Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (20 January/2 February 1882 (o.s./n.s.) - 3 December 1944), of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the seventh child and fourth son of George I (1845-1913), King of the Hellenes, and of Olga Konstantinova (1851-1926), Grand Duchess of Russia.
[edit] Birth and early lifeBorn 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 childrenPrince Andrew married Princess Alice of Battenberg in a civil wedding on 6 October 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 Louis Prince of Battenberg (later 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of 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 Andrew was also in the British line of succession, but much lower down, due to the descent of his mother from George II through his eldest daughter Anne, Princess Royal. Incidentally, his father was descended from two other younger daughters of George II: Louise and Mary. Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.
[edit] Early careerHe 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 second son, Alexander, 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; his daughters eventually settled in Germany separated from Andrew, and Philip wound up being taken care of by his relatives in the United Kingdom. Alice suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in Switzerland, and after her recovery returned to Greece. Andrew went to live in the South of France onboard a yacht with his lady friend, Countess Andrée de La Bigne. He died in the Metropole Hotel, Monte Carlo, Monaco of heart failure and arterial sclerosis.[11] Alice founded (in 1949) the Greek Orthodox Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, a religious order tending the poor and sick in Greece. She sheltered a Jewish family and was posthumously honored for heroism by Israel. [edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms[edit] Titles and styles
[edit] Ancestors[edit] Notes and sources
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