Of Traitors and Saints: Foreign Consorts between Accusations and Propaganda in the First World War

Abstract

The rumours about the German descent and sexual promiscuity of the Russian Tsarina Alexandra contributed to the fall of the Romanov regime in 1917 as foreignness and gender narratives were used by revolutionary groups to undermine the sacrosanct aura of the Russian dynasty. However, the utilisation of gender norms and the foreign descent of a royal consort for political purposes was not a uniquely Russian phenomenon. In fact, similar allegations of treason and depravity against foreign consorts existed in many First World War monarchies. This article puts the stereotype of the ‘evil foreign queen’ in an historical context and analyses the functionality and motives of these rumours in the conduct of the war. The article also examines the success and failure of wartime counter-narratives and, thereby, contributes a new aspect to the impact of the war on European monarchy.

Notes

1 Many thanks to the organisers of the Kings & Queens Conference 2017 for the possibility to present the first thoughts of this paper and to Andreas Møller for many helpful remarks.

2 Peter Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History (Harlow, 2005), p. 102. For a substantial biography of Rasputin: Douglas Smith, Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs (New York, 2016).

3 Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs: Vol 3, trans. by Frederic A. Holt (London, 1925), p. 11.

4 Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, 1999), pp. 18-27.

5 Matthieu Gellard, Une reine épistolaire. Lettres et pouvoir au temps de Catherine de Médicis (Paris, 2014); Vivian R. Gruder, ‘The Question of Marie-Antoinette: The Queen and Public Opinion before the Revolution’, French History 16 (2002), pp. 269-98; Carolyn Harris, Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette (Basingstoke, New York, 2016).

6 William Spellman, Monarchies 1000–2000 (London, 2004), pp. 209-12; Frank-Lothar Kroll, ʻStaatsräson oder Familieninteresse? Möglichkeiten und Grenzen dynastischer Netzwerkbildung zwischen Preußen und Rußland im 19. Jahrhundert', Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte 20 (2010), pp. 1-41.

7 Sorin Cristescu, ‘Die Korrespondenz von König Carol I. mit seiner Familie als Quelle für die rumänische Geschichte und das Königshaus mit einem Beitrag über die Affäre Văcărescu im Lichte der Briefe von Königin Elisabeth’, in Silvia Zimmerman and Edda Binder-Iijima (eds), Das Erste Königspaar von Rumänien Carol I. und Elisabeta: Aspekte monarchischer Legitimation im Spiegel kulturpolitischer Symbolhandlungen (Stuttgart, 2015), pp. 109-26.

8 Queen Victoria to Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, 25 October 1870, quoted from: Roger Fulford (ed.), Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia: Vol. 3. Your dear letter. 1865–1871 (London, 1971), pp. 305-06.

9 Cristescu, ‘Die Korrespondez von König Carol I. mit seiner Familie’, p. 123.

10 Daniel Schönpflug, Die Heiraten der Hohenzollern: Verwandtschaft, Politik und Ritual in Europa 1640–1918 (Göttingen, 2013), pp. 157-9.

11 Basil Thomson, The Allied Secret Service in Greece (London, 1931), pp. 112-23; Spyridon Kosmetatos-Phokas (a.k.a. S. P. Cosmin), Dossiers secrets de la triple entente: Grèce 1914–1922 (Paris, 1969), p. 150.

12 Josef Redlich, Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs 1908–1919, vol. 2 (Graz, Cologne, 1954), p. 284; Manfred Rauchensteiner, The First World War and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914–1918 (Vienna, 2014), p. 971.

13 Georges Dumont, Elisabeth de Belgique, ou, Les défis d’une reine (Paris, 1986), pp. 150-57; Jan Velaers, Albert I: Koning in tijden van oorlog en crisis, 1909–1934 (Tielt, 2009), pp. 288-9.

14 Hannah Pakula, An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick (London, 1995), pp. 271, 388.

15 For the influence of the renewed Franco-Austrian hostility see: Thomas E. Kaiser, ‘Who's Afraid of Marie-Antoinette? Diplomacy, Austrophobia and the Queen’, French History 14 (2000), pp. 241-71, p. 243.

