When the news reached Queen Alexandra, she implored the King to join her and Toria on the cruise but by then, engrossed in pressing government business, he declined the invitation. Within a week, further telegrams reached the Queen’s yacht, urging her to return at once as his condition had seriously deteriorated.
Toria and her mother arrived at Buckingham Palace on 5th May to discover the grey-faced king gasping for breath and requiring oxygen. That night bulletins were issued warning that he was gravely ill and, by the following morning, it was clear he had not long left to live.
While his wife and daughter hovered at his side, Bertie asked to see his mistress. Swallowing her pride, Queen Alexandra dutifully summoned Mrs Keppel to the bedside, and there suffered the ultimate indignity. The King asked his wife to kiss his mistress. The Queen complied, though, as she insisted later, only because ‘I would have done anything he asked of me.’
Shortly afterwards, the King collapsed and it was left to Toria to lead a wailing Mrs Keppel from the room. At eleven forty-five that night King Edward VII died. He had waited for sixty years to ascend the throne and had reigned for only nine.
By the time of King Edward VII’s death, his daughters and nieces were aligned to no less than nine dynasties, spanning Europe in every direction from Scandinavia to Spain and from England to Russia. On the 20th May 1910, nine European monarchs followed the king’s coffin in the funeral procession, among them the King’s nephew, Wilhelm, the Kaiser of Germany; the new King George V of Great Britain; Ena’s husband, King Alfonso of Spain; Sophie’s father-in-law, King George of the Hellenes; Maud’s husband, King Haakon of Norway, and her father-in-law, King Frederick of Denmark; and Alix’s brother-in-law, Grand Duke Mikhail representing the Tsar. With so many brothers, uncles and cousins demonstrating their good will, it seemed at that moment that Prince Albert’s dream of a peaceful Europe cemented by family ties, had become reality.
The death of King Edward VII marked the end of an era. His uncle’s demise brought Kaiser Wilhelm a new sense of his own authority, and rivalries that had long been held in check by the older generation were gradually coming to the fore. The dream that Bismarck had once inspired in him of a mighty German outclassing every other country in Europe took shape in Willy’s mind. His army had to be stronger, his navy more powerful than those of his neighbours. Everything German had to surpass anything that Britain could offer. Even his younger brother, Henry, caught the spirit of competition; in 1911, he instituted a motor race from Hamburg to London to pit the German cars against English models.
Meanwhile, the arms race had turned Europe into a powder keg, and the continent was rapidly sliding into the spiral of disaster that would culminate in a greater horror than any of those princely mourners could have imagined. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, naval expansion, the arms race, and conflicts in both the Balkans and South Africa led the Great Powers into mutual suspicion and mistrust. Princesses who had married into foreign courts found themselves increasingly drawn into the political intrigues of the time. Their presumed divided loyalties led the people of their adopted countries to view them with distrust and even within the family their position became at times quite untenable.
“When I think of my father and of all his friends and of our friends,” Vicky had once written, “it appears to me almost ludicrous that Germany and England should be enemies.”
Yet the cousins were already beginning to discover the difficult situation in which their cosmopolitan upbringing had placed them.
As long as Queen Victoria lived, she bound the family together but her death in 1901 symbolised the beginning of a changing world and, with the death of Edward VII, the bond uniting the cousins was no longer strong enough to maintain peace in the face of the hidden forces which were actively creating conflict and secretly preparing the destruction of the European autocracies. Already sparks were flying in the Balkans and soon they would explode in the terrible conflagration of the First World War.
For over thirty years, the crumbling Ottoman Empire had provided easy pickings for the neighbouring Balkan states as they vied with one another to expand their territories. Like Bulgaria and Greece, the Russians had long entertained the dream of extending their frontiers into Turkish occupied Macedonia and Thrace to gain the ultimate prize: Constantinople. Fifty years earlier it was the Russians’ intention of capturing that city, the ancient Byzantium, which had led to the Crimean War and inspired Queen Victoria’s deep mistrust of the country.
