Paul of Greece
Paul was King of Greece from 1 April 1947 until his death on 6 March 1964.
Paul was born in Athens as the third son of Crown Prince Constantine and Crown Princess Sophia of Greece. In 1912, the year before his father ascended the throne, Paul joined the Royal Hellenic Navy at eleven years old, becoming the youngest cadet at the time. After the National Schism during World War I, Constantine's abdication was forced and Paul and his family went into exile in Switzerland. Paul's brother, Alexander, became the Greek sovereign in 1917 when Constantine and Paul were exiled, however, Alexander's death in 1920 led to Constantine's restoration. In 1922, Paul's other brother, George, became the monarch. However, a referendum in 1924 two years later saw the abolition of the Greek monarchy. Paul moved to Italy with his family and then to London.
In London, Paul had an affair with his first cousin and his first love, Princess Nina Georgievna of Russia, who would eventually reject his marriage proposal. The monarchy and George's position as king were restored after another referendum in 1935. George was childless, which made Paul the heir presumptive and gave him the responsibility of finding a spouse and having children. At the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Paul successfully proposed to Frederica of Hanover, whom he had been seeing regularly for the past year. However, Paul's engagement to a German princess received a mixed reaction in Greece, especially since Adolf Hitler attempted to include Nazi swastika flags at their wedding ceremony. Paul was forced out of Greece with his family during World War II when Greece fell to the Axis Powers. Paul moved to Egypt and then South Africa, where he left his wife and three young children and moved to London with his brother for the remainder of the war.
After World War II's conclusion, George returned per another referendum and the Greek Civil War broke out. When George died in 1947, Paul succeeded his brother and became the King of Greece. Paul soon contracted typhoid fever, which restricted his ability to manage the Greek Civil War. The war nonetheless concluded in 1949 with monarchists defeating communist forces in the country. During his reign, Paul was also increasingly faced with deterioration in Greco-British relations and Greco-Turkish relations as he worked to achieve enosis. For his support of the movement, Paul was labelled a terrorist in the British media. Though Paul successfully secured money from the Marshall Plan to fund recovery and infrastructure projects, he was criticised for limiting democracy when the new 1952 Greek constitution gave extensive powers to the monarch. During his reign, Paul was commended by the media for his numerous state visits to multiple countries. He was later diagnosed with stomach cancer and died in 1964. He was succeeded by his only son, who became Constantine II. Paul had three children: Queen Sofía of Spain, Constantine II of Greece, and Princess Irene. Paul was also a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Early life
Paul was born on 14 December 1901 at the Tatoi Palace in Attica north of Athens, the third son of Crown Prince Constantine and his wife, Princess Sophia of Prussia. To his family, he was known as Palo.Paul grew up in the Presidential Mansion, where his parents resided, and Tatoi Palace, the official residency of the Greek monarch. Paul grew up with five other siblings. When Paul was three years old, his brother, Alexander, almost killed him by accidentally throwing him off a cart that was going full speed into the royal gardens. Paul grew up speaking English to his parents and learned Greek as a second language.
Paul was born as fourth in line to the Greek throne, behind his father and two older brothers. As a result, Paul did not receive a sophisticated education. He was privately tutored by foreign teachers, Greek university professors, who were chosen by Constantine, and Dr Hoenig, his mother's Pomeranian chaplain. From 1911 to 1914, Paul travelled to the UK to attend summer courses in Eastbourne at Saint Peter's Preparatory School for Young Gentlemen. Paul was said to stand out in more physical subjects, such as woodwork, and in discipline.
In 1909, when Paul was seven years old, a group of Greek officers mounted a coup d'état against his grandfather, George I of Greece. The officers, led by Nikolaos Zorbas, declared themselves in support of the monarchy, however, asked George I to dismiss his sons from the army. His sons instead resigned from the army. As a result of criticism, Constantine decided to move with his wife and his sons, including Paul, to Germany for several months. The family stayed with Princess Margaret of Prussia, who was Paul's maternal aunt, in Kronberg. The family returned to Greece at the beginning of 1911, when the new Greek Prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, allowed the princes to regain the ranks in the military. The following year, in 1912, and until 1913, Greece fought in the Balkan Wars. Greece was able to double its size in territory in the wars, during which Paul served as the youngest cadet in the Hellenic navy, at eleven years old.
