Princess Ileana of Romania, also known as Mother Alexandra (5 January 1909 – 21 January 1991), was the youngest daughter of King Ferdinand I of Romania and his consort, Queen Marie of Romania. She was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia, King Ferdinand II, Queen Maria II of Portugal, and Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. She was born as Her Royal Highness Princess Ileana of Romania, Princess of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Birth and early life
Princess Ileana of Romania with her second cousin, Tsesarevich Alexei of Russia
Princess Ileana of Romania
Ileana was born in Bucharest on 5 January 1909, the youngest daughter of Queen Marie of Romania and King Ferdinand I of Romania. Ileana had four older siblings: Carol, Elisabeth – later Queen of Greece, Princess Maria – later Queen of Yugoslavia, and Nicholas; and a younger brother Mircea.
Her mother wrote in her memoirs:
Ileana from her earliest infancy had an earnestness about her which the other four did not possess. Her large dark blue eyes looked at you with deep inquiry and the child seemed to understand your every emotion with almost uncanny lucidity.
Ileana was naturally well-behaved ; Ileana, as is so seldom the case, was born with the law within her, it was never necessary to teach Ileana the difference between right and wrong ; Ileana knew. But this did not make of her a prig, she was a gay, happy child, full of life and high spirits, and when Mircea appeared early in the year 1913, Ileana loved him with motherly ardour and Mircea adored Ileana more than anyone on this earth ; more than his mother, more than his nurse.[2]
Girl Guiding
Before her marriage, Ileana was the organizer and Chief of the Romanian Girl Guide Movement.
Later, Princess Ileana was involved in Guiding in Austria and served as president of the Austrian Girl Guides.[3][4] From 1935 until Girl Guiding and Scouting were banned in 1938 after the Anschluss.
Other achievements
Ileana was the organizer of the Girl Reserves of the Red Cross, and of the first school of Social Work in Romania.
She was an avid sailor: she earned her navigators papers, and she owned and sailed the "Isprava" for many years.
Before King Michaels abdication
Marriage
In 1919, Ileana and her sisters Elisabeta and Maria accompanied their mother to Paris at the Peace Conference. The sovereign hoped that during her stay there she could find suitable husbands for her two eldest daughters, especially Elisabeta, 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.
The kings eldest son, Crown Prince and future King George II of Greece asked for Elisabetas hand in marriage. The Swiss visit also resulted in the engagement of Ileanas eldest brother Crown Prince Carol to Princess Helen of Greece. Both couples married a year later.
In 1922, Queen Marie successfully arranged the marriage of her next daughter Maria to the King of Yugoslavia.
From then on Maries focus was on finding her last unmarried daughter a suitable partner. An engagement to the Crown Prince of Italy was reported, but denied by Marie, and rumors of a marriage to the Tsar of Bulgaria were debunked by its royal court. In 1930, Ileana was briefly engaged to Count Alexander of Hochberg. Queen Marie favored the match, being pleased by the English blood and wealth of Alexanders family. The engagement was broken, however, when Alexanders homosexuality came to light.[5]
In Sinaia on 26 July 1931, Ileana married the Archduke Anton of Austria, Prince of Tuscany at Peles Castle, Sinaia.[6] This marriage was encouraged by Ileanas brother, King Carol II, who was jealous of Ileanas popularity in Romania and wanted to get her out of the country.[7] After the wedding, Carol claimed that the Romanian people would never tolerate a Habsburg living on Romanian soil, and on these grounds refused Ileana and Anton permission to live in Romania.[7]
After her husband was conscripted into the Luftwaffe, Ileana established a hospital for wounded Romanian soldiers at their castle, Sonnburg, outside Vienna, Austria. She was assisted in this task by her friend Sheila Kaul. In 1944, she and the children moved back to Romania, where they lived at Bran Castle, near Brasov.[8] Archduke Anton joined them but was placed under house arrest by the Red Army. Ileana established and worked in another hospital in Bran village, which she named "The Hospital of the Queens Heart" in memory of her beloved mother, Queen Marie of Romania.
After exile
After Michael I of Romania abdicated, Ileana and her family were exiled from the newly Communist Romania. They escaped by train to the Russian sector of Vienna, at that time divided into three sectors. After that they settled in Switzerland, then moved to Argentina and in 1950, she and the children moved to the United States, where she bought a house in Newton, Massachusetts.
The years from 1950 to 1961 were spent lecturing against communism, working with the Romanian Orthodox Church in the United States, writing two books: I Live Again, a memoir of her last years in Romania,[9] and Hospital of the Queens Heart, describing the establishment and running of the hospital.
Ileana and Anton officially divorced on 29 May 1954. On 19 June 1954 in Newton, Massachusetts, she married Dr. Stefan Nikolas Issarescu. Her second marriage ended in divorce (without issue) in 1965.
In 1961, Ileana entered the Orthodox Monastery of Our Lady of All Protection/ Notre Dame de Toute Protection, in Bussy-en-Othe, France. On her tonsuring as a monastic, in 1967, Sister Ileana was given the name Mother Alexandra. She moved back to the United States and founded the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, the first English language Orthodox monastery in North America.[10] She was the third female descendant of Queen Victoria to become a Mother Superior in a convent of her own foundation along with Princess Alice of Battenberg and Princess Elisabeth of Hesse. She served as abbess until her retirement in 1981, remaining at the monastery until her death.
She visited Romania again in 1990, at the age of 81, in the company of her daughter, Sandi.
On 3-5 January 1991, she suffered a broken hip in a fall on the evening before her eighty-second birthday, and while in hospital, suffered two major heart attacks. She died four days after the foundations had been laid for the expansion of the monastery at the time of her death Ileana was the last surviving child of King Ferdinand I of Romania and Queen Marie of Romania.
Archives
Princess Ileanas personal papers (including family correspondence and photographs) are preserved in the "Queen Marie of Romania Papers" collection in the library of Kent State University (Kent, Ohio, USA),[11] and also in the "Mother Alexandra Papers" collection in the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, California, USA).[12] In addition, Ileanas correspondence with the Romanian diplomat George I. Duca between 1924 and 1985 is preserved in the "George I. Duca Papers" collection in the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, California, USA).[13]
Family
Queen Marie of Romania (left), Prince Nicolae of Romania and Princess Ileana of Romania aboard the SS Leviathan on 27 October 1926
Issue
Ileana and Anton had six children; they were raised in the Catholic faith of her husband and of the country:
Archduke Stefan of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (5 August 1932 – 12 November 1998); married morganatically Mary Jerrine Soper (19 June 1931 – 14 July 2015), and had five children, who received in 1990 the title of Count/Countess von Habsburg for them and their descendants in the male line:
Christopher Habsburg-Lothringen (born 26 January 1957).
