Andrew Greek: Prince at home and in exile

Prince Andrew of Greece and Danish was the seventh child and fourth son of King George and Queen Olga. He was the grandson of the King of Denmark.

Childhood

Andrew Greek was born in 1882 in Athens, in the large family of His Royal Majesty King George I of Greece, the son of the Danish King Christian IX, and the Russian princess Olga Nikolaevna, the granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I. His father was the founder of the dynasty of the Glücksburgs, who was in kinship with the English Royal house. The family had five sons and two daughters. King George I for about fifty years ruled the country, significantly bringing it closer through dynastic marriages with Russia, which significantly weakened Turkey in the Balkans and strengthened Russia's influence in the Mediterranean.

The royal couple talked to each other in German. Their children, including Andrei of Greece, were fluent in seven languages, but they spoke with each other in Greek, and with their parents - in English. The hero of our article, despite myopia, was preparing for military service. Andrei Greek graduated from the cadet school and college in Athens and received an additional private military education under the program of General Panagiotis Danglis. In May 1901 he entered the cavalry.

Betrothal and Marriage

In 1902, Prince Andrew Greek and Alice Battenberg (1885-1969) met at the coronation ceremonies of King Edward VII in London.

The German princess was in a relationship with the English Queen Victoria and the Romanovs. Young people were serious about each other. And only a year later, in early October 1903, when the prince was 21 years old, and the princess - eighteen, they registered a civil marriage in Darmstadt.

The next day Lutheran marriage took place in the castle evangelical church and a wedding in the Greek Orthodox chapel.

The prince and the princess had 4 daughters and one son, who all had descendants.

So it looked like Prince Andrew Greek (photo below) with his numerous family.

Political career

In 1909 a revolution took place in Greece. The thing was that the government in Athens did not want to support the Cretan parliament, which called for the unification of Crete (the island was still under Ottoman rule) with mainland Greece. A group of officers, dissatisfied with this position, created the Greek national Military League. His Highness Prince Andrew retired from the army, and Venizelos came to power.

Three years later the Balkan wars began . Prince Andrew of Greece was rebuilt in the army in the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the third cavalry regiment. He was in charge of the field hospital. At the behest of his heart, his wife acted as a nurse. She even courageously participated in the operations. At that time Andrei's father was killed, and the prince inherited from him the villa "My rest".

By 1914, His Highness had military awards to Russia, Prussia, Italy and Denmark, and also held military posts in the Russian and German empires.

During the First World War, he continued to visit relatives in the United Kingdom, despite the deaf protests of the British House of Commons, who considered him a German agent. His brother, King Constantine, pursued a policy of neutrality.

But the French Republic, the Russian and British empires supported the government of Venizelos. The Greek king abdicated in 1917, and since then almost the entire royal family lived in Switzerland.

Return to Greece

Some time on the throne was the son of Constantine Alexander, but then the king was again restored. The whole family settled in a villa in Corfu.

During the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, Prince Andrew commanded the second army corps. His activity was hampered by the poor training of officers. He refused to comply with the order of the commander-in-chief and attack the Turkish positions because of the panicky attitude of the officers. Prince for two months removed from the command, but later returned to the army. And when, in 1922, Greece was swept by the revolutionary movement, the prince was arrested and was on the verge of death.

Emigration

On board the British cruiser Calypso, the prince's family was taken to a safe place and settled on the western outskirts of Paris. Alice's wife suffered a nervous breakdown and was placed in a psychiatric clinic in Switzerland. Their daughters got married one by one and lived in Germany, and the son studied in Britain. At weddings of daughters Alice because of illness could not be present.

After the cure, she lived separately from her husband, although they were not divorced. Princess Alice did a lot of charity work. During the Nazi occupation, she remained in Athens, where she tried to help Jews avoid raids and concentration camps.

Life on the French Riviera

His Highness settled on the small yacht of his friend Countess Andre de la Binh. During the fascists' attack on France, he was forced to live only in Vichy, in a territory that was nominally free from the presence of the Nazis. His son Philip fought on the side of the British. But his father did not have the opportunity to see him for five years and died of heart failure at the Metropol Hotel in Monaco in 1944. He did not even know how the world war ended, and about the happy marriage of his son.