Elisabeth of Romania
Elisabeth of Romania was the second child and eldest daughter of King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie of Romania. She was Queen of the Hellenes from 27 September 1922 until 25 March 1924 as the wife of King George II.
Elisabeth was born when her parents were crown prince and crown princess of Romania. She was raised by her great-uncle and great-aunt, King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth. Princess Elisabeth was an introvert and socially isolated. She became crown princess of Greece when she married George in 1921, but she felt no passion for him and underwent the political turmoil in her adopted country after World War I. When her husband succeeded to the Greek throne in 1922, Elisabeth was involved in assisting refugees who arrived to Athens after the disaster of the Greco-Turkish War. The rise of the revolutionary climate, however, affected her health and with great relief she left the Kingdom of Greece with her husband in December 1923. The royal couple then settled in Bucharest, and George was deposed on 25 March 1924, upon the abolition of the Greek monarchy.
In Romania, Elisabeth and George's relationship deteriorated, and they divorced in 1935. Very close to her brother Carol II of Romania, the former queen amassed an important fortune, partly due to financial advice given by her lover, the banker Alexandru Scanavi. After the death of her mother in 1938 and the abdication of King Carol II in 1940, Elisabeth took up the role of First Lady of Romania. At the end of World War II, she established close links with the Romanian Communist Party and openly conspired against her nephew, the young King Michael I, earning the nickname of "Red Aunt" of the sovereign. However, her communist links did not prevent her from being expelled from the country when the Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed in 1947. Elisabeth moved to Switzerland and then to Cannes, in southern France. She had a romantic relationship with Marc Favrat, a would-be artist almost thirty years younger, whom she finally adopted just before her death in 1956.
Early years
Second child and first daughter of Crown Prince Ferdinand and Crown Princess Marie of Romania, Elisabeth was born on 12 October 1894 at Peleş Castle, Sinaia. Named after her paternal great-aunt, Queen Elisabeth of Wied, shortly after birth she was removed from her parents, as King Carol I and Queen Elizabeth thought Crown Prince Ferdinand and Crown Princess Marie were too young, liberal and inexperienced to give their own children a proper royal upbringing. With her older brother Prince Carol, she was raised by King Carol I and his wife. In her memoirs, Marie described her eldest daughter as "a lovely solemn-faced child who had a strong sense of rectitude." Over the years, Elisabeth developed a cold character and a volatile temperament which socially isolated her. She was, however, considered a classic beauty.Marriage
An undesired engagement
In 1911, Prince George of Greece, then second-in-line to the throne and his future wife's second cousin, met Elisabeth for the first time. After the Balkan Wars, during which Greece and Romania were allied, the Greek prince asked for the hand of Elisabeth, but, advised by her great-aunt, she declined the offer, saying that her suitor was too small and too English in his manners. Disdainful, the princess even said on the occasion, that "God began the prince but forgot to finish him".During World War I, Elisabeth was involved in helping wounded soldiers. She made daily visits to the hospitals and distributed cigarettes and comforting words to the victims of the fighting.
In 1919, Elisabeth and her sisters Maria and Ileana accompanied their mother, now Queen Marie, to Paris at the Peace Conference. The sovereign hoped that during her stay there she could find suitable husbands for her daughters, especially Elisabeth, already aged twenty-five. After a few months in France, the Queen and her daughters decided to return to Romania in early 1920. On the way back, they made a brief stop in Switzerland, where they found the Greek royal family, who lived in exile since the deposition of King Constantine I during the Great War. Elisabeth then met again Prince George, who asked again her hand. Now more aware of her own imperfections, Elisabeth decided to accept the marriage. However, at that time the future of the Diadochos was far from certain: displaced from the throne with his father and replaced by his younger brother, now King Alexander I, George was forbidden to stay in his country, penniless and without any prospects.
Nevertheless, the engagement satisfied both Elisabeth and George's parents. Delighted to have finally found a husband for her eldest daughter, the Queen of Romania soon invited the prince to travel to Bucharest in order to publicly announce the engagement. George agreed but soon after his arrival in the country of his fiancée, he learned of the accidental death of Alexander I and the ensuing political turmoil that erupted in Greece.