Ileana Habsburg-Lothringen (born 4 January 1958).
Peter Habsburg-Lothringen (born 19 February 1959).
Constanza Habsburg-Lothringen (born 2 October 1960)
Anton Habsburg-Lothringen (born 7 November 1964)
Archduchess Maria Ileana of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (Minola) (18 December 1933 – 11 January 1959); married Count Jaroslaw Kottulinsky, Baron von Kottulin (3 January 1917 – 11 January 1959) (both were killed in the crash of Lufthansa Flight 502), and had one daughter:
Countess Maria Ileana Kottulinska, Baroness von Kottulin (Mino) (25 August 1958 – 13 October 2007); married Jonkheer Noel van Innis (born 15 December 1939) on 10 October 1997.
Archduchess Alexandra of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (Sandi) (born 21 May 1935); married Duke Eugen Eberhard of Württemberg (2 November 1930 – 26 July 2022), son of Princess Nadezhda of Bulgaria on 3 September 1962 and had no issue. They divorced in 1972 and she married Victor, Baron von Baillou (born 27 June 1931) on 22 August 1973.
Son von Baillou (stillborn 17 March 1975).
Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (Niki) (born 4 July 1937), inheritor of Bran Castle; married Engel von Voss (31 March 1937 – 27 September 2000) on 11 June 1960, and had two sons. He divorced her in 1999 and married Emmanuella Mlynarski (born 14 January 1948) on 14 August 1999.
Count Sandor von Habsburg (born 13 February 1965); married Priska Vilcsek (born 18 March 1959) on 15 May 2000 and were divorced on 22 December 2009. They had one son. He remarried Herta Öfferl on 24 December 2010.
Count Constantin von Habsburg (born 11 July 2000)
Count Gregor von Habsburg (born 20 November 1968); married Jacquelyn Frisco (born 17 November 1965) on 13 August 2011.
Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (Magi) (2 October 1939 – 18 August 2021[14]); married Hans Ulrich, Baron von Holzhausen (born 1 September 1929) on 27 August 1959, and had three children:
Johann Friedrich Anton, Baron von Holzhausen (born 29 July 1960 in Salzburg, Austria), married Brunilda Castejón-Schneider (born 14 July 1962 in Madrid, Spain) on 23 September 2001 in Wartberg, Germany, and had one son:
Laurenz, Baron von Holzhausen (born 21 June 2001 in Vienna, Austria)
Georg Ferdinand, Baron von Holzhausen (born 16 February 1962 in Salzburg, Austria), married Elena, Countess von und zu Hoensbroech (born 1 May 1965) on 30 April 1993 in Vienna, Austria, and had three sons:
Alexander von Holzhausen (born 28 November 1994 in Vienna, Austria)
Tassilo von Holzhausen (born 4 May 1997 in Vienna, Austria)
Clemens von Holzhausen (born 26 April 2003 in Vienna, Austria)
Alexandra Maria, Baroness von Holzhausen (born 22 January 1963 in Salzburg, Austria), married Christian Ferch (born 4 August 1959 in Salzburg, Austria) on 2 July 1985 in Salzburg, Austria, and had four children:
Ferdinand Georg Botho Ferch (born 17 October 1986 in Salzburg, Austria)
Leopold Anton David Ferch (born 18 August 1988 in Gmunden, Austria)
Benedikt Peter Nikolaus Ferch (born 22 March 1993 in Munich, Germany)
Elisabeth Patricia Katharina Ferch (born 23 February 1995 in Munich, Germany)
Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (Herzi) (15 January 1942 – 2 January 2019), married Dr. Friedrich Josef Sandhofer (born 1 August 1934 in Salzburg, Austria) on 3 August 1964 in Mondsee, Austria, and had four children:
Anton Dominic Sandhofer (born 26 October 1966 in Salzburg, Austria), married Katarzyna Marta Wojkowska (born 23 November 1962 in Warsaw, Poland) on 29 May 1983, and had one son:
Dominik Alexander Sandhofer (born 7 January 1994 in Innsbruck, Austria)
Margareta Elisabeth Sandhofer (born 10 September 1968 in Innsbruck, Austria), married Ernst Helmut Klaus Lux (born 13 September 1954 in Graz, Austria) on 20 June 1992, and had two sons:
Maurito Maria Ernst Lux (born 29 April 1999 in Vienna, Austria)
Dorian Augustinius Maria Sandhofer(born 12 May 2001 in Vienna, Austria)
Andrea Alexandra Sandhofer (born 13 December 1969 in Innsbruck, Austria), married Jörg Michael Zarbl (born 25 September 1970 in Vienna, Austria) on 30 August 1996 and had two sons:
Ferdinand Hans Friedrich Konstantin Maria Zarbl (born 8 December 1996 in Salzburg, Austria)
Benedikt Bonifatius Maria Manfred Rainer Zarbl (born 19 February 1999)
Elisabeth Victoria Madgalena Sandhofer (born 16 November 1971 in Innsbruck, Austria), unmarried and without issue.
Major family events
In 1954, her marriage to Anton ended in divorce. Later that year, she married Dr. Stefan Nikolas Issarescu in Newton, Massachusetts.
Eldest son Stefan suffered a debilitating illness in 1961 which required extensive nursing, which his wife and his mother provided.
Eldest daughter Marie Ileana and her husband were killed in a plane crash in Brazil, along with their unborn second child. They left an infant daughter.
Son Dominic was awarded retroactive rights to Bran Castle in May 2006 by the Romanian authorities as inheritance from his mother Ileana.
Award
International Olympic Committee International Sailing Federation: Navigation Award[15]
Ranks
Military
Kingdom of Romania:
Romanian Naval Forces:
Vice admiral[16]
Scouting/Guides
National
Romanian Girl Guide Movement:
Chief and Organiser
Girl Reserves of the Romanian Red Cross:
Organiser[17]
First School of Social Work in Romania:
Founder and Organiser[18]
Foreign
Federal State of Austria:
Austrian Girl Guides:
President[19]
United Kingdom:
Girl Guides:
Honorary Member[20]
Archduke Anton of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (Anton Maria Franz Leopold Blanka Karl Joseph Ignaz Raphael Michael Margareta Nicetas von Habsburg-Lothringen; Vienna, 20 March 1901 – Salzburg, 22 October 1987) was a possible Carlist-Carloctavismo pretender to the Spanish throne[1] and an Archduke of Austria by birth. In 1919, all titles of nobility and royalty were prohibited and outlawed in Austria (while in Hungary they were restored in 1927 and the aristocratic House of Magnates continued until 1945).[2][3] He was the seventh of ten children born to Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria, Prince of Tuscany and Infanta Blanca of Spain, daughter of Infante Carlos, Duke of Madrid.
