George I, the king of Greece, was assassinated on the late afternoon of March 18, 1913, in Thessaloniki, by Alexandros Schinas, an alleged Greek anarchist.
On the day of the murder, King George I was in Thessaloniki, recently conquered from the Ottomans by his son, Crown Prince Constantine. After 50 years of reign, the king, feeling frail, planned to abdicate during his upcoming golden jubilee in October. In the afternoon, he took his daily walk in the city streets, with minimal protection, as he did in Athens throughout his reign. At around 5:15 p.m. near the White Tower, Schinas shot him with a revolver. King George I was rushed to the hospital but died before arrival. To avoid inciting Greek resentment towards Thessaloniki, a city largely populated by Slavs, authorities denied any political motive for the regicide, attributing it to Schinas, described as an alcoholic and mentally unstable individual. Schinas was arrested by the Hellenic Gendarmerie, placed in custody, and interrogated, but he died from defenestration on May 6, 1913.
After being repatriated on the royal yacht to the Greek capital, the King's body, surrounded by Greek and Danish flags, was placed in the cathedral of Athens and publicly displayed for three days before being buried in the gardens of the royal palace of Tatoi. Constantine I succeeded his father on the eve of World War I, marking the beginning of a period of great instability for Greece and the Crown. Overthrown and replaced by his second son, Alexander, after only four years of reign, Constantine went into exile and only regained his throne in 1920. He was forced to abdicate permanently in 1922, this time in favor of his eldest son, George II, following Greece's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War.
Background
After being under Ottoman rule from the mid-15th century until the 1820s, Greece gained independence in 1821 with support from the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. They appointed Prince Otto of Bavaria as the monarch of the new Kingdom of Greece. In 1862, King Otto I was overthrown, and the "protecting powers" selected Prince William of Denmark, who was 17 years old at the time, as his successor. He was approved by the Greek National Assembly and proclaimed "King of the Hellenes" under the regnal name George I on March 30, 1863.
The "Megali Idea," an irredentist belief in the recovery of Greek lands under Ottoman control and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire, led Greece to regain Volos and other parts of Thessaly during the Convention of Constantinople (1881). However, the country suffered a humiliating defeat in the First Greco-Turkish War in 1897, led by Crown Prince Constantine, the King's eldest son. King George I survived an assassination attempt the following year and a military coup in 1909, which resulted in Eleftherios Venizelos becoming Prime Minister. Venizelos reorganized the Greek armed forces and sidelined Constantine to an honorary position. In October 1912, when Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, Greece's allies in the Balkan League, declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the King saw an opportunity to restore Greece's reputation after its defeat fifteen years earlier.
The early victories of the First Balkan War caused divisions among the allies over the spoils, particularly the port of Thessaloniki (the second largest city in the Ottoman Balkans after Constantinople), the capital from a geographical and economic perspective. In early November, Greek forces entered the city before their Bulgarian allies. Constantine led the army through the city and accepted the surrender of the Ottomans at the Government House. The Greeks celebrated the city's liberation with joy. George I and Venizelos rushed to Thessaloniki to support Greece's claims and organize a victory celebration for the king's upcoming golden jubilee. The liberation of Thessaloniki was followed by the capture of Ioannina, another Greek city held by the Ottomans, during the Battle of Bizani in early March 1913.
When he was assassinated on March 18, 1913, George I had been reigning for almost 50 years. He was a popular king who embraced the "Great Idea" more than ever during his reign and reached the peak of his prestige after the victory in Thessaloniki.
Assassination
Eager to leverage his popularity to solidify his dynasty, George I decided to abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Constantine. During his stay in Thessaloniki, the King announced to his family his intention to step down on his upcoming golden jubilee in October. He cited his declining vigor as the reason for his decision and believed that Constantine, with his ideal age and stature, was ready to take over the throne.
On March 18, 1913, King George I took his usual afternoon walk in the streets of Thessaloniki with his aide-de-camp, Ioannis Frangoudis. He moved around almost unprotected, just as he had done in Athens since the beginning of his reign. Despite advice from his advisors, the King preferred minimal protection, only allowing two gendarmes to follow at a distance. They strolled near the White Tower and discussed the King's upcoming visit to the German battlecruiser Goeben. However, as they reached the corner of Vasilissis Olgas and Agia Triada streets, they were unexpectedly approached by Alexandros Schinas, a presumed Greek anarchist, around 43 years old.
At around 5:15 pm, Schinas shot the king point-blank in the back with a revolver. According to The New York Times, Schinas had concealed himself and quickly approached to shoot the King. Another account depicts him emerging from a Turkish café named Pasha Liman, intoxicated and disheveled, and firing at George I as he walked by. The bullet struck the King's heart, leading to his collapse. The monarch was then transported by carriage to the nearest military hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries before arrival, at the age of 67.
