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

by Julia P. Gelardi

  Queen Olga, Alexander’s grandmother, was the only family member present at Alexander’s funeral. He was buried at Tatoi, beside his grandfather, the assassinated King George. The ever-devoted Mossy went to her sister’s side to comfort a deeply distraught Sophie. Besides being her closest sister, Mossy was well placed to help comfort the grieving mother as Mossy herself had lost her two eldest sons in the early years of the Great War. Writing to an old mutual English friend, Hilda Cochrane, Mossy described her stay at Lucerne: “I spent three weeks with my sister at Lucerne just after the sad news had come. She was heart broken & will never get over this loss, it was all so cruel.—It will be a great thing if they can return & the loyalty of the people is of course a great help, but what it will mean to her to go back & see the empty house & to think of all her poor boy suffered during those lonely years is terrible to imagine.”7 Indeed, Queen Sophie never got over the untimely death of her son and the cruel circumstances leading up to it. The queen’s daughter, Lady Katherine, admitted as much.8

  It would seem that nothing more dramatic could take place in Sophie’s life in the remaining months of that year. But no sooner had the young king been buried than a new political crisis emerged in Greece.

  Just as Romania continued to feel threatened by the specter of communism in the immediate postwar years, the thought that this revolutionary ideology with its ensuing violence might infect Spain and incite another Russian Revolution unnerved the Spaniards. When industrial troubles plagued the nation in 1920, Ena wrote to Queen Mary of her concerns: “I am sure you must all be anxious about the coal-strike & I do hope that this fearful catastrophe may still be avoided. Really what hateful times we are living in.”9 With the frequent murders of prominent labor and business leaders and the assassination in Madrid of the Conservative prime minister Eduardo Dato, in 1921, the country was once again immersed in political troubles.

  In July, Spain suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Moroccans at Anual, when nearly fifteen thousand Spanish soldiers were slaughtered due to the rashness of their commander. Not surprisingly, unrest allowed for the appearance of a strongman, capable of governing with a heavy hand. General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s arrival on the political scene marked the death of parliamentary democracy and the birth of a nationalistic, authoritarian regime.

  Through the years, Ena proved indefatigable in her efforts to improve health care, and in so doing left a lasting legacy in Spain. The queen’s reorganization of the Red Cross in 1918 led to the inauguration of the first Red Cross hospital in the country. Ena also personally paid for a number of nurses to be sent every year to England for training. Ena was active in obtaining help wherever she could. She was particularly grateful when, in 1921, she collected “a large sum of money,” as she put it, “from the British Colonies throughout Spain for my Red Cross Fund.” She thanked Sir Esme Howard, the British ambassador to Spain, for his efforts in helping her and proceeded to list the most needed items for him to obtain from England, such as “some more air-beds” for the hospitals in Melilla. Morever, “the Red Cross hospital at Seville is in need of india-rubber hot-water bottles & air-cushions,” and so on; Ena added her “renewed grateful thanks” for Howard’s “kind help.”10

  The queen also was aware of the Spanish soldiers fighting in Moroccan battles, and spearheaded relief efforts there. Under her auspices, several hospitals with thousands of beds were set up for wounded Spaniards in Morocco. Added to this was Ena’s work for the Anti-Tuberculosis League and her own newly founded League Against Cancer.

  These endeavors kept Queen Ena busy through the 1920s. Her altruistic work helped to stop her from dwelling too heavily on the volatile state of the nation. Ena’s work also helped her cope with Alfonso’s infuriating infidelities, which did not abate with the passage of time. If anything, their already rocky marriage became further threatened as the king embarked on his most serious affair: with the Spanish actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas.