Marriage and issue
After being introduced by King Carol II of Romania, he and Princess Ileana of Romania (1909-1991) were married in Sinaia on 26 July 1931.
They had the following children:
Stefan (1932–1998), naturalized US citizen (1954), married Jerrine Soper (1931-2015) in 1954, with issue.[4]
Maria Ileana (1933–1959), married Count Jaroslav Kottulinsky (1917-1959) in 1957, with issue.[citation needed]
Alexandra (born 1935), married Eugen Eberhard, Duke of Würtenberg (1930-2022) in 1962, divorced in 1972 and annulled at Rome in 1973, with no issue; married Baron Victor von Baillou (1931-2023) in 1973, with no issue.[4]
Dominic von Habsburg (born 1937), married Engel von Voss (1937-2010) in 1960 and divorced in 1999, with issue; married Emmanuella Mlynarski (born 1948) in 1999, with no issue.[4]
Maria Magdalena (1939–2021), married Baron Hans Ulrich von Holzhausen (born 1929) in 1959,[4] with issue.
Elisabeth (1942–2019), married Dr. Friedrich Sandhofer (born in 1934) in 1964,[4] with issue.
World War II and later life
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In the Second World War, he served until late 1944 in the German Wehrmacht as a pilot. After leaving the military, he moved to Bran, where he and his family lived in the Bran Castle. After the coup détat, and the end of Romanias alliance with Germany on 23 August 1944, the family and their servants were in danger of being interned or thrown out of the country, as German citizens. It was only when King Michael I abdicated on 30 December 1947 and was forced to leave the country that Archduke Antons family also went into exile. The family spent some time in Switzerland, then in Argentina, then lived in the early 1950s in the United States.
The marriage ended in divorce, made official on 29 May 1954. While Ileana became a nun, Archduke Anton moved to Austria, where he lived until his death in Emmerberg and in St. Lorenz am Mondsee in the Villa Minola. He died on 22 October 1987 at the age of 86. He was buried at the cemetery on the Mondsee.
Further reading
Lost Waltz A Story Of Exile by Bertita Harding (1944).
Carol II (15 October 1893 [O.S. 3 October 1893] – 4 April 1953) was King of Romania from 8 June 1930, until his forced abdication on 6 September 1940. As the eldest son of Ferdinand I, he became crown prince upon the death of his grand-uncle, King Carol I, in 1914. He was the first of the Hohenzollern kings of Romania to be born in the country, as both of his predecessors had been born in Germany and came to Romania only as adults. As such, he was the first member of the Romanian branch of the Hohenzollerns who spoke Romanian as his first language and was also the first member of his royal family to be raised in the Orthodox faith.[1]
Carols life and reign were surrounded by controversy and accusations of lack of duty, due to his desertion from the army during World War I. Another controversy was his marriage to Zizi Lambrino, which resulted in two attempts by Carol to give up the rights of succession to the royal crown of Romania, both of which were refused by his father, King Ferdinand.[2]
After the dissolution of his marriage, he met Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark, daughter of King Constantine I of Greece, married her in March 1921, and later that year had a son, Michael. But due to Carols continued affairs with Elena Lupescu he was obliged to renounce his succession rights in 1925 and leave the country. His name was subsequently removed from the royal house of Romania by King Ferdinand I. After his removal from the Royal House, Carol moved to France with Lupescu under the name Carol Caraiman. Michael, aged 5, inherited the throne on the death of King Ferdinand in 1927. Princess Helen eventually divorced Carol in 1928.
In the political crisis created by the deaths of Ferdinand I and Ion I. C. Brătianu and the ineffective regency of Prince Nicholas of Romania, Miron Cristea, and Gheorghe Buzdugan, Carol was allowed to return to Romania in 1930, and his name was restored by the royal house of Romania, dethroning his own son. The beginning of Carol's reign was marked by the negative economic effects of the Great Depression. Carol II weakened the parliament of Romania, often appointing minority factions of historical parties to the government and attempting to form nationally concentrated governments, such as the Iorga-Argetoianu government. He also allowed for the formation of a corrupt parliament chamber around him, under the patronage of Elena Lupescu. A political crisis followed the December 1937 elections, where no party achieved an absolute majority and a coalition could not be formed because of disagreements between the National Liberal Party and the National Peasants Party and Iron Guard whom they would have needed to form a Coalition Government. Following this crisis Carol established a royal dictatorship in 1938 by removing the 1923 constitution, abolishing all political parties, and forming a new single party, the National Renaissance Front, which consisted mostly of former members of the National Peasants Party and National Christian Party who had been patronized by the king. The National Renaissance Front was the last of several attempts to counter the popularity of the fascist Iron Guard.
Following the start of World War II, Carol II reaffirmed the Polish–Romanian alliance; the military assistance was, however, declined by Poland, which wished to follow the Romanian Bridgehead plan that required a neutral Romania. Following the fall of Poland and the involvement of the USSR, Carol II maintained a neutrality policy. After the fall of France, Carol IIs policy changed towards re-alignment with Nazi Germany in hopes of gaining a German guarantee. He was, however, not aware of the secret clauses of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Germany and the Soviet Union that would see Romania lose significant parts of its territory. The year 1940 marked the fragmentation of Greater Romania by the seceding of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR, Northern Transylvania to Hungary and Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria. Although a German guarantee was finally achieved, the situation had a disastrous effect on the reputation of Carol II. The reorientation of Romanias foreign policy towards Nazi Germany, however, would not prevent his regime from collapsing and he would be forced to abdicate by General Ion Antonescu, the newly appointed and Nazi-backed prime minister, who was succeeded by his son Michael.[3] After his abdication, Carol was permitted to leave the country with a special train loaded with his personal fortunes, which he had acquired during his time as king, and an attempt on his life was made by the Iron Guard, who had fired on the train in hope of killing the former king. After World War II, Carol II wanted to return to the helm of the country and dethrone his son again but was stopped by the Western Allies. For the rest of his life, he traveled the world, finally marrying Elena Lupescu while living in Brazil in 1947. After settling in the Portuguese Riviera, Carol II at the age of 59, died peacefully in exile and his son Michael I, refused to attend his funeral out of disgust for the treatment of his mother, Princess Helen by his father.
