Alexander was the second son of King Constantine I of Greece and Princess Sophia of Prussia. He succeeded his father in 1917, during World War I, after the Entente Powers and the followers of Eleftherios Venizelos pushed Constantine I, and his eldest son Crown Prince George, into exile. Alexander controversially married the commoner Aspasia Manos in 1919, provoking a major scandal that forced the couple to leave Greece for several months. He died in 1922, aged 27, from the effects of a monkey bite.
About Alexander of Greece in brief
Alexander was the second son of King Constantine I of Greece and Princess Sophia of Prussia. He succeeded his father in 1917, during World War I, after the Entente Powers and the followers of Eleftherios Venizelos pushed Constantine I, and his eldest son Crown Prince George, into exile. Alexander controversially married the commoner Aspasia Manos in 1919, provoking a major scandal that forced the couple to leave Greece for several months. Soon after returning to Greece with his wife, Alexander was bitten by a domestic Barbary macaque and died of sepsis. The sudden death of the sovereign led to questions over the monarchy’s survival and contributed to the fall of the Venizelist regime. Alexander was one of the first Greeks to acquire an automobile. He was passionate about cars and motors, and was the first Greek to acquire a Rolls-Royce. Alexander had a reputation as a very handsome man from numerous past liaisons, but was considered a ladies’ man by his contemporaries. The 21-year-old Alexander was so determined to seduce his wife that he followed her to the island of Spetses where she had been on holiday with her family. He died in 1922, aged 27, from the effects of a monkey bite. He is buried at the National Museum of Greece in Athens, next to his father’s former residence, Tatoi Palace, where he was born in 1893. His father Constantine I was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George I and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia.
His mother was the daughter of Emperor Frederick III of Germany and his. wife Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom. He distinguished himself in combat during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. As a young officer, he was stationed, along with his elder brother, in the field staff of his father; and he accompanied the latter at the head of the Army of Thessaly during the capture of the Thessaloniki in 1912. He joined the prestigious Hellenic Military Academy, where several of his uncles had previously studied and where he made himself known more for his mechanical skills than for his intellectual capacity. His education was expensive and carefully planned, but while George spent part of his military training in Germany, Alexander was educated in Greece. Alexander’s elder brother was a serious and thoughtful child, but Alexander was mischievous and extroverted; he smoked cigarettes made from blotting paper, set fire to the games room in the palace, and recklessly lost control of a toy cart in which he and his younger brother Paul were rolling down a hill, tipping his toddler brother a distance of six feet into brambles. His elder brother George was less warm towards his younger sister, Princess Helen, and he had little in common with his older brother George, with whom he hadlittle in common. Alexander accompanied his father and elder brother to Germany in 1915, when he became re-acquainted with one of his childhood friends, Theodore Ypsilantis.
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