Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (5 page)

As a young toddler, the complex politics surrounding Germany, Austria, and the intricate lattice that kept them loosely allied meant little to Dona Holstein. Not until decades later would she realize how significantly these issues impacted her life. In the meantime, the death of her brother Frederick in 1858 meant she was an only child, but she soon became the eldest in a growing family. Her next sibling, a sister named Caroline Matilda, came into the world fifteen months after Dona was born. Nicknamed “Calma,” she was considered the prettiest of all the Holstein girls. She was also the sister with whom Dona would always have the closest relationship. Queen Victoria, writing to her daughter Vicky in 1860 after Calma’s birth, commented on Ada’s frequent pregnancies after only a few years of marriage.

How can anyone, who has not been married above two years and three quarters rejoice at being a third time in that condition? I positively think those ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or a guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice … Let me repeat once more, dear, that it is very bad for any person to have them very fast—and that the poor children suffer for it even more, not to speak of the ruin it is to the looks of a young woman—which she must not neglect for her husband’s sake, particularly when she is a Princess.
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Two years later, Fritz and Ada were thrilled when two sons, Gerard and Ernest Günther, were born in 1862 and 1863, respectively. The hereditary prince and princess’s efforts to model their family after the German royals they so idolized were encouraged by Ada’s family, especially her mother, Dowager Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Feodora often passed on advice to her daughter on how to raise her family, advice that came from her half sister the queen.

As was often the case with Victoria, she freely dispensed advice, opinions, or criticisms with a noticeable lack of sensitivity for other people’s feelings or circumstances. This was the case when it came to managing the Holsteins’ finances. Fritz insisted on maintaining a comfortable lifestyle, but German royals were famous for exorbitant spending and, as a consequence, debt-ridden courts—the king of Bavaria was rumored to be so poor that his weekly pocket money amounted to only twenty cents. “Poor and unimportant in the eyes of the world, the German royal families of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were at their historical nadir,” wrote one of Queen Victoria’s biographers.
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Despite the fiscal tribulations faced by many of their contemporaries, the Holsteins were not entirely destitute. Christian August was exceptionally frugal with what was left of the settlement he received for his territories in Schleswig-Holstein, enabling him to provide Fritz with Dolzig and a small palace in Gotha. His finances were also augmented by the modest revenues he received from Augustenburg.

Dona’s uncomplicated life lasted a mere five years before the Holsteins were overtaken by calamity. Prince Gerard, who had been born at Dolzig in the early weeks of 1862, died four months later. Eighteen months after that, in November 1863, the German Confederation declared war on Denmark over the already battle-scarred twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. Later known as the Second Schleswig War of 1863–64, this conflict would have great ramifications for not only Dona’s family but also for German and European history. The confederation used the treaty from the First Schleswig War as their casus belli, claiming Denmark violated the accord by trying to absorb the duchies directly into their sovereign borders. For the most part, ethnic Germans “in Schleswig, Holstein, and throughout Germany wanted only the restored independence of the duchies under a prince of their choosing.”
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Overwhelming public opinion looked to the liberal Fritz Holstein as the prince with the most lawful claim to the ducal throne. Following in his father’s footsteps, Fritz announced his intention of assuming the throne and began styling himself Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.

When it looked as if a German victory over the Danish was imminent, Fritz—believing he would promptly be invested with the mantle of government—departed Dolzig for his Thuringian estate with the goal of being ready to move into the ducal capital, Kiel, at a moment’s notice. The decision to leave his family was a difficult one for a man who cared so deeply for his wife and children. If things went according to plan, Fritz reasoned, he would send for his family as soon as he was installed as duke. It is difficult to ascertain exactly when Ada and the children joined Fritz, but it is reasonable to conclude that, given the volatility of the situation and how much the duke cared for his family, he did not want to risk their safety by bringing them so close to an active war zone.

In Fritz’s absence, the person who bore the greatest burden of responsibility was Dona’s mother, who was now being called the Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein. With her husband shuttling back and forth across Germany trying to shore up support for when he would actually assume the government in Kiel, Ada was left with few resources with which to care for herself and her three young children. Their meager finances evaporated as the duke struggled to pay for his expenses abroad. Coming to Ada’s rescue during this period was her cousin Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. A prominent politician who would one day be appointed German chancellor, Chlodwig took an active role in managing what was left of the duchess’s money and ensuring her children were provided for. Some thirty years later, Dona’s brother Ernest Günther wrote an embittered letter in which he said Prince Chlodwig was the only person who saved their family while their father was away in Kiel squandering their money.

When the Danish surrendered to the victorious German Confederation in 1864, Prussia was given administration of Schleswig, while Austria received Holstein. As the weeks and months rolled by, Fritz Holstein was disconcerted to find that Prussia had still not consented to his entering Kiel and assuming the throne. The person standing in the duke’s way was the balding, mustachioed Prussian minister-president, Otto von Bismarck. At first glance, he appeared to be a saturnine, middle-aged statesman entering his political twilight. In reality, he was fiercely ambitious, obsessively conservative, unprogressive, and reactionary. He agreed to Prussia’s participation in the Second Schleswig War to further his goal of
Realpolitik
—his unfaltering commitment to establishing Prussian hegemony in German Europe through conquest and annexation; and because Fritz was pro-German, Bismarck saw him as a convenient puppet. Once Prussia had control of Schleswig, Bismarck used the duke to set into motion the next phase of his plan: war with Austria. An integral part of
Realpolitik
was forcing Austria out of the German Confederation—the Austrian emperor had been president of the confederation since 1850—and, by extension, German affairs altogether, since Bismarck believed the Habsburgs were no longer worthy of being leaders of German Europe. Hoping to chum the waters in an effort to get Austria to make a military strike against Prussia, Bismarck launched a vicious campaign to destroy Fritz Holstein and his family. Bismarck openly derided the duke, whom he called “that idiot of Holstein.”
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By May 1865, the duke had grown tired of Prussian false promises. Using his personal authority as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, he made his way to Kiel, took up residence in the castle there, and established a provisional government with ministers loaned to him by the Duke of Coburg. It appears that it was at this point that Ada and the children joined Fritz. But even with the presence of his attractive wife and young family, German public opinion began to turn against the duke. Bismarck managed to convince the general public that Fritz’s government was illegal under the terms of the treaty that ended the war. He then began a public relations campaign to destroy the duke. By the time the Holsteins were settled in at Kiel Castle, Bismarck had succeeded in spreading so much anti-Augustenburg propaganda that no foreign ambassadors would receive Fritz, and King Wilhelm I of Prussia even accused him of treason.

