907, Haakon admitted that “Maud has nothing to do with the whole matter as she does not know sufficiently [about] business matters to understand. I have explained to her from my point of view, so naturally she thought that was right.”40 Haakon wanted to ensure that Maud was getting her fair share of the marriage settlement, along with the money owed to her from King Edward’s will, which in turn would eventually pass on to Crown Prince Olav. When discussions reached uncomfortable levels, King Haakon, in the interest of keeping peace in the family, advised Henry Knollys to “drop the subject.”41
Knollys was incensed at accusations that Maud might have been a money grubber; in one letter on 5 October 1907 he told King Haakon that “any attempt to suggest that innocent Queen Maud is grasping Queen Maud should invoke the action of the ‘Society for the Protection of Women.’ “ Sir Dighton Probyn, Edward VII’s equerry, was among those who sided against Maud in the dispute, earning the enmity of Knollys. Knollys ended his letter to King Haakon with a flourishing devotion to Maud’s cause: “I do not think, however, you will object to my holding on silently, but fast as grim death, to my own opinion. If within, say a week hence, I were gasping onto the dregs of my ill spent existence by a bullet from Probyn, to the byestanders [sic] curiously scrutinizing my expiring struggles, I would gurgle forth: ‘Nine thousand Pounds for Q.Q.Q..u.een M-a-u-d.’ “42
Knollys’s continuing activities on the King and Queen of Norway’s behalf elicited the couple’s gratitude. As he told King Haakon, “I have been spurred to further and heated energy by the…injustice perpetrated against Your Majesties and against Prince Olav whom I have known since he was six days old.”43 At one point, things reached such an acrimonious low that both parties agreed to arbitration. But again, the opposing side threw up obstacles, prompting an exasperated Henry Knollys to record in a memorandum: “To reject a Tribunal of three is to refuse Queen Maud the privilege which the ordinary citizen has as a matter of right.”44 In a précis of a draft letter from King Haakon to King George, the following points, which encapsulate key areas in the longstanding dispute, emerged.
/> —Case unpleasant to him [King Haakon] & even more to Queen Maud.
—Queen Maud ignorant of business leaves it to him.
—King Haakon deals with the case as his own to prevent ill feeling between King George & Queen Maud. Hopes King George will accept it in most friendly manner.45
On 28 June 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were shot to death at Sarajevo. The impact of the murders ranged from sadness to indifference. In England, King George V and Queen Mary wrote of the “terrible shock” and “horrible tragedy”46
Elsewhere, news of the murders was met with a real sense of foreboding. King Constantine of the Hellenes received word of the assassination while at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, where he was watching a sports exhibition. Crumpling the telegram after reading it in disbelief, the king turned to his eldest daughter, Princess Helen. Speaking slowly, he uttered only five words: “Now, we can expect trouble.”47
PART THREE
On the Throne:
DISASTER AND TRIUMPH (1914–1920)
Seventeen
BALKAN CAULDRON
AS SOON AS AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SET ITS SIGHTS ON PUNISHING Serbia for the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the diplomatic and military alliances that bound the various monarchical powers to aid one another kicked into effect. With astonishing rapidity, the powers of Europe found themselves ready to wage war. Vienna’s determination to make Serbia pay compelled Serbia’s ally, Russia, to aid its Slavic neighbor. Imperial Germany bore down upon the Russian Empire for aiming its sights on Austria-Hungary With Russia under threat from Germany, England and France were not far behind in finding themselves in lockstep with their faraway ally, Russia. It was a fast-moving, complicated chess game involving the Great Powers for the highest stakes.
A flurry of last-minute attempts by King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II to avert the oncoming onslaught failed. On 1 August 1914, orders for general mobilization were issued in France and Germany. By the next day, the point of no return had been reached, leaving the tsar no choice but to declare war on the Central Powers. In a long telegraph to his cousin, George V, Nicholas II wrote with a heavy heart: “In this solemn hour I wish to assure you once more that I have done all in my power to avert war.”1 Three days later, German troops swooped down on Belgium, violating that country’s neutrality. Great Britain, a guarantor of Belgium’s neutrality, served Germany an ultimatum. The deadline for Germany to answer it passed, as many had expected, in complete silence. George V knew what lay ahead. He held a council on 4 August to declare war against Germany. “It is a terrible catastrophe,” recorded the king, “but it is not our fault.”2
The flames of war had been ignited just six weeks before, at Sarajevo. Now, in the waning weeks of the summer of 1914, the first volleys in a conflict of titanic proportions were fired.
The royal families of Europe were to find themselves no less immune than their subjects from the impact of the Great War. This cataclysmic event, which brought devastation to the lives of so many, was to take an especially hard toll on the continent’s crowned heads. A veritable Pandora’s box had been opened, culminating in the dethronement, in just four years, of the three most illustrious dynasties in Europe: the Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Romanovs.
It was the Russian Empire that felt directly and immediately the impact of the war. The other four kingdoms—Norway, Greece, Romania, and Spain— opted to stay neutral when war broke out. Russia could not.
