Crown Prince Constantine

Biography

Constantine of Greece (born August 2, 1868) served as Crown Prince and Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army during the Balkan Wars, achieving the military victories that roughly doubled Greece's territory and population. He would later reign as Constantine I from 1913–1917 and 1920–1922, but his finest military hour came in the autumn of 1912 when he led Greek forces to a series of stunning victories across Macedonia and the Aegean littoral. Constantine had received extensive military training in Germany, studying at the Prussian military academy and developing a thorough understanding of modern warfare that stood him in good stead against Ottoman forces. He had commanded Greek forces in the disastrous 1897 war against the Ottoman Empire, a conflict Greece lost badly, and spent the subsequent fifteen years working to rebuild and reform the army — a process that Venizelos's government accelerated after 1910. In the First Balkan War, Constantine commanded the Army of Thessaly, which drove northward through Macedonia while the navy, under his brother Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, swept Ottoman vessels from the Aegean and secured the islands. The race to Thessaloniki became Constantine's most celebrated achievement — his forces arrived at the city on November 8, 1912, hours before Bulgarian troops from the north, and accepted the surrender of the Ottoman garrison under Hassan Tahsin Pasha. The city's flag-raising ceremony became one of the defining moments of modern Greek national history. Greek forces under Constantine went on to capture Ioannina in March 1913, the last major Ottoman stronghold in Epirus. In the Second Balkan War, Greek forces fought against Bulgaria in southern Macedonia, winning engagements that secured Greece's northern frontier. Constantine was crowned king following his father Peter's death in March 1913 and navigated the complex politics of World War I with rather less success than he had shown as a military commander.

Key Battles