Michael I of Romania

Mihai I of Romania (in Romanian: Mihai I; Sinaia, Romania; October 25, 1921-Aubonne, Switzerland; December 5 2017) was the last king of Romania, reigning from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947.

Shortly after Miguel's birth, his father, Crown Prince Charles of Romania, became involved in a controversial relationship with Magda Lupescu. In 1925, Charles was pressured to renounce his claim to the throne and moved to Paris in exile with Lupescu. In 1927, Miguel ascended the throne, after the death of his grandfather, King Ferdinand I. As Miguel was still a minor, a regency council was established, composed of his uncle, Prince Nicholas, the patriarch Miron Cristea and the President of the Supreme Court, Gheorghe Buzdugan. The council proved ineffective and, in 1930, Charles returned to Romania and replaced his son as monarch, reigning as Charles II. As a result, Michael was again heir apparent to the throne and received the additional title of Grand Voievod of Alba-Iulia.

Charles II was deposed in 1940 and Miguel became king again. Under the government led by military dictator Ion Antonescu, Romania aligned itself with Nazi Germany. In 1944, Miguel participated in a coup against Antonescu, appointed Constantin Sănătescu as his replacement, and subsequently declared an alliance with the Allies. In March 1945, political pressures forced Miguel to appoint a pro-Soviet government headed by Petru Groza. From August 1945 to January 1946, Miguel carried out a "real strike" and he tried unsuccessfully to oppose Groza's communist-controlled government by refusing to sign and endorse his decrees. In November 1947, Miguel attended the wedding of his cousins, the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark in London. Shortly after, on the morning of December 30, 1947, Groza met with Miguel and forced him to abdicate. Miguel was forced into exile, his property confiscated and his citizenship stripped. In 1948, he married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma (thereafter known as Queen Anne of Romania), with whom he had five daughters, and the couple eventually settled in Switzerland.

The communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown in 1989 and the following year Miguel attempted to return to Romania, only to be arrested and forced to leave upon arrival. In 1992, Miguel was allowed to visit Romania for Easter, where he was welcomed by a large crowd; A speech he gave from the window of his hotel attracted a million people to Bucharest. Alarmed by Miguel's popularity, the post-communist government of Ion Iliescu refused to allow him any further visits. In 1997, after Iliescu's defeat by Emil Constantinescu in the presidential election the previous year, Miguel's citizenship was restored and he was allowed to visit Romania again. Several confiscated properties, such as Peleș Castle and Săvârșin Castle, were eventually returned to his family.

Childhood and youth

Miguel was the son of the then Crown Prince Charles of Romania and Princess Elena of Greece, and grandson of King Ferdinand I of Romania, who reigned at the time.

He was the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and King Christian IX of Denmark, cousin of King Constantine II of Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Sofia of Spain. He was also a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Queen Margaret II of Denmark, and King Harald V of Norway.

First period of reign

When Charles fled with his lover Elena Magdalena Lupescu—of Jewish descent, later his wife—he was forced by his father Ferdinand I to renounce the Romanian throne in January 1926 and the authorities designated Michael as heir.

Upon the death of his grandfather, on July 27, 1927 and at only 6 years old, he was proclaimed king of Romania, although at the head of the country was a regency council that his grandfather proclaimed in his will headed by his uncle, Prince Nicholas of Romania and also made up of Patriarch Miron Cristea and Gheorghe Buzdugan, president of the Romanian Supreme Court.

In his short first period of reign and under the government of the regency, Romania continued to experience economic growth due basically to the export of oil and receiving great cultural influence from France. The effects of the great world economic crisis of 1929 also took a toll on the growing Romanian economy and the social situation was destabilized.

Return of Charles II

In 1930 his father suddenly returned to the country with the invitation of politicians dissatisfied with the regency, and taking advantage of his son's minority situation and the complicated political situation in Europe, he recovered the throne on June 8, 1930 as Carlos II, designating Michael as the crown prince.

In the ten years that his father's reign lasted (1930-1940) Miguel I, once again prince, took the opportunity to receive an education appropriate to his future responsibility. In the international arena, Charles II could not prevent the fall of Romania into the German-Italian area of influence. As a result of the German Soviet Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Romania, according to a secret clause, lost to the USSR Bessarabia (current Republic of Moldova) and Bukovina, which Russia had won in the war against the Ottoman Empire and which were taken from it taking advantage of the lack of control of the revolution. Internally, the appearance of the Iron Guard and the violence it unleashed clouded Romanian social and political life in the face of the impotence of King Charles II. Given all this, the king abdicated to his son on September 5, 1940 and fled the country, leaving Michael I at the head of the Romanian monarchy at a very delicate moment. Miguel was crowned king on September 6, 1940.

Second period of reign

At only 19 years old, Michael I acceded to the throne again, just at one of Romania's moments of greatest weakness. This fact was used by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to force the Romanians to cede northern Transylvania to the pro-German regime of Hungary on August 30, 1940.

