Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz

by John Van der Kiste

  Yet the occasion was marred by more family arguments. Vicky had requested a tableau vivant, like those in which she had eagerly participated as a girl to entertain her parents on anniversaries, and a Venetian ball to follow. They were both postponed for a few days by the sudden death of Fritz’s uncle Karl, and when they took place Dona spoilt matters; representing the Queen of Love who was to offer her parents-in-law a bouquet of flowers with a few words of thanksgiving as they sat on a dais between the Kaiser and Empress, she wore a tight dress which showed up her pregnant figure, her pallid face, and bright scarlet arms. For the ball she refused to wear a dress Vicky had given her, to show that she did not take kindly to what she considered to be her mother-in-law’s interference. At the performance she missed a vital cue, and was effortlessly upstaged by Ditta who, true to form, did not attempt to conceal her disdain of the sister-in-law whom she found slow and stupid, and had accepted as one of the family with the utmost reluctance.

  Always sensitive to the feelings of others especially where family was concerned, Vicky had done her best to develop a more welcoming relationship with Dona than she had experienced in her early days of marriage from Augusta and her other in-laws, but her efforts were gracelessly rebuffed. She encouraged Dona to buy some attractive dresses instead of the unbecoming garments she usually chose, and to wear tight underclothes to restore her figure after the birth of her first son Wilhelm in May 1882. Dona replied coldly that there was no point in getting her shape back only to lose it again, as her husband intended to safeguard the imperial succession, a cruel remark to make to a woman who had lost two of her sons. Her mother-in-law, Dona knew, had a reputation for supposedly managing other people’s lives; she herself was not going to be dictated to.

  If Dona was a disappointment to Vicky and Fritz, her husband was becoming downright incorrigible. With marriage increased his sickening air of self-importance, his admiration of Bismarck, and his taunts that his parents were ‘not German enough’. On the rare occasions when he visited his parents, it was usually with an enormous suite which made it impossible for them to talk to him alone. Though Ditta (who was now usually known as ‘Charly’ to her own generation, if not to her parents) led the life of a social butterfly at the head of Berlin’s ‘smart young things’, thinking of little but gossip, fine clothes and fashionable dinner parties, she had every sympathy with her parents and tried to reconcile them with her brother, whose childish and egotistical manner she resented. In March 1882 she was distressed by ‘a number of appalling scenes’ between Willy and their parents, owing to the former’s lack of consideration towards his mother, and she was ‘so beside myself at Papa’s appearance, he was literally ill with rage!’9 Even though Dona worshipped her husband, she was not above making similar occasional complaints in private about his immature behaviour.

  Already convinced to some extent that his life no longer seemed to have any real purpose where Germany was concerned, Fritz was increasingly upset at being shut out by the close bond between Willy and the old Kaiser, and the sly way in which they made arrangements with each other behind his back. Regretting his son’s coldheartedness and vanity, he had been astonished by his evident lack of feeling at the time of Dona’s father’s death, though whether it was out of embarrassment at showing his feelings or whether because the death of the man to whose daughter he was about to become betrothed meant nothing to him, nobody could understand. Now Fritz was angered by his lack of common courtesy, notably his refusal to reply to friendly letters and telegrams. Matters came to a head during a father-and-son exchange in November 1883 when Fritz had a long discussion with him, asking how he could justify his inconsiderate behaviour? Willy told his father he had shown quite openly for a long time that he could not stand him. Taxed with the accusation that he kept everything from his parents, he defended himself by saying that his mother was always very outspoken when he tried to express his opinions on political matters which were contrary to her own.10 Vicky was grieved by ‘his boundless egoism and his heartlessness’, and while she acknowledged that their opinions and views were totally different and probably always would be, all she asked for was ‘a bit of love & gratitude for all that I have suffered & done for him!’11

  These arguments came just after Fritz had been asked to visit King Alfonso XII of Spain, and he wanted Willy to accompany him. He was furious when Willy wrote to the Kaiser, requesting he should not be allowed to go as such a trip could not be reconciled with his duties at home as a newly appointed battalion commander. The reason was that Willy did not want to be overshadowed by his father, whom he knew was more popular in other European countries than him. To Fritz’s despair, his father and Bismarck forbade Vicky to accompany him in order to prevent her from ‘causing mischief’ at the court of Madrid.

