Miles Johnson. Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings. Aboard were his paramour, a small group of courtesans, three poodles and 30 truckloads of the royal fortune.
For years, the Romanian monarch had held out against pressure from Hitler, but now his reign was over. The only question was whether he would escape alive. Not stopping the train ran the risk of being derailed by dynamite.
Stopping probably meant being executed. Before the war, Carol had been famous for loving women, hunting and fast cars, and for spending lavishly on all three. He had been a playboy and a wild card. Now, he gave the train operator one command: full speed ahead.
The king and his passengers threw themselves to the floor, ducking for their lives until, moments later, the noise faded into the distance. Eventually, they reached the border. Carol lived the rest of his life in exile, spending his last years in a villa in Portugal, much like other fallen European kings, such as Umberto II of Italy, and an array of counts and countesses displaced by the war. The new regime seized the immense wealth Carol had left behind, worth the equivalent of billions of euros today.
Among other treasures, this included extravagant palaces, vast tracts of land and vaults of gold. Many of the prized possessions Carol managed to flee with, including one of the largest rare stamp collections in the world, were sold off in exile.
