King Alexander I (1893-1920), Aspasia Manos (1896-1972) and dau Alexandra (1921-1993)


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I think that King Alexander was a king of transition, this is,Greek politicians wanted a republic, but it was wartime, and this could lead to division of the army, they had to maintain this unity could not form the republic, they opted for a King of transition, he had to be easy to manipulate. .Prince George was not the King desired, he was not easy of manipulate by politicians but Alexander ... when he married with Aspasia Manos...he became to be a problem, he disobeyed the politicians.
I do not think Queen Sofia was behind the death of her son, Alexander had enemies in Greece, Queen Sofia requested to travel to Greece to see her son but the authorities denied this, Queen Olga was the only authorized but when she arrived to Greece her grandson had died ...
 
I don't think that he was a king in transition . Although many people even prior to WWI wanted a republic, neither Venizelos nor the main opposition wished it. The opposition viewed the king as a symbol of the nation and Venizelos had stated many times that he believed the Greeks were politically immature to have a presidential democracy. in fact his last document which was published the day after his death was a letter writeen on 9 March 1936 declaring his support towards George II . That was the last political act of him. Not to mention how closely he collaborated with George I . So , no one of the dominants figures in Greek poltics ( that is the bourgeois parties) wanted to get rid of the monarchy. Some of them just wanted to get rid of Konstantine.
Alexander's marriage with Aspasia wasn't a big problem at the end. Sure , at first it made the politician feel disturbed , especially since there was no option after that for a profitable politically royal marriage, but after a while, people were enchanted by this modern fairytale of the young handsome blond king and the beautiful Greek girl who, although was ordinary and unimportant , managed to get married to a King. That kind of fairytale made the masses largely sympathetic towards Alexander. So at the end the marriage did not have a catastrophic impact.
His Support of Venizelos did make him dangerous for a large part of the political world but I highly doubt they would actually consider killing him, because then Constantine would have to return and I am pretty sure he wouldn't spare his son's assanins. On the other hand, it seems likely that even though prominent politicians would not consider an actual murder , tehre were plently other angry , thick headed and not exactly calm people who considered that Alexander was made a pawn and That he had , for the sake of the country, to be eliminated.
At the end , the accident that occured to Alexander was not intended ( unless if someone had managed to train one of the monkeys to specificaly attcak his dog, so when Alexander would try to save the dog , the other would attack him:rolleyes:). Of course, some of the doctors might purposely mistreated him. But would such a doctor had access near him?
I also don't believe Queen Sofia had anything to do with his death. She was his mother, for heaven's sake.After all, I don't think she could be that hupocritical to kill him and then spend the rest of her life mourning for him.......
By the way, the biggest irony is that Queen Olga was actually called in time back in Greece. But then ,while she was travelling, the weather unexpectedely worsened and her ship was confined in the middle of nowhere for almost two days. That's why she didn't arrive on time. I f you think it a little bit , he was lucky to be married. At least , he had a dear person near him during his last hours.
 
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snowflower said:
I also don't believe Queen Sofia had anything to do with his death. She was his mother, for heaven's sake.After all, I don't think she could be that hupocritical to kill him and then spend the rest of her life mourning for him.......
By the way, the biggest irony is that Queen Olga was actually called in time back in Greece. But then ,while she was travelling, the weather unexpectedely worsened and her ship was confined in the middle of nowhere for almost two days. That's why she didn't arrive on time. I f you think it a little bit , he was lucky to be married. At least , he had a dear person near him during his last hours.
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Alexander was Sophie's favorite son, so it is impossible that she had anything to do with his death. Moreover, she was instrumental in lobbying Constantine to recognize their son's marriage retroactively. Aspasia and Alexandra were her only connection to her dead son, and wanted them to be HRH Princesses of Greece.
 