  However King Alfonso and Queen Christina were the most gracious of hosts in their efforts to entertain him, though as an animal lover he would rather have foregone the ‘repulsive spectacle’ of a bullfight ordered in his honour; ‘If I had not been officially obliged to stay there, I would gladly have departed at the end of the first victim.’12 He inspected the troops and barracks, paid several evening visits to the theatre, and was most impressed with the museums; ‘I employ these leisure moments in the contemplation of treasures that I shall probably never see again in my life.’13 At the Prado he particularly enjoyed the masterpieces of the Italian and Spanish schools, particularly those of his favourite artist Velasquez, and the displays of armoury in the royal palace, the unique collection of Gobelin tapestries, and the Escorial, which he considered essential ‘in order to appreciate the past glories of Spain.’14 Yet the occasion would have given him far more pleasure had either his art-loving wife, or an amenable, courteous son and heir, been by his side.

  Vicky was increasingly worried by the way that frustrated years of waiting and a perpetual Weltschmerz (world-weariness) were telling on Fritz. His winter illnesses left him progressively weaker, he lost weight and looked pale. Observers were alarmed by his increasing depression and lack of interest in what he would do during his coming reign. Albrecht von Stosch, his close friend from military campaigns and adviser and a man who shared his cautious liberalism though too conservative for Vicky, thought him low and out of spirits, an old man before his time. ‘Strength not exercised dies away; he keeps aloof from activity and influence.’15 Three years later Professor Geffcken, a close friend of Vicky and Fritz, was saddened to find him increasingly pessimistic and bitter; ‘he complains about his wasted life, and I believe that the reason he feels this way is because he does not work.’16 He paid little attention to affairs of state, was convinced that his day had passed, and felt he had become a mere parade horse, only fit for receiving foreign dignitaries.

  In 1851 Prince Alexander of Hesse had married a lady-in-waiting of his sister Marie, then the wife of the Tsarevich, and was dismissed from the Russian army. Granted the title of Prince Battenberg, he and his wife had four sons and a daughter. The eldest, Louis, married Victoria of Hesse, Alice’s eldest daughter in April 1884, and Fritz and Vicky were among wedding guests at Darmstadt. Also there was Beatrice, Vicky’s youngest sister, who fell in love with the third son, Henry. Though Queen Victoria had initially hoped to keep this daughter in perpetual spinsterhood as her lifelong unofficial secretary and helpmeet, after her initial disapproval she consented to their betrothal, and stood her ground defiantly against those in Berlin who looked down on the Battenbergs.

  In Berlin Vicky was her only champion; Fritz was inclined to disagree with her and take his father’s view; nothing the Queen said could alter the fact that Henry was only a minor German prince. For this his mother-in-law took him to task – fancy Fritz speaking of Henry ‘as not being of Geblut (stock), a little like about animals.’ How, she asked angrily, could Empress Augusta object, when the father of her son-in-law was the son of ‘a very bad woman’? If one enquired too deeply into the background of all the royal and princely families on the continent, ‘many black spots would
be found’, and fresh blood had to be infused occasionally, or the race would degenerate physically and morally. Her most withering attack was reserved for Willy and Dona. As for the latter, ‘poor little insignificant Princess, raised entirely by your kindness to the position she is in – I have no words’; she had initially been illreceived in Berlin as a future Empress as the Augustenburgs were hardly of more noble birth than the Battenbergs. If the Queen of England thought someone good enough for her daughter, ‘what have other people got to say?’17

  They might have said nothing had it not been for the likelihood of a Battenberg-Hohenzollern marriage. In 1878 the Balkan state of Bulgaria was created by the terms of the Berlin congress, under the rule of Henry’s elder brother Alexander (‘Sandro’). Under his liberal uncle Tsar Alexander II in Russia his position was relatively safe, but the Tsar’s assassination brought his son, Alexander III, no admirer of Sandro, to the throne, and his mild dislike soon turned to implacable hatred of the young ruler. Then while on a tour of Europe in 1883, this handsome bachelor was presented to Fritz and Vicky at Potsdam. Meeting his hosts’ eldest unmarried daughter Victoria, whom Lady Ponsonby called ‘a kind of wild, Scandinavian woman, with much of her mother’s impetuosity and her eldest brother’s eccentricity’,18 he decided he had found a wife. Perhaps he was not so much in love, rather looking for a pretty, well-connected consort who would provide him with sons and thereby help him to secure his position.

