The father of the Crown Princess was a Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and her mother a Russian Grand Duchess. In appearance the Crown Princess is very attractive, her face rather Russian, with an expression of good nature and cleverness. Although the Crown Prince is tall (about five feet ten), the Crown Princess overtops him, and on occasions when they appear together she wears shoes with very low heels and keeps her head bowed.
THE CROWN PRINCE AND CROWN PRINCESS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN THEIR PALACE ON THE NIGHT OF A FANCY DRESS BALL. THE CROWN PRINCESS IS IN RUSSIAN COSTUME, AND THE CROWN PRINCE WEARS A UNIFORM OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO OF HIS REGIMENT, THE DEATH'S HEAD HUSSARS
The marriage took place in 1905 and was undoubtedly a love match, the young couple having met in 1904 and become devotedly attached to each other.
There is only one defect in the character of the Crown Prince and that is his fondness for war, his regard for war not as a horror, but as a necessity, an honourable and desirable state.
I have long been apprehensive that when he came to the throne the world might again be hurried into a universal conflict and that vast military preparations would burden every State.
The Crown Prince and I often talked over shooting in various parts of the world. He wishes to see America and especially to kill game in Alaska where the heavily horned heads and enormous bears make such magnificent trophies. When I told him once how my friend, Paul Rainey, had killed seventy-four lions in Africa he could talk of nothing else at that interview.
The Crown Prince has been pictured as a libertine and a pillager. His face has been caricatured so often that people have the cartooned impression of him and believe him to be a sort of monstrous idiot.
On the contrary, he is a good sport, a clever man, a charming companion, but the shadow of military ambition hangs over all and I doubt if the effect of his infernal military education, commencing when he was a child, can be entirely removed.