THE NETHERLANDS: Popular Surprise

With their broad faces cracking wide in happy smiles one hard-raining evening last week, groups of loyal Dutch gathered under dripping trees at The Hague around a plain, white-painted house which anyone is free to approach. It was the Royal Palace of that good woman Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau who for 46 of her 56 years has been Queen of The Netherlands.

“Juliana is coming with her fiancé,” murmured the stolidly joyous Dutch who had just learned of their Crown Princess’ engagement (TIME, Sept. 14). A car was sighted whizzing toward the Palace and out boomed the royal Dutch cheer: “Hold the Sea! Hold the Sea!”

Motherly Queen Wilhelmina came out on her front steps. Ample Crown Princess Juliana climbed from the car. The two splendid women effusively embraced. And out from behind the wheel slipped a slender young man with large tortoise-shell spectacles to be kissed in his turn and greeted as “Dear Benno!” Huskily the crowd continued to cheer “Hold the Sea! Hold the Sea!”

Meanwhile the vast Dutch East Indies on the other side of the globe and diked-in little Holland had both tuned every available radio set to hear the Royal Family broadcast officially how they all felt about the engagement of Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina, Princess of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, Duchess of Mecklenburg, Doctor of Philosophy and honorary Doctor of Letters, to Prince Bernhard Leopold Frederic Eberhard Jules Curt Charles Godfrey Peter von Lippe-Biesterfeld, a sportsmanly apprentice employed without pay by the colossal German Dye Trust I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft. It was in 1916 that the reigning Prince of the German principality of Lippe conferred on “Benno’s” mother and her descendants the princely title of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Previously in 1909 he had elevated her to the rank of Countess Biesterfeld.

“My daughter’s engagement to Bernhard,” came the full-rounded radio voice of Queen Wilhelmina, “is founded on mutual affection. I am highly pleased with the excellent qualities of my future son-in-law. He has already shown he is a hard worker.”

“I love him!” broadcast Crown Princess Juliana to her future subjects. “Thank you for your congratulations and your homage. We are very happy. We have known each other more than a year. We first met during the winter sports [in Germany] and afterwards several times in Holland. We came to be on very good terms. These present hours wherein we’ve been shown so much kindness are the finest of our mutual life.”

Speaking Dutch with scarcely any German accent, beaming Benno said: “I am very happy and hope to be able to marry within two or three months. I will do my utmost to be of real help to my future wife.”

Between now and the date of the Crown Princess’ marriage, probably in December, Juliana, 27, and Benno, 25, will busy themselves completing an economic study of The Netherlands on which they have been working in recent months. In the best sense of the term, Prince Bernhard is a first generation “mama’s boy” and Crown Princess Juliana is a second generation “mama’s girl,” her mother Queen Wilhelmina having been reared and dominated by the late autocratic Queen Emma of The Netherlands (TIME, Aug. 6, 1928). Normal court usage would have been for the Crown Princess to propose to Benno, but Dutch courtiers stated last week that he proposed to Juliana in Switzerland.

Ideally suited to rule The Netherlands, Juliana was considered last week to be wisely marrying for love a prince who has not enough position or prestige to arouse in Dutch breasts the animosity risked by a Prince Consort from a foreign land who must always be more or less suspect of trying to influence his wife and Queen. For undertaking cheerfully this thankless role Prince Benno, by act of the Dutch Parliament, is expected to be invested on his marriage with the rank of Prince of The Netherlands and allotted the modest civil list as Prince Consort of 200,000 florins ($136,000) per year. Britain’s Queen Victoria, who proposed to her Albert, secured for him as Prince Consort, after much wrangling in the House of Commons, a civil list of $150,000.

Generally in The Netherlands last week the Crown Princess’ choice came as a complete surprise almost completely popular. Only Dutch Socialist papers such as Het Volk grumbled that Benno is a German and Germany is now the spearhead of anti-Socialist forces. However, likeable Benno served most of his apprenticeship to the German Dye Trust in its Paris office, speaks French even better than he speaks Dutch, and would be able from experience to show buxom Juliana a good time in Paris swank spots.