Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (January 20, 1882(O.S.) - December 3, 1944), of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the son of George I (1845-1913), King of the Hellenes, and of Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinova (1851-1926) of Russia.
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[edit] Birth and early life
Born in Athens, he was taught English by his caretakers as he grew up, but in conversations with his parents he refused to speak anything but Greek[1], which he was better at learning to speak than his siblings.
[edit] Marriage and children
Prince Andrew married Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Battenberg in a civil wedding on October 6, 1903 at Darmstadt. The following day two religious wedding services were performed: one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and another Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe.[2] Princess Alice was a daughter of His Serene Highness Louis Prince of Battenberg (later 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) and Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of HRH Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. As such, Princess Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and in the line of succession to the British throne.
Prince and Princess Andrew had five children:
- Princess Margarita (1905-1981). Married HSH Gottfried 9th Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
- Princess Theodora (1906-1969). Married HKH Prince Berthold, Margrave of Baden.
- Princess Cecilie (1911-1937). Married HKH Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.
- Princess Sophie (1914-2001). Married first HH Prince Christoph of Hesse and second HKH Prince George Wilhelm of Hanover.
- Prince Philip (born 1921), later Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
[edit] Early career
He attended cadet school and staff college at Athens[3], but took no active part in the Balkan Wars during which he ran a field hospital.[4] In 1914, Prince Andrew (like many European princes) held honorary military posts in both the German and Russian empires, as well as Prussian, Russian, Danish and Italian knighthoods.[5]
During World War I, he continued to visit Britain, despite veiled accusations in the British House of Commons that he was a German agent.[6]
[edit] Exile from Greece
In 1917 he left Greece with his brother, King Constantine, who had abdicated in favour of his son after unsuccessfully attempting to keep Greece neutral in World War I. After his brother was restored to the throne of Greece four years later, Andrew was given command of the Second Army Corps during the Battle of the Sakarya, which effectively stalemated the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). Dissatisfaction with the progress of the war led to a coup d'état in 1922 during which Prince Andrew was arrested, court-martialled and found guilty of "disobeying an order" and "acting on his own initiative" during the battle the previous year. Although many defendants in the treason trials that followed the coup were shot[7], Andrew was banished for life and his family fled into exile aboard a British cruiser, HMS Calypso.[8] In 1930, the Prince published his own version of events in a book entitled Towards Disaster: The Greek Army in Asia Minor in 1921. In 1936, the sentence was quashed by emergency laws, which also restored land and annuities to the King.[9] Andrew returned to Greece for a brief visit that May.[10]
During their time in exile the family became more and more dispersed, Alice and her daughters eventually settling in Germany separated from Andrew, and Philip wound up being taken care of by his relatives in the United Kingdom. Andrew went to live in the South of France onboard a yacht with his lady friend, Comtesse Andrée de La Bigne. He died in the Hotel Metropole Hotel, Monte Carlo, Monaco of heart failure and arterial sclerosis.[11]
Alice became a Greek Orthodox nun in 1944 following her husband's death. She suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in Switzerland, emerged and founded (in 1949) the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, an order of nuns tending the poor and sick on the island of Tinos in Greece. She sheltered Jewish families in Greece and was posthumously honored for heroism by Israel.
[edit] References
- ^ Hugo Vickers, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (Hamish Hamilton, London, 2000) ISBN 0-241-13686-5 p.309
- ^ The Times (London), Thursday 8 October 1903, p.3
- ^ The Times (London), Monday 4 December 1922, p.17
- ^ The Times (London), Wednesday 19 March 1913, p.6
- ^ Marquis of Ruvigny, The Title Nobility of Europe (Harrison and Sons, London, 1914) p.71
- ^ The Times (London), Friday 23 November 1917, p.10
- ^ The Times (London), Friday 1 December 1922, p.12
- ^ The Times (London), Tuesday 5 December 1922, p.12
- ^ The Times (London), Monday 27 January 1936, p.9
- ^ The Times (London), Wednesday 20 May 1936, p. 15
- ^ Vickers, p.309
[edit] Titles
- His Royal Highness Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark.
| Styles of Prince Andrew of Greece |
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| Reference style | His Royal Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Royal Highness |
| Alternative style | Sir |
