Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark
The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and
Princess Alice of Battenberg, Margarita was born at the Royal Palace
in Athens on 18 April 1905.
Family
Through her mother, Margarita was the eldest great-great grandchild
of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Contrary to the custom of
the time, her father attended her birth because her grandmother,
Queen Olga, believed that "it is only justice that men see the suffering
they cause to their wives, and from which they completely escape".
She also was a great-great grandchild of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia,
trough her father.
With their mother, Margarita and her sisters communicated in English,
but they also used French, German, and Greek in the presence of their
relatives and governesses. The princesses were formally educated
in English and Greek.
Balkan War
the country in opposition to the Ottoman Empire and to Bulgaria. Called to
join the army again, Prince Andrew served under Crown Prince Constantine
while Princess Alice worked as a nurse for wounded soldiers.
duration of the conflict in Athens, with the exception of a brief stay
in Thessaloniki in December 1912.
conflict also led to the demise of George I, who was assassinated in
March 1913.
of Margarita and her relatives. In his will, the sovereign bequeathed the
Corfiote palace of Mon Repos to Andrew. After years of living in close
proximity to the monarch, in the palaces of Athens and Tatoi, Andrew
and his family therefore finally had their own residence.
August 1913. After a visit to Germany, they stayed in the United Kingdom,
with Margarita's maternal grandparents. For little princesses, this trip was
an opportunity to visit St Paul's Cathedral and London Zoo with their parents.
in the country by Alice's fourth pregnancy and, above all, by the outbreak
of the First World War.
World War I
hardly affected Margarita and her relatives. She and her sisters thus spent
the summer of 1914 in Corfu, where they enjoyed the sun and the sea
for four months.
Stationed in Thessaloniki with his garrison, Andrew was thus confronted
with the occupation of the city by the Allies in October 1915.
leading Alice and her daughters to abandon Mon Repos for the capital.
Over the months, the amount of threats against members of the royal
dynasty increased.
there with his wife and several of their children.
palace in Athens, forcing Margarita and her sisters to take refuge
in the cellars with their mother.
Exile
out of Greece by the Allies, who replaced him on the throne by
his second son, the young Alexander.
order to remove the possibility of the new monarch being influenced
by those close to him.
first stayed in a hotel in St. Moritz, before settling in Lucerne, where they
lived with uncertainty about their future.
With the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, several of Margarita's
relatives were murdered in Russia.
Margarita was closely related through her mother, was overthrown along
with all the other German dynasties during the winter of 1918–1919.
contracting the flu in 1920.
with her paternal grandmother, the Dowager Queen Olga, spared by the
Bolsheviks thanks to the diplomatic intervention of the Danes.
maternal grandparents, whom the war forced to abandon the name
of Battenberg for that of Mountbatten.
A short return to Greece
bitten by a domestic monkey during a walk in Tatoi. Poorly
cared for, he contracted sepsis, which prevailed on 25 October,
without any member of his family being allowed to come to his
bedside.
in Greece. Already stuck, since 1919, in a new war against Turkey,
Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos lost the 1920 Greek legislative
election. Humiliated, he retired abroad while a referendum reinstalled
Constantine I on the throne.
and his wife and four daughters joined him a few days later.
Princess Alice found out that she was pregnant again.
Duke of Edinburgh. The joy that surrounded this birth, however, was
obscured by the absence of Prince Andrew, who joined the Greek forces
in Asia Minor during the Occupation of Smyrna.
at Mon Repos, where they received a visit from their maternal grandmother
and their aunt Louise in the spring of 1922.
devoted themselves to archeology and discovered some pottery,
bronze pieces and bones.
first time, in a number of great social events. In March 1921, the princesses
attended in Athens the wedding of their cousin Helen to Crown Prince Carol
of Romania.
wedding of their uncle Louis Mountbatten to the wealthy heiress
Edwina Ashley.
unrest that it caused disrupted the life of Margarita and her family.
George II.
military tribunal, which declared him responsible for the defeat
of the Sakarya. Saved from execution by the intervention of foreign
chancelleries, the prince was condemned to banishment and
cashiering. After a brief stop in Corfu, the prince and his relatives
hurriedly left Greece aboard HMS Calypso in early December 1922.
Love
Italy, France and the United Kingdom, Margarita, her parents and
her siblings settled in Saint-Cloud in 1923.
the family depended for seven years on her generosity, and
two other aunts of Margarita: first Princess Anastasia and then
Lady Louis Mountbatten.
while Lady Mountbatten got into the habit of offering her nieces
her "used" clothes.In fact, Margarita's parents had little income and
the children were the regular witnesses to their money problems
and their difficulty in maintaining a household.