To me he was a King of transition by these reasons:
First he had no function,
Second, he was not the heir, he was placed by politicians, violating all norms of monarchical succession.
Third, the monarchy was not dear, most beloved symbol of the Greek monarchy was Queen Olga or former queen and yet she was expelled from Greece by politicians, when there was the Bolshevik movement in Russia, she was there, she had to seek diplomatic protection in Denmark,
the politicians wanted him because they needed that the army was not divided, if the army was divided between republicans and monarchists Greece was in danger, they needed the union, politicians did not wanted to King Constantine, to Queen Sofia, Crown Prince George, the Queen Mother Olga ... obviously did not wanted a monarchy, they wanted a person to maintain the unity and the feeling that in the form of state had not changed, were wartime
 
:previous: I see your point and I believe you are right when you say that a king was essential during that time because no one could afford during a wartime a civil fight . But I don't think that the majority of Greek politicians wanted to abolish the monarchy. During those years, at the Greek parliament were these parties:
1) the Liberals' party (" Komma twn Fileleftherwn") whose leader was Venizelos
2) the National Party (" Ethnikon Komma" ) whose leader was K. Mauromichalis
3) G Theotokis' party
4) D.Rallis' party
5) laikon party (" laikos"means "about the people"and I can't make a decent translation into English :D , so I am leaving it this way) whose leader was A. Papanastasiou ( who by the way is also named "the father of Greek democracy" because he was the first president of the First Hellenic Democracy)

Leaving aside their other political differences ( which are not a matter to discuss on this forum), each of these parties had a solid opinion about monarchy. Laikon party ( which had the less politicians in the parliament) was based on socialist ideology and was in favour of parliamentary democracy. The National party, Theotokis' party and Rallis' party ( these parties formed the main opposition because even though they didn't always agree, they had formed an alliance) all agreed together about the monarchy : they viewed the King as a symbol of national unity which went beyond the borders of the State. The Liberals' party ( the leading party)was also a supporter of the monarchy. When I say supporter, I mean that that was the party's official line. Altough many members of the party were in fact in favour of a parliamentary democracy , the party was almost totally( and when I say almost totally I actually mean it, like 99% ) controled by Venizelos. And Venizelos was a supporter of the palace, because he though that the absence of a King would bring chaos to the country, since ( according to him) Greeks were politically immature . He indeed had fought hard against Constantine, even to the point of exiling him, but the fact is that during his whole political career, he personally never posed a question to the parliament about whether a change was neccessary or whether the monarchy should be abolished, although many of his supporters pressured him to do so.
So at that point , the majority of the political leaders wished to keep the monarchy in Greece, although I admit I don't know was would have been the course of the things in Greece, if the political scene was stabler.

By the way, we are all talking about the possibility or not of abolishing the monarchy in Greece, but the truth is that, officially, the monarchy in Greece was abolished in 1864. When the National Assembly of 1962/64 voted for a new constitution , the form of goverment of the Helllenic State that was decided was " Vasileuomeni Dimokratia" which in English is best translated as "Crowned Democracy" . So , in name, Greece has been a democracy for 146 years, since constitutional monarchy was abolished along with King Otto's exile. By the 1974 referenfum what was abolished was "vasileia" ( the existence of the king) but since there is only one word in English( monarchy) we use it for both Greek words (" monarchia" and "vasileia")
 
Indeed Venizelos is quoted as having said, Greece is not mature enough to do without the monarchy. In essence, Venizelos clashed with Constantine I (the person) but he did want the monarchy to go on. It is also true that all other parties at the time consisted of either devout royalist or at least not antimonatchists. The only personage from those quoted above that was favoring the Republic was Alexandros Papanastasiou.
To conclude Venizelos never raised a question royale.
 
One thing I never liked was the fact that Aspasia was not buried next to Alexander. When the remains of Queen Olga , Queen Sophie and King Constantine were transferred from Italy in the 30's , Olga was buried next to George, and a joint grave was made for Constantine, Sophie and Alexander. So it was from then impossible for Aspasia to be buried next to him. Why did they do that? All the other married couples in the cemetery are buried either in a joint grace or side by side ( except for Andrew and Alice, she is buried in Jerusalem next to her aunt Elisabeth). So,why keeping them apart? She is buried next to her daughter Alexandra .Royal or not, Aspasia was Alexander's legal wife and the only one he ever had.
 