World War I and aftermath
National Schism
Paul's father, Constantine, ascended to the throne upon the assassination of George I in 1913. Constantine wished to keep Greece neutral during the prelude to World War I, but was in support of the Central Powers, since he was the brother-in-law of the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Venizelos, however, was staunchly in support of joining the Allies due to the Ottoman Empire's mistreatment of its Greek population. The disagreement between Constantine and Venizelos quickly resulted in the National Schism, a civil war between the two opposing sides. Per Van der Kiste, possibly due to "being afraid" of Wilhelm II, Constantine continued to refuse to succumb to Venizelos' demands. Constantine was also pressured to oppose Venizelos by Ioannis Metaxas. On 10 June 1917, Charles Jonnart, who acted as the Allies' representative in Greece, ordered Constantine to abdicate. The Allies threatened to invade Greece from a military landing at Piraeus, so Constantine unofficially abdicated. The Allies did not wish to replace Greece with a republican system, so Venizelos scrambled to find a replacement king. It was finally decided that Paul's older brother, Alexander, though not the eldest son of Constantine, would succeed to the throne, as Constantine's eldest son, George, was also seen as pro-German. Following Jonnart's demands for abdication, Paul and his family, except for Alexander, had evacuated Athens.Exile to Switzerland
Paul and his family briefly travelled to Oropos, before going through Italy to live in Switzerland. They first resided in St. Moritz and then in Zürich. The rest of the extended Greek royal family joined them when Venizelos announced Greece's entry into World War I. In 1918, Constantine contracted the Spanish flu, causing him to fall severely ill and restricting him from providing for Paul and his other children. The disease almost killed him, however, he managed to recover. Constantine remained concerned about Paul's lack of education after the Greek government refused his entry into the British Royal Navy. To Paul's dismay, Constantine accepted the offer made by Wilhelm II for Paul to join the Imperial German Navy. Paul soon left Switzerland for Germany and became a cadet.Paul continued to join the German Imperial Naval Academy, where his training was supervised by his uncle, Prince Henry of Prussia. However, when the German Revolution arose, many naval officers and their crews began mutinies, such as the Kiel mutiny, while the German monarchies began being overthrown, forcing Paul to evacuate back to Switzerland. However, before leaving the country, Paul contracted the Spanish flu, delaying his reunion with his family. It took Paul several days to finally travel back to Switzerland.
After World War I, Greece had made territorial gains in Thrace and Anatolia per the Treaty of Sèvres, to the dismay of the Ottomans, causing the Greco-Turkish War. Despite the war's resolution, tension between Constantine and Venizelos still remained high. Paul's brother, Alexander, died of sepsis after having been bitten by a monkey, leaving Greece without a monarch and plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. Venizelos sought to find a replacement successor. The Greek parliament refused to reinstate Constantine, and thus Venizelos, on 29 October 1920, sent a letter to the Greek ambassador to Switzerland at the National Hotel in Lucerne, requesting that he meet with Paul, who he saw as the new potential king.
The following day, Paul sent a letter to the ambassador expressing his refusal to disregard the laws of succession to the crown, which is what would occur if Paul were instated as the monarch. Paul wrote that neither his father, Constantine, nor his older brother, George, had ever renounced their rights to the throne and that therefore, his ascension to the throne would be illegitimate. The Greek throne remained vacant while Greece fought in the Greco-Turkish War, during the Turkish War of Independence. During the 1920 Greek legislative election, fighting broke out between a sector of monarchists, who protested for Constantine's reascension to the throne, and supporters of Venizelos. On 14 November 1920, the monarchists won and it was organised for Constantine to become King of the Hellenes, while Venizelos was replaced with Dimitrios Rallis. Before Venizelos' exit from office, he requested that Paul's grandmother, Olga Constantinovna of Russia, act as regent before Constantine returned.
Return to Greece
On 19 December 1920, Paul and the other Greek royals returned to Greece. They were greeted by demonstrations in support of the monarchy. However, Constantine's restoration was criticised by Greece's allies in the concurrent Greco-Turkish war, most of which were also Greece's allies in World War I, to which Constantine refused to join. Constantine was denied additional support from the Allies in the war against Turkey, allowing Mustafa Kemal to eventually make more territorial gains. Constantine left Paul and his other children with his wife in 1921 when he travelled to Anatolia to boost the morale of Greek troops. While on the frontlines, Constantine attempted to boost confidence by reminding soldiers of their successes in the Balkan Wars. However, after only a few months, Constantine reunited with his children at Tatoi in September 1921.Upon their return to Greece, Paul wished to resume his naval training and joined the Hellenic Naval Academy, taking up residence in the academy's boarding school, located in Piraeus. Paul studied and trained there for two years and was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in 1922. Paul served for several months on a Greek cruiser, the Elli. Despite Greece's involvement in the Turkish War of Independence, Paul never fought in a battle but participated in the evacuation of Greek and Armenian refugees from Smyrnan shores following the burning of Smyrna by Turkish troops. Turkey later defeated Greece and their allies, who had been suffering since the fall of Smyrna in August 1922.