Only George V – and the House of Windsor (as named by the king in 1917) survived.
noted that Nicholas’ visit to Berlin “has aroused little real public enthusiasm as that of the King and Queen of England. The police are having trouble guaranteeing the safety of so many exalted foreign crown heads. In the case of the Czar, they are looking for bomb-throwing Anarchists. In the case of King George and Queen Mary, the Kaiser’s sleuths are watching for bomb-throwing suffragettes.”
As the only daughter of the German Emperor, Victoria Luise was one of the most eligible young princesses in Europe. She was fair, slender, and attractive, and her father’s subjects adored her, many of whom called her “Our little Princess.”
Sissy was thrilled. She now knew that her love was reciprocated. But the hurdles still seemed insurmountable. Victoria Luise said Prince Adalbert “used all of his powers of persuasion … to further my ends.” But without Prince Max’s diplomatic efforts, Victoria Luise acknowledged that her goal would never have been achieved.
Prince Adalbert arranged for his sister to talk with Ernst August on the telephone. “It was all very secret and nobody else knew about it, not even my parents,” Victoria Luise wrote in her memoirs.
Prince Max’s diplomatic efforts paid off. Prince Ernst August could speak directly and confidentially to his father about his feelings for the Prussian princess. The prince convinced his father that he was in love with Wilhelm’s daughter and wanted to marry her. On January 20th, Victoria Luise received a telegram from Prince Adalbert with the good news. Empress Auguste Victoria wrote in her diary: “My child, her father, and I were radiantly happy.”
Several dynastic and constitutional impediments were resolved. The Duke of Cumberland would renounce his claim to the Duchy of Brunswick, to which he was the heir, thus allowing a future succession by his son and daughter-in-law. But he would not need to renounce the claim to Hanover. As the future son-in-law of the German Emperor, Ernst August joined the Prussian army and swore allegiance to the Prussian king. He, too, was not required to offer a renunciation to his family’s former kingdom.
It was decided that Victoria Luise and Ernst August could meet in Karlsruhe, the seat of the Badens, which, according to Victoria Luise, “would be more suitable in which to bind the Houses of Hohenzollern and Guelph together.” Prince Max was commended for his role in bringing the couple together. Equally important was the presence of the Dowager Duchess Luise of Baden, who was a Prussian princess by birth, the only daughter of Wilhelm I. During her father’s reign, Hanover had been annexed on Bismarck’s orders.
Accompanied by her parents and her brother, Prince Oscar, Sissy arrived in Karlsruhe on February 10th for what was described as a private visit to a beloved family member. However, the German media, hearing rumors from court officials, believed that Victoria Luise would soon marry. The following morning, the newspapers headlined the princess’ forthcoming marriage, although no official announcement had been made.
Ernst August had arrived, unseen by the press, and, according to Victoria Luise, he met with her father shortly after the Imperial family had arrived. For the first time, Wilhelm II and Prince Ernst August could discuss privately the political and dynastic concerns that had caused so many problems. The two men spent nearly an hour together and were eventually joined by the Empress and Victoria Luise.
The princess, wearing a “bright red silk gown,” was excited, but nervous and pale. Her parents exchanged a few words before leaving the room. The prince and princess were alone for the first time: “Alone. An indescribable moment,” that the princess remembered for the rest of her life.
No longer able to keep their love a secret, they announced their engagement later in the day, much to the surprise of Great Aunt Luise. “Our happiness simply could not be kept secret,” Victoria Luise described the event.
Not long afterward, Victoria Luise and Ernst August received a congratulatory telegram from his parents. Victoria Luise spoke on the telephone to her future mother-in-law. It was the first time the princess had been in contact with her fiancé’s family.
“The weather wasn’t very good to us: clouds hung over the city and it rained, but the Berliners had nevertheless insisted on turning out to greet us”, Victoria Luise wrote in her memoirs, describing when she and Ernst August returned to Berlin on February 13th.
That same day, Ernst August took the oath of loyalty to the King of Prussia and was invested with the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle.
It was also time for Victoria Luise to meet Ernst August’s family. A few weeks after the engagement announcement, the princess and her mother went to Gmunden for an official introduction to the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland and other members of the Hanover Royal Family. Victoria Luise and her mother were worried about how the rest of Ernst August’s family would welcome them. Empress Auguste Viktoria was especially worried. Their fears were “groundless” according to Victoria Luise. Nearly the entire Hanover royal family was present at the train station to welcome Victoria Luise and her mother; the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland; the Duke’s sister, Princess Friederike; Ernst August’s sisters, Olga, Alexandra, and Marie, the latter two with their husbands, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Prince Max of Baden.