Pierre Gilliard recalled that the tsarina was profoundly affected by the gravity of what was about to erupt. He noted Alexandra’s “careworn face,” the same “look of suffering” he had often seen when she was at Alexei’s bedside. On the day that war broke out, Gilliard observed how during a service at church, the tsarina prayed “fervently…as if she wished to banish an evil dream.”3
When the imperial family returned home after prayers, the tsar met with his foreign minister. Then Nicholas faced his anxious family, “looking very pale,” and in a voice “which betrayed his agitation” informed them war was declared. “On learning the news the Czarina began to weep, and the Grand-Duchesses likewise dissolved into tears on seeing their mother’s distress.”4
That day, “a burst of patriotic enthusiasm shook the whole country to its very foundation.” Attention naturally focused on St. Petersburg. There, huge crowds thronged to the Winter Palace, where the tsar, tsarina, and their children attended a Te Deum. Afterwards, the royal couple made their way past the thousands who had assembled inside the palace. The enthusiasm of those inside matched that of those massed outside. Many “threw themselves on their knees, kissing the hands of their Sovereigns with tears and fervent expressions of loyalty”5
When the imperial family made their appearance on the balcony of the Winter Palace, a scene of almost mythic proportions unfolded, as one eyewitness recorded. In a spontaneous gesture of loyalty and affection, “at the foot of the Alexander Column facing the Palace windows all the processionists fell on their knees singing ‘Boje Tsaria Khrani’ (God save the Tsar) and shouting ‘Hurrah!’ “ And another noted that “To those thousands of men on their knees at that moment, the Tsar was really the autocrat appointed of God, the military, political and religious leader of his people.”7 A reporter covering the event recorded that “it was a sight destined to live long in Russian history.”8 It was a remarkable show of unity, considering Russia in the first six months of 1914 had been wracked by over four thousand strikes involving nearly 1.5 million workers.
Alexandra was well aware of the titanic battle that lay ahead: “It will be a terrible, monstrous struggle; humanity is about to pass through ghastly sufferings.” As to the cause, the tsarina was in no doubt. It was all due to Germany; “a changed country,” as she described it, “a country I did not know and had never known.”9 She echoed these sentiments to Pierre Gilliard, saying: “I have never liked the Emperor William, if only because he is not sincere. He is vain and has always played the comedian. He was always reproaching me with doing nothing for Germany…He will never forgive me this war!”10
The tsarina was just as candid with her friend, Anna Viroubova, Looking as if a weight had fallen on her shoulders, the tsarina fell onto a sofa and murmured: “War! And I knew nothing of it. This is the end of everything.” 11
In facing the challenges imposed by the outbreak of a European war, the smaller nations of Norway, Greece, Romania, and Spain embraced neutrality as their best option. But nowhere did this elicit more difficulty and controversy than in Greece. The country’s geographic position, coupled with its strategic importance to the opposing sides in what had initially been an Austro-Serbian dispute, meant that the oncoming war was bound to wreak havoc on this part of the Balkans. Moreover, Greece’s desire to fulfill its dream of a Greater Greece through territorial aggrandizement—so tantalizingly near to completion with the recent victories in the Balkans—placed an added strain. Together, these internal and external pressures would serve to place the country’s king in an unenviable and ultimately untenable position.
At the earliest moments of the unfolding crisis, even before hostilities broke out, the tug-of-war that was to place King Constantine I in the midst of the tussle between the Triple Entente and Central Powers had already begun. The opening salvo was fired by none other than his brother-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm II. In a telegram despatched to Athens on 31 July 1914, Willy unambiguously threatened Tino: “If contrary to my expectations, you range yourself with our opponents, Greece will be exposed to simultaneous attack by Italy, Bulgaria, and Turkey; and our personal relations will suffer for all time. I have spoken frankly, and I beg you to communicate your decision without delay in the same perfectly frank spirit.”12
On 2 August, Tino replied: “It seems to me that the interests of Greece demand that she should observe absolute neutrality and the maintenance of the status quo in the Balkans as created by the treaty of Bucarest. If we abandoned thi
s point of view Bulgaria would…constitute for us an enormous danger.” The Kaiser was furious. On the margin of Tino’s reply, Willy scribbled ominously: “I shall treat Greece as an enemy if she does not join this alliance immediately.” Reading Tino’s explanation that Greece should remain neutral, Willy wrote next to it in his characteristic flourishing bold hand: “Impossible.”13
When it came to King Constantine’s determination to keep Bulgaria from pursuing a policy of aggrandizement because this would inevitably lead to greater Russian influence in the Balkans—a view “shared by the whole of my people,” according to Constantine—Wilhelm II exploded again in anger at Queen Sophie’s husband. In the margin of the despatch, Willy noted simply: “Rubbish.”14
King Constantine was very angry with the Kaiser, and complained to his brother, Nicholas:
It is extraordinary. Does he take me for a German?…Besides, he seems to forget his geography and that Greece, twenty-four hours after she had declared herself Germany’s ally, would be reduced to cinders by the Allied fleets. What folly! Whoever heard of such a thing! No. We are Greeks, and the interest of Greece must come first. For the present, at any rate, it is imperative that we should remain neutral. But as to joining Germany, such an eventuality is and always will be an impossibility.”15
Feeling that neutrality was Greece’s only option, the King of the Hellenes chose a path that would incur the wrath of all the powers. Constantine would have to be on his best guard if he was to survive this very complicated and dangerous high-wire act; and accompanying him every step of the way was his wife, Sophie, the Kaiser’s own sister.
Romania faced the daunting task of having to decide whether to remain neutral or to side openly with either the Allied or the Central Powers. Hemmed in by Russia and Austria-Hungary and a menacing but as yet uncommitted Bulgaria, should Romania side with the Allies, especially since France, long a country to which many of Romania’s elite felt a kinship, was a major partner? This might seem the logical thing to do as the French and Russians were also formally allied to each other. However, Romania and Russia had not been on easy terms ever since the Russo-Turkish War of 1876–1877 ended and Russia was awarded Bessarabia, populated with many Romanians. If Romania threw in its lot with the Central Powers, there was the tantalizing possibility of wrestling Bessarabia from Russia and bringing that rich province under the Romanian yoke. Besides, the strength and efficiency of the German forces seemed invincible, so some thought it was better to ally themselves with the stronger side.
Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria Page 28