Dear Snowflower, because you are so scholarly, I would like to ask you to investigate the following if you can:
1. Was it written in the Constitution (in effect in the 1910s when Alexander married Aspasia) that a member of the royal family could not marry a commoner or specifically a Greek commoner?
2. Why the rsolution of the issue of the title and style of Aspasia took so long (until 1936), what protracted it and what was the additional issue that had to be resolved, some 14 years after king Constantine I had retroactively recognized the marriage and subsequently elevated her to HRH? Did the case go the the Courts and what for?
 
Vlaha Karatsokaros said:
1. Was it written in the Constitution (in effect in the 1910s when Alexander married Aspasia) that a member of the royal family could not marry a commoner or specifically a Greek commoner?
Click to expand...
Here are the articles that interest us, concerning the laws of succesion and regency according to the 1910 Constitution ( from The Greek Constitutions 1822 -1952:Greece's Constitutional History by Alexandros Svolos p.153 -154):

Article 45. The Greek Crown and its constitutional rights are succesive and are to be inherited by the direct, true and legal descentants of King George the First in order of birth seniority, with preference over the males.
Article 46. In case there is no heir fulfilling the above decided criteria, the King is to appoint one with the Consent of the Parliament, which is to be assembled for this purpose, given( the consent) by the vote of the 2/3 of the members of the parliament and through a non secret voting.
Article 47. Everyone who is possible heir to the Throne is demanded to be a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Jesus Christ.
Article 48. Never are the Crowns of Greece and any other State to be merged in one head.

It is not stated it the constitution that a Greek royal was not allowed to marry a Greek commoner .Concerning the King's consent, it is not stated among the King's powers in the constitution( articles 29 to 44) that he has the power to recognize or not the marriages of members of his family. So the Constitution didn't care if a marriage of a Greek royal was recognized as dynastic or not, the children resulting from this marriage were eligible to inherit the Throne , as long as their parents were legally married.
The Greek Family Law of that time stated that:
a) A marriage between to Greek citizens was legal only if religious. Civil weddings for Greek citizens were viewed as invalid and non existing.
b) In order to get married the person involed had to be of age and to have in free will agreed to the marriage, otherwise having reach a certain age prior to their marriage. In the second case , the consent of their parents was neccesary.
c) they had to be either widowed or bachelors.

So according to both Greek Family Law and the Constitution the marriage between Aspasia and Alexander was perfectly legal, since they were two bachelors Eastern Orthodox adults who in free will decided to get married in a religious ceremony. Alexandra was therefore a legitime offspring of Alexander and should in the line of succesion to the Greek Crown, as long as she wasn't a Crowned Queen of another country at the same time or change her religion. So even though she might not be a princess according to the Royal family, she had every right to be in the succesion among the other members of the family. And since at the time the succesion was viewed as semi salic ( although someone could question that) , she should be in the line of succesion right after Princess Catherine ( Constantine and Sophie's youngest daughters) .

I couldn't find any informations about Aspasia 's HRH status, but I made an interesting thought. At that time, it was stated by the Greek Family Law at after her marriage a woman was to carry her husband last name, and so were the children born during the marriage. So ,
since at the time the Greek Royal had no surname and they could only be indentified as Prince/Princess of Greece and Denmark
and since Aspasia and Alexandra were to have Alexander's surname
then Alexandra had to become Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark at the moment of her birth and Aspasia had to become Prinxess Alexander of Greece and Denmark at the moment of her marriage ( note that I am not adding the HRH style, just the title) in order to be indetified in the eyes to the Law as Alexander's daughter and wife respectively.
 
...... but the breach of the constitution is clear .The article 45"..... in order of birth seniority, with preference over the males....", King George is the biggest, the heir, King Alexander is the second son of King Constantine and Queen Sofia, so the breach of the Constitution is clear ...
 
Well, Alexander officialy was just a regent in his father place. So he wasn't going to sit on the throne forever, at some point he would step down and either would king Constantine return, or in case Constantine had died, George would ascend and as a regent there was no restriction as to whom they should appoint. Although I believe there is a possibility that , if Alexander was proved to be a good king, George would be greatly pressured to renounce his rights in Alexander's favour, so that Alexander would be the legitimate King of the Hellenes after their father's
 
Vasillisos Markos said:
This is another fascinating "what if" of history-- What if Alexandra took the throne instead of Paul? Would there still be a Greek monarchy?
Click to expand...