Fritz managed to keep his government operating in Kiel for almost another year. He was also hesitant to uproot his family again because his wife was into the third trimester of another pregnancy. In April 1866, she gave birth at Kiel Castle to a daughter named Louise Sophie. Contemporary accounts indicate that within a matter of weeks of Louise Sophie’s birth, Fritz’s government fell apart. Prussia declared it would never recognize his reign, German public opinion was against him, and his support from the international community evaporated. Dejected and utterly defeated, Fritz and his family had returned to Dolzig by June 1866. Children, even young ones, can sometimes sense drastic changes in their parents’ moods. It is probable that for a number of months, Dona could see the morose depression that weighed on her father. But if Dona’s parents—who, as a courtesy from the King of Prussia, were allowed to continue using the titles Duke and Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein—hoped their return presaged the end of a long, difficult period, they were wrong.

With Fritz out of the picture, there was nothing standing in Bismarck’s way from proceeding with the next step in his plan. In June 1866, his coveted Austro-Prussian War began and progressed exactly as he had predicted. States like Hanover and Hesse were told Prussian troops would be marching through their territories to attack Austria. Should they offer any resistance, Prussia would take it as a de facto declaration of war. Hanover and Hesse did just that. Their plight at the hands of Prussia elicited the support of Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden, all of whom categorically sided with Austria.

The decisive hammer stroke was the Battle of Königgrätz, which took place in July. Half a million soldiers fought on both sides that day. It seemed at first that the Austrians were winning, until the Prussian crown prince showed up later in the day with eighty thousand reinforcements, tipping the scales decisively in Prussia’s favor. Austrian losses were more than forty-four thousand, while the Prussian casualties were just under nine thousand. The defeat at Königgrätz brought the war to an end with the total defeat of Austria. In the aftermath, Bismarck’s short-term ambitions came to be realized when Prussia was able to take full control of both Schleswig and Holstein, and Austria was forced out of the German Confederation permanently. Austria’s German allies paid a high price for their choice and were forced to yield large portions of their realms to Prussia. To emphasize one last time the penumbra that was cast over Austria and their allies, the victorious powers reorganized themselves into the Northern German Confederation.

For the Holsteins, the Prussian victory was ruinous. Now in full control of the twin duchies—including Als Island—Prussia confiscated Augustenburg for compensation owed by the family. They evicted Dona’s grandfather from his palace and turned the Holsteins into nothing more than mediatised (or fourth-rank) royals at best. Christian August’s lifestyle at Augustenburg had continued to be a modest yet comfortable one, and he was able to purchase a new home, Primkenau Castle, in Silesia. Fritz and his family, bereft of their inheritance, settled permanently into their rural palace at Dolzig, uncertain what the future would hold. As with so many important events in European history, no one at the time could have foreseen the far-reaching consequences of conflicts like the Second Schleswig War and the Austro-Prussian War. The Schleswig wars and even Bismarck’s campaign to ruin Fritz Holstein would directly alter the course of Dona’s life. For the moment, though, as the daughter of a disgraced, dispossessed duke, there was little indication her life would be tapped for greatness. The same was also true for the lives of two other future empresses who had not even been born yet.

As Dona’s family struggled to carve out a permanent life for themselves at Dolzig, in England, Princess Mary Adelaide of Teck was enceinte with her first child. Her husband, Prince Francis of Teck, had been making arrangements for the delivery for months. “I am looking over Kensington Palace,” he wrote to his sister from his mother-in-law’s house in Kew Gardens, “as I want to be established there by at least the 6th.… Let us hope that a nice baby will be born there in the lovely month of May.”
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As if on cue, Mary Adelaide gave birth to a daughter just before midnight on May 26, 1867. Her physician, Dr. Arthur Farre, released an official statement the next day: “Her Royal Highness the Princess Mary Adelaide was safely delivered of a Princess at one minute before midnight on the 26th inst. Her Royal Highness and the infant Princess are doing perfectly well.”
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The girl was named Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes. Each of the names chosen had significance for the new parents. Victoria was for the queen of England; Mary was for the infant’s mother; Augusta was for Mary Adelaide’s mother and also her sister; Claudine was for Francis’s mother; and Agnes was for his grandmother. The other names—Louise Olga Pauline—were for various women in the princess’s family tree. A less widely known account suggests the infant was initially named Agnes Augusta, which was later switched with Victoria Mary. At her christening on July 27, the infant became officially known as Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, though her family called her simply “May,” for the month of her birth. In family correspondences and casual conversations, she was often referred to as May Teck, following the English custom of using peerages as surnames. An impressive royal panoply was in attendance for the July christening at Kensington Palace. Charles Thomas Longley, the archbishop of Canterbury, performed the ceremony, which was presided over by May’s godparents: Queen Victoria—whose own birthday was two days before the baby’s; Albert Edward (“Bertie”), Prince of Wales; and her maternal grandmother, Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge.