THE PRINCESS’S LOVE SECRET

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18380, 4 February 1928, Page 17 (Supplement)

THE PRINCESS’S LOVE SECRET

Whu 61 has Married 27?

Ex-Kaiser’s Sister and the Spectre oj Her Past

BY AN INTIMATE FRIEND

AS a formei- intimate friend of the Princess Victoria of Schaumberg-I.ippe, I call honestly say that I am not surprised at her marriage, at the advanced age of sixtv-one (advanced, at least, so far as affairs of the heart are concerned), to the twentyseven years old Russian, Alexander Zoubkoff. In fact, I am quite convinced that even if she had not been so madly in love wi’th this attractive young man as she says she is. the Princess would still have married him. She would have carried through her romantic project to revenge herself on a spectre from the past which has never ceased to haunt her—the memory of her first love, (says a writer in “Tit-Bits.) Princess Victoria was burked of the happiness which is the right of every woman because she was a princess of the blood of the Imperial House of Hohenzollern. She is no longer a Princess, except in the country which allows her to retain her old title, but none of its privileges. In return for the loss of these, thanks to the German Revolution and the overthrow of the ex-Kaiser, she has obtained freedom. When the Princess passed away, the woman was born —a woman aching to enjoy what the Princess was denied. That is the real secret of her match at the age of sixtv-one with this youth who has sprung from nowhere. Princess Victoria’s great love came to her while she was still in her ’teens. To most onlookers, myself included, there seemed to be no objection to the match. Her sweetheart was the handsome and dashing young Prince Alexan-

der of Battenberg, related to the British Royal Family, a brother of Prince Louis of Battenberg, who was an English Admiral at the beginning of the war, and an uncle of the Marquess of Mountbatten, who a few years ago married Miss Edwina Ashley, the richest heiress in Britain. Surely a suitable bridegroom even for the proud Hohenzollerns.

But the course of true love and the course of international politics have often been in violent collision, and Princess Victoria i's not the only Royal beauty whose heart has been torn to pieces upon the terrible rack of state diplomacy. The cause of the Princess’s disappointment was the ever ill-fated Balkans, breeder of more mischief for the peoples of Europe than all the rest of the world put together. Bulgaria was without a king. The Bulgarians were looking for a king among the eligible and unoccupied Princes and minor royalties of the Continent, and eventually their choice fell on young Alexander of Battenberg. Bulgaria wanted a soldier-king, and Alexander was a great soldier. For a short time Alexander was a success. But the Balkan peoples are never contented for long. They live on trouble. So Alexander had to go. It was either that—or closer acquaintance with a sword than is welcome, even to a king who is a great soldier. Naturally, Alexander didn’t stand on the order of his going. It is no disgrace, of course, for a king to lose his job. That in itself would not have lost him his bride. Alexander’s mistake was that he had been more friendly with Austria than with Russia while he was a Balkan -king.

Now the great Bismarck, who was the real ruler of Germany at that time, was friendly to Russia. He wanted more than anything else to have Russia for an ally. The Russians were at grips with the Austrians over the Balkans, and particularly over young Alexander. The Russians disliked Alexander intensely. So it would never have done for the German Emperor’s daughter to marry this young firebrand. Alexander stormed; Princess Victoria wept all over the Imperial Palace. Her mother, fromerly the Princess Royal of Britain, was on her side. Her grandmother, Queen Victoria, sent urgent letters pleading the young girl’s cause. It was of no avail. The Iron Chancellor was not to be moved. What did the breaking of a girl’s heart matter? Only Germany mattered. She was a Princess, not an ordinary woman. Princesses had no right to have hearts. Princess Victoria was married to the head of another of the many German States, Prince Adolph of SchaumburgLippe. Alexander consoled himself with an opera singer. Bttt the young Princess never forgot the heart which Bismarck had crushed under his iron heel. The Princess’s marriage did not turn out especially well. The tastes of Adolph and Victoria were not greatly in common. Victoria loved outdoor life, all kinds of sport, riding, tennis. Adolph liked to linger over a well-laden table. He liked to see the glasses filled up again. At times he drank heavily. The Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe died in 1916. Victoria was fifty then. But I have never seen a greater transformation. Her outdoor life had kept her face and figure young. The moment 'Hiiiiiiiiifiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiititiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiini

she became a widow she seemed, mentally and spiritually, to have been carried back to the age of thirty again.

Only one thing more was needed. Although a widow 7 , she was still a Princess and Bismarck’s dictum st : ll held good. Then the Armistice came, the Germans forced the Kaiser, her brother, to abdicate. The Hohenzollern dynasty was no more. That day she went right back to her ’teens again. The life she had been denied could now be hers. She was determined to live it. “The war has taken my fortune,” she remarked to me once. “but. thank God, it has given me my freedom. Now at last I can be a woman. All my life has been like this: When I was about three years old, and was paying my morning respects to my august grandmother, the Empress, I allowed my natural feelings of relief to get the better of me at the moment of dismissal and started to run out of the room. “‘Come back,’ boomed her Majesty; ‘one walks out of my presence. One does not trot.’ “It has always been like that.” the Princess concluded. “But now I can trot when I like.” That is why she has married young Alexander Zoubkoff. Who he really is nobody seems to know 7 . His father, he says, was a Russian nobleman, and since the Revolution he has been a sailor, a film-actor, a dish-washer in a restaurant, and a “down-and-out” sleeping in raihvav w 7 aiting-rooms. He was introduced to the Princess by a relative. He was a handsome youth. Ilis adventures fired her imagination. What could you expect but that she should fall in love ?