16 Katherine Crawford, ‘Constructing Evil Foreign Queens’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37 Spring (2007), pp. 393-418, pp. 394-5.

17 Schönpflug, Die Heiraten der Hohenzollern, p. 157.

18 Sharon L. Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2002), pp. 206-12.

19 Ernest Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957).

20 Harris, Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pp. 108-11.

21 Monika Wienfort, ‘Dynastic Heritage and Bourgeois Morals: Monarchy and Family in the Nineteenth Century’, in Frank Lorenz Müller and Heidi Mehrkens (eds), Royal Heirs and the Uses of Soft Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe (London, 2016), pp. 163-79.

22 Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Zita: Die letzte Kaiserin (Vienna, 1993), p. 76.

23 See for example: Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign against Enemy Aliens during World War I, Russian Research Center Studies, vol. 94 (Cambridge, MA, 2003); Gerhard Fischer, Enemy Aliens: Internment and the Homefront Experience in Australia 1914–1920 (St Lucia, 1989); Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (New York, 1991).

24 Jansen, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, p. 206-12.

25 Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 389.

26 Peter Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History (Harlow, 2005), p. 101-02; Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution. 1891–1924 (New York, 1996), pp. 284-5; Heinz Richter, Geschichte Griechenlands im 20. Jahrhundert: Vol 1: 1900–1939 (Wiesbaden, 2015), p. 74-5.

27 Letter King Albert I to Jules Ingenbleek, 17 March 1917, in: Marie Thielemans (ed.), Albert Ier: Carnets et correspondance de guerre 1914–1918 (Paris, 1991), p. 401.

28 Martin Kirsch’s influential study of constitutional monarchies in the nineteenth century only touches this briefly: Martin Kirsch, Monarch und Parlament im 19. Jahrhundert: der monarchische Konstitutionalismus als europäischer Verfassungstyp — Frankreich im Vergleich (Göttingen, 1999).

29 See for example Jean Sévillia, Zita: Kaiserin ohne Thron (Düsseldorf, 1998), p. 131.

30 See for the example of Queen Victoria: Susan Kent, Queen Victoria: Gender and Empire (New York, 2016), pp. 41-2.

31 See for example the alleged weakness of Ferdinand of Romania: Jean-Noel Grandhomme, ‘“L’homme fort du royaume”. La Reine Marie et la Construction de la Grande Roumanie (1913–1922)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 264 (2016), pp. 7-21.

32 George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York, 1996), pp. 17-39;

33 Joachim Radkau, Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler (Munich, 1998), pp. 389-405; Alain Corbin, ‘The Injunction of Virility, Source of Anguish and Anxiety’, in Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine and Georges Vigarello (eds), A History of Virility (New York, 2016), pp. 215-20.

34 Christopher Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II: Profiles in Power (New York, 2013), pp. 160-85; Martin Kohlrausch, Der Monarch im Skandal: Die Logik der Massenmedien und die Transformation der wilhelminischen Monarchie (Berlin, 2005).

35 Elli Lemonidou, ʻPropaganda and Mobilizations in Greece during the First World War', in T.R.E. Paddock, (ed.), World War I and Propaganda (Leiden, 2014), pp. 273-92, p. 281.

36 Laurence van Ypersele, Le roi Albert: Histoire d’un mythe (Ottignies, 1995), p. 139.

37 See for example the speech by Károly Huszár to the Hungarian parliament, 4 July 1918, quoted in: Erich Feigl, Kaiserin Zita: Von Österreich nach Österreich (Vienna, 1982), p. 341.

38 Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008), pp. 251-7.

39 Émile-Joseph Galet, Albert King of the Belgians in the Great War: His Military Activities and Experiences set down with his Approval (London, 1931).

40 Letter from Queen Marie of Romania to Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Bucharest, 13 July 1913, Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen, FAS HS 1-80 T9 R53 No 99; Queen Marie of Romania, The Story of my Life: Volume 3 (London, 1935), pp. 187-8; Maria Bucur, ʻBetween the Mother of the Wounded and the Virgin of Jiu. Romanian Women and the Gender of Heroism during the Great War’, Journal of Women’s History 12 (2000), pp. 30–56.

