Alexander of Greece
| Alexander Αλέξανδρος | |
|---|---|
King of the Hellenes | |
| Reign | 11 June 1917 – 25 October 1920[a] |
| Swearing in | 11 June 1917 |
| Predecessor | Constantine I |
| Successor | Constantine I |
| Prime Ministers | |
| Born | 1 August 1893 Tatoi Palace, Athens, Greece |
| Died | 25 October 1920 (aged 27) Athens, Greece |
| Burial | 29 October 1920 Royal Cemetery, Tatoi Palace, Greece |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | Alexandra, Queen of Yugoslavia |
| House | Glücksburg |
| Father | Constantine I of Greece |
| Mother | Sophia of Prussia |
| Signature |  |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Greece |
| Service/ |  Hellenic Army |
| Unit | Army of Thessaly |
| Battles/wars | Balkan Wars |
Alexander (
The second son of
Alexander controversially married the commoner Aspasia Manos in 1919, provoking a major scandal that forced the couple to leave Greece for several months. Soon after returning to Greece with his wife, Alexander was bitten by a domestic Barbary macaque and died aged 27 of sepsis. The sudden death of the sovereign led to questions over the monarchy's survival and contributed to the fall of the Venizelist regime. After a general election and a referendum, Constantine I was restored to the throne.
Early life
Alexander was born at
Alexander's early life alternated between the
Though he was very close to his younger sister
Military career
Alexander was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother. His education was expensive and carefully planned, but while George spent part of his military training in Germany,[5] Alexander was educated in Greece. He joined the prestigious Hellenic Military Academy, where several of his uncles had previously studied and where he made himself known more for his mechanical skills than for his intellectual capacity.[4] He was passionate about cars and motors, and was one of the first Greeks to acquire an automobile.[6]
Alexander distinguished himself in combat during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13.[4] As a young officer, he was stationed, along with his elder brother, in the field staff of his father; and he accompanied the latter at the head of the Army of Thessaly during the capture of Thessaloniki in 1912.[7] King George I was assassinated in Thessaloniki soon afterwards on 18 March 1913, and Alexander's father ascended the throne as Constantine I.[8]
Courtship of Aspasia Manos
In 1915, at a party held in Athens by court marshal Theodore
She was the daughter of Constantine's Master of the Horse,[10] Colonel Petros Manos, and his wife Maria Argyropoulos. The 21-year-old Alexander was smitten,[9] and was so determined to seduce her that he followed her to the island of Spetses where she holidayed that year. Initially, Aspasia was resistant to his charm; although considered very handsome by his contemporaries, Alexander had a reputation as a ladies' man from numerous past liaisons.[9]
Despite this, he finally won her over, and the couple were engaged in secret. However, for King Constantine I, Queen Sophia and much of European society of the time, it was inconceivable for a royal prince to marry someone of a different social rank.[11]
World War I
During World War I, Constantine I followed a formal policy of neutrality, yet he was openly benevolent towards
Parts of Greece were occupied by the Allied Entente forces, but Constantine I refused to modify his policy and faced increasingly open opposition from the Entente and the Venizelists. In July 1916, an arson attack ravaged Tatoi Palace and the royal family barely escaped the flames; Alexander was not injured but his mother narrowly saved Princess Katherine by carrying her through the woods for more than 2 km (1.2 mi). Among the palace personnel and firefighters who arrived to deal with the blaze, sixteen people were killed.[13]
Finally on 10 June 1917,
Reign
Accession
The dismissal of Constantine was not unanimously supported by the Entente powers; while France and Britain did nothing to stop Jonnart's actions, the
Alexander swore the oath of loyalty to the Greek constitution on the afternoon of 11 June 1917 in the ballroom of the Royal Palace. Apart from the Archbishop of Athens, Theocletus I, who administered the oath, only King Constantine I, Crown Prince George and the king's prime minister, Alexandros Zaimis, attended.[20] There were no festivities.[15] The 23-year-old Alexander had a broken voice and tears in his eyes as he made the solemn declaration.[20] He knew that the Entente and the Venizelists would hold real power and that neither his father nor his brother had renounced their claims to the throne. Constantine had informed his son that he should consider himself a regent, rather than a true monarch.[15]