Victoria Luise related these events to her former English governess, Anne Topham. The author of three books on her time in Berlin, Topham offered readers a unique perspective on the Imperial Family’s domestic life. According to Topham, Victoria Luise was bemused that her fiancé, a British prince, needed the permission of King George V, to marry. “Fancy asking the King of England if Pol and I can marry each other,” Victoria Luise had told Miss Topham. (Pol was Victoria Luise’s nickname for Ernst August).
The Prussian and Hanoverian royal families met again in Bad Homburg before the wedding, as Kaiser Wilhelm also wanted to get to know his daughter’s future in-laws. Earlier, the princess and her fiancé were able to spend some time together in Berlin before he left for Athens to attend the funeral of his uncle, King George I, who had been assassinated in Salonika.
Much to Victoria Luise’s dismay, several political questions, namely the Hanoverian succession, had yet to be resolved. Several members of the Kaiser’s cabinet wanted the princess to persuade Ernst August to renounce Hanover. Victoria Luise refused, but she told Ernst August about the request. “I have here a document which I am going to read to you, I’m certain that you won’t acknowledge what’s in it, and I wouldn’t expect anything else of you.”
The heated conversations did not occur between the Kaiser and the Duke of Cumberland, but by their supporters. Thankfully, Prince Max of Baden used his diplomatic skills to maintain order, and a compromise was reached: Ernst August would not be required to renounce his claim to Hanover. At Homburg, the Duke of Cumberland received the Order of the Black Eagle, and his wife was invested with the Order of Queen Luise. At this time, the marriage contract was drawn up and signed. The marriage would take place in the Lutheran church (both families were ardent Lutherans), and Victoria Luise’s dowry was set at 150,000 Marks.
In the weeks before the wedding, the young couple looked for a house in Rathenow, where Ernst August would be stationed until his succession in Brunswick was duly recognized. They found an eight-room house, “very nice, but hardly a showplace,” according to Victoria Luise. “It was really very small, but I thought it was wonderful.”
At least, as newlyweds, Victoria Luise and Ernst August would be able to spend the first weeks of their marriage essentially alone.
Prince Ernst August wrote to his fiancée nearly every day, sharing her concerns and frustrations. Too many people were providing unwarranted advice, some of which was well-meaning and others given “out of sheer vanity and pomposity.” With all the stress, Victoria’s mother was nearly at her wits’ end.
“I’m sorry for your mother,” Ernst August wrote. “Do try to keep her calm. I’m very angry with these ladies for they are to blame for making her so nervous. When you consider that none of these women is married, how can they want to involve themselves in such affairs…You know, I understand your mother perfectly. She naturally wants the best for you, but she is an Empress and wants to have you just as she is, but she forgets that she is an Empress. Do you understand what I mean? I have no use in my life for an Empress as a wife because I’m not an Emperor. I want to stand outside that sort of life and want my wife, too. You’re going to take your place as my wife, and will certainly fulfill your role, of that I am strongly convinced.”
In another letter, Ernst August wrote to his future wife: “Soon we will be together, and we will have peace and quiet.”
The wedding was to take place on May 24, 1913. However, the festivities had begun more than a week before and would culminate six weeks later with the celebration of the Kaiser’s Silver Jubilee. Victoria Luise, the Kaiser’s only daughter, would have her wedding celebrated in great style.
King George V and Queen Mary were among the first royal guests in Berlin. But Wilhelm II and his government stressed that this wedding was a family affair. The North German Gazette published a note about the nuptials: “Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress will upon the occasion of the marriage of their only daughter be surrounded by a brilliant circle of exalted guests. Together with the august parents of the bridegroom, we welcome with special pleasure the King and Queen of England and the Emperor of Russia. Though their presence is due to a family festival, the cordiality between the three Monarchs” which is thus signified constitutes valuable imponderable for the security of the undisturbed progress of the great nations of Europe .”
The British sovereigns arrived in Berlin on May 21st. They alighted from the train and were greeted by the Emperor and Empress, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and Princess Victoria Luise. Other members of the Prussian royal family were also present. The British king and the Kaiser jointly reviewed a guard of honor before a carriage procession brought the royal guests into Berlin for further celebrations.
