The Greek Royal Family





	King Paul I succeeded his elder brother, George II, on 1 April, 1947. George II, who had no children, died of a sudden heart attack after a short illness. King Paul I had suffered many of the hardships undergone by the Greek royal family during the Second World War - with their exile in Egypt, South Africa and London, and their escape from German attacks on Crete. George II and Crown Prince Paul (with his wife, Crown Princess Frederica) had returned to Greece on 28 September, 1946. King Paul I was born in December, 1901, the fourth of King Constantine I and Queen Sophie's six children (three of whom became Kings of Greece - Alexander I, George II and Paul I). He witnessed the difficulties faced by his father in holding Greece's precarious neutral position in the First World War. He saw his father remove himself from the Greek throne in 1917 under pressure from the British and the French (who thought he was too pro-German). King Constantine's second son, Alexander, succeeded him. Prince Paul saw the difficulties and successes after Greece subsequently entered the war on the side of the Allied Powers. He saw the effects of his brother Alexander's tragically early death and the return of his father to the throne in 1920. As a sub-Lieutenant on board the cruiser 'Elli', he witnessed the evacuation of Smyrna in September,1921, after its brutal sacking by the Turks in the Graeco-Turkish War which followed the First World War. Prince Paul saw his elder brother, George II, succeed his father, King Constantine I, after Constantine's abdication in 1922. When Greece was declared a Republic in April, 1924, King George II and Prince Paul (now Crown Prince) went into exile. King George II finally settled in London. Crown Prince Paul also came to England. He worked for a year as an apprentice aircraft mechanic (calling himself Paul Beck) at Armstrong-Whitworth's factory in Coventry, living for ten months in Leamington. Crown Prince Paul and King George II returned to Greece nearly 12 years later in 1935, after a national plebiscite overwhelmingly called for the return of the Monarchy after over a decade of political instability. A year later, Crown Prince Paul visited Berlin for the XIIth. Olympiad. There he proposed to Princess Frederica of Hanover, Duchess of Brunswick Luneburg. She was the granddaughter of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II (then exiled at Doorn in Holland). Their betrothal was officially announced on 28 September, 1937. They were married on 9 January, 1938. Mayor Katzios of Athens said to her, as she arrived for the wedding (dressed in blue and white, the Greek national colours), 'From this historic moment, Greeks will vie with each other for love of you'. Through the interconnecting links of European royalty, Crown Princess Frederica was 34th in line of succession to the British throne - and the marriage had to be formally approved by King George VI of Great Britain to the British Privy Council. In their early married life, they lived in their villa at Psychiko, a suburb of Athens. Their daughter, Sophia, was born on 2 November, 1938. And, on 2 June, 1940, their son, Constantine, was born. In April, 1941, Crown Princess Frederica and her two children were evacuated to Crete in a Sunderland flying boat. King George II and Crown Prince Paul followed shortly afterwards. Crown Princess Frederica and her children eventually went to South Africa - where their third child, Princess Irene, was born (the South African leader, General Smuts, was her Godfather). After braving great dangers from German attacks on Crete, King George II and Crown Prince Paul also escaped from the island, setting up a government-in-exile office in London. The Crown Princess and her family eventually settled Egypt in February, 1944. The war, and the subsequent battles in Greece between the Communists and their opponents, caused great tension to the fabric of Greek society. But, on 1 September, 1946, the Greek electorate voted in favour of the return of King George II. Crown Prince Paul and Crown Prince Frederica, returned to their villa at Psychiko. King George II died on 1 April, 1947. His brother, King Paul I, ascended the throne. Soon after King Paul I's accession. The Communist insurrection which led to fighting in Northern Greece in the Spring of 1946, blew up into a full scale Civil War. Under heavy guard, the new King and Queen toured Northern Greece in the summer of 1947. Queen Frederica appealed for support for a Northern Provinces Welfare Fund - set up to help orphans and families threatened with having their children abducted into the neighbouring Communist countries of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria or Albania if they did not support the Greek Communists. Also in that summer, King Paul I became seriously ill with typhoid fever and could not attend the wedding of his first cousin, Prince Philip (son of his uncle, Prince Andrew) to Princess Elizabeth, future Queen of England. And he was unable to visit Epirus, where the Greek army sustained attacks by the Communists on the town of Konitsa over Christmas, 1947. Queen Frederica deputised for him at the British Royal Wedding, and she also went to the Konitsa war zone (she was awarded the Greek Military Cross for her bravery in doing so). The Civil War ended at the end of August, 1949, with the victory of the national army in the mountains close to the Albanian frontier. The Civil War had been even more traumatic for the population of Greece than the Second World War itself. One tenth of the population was homeless and the King broadcast an appeal for the reconstruction of 7000 destroyed villages. The King and Queen inspired growing affection for the monarchy by their work in helping to promote reconciliation after the Civil War - and by their swift identification with the victims of a series of devastating Greek earthquakes between 1953 and 1955 (Zakinthos, Volos and Santorini). King Paul I became the last Orthodox sovereign in the world with the abdication of his cousin King Michael of Rumania in December 1947. His state visit to Turkey in June,1952 was, therefore, extremely significant. He visited the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (the senior Orthodox primate) as well as paying respects at the tomb of Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. He sought to promote religious tolerance. But the growing campaign for unity with Greece urged by the Greeks on the divided island of Cyprus developed into one of great conflict between Greece and Turkey. In 1955, most of the eighty Orthodox churches were sacked in Istanbul. Over the next few years, King Paul I and Queen Frederica paid official visits to Marshal Tito in Belgrade, the Italian President in Rome, West Germany, the Lebanon, Ethiopia, India, Thailand, the United States (where they were guests of President Eisenhower). View more profiles of the Greek Monarchy... Click here to view the family tree...