In the evening, after the ceremony, the royal family decided to leave their palace in Athens for
Puppet king
With his parents and siblings in exile, Alexander found himself isolated. The royals remained unpopular with the Venizelists, and Entente representatives advised the king's aunts and uncles, particularly Prince Nicholas, to leave. Eventually, they all followed Constantine into exile.[24] Royal household staff were gradually replaced by enemies of the former king, and Alexander's allies were either imprisoned or distanced from him. Portraits of the royal family were removed from public buildings, and Alexander's new ministers openly called him the "son of a traitor".[25]
On 26 June 1917, the king was forced to name Eleftherios Venizelos as head of the government. Despite promises given by the Entente on Constantine's departure, the previous prime minister, Zaimis, was effectively forced to resign as Venizelos returned to Athens.[6] Alexander immediately opposed his new prime minister's views and, annoyed by the king's rebuffs, Venizelos threatened to remove him and set up a regency council in the name of Alexander's brother Prince Paul, then still a minor. The Entente powers intervened and asked Venizelos to back down, allowing Alexander to retain the crown.[26] Spied on day and night by the prime minister's supporters, the monarch quickly became a prisoner in his own palace, and his orders went ignored.[25]
Alexander had no experience in affairs of state. However, he was determined to make the best of a difficult situation and to represent his father as best he could.
Greek expansion
By the end of World War I, Greece had grown beyond its 1914 borders, and the
Despite their territorial gains following the Paris Peace Conference, the Greeks still hoped to achieve the
Marriage
Controversy
On 12 June 1917, the day after his accession, Alexander revealed his liaison with Aspasia Manos to his father and asked for his permission to marry her. Constantine was reluctant to let his son marry a non-royal, and demanded that Alexander wait until the end of the war before considering the engagement, to which Alexander agreed.[33] In the intervening months, Alexander increasingly resented his separation from his family. His regular letters to his parents were intercepted by the government and confiscated.[6] Alexander's only source of comfort was Aspasia, and he decided to marry her despite his father's request.[34]
The ruling dynasty of Greece (the House of Glücksburg) was of German-Danish origin, and Constantine and Sophia were seen as far too German by the Venizelists, but even though the marriage of the king to a Greek presented an opportunity to Hellenize the royal family, and counter criticisms that it was a foreign institution, both Venizelists and Constantinists opposed the match. The Venizelists feared it would give Alexander a means to communicate with his exiled family through Colonel Manos and both sides of the political divide were unhappy at the king marrying a commoner.[35] Although Venizelos was a friend of Petros Manos,[9] the prime minister warned the king that marrying her would be unpopular in the eyes of the people.[34][c]
When Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, visited Athens in March 1918, to confer the Order of the Bath upon the king, Alexander feared that a marriage between him and Princess Mary of the United Kingdom would be discussed as part of an attempt to consolidate the relationship between Greece and Britain. To Alexander's relief, Arthur asked to meet Aspasia, and declared that, if he were younger, he would have sought to marry her himself.[34] For the foreign powers, and particularly the British ambassador, the marriage was seen as positive.[11] The British authorities feared that Alexander would abdicate in order to marry Aspasia if the wedding was blocked, and they wanted to avoid Greece becoming a republic in case it led to instability or an increase in French influence at their expense.[35]
Alexander's parents were not so happy about the match. Sophia disapproved of her son marrying a commoner, while Constantine wanted a delay but was prepared to be his son's best man if Alexander would be patient.[34] Alexander visited Paris at the end of 1918, raising hopes among his family that they would be able to contact him once he was outside Greece. When Queen Sophia attempted to telephone her son in his Parisian hotel, a minister intercepted the call and informed her that "His Majesty is sorry, but he cannot respond to the telephone".[10] He was not even informed that she had called.[10]