The ceremony was repeated when Tsar Nicholas II of Russia arrived the next day. He was not accompanied by his wife, Alexandra, and had traveled in an armored train from Russia. In the evening, everyone attended a state dinner held in the White Hall at the royal palace in Berlin. More than 250 guests attended, including at least 100 royals. Several journalists were invited, including three London correspondents and The New York Times. The guests were gathered around a “quadrangular table, which ran the full length of each side of the banqueting chamber. “
The New York Times correspondent provided a first-hand account of the state dinner. “The company displayed a dazzling medley of resplendent uniforms, glittering jewels, and beautiful gowns.”
The dinner started at 8 p.m., when guests began to enter the hall to the strains of the Brunswick Military March, a good choice of music, due to the news that Ernst August and Victoria Luise would soon reside in the Duchy of Brunswick.
Perhaps wanting to impress his British and Russian cousins, Wilhelm II wore the full-dress uniform of the British Royal Dragoons and the Russian Order of St. Andrew. He was accompanied by Queen Mary. King George V, accompanied by Empress Auguste Victoria, wore a Prussian Dragoons uniform and the Order of the Black Eagle. Dona wore a “strawberry colored court gown, with emerald, pearl and diamond ornaments.” The Tsar also wore the uniform of a Prussian Dragoon and the Order of the Black Eagle, and he escorted the Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden into the dinner. They were followed by the Duke of Cumberland and Crown Princess Cecilie, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and the Duchess of Cumberland.
“Prince Ernest Augustus, looking every inch a soldier-lover, was radiantly smiling as he entered with Princess Victoria Louise, who looked very girlish in a pretty dress of brocade pale blue, her fiancé’s favorite color. “
The Times noted that no toast was made at the dinner. It was also the first time the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland attended an official event in Berlin.
It comes as no surprise that the Princess received “presents galore”. Ernst August presented her with a complete jewelry set. Her father gave her a diadem and a pearl necklace, and the Empress gave her daughter a diamond tiara. Queen Alexandra of Great Britain sent her nephew’s future wife an emerald brooch. King George and Queen Mary’s presents included a gold goblet and a diamond brooch. Nicholas II’s gift was a diamond and aquamarine necklace. There were other gifts from royals who did not attend the wedding: an antique clock from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and silver vessels from the Italian king and queen. Perhaps the most important gift was the diadem that once belonged to Empress Josephine, a gift from the Duchy of Brunswick.
The evening before the wedding, the young couple and their families attended a gala at the Royal Court Opera. The opera was a perfect choice: Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. The royal box was decorated with Victoria Luise’s favorite flowers, pink carnations. Before taking their seats, the young couple bowed to the standing audience, and members of the audience bowed back.
Berlin held great affection for Princess Victoria, whom her father described as the “sunshine of my house.”
The marriage took place at sundown on May 24th. Victoria Luise had spent much of the day preparing for her wedding. The Empress helped her daughter dress. “Then we repaired to the Chinese Room [in the Berlin Schloss], and we found that a unit of soldiers had formed lines throughout the castle and taken up sentry posts everywhere…At 4 p.m., members of the staff of the Royal Privy Purse came by, carrying the bridal crown of the Princess of Prussia. Then the Mistress of the Empress’s Household, Therese, Countess von Brockdorff, picked up the crown and ceremoniously handed it to my mother, who carefully placed it on my head. “
The bride wore the crown diamonds, which included a necklace and brooch, and the “Princess of Prussia Crown, “of large diamonds, resting on a purple velvet base. “
The bridal party then went to the Elector’s Room, where the Kaiser and the Marshall of the Court, Count August zu Eulenberg, other family members, court officials, and the bridegroom awaited them. Following the civil registration of their wedding, Victoria Luise and Ernst August made their way to the royal chapel, which the Empress and the Crown Princess had decorated with the bride’s favorite flowers, including carnations, roses, and wreaths.
The bride and bridegroom, the latter wearing the uniform of the Zieten Hussars, were followed into the chapel by the Kaiser and the Duchess of Cumberland, dressed in a gown of lavender satin trimmed with lace with a lilac train embroidered in gold. Her jewels included a tiara, collar, and a diamond brooch.
“The Kaiserin entered on the arm of the Duke of Cumberland. The bride’s mother was a regal figure in green satin embroidered with silver. Her train was green velvet with old silver embroidery, bordered with sable .” The New York Times also noted that the Empress wore “her famous five rows of pearls and a collar of emeralds and a glittering diadem of diamonds.”