  The tragic death of King Alexander I in Greece opened up a Pandora’s box for Eleutherios Venizelos. New elections took place in November 1920, resulting in defeat for Venizelos. He fled into exile, paving the way for the dynasty’s return to power. As events turned in Constantine and Sophie’s favor, reporters besieged the king and queen in Lucerne. During one interview given by Sophie in late November to The Times, the reporter noted: “Queen Sophie expressed her joy at the prospect of returning to Greece after an exile ‘which had so many dark hours for us,’ and insisted that she knew nothing of politics, but in spite of what had been said to the contrary, had always had strong pro-British sympathies, as her mother was English and she had spent so much of her youth in England with Queen Victoria.” Sophie, dressed in deepest mourning, made a deep impression on the reporter. “The former Queen,” he wrote, “has much changed since I saw her at St. Moritz. She is very pale and obviously greatly upset by King Alexander’s death.”11

  In December 1920, a plebiscite was held on the return of King Constantine. The result was a resounding victory for the monarchy and for Constantine. Over 10 million Greeks voted for the monarchy’s return and less than 11,000 against.

  Excitement gripped Athens at the thought that Constantine was returning. Streets were decorated and illuminated; all through the day of his return there were cries of “Erchetai! Erchetai!(He is coming! He is coming!).”12 Portraits of Venizelos were torn down, replaced by those of Constantine and Sophie. Upon the royal family’s arrival on 19 December 1920, the enthusiasm of the Greek people reached fever pitch. Huge crowds pressed ever closer to the royal carriage. Many fainted. There were reports as well of people who “threw themselves down in the street for King Constantine to walk over them.” Children sang:

  Arise, O marvellous King!

  And go down into the cellar,

  Where dirty old Venizelos

  Is licking the chamber pot!13

  One soldier was so taken by the sight of the royal couple that he climbed into their carriage headfirst, kissed the knees of his sovereigns, and cried, “We will die for you, Godfather!”14

  Later in the day, Constantine and Sophie appeared on the balcony of the Royal Palace before a crowd numbering in the hundreds of thousands holding flags and portraits of the king. Athens was truly en fête. At the magnificent ruins of the Parthenon an immense illuminated crown burned brightly in the darkness for all to see. The king and queen had come home at last. Queen Sophie’s sister-in-law, Marie, was more than pleased to learn that the royal family had returned, telling a friend: “It is indeed a great happiness & triumph to know that the Greek people have called back their lawful King. They were at last able to show the whole world what their wish was & that they had remained loyal in spite of the politicians!”15

  But Prince Christopher observed Sophie at this jubilant homecoming and detected more than a hint of sadness. “I looked at his [Alexander’s] mother’s grief-stricken face,” recalled Christopher, “smiling bravely at the cheering crowds, and knew that her heart bled in secret.”

  Like their departure from Greece in 1917, King Constantine and Queen Sophie’s return in Greece in 1920 was one of the most dramatic events ever to take place in modern Greek history. But just as at their accession in 1913, the king and queen were again saddled with the unenviable responsibility of living up to their historic destiny. In the minds of many, Greece was poised to show the world that here was a country intent on fulfilling its irredentist dreams. It was a potent idea, but one loaded with dangers for Greece, and for Constantine and Sophie.

  At this point, the Greek and Romanian royal families, already related by blood, suddenly found themselves bound closer by romance in their midst, not once but twice in the space of weeks.

  Crown Prince George of Greece had seen his patience rewarded when, after years of waiting, Princess Elisabetta of Romania agreed to marry him. Unknown to the gentlemanly and kindly George, the princess, like her brother, Prince Carol,was a flawed character. Lazy, self-centered, prone to jealousies, Elis
abetta possessed few if any redeeming qualities. Queen Marie was naturally pleased to see that her eldest and most difficult daughter was finally settling down with a man who loved her, warts and all. The fact that Elisabetta was marrying into a royal family plagued by political instability did not bother her mother. Marie knew that the family was as solidly close and loving as they could come in royal circles.