Public scandal
With the help of Aspasia's brother-in-law, Christo Zalocostas, and after three unsuccessful attempts, the couple eventually married in secret before a royal chaplain,
Despite his disapproval of the union, Venizelos allowed Aspasia and her mother to move into the Royal Palace on condition that the marriage remain secret.[11] The information leaked, however, and to escape public opprobrium Aspasia was forced to leave Greece. She fled to Rome, and then to Paris, where Alexander was allowed to join her, six months later, on condition that they not attend official functions together.[28] On their Parisian honeymoon, while motoring near Fontainebleau, the couple witnessed a serious car crash in which Count de Kergariou's chauffeur lost control of his master's vehicle. Alexander avoided the count's car, which swerved and hit a tree. The king drove the injured to hospital in his own car,[40] while Aspasia, who had trained as a nurse during World War I, rendered first aid. The count was seriously injured and died shortly afterward, after having both legs amputated.[41][d]
The government allowed the couple to return to Greece in mid-1920. Although their marriage was legalized, Aspasia was not recognized as queen, but was instead known as "Madame Manos".[28] At first, she stayed at her sister's house in the Greek capital before transferring to Tatoi,[44] and it was during this period that she became pregnant with Alexander's child.[28]
Alexander visited the newly acquired territories of
Death
On 2 October 1920, Alexander was injured while walking through the grounds of the Tatoi estate. A domestic
That evening, his wounds became infected; he developed a strong fever and sepsis set in. His doctors considered amputating his leg, but none wished to take responsibility for so drastic an act.[49] On 19 October, he became delirious and called out for his mother, but the Greek government refused to allow her to re-enter the country from exile in Switzerland, despite her own protestations. Finally, the queen dowager, Olga, George I's widow and Alexander's grandmother, was allowed to return alone to Athens to tend to the king. She was delayed by rough waters, however, and by the time she arrived, Alexander had already died of sepsis twelve hours previously at a little after 4 p.m. on 25 October 1920.[50] The other members of the royal family received the news by telegram that night.[f]
Two days later, Alexander's body was conveyed to
After the cathedral service, Alexander's body was interred on the grounds of the royal estate at Tatoi.[52] The Greek royal family never regarded Alexander's reign as fully legitimate. In the royal cemetery, while other monarchs are given the inscription "King of the Hellenes, Prince of Denmark", Alexander's reads "Alexander, son of the King of the Hellenes, Prince of Denmark. He ruled in the place of his father from 14 June 1917 to 25 October 1920."[52] According to Alexander's favorite sister, Queen Helen of Romania, this feeling of illegitimacy was also shared by Alexander himself, a sentiment that helps explain his mésalliance with Aspasia Manos.[34]
Legacy
Alexander's death raised questions about the succession to the throne as well as the nature of the Greek regime. As the king had contracted an unequal marriage,[g] his descendants were not in the line of succession.[h] The Hellenic Parliament demanded that Constantine I and Crown Prince George be excluded from the succession but sought to preserve the monarchy by selecting another member of the royal house as the new sovereign. On 29 October 1920, the Greek minister in Berne, acting under the direction of the Greek authorities, offered the throne to Alexander's younger brother, Prince Paul.[56] Paul, however, refused to become king while his father and elder brother were alive, insisting that neither of them had renounced their rights to the throne and that he therefore could never legitimately wear the crown.[57]
The throne remained vacant and the legislative elections of 1920 turned into an open conflict between the Venizelists, who favored republicanism, and the supporters of the ex-King Constantine.[58] On 14 November 1920, with the war with Turkey dragging on, the monarchists won, and Dimitrios Rallis became prime minister; Venizelos (who lost his own parliamentary seat) chose to leave Greece in self-exile. Rallis asked Queen Olga to become regent until Constantine's return.[59]
