King of the Hellenes, second son of King Constantine and Queen Sophia, born on the 1st of August 1893, and ascended the throne of Greece, June 12, 1917, on the dethronement of his father by the Anglo-French forces during the World War (see Constantine). He, not unnaturally, looked upon his position at first as a mere temporary arrangement. The Government itself was meanwhile in the responsible hands of Venizelos, who had the confidence of the Allies. But the defeat of Germany, and Venizelos’s diplomatic triumphs at the Peace Conference, seemed to breathe a new spirit into the young King. From the day of his triumphal entry into Adrianople, he evidently took a more active personal interest in the prospect of being the ruler of Greater Greece. This change in his attitude was indeed so marked that his royal parents in exile in Switzerland were said to be greatly disconcerted; but it gave him an entirely new popularity among the people. His sudden death on the 27th of October 1920, by blood-poisoning from the bite of a pet monkey, put a sudden end to all such expectations, and it seriously disarranged Venizelos’s plans. King Alexander was buried amid widespread demonstrations of popular grief; but a fortnight later, in the general election, the Venizelist party was defeated. It is practically certain that, could this election have been postponed for a few months and a suitable successor to the throne found, King Constantine would never have been able to return, as he did, to Greece. But postponement was impossible after Venizelos’s pledges to the Greek people; and, in the absence of any other serious candidate for the Greek throne, the old sympathies for Constantine won the day.
In November 1919 King Alexander had insisted, against the advice of Venizelos, on making a morganatic marriage with a beautiful young Athenian lady, Aspasia Mano; and after his death a daughter was born to her in Paris on the 25th of March 1921.
