Princess Elizabeth of Greece and Denmark

Biography

Early childhood (1904–1909)

Second daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, Princess Elizabeth was born on 24 May 1904, at the Tatoi Palace. Nicknamed "Woolly" because of her thick hair, she was born less than a year after her older sister Olga, with whom she became very close as she grew up. Two years later, the family expanded again with the arrival of Princess Marina, who did not quite have the same closeness with her elder sisters.

Regularly dressed identically by their mother, the three girls grew up in a loving and united home. Together and to their parents the girls generally spoke in English, and it was this language that they used most spontaneously, even though they had a perfect command of Greek, which they spoke among themselves while abroad when they did not want to be understood. During their early childhood, Elizabeth and her sisters received a relatively simple education, under the supervision of a British governess named Kate Fox. Raised in the Orthodox faith, the princesses received their religious instruction from Ioulía Somáki-Karólou, a friend of their paternal grandmother, Queen Olga.

In Greece, Elizabeth and her family resided at the Nicholas Palace, an Athenian wedding gift from the Tsar of Russia to his cousin. During the reign of George I, the family also stayed regularly in Tatoi, where Elizabeth and her sisters were happy to meet up with their many Greek cousins. After Constantine I's accession to the throne, however, the princess's parents acquired their own second home, in Kifissia. With Kate Fox being a fan of outdoor activities, Elizabeth regularly visited the beaches of Vouliagmeni and Phalerum, where she enjoyed swimming and sunbathing. Together with their parents, she and her sisters also used to visit archaeological sites, museums and art galleries.

Prince Nicholas and his wife travelled to Russia once or twice a year, and Elizabeth and her sisters spent time in their mother's country from their early childhood. Their first visit to the Russian Empire coincided with the 1905 revolution, which forced the princesses to leave Saint Petersburg in a hurry and find refuge in Schwerin with their maternal grandmother.

For the girls, these trips to Russia were an opportunity to meet their numerous Romanov relatives: first the Vladimirovich branch (in other words, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, their three sons and their families), then the Konstantinovich branch (descended from Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, maternal grandfather of Prince Nicholas) and finally the main branch of the imperial family (and in particular the three younger children of Tsar Nicholas II, who were closer in age to the Greek princesses).

Political turbulence (1909–1920)

Elizabeth's early childhood was also marked by the series of upheavals that shook Greece from 1909. That year, a military coup, known as the Goudi coup, forced the sons of King George I, including Prince Nicholas, to resign from the Army. Shortly after, Eleftherios Venizelos, a Cretan politician known for his distrust of the royal family, took over as head of government. Under his leadership, Greece engaged in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, which allowed it to considerably expand its territory at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. However, King George I was assassinated during the conflict, causing great grief to Elizabeth and her sisters.

At the same time, Kate Fox was sidelined and the education of the three girls took a new turn. Entrusted to the care of two tutors, a Frenchwoman named Miss Perrin and a Greek woman named Kyria Anna, the princesses received lessons in French literature, German and gymnastics while their religious instruction was reinforced in preparation for their first communion. With her sister Olga, Elizabeth also took riding lessons and soon became a skilled rider, which distinguished her from her elder sister. Initially, these lessons were held in the gardens of the royal palace and the little girls learned to ride on ponies belonging to their cousins Prince Paul and Princess Irene. However, the deterioration of the relations between Queen Sophia and Grand Duchess Elena then led the little girls to train far from the royal palace.

Despite the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the tensions it caused in the Balkans, Elizabeth and her family undertook their annual visit to Russia in July 1914. Surprised by the outbreak of the First World War while they were in Saint Petersburg, the family returned hastily to Athens in September after crossing Romania and Serbia. This was the beginning of a difficult period, known as the National Schism, during which the Greek people were torn between Venizelists, who supported entering the war on the side of the Triple Entente, and royalists, who were keen to preserve the neutrality of the country, weakened by the Balkan Wars.

Even within the royal family, the question of participation in the global conflict was causing tensions, especially since Elizabeth's mother suspected Queen Sophia of supporting the cause of her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II. In addition to these divisions, which led Elizabeth to see the daughters of King Constantine I less regularly, the war also brought its share of financial difficulties. Prince Nicholas's income depended very largely on his wife's appanage, and his household was heavily affected by the economic crisis that was raging in the Russian Empire. Long protected from fighting, the Hellenic capital was also hit by Allied fire in December 1916, forcing Elizabeth and her sisters to seek refuge in the cellars of the Nicholas Palace.

Search for a husband (1920–1934)

On 25 October 1920, King Alexander died of sepsis after being bitten by a domestic monkey. This unexpected event provoked a political crisis in Athens, where Eleftherios Venizelos was already weakened by the war he had unleashed against Turkey. Defeated in the November elections, he was forced to abandon the government to the monarchists, who then organized a referendum to restore Constantine I to the throne. The ensuing royalist wave thus allowed members of the dynasty to return to Greece, which happened in December 1920. A few weeks after these events, Kate Fox resumed her position in Prince Nicholas's household, much to the delight of Elizabeth and her sisters.