In 1897, an unsuccessful Greek campaign had prevented Crown Princess Sophie from attending her grandmother’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and led to yet another dispute between Sophie and her brother, the Kaiser. At that time the Kaiser had openly declared Germany’s support for the Turks, infuriating his mother by visiting Constantinople and accepting a gift of captured Greek guns from the Turkish sultan. Now, fifteen years later, as the Greeks prepared to take up arms again, Willy was more willing to lend his support to the League of Balkan Kings.
The League, comprising Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria was more a marriage of convenience than a love match. Following the Sandro Battenberg debacle, another German prince, ‘Foxy’ Ferdinand, had become the self-styled Tsar of Bulgaria and he was every bit as ambitious as the Greeks and Russians when it came to possessing the Constantinople. The Serbs, meanwhile, resentful of Bulgaria’s alliance with their archenemy Austria-Hungary, distrusted their neighbours from the start. Even as they united against Turkey, each of the Balkan kings viewed his allies with suspicion.
On 18th October 1912, the League declared war on Turkey and within a month had virtually brought ‘the sick man of Europe’ to his knees. Before the end of November, Crown Prince Constantine (Tino) rode at the head of a triumphant Greek army into Salonika where shortly afterwards his father, King George of the Hellenes, received an heroic reception, to the chagrin of Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who was hoping for that honour himself.
The tense dealings between the allies at the Front were reflected in the relations between the Greek princesses at home. Since the outbreak of war, Crown Princess Sophie and her sisters-in-law had been preparing hospitals for the wounded, dividing the work between them. Sophie, then three months pregnant, arranged medical supplies from Athens, while her sister-in-law, Princess Alice (the daughter of Sophie’s cousin, Victoria Battenberg[·]) travelled to the Front to organise base camps.
In spite of the League’s successes, the Balkan Kings left a trail of injured and dying in their wake. Lacking sufficient supplies and overwhelmed by the number of casualties, Alice found conditions at the base camps so inadequate that she began organising groups of nurses to move from one hospital to the next. Crown Princess Sophie, incensed by this usurping of her authority, exploded with rage. Sophie’s sensitivity was understandable since she was certainly under a great deal of stress. Not only was she being unjustly vilified for her German origins but, at four months pregnant, she had also discovered that her husband, Tino, was openly conducting an affair with one of the nurses at her sister-in-law’s hospital.
In spite of his patent infidelity, the Crown Prince was rapidly earning the admiration and respect of his future subjects. Leaving his father to bask in glory in Salonika, he continued his affair and his triumphant march towards Constantinople.
For King George, life in Salonika differed little from life in Athens. Fraternising with his subjects and appearing more like a country gentleman than a conquering hero, each afternoon he enjoyed a stroll through the town. On 18th March 1913, as he walked along the street, he caught sight of a suspicious character staring at him from the entrance to a café. Only slightly perturbed, the King returned along the same route some hours later whereupon the man pulled out a pistol and fired a single bullet. The King died almost instantly, assassinated not by an enemy or a disgruntled ally but by one of his own Greek subjects, who was subsequently declared insane.
As Sophie consoled her mother-in-law, Queen Olga, Tino hurried to Salo
nika to accompany his father’s body back to Athens for a state funeral. A month later, Sophie gave birth to her last child, Katherine.
Shocked as she was by events, the ill wind of the assassination blew some consolation to the new Queen Sophie of the Hellenes. Tino’s sudden change of status brought an abrupt end to his affair with the nurse and, as he and Sophie drove in an open carriage through the streets of Athens, the enthusiasm of the crowds was almost tangible. Tino’s conquests had won the hearts of his people and softened their attitude to his wife. For a short while, peace descended upon Greece but the Balkan Wars were by no means over.
No sooner had the League begun to rejoice in its victories than Ferdinand of Bulgaria switched tack. Unwilling to relinquish his dream of a coronation in Constantinople, he turned against Greece and Serbia.
“The Bulgarians have gone off their heads because of their successes, and want to be the only power in the Balkans,” [162] wrote Sophie’s cousin, Missy of Roumania.
