; The little Princess was christened during the summer of the Austro-Prussian War, on the eve of his father's departure to the front. At the age of three, Moretta was taken to visit her paternal grandmother, Queen Augusta of Prussia. She behaved extremely well but nevertheless she was severely reprimended by Queen Augusta for running out of the room without her consent.
Moretta, along with her sisters Sophie and Margaret, was very attached to her mother and father, and they loved each other tenderly.
In 1883, whnenMoretta was 17 years old, Prince Alexander of Battenberg, the ruling Prince of Bulgaria, visited the Prussian court. She was immediately caught by the tall and handsome Prince and fell deeply in love with him. He corresponded sending her gifts of jewelry. They decided to become engaged, but when they asked for the family's approval, they found only opposition. Moretta's grandparents, the new Emperor and Empress of Germany, her eldest borhter, Prince Wilhelm (future Kaiser Wilhelm II) and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, violently opposed the match. On the other hand, Queen Victoria and Moretta's mother, the Crown Princess of Germany, strongly supported her engagement to Sandro, as the Battenberg Prince was called. Her father, Crown Prince Fredrick, was not at all convinced with the match. Queen Victoria had always liked the Battenberg family, although their father, Prince Alexander of Hesse had married morganatically to their mother, a Polish countess, Julia Theresa von Haucke. Sandro's brothers, Louis and Henry would eventually married to the Queen's granddaughter Victoria of Hesse and to the Queen's younger daughter Princess Beatrice, respectivily.
Sandro was the ruling Prince of Bulgaria. Since the middle of the 14th century the Bulgarians had been subjects of the Ottoman Empire, always willing for thier independence. In 1875 and 1876 the Bukgarians joined the Christians of Bosnia and Serbia in an uprising against the Turks before the Russo-Turkish War. The Turks crushed the rebellion and 12 thousand Bulgarians were killed. Russia entered the war in order to protect the Balkan Christians against the Turks; the Russian actual intention was to create a large satellite state by adding the Balkan states to the Russian territory. To thwart Russia's plans, the Congress of Berlin (a group of nations gathered to solve the Balkan conflict) split Bulgaria into two separate territories: the principality of Bulgaria in the north and a Turkish province called Esatern Rumelia. The new Bulagrian principality needed a ruler and the strongest candidate was Sandro, who had been a volunteer for the Russain army during the Russo-Turkish War. He had been a encourage to enlist by his father, Prince Alexander of Hesse, who thought that Tsar Alexander II, whose wife was Prince Alexander's sister and Sandro's aunt, would help Sandro in his military career. But the Tsar's eldest son, the future Alexander III, despised Sandro, refering to him as his morganatic cousin or "the German", and any help was provided to him by the Imperial family.
It was his father who promote Sandro for the princely throne of Bulgaria; the young Battenberg prince made a suitable candidate since his father had links with the three great empires, he was the Tsarina's brother, he belonged to the German Royal House of Hesse and he had served in the Austrian army. Sandro had himself served in the Russian army and was someone whom the Russian could manipulate. He would also pleased Bismarck and the British so at the age of 22 he was named Prince of Bulgaria in 1879.
When Sandro arrived in Bulgaria, the governmetn situation was a complete chaos, with an unwrorable constitution. The Prince wrote about his new situation: "It is impossible to rule with this senseless Bulgarian Constitution, for it is inmaterial whether the Conservatives or Liberals are in power....The opposition is only concerned with changing places with the Government in power so that they can find posts for their own people... I cannot turn my back on Russia because I am too weak and too dependant and would lose all support if I sought elsewher for help";. Sandro's position weakened when in 1881, Alexander II was murdered by terrorists and Alexander III succeded him in the Russain throne. He found himnself between the Russians to whom he owed his possition and who wanted Bulgaria to be ruled for their own political benefit, and the Bulgarians, to whom he owed his allegiance and who wanted a genuine independence. Sandro inclined his balance towards the Bulgarians and Alexander III considered that the Russain influence in Bulagria was in danger with Sandro's inclinations. The Tsar oragnized a failed coup in Bulgaria against Sandro; as a result, Bismarck got angry too with Sandro for having imnfuriated the Tsar, who was Germany's ally.