But it was Queen Mary, normally not the fashion maven, whose gown caught the admiration of one reporter. She was “a most striking figure”, who entered the chapel, on the arm of the Russian emperor, wearing a “gold dress designed and made in India, with colored flowers worked in colored diamante embroidery. Her train was of Irish lace, lined with cloth of gold, and had a deep embroidered border of leaf design.”
The Queen’s jewels were also noteworthy. She wore “a large necklace, made of the lesser stars of Africa from the Cullinan diamond…On her head rested a diamond crown while her neck was hidden beneath rows of diamonds, forming a collar .”
Crown Princess Cecilie chose a silver brocade gown with a pink velvet train embroidered in silver. Her jewels included a diamond tiara and “the crown sapphires, forming a necklace and brooch.”
The New York Times’s correspondent also paid special attention to “two of the most beautiful women in the German court,” the Princess of Salm-Salm (the former Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria), “charmingly in pink,” and the Princess of Pless, born Mary-Theresa Cornwallis-West, “who wore a Byzantine costume embellished with precious stones.”
The Princess of Pless described the wedding as “really charming, and the Emperor was sorry to lose his only daughter, to whom he was devoted. ” Known to nearly everyone as Daisy, the princess, who was not well, did not attend the church service because she would have had to stand. She watched the procession, “and then sat down under the shadow of the big staircase to wait for its return. Two men-at-arms crossed their swords for me to rest my foot upon,” she wrote in Daisy Princess of Pless. “For the Court after the wedding ceremony, I had made a special effort and put on all my best clothes in honour of King George V and Queen Mary. I wore my cloth-of-gold train…my best crown and jewels and course all my Orders.”
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The New York Times also noted that six American women had been invited to the wedding, including the wife of the U.S. ambassador, John Leishman, and their daughter Nancy (who was engaged to marry the Duke of Croy), and Miss Yvette, who attended school with the Princess in Potsdam.
“Bright sunlight filtered through the chapel cupola” as the bride and groom made their way to the altar. The royal chaplain, Dr. Ernst Dryander, who had baptized and confirmed the princess, gave a sermon of “earnest and worthy words” about the seriousness of life. He also described the Princess as “the Sunshine of the Royal House.”
The New York Times noted that “the bride, looking even paler than she is ordinarily, was an entrancingly pretty girlish figure in her magnificent gown of cloth of silver and decorated with old lace. Her train, carried by four bridesmaids in pale blue, was of the same material as the dress and lined with ermine .”
It was left to the bride’s maternal aunt, Princess Louise Sophie, who was married to the Kaiser’s second cousin, Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia, to provide a note of negativism. The relationship between the two families was strained, even though Louise Sophie was the Empress’ younger sister. The week before Sissy’s wedding, Louise Sophie’s only daughter, Victoria Margarete, had married Prince Heinrich XXXIII of Reuss. However, the couple did not get to know each other well before Wilhelm II ordered her parents to announce the engagement. Louise Sophie believed that the Emperor wanted her daughter out of the way, “obviously because she was far more beautiful than his only daughter, Victoria Louise,” whose engagement was announced not long afterward. Victoria Margarete’s marriage ended in divorce in 1922.
Prince and Princess Friedrich Leopold and their family were required to attend the Emperor’s daughter’s wedding. “It could not be truthfully said that Victoria Louise was a lovely bride. Small, strangely pale and fair, with level set eyes, the poor thing seemed crushed by her bridal train of frap d’argent lined with ermine; probably the Emperor had insisted on the ermine .”
Ernst August’s response, “Ja!” “rang so loudly and clearly” that the princess noted she had to follow suit, and “when we joined hands in front of the altar he clasped mine very firmly, insisting that his thumbs were on top of mine.” The princess stated in her memoirs that “there’s an old folk-tale which says if the husband does not have his thumbs above those of his bride at the wedding ceremony, then he will have no say during his marriage.”
Pastor Dryander was taken aback by this behavior. The princess and her husband smiled at each other.
More than 1,000 guests attended the wedding banquet. The White Hall was not large enough to accommodate all the guests, so tables and chairs were set up in adjoining rooms.