  She invited George to accompany her and Elisabetta back to Romania for the engagement announcement. Marie also extended the invitation to George’s two younger sisters, Helen and Irene. Before the party left for Romania, Prince Carol arrived back in Switzerland from his world tour, to his mother’s delight looking more mature. Once in Romania, at Sinaia, the queen organized excursions where the young people could enjoy themselves. When news came that Helen’s brother, King Alexander, had died, Helen needed to return to her parents. Then, the day after Alexander died, word arrived that Queen Marie’s mother had died in her sleep in Switzerland, where the duchess had been living in exile. The Duchess of Coburg’s last years had been terrible ones. She had seen the collapse of Tsarist Russia, lost numerous Romanov relatives to the Bolsheviks’ murderous rampage, and had also witnessed the defeat of her second home, Germany.

  Queen Marie accompanied the mourning sisters back to Switzerland, and was surprised that Prince Carol wished to accompany them. On the train ride, the prince treated Helen with much sympathy. In Switzerland, he proposed. Twenty-four at the time, Princess Helen (“Sitta”) was a tall, attractive brunette, carefully brought up by her exacting mother. The eldest daughter, elegant and refined, Sitta had all the qualities for a future consort. Queen Marie could not have asked for a better bride for her wayward son. Perhaps this young woman would be his salvation. Already, however, it appeared that the couple’s future might not be resting on solid foundations. Sitta, it seems, had accepted Carol’s proposal because of Alexander’s death. With her favorite brother gone, Helen years later admitted that “I could not face Athens and Tatoi again. To marry Carol and go to Rumania, and not to have to live in the place that would constantly wound me with memories, seemed in these days of sorrow a kind of deliverance.” Though King Con-stantine did not object to the match, Queen Sophie was vehemently opposed to it. Helen noted that “it was my mother who was so upset, chiefly because of the differences of upbringing and background, and also because she was in despair at the idea of losing me so soon after the grievous loss of Alexander. But I insisted and for some time my mother tried pleading with me, and using every argument to induce caution. I little realized then how true were her warning words. Had I listened, I would have been spared years of misery”17 As for Helen’s prospective mother-in-law, Queen Marie, she was thrilled at the engagement. “Carol is saved!” she wrote delightedly. “She is sweet and she is a lady. Besides, she’s one of the family, since we’re all descended from Grandmamma Queen.”18

  Helen of Greece and Carol of Romania were married in Athens in March 1921, just a week after Elisabetta and George were married in Bucharest. Queen Sophie felt none of Marie’s enthusiasm for Helen’s marriage to Carol, as Helen’s aunt Mossy confided to a friend a week before the wedding. “[Sophie] is so brave fighting down her grief & working for others. It will be terrible for her to give up that daughter she adores & she dreads it.”19

  When the time came for Princess Helen to marry Prince Carol in Athens, Queen Sophie was startled to find herself being snubbed by people she thought were her friends. Unlike the Greeks, who greeted their newly returned king and queen with spontaneous acts of affection, representatives of the Allied Powers in Athens, encouraged by the conspiratorial French, turned their backs on the king and queen in an undignified act of spite. The instruction from Lord Cur-zon to Lord Granville at Athens was blunt: “You should remain in Athens while avoiding all ceremonial, official or personal relations with King Constantine, his court and family”20 Lord and Lady Granville took these directives to heart when they ran into the royal couple and family members in Athens for Helen and Carol’s wedding. Lord Granville greeted Queen Marie, but he and his wife completely ignored the Greek royals. It was an embarrassing spectacle, a dramatic snub, one that was particularly hurtful to Queen Sophie, who had been on good terms with Lady Granville for years.

  Almost immediately after Helen’s marriage, Sophie was delighted to find herself becoming a grandmother for the first time when Aspasia gave birth to King Alexander’s posthumous child—a daughter, named Alexandra. Sophie may have originally been opposed to her son’s marriage, but after his death, she treated his widow with affection and supported Aspasia when she gave birth to Alexandra.

  Later that year, Queen Sophie learned that Princess Helen was expecting a child. Having settled in Romania, Helen busied herself with decorating her new home, the Foishor, a charming chalet at Sinaia, not far from King Ferdinand and Queen Marie’s home, the Pelishor. At first, Helen was delighted with her new life. She had an attentive, handsome husband and life at Sinaia, located at the foot of the deeply forested Carpathians, was refreshing.

