Barbu Știrbey

Early life and ancestry

Born into the prestigious House of Știrbey, he was the son of Prince Alexandru B. Știrbei and his wife, Princess Maria Ghika-Comănești (1851–1885), and grandson of another Barbu Știrbei (born Bibescu, adopted Știrbei), who was Prince of Wallachia and died in 1869. The Știrbey family was one of the more prominent and wealthier boyar (noble) families in Wallachia, and had been so since the 15th century.

Boyar

Știrbey was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, and was famous in Romania for his work in modernising the vast estates he owned, and "his model farm was recognized for the exceptional quality of its products". Știrbey was a polished, cultivated aristocrat known in Romania as the "White Prince" on the account of his impeccable manners and the "strange hypnotic quality" of his eyes. In common with other members of Romania's Francophile elite who wanted to emulate France, Romania's "big Latin sister", Știrbey spoke immaculate French and was always dressed in a dapper style that followed the latest fashions of Paris.

He married his second cousin, Princess Nadèje Bibescu in 1895, daughter of Prince Gheorge Bibescu and Marie Henriette Valentine de Caraman-Chimay, daughter of Prince Joseph de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay. They had five daughters: Maria, Nadejda, Elena, Eliza and Catharina. As a scion of one of the oldest boyar families of Wallachia while also being a descendant of the well known Bibescu boyar family, which had provided several voivodes and hospodars over the centuries, Știrbey had a somewhat patronising attitude towards the Romanian branch of the House of Hohenzollern. The Romanian Hohenzollerns were a Catholic Swabian cadet branch of the Prussian Protestant branch of the Hohenzollerns; Știrbey noted that his ancestors had been ruling Wallachia while the ancestors of King Carol I were mere petty Swabian nobility.

Știrbey was one of Romania's richest men while also being one of its largest landowners. At Buftea, he owned 225 hectares of farmland and another 225 hectares of forestland; in the Olt County, he owned 325 hectares of farmland and another 2, 500 hectares of forestland; in Plugari, he owned 5, 200 hectares of farmland, and at Plopii-Slăvești, he owned 345 hectares of farmland. In addition, Știrbey sat on the board of directors of several of Romania's largest corporations, insurance companies and banks such as the Franco-Romanian Railway Materials Company, the General Insurance Company of Bucharest, and the Steaua Română oil company. Amongst his lands included 200 hectares of vineyards. Reflecting his interest in the Romanian community of Transylvania, which at the time was part of the Austrian empire, Știrbey was member of the board of directors for the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People. Keenly interested in agrarian modernization, Știrbey founded an American style vine nursery at his Buftea estate, using the latest in Californian viticulture techniques to make his famous Știrbey wine. In a successful experiment, Știrbey was able to attach Romanian grapes to American rootstocks. He was the first to grow cotton and rice within Romania. Știrbey also set up on his Buftea estate a dairy farm, a mill and in 1902 founded a cotton factory. The "White Prince" was well known in Bucharest high society for the huge wine cellars under his house in Bucharest, from which he served the wines from his lands.

The wines that Știrbey produced on his estate were well known in the 20th century, with the Orient Express carrying 'Dining Car Stirbey' and 'Muscat Ottonel Stirbey' wines. Baron Jakob Kripp, the husband of Știrbey's granddaughter, Ileana Stirbey, stated: "Barbu Stirbey carried on this legacy into the 20th century. He was an entrepreneur and very modern in his marketing, establishing a high-value brand for his wines. Putting the esteemed family name on the wine labels gave a guarantee of quality. He even hired a couple of young, creative Romanian artists to make a series of funny adverts for his wines." The British oenophilist Caroline Gilby described the Știrbey wines as becoming a very "strong brand" under the management of the "White Prince" who worked relentlessly from 1904 onward to promote his wines into becoming the best known wines of Romania.

The National Liberal politician Ion G. Duca described Știrbey: "In a country of talkative people, I haven't met a quieter man, in a society concerned with obtaining effect I haven't seen a man displaying more modesty...Still, behind this banal appearance a tremendously interesting personality was hidden, with penetrating astuteness, exceptional ability and great ambition; a bizarre mixture of willfulness and laziness, decisiveness and fatalism, indifference and slyness. Brave, at times even daring, even though he preferred shadow to light, a lover of combinations, even though never practising plotting, Ştirbey was the type of the Romanian boyar who knew how to be flexible and sneak by". Princess Ann-Marie Callimachi described him: "His manner was unassuming, but full of charm. He spoke little, but had a gift of persuasion and an instinctive psychological insight made him rarely miss his aim whenever he set himself one. Extraordinary was the way he always struck the right note". In 1907, Știrbey's sister, Elisa Știrbey married Ion I. C. Brătianu, a rising politician in the National Liberal Party, forming an alliance between the Știrbey and Brătianu boyar families. Like her brother, Elisa was described as having a "powerful personal magnetism", but unlike him with his love of secrecy and the indirect approach, her methods were blunt and direct.

