George I – King of the Hellenes (December 24, 1845 – March 18, 1913)
Born in Copenhagen, he was only 17 years old when he was elected King by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the previously unpopular Otto of Bavaria. His election satisfied the Great Powers of the time, the UK, Russia and France.
Unlike his unpopular predecessor Otto, who during his 30 year reign, surrounded himself only with Bavarian advisors and bureaucrats, who jailed the heroes of the 1821 Greek Revolution, who struggled to learn the language, who never liberated any of the Greek lands or peoples still under Turkish occupation and never converted to the Greek Orthodox faith, to the point where the local Greek population would openly label him a heretic.
Elected in March of 1863, George I arrived on the frigate – Hellas – in October that same year. Initiating the beginning of a new Greek dynasty.
He officially took up the title of George I – King of the Hellenes, as opposed to the title of King of Greece as Otto of Bavaria was known, due to the belief that he was the King of all Hellenes, even those who were still living in Greek lands still occupied by the Turks and trapped outside the modern borders of the Kingdom of Greece.
He subsequently learned Greek and married the grand duchess of Russia Olga Constantinova from the Romanov dynasty, who was an Orthodox Christian and a descendant of Byzantine royalty through the Komninos dynasty, an advantageous situation which would see future generations of this new Greek Monarchy, have a direct ancestral line to the faith of the native Greeks. Which continues to this day.
Under the reign of George I, Greece expanded its territory, liberating Thessaly, parts of Epirus, the Ionian Islands, while Crete, would also come to be controlled and administered by Greece during his reign, but was only recognised and ratified officially after his death, in December 1913.
A huge believer and advocate of the Megali Idea, George I expanded Greece’s borders considerably, which had remained stagnate in the years following the end of the 1821 Greek Revolution.
He even named his first born son Constantine, stylised as Constantine XII, envisaging that he would be the one to retake Constantinople, following on from his namesake predecessor Constantine XI Palaiologos. Under his son Constantine, Epirus, Macedonia, and the North Aegean Islands would also later be liberated. While the dream of Constantinople, would very nearly come to fruition.
George I was assassinated on March 18, 1913, he was shot in the back near the White Tower of Thessaloniki by Alexandros Schinas, claimed by various figures to be some kind of extreme anarchist and socialist. Due to his many visits abroad, it was thought that Schinas was in fact an agent working on behalf of foreign powers. One thing that is known for sure, is that he had visited New York City in the months prior, before returning to Greece in February 1913, a month before the assassination.
Reigning for 50 years, George I’s rule was one of the longest reigns of any Greek monarch in all of Hellenic history.
He is buried at the Tatoi residence of the Greek Royal Family, north of Athens.