41 The book was published in French and in an English translation: Lea Laurent, Our Lady of Belgium (London, 1916); for the poem ‘Sainte-Elisabeth’ see: La Libre Belgique, no. 22, May 1915; Croyne Hall’s recent book on the nursing activities of royal princesses pays attention to this phenomenon. However, the book is dangerously close to uncritically adopting the contemporary propaganda narrative: Croyne Hall, Princesses on the Wards: Royal Women in Nursing through Wars and Revolutions (Stroud, 2014).

42 Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven, London, 1961), p. 221; Jörn Leonhard, Die Büchse der Pandora: Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (Munich, 2014), p. 404; Joshua Sanborn, Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford, 2014), p. 193; Rauchensteiner, The First World War, p. 893.

43 Grand Duchess Maria Nicolaevna to Tsar Nicholas, Tsarskoe Selo 14 September 1914, in: Andrej Mejlunas and Sergej Mironenko (eds), Eine Liebe für die Ewigkeit: Nikolaus und Alexandra — das letzte Zarenpaar (Munich, 1999), p. 429; Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton, Oxford, 2006), p. 403; Sophie Buxhoeveden, The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna Empress of Russia: A Biography (London, New York, Toronto, 1928), pp. 193-4; Orlando Figes, Hundert Jahre Revolution: Russland und das 20. Jahrhundert, (Berlin, 2014), p. 79.

44 Alexander Kerensky, The Crucifixion of Liberty, transl. by Gleb Kerensky (London, 1934), p. 190.

45 Maria Kleinmichel, Memories of a Shipwrecked World (New York, 1923), pp. 216-7. This idea is also discussed in Hall, Princesses on the Wards, p. 69.

46 Richard Wortman, Russian Monarchy: Representation and Rule (Brighton, 2013), pp. 89-169.

47 For Alexandra writing to her husband about her struggle with the Russian language: Tsarina Alexandra to Tsar Nicholas II, 22 September 1916, in Joseph Fuhrmann (ed.), The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra: April 1914–March 1917 (Westport, 1999), p. 598; for the idea of ‘dimensions of foreignness’, see: Bernhard Waldenfels, Grenzen der Normalisierung. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden, vol. 2 (Frankfurt, 1998), p. 136-7.

48 Rauchensteiner, The First World War, p. 971; Feigl, Kaiserin Zita, p. 358.

49 For example: Le Temps, 11 June 1916, and The London Times, 8 January 1917; Thomson, The Allied Secret Service in Greece, p. 123; Alexander Mitrakos, France in Greece during World War I: A Study in Politics of Power (New York, 1982), pp. 19-20, 49; Nicolas Duijn, ‘Un attaché naval dans la grande guerre: Le commandant de Roquefeuil à Athènes (1915–1917)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 224 (2006), pp. 95-109.

50 For the propagandistic use of the plight of Belgium see: Sophie de Schaepdrijver, ‘Occupation, Propaganda, and the Idea of Belgium’, in Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites (eds), European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 267-94; Leanne Green, ‘Advertising War: Picturing Belgium in First World War Publicity’, Media, War and Conflict 7 (2014), pp. 309-25.

51 Francis Bertie of Thame, The Diary of Lord Bertie of Thame 1914–1918 (London, 1924), vol. 2, pp. 13, 91-4.

52 Letter from King Albert I to Beyens, 14 January 1917, in Thielemans (ed.), Albert Ier: Carnets et correspondance, p. 397; Velaers, Albert I, p. 330.

53 Henry D. Napier, Experiences of a Military Attaché in the Balkans (London, 1924), p. 83.

54 The London Times, 3 October 1855.

55 Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to Beldiman, 29 August 1918, Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen, FAS HS 1-80 T9 R53 Nr. 181.