Within the royal family, the end of exile was also the occasion for other celebrations, which led Elizabeth to travel to France, Romania and Greece. In February 1921, Crown Prince George married Princess Elisabeth of Romania in Bucharest. The following month, Princess Helen married Prince Carol of Romania in Athens. Finally, in November, the baptism of Prince Philip took place in Corfu. In March 1922, another union seemed to be taking shape with the engagement of Princess Olga and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

The engagement had barely been made public when it was cancelled by the heir to the Danish throne, who also made the mistake of disclosing his decision to Elizabeth before even speaking to Olga, placing the princess in a very uncomfortable position with her elder sister. However, the prince had already committed another faux pas involving Elizabeth some time before: during the official presentation of the young couple to the Athenian crowd, Frederik took Elizabeth's hand instead of Olga's, thus humiliating his bride.

Added to this rupture was another misfortune, the consequences of which were far more serious for Elizabeth and her family. With Greece's military situation in Asia Minor, which was deteriorating with Turkey, a coup d'état took place in the Hellenic kingdom, forcing Constantine I to abdicate in favor of the Diadochos on 27 September 1922. In the following weeks, a purge hit the Greek state and Prince Andrew was arrested. Narrowly saved by the intervention of foreign powers, he nevertheless had to go into exile, something to which Prince Nicholas also resolved. Reduced to the status of a puppet king, George II himself was eventually forced to abandon Greece, and the republic was proclaimed on 25 March 1924, depriving Elizabeth and her relatives of their Greek nationality.

Countess of Törring-Jettenbach (1934–1955)

After their marriage, Elizabeth and Carl Theodor settled in Munich. The princess gave birth to a boy there, born just over a year after his parents' union, on 11 January 1935, and named Hans Veit after his late paternal grandfather. Two years later, a girl, born in Winhöring on 20 May 1937 and named Helene in honour of her maternal grandmother, joined the family after a difficult birth. A loving and caring mother, Elizabeth communicated with her children in English, a language she also used with her husband. Although she remained Orthodox until her death, the princess raised her offspring in the Catholic faith.

The arrival of the two children did not prevent Elizabeth and her husband from continuing to travel around Europe to meet their relatives. Princess Marina married the Duke of Kent in November 1934, and the Törrings made several trips to Great Britain. They also continued to frequently visit Princess Olga and Prince Paul in Yugoslavia. In 1935, the monarchy was restored in Greece and Elizabeth's parents decided to return to live in Athens. In 1937, Elizabeth returned to the country of her childhood on the occasion of the marriage of Crown Prince Paul to Princess Frederica of Hanover. The death of Prince Nicholas in 1938 led his daughter to return to Greece for his funeral. The princess subsequently made further visits there to help Grand Duchess Elena settle her affairs.

During these years, Elizabeth also regularly welcomed her relatives to Bavaria. In 1938, Princess Olga's 35th birthday was celebrated at the Törrings' house at Winhöring Castle. In her adopted country, Elizabeth was also in close contact with her cousins Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie, who had also married German princes.

According to Count Hans Veit of Törring-Jettenbach, his parents had no sympathy for Nazism. He justified this by saying that his family was Catholic, and therefore belonged to a community persecuted by Adolf Hitler, and that his father was excluded from the army by the "Princes' Decree" of 1940, which could only distance him from the Nazi regime. In fact, Elizabeth and her husband never joined the Nazi Party, unlike several of the princess's cousins. Furthermore, the communications of Elizabeth and Carl Theodor were closely monitored by the German authorities because of their connections with foreign powers.

Nevertheless, the often heated discussions between the Törrings, on the one hand, and the Kents, the Yugoslavians and Grand Duchess Elena, on the other, show that at the end of the 1930s, Carl Theodor and Elizabeth readily supported the policies pursued by the Führer. Furthermore, in 1938, the Count fulfilled his military duty without flinching during the Anschluss and the invasion of the Sudetenland. As for Elizabeth, she actively helped her sister Olga organise the reception of Hermann Göring and his wife Emmy in Belgrade in 1935. Later, at the beginning of the Second World War, the princess took refuge in Yugoslavia with her children for a while, but it was only to escape rationing and not for political reasons that she left Germany.

Honours

Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Olga and Sophia (Greece)

Marriage and issue

On 9 and 10 January 1934, Elisabeth married Carl Theodor, Count of Toerring-Jettenbach (1900–1967), son of Count Hans Veit zu Toerring-Jettenbach (1862–1929) and Duchess Sophie in Bavaria (1875–1957), at Munich and Seefeld Castle. They had two children:

Hans Veit, Count of Toerring-Jettenbach (born 1935), who married Princess Henriette of Hohenlohe-Bartenstein (born 1938) in 1964. They have three children:

Clarissa, Countess of Toerring-Jettenbach (born 1965), married Prince Tassilo of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (born 1965);

Ignatius, Hereditary Count of Toerring-Jettenbach (born 1966), married Robiana Mentasti-Granelli (born 1976);

Karl, Count of Toerring-Jettenbach (born 1969), married Natasha Ivanova (born 1975) in 2009.

Helene, Countess of Toerring-Jettenbach (born 1937), married Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (1918–2004) in 1956. They have three children:

Elisabeth, Archduchess of Austria (1957–1983), married James Litchfield (born 1956) in 1982;

Sophie, Archduchess of Austria (born 1959), married Prince Mariano Hugo of Windisch-Graetz (born 1955) in 1990;

Maximilian, Archduke of Austria (born 1961), married Sara Maya Al-Askari (born 1977) in 2005.

Notes and references