In this very moment, when both, the Tsar and Bismarck were against him, was when Sandro visited Berlin, met Moretta and fell in love with her, founding with the Kaiser's and the Chancellor's opposition.
On Sandro's return to Bulagria, the Tsar ordered him to dissolve the Prlaiment and surrender his government to Russia. As Sandro refused, he increased the Tsar's animosity towards him and won the confidence of the Bulgarian Parliament.
In 1884, Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse, married Sandro's eldest broter, Prince Louis of Battenberg and the next year, his younger brother, Prince Henry, married the Queen's youngest daughter Beatrice. These two marriages increased Bismarck's opposition to the Sandro-Moretta marriage because he considered that a third marriage of a Battenberg prince to a member of Queen Victoria's family would make a powerful infleunce hostile to his interests.
After Sandro returned to Bulgaria from his brother's wedding in Engalnd, the Bulgarians in Eastern Rumelia, willing to join Bulgaria with Sandro as their ruler, revolted against teh Ottman Empire. Against the Tsar's will Eastern Rumelia suceeded in its purpose and offiacialy join Bulagria in November 1885. Later on, Serbia, supportted by Russia, invaded Bulgaria, which under Sandro's brave military leadership, defeated the Serbs.
Vicky constantly wrote letters to Sandro saying that Moretta was "sorry that in this decisive and momentous hour she cannot be by your side to share all the dangers and exitnments; she wears your pearls and your first letter sewn uo in a handeckerchief close to her heart.
Alexander III was outraged by how things were going in Bulgaria. He wanted to remove Sandro before aknowledging a unified Bulgaria. On the other hand, Queen Victoria strongly supported Sandro and Bulgaria's unification. The Tsar managed to convince a group of disgrunted Bulgarina officers to kidnap Sandro and put him on a boat down the Danube River into which was hoped to be a definite exile from Bulgaria. But the Bulgarians sent a wire to Sandro inviting him to return to the country. Queen Victoria and Vicky urged him tio return and so he did. At his return to Sofia he was acclaimed b y the Bulgarians and carried on rthe army officers' shoulders back into his palace. Queen Victoria said Sandro was one of the bravest and wisest of rulers.
But Sandro made a mistake; he foolishly wired the Tsar saying that he hoped for a future good relation between them and he offered to voluntarily abdicate to the Bulgarian throne if Alexander III wished him to do so. Alexander answered that he did not approve Sandro` return to Bulgaria and publicly accepted his offer of abdication. The Prince's supporters were atonished and Queen Victoria wrote him: ";I am speechless and entreat you to cancel this step...". But Sandro was exahusted; he appointed a triunvirate regency and left Bulgaria never to return again on September 8, 1886.
With Sandro out off the throne of Bulgaria, Bismarck had no reason for continuing to oppose the Prince's marriage to Moretta. But then he realised that Sandro was a potencial rival to be his succesor as Chancellor since he had proved to be a self-sacrificing hero with military courage. Bismarck had chosen as his susccesor his own son Herbert, who lacked the public appeal Sandro had. Kaiser Wilhelm had the intention to offer Sandro a commission in the German army but Bismarck advised him against doing it, warning him that Sandro could eventually propose himself to a candidate to the post of Chancellor representing the faction hostile to the Emperor. As a result, WilhelmI forbade Sandro to come to Berlin and joining the army and Sandro's affair with Moretta did not progress.
In December 1887 Sandro visited Windsor Castle. Queen Victoria and her daughter Beatrice (Snadro's sister-in-law) found him a very changed man; the once high-spirited man had become a sad one, and Princess Beatrice began to doubt if Sandro would made really a good husband for her niece. Besides there were some rumours that the sister of one of the officers who kidnapped him, had been found with him in bed when the kidnappers forced their entry. Beatrice and Queen Victoria began to change their mnind about the Sandro-Moretta marriage.
