Monarchs & Royals During WWI & WWII?

[Toledo]

Anyone remember the movie Cleopatra, and better yet, the real event during the maritime battle between Rome and Egypt? She abandoned the battle with her giant ship, causing Marc Anthony to have his ship follow her and chaos ensured. Rome won the battle. If you abandon your warriors, then they don't need to fight for you.

In modern times, when a royal leaves the country upon an invasion, not a revolt, an invasion, more than likely is viewed as cowardice and abandonment of their fellow subjects. Sending the young royals away for safety is better than the entire family getting out all at once. If you are the head of the nation, then be like a captain and fight for it or go down with the ship in an act of bravery. The children will be safe in temporary exile and their parents, captured or not, will be heroes.

 

[An Ard Ri]

In the end it did not, but in the beginning the flight of Q. Wilhelmina was rather controversial among large parts of the population. She left while the army was still fighting, many saw it as a betrayal. Portraits of the Queen were put in the garbage bin and royal orders were thrown away. It was a great gift to the German propaganda. In her own memoirs the Queen wrote that she realised the 'crushing impression' her flight had caused. She also found it necessary to defend her move - 14 years after the war ended.

As the war continued feelings changed and due to her radio speeches on the BBC Wilhelmina was able to turn herself into the voice of a free Netherlands and a war heroine. In hindsight it was the only sensible thing to do of course.

Yes I often wondered about that and the queen seems have turned it around judging by the jubilant scenes from her return in 1945

 

[Prinsara]

About the UK: on what basis can it be claimed that the Nazis planned to execute the RF? The Germans did not do so in Denmark and Belgium. I fail to see why they would do such a thing in the UK. In Western Europe every German occupation started with a velvet glove to keep order.

That they tried to kill King Haakon and CP Olav starting literally minutes after the former refused to cooperate, and kept it up for another two months until they escaped? (Even then, Queen Elizabeth was apparently not ecstatic at having indefinite houseguests at Buckingham Palace.)

There's also plenty of evidence that they saw Leopold III and his wife and children as highly disposable towards the end of the war.

I haven't read the plans for Operation Sea Lion, but I imagine if the RF was not evacuated to Canada the Nazis might have left them alone. Or they could have decided that executing them, the Gloucesters and the Kents left them with an excellent excuse to bring Edward VIII back — which they might have done if they escaped, anyway.

 

[JR76]

About the UK: on what basis can it be claimed that the Nazis planned to execute the RF? The Germans did not do so in Denmark and Belgium. I fail to see why they would do such a thing in the UK. In Western Europe every German occupation started with a velvet glove to keep order.

There's no doubt in my mind that British royals could have been potential victims during a Nazi occupation of the United Kingdom. When dealing with the Germans being a royal or a head of state offered little protection. They killed their ally King Boris of Bulgaria when he refused to cooperate. They put various members of the Italian and Bavarian royal families in concentration camps together with members of the Polish branch of the Habsburgs and other high ranking Polish aristocrats were among the first to fall victims to the Nazi genocidal politics against the Polish nation.

Edit: Since posting I did some reading and found that King Boris death can't be as surely pinned on the Nazis as I believed and that both his children has expressed their belief that it could also have been the Communists that were responsible for his death with Princess Maria Louisa being convinced that was the case.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

During the First World War King George V and Queen Mary of Great Britain observed the same rationing as other Britons.

 

[Marengo]

I have just finished a book about the Dutch court and courtiers during WWII, written by the previous director of the Koninklijke Verzamelingen (Royal Collections).

Due to Queen WIlhelmina's anti-German speeches the Orange properties, goods, stocks & bonds etc. were confiscated and liquidated. Though courtiers, Dutch NSB leaders (Dutch Nazi party) and some of the responsible German Nazi's alike tried to keep the more important pieces in the country much was taken or sold. Many items were burried in the ground, hidden on attics, inside pillars or in private homes of relatives and friends of courtiers. Most jewels were actually not taken abroad but hidden in the safes of The Hague jewellers.

Still many things were taken away. Train wagons filled with beds, chairs, cupboards, pots, pans, sheets, towels etc. were taken to Berlin and the Eastern front. 41 carriages alone disappeared, all the horses were sold, over a dozen cars, hundreds of paintings, 3000 pieces of furniture, 800 carpets, part of the Orange-Nassau archives etc. Real estate was sold [Q. Wilhelmina owned many houses which she used as grace and favor residences for courtiers], plots of estates were sold, the palaces themelves were sold to the state.

