Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark ( el, Ανδρέας; da, Andreas; – 3 December 1944) of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece and

Olga Constantinovna of Russia Olga Constantinovna of Russia ( el, Όλγα; 18 June 1926) was queen consort of Greece as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920. A member of the Romanov dynasty, she was the oldest daughter of Grand Duke Co ...

. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark, the father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, father-in-law of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

, and the paternal grandfather of King Charles III. He was a prince of both Denmark and Greece by virtue of his patrilineal descent. A career soldier, he began military training at an early age, and was commissioned as an officer in the Greek army. His command positions were substantive appointments rather than honorary, and he saw service in the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...

. In 1913, his father was assassinated and Andrew's elder brother,

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given na ...

, became king. The king's neutrality policy during World War I led to his abdication, and most of the royal family, including Andrew, was exiled. On their return a few years later, Andrew saw service as Major General in the

Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, ota, گرب جابهاسی, Garb Cebhesi) in Turkey, and the Asia Minor Campaign ( el, Μικρασιατική Εκστρατεία, Mikrasiatikí Ekstrateía) or the Asia Minor Catastrophe ( el, Μικ ...

, but the war went badly for Greece, and Andrew was blamed, in part, for the loss of Greek territory. He was exiled for a second time in 1922, and spent most of the rest of his life in France. By 1930, he was estranged from his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg. His only son, Prince Philip, served in the British navy during World War II, while all four of his daughters were married to Germans, three of whom had Nazi connections. Separated from his wife and son by the effects of the war, Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944. He had seen neither of them since 1939.

Early life

Prince Andrew was born at the Tatoi Palace just north of Athens on 2 February 1882, the fourth son of George I of Greece. A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, he was a prince of both Greece and Denmark, as his father was a younger son of Christian IX of Denmark. He was in the line of succession to the Greek and more distantly to the Danish throne. In addition to his native Greek he learned Danish, German, French, English and Russian; In conversations with his parents he refused to speak anything but Greek.Vickers, p. 309 He attended cadet school and staff college at Athens, and was given additional private tuition in military subjects by

Panagiotis Danglis Panagiotis Danglis ( el, Παναγιώτης Δαγκλής; – 9 March 1924) was a Greek Army general and politician. He is particularly notable for his invention of the Schneider-Danglis mountain gun, his service as chief of staff in the Balk ...

, who recorded that he was "quick and intelligent". He "became quite friendly" with fellow student

Theodore Pangalos Lieutenant General Theodoros Pangalos (; 11 January 1878 – 26 February 1952) was a Greek general, politician and dictator. A distinguished staff officer and an ardent Venizelist and anti-royalist, Pangalos played a leading role in the Septemb ...

. Despite his near-sightedness, Andrew joined the army as a cavalry officer in May 1901.

Marriage

In 1902, Prince Andrew met Princess Alice of Battenberg during his stay in London on the occasion of the coronation of Edward VII, who was his uncle-by-marriage and her grand-uncle. Princess Alice was a daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, King Edward's niece. They fell in love, and the following year, on 6 October 1903, Andrew married Alice in a civil wedding at

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

. 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. Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Early career

In 1909, the political situation in Greece led to a '' coup d'état'', as the Athens government refused to support the Cretan parliament, which had called for the union of Crete (still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire) with the Greek mainland. A group of dissatisfied officers formed a Greek nationalist

Military League The Goudi coup ( el, κίνημα στο Γουδί) was a military coup d'état that took place in Greece on the night of , starting at the barracks in Goudi, a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Athens. The coup was a pivotal event in mod ...

and demanded, among other reforms, the removal of royal princes from the army, which led to Prince Andrew's resignation from the army and the rise to power of

Eleftherios Venizelos Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos ( el, Ελευθέριος Κυριάκου Βενιζέλος, translit=Elefthérios Kyriákou Venizélos, ; – 18 March 1936) was a Greek statesman and a prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movem ...

