Miriam Magdalena Schneider Phd Thesis

The “Sailor Prince” in the Age of Empire: Creating a monarchical brand in nineteenth-century Europe Miriam Magdalena Schneider This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 16.12.2016 Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... ii Introduction: A royal Prince who is also a Sailor ................................................... 1 1 Monarchy at sea: The maritime dimension of nationalization ......................... 13 PrinceΝχlfredΝandΝtheΝ“IslandΝnation” .................................................................... 15 PrinceΝValdemarΝandΝtheΝ“SeaΝfolk” ...................................................................... 25 PrinceΝώeinrichΝandΝtheΝ“WindowΝoutΝtoΝtheΝsea” ................................................. 34 PrinceΝύeorgiosΝandΝtheΝ“ύreeksΝofΝtheΝsea” ......................................................... 44 Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 53 2 Princes in disguise: The myths of equality and professionalism ...................... 57 Educations in transition .......................................................................................... 61 Sailors in the making .............................................................................................. 69 The limits of equality ............................................................................................. 78 Between performance and destiny ......................................................................... 88 Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 99 3 To the Empire’s ends: Mobility in a globalizing world ................................... 103 Imperial webs ....................................................................................................... 107 Royal go-betweens ............................................................................................... 123 Cosmopolitan nationalists .................................................................................... 133 Conclusion............................................................................................................ 142 4 Princes living on the edge: Celebrity and the markets .................................... 145 Ad-ventures of empire .......................................................................................... 149 The making of a brand ......................................................................................... 160 Winning hearts and minds .................................................................................... 174 Conclusion............................................................................................................ 184 Conclusion: A brand enters series production .................................................... 187 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 195 Archival Sources .................................................................................................. 195 Newspaper and journal articles ............................................................................ 198 Printed primary literature ..................................................................................... 202 Secondary Literature ............................................................................................ 204 i Abstract This study examines the systemicΝfunctionΝandΝpublicΝroleΝofΝ“SailorΝPrinces” within the context of the nineteenth-century revival of monarchy. It explores how, between 1850 and 1914, the reigning families of Britain, Denmark, Germany and Greece chose to educate their younger sons in the navy and thereby created powerful links with a mythically invested symbol of national identity and modernity, of bourgeois virtue, imperial integration and exotic adventure. All four countries perceived themselves as maritime powers defined by their long seafaring traditions and/or great hopes for a naval future, by their possession of (in)formal seaborne colonial empires and/or by their substantial imperial ambitions. By latching onto the prominent trend of the nineteenth-century lure of the sea and of naval enthusiasm, the dynasties of Saxe-Coburg, Glücksborg and Hohenzollern were able to adapt these mental geographies for their own purposes and thus to generate an appealing brand image for the emerging political mass market. Prince Alfred of Britain (1844-1900), Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862-1929), Prince Valdemar of Denmark (1858-1939) and Prince Georgios of Greece (1869-1957) all became powerful personality brands of their respective monarchies. This study investigates the mechanisms and the agents responsible for their success. It examines the role of the sea and of maritime imageries in nineteenth-century national identities; the myths and realities of naval education and naval professionalism; the processes by which seaborne colonial empires and diaspora communities were integrated into larger imperial units and represented to each other via interimperial diplomacy; as well as the public reception, appropriationΝandΝrecreationΝofΝtheΝ“SailorΝPrince”ΝbrandΝinΝvariousΝpopularΝmedia,ΝeέgέΝ family magazines, adventure fiction and consumer goods. ii Acknowledgements The completion of a doctoral thesis is like a long sea journey. Although you may, at times, feel all by yourself, steering your tiny nutshell through storm and bad weather, you are really surrounded by ever so many good forces working towards a safe passage. It is with these few lines that I would like to give them my heartfelt thanks. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for having received a Douglas and Gordon Bonnyman Scholarship in the Arts for three years from 2012 to 2015. It has provided me with the funds to commission a ship in the first place and to start out on my academic adventures. Second, I would like to thank all those persons and institutions that have offered their scholarly hospitality on my journeys. I would like to express my gratitude to Their Majesties Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark as well as to Donatus, Landgraf von Hessen for their gracious permission to consult and publish extracts from records held in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, in the Kongehusarkiv in Copenhagen and in the Archiv des Hauses Hessen at Schloss Fasanerie, respectively. I am also grateful for the kind and efficient help I received from the staff of the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, the Staatsarchiv Coburg, the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes and Geheimes Staastarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, the Stadtarchiv Kiel, the Rigsarkiv and Kongelige Bibliotek Copenhagen, the National Archives, Kew, the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive ΕΛΑ, the Greek National Archives and Greek National Library, Athens. I am particularly grateful to several academics who have been tremendously helpful during my stays in Copenhagen and Schleswig: Jes Fabricius Møller (University of Copenhagen) who was a wonderfully welcoming point of contact and has continued to be an unending source of knowledge and advice on nineteenth-century Danish history; Søren Ivarsson and Per Nielssen (University of Copenhagen) and Jakob Seerup (Tøjhusmuseet), who I was able to interview on their special subjects, Siamese, Danish colonial and Danish naval history, respectively; as well as Christina Schmidt (ago Ausstellungen) and Mechtild Freudenberg (Landesmuseum Schleswig), who have both been involved in exhibition projects about Prince Heinrich and thus share my regard for this quintessentialΝ“SailorΝ Prince”έ iii My most heartfelt thanks goes to those teachers, colleagues and friends who have accompanied me for considerable passages on my academic sea journey. I would like to thank Thomas Brockmann (formerly University of Bayreuth), Christopher Clark (University of Cambridge) and Karina Urbach (also formerly University of Bayreuth) for their moral and academic support during the first few years of my academic career. I would like to say thanks to so many friends from St Andrews and elsewhere who have been rays of light when the sun set at 3pm already; to the cheerful Heirs-to-the-throne team, particularly to Heidi Mehrkens (now University of Aberdeen) for the many wonderful soup-discussions we had in St Andrews – someΝofΝώeidi’sΝideasΝhave decisively influenced my own argument. But most of all, I would like to express my immense gratitude to my supervisor, Frank Lorenz Müller (University of St Andrews). There is no way to put down in writing how much this doctoral thesis owes to his academic guidance and personal support. If there is such a thing as a perfect supervisor, then it is definitely him. Finally, I would like to use the opportunity to think of all those good souls who have supported this thesis simply by being there for me: My family, particularly my parents, my twin-sister and my husband – whom I all love dearly. χnd,ΝlastΝbutΝnotΝleast,ΝIΝwouldΝlikeΝtoΝthankΝmyΝsubjectsμΝεyΝ“SailorΝPrinces”Ν– for being more than spoiled royal youths; the sea – for how it draws us to it; the ships – for their eternal promise of adventure. I am so

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