[4] During the First World War, Prince Christian wrote an open letter to Emperor Wilhelm II that criticised Germany's campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare.

[7] The couple had first met about a year earlier at a ball in Cairo after which her family travelled to Berlin for an extended stay and enabled the prince to renew his courtship.

Unlike other American society girls who had married European royalty and nobility in the 19th and 20th centuries, Prince Christian's fiancée was not particularly wealthy[2] but was born of an influential father.

To compensate, on the day of the wedding Prince Christian's kinsman the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse bestowed the title Baroness von Barchfeld on Elizabeth.

With the permission of his brother Landgrave Chlodwig, on 14 November 1921 it was declared that Prince Christian's wife and children were permitted to title themselves Prinz/Prinzessin von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld (Prince/Princess of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld).

[5] With Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, a number of Prince Christian's Hessian relatives, including various nephews and nieces, joined the Nazi Party.

[9] He was married for a second time in Cannes on 25 June 1958 to a fellow widow, Ann Pearl Field, née Everett (1906-1972), the civil wedding having taken place 15 days earlier in Geneva.