The New York Times reported George I's last words: "Tomorrow, when I make my official visit to the battleship Goeben, it is the fact that a German battleship honors a Greek king here in Salonica that will fill me with happiness and satisfaction." However, the king's biographer, Captain Walter Christmas, reported his last words as follows: "Thank God, Christmas can now finish his work with a chapter to the glory of Greece, the Crown Prince, and the army."
Alexandros Schinas did not attempt to escape and was immediately apprehended by Ioannis Frangoudis. Additional gendarmes quickly arrived from a nearby police station. Schinas reportedly asked the officers to protect him from the surrounding crowd. Prince Nicolas, George I's third son, was quickly informed of the event and rushed to the hospital. As the only member of the royal family present in Thessaloniki, he was the one who informed the new monarch of his father's death. Crown Prince Constantine was in Epirus at the time, commanding the army that had just taken Ioannina, with his brother, Prince Christopher.
National and international reactions
Immediately after the assassination, Greece refused to attribute a political motive to Schinas' act. Aware that the assassination of the king in a city largely populated by Slavs could reignite tensions with Bulgaria, the Greek authorities targeted some Muslim and Jewish residents of Thessaloniki whom they held responsible. To pacify public opinion, the government eventually announced that the killer was Greek, describing Alexandros Schinas as a person of "low intelligence," a "degenerate criminal," and a "victim of alcoholism." This "official narrative" became the widely accepted portrayal of Schinas, depicting him as an alcoholic and homeless, with his motivation for the assassination of the king attributed to mental illness rather than political reasons. The authorities then attempted to suggest that he was an agent acting on behalf of a foreign power (Bulgaria, Germany, or the Ottoman Empire) without providing any evidence to support their claims.
The news of George I's death deeply shocked Greece. In Athens, newspapers were printed with black borders and carried eulogistic articles about the late monarch. All ministers expressed their condolences to Queen Olga, the widow of George I. She was in Athens when her husband was assassinated, and it was her son Andrew, daughter-in-law Alice, and grandson George who broke the news to her. On March 19, the day after the King's assassination, all public establishments were closed, flags were flown at half-mast, cannon shots were fired at regular intervals to signify the national day of mourning, and death bells tolled. Meanwhile, in Athens, Eleftherios Venizelos announced before Parliament the accession to the throne of Crown Prince Constantine.
In the hours and days following the news, the new King Constantine I received condolence telegrams from monarchs and heads of state worldwide. In Berlin, Emperor Wilhelm II, brother-in-law of the new king, decreed a three-week court mourning, and all officers of the Imperial German Navy observed an eight-day mourning period. In London, George I's death deeply affected Dowager Queen Alexandra, sister of the late monarch, who fainted immediately. The English-language press noted the successive deaths that had affected the queen since the death of her husband King Edward VII in 1910. In Brussels, the court mourned for twenty-one days, while in Paris, President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister Aristide Briand sent telegrams of condolence to Constantine I. The French press unanimously condemned the attack. In the columns of Le Figaro, the day after the assassination of the King of the Hellenes, journalist Georges Bourdon wrote: "The death of this rare sovereign is a great loss for Greece, which will not be alone in feeling bitterness. Throughout the world, she has friends who, in her sorrow, mingle their mourning."
The assassination of George I is reminiscent of other attacks on monarchs and political figures at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, including King Umberto I of Italy (1900), Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1898), President of the French Republic Sadi Carnot (1894), and Emperor Alexander II of Russia (1881).
Profile of Alexandros Schinas
Although Alexandros Schinas is considered one of the most famous anarchist assassins of the early 20th century, his profile remains unclear, much like other infamous assassins such as Luigi Lucheni (who assassinated Empress Elisabeth of Austria) or Leon Czolgosz (who assassinated US President William McKinley). Various conspiracy theories, once propagated by the Greek authorities, have suggested that Schinas may have been an agent for the Ottomans, Bulgarians, the Dual Alliance (Germany and Austria-Hungary), or Macedonian nationalists. However, no concrete evidence has surfaced to support these claims, and no nationalist group claimed responsibility for the assassination of King George I. Experts point out that the assassination disrupted the fragile peace between Greeks and Bulgarians, and that King George I had already planned to abdicate in favor of Constantine at his upcoming golden jubilee, making any intervention by the Dual Alliance unnecessary to secure Constantine's succession to the throne.
The government of Greece initially denied any political motive for the regicide, but during an interview in prison, a journalist asked Alexandros Schinas, "Are you an anarchist?" Schinas responded: