King of the Hellenes, second son of King Christian IX. of Denmark; born at Copenhagen on the 24th of December 1845. After the expulsion of King Otto in 1862, the Greek nation, by a plebiscite, elected the British prince, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh (subsequently duke of Coburg), to the vacant throne, and on his refusal the national assembly requested Great Britain to nominate a candidate. The choice of the British government fell on Prince Christian William Ferdinand Adolphus George of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, whose election as king of the Hellenes, with the title George I., was recognized by the powers (June 6, 1863). The sister of the new sovereign, Princess Alexandra, had a few months before (March 10) married the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., and his father succeeded to the crown of Denmark in the following November. Another sister, Princess Dagmar, subsequently married the grand duke Alexander Alexandrovitch, afterwards Emperor Alexander III. of Russia. On his accession, King George signed an act resigning his right of succession to the Danish throne in favour of his younger brother Prince Waldemar. He was received with much enthusiasm by the Greeks. Adopting the motto, “My strength is the love of my people,” he ruled in strict accordance with constitutional principles, though not hesitating to make the fullest use of the royal prerogative when the intervention of the crown seemed to be required by circumstances.
King George had all but completed the fiftieth year of his reign and was about to celebrate his jubilee (if we may believe his friend and biographer, Capt. Christmas) by abdicating the throne in favour of the Crown Prince Constantine, when he was shot down by a half-crazed Greek, named Schinas, at Salonika on March 18, 1913. His assassination was at first attributed to Bulgarian instigation, but after the first few days Greek public opinion dismissed this suspicion. On the other hand the crime has sometimes been attributed to Austrian and German intrigue—Austrian for political, German for dynastic reasons. This suspicion is quite unproved, although a certain atmosphere of mystery that covered the examination and the subsequent “suicide” of the assassin helped to make it popular.
It had been characteristic of King George’s political acumen that in 1909 he promptly recognized Venizelos’s rare ability and gave him his wholehearted support, overlooking the fact that only four years before Venizelos had practically driven the King’s second son, Prince George, out of Crete, and came to Greece in 1910 with the avowed readiness to force the King himself to abdicate, if he persisted in his lifelong policy of laisser faire. And the King’s discernment was rapidly and amply justified. Internal politics played only a secondary part in King George’s, as in King Otto’s, reign. The Panhellenic, or “Great,” idea, i.e., the hope of uniting all the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire with the Greek Kingdom, had absorbed the thoughts and resources of the Greek people, ever since the recognition of the independence of Greece. King George, warned by Otto’s example, and being of a totally different temperament, as well as of a far superior acumen, consistently strove, throughout his long reign, to restrain the patriotic exuberance of his subjects on the one hand, while endeavouring, on the other, to use his great personal influence and family connections abroad in favour of the aspirations of the Greek people. As the brother-in-law of Edward VII. of England, and of Alexander III. of Russia, the uncle of Tsar Nicholas II., the friend of Francis Joseph and of Gladstone, de Freycinet and many other British and French statesmen of his day, he had the ear of those upon whose decisions European politics depended; and while he was not always able to win them to his point of view, nor to spare Greece humiliations like the blockade of 1886 or cruel disappointments like the successive phases of the Cretan question, yet it is beyond doubt that his personal influence obtained for Greece, from the Great Powers, the maximum of friendly consideration consistent with their own interests and policies. It has been said more than once that at the time of his accession to the Greek throne he was made to undertake a secret engagement toward the Powers to act as a check upon the Panhellenic agitation; and in order to strengthen his hands in this undertaking Great Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864. Only once did King George depart from his pacific policy—in February 1897, when he approved of Col. Vassos’s expedition to Crete. In a proclamation to the nation he declared that “his patience was at an end,” and that, since the Great Powers persisted in dallying with the Cretan question, he felt that the moment had come for Greece to settle it by herself. Even in October 1912, when Greece, in alliance with the other Balkan states, was preparing to declare war against Turkey, King George came hurrying home from Denmark, very much opposed to this venture. Venizelos went to meet the Royal yacht at Corinth, and the vessel was kept at quarter-speed for four hours between Corinth and Piraeus while Venizelos argued and wrestled with the King to win him over to his point of view. Finally the King, still unconvinced, observed that in obedience to the constitutional principle he had no choice but to consent.
King George’s violent death was thus fraught with momentous consequences for Greece and for Europe. Greece lost a sagacious sovereign, and the Anglo-French Entente a devoted friend. He was succeeded by his eldest son, as Constantine I.
King George married, on the 27th of October 1867, the grand duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, who became distinguished in Greece for her activity on behalf of charitable objects. Their children were Prince Constantine, duke of Sparta (1868–1923), who married in 1889 Princess Sophia of Prussia, daughter of the emperor Frederick, and granddaughter of Queen Victoria; Prince George (1869–1957), from November 1898 to October 1906 high commissioner of the powers in Crete; Prince Nicholas (1872–1938), who married in 1902 the grand duchess Helen-Vladimirovna of Russia; Prince Andrew (1882–1944), who married in 1903 Princess Alice of Battenberg; Prince Christopher (1888–1940); and a daughter, Princess Marie (1876–1940), who married in 1900 the grand duke George Michailovich of Russia.
See Capt. Walter Christmas, King George of Greece (1914).