Second Hellenic Republic in March 1924, Margarita and her family
received Danish passports from their cousin King Christian X.
France for Great Britain, where they lived with their maternal
grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven.
visit their many relatives, such as their paternal grandmother, Queen Olga,
who was Queen Alexandra's regular guest at Sandringham.
they hardly had any suitors, which was a matter of concern to their mother.
d'Isembourg-Birstein, eldest son of Prince François-Joseph
d'Isembourg-Birstein, during a stay in Tarasp with her great-uncle Ernest Louis,
Grand Duke of Hesse. The two young people enjoyed each other's company
and their families met at the beginning of the following year. Margarita
was enchanted by her suitor and by the region where he lived.
refused to give up Orthodox faith, which soon put an end to their
romance. Thus, by 1930, neither Margarita nor Theodora had yet
found a fiancé.
Married after all
hereditary prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, The prince was heir to a
fortune made up of castles, farmland and forests.
Organized at Langenburg Castle, their wedding consisted of a double
religious ceremony, both Lutheran and Orthodox.
mother Alice was not present.
and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna of Russia (aunts of the groom)
as well as Prince George of Greece and Denmark and Louise, Crown
Princess of Sweden (uncle and aunt of the bride).
at Weikersheim Castle, located not far from the town of Langenburg.
Children
Kraft (1935–2004),
Beatrix (1936–1997),
and Georg Andreas (1938–2021).
Nazis
in charitable works, which soon earned her the admiration of the inhabitants
of the former principality of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
1 May 1937 at the same time as her husband.
rapprochement of the Nazi regime in the United Kingdom.
Enlisted in the Wehrmacht, Gottfried participated in the Anschluss in 1938.
Gloria Vanderbilt affair
in favor of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt in the lawsuit involving her and
her in-laws for the custody of her daughter Gloria Vanderbilt.
with the wealthy American widow, whom he even almost married with
the blessing of his parents.
aunt Nadejda Mountbatten's place.
abandoned her daughter by leading a dissolute life with Gottfried in
Europe. Margarita further suspected the young woman of having a
romantic relationship with Nadejda.
by participating in the trial with her husband.
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who assured the good morality of
their friend in front of the press and in court,
Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt lost the lawsuit. Her daughter was
then placed in the care of her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt
Whitney, until she came of age.
to attend the wedding of Marina, cousin of the princess, and the
Duke of Kent in London.
A new World War
whose family found themselves divided by the conflict.
and Berthold, Margrave of Baden, joined the German ranks, her
brother Philip fought in the British Royal Navy.
Prince Andrew on the French Riviera and contacting him became
very difficult.
children in Langenburg, a small town far from the zones of combat
and where the family did not suffer much deprivation.
In April 1942, her mother-in-law, the Dowager Princess of Hohenlohe-
Langenburg, died in Schwäbisch Hall after a long illness.
Margarita's sister Sophie, was killed in a plane crash while flying
over the Apennine Mountains.
without having been able to see his children again.
After the war
and their role in the Holocaust—brought to light during the Nuremberg trials
—had serious repercussions on the relationship between the Hohenlohe-
Langenburgs and their foreign relatives. Despite her own Germanic
origins, Princess Alice of Battenberg thus developed a deep disgust
for the German people and refused, until 1949, to return to stay in
her daughters' country.
found himself unable to invite his sisters on the occasion of his marriage
to Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom because of anti-German
sentiment prevailing in Great Britain after the war.
to reconnect with the Hohenlohe-Langenburgs.
on the occasion of the funeral of her grandmother, the Dowager
Marchioness of Milford Haven.
godmothers of her niece, Princess Anne.
some of their children were invited to the coronation of Elizabeth II.
Satisfied not to have been sidelined once again, the Princess of
Hohenlohe-Langenburg nonetheless noted with sadness the anguish
of her brother Philip, who considered with apprehension his new
status as prince consort.
several occasions. There they found various members of Gottfried's relatives:
Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and her husband Infante
Alfonso, Duke of Galliera (maternal aunt and uncle of the prince),
Princess Alexandra of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (sister of the prince),
as well as Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his wife
Ira von Fürstenberg (distant cousins of the prince).
Death
six days after her 76th birthday.
in Langenburg, where she was buried alongside her husband.
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