A collection of paintings of Mecklenburg palaces was bought by Duke Friedrich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was convinced to do so by his uncle and WIlhelmina's brother-in-law Adolf Friedrich. The latter claimed later that he did so to save the paintings for his sister-in-law. Including a painting of Schloss Schwerin, which after the death of Prince Hendrik was moved from his office to the private salon of the Queen. These paintings disappeared after Mecklenburg was occupied by the red army.

-

I wondered what happened in the other occupied European monarchies in the same period. I assume that in Denmark, Bulgaria, Romania and Belgium the palaces inventories were not touched as the monarchs did not go abroad. But does anybody know if something simular happened in Norway, Luxembourg, Greece and Yugoslavia?

 

[Granada]

Wow Marengo. Fascinating. I can't imagine what treasures were lost.

Heartbreaking to think of irreplaceable items from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, that * might * have been taken. Never to be seen again.
Same as the famed 'Amber Room' in Russia that the Nazis stole.... ..Gone.... Disappeared.

OR the lost treasures destroyed during The English Reformation and later English Civil War.
Priceless Antiquities..... Art, Gems, Religious Masterpieces..... just eradicated.

 

[doro]

Might Gustaf V of Sweden the only monarch who survived the two World Wars?

 

[Opals]

Haakon VII of Norway as well

 

[Opals]

I wondered what happened in the other occupied European monarchies in the same period. I assume that in Denmark, Bulgaria, Romania and Belgium the palaces inventories were not touched as the monarchs did not go abroad. But does anybody know if something simular happened in Norway, Luxembourg, Greece and Yugoslavia?

Not sure about anything else in Norway but I know the staff moved Q Maud's clothes from the palace to a museum for safe keeping. After the war the family formally donated the clothes to the museum.
There is also something about Q Maud's body being moved about and hidden, I'll see if I can find that article.
Finally, the story has always been that Q Maud's jewelry was already in the UK, and had been since her death. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some left in Norway that disappeared during the war.

Found the article https://evergreenpost.eu/queen-maud-of-norway-the-secret-of-the-queens-coffin/

 

[CyrilVladisla]

King George V greeted by British troops on a visit to the front during the First World War
http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/XD151272

 

[Muhler]

As far as I can tell, this must be a year or two into the war, judging from the canvas belt the cheering officer to the left is wearing. That was more durable and more practical that the more typical Sam Brown leather-belt the King and the staff officer wear. And which was practically universal for the British army well into WWII.

It also made the officers more conspicuous and as such easier targets for German riflemen. So the Sam Brown was eventually ditched.
Not least because the average time for officers from first lieutenant and down for periods in the Western Front was at best a couple of weeks before they became casualties.
The sons of the higher middle-class and the British aristocracy was decimated during WWI.

The reason for the Sam Browne belt to have a strap going across the body was to keep the belt level. Otherwise the weight of the revolver would lead the belt to sag and that doesn't look good! And we can't look bad in the mud, no, wouldn't do.

But it is not so late in the war that the officer to the left has ditched his swagger-stick. Which also helped to ID British officers.
At the end of the war officers typically wore a plain uniform and a rifle. The men of his unit would know him and that was what mattered.

 

[Prinsara]

He was badly injured being thrown from a horse while visiting in October 1915. So it can’t have been any later than that. https://www.maryevans.com/history/george-v-seriously-injured-by-horse-10725540

 

[kalnel]

The reason for the Sam Browne belt to have a strap going across the body was to keep the belt level. Otherwise the weight of the revolver would lead the belt to sag and that doesn't look good! And we can't look bad in the mud, no, wouldn't do..

You just answered a question I've wondered about for years. I never knew that these straps had a name, and I had no idea why people wore them. Thank you!

 

[fethiye]

Thanks for information.

 

[Muhler]

You are welcome, all three of you.

And fethiye, congratulations on your first post.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

In the years preceding World War II, Princess Alexandra of Hohenlohe-Langenburg was an early supporter of the Nazi Party. She joined on May 1, 1937.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Exiled royals and other heads of State gathered at Buckingham Palace in July 1944 .These included Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, King Haakon VII of Norway with King Peter II and Queen Marie of Yugoslavia.
The group were joined by King George VI,Queen Elizabeth and Princess Alice,Countess of Athlone.
Exiled Sovereigns at Buckingham Palace, 1941 - The Royal Watcher

 

[Prinsara]

A fascinating piece about Gustav V of Sweden, his cooperation and degree of with Nazi Germany, and the reasons why. I had no idea Sweden’s neutrality was not something chosen in the traditional sense, but more ‘opted for at gunpoint’.

King Gustav V of Sweden: Nazi Sympathiser?