Under the restored King Constantine I, whose return was endorsed overwhelmingly in a referendum, Greece went on to lose the Greco–Turkish War with heavy military and civilian casualties. The territory gained on the Turkish mainland during Alexander's reign was lost. Alexander's death in the midst of an election campaign helped destabilize the Venizelos regime, and the resultant loss of Allied support contributed to the failure of Greece's territorial ambitions.[60] Winston Churchill wrote, "it is perhaps no exaggeration to remark that a quarter of a million persons died of this monkey's bite."[61]
Issue
Alexander's daughter by Aspasia Manos, Alexandra (1921–1993), was born five months after his death. Initially, the government took the line that since Alexander had married Aspasia without the permission of his father or the church, his marriage was illegal and his posthumous daughter was illegitimate. However, in July 1922, Parliament passed a law which allowed the King to recognize royal marriages retroactively on a non-dynastic basis.[62] That September,[1] Constantine—at Sophia's insistence—recognized his son's marriage to Aspasia and granted her the style of "Princess Alexander".[63] Her daughter (Constantine I's granddaughter) was legitimized as a princess of Greece and Denmark, and later married King Peter II of Yugoslavia in London in 1944. They had one child: Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia.[64]
Ancestry
| Ancestors of Alexander of Greece Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Footnotes and references
Notes
- ^ a b Dates in this article are in the New Style Gregorian calendar. The Old Style Julian calendar was used in Greece throughout Alexander's lifetime.
- ^ The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 redrew the boundary between Turkey and Greece back in favor of Turkey.[32]
- Joseph Allen Baker, that Venizelos was "personally in favour of the marriage [but] is sincerely convinced that it will be extremely unpopular".[37]
- ^ The dog had been found in an enemy trench during World War I by a British officer, who had presented it to Alexander as a gift.[28]
- ^ Prince Nicolas received the news first but did not communicate it to Alexander's parents until the next morning because he did not wish to disturb their rest.[51]
- ^ Here "unequal marriage" refers to the union between a person of royal rank with an individual of a "lower" social status. This is similar to the morganatic marriages of other European countries, though this concept did not exist in Greece.[54]
- ^ The restored King Constantine did not recognize Alexander's only child, Alexandra, as a member of the House of Greece until July 1922. However, as the Greek succession was governed by Salic law until the beginning of the reign of Constantine II, she would not have been eligible as a female anyway.[55]
References
- ^ a b Montgomery-Massingberd, p. 327.
- ^ Carter, p. xi
- ^ a b Van der Kiste, p. 62.
- ^ a b c Sáinz de Medrano, p. 174.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 83.
- ^ a b c d Van der Kiste, p. 113.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 72.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 74–75.
- ^ a b c d Sáinz de Medrano, p. 176.
- ^ a b c Van der Kiste, p. 117.
- ^ a b c d Sáinz de Medrano, p. 177.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 89–101.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 96–98.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 106.
- ^ a b c d Van der Kiste, p. 107.
- ^ Bertin, pp. 215, 220.
- ^ Bertin, p. 220.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, pp. 305–307.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, p. 306.
- ^ a b Van der Kiste, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 108–109.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 109.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 115.
- ^ a b c Van der Kiste, p. 112.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, p. 312.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 114.
- ^ a b c d e f Van der Kiste, p. 119.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, pp. 382–384.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, p. 387.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, p. 386.
- ^ Driault and Lhéritier, pp. 433–434.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 117–118.
- ^ a b c d e Van der Kiste, p. 118.
- ^ a b Llewellyn Smith, p. 136.
- JSTOR 2740765
- ^ Quoted in Llewellyn Smith, p. 357
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 120–121.
- ^ "The King in a Motor Accident", The Times, 29 May 1920, p. 13.
- ^ "Narrow Escape While Motoring", The Argus, 31 May 1920, p. 8.
- ^ "Count de Kergariou Dead", The Times, 31 May 1920, p. 13.
- ^ "Greek King in Motor Smash", The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 10 July 1920, p. 12.
- ^ Sáinz de Medrano, p. 178.
