Royal relic fights for future of Romania

Published on Sunday 4 February 2007 00:11

KING Michael I, the last living head of state from the Second World War, is locked in a battle to restore the power of history's forgotten monarchy.

He has already won permission to return from exile but he still has an uphill struggle to achieve the full restoration of royal property and the trappings of former power.

Michael, 85, lunched with Hitler, shook Churchill's hand and lived briefly under Stalin's thumb. He is a quiet, an undemanding and, inevitably, a disappointed man. But he is a keen observer of the louder world around him.

"Unfortunately, I had four years with the Nazis and three years with the Soviets, and you get to the point - how should I say - you have radar in your nose," he said, smiling faintly.

His life, from the beginning, has been marked by betrayal. His father, Carol II, known as the playboy king for his romantic misadventures, abandoned Michael's mother for another woman when Michael was three, leaving him heir to the throne. When Michael's grandfather, King Ferdinand I, died two years later, in 1927, the boy became the youngest monarch in Europe. Then, less than three years later, Carol II returned to take back the crown.

Michael became king again in 1940, when the fascist dictator Ion Antonescu forced his father to abdicate. Michael's shining moment came four years later when he overthrew Antonescu and switched sides from the Nazis to the Allies. Many historians credit his brave act with shortening the war by weeks and saving tens of thousands of lives.

But within months, Churchill had traded Romania for Greece at a meeting in Moscow, and Michael's fate was sealed, according to Churchill's memoirs, with the approving tick of Stalin's blue pencil. The communists forced Michael to abdicate three years later, and he packed up his bags and left by train with four cars - his lifelong hobby - making a life in Switzerland largely on the generosity of others.

"It's not nice to talk about money, but you have to," he said, with an expression of hapless resignation.

Michael remains hopeful that his authority will be restored along the lines of King Juan Carlos I of Spain. He is still revered by most Romanians. But politicians and businessmen have little interest in the sort of moral oversight a king might provide.

He tapped his temple. "After 40 years of going through what we have gone through, we've got a bad bug in here," he said of the Romanian people. "It is the end of the dictatorship, but certain things remain and it is very difficult to change."

The collapse of communism in 1989 brought a surge of euphoria to the family. But the fleeting hope of restoration was followed by more years of frustration.

Finally, in 2001, Romania's parliament granted Michael the same rights as other former heads of state and put Elizabeth Palace at his disposal for as long as he lives. That same year, he won back Savarsin castle in western Romania, which he bought with his mother in 1943. Michael is still wrangling over restitution of the royal domain in Sinaia, a 160-acre spread with three castles, where he was born.