THE NETHERLANDS: Serene & Royal

Marked was the vigor last week of the Knickerbocker aristocracy of Manhattan in observing the joyous marriage day of Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Juliana of The Netherlands.

The newsorgan of most of these aristocrats is the New York Herald Tribune. Warmly it editorialized: “There is no country in Europe where Americans feel more thoroughly at home than Holland. . . . The language barrier matters little amid such hearty friendliness and genuineness of character. . . . This [“New York] was a Dutch colony before it was British. The Dutch strain is still strong in the city and the State. As for the pilgrims of New England, they found their first refuge in Holland, the land of toleration and it was from the port of the City of Leyden— where Princess Juliana studied law—that the ship Speedwell with her historic list of passengers set sail for Southampton, where the Mayflower awaited them. . . . Lucky are the people who can look back to such a history of toleration and strength as can the Dutch!” The 300-year-old Dutch bell of Manhattan’s Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas pealed for Juliana. Aboard the Dutch liner Statendam in Manhattan harbor, Knickerbocker notables toasted her name and “the truly Dutch name of President Roosevelt” at an eleven-course Dutch dinner. At the Netherlands Club in Gramercy Park, the Royal Dutch wedding caused even the most staid members to down thimbleful after thimbleful of scorching Holland gin.

Journalistically the story was that of Cinderella reversed. A Crown Princess whose reigning mother is probably Europe’s wealthiest woman was about to take as her Prince Consort a pleasant young German of excellent but impecunious family who might well be called Prince Cinderellus. From the moment of his marriage, Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld receives a Civil List from the Dutch Treasury of 200,000 florins yearly ($109,500).

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” More than a million people, princely and middle class, proletarian and peasant, swarmed into The Hague last week—so many that all its hotels and lodging houses could not begin to hold them. Restaurants and cafes received special permission from Her Majesty’s Government to keep open clear around the clock. Ten thousand Netherlands soldiers had not so much the job of keeping order as of making sure that no gin-sipping celebrant fell into one of The Hague’s canals, and none did. Piping hot Dutch chocolate, served from Army field kitchens with cake, kept the 10,000 soldiers warm, and grinning Dutch sergeants gave their men pocketfuls of sugar candy.

Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld, at the time his engagement to Crown Princess Juliana was announced (TIME, Sept. 14), was a minor salaried employe of the great German chemical trust I. G. Farben-industrie Aktiengesellschaft, and a Nazi Storm Trooper. As the future Prince Consort of The Netherlands he became a naturalized Dutch subject and swore allegiance to his future mother-in-law Queen Wilhelmina (TIME, Jan. 4). This made no difference to Nazi Party fanatics who insist, “Once a German always a German!” Last week rampant Nazis were whooping against the ex-German and ex-Nazi bridegroom in almost every German newspaper.

Reason: Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld was rumored to want played at his wedding the song of his native Lippe-Biesterfeld, a rustic German ditty with the hearty chorus: “Lippe-Detmold is a wonderful town, boom, boom, BOOM!” According to the Nazis, the Prince ought to have “demanded” that the Nazi Horst Wessel song or at the very least Deutschland Über Alles should boom at his wedding—particularly since Lippe-Biesterfeld was abolished as a principality by the German Republic. While the whole German press roared its wrath, the Nazi Political Police rushed around to the homes of three German princesses who had been slated to attend Juliana as bridesmaids, confiscated their German passports, so that they could not goto The Netherlands.

Exasperated ex-Storm Trooper Prince Bernhard then wrote a personal letter to Supreme Storm Troop Leader Adolf Hitler and two of the princesses were soon on their way to The Hague. The third sent word that she was “prevented from coming,” presumably because the police were still holding her passport. Like all Germans, the two princesses who got through to The Netherlands were forbidden to take out of their country more than 10 marks ($4.02). They were promptly supplied with pocket money by Queen Wilhelmina, and Her Majesty, with motherly solicitude, saw to it that all twelve bridesmaids were supplied with special, quick-action woolen underdrawers. These garments were ingeniously arranged so that the bridesmaids, without disturbing their dresses, could slip on their woollies underneath for the cold, draughty drive in royal coaches, slip them off again as soon as they got out of the chill Groote Kerk (Great Church) and back to the warm little Royal Palace for lunch.

On the night before the wedding Dutch prudence caused both Deutschland Über Alles and the Horst Wessel song to be played at a gala theatrical evening for the royal couple, while Dutch indignation sent speeding to Berlin an extremely stiff note in which Her Majesty’s Government demanded that the German Government make its press mind its manners. Scheduled to appear at the gala were some broad Dutch comedians famed for an act in which the chief funster appears as Kaiser Wilhelm II, then strips off gold lace, upturned mustaches and so forth until he finally ends in a plain uniform and smudge mustache as Adolf Hitler. At the last minute this political Dutch clowning was killed off the program and substituted were some harmless non-political British buffoons.

At the last moment, Prince Friedrich zu Wied, an ardent German Nazi who was to have acted as one of the bridegroom’s witnesses, failed to come to The Hague, giving the excuse of “illness” which was known to be a fib. This so incensed Queen Wilhelmina that Her Majesty named to act as a witness in his place Professor Jan Huizinga, a Dutch writer of tart anti-Nazi tracts, under whom the Crown Princess once studied history. German correspondents who had come to cover the wedding promptly left The Hague in a huff, all except one.

A total of 180 correspondents of various nationalities had sought places in the Great Church. Said Queen Wilhelmina reputedly to the Cabinet Minister responsible, “Do you not think four would be enough?” It was explained to Her Majesty that times are changing, and ultimately 108 correspondents were established in a press box, with the result that the ceremony was covered well and favorably in newsorgans throughout the world, except in Germany.