Relationship with Queen Marie

His real significance in Romanian history arises from his role as close confidant of Queen Marie, who was herself a highly influential figure in Romanian government circles prior to the accession of her son King Carol II to the throne in 1930. The American historian Paul Quinlan described Marie as: "...the classic fairy-tale princess. Highly intelligent, charming, outgoing, fluent in several languages, along with a gorgeous figure, golden hair, the bluest of eyes, and a beautiful face, the Crown Princess was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world." Marie was very charismatic and by the time she was 17 had already attracted several marriage proposals from various infatuated young men. Marie was on the verge of accepting a marriage proposal from Prince George (the future George V), the third in line to the succession in the British throne at the time, but her mother, who was desperate for her daughter to become a queen, hastily had her married off at the age of 17 to Crown Prince Ferdinand in 1892. Marie, who had a passionate and romantic personality, wrote in her diary shortly after marrying Ferdinand that he "was not the man to awaken interest in a young girl".

Știrbey first met Marie in 1907, and spent time in her company. Marie liked Știrbey because as one contemporary remembered "he treated her more like his equal" and was "never obsequious", behavior very much unlike most of the other boyars who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the royal family. To impress the British-born Marie, known to her friends as "Missy", Știrbey started to dress in the style of an "English gentleman". From 1907 onward, Marie frequently stayed at Știrbey's estate at Buftea, where the two were often seen riding horses together out in the countryside, leading to rumors about them in Bucharest. Știrbey was the reputed father of the last of Marie's children, Prince Mircea, and was quite possibly the father of Princess Ileana. It was often noted that Princess Ileana bore a marked resemblance to Știrbey, to such an extent that King Boris III of Bulgaria rejected her as a potential bride under the grounds that she was probably a Știrbey rather than a Hohenzollern.

Quinlan wrote: "Marie had her own private suite at Buftea, Ştirbey's estate, and he had his own apartment at both the Cotroceni and the royal palace in Bucharest. Their lengthy affair was so well known among the palace staff that Marie and Ştirbey hardly bothered to hide their feelings for each other within the confines of the royal palaces." Marie wrote in her 1935 memoirs The Story of My Life about the "White Prince": "No one had ever guessed what passions lay beneath his unbending pride". A secretive man, Știrbey preferred to stay out of the limelight, and to operate in the shadows, always pressing for someone else to carry out the policies he favored. When Știrbey's brother-in-law, Brătianu, was prime minister, his sister Elisa saw herself as the first lady of Romania. Elisa Brătianu had a longstanding feud with Queen Marie, forcing Știrbey into the uncomfortable role of the peacemaker as he sought to mediate between his sister and his lover.

National Liberal grandee

The Crown Prince Carol greatly resented his mother's relationship with Știrbey, and it was Știrbey who in the 1920s pressed the strongest to have Carol either renounce his relationship with his mistress Madame Lupescu or have Carol renounce the throne in favor of his son by Princess Helen of Greece, Prince Michael. Știrbey favored the National Liberal Party (which despite its name was the conservative party, representing the interests of the nobility and the industrialists) as the natural ruling party in Romania, not the least because the leader of the National Liberals, Brătianu, was his brother-in-law. Brătianu and the other National Liberal grandees in turn saw Crown Prince Carol as a "loose cannon", who could not be manipulated like his father King Ferdinand had been, and believed that if Carol came to the throne, he would use the power of the monarchy to advance his own interests against their own.

The Romanian constitution gave the king fairly broad powers, and the tendency of the Crown to favor the National Liberals who usually won elections by rigging them was a key factor in keeping the National Liberals in power despite the party's unpopularity. The National Liberals had a very clientistic style of ruling, engaging in patronage, graft and corruption, though the National Liberals did respect the wishes of the voters in the few elections that they proved unable to rig, handing over power after losing the 1928 election. Știrbey's role in having Carol excluded from the succession in 1925 after he refused to give up Madame Lupescu caused Carol to have a grudge against both him and the National Liberals, whom he vowed to "destroy". Under the guise of maintaining the social order, the National Liberals had passed laws which gave the police sweeping authoritarian powers and weakened civil rights; as the king had the power to name police prefects, such laws placed the king in a strong position to create a dictatorship if he so desired. The National Liberals had failed to provide for any constitutional checks on the powers of the monarchy, and instead used "extra-constitutional" checks such as Știrbey's relationship with Queen Marie.

During a moment of political crisis caused by a dispute between the National Peasant Party vs. the National Liberals, Știrbey was appointed prime minister to head a "national union" government by King Ferdinand on 4 June 1927 when Brătianu proved unacceptable to the majority of the deputies. Știrbey stayed in office for only two weeks before he resigned in favor of his brother-in-law Brătianu. When King Ferdinand died on 20 July 1927, he was succeeded by his grandson who came to the throne as King Michael. The death of Ferdinand marked the end of Știrbey's time as the "grey eminence" of Romanian politics as a regency council governed for the boy king Michael.