56 Michael Epkenhans, ‘Victoria und Bismarck’, in Rainer von Hessen (ed), Victoria Kaiserin Friedrich (1840–1901). Mission und Schicksal einer englischen Prinzessin in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 2002), pp. 151-78.

57 Letter of Hans von Plessen to Therese, Countess von Brockdorff, 29 August 1916, Holger Afflerbach, Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914–1918 (München, 2005), p. 874; Friedrich Frerk, Der Siegeszug durch Rumänien (Siegen, Leipzig, 1917), p. 14; David Hamlin, ʻ“Wo sind wir?” Orientalism, Gender and War in the German Encounter with Romania,' German History 28 (2010), pp. 424–452, p. 442.

58 Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, Wolf Rüdiger Hess (ed.) (Munich, 1987), p. 189.

59 August von Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege: Erinnerungen aus meiner vierjährigen Tätigkeit als bevollmächtigter deutscher General beim k. u. k. Armeeoberkommando (Berlin, 1920), p. 92.

60 Feigl, Kaiserin Zita, pp. 344-57.

61 See for example the personal papers of Max Bauer, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NL 1022/2, and the personal papers of August von Cramon, Bundesarchiv, Militärarchiv Freiburg, N266/63. Coordinated propaganda measures are mentioned nowhere, while the rumours around the Austrian Empress are very present in the papers.

62 Roderick McLean, ‘Kaiser Wilhelm and his Hessian Cousins. Intra-State Relations in the German Empire and International Dynastic Politics, 1890–1918’, German History 19 (2001), pp. 28–53; Theo Aronson, Crowns in Conflict: The Triumph and the Tragedy of European Monarchy 1910–1918 (London, 1986), p. 112.

63 Bernhard von Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten: Bd. 1: Vom Staatssekretariat bis zur Marokko-Krise (Berlin, 1930), pp. 306-07.

64 Letter of Tsarina Alexandra to Tsar Nicholas II, 5 January 1916, in Fuhrmann (ed.), The Complete Wartime Correspondence, pp. 231, 348.

65 André Scherer and Jacques Grunewald, L’Allemagne et les problèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Vol. I: Des Origines à la déclaration de la guerre sous-marine à outrance (août 1914–31 janvier 1917) (Paris, 1962), pp. 157-62.

66 Quoted from: Dumont, Elisabeth de Belgique, p. 160.

67 Diary of Queen Elisabeth, quoted in Marie José of Belgium, Albert et Élisabeth de Belgique: Mes Parents (Brussels, 2000), p. 151.

68 ‘Ernie’ is the Tsarina’s brother Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse. Letter of Tsarina Alexandra to Tsar Nicholas II, 27 October 1914, in Fuhrmann (ed.), The Complete Wartime Correspondence, p. 38.

69 Kerensky, Crucifixion, p. 187; Mikhail Rodzianko, The Reign of Rasputin: An Empire’s Collapse (London, 1927), pp. 238-9.

70 Tamara Griesser-Pečar, Die Mission Sixtus: Österreichs Friedensversuch im Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna, 1988).

71 Telegram from Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff to the German Foreign Office, 14 August 1915, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts [hereafter PAAA], Berlin, R 7491.

72 Queen Sophie to Kaiser Wilhelm, transmitted through a telegram by Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff to the German Foreign Office, 11 May 1915, PAAA Berlin, R 7490; Telegram from Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff to the German Foreign Office, 23 February 1915, PAAA Berlin, R 22405.

73 Buxhoeveden, The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna, p. 189.

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Moritz A. Sorg

Moritz A. Sorg Moritz A. Sorg is a PhD candidate at the Albert-Ludwig University Freiburg. He graduated with an MPhil in Modern European History from the University of Cambridge in 2017 and is a scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung). His research focuses on nationalism and monarchy in modern Europe. He is currently working on a project on ‘Foreignness and Monarchic Rule in the First World War: A Crisis of Transnational Monarchy, 1914–1927’, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His most recent article ‘From Equilibrium to Predominance. Foreign Princes and Great Power Politics in the Nineteenth Century’, has recently been published in the Journal of Modern European History (2018).