There no Nazi could forgive the German-born bridegroom for saying, “I feel Hollandish now, completely Hollandish.” Hollanders were heard to grouse and grumble a bit in the streets last week at just one thing Hollandish. Thousands had contributed, to buy as a wedding present for their beloved Crown Princess, a romantic, seagoing Royal Yacht on which she and her Prince Consort could cruise to The Netherlands Indies on—the other side of the world. They were dashed indeed when Queen Wilhelmina. who has never visited her Empire, ruled against the seagoing yacht, although Juliana has never visited the Empire either. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to create displeasure by ordering the money spent to buy a Dutch canal yacht, partly to do over the newlyweds’ palace.

Orange Wedding— Kept girlishly secret by buxom Juliana until she actually appeared as a bride on her wedding day was the nature of her dress, concealed under an ermine cape as she stepped into the glittering gold Royal Coach with Prince Bernhard. He was in the blue-braided black uniform of the Blue Hussars, with red military sash and black shako surmounted by red plumes. Eight coal-black horses drew them and behind came four horses drawing the coach of widowed Queen Wilhelmina with whom rode the widowed German mother of the bridegroom, discreetly sporty Princess Armgard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld (cigarets, fast cars and cocktails in moderation). Lined up outside the ancient Great Church were 60 apple-cheeked college classmates of Her Royal Highness, a double line of cadets from The Netherlands Indies in grim trench helmets, a single line of Royal Navy Cadets in parade dress and “100,000 Dutch girls,” thousands in national finery—not the everyday Dutch peasant bonnet but the gala holiday bonnet with embroidery and ornaments of actual gold, these representing solid Dutch peasant savings of many lifetimes. In The Netherlands nobody ever snatches or steals such ornaments, and woe to whoever should! Alighting, the bride & bridegroom went indoors to be united in civil marriage by the Burgomaster of The Hague, and to sign the register. No Dutch burgomaster ever omits to lecture a Dutch couple on this occasion severely and at great length, pointing out that marriage is no bed of roses, duty comes before pleasure, wealth is the visible reward of industrious virtue, and honesty the inescapable policy. This Dutch-uncle lecture, and the smart blow of the Burgomaster’s gavel with which he knocked the pair down to each other, Juliana & Bernhard bore with placid disregard of how much time was passing, but in the Great Church across the street impatience grew.

English Queen Mary’s brother, the Earl of Athlone, Governor of Windsor Castle, bore the delay without appearing bored, but the Duke of Kent, who some years ago was mooted as a bridegroom for Crown Princess Juliana (she was later a bridesmaid at his wedding), fidgeted and fumed with the “shyness” notable in all sons of King George V. A Dutch Cabinet Minister passed around chocolates, and these the Dutch and German guests beamishly consumed. The British would not eat in a Dutch church, as “it isn’t done in England,” and the shyness of Kent became each moment more excruciating.

In at last walked Crown Princess Juliana, her bridal gown of ivory satin in classical lines, her veil of tulle embroidered with the silver roses of Lippe-Biesterfeld, her train 18 feet long carried by four chil dren, and her sash of orange blossoms sent by loyal Dutchmen who grow oranges in Italy. The twelve bridesmaids were in six pairs, each pair dressed in a differing pastel color to produce a soft “rainbow effect” desired by the Crown Princess. She tripped over a cushion just as she was about to sit down in one of the two “bridal chairs” — there is no altar in a Dutch church — but Prince Bernhard kept his bride from falling, and later, when a diamond bracelet fell off her Royal Highness’ arm, he smoothly restored it. The clasp of her diamond necklace held.

“Serene Highness” was the inferior German title of Prince Bernhard up to the bridal moment. The Dutch pastor, having performed the marriage with the usual Dutch exchange of rings, remarked to the new Prince Consort of The Netherlands, “I may now address you as Your Royal Highness.” Amid cheers which made the whole city of The Hague bedlam, the wedding procession wound its way amid Dutch ohs and ahs at the brilliant cavalcade. Then, after luncheon at the Royal Palace, the Prince Consort & Crown Princess managed the impossible. With the connivance of the world press, the newlyweds, ostensibly bound for Innsbruck, boarded a train at The Hague and entirely disappeared. Even the New York Times, ordinarily intolerant of mysteries, headlined benignly, “JULIANA AND PRINCE MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEAR.”

At Igls near Innsbruck the best hotel had its bridal suite decked with blooms; the chef, with his eye on the railway timetable, had a sumptuous dinner under way; the town councilmen were in their frock coats; the town band had practiced up the Dutch national anthem.

In steamed the train, but Their Royal Highnesses were not on it. From The Hague the hotel proprietor received a terse Dutch telegram canceling the honeymoon reservations, explaining “the plans of Their Royal Highnesses have changed.” Two days later Their Royal Highnesses were discovered merrily honeymooning in Krynica, a jolly little ski resort in the Carpathian Mountains of Southern Poland.

Incognito as “the Countess & Count von Sternberg,” they had brought 21 pieces of luggage including two gramophones, six pairs of skis. Their Royal Highnesses publicly drank whiskey & soda at teatime, insisted on Polish dishes (item: hare in cream with beets) in the dining room. While Bridegroom Bernhard ski-jored behind a sleigh, Bride Juliana skied on a practice slope before a trainer and 47 cameramen, good-naturedly taking frequent spills and crying the only two Polish words she had learned: “Don’t photograph!” Considering how ably the world press can hound romantic couples when it wants to, world press applause this week for the autocratic, aristocratic Dutch way of putting over a royal wedding was a great tribute to the abilities of Premier Hendrikus Colijn. He is imperious, stuffy, vigorous and wise. Her Majesty was pleased last week to confer upon Premier Colijn the highest decoration in Queen Wilhelmina’s gift, the Grand Cross of the Order of The Netherlands Lion.