Early life
Crown Prince Carol of Romania in 1918.
Carol was born in Peleș Castle and grew up under the thumb of his dominating grand-uncle, King Carol I. King Carol I largely excluded Carols parents, the German-born Crown Prince Ferdinand and the British-born Crown Princess Marie, from any role in bringing him up.[4] Romania in the early 20th century had a famously relaxed "Latin" sexual morality, and the British Princess Marie of Edinburgh despite or perhaps because of her Victorian upbringing ended up "going native", having a long series of affairs with various Romanian men with whom she could obtain more emotional and sexual satisfaction than she could with Ferdinand, who fiercely resented being cuckolded.[5] The stern Carol I felt that Marie was unqualified to raise Prince Carol because of her affairs and her young age, as she was only seventeen when Carol was born, while Marie regarded the King as a cold, overbearing tyrant who would crush the life out of her son.
Additionally, the childless Carol I, who had always wanted a son, treated Prince Carol as his surrogate son and thoroughly spoiled him, indulging his every whim. Ferdinand was a rather shy and weak man who was easily overshadowed by the charismatic Marie, who became the most loved member of the Romanian royal family. Growing up, Carol felt ashamed of his father, whom both his grand-uncle and mother pushed around.[6] Carols childhood was spent being caught up in an emotional tug-of-war between Carol I and Marie, who had very different ideas about how to raise him.[7] The Romanian historian Marie Bucur described the battle between Carol I and Princess Marie as one between traditional 19th-century Prussian conservatism as personified by Carol I versus the 20th-century liberal, modernist, and sexually deviant values of the "New Woman" as personified by Princess Marie.[7] Aspects of both Maries and Carol Is personalities were present in Carol II.[7] Largely because of the battle between the King and Marie, Carol ended up being both spoiled and deprived of love.[7]
King Carol I of Romania with his nephew the future King Ferdinand and grand-nephew Prince Carol.
Early marriages and love affairs
During his teenage years, Carol acquired the "playboy" image that was to become his defining persona for the rest of his life. Carol expressed some concern at the direction that Prince Carol was taking, as the young Princes only serious interest was stamp collecting and he spent an inordinate amount of time drinking, partying, and chasing after women. Young Carol fathered at least two illegitimate children by the teenage schoolgirl Maria Martini by the time that he was 19. Carol rapidly became a favorite of gossip columnists around the world owing to the frequent photographs that appeared in the newspapers showing him at various parties with him holding a drink in one hand and a woman in the other.[8]
In order to teach the prince the value of Prussian virtues, the King had the prince commissioned as an officer into a Prussian guards regiment in 1913.[4] His time with the 1st Prussian Guards regiment did not achieve the desired results, and Carol remained the "playboy prince". Romania in the early 20th century was an intensely Francophile nation, indeed perhaps the most Francophile nation in the entire world as the Romanian elite obsessively went about embracing all things French as the model for perfection in everything. To a certain extent, Carol was influenced by the prevailing Francophilia, but at the same time, he inherited from Carol I, in the words of the American historian Margaret Sankey, a "profound love of German militarism" and the idea that all democratic governments were weak governments.[4]
Sometime before the First World War, the Romanian and Russian royal families held talks about the marriage of Carol, at that time the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Romania, with the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, the eldest daughter of the Russian emperor at the moment, the Tsar Nicholas II. The marriage, however, was rather proposed as a political weapon; Sergey Sazonov, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire between 1910 and 1916, wanted Olga to marry Carol to ensure Romanias position as an ally of Russia in the eventuality of a war, as Romania was an ally of Germany at the time. Both the royal families, including the Tsar and his wife Alexandra, gave their support for their idea, and there was a high expentation for the marriage to take place. However, neither Carol or Olga showed an interest for the other; Carol wasnt fond with the appearance of Olga, and Olga expressed her wish to remain in Russia (shall the marriage had taken place, Olga would have become the Crown Princess, and later the Queen of Romania). This was best seen during the visit of the Romanian royal family to Russia in March, 1914, and during a visit of Nicholas and his family to Romania a few months later.[9]
After failing to arrange a marriage between Carol and Olga, the idea of a possible marriage of a Romanian royal to a Russian royal faded until 1917, when Carol began showing an interest for the younger sister of Olga, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna. In a visit to Russia in January of that year, he made a formal proposal to Nicholas for Marias hand, but Nicholas "good-naturedly laughed the proposal aside", and argued that Maria "was nothing more than a schoolgirl". Maria was only 17 at the time, and shared her older sisters desire to marry a Russian and remain in Russia.[10]
Crown Prince Carol training during World War I with a Chauchat machine gun
In November 1914, Carol joined the Romanian Senate, as the 1866 Constitution guaranteed him a seat there upon reaching maturity.[11] Known more for his romantic misadventures than for any leadership skills, Carol (Romanian for "Charles") was first married in the Cathedral Church of Odesa, Ukraine, August 31, 1918 (under the occupation of the Central Powers at that time), to Joanna Marie Valentina Lambrino (1898–1953), known as "Zizi", the daughter of a Romanian general, Constantin Lambrino. The fact that Carol technically had deserted as he left his post at the Army without permission to marry Zizi Lambrino caused immense controversy at the time.[12] The marriage was annulled on 29 March 29, 1919, by the Ilfov County Court. Carol and Zizi continued to live together after the annulment. Their only child, Mircea Gregor Carol Lambrino, was born on 8 January 1920.