Faced with the need to put a strong government at the head of the country that would put an end to internal disorders and avoid further territorial disintegrations, in September 1940 Michael I gave the leadership of the government to General Ion Antonescu. He ceded southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria under the promise that northern Transylvania would be returned. Ion Antonescu established himself as Conducător and proclaimed the "Legionary State." In January 1941, Antonescu's government decreed the illegality of all political parties, while the Iron Guard eliminated numerous opposition politicians.

On June 12, the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu was the first ally of Germany to receive news of Hitler's plans to soon attack the Soviet Union, following the deployment of several divisions to the Soviet border at the German request at the beginning. of the month. Antonescu expressed his desire to participate in the invasion from the beginning; he wished not only to recover the territories lost in June 1940, but to participate in what he considered a Christian crusade against infidel Bolshevism. He therefore promised full military and economic cooperation with Berlin.

On June 22, 1941, Romania entered the war, alongside Germany and its allies, attacking the Soviet Union, without prior declaration of war. It was the beginning of a war considered in Romania "a holy, anti-communist, just and national war", which caused enthusiasm among a large part of the population. Romania mainly wanted to recover the provinces occupied by the Soviets in June 1940 and definitively eliminate any threat. Soviet. The Romanian leaders and the population hoped that the campaign would be short thanks to the supposed German military superiority.

In a month of campaigning, the Romanians retook Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, completing their main military objectives. The 3rd Romanian Army, actually commanded by a German general, took the old capital of Cernăuţi on July 4. The operations to recover the provinces lost in 1940 had practically ended on July 27, with Romania having suffered nearly twenty-one thousand casualties.

On July 27, 1941, Hitler, who saw the Alliance as an opportunity to concentrate German resources in the war further north, sent a letter to Conducător Ion Antonescu in which he requested his cooperation and that of his troops stationed along the Dniester River, in exchange he would hand over to Romania the administration of the area between the Dniester River and the Southern Bug River, a region that had never been part of Romania. However due to Antonescu's desire to erase the humiliation, which for him had meant the delivery of part of the region of Transylvania to Hungary, in the Second Vienna Arbitration, he accepted Hitler's request on July 31. The area occupied by Romania would be called Transnistria Governorate and its center would be the city of Odessa.

At the end of 1942, the 3rd er and the 4th Romanian armies are completely destroyed in the course of Operation Uranus, which was a severe blow to the country and Romanian public opinion. However, Ion Antonescu's regime did not consider its alliance with Nazi Germany but, on the contrary, sent new contingents of Romanian troops that would again be destroyed in the course of the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive and the subsequent Crimean Offensive..

In 1944, as a consequence of the disasters suffered on the Eastern Front and the Allied bombings, the Romanian economy was in an increasingly delicate situation. Resentment against the increasing burdens of the German presence in Romania continued to grow, and was shared even by those who had been the most fervent supporters of the military alliance with Nazi Germany and subsequent entry into World War II.

It would not be until August 23, 1944, after the Red Army broke the German-Roman defensive lines in the course of the 2nd Offensive of Jassy-Kishinev, and the Soviet vanguards reached Romanian territory. When King Michael I gave a coup, he ordered the government of Antonescu to stop and formed a national concertation government that officially called for the armistice of the Allies that same day. The following day (24 August), Romania withdrew from the Tripartite Covenant. Likewise the monarch ordered the Romanian units to stop fighting the Soviets.

At dawn on August 25, 150 German planes bombed the capital to support the German attempt to retake the city, new German reinforcements advanced towards the capital from Ploiești in an attempt to prevent Romanian defection, an attempt that ultimately failed. After the German bombing of Bucharest, the Romanian Government declared war on the Axis on August 25. On September 12, 1944, it signed the Moscow armistice by which Romania renounced Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (which had been recovered by the USSR), the south of Dobrudja (ceded to Bulgaria), but recovered the north of Transylvania, occupied by Hungary after the Second Vienna Arbitration. He also agreed to pay the amount of 300 million as compensation for war damage to the Allies. of dollars. British and American political leaders considered that the armistice conditions imposed by Moscow were very moderate taking into account what the Soviets had suffered.

On July 19, 1945, Marshal of the Soviet Union Fyodor Tolbukhin, on behalf of the Soviet government, presented the Order of Victory No. 16 to King Michael I of Romania.

End of the Romanian monarchy

With the Second World War over and the country occupied by Soviet troops, Michael I's position weakened. From the end of 1944 to March 1945, a coalition government was formed consisting of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), the National Liberal Party (Partidul National Liberal - PNL), the Christian Democratic Peasant Party (< i>Partidul Taranesc Crestin si Democratic - PTCD) and the Social Democratic Party (Partidul Socialdemocrat - PSD), with a marked air against the Soviet occupation.

On March 6, 1945, Petru Groza excluded the members of the PTCD and the PNL from the government, gave the communists various key ministries and promulgated the agrarian reform on March 25 of the same year. Given all this, Michael I tried in vain for the intervention of the United Kingdom and the United States to prevent the fall of Romania into the Soviet orbit.