- ^ Kargakos, pp. 325–331
- ^ Llewellyn Smith, p. 135.
- ^ "Monkey Bites King of Greece", The Portsmouth Herald, 14 October 1920, p. 1; Van der Kiste, p. 122.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 122–123.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 123.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 123–124.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 124.
- ^ a b c Van der Kiste, p. 125.
- ^ "Royal Funeral in Athens", The Times, 2 November 1920, p. 11.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 120.
- ^ Sáinz de Medrano, pp. 180, 238, 402.
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 125–126.
- ^ Llewellyn Smith, p. 139; Van der Kiste, p. 126.
- ^ Llewellyn Smith, pp. 144–148; Van der Kiste, p. 126.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 126.
- ^ Fry, Goldstein and Langhorne, p. 201; Goldstein, p. 49.
- ^ Churchill, p. 409, quoted (for example) in Pentzopoulos, p. 39.
- ^ Diesbach, p. 225.
- ^ Van der Kiste, p. 132.
- ^ Montgomery-Massingberd, pp. 327, 536, 544.
- ^ Maclagan and Louda, pp. 34, 51–53, 187, 275–283.
Sources
- ISBN 2-262-01602-X.
- Carter, Miranda (2009). The Three Emperors. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-670-91556-9.
- Churchill, Winston S. (1929). The World Crisis Volume 5: The Aftermath (1918–1928). London: Butterworth.
- Diesbach, Ghislain de (1967). Secrets of the Gotha. translated from the French by Margaret Crosland. London: Chapman & Hall.
- Driault, Édouard; Lhéritier, Michel (1926). Histoire diplomatique de la Grèce de 1821 à nos jours [Diplomatic History of Greece from 1821 to today] (in French). Vol. V. Paris: PUF.
- Fry, Michael Graham; Goldstein, Erik; Langhorne, Richard (2002). Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy. London and New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-5250-7.
- Goldstein, Erik (1992). War and Peace Treaties 1816–1991. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-07822-9.
- Kargakos, Sarantos I. (2000). Αλεξανδρούπολη: Μια νέα πόλη με παλιά ιστορία [Alexandroupoli: A New City with an Old History] (in Greek). Athens: Privately printed. OCLC 47927958.
- ISBN 1-85065-413-1.
- ISBN 1-85605-469-1.
- Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh, ed. (1977). Burke's Royal Families of the World, 1st edition. London: Burke's Peerage. ISBN 0-85011-023-8.
- Pentzopoulos, Dimitri (2002) [1962]. The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact on Greece. London: Hurst & Co. ISBN 1-85065-674-6.
- Sáinz de Medrano, Ricardo Mateos (2004). La Familia de la Reina Sofía, La Dinastía griega, la Casa de Hannover y los reales primos de Europe [The Family of Queen Sophia, the Greek Dynasty, the House of Hanover and the Royal Cousins of Europe] (in Spanish). Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 84-9734-195-3.
- Van der Kiste, John (1994). Kings of the Hellenes: The Greek Kings, 1863–1974. Dover, New Hampshire and Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-0525-5.
Further reading
- OCLC 2234245.
- Tourtchine, Jean-Fred (December 1998). "Alexandre I". Le Royaume des Deux-Siciles volume II – Le Royaume de Grèce [The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Volume II – The Kingdom of Greece]. Les Manuscrits du Cèdre. Dictionnaire historique et généalogique (in French). Paris: Cercle d'Études des Dynasties Royales Européennes. pp. 165–167. ISSN 0993-3964.
External links
- Film of King Alexander's funeral, British Pathé
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Generations are numbered by descent from George I. All princes were also Princes of Denmark. | ||
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See also House of Glücksburg and Greek royal family | ||
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1 Also prince of Norway 2 Also prince of Greece 3 Also prince of Iceland 4 Also prince of the United Kingdom 5 Not Danish prince by birth, but created prince of Denmark Princes that lost their title are shown in italics | ||
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