The Charm Offensive
sung by Queen Marie
Queen Marie
Regina Maria - Marie of Edinburgh - 'Missy'When & where
An English princess - granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and the Russian Tsar Alexander II - who married into Romania in 1893 and was its queen from 1914 to 1927, during World War I. She died in 1938.
Known for
Romania's 'Mama Ranitilor' - the Mother of the Wounded. As queen consort she was the real force behind a shy king: she pushed Romania into the war on the Allied side and became the glamorous, fearless face of the nation.
The coolest thing they did
In 1919 she went to the Paris Peace Conference herself, and where her politicians had stalled she simply charmed the victorious Allied leaders. Her star power helped win international recognition for 'Greater Romania' - Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina - roughly doubling the country's size.
Fun fact
She asked for her heart to rest at her beloved Balchik on the Black Sea. After her death, it was placed in a casket and enshrined separately from her body in the Stella Maris chapel. Her body was buried at Curtea de Argeș.
The human behind the legend
A vivid, glamorous free spirit dropped into a cold foreign court at seventeen. She had turned down her cousin, the future King George V - Queen Victoria sighed that 'Georgie lost Missy by waiting' - and instead poured herself into a country she'd never seen: learning it, wearing its folk costume, nursing its dying soldiers on the typhus front (refusing gloves; she also lost her youngest son to typhoid fever during the war), and later becoming an author feted across America. She gave a borrowed throne everything, including her heart.
References in this song
- ♦The title — at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Romania's prime minister had antagonized the Allied leaders and the country's claims were going nowhere. In March 1919 Queen Marie went to Paris herself and simply charmed the room: Clemenceau, Lloyd George, the press, all of it.
- ♦'The wild card wore a crown' — sending a queen to do a diplomat's job was as unusual then as it sounds now; she treated the conference like a stage and the newspapers adored her.
- ♦'Clemenceau — they call him Tiger' — French premier Georges Clemenceau's nickname really was 'the Tiger.' The verse retells a famous exchange, as tradition tells it: he complained that Romania was grabbing 'the lion's share' of the Banat, and Marie shot back that this was why she had come to see 'his first cousin, the Tiger.'
- ♦'I've come here to collect a promise: the land you swore' — Romania entered World War I in 1916 on the Allies' secret treaty promise of Transylvania, the Banat and part of Bukovina. At Paris the Allies argued Romania had forfeited the deal by signing a separate peace in 1918; Marie came to collect anyway.
- ♦'I nursed a war with my bare hands' — during the war she was famous for nursing cholera and typhus patients while refusing to wear gloves, and she lost her own youngest son to typhoid fever in 1916. Romanians called her 'Mama Ranitilor', the Mother of the Wounded.
- ♦'The Kaiser and the King of England both hang on my family tree' — as a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and of Tsar Alexander II, Marie was a first cousin of King George V, of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and of Tsar Nicholas II. World War I was literally a family feud for her, and she spoke English, French, German and Romanian.
- ♦'My country's twice the size' — the postwar settlement recognized Greater Romania (Transylvania, Bessarabia, Bukovina), roughly doubling Romania's territory; the traditional telling credits Marie's Paris charm offensive with helping tip the scales.
Lyrics
Paris, 1919 — the winners gathered 'round the table, Carving up a continent as fast as they were able. My country bled beside them, but our statesmen hit a wall — So Romania played her wild card... and the wild card wore a crown. Gentlemen — you've stared down four long years of artillery, But nobody, nobody prepared you for me. Charm offensive! The sweetest war you'll ever lose — No tanks, no guns, no ultimatums: just a queen you can't refuse. So run up your white flag, darlings, try to wear a grin: When Marie of Romania goes to war... Marie of Romania wins. Clemenceau — they call him "Tiger" — is the crossest man in France: "Madame, your greedy little kingdom wants the lion's share!" I look him in the whiskers and I don't blink and I don't dance: "Why, sir — that is why I came to charm the lion's cousin... in his lair." And I am not here begging favors, hat in hand and voice demure — I've come here to collect a promise: the land you swore. The land you swore. Charm offensive! The sweetest war you'll ever lose — No tanks, no guns, no ultimatums: just a queen you can't refuse. So run up your white flag, darlings, try to wear a grin: When Marie of Romania goes to war... Marie of Romania wins. You see silk and pearls and laughter — you should see what lies beneath: I nursed a war with my bare hands... and this smile has got teeth. I speak your languages, my darlings; your kings are kin to me — The Kaiser and the King of England both hang on my family tree. Charm offensive! The sweetest war you'll ever lose — No tanks, no guns, no ultimatums: just a queen you can't refuse. The ink is dry, the maps are drawn — my country's twice the size: When Marie of Romania goes to war... Marie of Romania wins. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, my dear — Well, a smile just beat them both. Carve it where you like it: "Marie of Romania was here." The sweetest war you'll ever lose.