(1870-1932)
Sophie was the shyest of Vicky's daughters ans she was also her favourite. When she was fourteen, a plan to marry her to Tsarevitch Nicholas (future Nicholas II) was set in motion by Herbert von Bismarck, who was then serving in the German Embassy in St. Petersburg; the plan didn't come to an end and some years later Sophie became engaged to Crown Prince Constantine of Greece, who was the eldest son of King George I of Greece and Queen Olga. Vicky regarded her daughter's engagement as uncertain because of Greece's primitive and inmature government. Tino, as the Greek prince was known, was good natured but somewhat slow, as Queen Victoria wrote to Vicky: "; ...a good heart and good character go far beyond great cleverness"
Sophie and Constantine married on October 27, 1889. The match produced some controversy. Queen Olga didn't want her son to marry a non Orthodox princess. Kaiser Wilhelm's wife, Empress Augusta VIktoria didn't approve Sophie to join the Orthodox faith and she convinced Wilhelm not to allow Sophie back in Germnay if she changed religion. The affair was temporarily resolved by holding both services, a Lutheran and a Greek Ortodox. For the wedding, Wilhelm and Augusta decided to take Dr. Kogel, a conservative court chaplain, to Athens to perform the protestant ceremony. Vicky and Sophie disliked Kogel and they already had made the arrengements so that the ceremony would be performed by Dr. Peterson, who was the King of Greece's German chaplain. Because of the Kaiser's imposition, KIng George of Greece did not went personally to received him at his arrival to Pirccus, for which Wilhelm never forgot him.
Two years later, Sophie decided to adopt Orthodoxy.Of course it meant a shock for Augusta Viktoria, who advised Sophie that if she disobeyed her brother the Kaiser, who was head of the German Lutheran Church, she would end in hell. Sophie answered that it was her own business if she ended in hell or not. Wilhelm II claimed that if his sister entered the Greek Church, he would forbid her the entrance to Germany, and he wrote a letter to the King of Greece, informing him that he would disown Sophie if she dissobeyed him. But Sophie didnt't mind. At her mother's request, she wrote a letter to her brother explaining him her reasons for changing religion, but Wilhelm made deaf ears. Vicky sent her daughter a letter: ";You are quite at liberty to do as you like ...you are not his (Wilhelm's) subject but King George";. Sophie did embraced the Greek Orthodox faith and Wilhelm banished her form Germany. Nevertheless, in June 1891, Sophie and Constantine traveled to Hiedelberg to visist Vicky and Wilhelm didn't object. He indeed knew that the Greek constitution established that the consort was required to be of the Orthodox faith and besidesd he didn't want to annoy his grandmother as he was about to pay a visit to her in England
Constantine and Sophie had six children, three sons, who were all to be kings of Greece, George, Alexander and Paul, and three daughters, Helena, who would marry King Carol II of Romania, Irene who married the Duke of Aosta and Katherine who married Major Paul Bradman. During the las days of her life, the Empress Frederik took the task of improving conditions in Greece by pushing Sophie to start hospitals, kindergartens, trade schools, soup kitchens and by giving she and Constantine some advise of how to improve life in Greece.
In 1913, King George was assesinated while visiting Salónica and Constantine and Sophie became King and Queen of Greece. During World War I King Consatntine maintained a neutral position but Sophie was picked as a scapegoat by the Allies, who said she was pro-German, being in constant contact with the Kaiser in Berlin. In fact Sophie's inclinations were, like her mother's, towards England. Anyway, King Constantine was forced to abdicate by the Allies in favour of his second son Alexander. The eldest son George was considered to be influenced by Prussian militarism. Alexander, aged 24, was deprived of all his family's support and became a puppet of the Greek government, led by the Prime Minister Eleuterio Venizelos. In 1920, King Alexander died after being bitten by a monkey. The election of 1920 were favourable to King Consatntine, who was considereed a symbol of Greek independence, so he recovered his throne and Venizelos left the country.
In 1921 Greece tried a territorial expansion in Minor Asia, which was againts Turkish interests, causing the outbreak of a war between the two countries. The Turkish army, led by Mustafa Kemal, defeated the Greeks who had to evacuate the territories they had invaded. At the Jonic coast, the Turks organized a sistematic killing of thousands of Greeks which caused King Consatntine to abdicate in favour of his eldest son George. Consatntine died shortly after on January 11, 1923. King George II was king only by name and was deposed by the Army in 1924. He would be restored in 1935. During the German invasion in 1941, George II took his government into exile, returning in 1946. He died the following year beinmg succeded by his brother Paul.
Queen Sophie, mother of three Greek kings, survived her husband for nine years; she died on January 13, 1932 at Frankfurt.
Eilers Marlene: Queen Victoria's Descendants
Packard, Jerrold M.: Victoria's Daughters
Aronson, Theo:A Family of Kings
Sophie of Prussia