World War Two

In 1940, after the abdication of King Carol II, Știrbey returned to Romania. Știrbey's son-in-law, Edwin Boxshall, was a British businessman long resident in Romania who married Elena "Maddie" Știrbey in 1920. In 1940, Boxshall left Bucharest and upon his return to London became an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in charge of encouraging anti-Axis resistance in Romania. Through Boxshall, Știrbey was in contact with the SOE throughout World War Two. After the British legation in Bucharest was closed when the Antonescu government broke off diplomatic relations with Britain on 17 February 1941, the main SOE office for operations in Romania was moved to the British consulate in Istanbul. The main SOE contact between Istanbul and Bucharest was a wealthy Turkish arms dealer, Satvet Lutfi Tozan, who also served as the honorary Finnish consul in Istanbul. Tozan's arms dealing business allowed him to travel all over the Balkans without creating suspicions. That Tozan was allowed to hold meetings with Romanian politicians such as Iuliu Maniu and Mihai Popovici at the house of Suphi Tanrıöver, the Turkish ambassador in Bucharest, suggests that Tozan's activities as a SOE agent had the approval of the Turkish government. During the war, Turkey under the leadership of President İsmet İnönü leaned in a pro-Allied neutrality and Tanrıöver made it very clear that he was willing to serve as a middleman should Romania wish to sign an armistice with the Allies. Știrbey was close to his nephew Alexandru Cretzianu, who was a senior Romanian diplomat.

Știrbey disapproved of the genocidal politics of the government of General Ion Antonescu, which on 22 June 1941 joined with Germany in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion the Soviet Union. In the recovered regions of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina together with a part of the Soviet Union that was annexed to Romania that the Romanians called Transnistra, the Antonescu regime carried out genocide against the Jews living there, accusing them of having supported the Soviet Union. Știrbey donated money to assist the Jews in Transnistra as a police report from 1942 stated: "As a result of our investigation, we have learned that Barbu Știrbey, owner of the Buftea lands, factories, and castle once sent 200,000 lei in cash to help poor Jewish deportees in Transnistra". On 6 October 1941, Cretzianu who served as the secretary-general of the Romanian foreign ministry, resigned in protest against the decision to annex Transnistria, and moved to Știrbey's estate at Buftea, where he knew he would be safe from Antonescu's policemen and gendarmes.

After exterminating the Jewish communities in Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Transnistra, the Antonescu government opened up talks with Germany in 1942 to deport the Jews of the Regat (the area that belonged to Romania before World War I) to the death camps in Poland. Știrbey protested against these plans and against the anti-Semitic laws that had been passed since 1938. In a report issued by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, Știrbey was described as being one of the more proeminent Romanians "active in condemning the racial discrimination and deportations" under Antonescu. Throughout the war years, the "White Prince" was in correspondence with Wilhelm Filderman, the leader of the Romanian Jewish community, promising to use all of his influence to save the Jews of Romania from the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". As Știrbey was close to Queen Marie, the grandmother of King Michael, who venerated her memory, he had much influence with the king. Ultimately, the king intervened with Antonescu to advise him that he disapproved of the plans to deport the Jews of the Regat, and the deportations were cancelled. In September 1943, Știrbey used his influence with the king to have Cretzianu appointed the Romanian minister to Turkey, where he let be known that he was willing to serve as a middleman for armistice talks with the Allies

Death

Știrbey died on 24 March 1946 of liver cancer. He was buried at the Chapel in the Palace Park in Buftea together with his father and grandfather. His eldest daughter Nadèje inherited his lands, which were nationalised by the Communist government in 1949. In 1969, Știrbey's granddaughter, Princess Ileana Stirbey, fled to France. In 1999, she and her husband, Baron Jakob Kripp, sued the Romanian government, arguing that the lands owned by the Știrbey family had been illegally nationalised. In 2001, she was awarded 20 hectares of land, and set about reviving the Știrbey wine that her grandfather had started selling in the early 20th century.

Books and articles

Boșcan, Liliana Elena (January 2021). "Activity of the Special Operation Executive in Romania via Turkey, 1943 - 1944". Journal of Anglo-Turkish Relations. 2 (1): 11–23.

Bucur, Marie (2007). "Carol II of Romania". In Bernd Jürgen Fischer (ed.). Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South Eastern Europe. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. pp. 87–118. ISBN 978-1557534552.

Buttar, Prit (2016). Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1472812773.

Carmilly, Moshe (2007). On Three Continents An Autobiography. Cluj: Editura EFES. ISBN 9789737677792.

Cretzianu, Alexandru (1998). Relapse Into Bondage Political Memoirs of a Romanian Diplomat, 1918-1947. Iasi: Center for Romanian Studies. ISBN 9789739809184.

Cave Brown, Anthony (1982). The Last Hero Wild Bill Donovan : the Biography and Political Experience of Major General William J. Donovan, Founder of the OSS and "father" of the CIA, from His Personal and Secret Papers and the Diaries of Ruth Donovan. New York: Time Books. ISBN 9780812910216.

Deletant, Denis (2006). Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania 1940-1944. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1403993416.

Deletant, Dennis (2016). British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War. Oxford: Springer. ISBN 978-1137574527.

Duca, Ion (1981). Amintiri politice. Munich: Jon Dumitru.

Elsberry, Terence (1972). Marie of Romania The Intimate Life of a Twentieth Century Queen. London: Cassel's. ISBN 9780304292400.