Carol next married Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark, who was known in Romania as Crown Princess Elena, on 10 March 10, 1921, in Athens, Greece. They were second cousins, both of them great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, as well as third cousins in descent from Nicholas I of Russia. Helen had known Carols dissolute behavior and previous marriage, but was undeterred, being in love with Carol. The intention behind this arranged marriage was to help organize a dynastic alliance between Greece and Romania. Bulgaria had territorial disputes with Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia and all three of the latter states tended to be close during the interwar period owing to their shared fears of the Bulgarians. Helen and Carols only child, Michael, was born seven months after their marriage, sparking rumors that Michael was conceived out of wedlock. Apparently close at first, Carol and Helen drifted apart. Carols marriage with Princess Helen was an unhappy one, and he frequently engaged in extramarital affairs.[12] The elegant wallflower Helen found the bohemian Carol, with his love of heavy drinking and constant partying, rather too wild for her tastes.[12] Carol disliked royal and aristocratic women, whom he found too stiff and formal for his tastes, and had an extremely marked preference for commoners, much to the chagrin of his parents.[12] Carol found low-born women to have the qualities that he sought in a woman, such as informality, spontaneity, humor, and passion.[12]
Controversies surrounding Magda Lupescu
The marriage soon collapsed in the wake of Carols affair with Elena (Magda) Lupescu (1895–1977), the Roman Catholic daughter of Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity. Magda Lupescu had formerly been the wife of Army officer Ion Tâmpeanu. The National Liberal Party, which dominated Romanias politics, made much of Carols relationship with Lupescu argue that he was unqualified to be king. One of the leading figures of the National Liberals was Prince Barbu Știrbey – who was also Queen Maries lover, and Carol had a strong dislike of Știrbey, who had humiliated his father via his indiscreetly disguised relationship with Marie, and hence of the National Liberals.[13] Knowing that Carol was ill-disposed towards them, the National Liberals waged a sustained campaign to keep him from the throne.[14] The campaign waged by the National Liberals had less to do with disgust with Carols relationship with Madame Lupescu than with an effort to remove a potential "loose cannon", as Carol made it clear when he succeeded to the throne that he would not be content to let the National Liberals dominate politics in the way that the previous Hohenzollern kings had.[14]
As a result of the scandal, Carol renounced his right to the throne on 28 December 28, 1925, in favor of his son by Crown Princess Helen, Michael I (Mihai), who became king in July 1927 upon the death of his paternal grandfather, King Ferdinand I. Helen divorced Carol in 1928. After renouncing his right to the throne, Carol moved to Paris, where he lived openly in a common-law relationship with Madame Lupescu.[15] The National Liberal Party was largely a vehicle for the powerful Brătianu family to exercise power and, after the National Liberal Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu died in 1927, the Brătianus were unable to agree upon a successor, causing the fortunes of the National Liberals to go into decline.[16] In the 1928 elections, the National Peasant Party under Iuliu Maniu won a resounding victory, taking 78% of the vote.[16] As Prince Nicolae, the chief of the Regency Council that governed for King Michael, was known to be friendly with the National Liberals, the new prime minister was determined to dispose of the regency council by bringing back Carol.[16]
Return to the throne
Oath of Carol II in front of parliament, 8 June 1930
Returning to the country on 7, 1930, in a coup détat engineered by National Peasant Prime Minister Iuliu Maniu, Carol was recognized by the Parliament as king of Romania the following day. For the next decade, he sought to influence the course of Romanian political life, first through manipulation of the rival Peasant and Liberal parties and anti-Semitic factions, and subsequently (January 1938) through a ministry of his own choosing. Carol also sought to build up his own personality cult against the growing influence of the Iron Guard, for instance, by setting up a paramilitary youth organization known as Straja Țării in 1935. The American historian Stanley G. Payne described Carol as "the most cynical, corrupt and power-hungry monarch who ever disgraced a throne anywhere in twentieth-century Europe".[17] A colorful character, Carol was in the words of the British historian Richard Cavendish: "Dashing, willful and reckless, a lover of women, champagne and speed, Carol drove racing cars and piloted planes, and on state occasions, occasions appeared in operetta uniforms with enough ribbons, chains, and orders to sink a small destroyer."[18]
The Romanian historian Maria Bucur wrote about Carol:
Of course, he loved luxury; being born to privilege he expected nothing less than the grand lifestyle he saw in the other courts of Europe. Yet his style was not outlandish or grotesque like Nicolae Ceaușescus unique brand of kitsch. He liked things large but relatively simple – his royal palace testifies to that trait. Carol's true passions were Lupescu, hunting, and cars and he spared no expense on them. Carol liked to present an impressive and populist persona to the public, wearing garish military uniforms adorned with medals, and being the benefactor of every philanthropic endeavor in the country. He loved parades and grandiose festivals and watched them closely, but he was not taken in by these events as more than shows of his power. He did not take them as a show of sincere popularity as Ceaușescu did during his later years.[19]
Carol had sworn in his coronation an oath to uphold the constitution of 1923, a promise he had no intention of keeping, and right from the start of his reign, the king meddled in politics to increase his own power.[17] Carol was an opportunist with no real principles or values other than the belief that he was the right man to rule Romania and that what his kingdom needed was a modernizing dictatorship.[20] Carol ruled via an informal body known as the camarilla, comprising courtiers together with senior diplomats, army officers, politicians, and industrialists, who were all in some way dependent upon royal favor to advance their careers.[21] The most important member of the camarilla was Carols mistress, Madame Lupescu, whose political advice Carol greatly valued.[21] Maniu had brought Carol to the throne out of the fear that the regency for Michael I was dominated by National Liberals, who would ensure that their party would always win the elections.[21] Madame Lupescu was deeply unpopular with the Romanian people, and Maniu had demanded that Carol return to his wife, Princess Helen of Greece, as part of the price for being given the throne. When Carol broke his own word and continued to live with Madame Lupescu, Maniu resigned in protest in October 1930 and was to emerge as one of Carols leading enemies.[21] At the same time, Carols return had prompted a break in the National Liberals with Gheorghe I. Brătianu breaking away to found a new party, the National Liberal Party-Brătianu that was willing to work with the new king. Despite his dislike of the National Liberals, Manius enmity towards Carol left the king with no choice, but to enlist as his allies the break-away factions of the National Liberals against the National Peasants, who demanded that Carol banish Lupescu and return to his wife.