The Serbs and Greeks responded by allying themselves with their recent enemy, Turkey; and the Roumanians, fearing that Bulgaria threatened their own Balkan interests, found themselves drawn in to the seemingly irresolvable conflict.
For Roumania there were further complications. The German born King Carol had already agreed a secret treaty with Austria-Hungary and consequently had no desire to attack Austria’s ally, Bulgaria. While he prevaricated, the Greeks and their allies trounced the Bulgarian forces so that by the time the Roumanian king was prevailed upon to send out his troops, the war was all but won. Nonetheless, in a show of support, the Roumanian army marched south and straight into a cholera epidemic.
According to her own effusive account, Missy’s experiences among the disease-ridden troops marked a turning point in her life. Hurrying to the hospitals in her idiosyncratic fashion, she immediately recognised her duty:
“Looking about me I felt that what was wanted was a leader, an encourager, and one high enough placed to have authority, and who, by remaining calm and steady could become a rallying point for those who were beginning to lose their heads…”[163]
Ever conscious of her own beauty and charisma, Missy never doubted that her very presence among the soldiers could raise their drooping spirits and in this, as in most of her enterprises, she proved remarkably successful. Relishing the role of a brilliant heroine illuminating their darkness, she need not work as a nurse as several of her cousins had done. It was enough for her to wander among the wounded, sick and dying, casting her own inimitable radiance over the stark hospital wards and there was no doubt at all that her natural magnetism played a major role in maintaining morale. On a larger scale, she worked tirelessly, travelling from one place to another and employing her natural gifts of administration and persuasion to ensure that the hospitals received the necessary staff and equipment to respond to the needs of their patients.
By the summer of 1913, Ferdinand of Bulgaria had finally accepted defeat and the Greeks and Roumanians were satisfied with their spoils. Their territories were enlarged, their borders extended and the Queen of the Hellenes and her cousin the Crown Princess of Roumania had both had an early taste of the horrors of war. For now, they were content to rest in a fragile peace, unaware that in a little over a year an even greater conflict would engulf the whole continent.
Chapter 31 – This Is The End Of Everything
The long hot summer of 1914 brought the annual migration of royalties from the heat of the capitals to cooler climes. While Charlotte (neé of Prussia), whose husband had recently inherited the Dukedom of Saxe-Meiningen, rotated between Cannes and clinics, Ducky of Edinburgh, now Grand Duchess Victoria of Russia, took a holiday in the South of France. Alice of Albany and her husband, Alge of Teck were preparing to leave for Canada to take over the governorship from her uncle, the Duke of Connaught. Several of their royal cousins paid visits to their families; Marie Louise was preparing to visit Aunt Beatrice on the Isle of Wight; and Queen Maud of Norway returned as usual to Appleton Lodge to find her sister, Toria, more enslaved than ever to their mother. That summer, her cousins Sophie of Greece and Irène of Prussia were also in England, taking advantage of the sea air in Eastbourne.
For Irène’s husband, the holiday served a dual purpose. While visiting Cousin George, Henry could sound out the English King’s stance in the event of war: if a conflict should erupt in the Balkans and Germany were to come to aid of her allies, would Britain intervene? Though George’s reply was vague and non-committal, Henry felt sufficiently confident to inform his brother, the Kaiser, that should Germany become embroiled in the Balkans, Britain would remain neutral.
Irène’s sister, Alix, the Russian Tsarina, was also travelling purposefully that summer. In June, she arrived with her family in the Black Sea port of Constantza as a guest of her cousin, Crown Princess Marie of Roumania. Earlier that year the Roumanians had visited St. Petersburg with a view to promoting a match between Missy’s eldest son, Carol, and Alix’s eldest daughter, Olga. Neither the Prince nor the Grand Duchess had shown the least interest in one another, and their mothers were such different characters with little in common that the meetings could hardly be viewed as a success. Nonetheless, etiquette demanded a return visit and there was always the possibility that a second encounter might prove more fruitful.
