by Susan Flantzer

• King Constantine I of Greece Deposed
• Timeline: June 1, 1917 – June 30, 1917
• A Note About German Titles
• June 1917 – Royals/Nobles/Peers/Sons of Peers Who Died In Action

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King Constantine I of Greece Deposed

King Constantine I of Greece was born on August 2, 1868 in Athens, Greece. Constantine’s birth was met with great joy in Greece as he would be the first Greek-born child of a modern Greek monarch. He was the eldest of the eight children of King George I and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia, daughter of Grand Duke Konstantine Nikolaievich who was a son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Constantine’s father was born Prince Vilhelm (William) of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and later became a Prince of Denmark when his father succeeded to the Danish throne as King Christian IX. When he was only 17 years old, Prince Vilhelm was elected King by the Greek National Assembly.

On October 27, 1889 in Athens, Greece, Constantine married Princess Sophie of Prussia, the seventh of the eight children of Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia and Victoria, Princess Royal, and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Sophie and Constantine had become engaged shortly after the death of Sophie’s father in 1888 when her brother Wilhelm succeeded their father as Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia. Sophie and Constantine had six children including three kings of Greece (George II, Alexander I, and Paul I). On March 18, 1913, Constantine’s father King George I was assassinated and he acceded to the Greek throne as King Constantine I.

At first, Constantine was a popular king because of his success in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Early in World War I, Constantine had rejected a request from his brother-in-law Wilhelm II that Greece should join Germany and the Central Powers in the war. Many Greek people thought that German-born Sophie, Constantine’s wife and Wilhelm II’s sister, supported Germany, but she was actually pro-British. Like her father, Sophie had been influenced by her mother, the British-born Victoria, Princess Royal. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos was strongly pro-Allies, having established excellent rapport with the British and French, and was convinced that German aggression had caused the war. Constantine had decided upon a policy of neutrality because it seemed the best was to ensure that Greece would emerge from the World War I intact and with the substantial territorial gains it had won in the recent Balkan Wars. The disagreement between King Constantine I and Prime Minister Venizelos was called “The National Schism” and would have repercussions in Greek politics until past World War II.

Despite the popularity of Venizelos and his clear majority in Parliament for supporting the Allies, Constantine continued to oppose the Prime Minister. In 1913, after the Balkan Wars, Greece had signed the Greek–Serbian Alliance which obliged each country to come to the other’s aid should either be attacked. When Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Venizelos wanted to mobilize the Greek army and enter the war on the side of the Allies, but was met with the refusal of Constantine, who was popularly considered to be a German sympathizer. In an attempt to force the king’s hand, Venizelos allowed a British-French force to land in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1915 in order to aid the Serbs, establishing the Salonica Front. Constantine’s constant refusal to allow Greece to fulfill its treaty commitments led to the resignation of Venizelos as Prime Minister in September 1915.

Protests began to occur in Greece and threats on Constantine’s life were received. In July 1916, arsonists, possibly at the instigation of the Greek secret police, attempted to kill Constantine and some members of the Greek royal family while they were at Tatoi Palace, the summer palace outside Athens. The forest surrounding the palace was set on fire and due to the hot, dry weather, the fire quickly spread. Tatoi Palace was burned down, sixteen people were killed, and Constantine was injured but managed to escape with his family.

In August 1916, an Allied-supported popular revolt broke out in Thessaloniki. There, the former Prime Minister, Venizelos established a provisional revolutionary government, which declared war on the Central Powers. With Allied support, the revolutionary government of Venizelos gained control of half the country.

In the Royal Palace in Athens, Constantine was basically a prisoner. Only the veto of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II prevented the British and French from deposing Constantine. That changed with the Russian Revolution in March 1917 when Nicholas II abdicated. In May 1917, supporters of Venizelos protested, calling upon the government in Athens to depose Constantine. The government in Athens realized that is was inevitable that this would happen. On June 10, 1917, the Allied High Commissioner Charles Jonnart required King Constantine I to abdicate on the grounds that he had violated his oath to rule as a constitutional monarch. The Allies were opposed to Constantine’s eldest son George becoming king. George had served in the German army and was viewed as having German sympathies.

At a Crown Council in the Royal Palace, Constantine explained that he would leave because Athens would be a bloodbath if he did not. He named his second son Alexander his successor with the understanding that he would return to Greece after the war. The 23-year-old Alexander was horrified. Constantine explained that he was holding the throne in trust for his father and his elder brother. Neither Constantine or his son George would sign any renunciation of succession. On June 11, 1917, Constantine left Greece for exile in neutral Switzerland and on June 30, 1917, Greece officially declared war on the Central Powers.

