In the spring of 1910, King Edward VII, portly and bronchitic, arranged to meet his mistress, Alice Keppel, in Biarritz. Though inured to her husband’s infidelities, this most blatant display of affection for the ubiquitous Mrs. Keppel greatly irked Queen Alexandra, who decided to embark on a separate holiday of her own with her daughter, long-suffering Toria in tow.
At least this time Toria was spared the boredom of ‘that vile’ Danish Court to which her mother so frequently repaired, as the Queen opted instead for a Mediterranean cruise, including a visit to her brother, King George of the Hellenes, in Corfu.
Her husband, meanwhile, en route to Biarritz, spent an evening in an ill-ventilated theatre in Paris where he caught a cold, which exacerbated his chronic bronchitis. By the time he reached his destination he was far from well and spent much of the holiday confined to his rooms. Returning to England at the end of April, he insisted on continuing with his duties but it was obvious that his illness was no mere chill, and his friends thought it prudent to send word of his condition to his wife.
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 11.45 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 Cousin Willy, 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 Misha 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.
But the death of King Edward VII had 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.
The rising enmity went far deeper than mere family rivalry. 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 or who were themselves the children of ‘foreign’ princes 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, it appears to me almost ludicrous that Germany and England should be enemies.” Vicky had once written, and 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 irretrievably broken. 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 Constantinople that 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. 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 ancient ‘Byzantium’ - 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 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, causing her cousin, Victoria Battenberg to observe:
“Entre nous it may have come out so strongly because she is probably somewhat jealous of Alice’s great popularity. Any how it is despicable & monstrous.”
Sophie’s sensitivity was understandable; the Crown Princess 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 discovered that her husband, Tino, was openly conducting an affair with one of the nurses at her sister-in-law’s hospital. Even Cousin Victoria had to concede:
‘It certainly must excuse a good deal of her bad temper & touchiness for many people are most trying & irritable at such times & and if she had an inkling of her husband’s ‘goings-on’ that will not have made her feel more amiable or happy.’
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 the glory of 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 Salonika 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 brief respite peace descended upon Greece, but the Balkan Wars were by no means finished.
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.” 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…”
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 stoop to dirty her hands in nursing the dying men. It was enough for her to wander among them casting her own inimitable radiance over the stark hospital wards.
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 boundaries 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.