I believe It would be a fascinating " what if" even if Alexandra didn't take the throne. Even if none of Alexander's offspring were to succed him things might have turned out very differently.
Let's say that he hasn't died and that none of his children with Aspasia were ever to succed him. Then, there are two possibilities: either he would be made by the politicians the legitimate King of the Hellenes or , upon George's ascession to the throne, he would be the Diadoch.
Now, if the first case happened, he would be King of Greece until his death and then he would be succeded by Paul and Constantine. If the second case happened, then Alexander would succeed George and then Alexander would be succeeded first by Paul and then by Constantine.
In both cases, the situation would have been quite different. First of all,Alexander was known to be easy going and there would be fewer possibilities of a clash with prime ministers.The monarchy would have been much more liked them after WWII. Aspasia would be quite liked given that she was Greek and she would be on the spotlight , the King's wife, not Frederika( the Diadoch's wife) for many , many years, so Frederika would be critisized much less. Also, given Paul's ill health during the last years of his life, he might never be King. There is a possibily that Alexander would out lived Paul and then Constantine would be the immediate Diadoch. Frederika would never be Quen in that case and no one could have blamed her so much. She would just have been Princess Paul , King Constantine's mother. And even if Paul was made a King it would be a much shorter reign than his actual reign. During that time, people would not have the time to form a bad opinion about their reign, especially if they held good memeories from Alexander and Aspasia.
So the question remains : " what if there was a long reign of King Alexander and His Majesty's Royal Consort Aspasia ? " ( That was how she was called in Greece, during Alexander's lifetime ). I do believe that Greek History in general might be a little different......
 
Alexander is buried in the category of "King" but Aspasia did not received this title,, she was not treatment of "queen"... This may be the reason that they are not buried together. he was "King", she had not treatment of "Queen "
 
On a (somewhat) related note; I know the marriage of Alexandra and Peter II of Yugoslavia was said to have been rocky . . . anyone care to elaborate?
 
Was Alexandra's wedding with the King of Yougoslavia a happy wedding?
She didn' show up at her son's first wedding with Maria da Gloria. Was she ill ?
 
:previous: I don't think it was a happy wedding, although it was a straight and real love match. They met at London when both families lived there during WWII and got married and then Alexandra got pregnant with her son immediately. Both mothers obejected strongly with the wedding - Aspasia because ( from her own bitter experience) understood that being married to a royal and especially a King was a difficult affair to handle and Marie because she wished a more advantageous wedding for Peter ( she said about this : " of all the princesses that live to London now because of the war, my son had to pick the penniless Greek one"). Alexandra later develop some mental issues and the marriage turned out to be a disaster for both because they married so young and Peter lost his throne and had to live in exile and on top of that Alexandra was dealing with her own issues..... It was hard. In fact, things got so ugly at a point, that Aspasia intervened and took for a while Alexander's custody from her daughter and son in law. He later confessed in public that he was largely brought up by her because his parents had their own issues to deal with.
 
Well,in biography of Prince Tomislav,he says that her mother Aspasia was from the start for this marriage unlike his mother Queen Maria(had a "toothache" during her sons marriage) who was against the marriage firstly-because of the war in Yugoslavia,as no royal member should contract marriage during the war in his country,secondly-because she was from a morganatic marriage and thirdly-because she was penniless...
 
:previous: I have read that Aspasia was against the marriage for a time but maybe you are right Marc23 and she did in fact support the marriage. Alexandra however was always telling that, form the time she was a little girl, her mother would say to her " Marriage to a royal is not an easy ride Sandra. You'd better be extremely sure about your feelings if you wish to have a royal husband and you will have to make marry compromise, because such a marriage is very difficult to be resolved ,especially if the wife is the one wanting the divorce. Royal do not devorce Sandra". Then Alexandra would speak of the case of her aunt' Helen's marriage , AND Aspasia would say something like Sitta doesn't count, that horrible man was intorelable even by royal standars. But perhaps she wished deep inside her to see her daughter married to a prince no matter what she said ,( to stregthen Alexandra's royal status after all) and she suppostred the marriage......
 