The "Red Queen," as Lupescu was known to the Romanian people on account of the color of her hair, was the most hated woman in 1930s Romania. She was a woman whom ordinary Romanians saw as "the embodiment of evil," [21] in the words of the British historian Rebecca Haynes. Princess Helen was widely viewed as the wronged woman, while Lupescu was seen as the femme fatale who had stolen Carol away from the loving arms of Helen. Lupescu was Roman Catholic, but because of her parents background, she was widely viewed as Jewish. Lupescus personality did not win her many friends, as she was arrogant, pushy, manipulative, and extremely greedy, with an insatiable taste for buying the most expensive French clothes, cosmetics, and jewelry.[22] At a time when many Romanians were suffering from the Great Depression in Romania, Carols habit of indulging Lupescus expensive tastes caused much resentment, with many of Carols subjects grumbling that the money would have been better spent on alleviating poverty in the kingdom. Further adding to Lupescus immense unpopularity, she was a businesswoman who used her connections to the Crown to engage in dubious transactions that usually involved large sums of public money – going into her pocket.[21] However, the contemporary viewpoint that Carol was a mere puppet of Lupescu is incorrect, and Lupescus influence on political decision-making was much exaggerated at the time.[22] Lupescu was primarily interested in enriching herself to support her extravagant lifestyle and had no real interest in politics, beyond protecting her ability to engage in corruption.[22] Unlike Carol, Lupescu had utterly no interest in social policy or foreign affairs and was such a self-absorbed narcissist that she was unaware of just how unpopular she was with ordinary people.[8] Carol by contrast was interested in the affairs of the state, and though he never sought to deny his relationship with Lupescu, he was careful not to display her too much in public, as he knew that this would bring him unpopularity.[8]
Carol sought to play the National Liberals, the National Peasant Party, and the Iron Guard off against each other with the ultimate aim of making himself master of Romanian politics and disposing of all the parties in Romania.[17] With regards to the Legion of the Archangel Michael, Carol had no intention of ever letting the Iron Guard come to power, but insofar as the Legion was a disruptive force that weakened both the National Liberals and the National Peasants, Carol welcomed the rise of the Iron Guard in the early 1930s, and he sought to use the Legion for his own ends.[17] On 30, 1933, the Iron Guard assassinated the National Liberal Prime Minister, Ion G. Duca, which led to the first of several bans placed on the Legion.[23] The assassination of Ion Duca, which was Romanias first political murder since 1862, shocked Carol, who saw the willingness of Codreanu to order the assassination of the Prime Minister as a clear sign that the egomaniacal Codreanu was getting out of control and that Codreanu would not play the role assigned by the king as a disruptive force threatening the National Liberals and National Peasants alike.[23] In 1934, when Codreanu was brought to trial for ordering Ducas assassination, he used as his defense the argument that the entire Francophile elite was completely corrupt and not properly Romanian, and as such, Duca was just another corrupt National Liberal politician who deserved to die. The jury acquitted Codreanu, an act that worried Carol as it showed that Codreanus revolutionary message that the entire elite needed to be destroyed was winning popular approval. In the spring of 1934, after Codreanu was acquitted, Carol, together with Bucharest police prefect Gavrilă Marinescu and Madame Lupescu, were involved in a half-hearted plot to kill Codreanu by poisoning his coffee, an effort that was abandoned before being attempted.[24] Until 1935, Carol was a leading contributor to the "Friends of the Legion", the group that collected contributions to the Legion.[25] Carol only stopped contributing to the Legion after Codreanu started calling Lupescu a "Jewish whore". Carols image was always that of "the playboy king", a hedonistic monarch more interested in womanizing, drinking, gambling, and partying, than in affairs of state, and to the extent that he cared about politics, Carol was viewed as a scheming, dishonest man only interested in wrecking the democratic system to seize power for himself.[26]
Personality cult
Main article: Carol II of Romanias cult of personality
King Carol II and Crown Prince Michael at Astra Congress, 20 September 1936, Blaj, Romania
To compensate for his rather negative and well-deserved "playboy king" image, Carol created a lavish personality cult around himself that grew more extreme as his reign went on, which portrayed the king as a Christ-like being "chosen" by God to create a "new Romania".[26] In the 1934 book The Three Kings by Cezar Petrescu, which was intended for a less educated audience, Carol was constantly described as being almost god-like, the "father of the villagers and workers of the land" and the "king of culture" who was the greatest of all the Hohenzollern kings and whose return from exile from France via airplane in June 1930 was a "descent from the heavens".[26] Petrescu depicted Carols return as the beginning of his God-appointed task of becoming "the maker of eternal Romania", the start of a glorious golden age as Petrescu asserted that rule by monarchs was what God wanted for Romanians.[26]
Carol had little understanding of or interest in economics, but his most influential economic advisor was Mihail Manoilescu who favored a statist model of economic development with the state intervening in the economy to encourage growth.[27] Carol was very active in the cultural realm, being a generous patron of the arts and actively supporting the work of the Royal Foundation, an organization with a broad mandate to promote and study Romanian culture in all fields.[28] In particular, Carol supported the work of the sociologist Dimitrie Gusti of the Social Service of the Royal Foundation, who in the early 1930s started to bring social scientists from various disciplines like sociology, anthropology, ethnography, geography, musicology, medicine, and biology together in a "science of the nation".[29] Gusti took teams of professors from various disciplines to the countryside to study an entire community from all vantage points every summer, who then produce a lengthy report about the community.[30]
The Manipulative King
Crown Prince Carol, the future King Carol II of Romania, in 1927
For most of the interwar period, Romania was in the French sphere of influence, and in June 1926, a defensive alliance was signed with France. The alliance with France, together with an alliance with Poland signed in 1921, and the "Little Entente," which united Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, were the cornerstones of Romanian foreign policy. Starting in 1919, the French sought to create the Cordon sanitaire that would keep both Germany and the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe. Carol did not seek to replace the foreign policy he had inherited in 1930 at first, as he regarded the continuation of the cordon sanitaire as the best guarantee of Romanias independence and territorial integrity, and as such, his foreign policy was essentially pro-French. At the time that Romania signed the alliance with France, the Rhineland region of Germany was demilitarized, and the thinking in Bucharest had always been that if Germany should commit any act of aggression anywhere in Eastern Europe, the French would begin an offensive into the Reich. Starting in 1930, when the French began to build the Maginot Line along their border with Germany, some doubts started to be expressed in Bucharest about whether the French might actually come to Romanias aid in the event of a German aggression. In 1933, Carol had Nicolae Titulescu, an outspoken champion of collective security under the banner of the League of Nations, appointed foreign minister with instructions to use principles of collective security as the building blocks for creating some sort of security structure intended to keep both Germany and the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe.[31] Carol and Titulescu personally disliked one another, but Carol wanted Titulescu as a foreign minister as he believed he was the best man for strengthening ties with France and for bringing Great Britain into the affairs of Eastern Europe under the guise of the collective security commitments contained the League Covenant.[32]
The process of Gleichschaltung (coordination) in National Socialist Germany did not extend only to the Reich but was rather thought of by the National Socialist leadership as a worldwide process in which the NSDAP would take control over all of the ethnic German communities around the entire world. The Foreign Policy Department of the NSDAP, headed by Alfred Rosenberg, had attempted to take over the Volk Deutsch (ethnic German) community in Romania starting in 1934, a policy that greatly offended Carol, who regarded this as outrageous German interference in Romanias internal affairs.[33] As Romania had half a million Volk Deutsch citizens in the 1930s, the Nazi campaign to take over the German community in Romania was a real concern for Carol, who feared that the German minority might become a fifth column.[33] In addition, Rosenbergs agents had established contracts with the Romanian extreme right, most notably with the National Christian Party headed by Octavian Goga and less substantial links with the Iron Guard headed by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, which further annoyed Carol.[33] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Carols foreign policy views: "He admired and feared Germany, but feared and disliked the Soviet Union.".[34] The fact that the first leader to visit Nazi Germany (albeit not in an official capacity) was the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös, who during his visit to Berlin in October 1933 signed an economic treaty that placed Hungary within the German economic sphere of influence – was a source of much alarm to Carol.[35] For the entire interwar period, Budapest refused to recognize the frontiers imposed by the Treaty of Trianon and laid claim to Transylvania region of Romania. Carol, like the rest of the Romanian elite, was worried by the prospect of an alliance of the revisionist states that rejected the legitimacy of the international order created by the Allies in 1918–20, indicating that Germany would support Hungarys claims to Transylvania.[36] Hungary had territorial disputes with Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, all of which happened to be allies of France. Accordingly, Franco–Hungarian relations were extremely bad during the interwar period, and so – it seemed natural that Hungary would ally itself with Frances archenemy, Germany.