  The Greek people were devoted to the royal family and to King Constantine, a fact noted by Queen Marie while she was in Greece for Helen and Carol’s wedding: “The love of the Greeks for their King is something magnificent. It is a religion to them, it makes them happy…I am talking of what I have seen and heard—I have travelled three days to far-distant corners…and it is Constantine, Constantine—with love and adoration it was touching and wondrous to hear.”21 But within months, this unparalleled devotion would crumble. In an incredible turn of events, Queen Sophie was forced to pack her bags, ready again to flee the country. No wonder she once described her position in Greece as being “in a horrible No-Man’s Land of distraction!”22

  Among the most dramatic cries heard on the day of Sophie and Constan-tine’s return to Greece was “Again our King will draw the sword.”23 The hopes for the megali idea—Greater Greece—that had consumed Greece at the mon-archs’ accession in 1913, had never left.

  After the couple’s exile in 1917, Venizelos had brought Greece onto the Allied side in the war and hence onto the winning side of the conflict. This invigorated Venizelos at home to promote the idea that Greece was set to reclaim its rights over Constantinople and rescue the many Greeks still living under the Turkish yoke. He hammered the point home in impassioned speeches. As Asia Minor contained pockets of Greeks within its borders and as Turkey had been defeated in the war, Venizelos wished to exploit Turkey’s weakness and Greece’s alliance with the Entente Powers to further his territorial ambitions. At the time, Britain and France accepted this.

  Venizelos left the Paris Peace Conference with permission to occupy Smyrna. He ordered Greek troops to do so in May 1919. Smyrna (present-day Izmir) was a flourishing trade center with a thriving Greek population and strong Greek associations in the past; but the port was also a vital economic lifeline to the Turks. Letting go of Smyrna and allowing the Greeks free rein to push farther into Anatolia was therefore unacceptable to Turkey. Within three months, the Greeks had successfully pushed Turkish forces more than two hundred miles farther back inland. Now, after Venizelos’s defeat and Constantine’s return, Greece was still grappling with the Asia Minor question. The fiery lawyer from Crete had effectively left the contentious issue burning. The king was plunged immediately into an international crisis; and as in World War I, Constantine and Sophie were to find themselves again fighting for their political lives.

  Tragically, the unexpected arrival of the king on the scene provided the Allies with a pretext to evade their promises to help Greece. France, in particular, dissatisfied with Allied policy and the mounting costs of maintaining a zone of occupation in Asia Minor, wanted to come to terms with Turkey. The next months showed that “allied policies were confused, inept and risky—and created the ideal conditions for Turkish nationalism to flourish.”24 Into this vacuum stepped a dynamic and determined Turkish leader, set to pick up the pieces of the dying Ottoman Empire and recast it into his vision o
f a new nation. That man was Mustapha Kemal, who came to be known as Ataturk and as the father of modern-day Turkey. Fiercely nationalistic, a born leader, Ataturk awakened in his followers a rousing desire to fight for the fatherland at whatever cost. If defeat was to be their destiny, then, exhorted Ataturk, they would go down fighting to the bitter end, leaving nothing in their wake for their enemies to exploit. “It was the irony of Fate,” wrote one chronicler of the Greek royal family, “that Constantine returned to the throne in time to bear the obloquy that would otherwise have fallen inevitably on the shoulders of Venizelos.”25

  King Constantine was under no illusions as to Greece’s predicament. As far back as 1915, he had told Venizelos that a Greek invasion of Asia Minor would mean his country’s destruction. “It will bleed Greece to death,” warned the king, well aware that his nation was not wealthy or strong enough for such an adventure.2 But upon Constantine’s return, things had gone too far for him to pull back. Faced with little choice but to continue the military campaign, Constantine reluctantly acquiesced.

  When Greece carried out an offensive in January 1921, it did so with a shortage of equipment and unprotected supply lines. Moreover, the Allies had withdrawn financial support. And the Turkish forces outnumbered the Greek forces by over 300,000 men.