Prince Tomislav says that young Peter was under the influence of his future mother in law and that he was very much smitten by her...when he wanted to visit Alexandra he met her mother first in a salon and she asked him:"What are your intentions?".When he said what he wanted the 3 of them formed some kind of a group who was always together making his mother Queen Maria sick of it all...Maria met Princess Alexandra,but was very mad at her son who decided to get married when his country was in the war...she begged him to wait,maybe because she was hoping that during this time he would change his mind and choose another Princess but he didn't want to listen.Both of them were very young when they married,Peter could still be considered a child...he was only 20 when he married.Prince Tomislav said that her mother Aspasia was a beautiful and very ambitious woman...Here is a rare picture of Queen Maria and Queen Alexandra together...

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k126/auersperg21/M11.jpg
 
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Vlaha Karatsokaros said:
Why the rsolution of the issue of the title and style of Aspasia took so long (until 1936), what protracted it and what was the additional issue that had to be resolved, some 14 years after king Constantine I had retroactively recognized the marriage and subsequently elevated her to HRH? Did the case go the the Courts and what for?
Click to expand...
I ve been looking into that matter for quite a time and I think I have come up with the answer. When Alexander and Aspasia got married , there was no law to stop them then . But since they were afraid about the politicians' reaction and the possible uproar they decided to elope so that everyone would know it after they had married. Because they wanted to keep it a secret a priest did marry them but without permission. Then , as today, the local Archiodece has to get informed about forhtcoming marriages and grant permission to the local parish to perform the mystery. But it seems that no announcement ever reach the Athens' Archiodese about that marriage, so it was unvalid. Because elopements were quite often back then, the Archidese would usually give its permission after such a marriage had taken place, recognising it in a retroactive way and it would be a perfectly legal marriage . But they refused to do so in Alexander's case, due to political reasons mainly, and they only did so after Alexander learned that Aspasia was pregnant and threatened them that he would leave the country and step down form the regency.When Constantine came back, given the permission the Church granted considered the marriage as perfectly legal and eleveated Aspasia and Alexandra to princely status. But it was the last formal act of his reing and it was handled in a very sloppy and improper way.
When Geoge II returned in the country in 1935, one of his first bussiness was to clear all legal and financial matters that concerned the family. He reaccounted the fortune that his aunt and uncles had inherited from King George and Queen Olga, he had his divorce with Elisabeth legalized according to the Greek laws, and he made an account of all the fortune that his parents had left, which was divided into 6 parts, one for each of the siblings. The sole inheritor to Alexander's share was Alexandra, and in order to solve once and for all the possible matters that might concerned again her legitimacy as his issue and as a memeber of the family , since one might consider that the whole marriage aand the elevation to a HRH was "blurry" ,he probably had the whole matter reviewed legally.
 
Requesting Information Regarding House of Manos

Good Evening

First i would like to say that this is a very interesting post regarding Aspasia and Alexandros.

My question is if anyone knows the names of Aspasias relatives that were Princes in Moldavia and Wallachia during the Ottoman rule of the region and generally any pre 20th century affiliations of Manos family with titles of nobility ??
 
According to his cousin, Princess Alexandra of Greece, as he grew up Prince Philip was himself "trained to save and economise better than other children, so much so that he even acquired a reputation for being mean".
​
 
King Alexander's dog fritz

Does anyone know how Alexander came to name his German shepherd "Fritz"? Bc it was German and he thought of his grandfather ?

Anyone know what happened to fritz after Alexander's death ?


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community mobile app
 
 
Lithograph of King Alexander I of Greece and Aspasia Manos, ca. 1918.

Aspasia Manos at a ski resort.

She was a Greek aristocrat who became the wife of King Alexander of the Hellenes. Princess Aspasia was the daughter of Colonel Petros Manos, aide-de-camp of King Constantine I of Greece, and Maria Argyropoulos.
royalfamily.org

HRH Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark

Her Royal Highness was born 4 September 1896 in Athens. She was a Greek aristocrat who became the wife of HM King Alexander of the Hellenes. Princess Aspasia was the daughter of Colonel Petros Manos, aide-de-camp of King Constantine I of Greece, and Maria Argyropoulos. Both her parents were
royalfamily.org royalfamily.org
 
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