. A few years later, at the outbreak of the

in 1912, Andrew was reinstated in the army as a lieutenant colonel in the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, and placed in command of a field hospital. During the war, his father was assassinated and Andrew inherited a villa on the island of

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

, Mon Repos. In 1914, Andrew (like many European princes) held honorary military posts in both the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

and Russian empires, as well as Prussian, Russian, Danish and Italian knighthoods. During World War I, he continued to visit Britain, despite veiled accusations in the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...

that he was a German agent. His brother,

King Constantine King Constantine may refer to: * Constantine (Briton) (520–523), a king of Dumnonia in sub-Roman Britain * Constantine I of Georgia (d. 1412), King of Georgia from 1405 or 1407 until his death * Constantine II of Georgia (ca. 1447–1505), of t ...

, who was the Kaiser's brother-in-law, followed a neutrality policy, but the democratically elected government of Venizelos supported the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

. By June 1917, the King's neutrality policy had become so untenable that he abdicated and the Greek royal family were forced into exile. For the next few years, most of the Greek royal family lived in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Exile from Greece

For three years, Constantine's second son, Alexander, was king of Greece, until his early death from an infection due to a monkey bite. Constantine was restored to the throne, and Andrew was once again reinstated in the army, this time as a major-general. The family took up residence at Mon Repos. Andrew was given command of the II Army Corps during the Battle of the Sakarya, which effectively stalemated the

. Andrew had little respect for his superior officers, whom he considered incompetent. He was ordered to attack the Turkish positions, which he considered a desperate move little short "of ill-concealed panic". Refusing to put his men in undue danger (suffering lack of food and ammunition), Andrew followed his own battle plan, much to the dismay of the commanding general,

Anastasios Papoulas Anastasios Papoulas ( el, Αναστάσιος Παπούλας; 1/13 January 1857 – 24 April 1935) was a Greek general, most notable as the Greek commander-in-chief during most of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22. Originally a firm roya ...

. Relieved of his chief of staff, and given a dressing-down by Papoulas, in September Andrew asked to be removed from command but Papoulas refused. Andrew's troops were forced to retreat. He was placed on leave for two months, until he was transferred to the Supreme Army Council. In March 1922, he was appointed as commander of the V Army Corps in Epirus and the Ionian Islands. Papoulas was replaced by General

Georgios Hatzianestis Georgios Hatzianestis ( el, Γεώργιος Χατζηανέστης, 3 December 1863 – 28 November 1922) was a Greek artillery and general staff officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. He is best known as the commander-in-chief ...

. The Greek defeat in Asia Minor in August 1922 led to the

11 September 1922 Revolution The 11 September 1922 Revolution ( el, Επανάσταση της 11ης Σεπτεμβρίου 1922) was an uprising by the Greek army and navy against the government in Athens. The revolution took place on 24 September 1922, although the date wa ...

, during which Prince Andrew was arrested, court-martialed, and found guilty of "disobeying an order" and "acting on his own initiative" during the battle of the previous year. Many defendants in the treason trials that followed the coup were shot, including Hatzianestis and five senior politicians. British diplomats assumed that Andrew was also in mortal danger. Andrew, though spared, was banished for life and his family fled into exile aboard a British cruiser, HMS ''Calypso''. The family settled at Saint-Cloud on the outskirts of Paris, in a small house loaned to them by Andrew's wealthy sister-in-law, Princess George of Greece. He and his family were stripped of their Greek nationality, and traveled under Danish passports. In 1930, Andrew published a book entitled ''Towards Disaster: The Greek Army in Asia Minor in 1921'', in which he defended his actions during the Battle of the Sakarya, but he essentially lived a life of enforced retirement, despite only being in his forties. During their time in exile the family became more and more dispersed. Alice suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in

. Their daughters married and settled in Germany, separated from Andrew, and Philip was sent to school in Britain, where he was brought up by his mother's British relatives. Andrew went to live in the South of France. On the French Riviera, Andrew lived in a small apartment, or hotel rooms, or on board a yacht with Countess Andrée de La Bigne. His marriage to Alice was effectively over, and after her recovery and release, she returned to Greece. In 1936, his sentence of exile was quashed by emergency laws, which also restored land and annuities to the King. Andrew returned to Greece for a brief visit that May. The following year, his pregnant daughter Cecilie, his son-in-law and two of his grandchildren were killed in an air accident at Ostend; he met Alice for the first time in six years at the funeral, which was also attended by Andrew's sixteen-year-old son Prince Philip. During World War II, he found himself essentially trapped in Vichy France, while his son, Prince Philip, fought on the side of the British. They were unable to see or even correspond with one another. Andrew's three surviving sons-in-law fought on the German side: Prince Christoph of Hesse was a member of the Nazi Party and the Waffen-SS;

