ORDEAL: THE STORY OF MY LIFE

This volume picks up where the first volume stopped, with the accession of King Ferdinand to the throne of Roumania, as war time ruler. German in sympathy and blood, his was a difficult path, for his wife was the dominant force and was confessedly violently pro-ally, and his people tended in that direction. The two years of neutrality were agony for her: she revelled in the concentrated activity of the war years; and suffered bitterness after Roumania was forced, by Russia's defection, to an armistice with the hated enemy. An intensely human narrative, this, colored by a vibrant, dramatic, egotistical, magnetic personality, a human dynamo. Much of the material is drawn from her diaries and letters, and gives a tone of authenticity which a retrospective narrative might have lacked. There is comparatively little about her husband, a good deal about her children. But it is chiefly the story of Marie and the part she played for her country and herself in the World War. The market is primarily those who read the first volume, though it stands alone as a first hand account of Roumania's part in the war.