King Gustav V of Sweden was an avowed Germanophile, as was much of his family. His late wife, the strong-willed Queen Victoria of Sweden, had after all been born a Princess of Baden and was both th…

royaltyrobertwriter.home.blog

That being said, it was also said England would have its neck wrung like a chicken after the fall of France, to which Churchill later retorted “some chicken; some neck!”

The overriding impression one gets of Gustav is that he was a chicken without a neck! (When even his heir could develop the opposing view simply from being married to two British women...) And like Spain, the people who were able to have their lives saved because of Swedish neutrality doesn’t quite counterbalance what the head of state was doing… IMHO.

And somehow I doubt Gustav ever had a qualm for any of his behavior after the war.

 

[JR76]

A fascinating piece about Gustav V of Sweden, his cooperation and degree of with Nazi Germany, and the reasons why. I had no idea Sweden’s neutrality was not something chosen in the traditional sense, but more ‘opted for at gunpoint’.

King Gustav V of Sweden: Nazi Sympathiser?

King Gustav V of Sweden was an avowed Germanophile, as was much of his family. His late wife, the strong-willed Queen Victoria of Sweden, had after all been born a Princess of Baden and was both th…

royaltyrobertwriter.home.blog

That being said, it was also said England would have its neck wrung like a chicken after the fall of France, to which Churchill later retorted “some chicken; some neck!”

The overriding impression one gets of Gustav is that he was a chicken without a neck! (When even his heir could develop the opposing view simply from being married to two British women...) And like Spain, the people who were able to have their lives saved because of Swedish neutrality doesn’t quite counterbalance what the head of state was doing… IMHO.

And somehow I doubt Gustav ever had a qualm for any of his behavior after the war.

The author of the blog post hasn't realised that the Prince Victor wasn't a just distant relation by marriage but that since his grandmother was the sister of King Gustav's mother a close relative of the king. After the war his daughter Princess Marie Elisabeth was unofficially adopted by the royal family and for many years lived in a small Stockholm apartment that had been bought for her by King Gustav VI Adolf and Queen Louise. She most often spent the Christmas with the family at Drottningholm palace and was particularly close to Princess Christina to whom she told frequent bedtime stories that she later turned into a successful series of children's books. Her autobiography is an interesting but a bit bland read. The main point of interest lies in how close she and her family were to high-ranking Nazis, their interactions with them and how well she speaks of the Göring she knew before the war.

A lot can be said regarding King Gustav's actions during the war but hadn't he put his foot down and forced the government (so much for a passive constitutional monarch) to allow German troops to transfer north through Sweden the country would most likely have been invaded. Even if it hadn't the government was terrified about what a new king with known British sympathies would mean for their main goal - to keep the country out of the war by almost any means possible. The general consensus among Swedes today is that while it wasn't exactly the most honourable moment in our history us staying out of the war was worth the actions taken. This sentiment, I'm sure, was shared by King Gustav and the political establishment.

 

[Prinsara]

Haakon: I’ll abdicate if you let the Germans do something
Gustav: I’ll abdicate if you don’t let the Germans do this thing (and by the way, Charlie, put your foot over the border and we’ll arrest you. Have a nice war, cuz.)


Well, the goal of staying out of the war at any cost was accomplished… yet I would say Gustav is not even held in terribly high esteem in Sweden (compared to his son or father or even his uncle once upon a time). Neither the most honorable moment, nor the most honorable king.

Not sure if anyone other than his son would have done anything differently, but it’s hard not to view him as cold and self-serving.

 

[Somebody]

Exiled royals and other heads of State gathered at Buckingham Palace in July 1944 .These included Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, King Haakon VII of Norway with King Peter II and Queen Marie of Yugoslavia.
The group were joined by King George VI,Queen Elizabeth and Princess Alice,Countess of Athlone.
Exiled Sovereigns at Buckingham Palace, 1941 - The Royal Watcher

I wonder whether princess Alice was present because she was a (first) cousin of queen Wilhelmina; their mothers were sisters.

 

[An Ard Ri]

I wonder whether princess Alice was present because she was a (first) cousin of queen Wilhelmina; their mothers were sisters.

I'd imagine so ,I think she was invited to the majority of events that included the Dutch RF.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany visited the headquarters of his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm during the First World War.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visiting the headquarters of his son, Crown prince Wilhelm, during the First World War, …

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visiting the headquarters of his son, Crown prince Wilhelm, during the First World War, 1914–1918.

www.lookandlearn.com

 

[blooms_rulers]

Haakon VII of Norway as well

What about Christian X of Denmark?