Berthold, Margrave of Baden Berthold, Margrave of Baden (''Berthold Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst August Heinrich Karl''; 24 February 1906 – 27 October 1963), was the head of the House of Baden, which had reigned over the Grand Duchy of Baden until 1918, from 1929 until his deat ...

, was invalided out of the Wehrmacht in 1940 after an injury in France; Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg served on the Eastern Front and was dismissed after the

20 July plot On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...

. For five years, Andrew saw neither his wife nor his son.

Death and burial

He died in the

Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo The Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo, is a five-star hotel at 4, Avenue De La Madone, Monte Carlo, Monaco. History The Hotel Metropole was built in 1889, designed by Hans-Georg Tersling. Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark died there in 1944. Ital ...

, Monaco, of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

and arteriosclerosis in the closing months of the war in Europe. Andrew was at first buried in the Russian Orthodox church in Nice, but in 1946 his remains were transferred, by the Greek cruiser ''Averof'', to the royal cemetery at Tatoi Palace, near Athens. Prince Philip and then-private secretary, Mike Parker, traveled to Monte Carlo to collect items belonging to his father from Andrée de La Bigne; among these items: a signet ring which the Prince wore from then onwards, an ivory shaving brush he took to using, and some clothes he had adapted to fit him. Prince Andrew left to his only son seven-tenths of his estate, but he also left behind a debt of £17,500, leading Philip's maternal grandmother,

Victoria, Marchioness of Milford Haven Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (Victoria Alberta Elizabeth Mathilde Marie; 5 April 1863 – 24 September 1950), later Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by R ...

, to complain bitterly of the extravagance the Greek prince had been led into by his French mistress.

Honours and awards

* Kingdom of Greece: Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer * : ** Knight of the

Order of the Elephant The Order of the Elephant ( da, Elefantordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry and is Denmark's highest-ranked honour. It has origins in the 15th century, but has officially existed since 1693, and since the establishment of constitutional ...

, ''6 August 1902'' **

Cross of Honour of the Order of the Dannebrog A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

, ''9 November 1902'' ** Commemorative Medal for the Golden Wedding of King Christian IX and Queen Louise ** King Christian IX Centenary Medal * : Knight of the Order of the Black EagleJustus Perthes, ''Almanach de Gotha'' (1922
p. 42
/ref> **

Hesse and by Rhine The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine (german: link=no, Großherzogtum Hessen und bei Rhein) was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Grand Duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 ...

: Knight of the Grand Ducal Hessian Order of the Golden Lion, ''7 October 1903'' * : Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, ''8 April 1907'' * : Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles, ''14 March 1940'' * : Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian

Order of Saint Olav The Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav ( no, Den Kongelige Norske Sankt Olavs Orden; or ''Sanct Olafs Orden'', the old Norwegian name) is a Norwegian order of chivalry instituted by King Oscar I on 21 August 1847. It is named after King Olav II ...

, with Collar, ''3 July 1908'' * : Knight of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle the First-called, ''1903'' * : Grand Cross of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III, with Collar, ''30 May 1906'' * : Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, ''22 August 1902'' – on the occasion of King Edward VII's coronationShaw, Wm. A. (1906) ''The Knights of England'', I, London
p. 425
/ref>

Issue

Ancestry

Notes

References

* Alexandra of Yugoslavia (1959). ''Prince Philip: A Family Portrait''. London: Hodder and Stoughton. * Brandreth, Gyles (2004). ''Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage''. London: Century. * Clogg, Richard (1979). ''A Short History of Modern Greece''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Heald, Tim (1991). ''The Duke: A Portrait of Prince Philip''. London: Hodder and Stoughton. * Van der Kiste, John (1994). ''Kings of the Hellenes''. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing. * Vickers, Hugo. (2000). ''Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece''. London: Hamish Hamilton.