In spite of the balmy summer weather and the romantic setting, the trip was not a success. The worldly-wise playboy Carol was not in the least enamoured of Olga, whose sheltered upbringing made her appear younger than her nineteen years. Nor had Olga, raised in her close-knit family, any desire to leave her Russian home. Although Missy herself had been contemplating the dynastic benefits of the match for several years, even she began to have doubts about the Grand Duchess, not least because she feared that Olga might introduce haemophilia into the Roumanian dynasty.
If relations between Carol and Olga were cool, their mothers were finding each other’s company positively chilling. Stories of Missy’s affairs could not have endeared her to the ‘ultra-moral’ Alix, while, for her part, the Roumanian Crown Princess had always found the Russian Empress aloof and disdainful:
“She managed to put an insuperable distance between her world and yours, her experiences and yours, her thoughts, her opinions, her principles, rights & privileges. She made you in fact feel an intruding outsider, which is of all sensations the most chilling and uncomfortable.”[164]
The unsuccessful mission accomplished, the Russian Imperial Family returned to their Crimean estate, Livadia. Occasionally Ella visited, but relations between Alix and her sister were becoming increasingly fraught due to the influence of Rasputin. Many of Alix’s former friends, who had been equally quick to condemn his rising influence, had also been side-lined, with the result that, by the summer of 1914, the Imperial Family were virtually isolated in the private havens of Livadia or Tsarskoe Selo. There, alone with Nicholas, her children and her friend, Anna Vyrubova, Alix was able to snatch occasional moments of relief from the stresses of her position.
“Monotonous though it may have been,” wrote Anna Vyrubova, “the private life of the Emperor and his family was one of cloudless happiness. Never, in all the twelve years of my association with them, did I hear an impatient word or surprise an angry look between the Emperor and the Empress. To him she was always ‘Sunny’ or ‘Sweetheart,’ and he came into her quiet room…as into a haven of rest and peace. Politics and cares of state were left outside…The Imperial Family was absolutely united in love and sympathy.”[165]
This idyllic description, however, omitted to mention the numerous hours that Nicholas sat at his desk, working on the pressing business of ruling the country and trying to maintain the delicately balanced peace throughout Europe.
Towards the end of June 1914, Victoria Battenberg attended the birth of her grandchild in Greece before joining her sisters in Russia. Despite their different lifestyles, Victoria and Ella remained very close. Victoria had nothing but admiration for Ella and her work with the poor, an
d was only too happy to accept her invitation to participate in one of Ella’s many pilgrimages.
In early July 1914, they journeyed to the Siberian town of Alapaevsk where, despite Ella’s attempts to remain incognito, the crowds gathered as usual to welcome her, kneeling to kiss her shadow, blessing themselves and reaching to touch the hem of her garments.
The sisters arrived at a monastery where Ella had made the acquaintance of a young monk named Seraphim. While they were speaking, a telegram addressed to the Grand Duchess arrived from St. Petersburg. According to Seraphim, the moment that Ella opened it, her face became deathly pale and her eyes filled with tears. The Tsarina was asking for her prayers; the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who had shared Ella’s table at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee dinner, had been assassinated in Sarajevo, the Austrians were preparing reprisals and war seemed almost inevitable.
In Vienna, the aged Emperor Franz Josef struggled to maintain order among the many different nationalities that peopled his Austro-Hungarian empire. The Hungarian Magyars viewed themselves as Roumanian, while the Serbs sought complete independence from Austria and dreamed of creating a separate South Slav (Yugoslav) kingdom. Serbian radicals had already perpetrated several terrorist attacks and so when the Emperor’s nephew and heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, declared his intention of visiting Sarajevo during a routine inspection of Austrian troops, he was strongly advised not to do so. The Archduke, determined to keep the Empire intact even if it meant sharing government with the unruly Slavs, ignored the warnings.
On 28th June 1914, as Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, drove slowly through the streets of the Bosnian capital, Gavrilo Princip, allegedly a member of the notorious Serbian terrorist group, ‘Black Hand’, stepped out from the crowd and fired a pistol at the passengers. The Archduke’s wife died instantly, Franz Ferdinand a short time later[·].
Queen Victoria's Granddaughters 1860-1918 Page 26