Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria ready to shine in England?






March 23, 1911

Will the German Empress "take all her jewels with her and will she find a husband for daughter, Victoria Luise," who the German people affectionately call 'Prinzesschen', asks the Berlin correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

The Empress will be accompanying her husband, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in May for the "unveiling of the Queen Victoria memorial, and many believe the answer to the first question will be yes.  Kaiser Wilhelm "has no idea of hiding his light under a bushel anywhere."  He will give "orders to his submissive spouse that she shall keep his company and make a good show."   There will be no competition as Wilhelm "will do all the talking, so if she is suitably bedecked that will suit Wilhelm to a T."

It is expected that the Kaiserin "wants much encouragement to display the contents of her jewel case."  She is usually "plastered with jewelry, from her coiffure downwards."  She often wears an enormously long rope of pearls.   From the first days of their marriage, Auguste Viktoria has accepted that her husband is the boss, and she has "conducted herself accordingly with complete success."  She is keenly interested in affairs of state,  and "although he hasn't realized it, it has been a restraining influence on her impulsive and telegram-dispatching husband."

[one can only wonder what Wilhelm would have made of texting, Twitter, and Facebook -- Unlike, unlike, Unlike!]

This will be Princess Viktoria Luise's first trip to England, and she is looking forward to it with "great excitement."  Her visit to England is giving rise to rumors about a possible future marriage with a member of the British royal family.  But who will be the "object of the search?" 

The Prince of Wales is still a schoolboy, and the only other eligible princes are Princess Beatrice's three sons, Princes Alexander, Leopold, and Maurice of Battenberg, and Prince Arthur of Connaught.  The three Battenberg princes are seen as the most unlikely for the Kaiser "was always gratuitously rude to their father," and would not acknowledge his royal rank for many years, even after the late Prince Henry had been given the rank of royal highness by Queen Victoria. 

Although "a very nice boy," Prince Arthur "has no position of his own," as he is the king's nephew and not the king's son.

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