  He came along at the right time to fit into the equation, as for once Vicky’s matchmaking instincts let her get totally carried away. She had evolved a plan whereby England, Germany, Austria and Italy would unite to help and support Bulgaria, helping her to act as a barrier to Russian progress towards Constantinople. Should Russia consider war against such an alliance, the coalition would have to ensure that Bulgaria, Roumania, Serbia, Turkey and Greece did not help her, and that these countries should reach a ‘secret agreement’ with the others, who would try and isolate Russia and France from any other alliances, ‘but then live as far as possible in a peaceful & good relationship with them.’ Spain and Portugal had to be regarded as potential members of the alliance, so they would not go to the assistance of France. Germany, she felt, could do much to guide the Orient towards civilization, and invest considerable capital there in partnership with England.19 Two years later she had not given up hope of this grand design, which would help to create ‘a new order in Europe’, with their three younger daughters wearing the crowns of Greece, Bulgaria and Roumania; German Protestant princesses ‘would not have a bad mission there, – & Germany would gain a decisive influence!’20 This audacious scheme could hardly be taken seriously; one can only suppose that her extreme frustration with her and Fritz’s life on the margins of German history provoked her into such ideas, but even so she must have realized that it was sheer fantasy.

  Bismarck immediately vetoed any serious consideration of a Battenberg-Hohenzollern alliance for political reasons. It was to Germany’s advantage not to be involved in the Orient, and thus avoid difficulties with Russia and Turkey. He believed Gladstone did not want a Europe with friendly Russo-German relations, and that as the English-born Crown Princess was known to be an admirer of Gladstone, he was quite prepared to expose her to the press as the agent of a foreign power. If the marriage took place he would resign.

  Willy, and friends of his in government and military circles, may have thought the Crown Princess’s passionate partisanship of Sandro was nothing more and nothing less than a way of finding a spiritual son of hers, but little attention should be paid to such gossip. While she and Willy were clearly estranged almost beyond the point of no return, and while Henry was a disappointment, any suggestion that she should have seen Sandro as a younger reincarnation of the Prince Consort, or another Waldemar to replace her promising, much-mourned youngest son, was wild exaggeration. Only a little more feasible was Willy’s declaration that his father, on becoming Emperor, meant to appoint Sandro Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine, a position which he had no right to offer to anybody other than the German Crown Prince. Before he let the Battenberger assume such a post, Willy asserted, he would put a bullet through his head.21 It was ironic as Willy had known and liked Sandro during his days at the Kassel Gymnasium, and there had been a possibility at one stage of Sandro marrying Dona’s sister Calma.

  Fritz did not approve of the marriage proposal. He knew Sandro’s hold on power was precarious, and he wanted a better fate for his daughter than as the wife of an exiled ex-sovereign prince. At first he forbade Vicky to encourage the match any further. His pride may have been genuinely insulted at the idea of the son of a morganatic marriage becoming his son-in-law, and he was probably also anxious to avoid another family row as he knew his parents were united in their opposition. To him it was a ‘monstrous idea’ and a weight on his mind, and he told Vicky that Sandro ought to ‘keep away until we are in a position to see our way more clearly.’22 Vicky told Queen Victoria, who passed on the information to Victoria of Hesse, that Moretta was ‘violently in love with Sandro; says she never cared for anyone else, or ever will marry any one else; – that she will wait any time for him & has refused to look at any other Princes who might be good partis for her. Uncle F[ritz] was very angry & tried to put it out of her head – but he did not succeed & she is more than ever anxious abt. it.’23

