Now there are Seven
BY JENNY NASMYTH IN the .year that George VI was crowned, continental Europe could boast eleven crowned Monarchs, one Regent, a reigning Grand Duchess (of Luxembourg) and two reigning Princes (of Lichtenstein and Monaco). In June, 1953, six of these monarchies have vanished—in the explosion of the second Great War or in the ideological reformation that followed it. Of the Monarchs that remain, in Belgium and the Netherlands, in Greece and in the three Scandinavian countries, only King Haakon, married to one of Queen Victoria's grand-daughters, Was reigning in 1937.
Since Queen Victoria launched her enormous family on the thrones, the duchies and the principalities of nineteenth-century Europe, kingdoms have been created and destroyed by, with and around the British monarchy. But since the Coronation of George VI, European monarchs have become both rarer and more precious. If anyone should doubt the value or the virtue of the British constitutional formula, let him just look at the royal stories of Albania, Rumania, Hungary; Bulgaria, Yugo- slavia and Italy over the last fifteen years. He might even glance at Belgium. In 1937 there reigned, in his capital of Tirana, Achmed Zogu, better known as King Zog of the Albanians. His country's independence had been first declared in 1913. In April, 1939, his crown was formally offered to and accepted by the King of Italy in the Quirinal in Rome, following the occupation of Albania by Mussolini's troops. King Zog fled the country for England, and is now living near Alexandria. A year after ,King Zog arrived in Marlow, Russia occupied Bessarabia and King Carol signed his act of abdication from the Rumanian throne. He died, in Estoril, a few weeks ago. The great- nephew of Carol I, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, and the great-grandson of Queen Victoria, Carol II was certainly the most active and probably the most misguided King in Europe during' the 'thirties. On his father's death, in 1927, he was declared unfit to rule, but re-instated himself in 1930. In 1937 he proclaimed a one-party dictatorship; in 1938, in between visits to Hitler in Berlin, he was threatened by the Iron Guard revolt and, much to Hitler's annoyance, murdered its leader- Codreau. In 1939 he was trapped between his traditional ties with Britain and France and his more recent pro-Axis activities. When he failed to resist the Russian invasion in 1940, his throne was too intimately involved in the politics of his country to survive the humiliation. His son, Michael, originally pro- claimed King uncle; a regency in 1927, is now living in England. In 1944 the Gestapo entered Budapest and removed Admiral Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, after he had announced his country's withdrawal from the war against the Allies. Horthy never returned and Hungary was subsequently declared a Republic under Russian auspices. The Regent had no royal blood. The King, Charles,'had been banished the country after the first war and died in exile. Story has it that Horthy was elected to his high office because he was the only Admiral among a great concourse of Generals who were potential candi- dates. However that may be, he kept the monarchy-alive in Hungary, in name if not in fact, until Hitler and Stalin between them brought it to an end.
More tragic and more mysterious was the part that Hitler played in the fortunes of the Royal House of Bulgaria. Tsar Boris III, son of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was another relative of the British Royal Family. .He died in 1943, attended by German doctors. Rumour had it that he had just returned from visiting Hitler, that he was violently opposed to one of Hitler's latest demands, and that Hitler had arranged " his heart attack. Boris had certainly refused to allow Bulgarian troops to serve on the Russian front, and he was certainly the only man in Bulgaria who could or would limit Hitler's hold on the country. He left no adult heir, and a Council of Regency was formed which, in effect, gave, respectability to a German occupation of Bulgaria. In 1946 the Bulgarians, by that time within the Russian orbit, abolished the monarchy by " popular " vote. Yet another royal descendant .of Queen Victoria kept his ' throne, admittedly in London, until 1945. Her great-great- grandson, Peter II of Yugoslavia, succeeded, under a Regency, in 1934 when his father was murdered in Marseilles. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, Peter assumed full powers in order to forestall the Regent's acquiescence in Hitler's demands for a free passage across Yugoslavia.- On April 6th, Germany attacked and the King fled 'to England. But the fact remains that it was he who, made the resistance movement possible. It so happened that he, his Government in exile, and, for that matter, the British Government, first saw the movement as centred round General Mihailovic. The emergence of Tito as the more successful and, eventually, as the recognised leader led straight to the loss of Peter's throne in 1945. Marshal Tito was no king-lover. But he depended very largely on British assistance and Britain recognised Peter as the lawful ruler of Yugoslavia. During the war there were many attempts to bring King and Marshal together. Peter spent six months in Cairo, waiting for an opportunity to re-enter his country. There was even an arrangement that he should become a pilot in the Free Yugoslav squadron to be formed in North Africa. There was, finally, his agreement with Tito, in March, 1945, to set up a Regency in Belgrade. It was set up, but the Regents were Tito's men. Ex-King Peter is now perfecting a non-splash fountain-pen in Paris. Last of the thrones to totter was the Italian. Well before 1937 the Italian monarchy had become a whispering echo of the Duce's fulminations. Every now and then it appeared on State occasions, such as the surrender of Albania. As late as December, 1942, Ciano reports a " conference with the King," when Victor Emmanuel " mentioned a bit of advice once given by his grandfather. . . . When meeting people, one must say two things in order to be assured of a good reception. ' How beautiful your city is ! ' and ' How young you look ! ' " Victor Emmanuel's secret of success was not proof against Mussolini. Yet the Duce came and went, but it was not until 1946 that the King abdicated in favour of his son Umberto. From May till June, when a referendum voted him out by twelve million to ten million votes, Umberto was King of Italy. Whether he should become King again is still a, violent issue in Italian politics. So the kings depart. But strangely, as their ranks are thinned, those who remain acquire a new strength and distinc- tion. Perhaps it is simply that the fittest have survived.
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