will be tried on Saturday and sentenced probably to penal servitude or possibly to death. Plastiras will then grant pardon and hand him over to Mr Talbot for immediate removal with Princess by British warship to Brindisi or to any other port en route to England. British warship must be at Phaleron by midday on Sunday, December 3rd and captain should report immediately to legation for orders, but in view of necessity for utmost secrecy, captain should be given no indication of reason for voyage. This promise has been obtained with greatest difficulty and Talbot is convinced it is essential that above arrangement be strictly adhered to so as to save Prince’s life. As success of plan depends upon absolute secrecy of existence of this arrangement, even Prince and Princess cannot be given hint of [what is] coming. Talbot is convinced that he can rely on word given him and I see no other possibility of saving Prince’s life.45
On 2 December Andrea went on trial in the parliament building, charged with disobeying an order during the battle of Sakaria and of abandoning his post in the face of the enemy. His commander-in-chief General Papoulas and another officer were called to give evidence, the latter asserting that the battle would have been won had the order been obeyed. During the course of the proceedings Andrea wore civilian clothes and one American journalist observed that he thus ‘failed to give the impression of a virile general defending his actions during the war’.46 The court martial found him guilty and he was sentenced to degradation of rank and banishment for life, escaping the death sentence only, as it was stated for public consumption, due to ‘extenuating circumstances of lack of experience in commanding a large unit’.47
On the afternoon of Sunday 3 December Pangalos quietly escorted Andrea and Talbot to the quay at Phaleron, where Alice was already waiting aboard the British light cruiser Calypso. The departure had been arranged in the strictest secrecy, so there were no crowds to send them on their way, although a few boatmen recognized Andrea and greeted him.48 Taking leave of the British counsellor who accompanied him to the pier, Andrea requested that he ‘convey to His Majesty’s Government his deep gratitude for their efforts on his behalf’.49 The same counsellor later drew Curzon’s attention to the ‘great services’ rendered by Talbot. ‘I believe that he has succeeded in checking the Greek Government in their course of madness.’50
The next day, en route for southern Italy, they called in at Corfu to pick up their four daughters and young son, along with Nanny Roose, two maids and a valet.51 Philip’s youngest sister Sophie recalled their hurried departure as ‘a terrible business, absolute chaos’, and many years later she could still smell the smoke from the grates in every fireplace at Mon Repos as her elder sisters burned all their letters and documents before gathering together a few possessions and then being bundled into cars and then a small boat to the cruiser, anchored offshore.52 Philip remembered nothing at all about the whole episode.53
FOUR
Family in Flight
During the passage to Brindisi, several officers of Calypso vacated their cabins for Andrea and Alice’s family, and the crew fashioned a crib from a fruit crate for the eighteen-month-old Philip to sleep in. It was a rough crossing and some of them were sick, yet Andrea nevertheless struck the captain as ‘delightful, and so English’, and all the family were ‘rather amusing about being exiled, for they so frequently are …’1 Their apparent insouciance belied the strain that they had been under.
On arrival in Italy, they continued by train, with the infant Philip crawling all over the carriage and licking the window panes, oblivious to the drama. At Rome, they thanked the Pope for his help in securing their release.2 The British ambassador lent them 14,000 lire and private arrangements were made for their entry into France, as they had no passports either.3 An extra sleeping carriage was then attached to the overnight express to Paris, where they arrived on 8 December and went straight to the hotel apartment of Andrea’s brother Christopher. Thereafter a tense Andrea ‘denied himself to all callers’, instructing the hotel management that no one be permitted even to send up a card.4
Talbot had promised Plastiras and Pangalos to take Andrea straight to London – or else more executions were threatened – but there was nervousness in London about members of the Greek royal family suddenly turning up, especially while Parliament was sitting, and the prime minister (Bonar Law) wrote urging George V not to encourage them to settle in England.5 The king was only too happy to assent to this. As he saw it, he had already saved Andrea’s life, and bearing in mind the antagonism directed towards him the last time the Greek princes came to London, during the war, he felt that Andrea and his family should not ‘unduly estimate the inconvenience’ of remaining in Paris until after Parliament had prorogued.6,7 While they waited there, Talbot went on ahead to London to make his report, and was promptly knighted by the king for his role in rescuing his cousin.
On 17 December, with Parliament in recess, Andrea and Alice and their family slipped into Britain at Dover, their arrival going unnoticed by the British press. Likewise, when Andrea went to see George V two days later,8 his visit was not advertised in the Court Circular. Their experiences over the past few months had visibly aged both him and his wife. Photographs from the time show the monocled Andrea looking far in advance of his years, his furrowed brow a manifestation of the ordeals he had been through, while Alice’s sister Louise was shocked at how worn out she looked compared to the previous summer, when she had come over for Dickie’s wedding.9
Still smarting at his treatment, Andrea told an American newspaper that he had
ample documentary material for an appeal, and when the right time arrives I hope to publish the facts. Then the people of my country can judge for themselves whether I was rightly convicted. At present all the evidence that reaches me is convincing that the Greeks as a whole disagree with what has happened. I believe I can say without egotism that the nation is in sympathy with me, and I am confident that, when hot passion and political prejudice have subsided somewhat and my statement of my case is placed before them, the people will decide in my favour.10
However, the American chargé d’affaires in Athens said that it was ‘a great mistake’ that Andrea and his brothers were ‘carrying on a kind of propaganda abroad against the present regime in Greece and abusing them quite openly wherever they go’. Not only did it annoy those in power and make them more hostile to the exiled princes’ nephew, the king, but it was also particularly ill timed at a moment when private promises had been extracted through diplomatic channels to respect Andrea’s property and possessions on Corfu.11
Andrea was still undecided as to where they were going to live, but planned in the meantime to visit his brother Christopher in America.12 As guests of his brother, he and Alice could at least expect to be well looked after, not least since Christopher’s wife, Nancy, was extremely rich, having inherited a fortune from her first husband, the tin-plate tycoon William B. Leeds, when he died in 1908.13
After spending Christmas with Victoria at Kensington Palace, Andrea and Alice sailed for New York in January 1923, leaving the two elder girls, Margarita and Theodora, with their grandmother in England14 and the two younger ones and Philip with their uncle, Prince George of Greece, and his wife, Marie Bonaparte, in Paris. In mid-Atlantic news reached them that Andrea’s brother, Constantine, had died in Sicily. The exiled king’s death had met with a subdued reaction in Athens. ‘A few weeping people were loitering outside the gates of the Palace the next day,’ reported the British counsellor, but otherwise, ‘tears were shed in private houses.’ His name, wrote the counsellor, had been inextricably linked in the minds of the Greek people with the dream of Constantinople, and at one time he had acquired a popularity unattained by any of the other kings of Greece. But parallel to this, ‘he was hated by a constantly varying number of his fickle subjects’ and ‘rightly or wrongly, he was accused of having sympathised entirely with Germany during the war’.15
