The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-18
sTATEswoMEN OF EUROPE.
Sketch of the Family Forces and AS
sociations Behind Bismarck.
From the Nev York Graphic.

bCNAAN
the governing being indirect, of course
There are six royal women in Europe who
exercise decided potency in current affairs
There was a seventh whose position gave
her significance minor though it was, and
whose intriguing habits were always peril
Gus to peace. But her own actions have re-
Gently sent Queen Natalie, of Servia, Rus
sian by birth and nee Princess de Stourdza,
into the obscure country of a very inditfer-
ent South German watering place. At
present she is out of the swim. The Queen
Dowager, now Regent of Spain, may be
counted as one of the stateswomen, for,
Austrian as she is, Christine has shown
great tactin dealing with contending parties
and harmonizing factions to her own SER
vice and that of her infant son. In these
respects she has shown, so far, some OF the
most respectable qualities of craftsmanship
Queen Louise, of Denmark, a Princess of
HeSSe CaSsel, now worn but lovable old
lady of II years, has displayed, with a
rather stupid and overbearing husband,
and, for majesty, very poor estate, some
of the best~qualtieS Of diplomacy. She has
made more and better royal matches than
any other royal mother in Europe, linking
as she has done her eldest daughter to the
throne of Great Britain and the Empire of
India; wisely marrying the eldest son to a
HIlHCeSs VI SWeuen anu Norway WHIo Ier
third child is King of Greece and has for his
wife, Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia.
Next to the marriage of Alexandria to the
Prince Of Wales, and equal in Importance to
it, is that of her fourth child, Dagmar, the
Czarina of Russia. Another daughter,
Thuyra, is the wife of Ernest, Duke of
Cumberland, who is also Duke of Bruins
wick and but for Bismarck would be King
of Hanover also. Queen Louise's youngest,
Prince Waldemar, has married royalty,
but not to a throne, having an Orleans
Princess for wife. He, however, obtained
wealth thereby. A single moments refec-
ton will convince any student of European
affairs that it has required more states
manlike tact to achieve these marriages
than 1T would to almost mold an empire,
for Denmark has bad nothing to give but
inoffensive relations, good health and bet
ter breeding. The Danish Queen has been
an excellent mother. As part of the
play, however. it is necessary to notice the
associations and policies that the Danish
marriages are linking ogether-Russia,
Great Britain, Greece, Sweden and Norway,
with the French Orleauists and their power
full marital connections. None of these are
attached to the Germany of Bismarck and
Won MotlSe, and the chief trend of their
influence may always be at least negatively
hostile. 1t is just that UlS inertia of resist
ance that Bismarck begins to feel press
upon him. There is not genuine Hohen-
zollern ally or friend i'll the entire circle.
Behind these alliances is the steady and I'M
deviating hostility which is known to
exist at the Copenhagen Court against Prus-
STA on account of the wrest from the Danish
Crown in 1864 of the Duchies of Schleswig
and Holstein.
The three royal women who are most
felt in public affairs are without question
decidedly active in politics, are first the
| brainy, censorious and penurious old lady
who wears at the age of SO the triple
crown Of Great Britain and Ireland and
the Imperial diadem of India, with a re-
markable tenacity of both ability and tact,
| pig-headedness and self-will that forms a
| surprising admiXture.
The next is her daughter, the Empress of
| Germany, handsome, stately, able woman
| Of AZ years, who has shown amid the hostile
conditions of the dreariest court of Europe
| a womanly power and intellectual capacity
which has won her the admiration of all
| who have observed her course The EN-
| press Victoria of Germany has very much
of her fathers critical and observant pow
ers, and like him she has learned the value
| of waiting. The Empress looks like Prince
| Albert, being tall, willowy and graceful.
Even now, when she has grown matronly
| she is not stout. There is a marked con
| trast in this with her mother, who is de-
| cidedly dumpy in figure and homely in fea-
| ture too. The old lady has certain air of
power and dignity which gives character
| to her face-a strong one it undoubtedly is
| that otherwise nothing could bestow.
| The British Victoria is not lovable person
| to an outside democrat at least. The Ger
| man Victoria, on the other hand, has de-
| cidedly popular qualities of thoughtful-
| ness and charity, as well as of intellect and
will.
In this she is paralleled somewhat by her
| imperial slster-in-law, the CZarina Dagmar,
who is also by marriage her cousin. The
Gar Alexander is first cousin to Emperor
Frederick, as he was the grand nephew of
the late Emperor William. But Dagmar
has no chance or desire, probably, for popu-
lar approval. Her tact and political ability
has been shown in creating a Court party
of the old Slavs when she and her husband
were next but not on the throne, and in
molding a good deal of Russian affairs since
accession in the direction of hostility to
Bismarck policy. As far, too, as fidelity to
Germany permits, Empress Victoria has
been her ally.
1t is worth while to comprehend the un.
dertow or family palace intrigues which
stand back and lie beneath all the present
agitation over the Battenberg furry.
Prince Bismarck has always despised the
Brunswick family. They are mean lot,
it must be acknowledged The English
people never had, take them all in all, a
more contemplate crowd of royalties
about them. The present Queen is the best
Of the lot, while the parent stem that re-
manned rooted in Germany until the Chan
cellor practically tore them up, like bad
favored bunch of weeds, have been utterly
disreputable for the past century. The
Saxe-Coburg lot he has not valued much
more higoly, it would seem. To him evil
IDENTIFY there has been only two or three
royal families into which a HohenzoIlern
might properly wed. All his prejudices,
political, puritanc and social, have been
concentrated against the present Empress
and her family Interests.
On the one side there are great mass of
occult and more or less concealed forces and
prejudices which run counter to the policy
of the great Prussian, and which if they
once get the power of action again will un-
questionably proceed to modify much of
what they do not overthrow, that belongs
to the vast structure Bismarck has so care
fully reared. And the three royal women
named are the centers of these hostile oc-
cultisms, not deliberately, perhaps, but not
the less so.
Then the Battenberg clan links itself
with the same efforts. The Hesse- Cassel
traditions are tied with the living ones of
Denmark. They are also influenced by the
same suppressed revulsion against the
domination of the Brandenburgers, which
exists despite Of the racial and intel
lectual recognition of what Germany owes