The Kaiser offered a toast to his daughter and new son-in-law. “My darling daughter, today as you leave our house, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the joy you have given me and your mother. You have given your hand and your heart to a man who comes from an honorable German sovereign house and from old German stock. As long as the German tongue is spoken and as far away as it sounds, it will tell of the prominent role played by the Guelphs and Hohenzollerns in the historical development of our Fatherland. You do not have to be told that you are free to follow the dictates of your heart, and to choose the man you loved.”
To Ernst August, the Kaiser proposed: “I hereby entrust our child to you…. Above all things, however, despite your youth, you will come to serve and care for others. May this duty be the finest accomplishment of your life and the love of other people warm your heart. May you both, and my daughter above all, be loyal to your new House.”
According to The New York Times reporter, this final statement meant that “the supreme war lord’s wedding gift to his daughter and her soldier lover is the throne of a future independent Brunswick.” (On May 27th, the Federal Council of the Empire decided to end Brunswick’s Prussian regency since 1866 and announced that on October 31, 1913, Prince Ernst August and Princess Victoria Luise “would make their formal entry into the capital, Brunswick, as reigning Duke and Duchess of an independent Federal State the next day.” The new Duke of Brunswick would reign for five years before abdicating in November 1918.
Victoria Luise’s former governess, Anne Topham, said, “It was a marriage which filled the German people with joy… The marriage turned out very happily. It was the last of the Hohenzollern weddings to be celebrated with the ancient Torch dance and picturesque old-world ceremonial, so long and wearisome for the bride and bridegroom.”
Topham alluded to the traditional Torch dance, a polonaise that ended every Hohenzollern wedding. At 8 p.m., the Kaiser ordered the Chief Marshal, Prince zu Fürstenberg, to commence the dance. The prince approached the newlyweds, “bowed, and invited us to dance.” The dance took place in the White Hall, and it is said that no one below a royal highness could take part. According to the New York Times, “The dance consists of a series of grand marches around the hall with 12 scarlet and gold-clad pages at the head, bearing thick candlesticks two feet long. The bridal pair attach themselves to the procession, and the bride and groom, in turn, lead around the hall two gentlemen and two ladies, respectively.”
The Princess first danced with her father and father-in-law, and her husband danced with his mother and new mother-in-law. “It was a picturesque moment when the time came for the pale silver bride to take the Czar and King by the hand, while the bridegroom followed with Queen Mary and the Crown Princess. The torch dance ended with the pages escorting the bridal pair to the nuptial chamber….”
At the end of the dance, Nicholas turned to Victoria Luise and told her, “My wish is that you will be as happy as I am.” The Tsar referred to his happy marriage to the former Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine. It was the last conversation that Victoria Luise had with the Russian Emperor.
The Torch Dance culminated with the distribution of pieces of Victoria Luise’s garter, bearing the arms of the newlyweds. But the distribution was hardly dignified. There was a scramble for the pieces of garter that left many guests, including the Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine, with scratched faces. “The nuptial apartments of the newly married Prince and Princess Ernest Augustus of Cumberland in the Royal Castle in Berlin were the scene after last night’s wedding of a scramble for souvenirs which would have done credit to an American crowd,” wrote the usually august New York Times.
It was free for the “hundreds of bejeweled ladies and gentlemen, representing the cream of the German aristocracy,” as they scrimmaged for the bits of ribbon. One who survived described the scene as “a cross between a Bank Holiday frolic on Hampstead Heath and a football riot.”
The prince and princess had been escorted to their room by the Kaiser and his wife. “The Prussian Princess’s Crown was taken away from me and given back for safekeeping to the officials of the Privy Purse. Then my mother lifted off my bridal wreath. The hour of parting had struck .”
The couple changed their clothes and were driven to the railroad station by the Kaiser and four of the princess’s six brothers. Princes Oskar and Adalbert had remained behind with their mother, no longer able to cope with the loss of her only daughter. The ever-sensitive bride had left a letter in her mother’s room, which Auguste Victoria found when she went to bed.
At the station, Victoria Luise said goodbye to her father. She curtseyed to the Kaiser and then kissed his hand. Wilhelm embraced his daughter and kissed her “affectionately.” Victoria Luise then said goodbye to her brothers. Prince Eitel Friedrich threw rice over his sister, a symbol of good luck. The couple boarded the train, and Victoria Luise had one final moment with her beloved father. She kissed his hand again; he alighted from the train and then signaled the train to leave. He stood on the platform, not as the supreme warlord, but as a devoted father, waving goodbye until the train was no longer in view.
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