The rest of the story…

King Alexander was bitten by a monkey while walking in the grounds of Tatoi Palace on October 2, 1920. Thinking it was not serious, he had the wound cleaned and dressed, but it soon became infected. He developed septicemia, became delirious with fever, and died on October 25, 1920 at the age of 27.

On December 19, 1920, a plebiscite was held and nearly 99% of votes were in favor of Constantine returning to the throne. He ruled until September 27, 1922 when an army revolt caused him to abdicate in favor of his eldest son King George II. Constantine died shortly afterward, on January 11, 1923 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy at the age of 54 from a brain hemorrhage.

Read more about the Greek Royal Family at Unofficial Royalty: Greek Royals

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Timeline: June 1, 1917 – June 30, 1917

• June – October – Operation Hush, an abortive British plan to capture coast of Belgium
• June 7 – 14 – Second Battle of Messines in Flanders, Belgium, the British blow 19 deep mines and recapture Messines Ridge
• June 10 – 29 – Battle of Mount Ortigara in Trentino, Italy
• June 11 – King Constantine I of Greece is deposed (see above)
• June 13 – First successful heavy bomber raid on London by the Gotha G.IV, a heavy bomber used by the Imperial German Air Service
• June 25 – First American troops land in France
• June 30 – Greece declares war on the Central powers

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Many German royals and nobles died in World War I. The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent states, most of them ruled by royal families. Scroll down to German Empire here to see what constituent states made up the German Empire.  The constituent states retained their own governments, but had limited sovereignty. Some had their own armies, but the military forces of the smaller ones were put under Prussian control. In wartime, armies of all the constituent states would be controlled by the Prussian Army and the combined forces were known as the Imperial German Army.  German titles may be used in Royals Who Died In Action below. Refer to Unofficial Royalty: Glossary of German Noble and Royal Titles.

24 British peers were also killed in World War I and they will be included in the list of those who died in action. In addition, more than 100 sons of peers also lost their lives, and those that can be verified will also be included.

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June 1917 – Royals/Nobles/Peers/Sons of Peers Who Died In Action

The list is in chronological order and does contain some who would be considered noble instead of royal. The links in the last bullet for each person is that person’s genealogical information from Leo’s Genealogics Website or to The Peerage website If a person has a Wikipedia page or a website page with biographical information, their name will be linked to that page.

Lieutenant The Honorable Gerald George Samuel

• son of Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted and Fanny Elizabeth Benjamin
• his father was a banker and a founder of the Shell Oil Company
• born May 6, 1886 in Marylebone, London, England
• unmarried
• Lieutenant in the Royal West Kent Regiment
• killed in action at the Second Battle of Messines on June 7, 1917, age 31
• remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres, Belgium and also on a memorial at the Willesden Jewish Cemetery in Brent, England
• Gerald George Samuel was one of the soldier-poets of World War I and wrote most of his poetry during the fourteen months he was in the trenches of Belgium and France. He had a book of poems published by Arthur L. Humphreys of London in 1917.
  http://thepeerage.com/p11827.htm#i118269

The poem below was found in Samuel’s belongings after his death.

Consolation by Gerald George Samuel

Oh! I sigh when I think of the men
In the trenches of Flanders and France;
And I dream of the days of romance,
Of the bow and the shield and the lance,
And the chivalrous tales than pen
Of a poet could celebrate then.

For the brutal inventions of crime
Are the weapons of battle today;
And the guns that remorselessly slay
Blow the ramparts and shelters way,
And there in the mud and the slime
Are the heroes who fall in their prime.

And I grieve for the widows who weep,
And the parents and orphans forlorn,
And the hearts that in anguish are torn;
And yet it is idle to mourn
For the dead are serenely asleep,
And our faith in the Lord we must keep.

For the faith that is steadfast and clear,
Brings to the sorrowing hearts the reward
That our belief in our God can afford.
They are happy who trust in the Lord;
They find comfort to whom he is dead
And know that his spirit is near.

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Rifleman The Honorable Norton Humphrey Adderley

• son of Charles Leigh Adderley, 2nd Baron Norton and Caroline Ellen Dixie
• born October 16, 1882
• unmarried
• Rifleman in the London Regiment
• died from wounds received in action June 17, 1917, age 34
• urn containing his ashes was deposited in the wall in of the aisle in the south side of St Nicholas Church in Peopleton, Worcestershire, England
• http://www.thepeerage.com/p46527.htm#i465268