Life in Greece
Restoration of the Greek royal family. Wedding of George and Elisabeth
On 5 December 1920 a disputed referendum resulted in the recall of the Greek royal family. King Constantine I, Queen Sophia and Diadochos George therefore returned to Athens on 19 December. Their return was met with significant jubilation. A huge crowd surrounded the sovereign and the heir to the throne through the streets of the capital. Once at the palace, they appeared repeatedly on the balcony to greet the people who cheered them.Wedding
However, a few weeks later George returned to Romania to marry Elisabeth. The wedding took place with great pomp in Bucharest on 27 February 1921. Shortly after on March 10, Crown Prince Carol of Romania, Elisabeth's elder brother, married George's younger sister, Princess Helen of Greece.Crown princess
In Greece, Elisabeth had great difficulty integrating into the royal family, and her relationship with Queen Sophia was particularly awkward. From an introverted temperament that could be mistaken as arrogance, Elisabeth felt displaced by her in-laws, who regularly spoke in Greek in her presence, because she had not yet mastered the language. Only King Constantine I and his sister, the Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia, found favour in her eyes. Indeed, even the shy Diadochos disappointed his wife, who wanted to share with him a more passionate relationship.Regretting not having her own home and being forced to constantly live with her in-laws, Elisabeth spent the already little revenues of her husband into redecorating their apartments. In addition, her family delayed the payment of her dowry and the savings that she left in Romania were soon lost because of the poor investments made by the manager of her fortune.
Facing a very difficult political situation, due to the Greco-Turkish War, Elisabeth quickly understood that her space to maneuver was limited in her new country. However, she integrated the Red Cross, which was overwhelmed by the arrival of wounded coming from Anatolia. The Crown Princess also occupied her free time practicing gardening, painting and drawing. She illustrated a book of poems written by the Belgian author Emile Verhaeren. She also liked writing and producing some new books of low value. Finally, she spent long hours studying the Modern Greek, a language that was extremely hard for her to learn.
Disappointed by the mediocrity of her daily routine, Elisabeth began to nourish jealousy for her sister Maria, married to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, and her sister-in-law Helen of Greece, wife of her brother Crown Prince Carol of Romania. With the war and the revolution, the everyday life of the Greek royal family was indeed increasingly difficult, and the pension received by the Diadochos George didn't allow her to buy the clothes and jewelry that she wanted.
Already strained by the war, the relations of the Diadochos and his wife were clouded by their inability to produce an heir to the Kingdom of Greece. Elisabeth became pregnant a few months after her marriage, but she suffered a miscarriage during an official trip to Smyrna. Deeply affected by her miscarriage, the crown princess became sick with typhoid soon followed by pleurisy and worsened by depression. She found refuge with her family in Bucharest, but despite the efforts of her mother and husband, neither Elisabeth's health nor her marriage fully recovered from the loss of her child.
Queen of the Hellenes
Meanwhile, the disaster of the Greco-Turkish War forced King Constantine I to abdicate, which pushed George on to the throne. The new king, however, had no power, and he and his queen were unable to resolve the repression organized by revolutionaries who took power against the representatives of the old regime. The new royal couple saw with anguish the near execution of Prince Andrew at the Trial of the Six.Despite this difficult context, Elisabeth tried to make herself useful to her adopted country. To respond to the influx of refugees originating from Anatolia, the Queen had built shacks on the outskirts of Athens. To carry out her projects, she mobilized her family and asked her mother, Queen Marie, to send wood and other materials.
However, Elisabeth found it increasingly difficult to cope with Greece and its revolutionary climate. Any love she had for George II was over, and her letters to her mother show how much she worried for her future. Her correspondence also revealed that she had no desire to have children.
After an attempted monarchist coup d'état in October 1923, the situation of the royal couple became even more precarious. On 19 December 1923 King George II and his wife were forced into exile by the revolutionary government. With Prince Paul, they then departed for Romania, where they learned of the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic on 25 March 1924.