; Meanwhile in Berlin, another candidate for Moretta's hand had appeared. It was Bismarck's own son, Herbert. This fact encourage Vicky to increase her support to her daughter's marriage to Sandro. She would never accept her enemy's son as her own son-in-law. With the old Kaiser's death on March 9, 1888, Vicky'a hopes of achieveing the marriage increased since now she would have the support of her husband, the new Laiser Frederick III. She wrote inmediatelly to Sandro that she was planning to ask her husband to settle his marriage to Moretta. But things had changed for Sandro. Since he left Bulgaria he had set his home in Darmstadt and he had fallen in ove with an opera singer named Johanna Loisinger. He had forgotten Moretta. He wrote back to Vicky arguing that he was now a poor man with no position and moreover that Moretta's eledest brother, Crown Prince Wilhelm would opposed the marriage and would distroy Moretta's life if she married him. But Vicky refused to accept the idea that everything was over. The new Emperor Frederick III was mortally ill; he had a throat cancer that would kill him within three months. At his death bed, he sttled the marriage between his daughter Moretta and the Battenberg Prince.
Queen Victoria visited her dying son-in-law in Berlin. She arrived on April 24, 1888, accompanied by Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry. Bismarck considered that the Queen's visit was inconvenient since she would support the Bettanberg marriage. He managed things in order that when the Queen arrived the streets of Berlin were empty and nobody welcome her. The Chancellor and the Queen had a private interview in which she set it clear that Sandro was not anymore interested in marrying Moretta. At the end of the interview the German's attitude had changed towards the Quee and she was acclaimed in the streets as she passed by.
; Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice tried to convinced Vicky of Sandro's new feelings. The Sandro's affair was completely over when Frederick III died and the new Kaiser Wilhel II released Sandro of any engagement. He at last married his opera singer on February 6 1889. When she heard the news Vicky wrote to her mother: "All one can now pray and wish for is that she would be good anough for him and make him happy";. Moretta, for her part, fell into depression and self-compassion; she even threatened to kill herself.
;Vicky carried on searching for a suitable husband for Moretta. the first candidate was Prince Charles of Seweden, son of King Oscar II, but he refused to marry her. Then it was a Russian grand duke but the match also failed. Moretta was devasted; she wrote: "I shall never marry... all my relations, ssiters friends, do except my stupiod self. Nobody will have me. Nothing but dissapointment is my lot in life... I am too ugly, that is the reason".
In June 1890 Moretta became engaged to prince Adolf of Schaumburg Lippe, an awkward, homely and sedentary German prince, who was the fourth son of Prince Afolf I Georg of Schaumburg Lippe and Princess Hermine of Waldeck and Pyrmont. Wilhelm II approved Adolf a s suitable husband for his sister and they married on November 19, 1890 at Berlin. After the wedding, Adolf and Moretta went on ahoneymoon in Egypt and Greece, where Moretta suffeered a miscarriage after which she was unable to concieve again. They set their residence in the Sahumburg Palace in Bonn.
Three years after Moretta's wedding, Sandro became ill and died on November 17, 1893. He was buried in Sofia.
Adolf and Moretta lived a quiet life. Adolf died in the middle of World War I in 1916. After the war and the fall of the Gemran Empire, Moretta was allowed to live in Germany. She had a lonelier and meaninless life. In 1927, when she was 62, she met a young Russian refugee, Alexander Zoubkhoff, who was 27 years old. She married him in Novemebr of that year. Her family was shocked with the news of her marriage and they broke off realtions with her; she didn't care and she defended her marriage: " Nobody's consent -not even the Kaiser's- is required for my marriage. It is incorrect to say that he has refused consent as such step would be unnecessary, owing the fact that the Kaiser is not head of the Scahumburg Lippe family. In fact nobody's consent is required";. The marriage was a failure; two years later she began the divorce proceedings. Before the case came to court, Moretta died on November 13, 1929. Zoubkhoff was on his way to attend his wife's funeral when he was arrested for violating a law, piblished on March 1920, expelling all Russains parvenu from German soil. He died in poverty in Luxembourg in 1936.
Duff, David: The Shy Princess, the life of Princess Beatrice
Pakula, Hannah:An uncommon woman
Packard, Jerrold M.: Victoria's Daughters
Eilers Marlene: Queen Victoria's Descendants