Finally the Groza government won the general elections of March 19, 1946, which gave an overwhelming majority to the National Democratic Front that included the PCR and other minority parties. After the elections, and in the face of allegations of electoral fraud, the PNL and the PTCD were declared illegal (August 1947) and the General Assembly, made up entirely of communists, forced King Michael I to abdicate, and he was expelled from the country. and stripped of Romanian citizenship. He took refuge in London until he moved to Switzerland, first living in Lausanne, and later moving to Versoix, where he resided until his death. In 1997 he was authorized to return to Romania and was granted some properties confiscated from his family after the fall of the monarchy, such as the Peleş Castle in Sinaia, as part of the reconciliation process promoted by President Ion Iliescu in 2000. that his Romanian citizenship was also recognized again.

In 2001 he regained the title of king, also being recognized as former head of state. His intense work in Romania, unrelated to party politics and closely linked to social initiatives, led him to exercise patronage of various social charities, which contributed decisively to enhancing his prestige as a moral reference in a country in which the political class has not enjoyed great respect from the citizens.

On 25 October 2011, Miguel de Romania delivered his first speech to the Parliament of his country since 1947, when he had been overthrown for the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Romania.

Death

In March 2016 it was announced that Miguel from Romania suffered from chronic leukemia and squamous cell carcinoma with metastasis. On August 1, 2016, his wife, Queen Anne, died.

King Michael died at his home in the town of Aubonne on December 5, 2017, being the penultimate leader of the Second World War to die, the last being King Simeon of Bulgaria.

Marriage and children

He married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma on June 10, 1948, with whom he had five daughters:

• Margarita (1949-), who married Radu Duda (1960-), with no descendants in 1996.
• Elena (1950-), who married in 1983 Leslie Robin Medforth-Mills (1942-2002), with whom she has two children; divorced in 1991, she remarried in 1998 with Alexander Philipps Nixon McAteer (1964-), without descent.
  • Nicolas Medforth-Mills and Romania (1985-).
  • Karina Medforth-Mills and Romania (1989-).
• Irene (1953-) married in 1984 with John Kreuger (1945-), with whom she has two children; divorced in 2003, she remarried in 2007 with John Wesley Walker (1945-), without descent.
  • Michael-Thorsten of Romania and Kreuger (1985-), married in 2012 with Tara Littlefield, with whom he has a son.
    • Kohen Kreuger (2012-).
  • Angelica-Margareta de Rumanía y Kreuger (1986-), married in 2009 with Richard Robert Knight, with whom she had two daughters.
    • Bianca Knight and Kreuger (2007-).
    • Diana Knight and Kreuger (2011-).
• Sofia (1957-), who married in 1998 Alain Michel Biarneix (1957-) divorced in 2002.
  • Elisabeth-Maria Biarneix and Romania (1999-).
• María (1964-), who married Kazimierz Wiesław Mystkowski (1958-) in 1995, divorced in 2003, without descent.

Honorary distinctions

Orders

• Kingdom of Romania: Sovereign Grand Commander Knight with Necklace of the Order of Michael the Valiente
• Home of Romania: Sovereign Knight Great Cross with Necklace of the Royal Order of Carol I
• Home of Romania: Sovereign Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown
• Kingdom of Romania: Sovereign Knight Great Cross with Necklace of the Order of the Star of Romania
• Kingdom of Romania: Sovereign Knight Great Cross with Necklace of the Order of Fernando I
• Belgium: Knight of the Order of Leopoldo I
• Czech Republic: Great Cross with Necklace of the Order of the White Lion
• Finland: Big Cross with White Rose Order Necklace
• France
  • French Royal Family (Rama Orléans): Grand Cross Knight with Necklace of the Royal Order of Saint Lazarus
  • France: Grand Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honor (1989)
• Royal Greek Family: Big Cross Knight of the Royal Redeemer Order
• Royal Greek Family: Knight of the necklace of the Royal Order of Saints George and Constantine
• Royal Greek Family: Big Cross Knight of the Royal Order of George I.
• Royal Greek Family: Knight of the Royal Decoration of the Royal Greek House Archived on September 24, 2015 in Wayback Machine.
• Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Italy).
• Great Knight of the Order of Saints Mauritius and Lazarus (Italy).
• Grand Cross Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy (Italy).
• Knight of the Order of the White Eagle (PolandPoland).
• Big Knight of the Order of the White Lion (Czech Republic).
• Russia
  • Russian Imperial Family: Knight Great Cord and Necklace of the Imperial Order of Saint Andrew
  • Soviet Union: Grand Officer of the Order of Victory
• United Kingdom: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
• Royal Yugoslav Family: Knight Great Cord of the Royal Order of the Star of Karadjordje
• Royal Yugoslav Family: Knight Great Cord of the Royal Order of San Sava

Military

• Commander-in-Chief of the Legion to Merit (United States of America.
• Emblema de Honor de las Fuerzas Armadas Rumanas (Romania Romania, 24 October 2012).

Commemoratives

• Medal of the 50th Anniversary of King Carlos XVI Gustavo (Sweden Sweden, 30 April 1996).
• Medal of the 60th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (Russia Russia).

Civilians

• Keys of the city of London (England).
• Honorary Citizen of Kroměříž (Czech Republic).

Ancestors