In 1934, Titulescu played a leading role in creating the Balkan Entente which brought together Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey in an alliance intended to counter Bulgarian revanchism.[32] The Balkan Entente was intended to be the beginning of an alliance that would bring together all of the anti-revisionist states of Eastern Europe. Like France, Romania was allied to both Czechoslovakia and Poland, but because of the Teschen dispute in Silesia, Warsaw and Prague were bitter enemies. Like the diplomats of the Quai dOrsay, Carol was exasperated by the bitter Polish-Czechoslovak dispute, arguing that it was absurd for anti-revisionist Eastern European states to be feuding with one another in the face of the rise of German and Soviet powers.[32] Several times, Carol attempted to mediate the Teschen dispute and thus end the Polish-Czechoslovak feud without much success.[32] Reflecting his initially pro-French orientation, in June 1934, when the French foreign minister Louis Barthou visited Bucharest to meet with the foreign ministers of "the Little Entente" of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, Carol organized lavish celebrations to welcome Barthou that were made to symbolize the enduring Franco-Romanian friendship between the two "Latin sisters.".[37] The German minister to Romania, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg complained with disgust in a report to Berlin that everyone in the Romanian elite was an incurable Francophile who told him that Romania would never betray its "Latin sister" France.
At the same time, Carol also considered the possibility that if Romanian-German relations were improved, then perhaps Berlin could be persuaded not to support Budapest in its campaign to regain Transylvania.[36] Further pressing Carol towards Germany was the desperate state of the Romanian economy: even before the worldwide Great Depression, Romania had been a poor country, and the Great Depression hit Romania hard, with Romanians being unable to export much owing to the global trade war set off by the American Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which in turn led to a decline in the value of the Leu as Romanias reserves of foreign exchange were being used up.[36] In June 1934, Romanian finance minister Victor Slăvescu visited Paris to ask the French to inject millions of francs into the Romanian treasury and to lower their tariffs on Romanian goods. When the French refused both requests, an annoyed Carol wrote in his diary that the "Latin sister" France was behaving in a less than sisterly way towards Romania.[36] In April 1936, when Wilhelm Fabricius was appointed German minister in Bucharest, the Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath in his instructions to the new minister, described Romania as an unfriendly, pro-French state but suggested that the prospect of more trade with the Reich might bring the Romanians out of the French orbit.[36] Neurath further instructed Fabricius that while Romania was not a major power in a military sense, it was a state of crucial importance to Germany because of its oil.
Carol often encouraged splits in the political parties to his own ends. In 1935, Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, the leader of the Transylvanian branch of the National Peasants, broke away to form the Romanian Front with Carols encouragement.[38] During the same time, Carol developed close contacts with Armand Călinescu, an ambitious National Peasant leader who founded a faction opposed to the leadership of Carols archenemy, Iuliu Maniu, and wanted the National Peasants to work with the Crown.[38] In the same way, Carol encouraged the "Young Liberal" faction headed by Gheorghe Tătărescu as a way of weakening the power of the Brătianu family, who dominated the National Liberals.[23] Pointedly, Carol was willing to allow the "Young Liberal" faction under Tătărescu to come to power, but excluded the main National Liberal faction under the leadership of Dinu Brătianu from obtaining power; Carol had not forgotten how the Brătianus had excluded him from the succession in the 1920s.[39]
In February 1935, the Legions leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, who until then had been regarded as an ally of Carol, for the first time attacked the king directly when he organized demonstrations outside of the royal palace attacking Carol after Dr. Dimitrie Gerota had been imprisoned for writing an article exposing the corrupt business dealings of Lupescu.[24] Codreanu, in his speech before the Royal Palace called Lupescu a "Jewish whore" who was robbing Romania blind, which led to an insulted Carol calling on one of the members of his camarilla, the Bucharest police prefect Gavrilă Marinescu, who sent the police out to break up the Iron Guard rally with much violence.[24]
The doubts about the French willingness to undertake an offensive against Germany were further reinforced by the Remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936, which had the effect of allowing the Germans to start building the Siegfried line along the border with France, something that considerably lessened the prospect of a French offensive into western Germany if the Reich should invade any of the states of the cordon sanitaire. A British Foreign Office memo from March 1936 stated that the only nations in the world that would apply sanctions on Germany for remilitarizing the Rhineland if the League of Nations should vote for such a step were Britain, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Romania.[40] In the aftermath of the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and once it was clear that no sanctions were going to be applied against Germany, Carol started to voice his fears that the days of French influence in Eastern Europe were numbered and Romania might have to seek some understanding with Germany to preserve its independence.[41] After continuing the alliance with France, Carol also began a policy of attempting to improve relations with Germany.[42]
On the domestic front, in the summer of 1936, Codreanu and Maniu formed an alliance to oppose the growing power of the Crown and the National Liberal government.[43] In August 1936, Carol had Titulescu fired as foreign minister, and in November 1936, Carol sent the renegade National Liberal politician Gheorghe I. Brătianu to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler, the Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath and Hermann Göring to tell them of Romanias desire for a rapprochement with the Reich.[44] Carol was much relieved when Brătianu reported that Hitler, Neurath, and Göring had all reassured him that the Reich had no interest in supporting Hungarian revanchism and was neutral on the Transylvania dispute.[44] The decoupling of Berlins campaign to overthrow the international system created by the Treaty of Versailles from Budapests campaign to overthrow the system created by the Treaty of Trianon was welcome news to Carol, creating the possibility that a greater Germany would not mean a greater Hungary. Göring, the newly appointed chief of the Four Year Plan organization designed to have Germany ready to wage a total war by 1940, was especially interested in Romanias oil and talked much to Brătianu about a new era of German-Romanian economic relations.[44] Germany had almost no oil of its own, and throughout the Third Reich, control of Romanias oil was a key foreign policy goal. Reflecting the changed emphasis, Carol vetoed in February 1937 a plan promoted by France and Czechoslovakia for a new alliance that would formally unite France with the Little Entente and envisioned much closer military ties between the French and their allies in Eastern Europe.[45] Because of its oil, the French were keen to keep the alliance with Romania strong, and because Romanias manpower was a way of compensating the French for their lower population vs. Germanys (the French had 40 million people while Germany had 70 million people). Additionally, it was assumed in Paris that if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia Hungary would also attack Czechoslovakia to regain Slovakia and Ruthenia. French military planners envisioned the role of Romania and Yugoslavia in such a war as invading Hungary to relieve the pressure on Czechoslovakia.[46]
