Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (February 2, 1882 – 3 December 1944) was the fourth son of King George I of Greece. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He began military training at an early age and was commissioned as an officer in the Greek army.

About Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in brief

Summary Prince Andrew of Greece and DenmarkPrince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (February 2, 1882 – 3 December 1944) was the fourth son of King George I of Greece. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He began military training at an early age, and was commissioned as an officer in the Greek army. In 1913, his father was assassinated and Andrew’s elder brother, Constantine, 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, but the war went badly for Greece, and Andrew was blamed, in part, for the loss of Greek territory. By 1930, he was estranged from his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg, and had not seen neither of them since 1939. All four of his daughters were married to Germans, three of whom had Nazi connections. He died in Monte Carlo in 1944, and his only son, Prince Philip served in the British navy during WW II, while all four daughters had children of their own.

Andrew was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, as his father, Christian IX, was a younger son of Danish King Christian IX. He learned Greek as well as Danish, German, French, English and Russian. In conversations with his parents he refused to speak anything but Greek. He attended cadet school and staff college at Athens. 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 with the Greek mainland. A group of dissatisfied officers formed a Greek nationalist Military League that eventually led to Prince Andrew’s resignation from the army and the rise to power of Eleftherios Venizelos. In 1914, Andrew held honorary military posts in both the German and Italian empires.