page_title: George II of Greece
section_title: Early life, first period of kingship and exile
hierarchical_section_title: George II of Greece / Early life, first period of kingship and exile
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait George II of Greece, King of the Hellenes
context_page_description: George II reigned as King of Greece from 1922 to 1924 and from 1935 to 1947. He was a paternal first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a maternal nephew of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor.
context_section_description: George was born at the royal villa at Tatoi, near Athens, the eldest son of Crown Prince Constantine of Greece and his wife, Princess Sophia of Prussia. George pursued a military career, training with the Prussian Guard at the age of 18, then serving in the Balkan Wars as a member of the 1st Greek Infantry. When his grandfather was assassinated in 1913, his father became King Constantine I and George became the crown prince.
  After a coup deposed King Constantine during the First World War, Crown Prince George, by then a major, followed his father into exile in 1917 (see National Schism). George's younger brother, Alexander, was installed as king by prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos, an avowed Republican.
  When Alexander I died following an infection from a monkey bite in 1920, Venizelos was voted out of office, and a plebiscite restored Constantine to the throne. Crown Prince George served as a colonel, and later a major general in the war against Turkey. During this time he married his second cousin, on 27 February 1921 in Bucharest, Princess Elisabeth of Romania, daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania. When the Turks defeated Greece at the Battle of Dumlupınar, the military forced the abdication of Constantine, and George succeeded to the Greek throne on 27 September 1922.
  Following a failed royalist coup in October 1923, the Revolutionary Committee asked him to leave Greece while the National Assembly considered the question of the future form of government. He complied and, although he refused to abdicate, he departed on 19 December 1923 for exile in his wife's home nation of Romania. When a republic was proclaimed on 25 March 1924, he was officially deposed and stripped of his Greek nationality, and his property was confiscated. A cold, aloof man, George rarely inspired love or affection from those knew him, and certainly not from the vast majority of his subjects. Many commented that his moody, sullen personality seemed more appropriate for his ancestral homeland of Denmark than Greece. Furthermore, George's long years spent living abroad had led him to a mentality that was essentially Western European in outlook. He had come to see Greece very much as Western Europeans did at the time, namely as a primitive, backward Balkan state inhabited by people who were romantic, but savage.       
  During his exile, George's wife stayed in Bucharest whilst he spent more and more time abroad visiting Britain, and his mother in Florence. In 1932 he left Romania permanently and moved to Britain. He and Elisabeth had no children, and were divorced on 6 July 1935. George's principal love was his English mistress, Joyce Brittain-Jones, whom he called J.
caption: Portrait by Philip de László, 1914
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