King Carol II, Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, Yugoslav regent Prince Paul, Prince Nicholas of Romania and Prince Mihai in Bucharest, 1936
Up until 1940, Carols foreign policy teetered uneasily between the traditional alliance with France and an alignment with the newly ascending power of Germany.[44] In the summer of 1937, Carol told French diplomats that if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, he would not allow the Red Army transit rights across Romania but was willing to ignore the Soviets if they crossed Romanian airspace on their way to Czechoslovakia.[47] On December 9, 1937, a German-Romanian economic treaty was signed that placed Romania within the German economic sphere of influence but left the Germans unsatisfied as the Reichs enormous demand for oil to power its increasingly large war machine, was not yet fulfilled by the 1937 treaty.[48] Germany had a tremendous need for oil and no sooner had the 1937 agreement been signed than the Germans asked for a new economic treaty in 1938. At the same time that the German-Romanian treaty was signed in December 1937, Carol was receiving the French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos to show that the alliance with France was not yet dead.[49]
The 1937 election and the Goga government
In September 1937, Carol paid an extended visit to Paris, during which he indicated to the French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos that Romanian democracy would soon end.[50] In a campaign speech for the general elections due that December, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, "Captain" of the Archangel Michael Legion, called for an end to the alliance with France and stated: "I am for a Romanian foreign policy with Rome and Berlin. I am with the states of the National Revolution against Bolshevism. Within forty-eight hours of a Legionary movement victory, Romania will have an alliance with Rome and Berlin".[51] Without realizing it, Codreanu had sealed his doom with that speech. Carol had always insisted that control of foreign policy was his own exclusive royal prerogative, which no one else was allowed to interfere with.[52] Despite the constitution, which stated that the foreign minister was responsible to the prime minister, in practice, the foreign ministers had always reported to the king. By challenging Carols right to control foreign policy, Codreanu had crossed the Rubicon in the kings eyes and from that time on, Carol was committed to the destruction of the arrogant upstart Codreanu and his movement who had dared to challenge the kings prerogative.[52] In the December 1937 elections, the National Liberal government of Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu won the largest number of seats, but less than the 40% required to form a majority government in parliament.[53] After assassinating Prime Minister Duca in 1933, the Iron Guard had been banned from participating in elections, and to get around the ban Codreanu founded the All for Fatherland! party as a front for the Legion. The All for Fatherland! the party won 16% of the vote in the 1937 election, marking the high point of the Iron Guards electoral success.
Rabbi Teitelbaum, head of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty greeting King Carol II of Romania, 1936
On 28, 1937, Carol swore in the radical anti-Semitic poet Octavian Goga of the National Christian Party, which only won 9% of the vote, as Prime Minister. Carols reasons for appointing Goga Prime Minister were partly because he hoped that anti-Semitic policies Goga would bring in would win him support from the All for Fatherland! voters and thus weaken the Legion and partly because he hoped that Goga would prove so incompetent as Prime Minister as to provoke such a crisis that would allow him to seize power for himself.[54] Carol wrote in his diary that the markedly stupid Goga could not possibly last long as Prime Minister and that Gogas failure would allow him to "be free to take stronger measures which will free me and the country from the tyranny of party interests".[54] Carol agreed to Gogas request to dissolve parliament for new elections on 18, 1938. As leader of the fourth party in parliament, Gogas government was certain to be defeated on a vote of no-confidence when parliament convened as the National Liberals, National Peasants and All for the Fatherland Party had all come out against Goga, albeit for very different reasons. The election got off to a violent start with a brawl in Bucharest between Gogas Lăncieri paramilitary group and the Iron Guard that left two dead, 52 hospitalized and 450 people arrested.[55] The 1938 election was one of the most violent elections in Romanian history, as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri battled one another for control of the streets while seeking to establish their anti-Semitic creditations by assaulting Jews.[55] As Parliament never met during the Goga government, Goga had to pass laws via emergency decree, which all had to be countersigned by the king.
King Carol II and Polish soldiers, 1937
The harsh anti-Semitic policies of the Goga government impoverished the Jewish minority and led to immediate complaints from the British, French and American governments that Gogas policies were going to lead to a Jewish exodus out of Romania.[56] Neither Britain, France, nor the United States had any wish to take in the Jewish refugees that Goga was creating by imposing increasingly oppressive anti-Semitic laws, and all three governments pressed for Carol to dismiss Goga as a way of nipping the developing humanitarian crisis caused by Goga in the bud.[56] The British minister Sir Reginald Hoare and French minister Adrien Thierry both submitted notes of protest against the Goga governments anti-Semitism, while President Roosevelt of the United States wrote a letter to Carol complaining about the anti-Semitic policies he was tolerating.[34] On 12, 1938, Goga stripped all Romanian Jews of their Romanian citizenship, a preparatory move towards Gogas ultimate goal of the expulsion of all Romanian Jews. Carol was personally not an anti-Semite.
PHOTO ORIGINALE VINTAGE officiel RARE PRINCESSE ILANE ROUMANIE ARCHIDUC HABSBOURG 1931 RARE