  He might have persuaded his wife and daughter gently into seeing the affair in a more realistic light had it not been for the reactions of Bismarck and Queen Victoria. Sandro’s interview with the Kaiser, asking for the hand of his granddaughter, ended violently with Wilhelm, recalling his family’s opposition to Elise Radziwill, trembling with anger and the Prince threatening to leave Bulgaria if thwarted. On the other hand Bismarck, who would not countenance any match that might provoke Russia, suggested cynically that the young man would do better to marry a millionairess; his throne would be safer if he could strengthen his position by bribery. When Sandro accepted an invitation to Balmoral a few months later, Queen Victoria was delighted with him. His stubborn resistance to Russia won her admiration, but she was equally taken with his good looks and compared him to ‘beloved Papa’ in letters to her children. With her mother on her side, and with Bismarck advocating bribery and corruption, Vicky championed him as a son-in-law more strongly than ever.

  Fritz was extremely fond of his three younger daughters, but Moretta’s statement in her memoirs, written in the late 1920s, that her engagement was approved of by both her parents at this stage,24 was probably no more than an understandable desire to avoid reopening old wounds. For once it is almost impossible to refute the charge in this case that he was influenced by Vicky somewhat against his own judgment, too bowed down by the blows of the passing years to quarrel with anyone, let alone the wife who had been his mainstay for nearly thirty often difficult years, with whom he was still ardently in love. The Prince of Wales’s approval of Sandro as a husband for his niece weakened his resistance even further. He liked and admired Sandro as a person, and had it not been for the mésalliance factor he would have thought him most suitable for Moretta. At length Vicky’s persuasion, Moretta’s heartfelt letters and Bertie’s endorsement reconciled him to the morganatic element, but he knew it would be folly to encourage the betrothal in the face of combined opposition from his father and Bismarck. If and when he was Kaiser it would be a different matter, but as Crown Prince there was little they could do but wait. Bismarck saw advantages in Moretta entering the Roman Catholic church and marrying Crown Prince Carlos of Portugal, who might have been a King in waiting but was ugly and extremely fat. Neither Moretta nor her mother considered the Portuguese throne a model of stability.*

  Willy and Dona readily joined Bismarck in condemning the match, while Ditta loyally took her mother’s side. She felt ashamed that Willy should behave so badly to their Grandma in England, who had ‘always been kindness itself to him since his birth’.25 Henry shared Wilhelm’s view in that such a match was not right for the dignity of the
Hohenzollerns, but as he was in love with his cousin Irene, whose eldest sister Victoria was married to Sandro’s eldest brother Louis, he found himself in a dilemma.

  It was clear that Bismarck intended to prevent Moretta from marrying Sandro. When Queen Victoria sanctioned the marriages of his brothers into her brood and gave her support to this one as well, the Chancellor declared that it was her intention to bring about a permanent estrangement between Germany and Russia to British advantage. Moreover, he scoffed that with her fondness for matchmaking, and being unaccustomed to contradiction, she would probably arrive at Potsdam with the parson in her travelling bag and the bridegroom in her trunk to perform the wedding on the spot.

  When the Prince of Wales visited Berlin, Bismarck told him that the affections of princesses counted for nothing when weighed in the balance against national political interests. For once he had an ally in Empress Augusta, who had wanted Ella of Hesse to marry her grandson Prince Friedrich of Baden, but when Ella pledged herself to Grand Duke Serge of Russia Queen Victoria was blamed. When the latter ardently championed the Sandro–Moretta romance, Augusta regarded it as an insult to herself and her family; her old friend was deliberately encouraging the marriage of a Prussian princess to a morganatically-born prince while ‘plucking the finest fruits’, the Romanovs, for her beloved Hessian relations. That the Queen was the grandmother of Moretta just as much as of Ella, and vehemently opposed the latter’s engagement on acount of her distrust of Russia, seemingly counted for nothing. Then when the Almanach de Gotha, the directory of royal and noble status and genealogy, suddenly demoted the Battenbergs from Part I to Part II, containing the lesser aristocracy (including the Bismarcks, to add insult to injury), the Queen was furious, believing the Empress to be responsible. The Empress warned Vicky and Fritz separately that the marriage must never come about, calling it a ‘pointless project’ that must be abandoned.