Meanwhile, the court martial of the other scapegoats began on 13 November 1922 in the parliament building in Athens, which was crammed with spectators, craning to catch a glimpse of the doomed men. They were all charged with high treason, for having ‘voluntarily and by design permitted the incursion of foreign troops into the territory of the kingdom’. In view of the very high probability that they would be shot, the British ambassador threatened to break off diplomatic relations if the revolutionaries failed to exercise clemency. At the Lausanne peace conference, the British foreign secretary, Lord Curzon, urged Venizelos, the former Greek prime minister, who was now an envoy for the revolutionary government, to do all he could to avert this ‘abominable crime’.35
Curzon also had very much in mind the grave danger now facing Andrea, first cousin of George V, and he would almost certainly have been made aware in their meetings of the discomfort that the king still felt over the way he had allowed expediency to prevent him from giving sanctuary to his other first cousin, the tsar, in 1918. While there seems to be no conclusive evidence that George V took the exceptional step of exercising the royal prerogative to order the rescue of Andrea – as has sometimes been suggested – the king nevertheless later expressed the view that his cousin’s life had been saved ‘through his [George V’s] personal action’.36 Whatever the precise nature of the king’s ‘personal action’, the result seems to have been that one Commander Gerald Talbot was soon on his way to Athens on a mission to reach an accord with the rebels.
This imperturbable forty-year-old naval officer, who had impressed Compton Mackenzie with his ‘great domed forehead’ and ‘the majestic stolidity of the demeanour it crowned’, had the crucial advantage of being a good friend of Venizelos.37 Talbot had got to know him well while posted to Athens between 1917 and 1920, ostensibly as British naval attaché although effectively a spy. Reputed to ‘know more about the tortuous channels of Greek politics than most Greek politicians’,38 Talbot was now part of Curzon’s delegation at Lausanne, with a specific brief to find out what his wily old Cretan friend was thinking.
When asked by Curzon what position he would be placed in, as the Greek government’s representative at Lausanne, if the threatened executions were carried out, Venizelos replied that he had already sent Talbot to Athens ‘to urge counsels of moderation on the revolutionary committee’.39 Talbot, though, was presumably answerable to the Foreign Office rather than Venizelos, and he himself later maintained that he had undertaken his mission on the instructions of Curzon’s adviser, Sir William Tyrrell.40
Wherever his orders came from, he was quickly on his way. When they got wind of this, the revolutionary government concluded the trial as quickly as possible, motivated partly by fears for their own safety if the defendants were not seen to be adequately punished.41 The court martial opened on Sunday 26 November and at midnight on the Monday it rose to consider its verdict, which was delivered at 6.30 the next morning. All eight were found guilty of high treason. Six were sentenced to death, two to life imprisonment. By the time Talbot arrived in Athens at noon that day, 28 November, the condemned men were already dead. Their impassivity was ‘absolute’, according to one account. One former prime minister stared attentively at the firing squad; the former foreign minister put on his monocle after wiping it with his handkerchief; a general stood to attention; none of the six agreed to have his eyes bandaged.42
Too late to save these wretched men, Talbot concentrated his efforts on Andrea, whose own court martial was due to begin on 30 November and whose position Lindley, the British ambassador, now deemed ‘much more dangerous’ since the executions.43 The ambassador left Athens that evening in accordance with his threat to break off diplomatic relations, but before going he met Talbot and they agreed that a show of force such as the presence of a British man-of-war would do more harm than good. Instead Lindley suggested that Talbot should consider the possibility of bribery.44
Talbot promptly went into a series of long and secret meetings with the rebel leaders, Colonel Plastiras and General Pangalos – by now minister of war. On 30 November the British counsellor was able to report that Talbot had obtained a promise from them ‘that Prince Andrew will not be executed but allowed to leave the country in the charge of Mr Talbot’. The arrangements agreed upon were that:
Prince will be tried on Saturday and sentenced probably to penal servitude or possibly to death. Plastiras will then grant pardon and hand him over to Mr Talbot for immediate removal with Princess by British warship to Brindisi or to any other port en route to England. British warship must be at Phaleron by midday on Sunday, December 3rd and captain should report immediately to legation for orders, but in view of necessity for utmost secrecy, captain should be given no indication of reason for voyage. This promise has been obtained with greatest difficulty and Talbot is convinced it is essential that above arrangement be strictly adhered to so as to save Prince’s life. As success of plan depends upon absolute secrecy of existence of this arrangement, even Prince and Princess cannot be given hint of [what is] coming. Talbot is convinced that he can rely on word given him and I see no other possibility of saving Prince’s life.45
On 2 December Andrea went on trial in the parliament building, charged with disobeying an order during the battle of Sakaria and of abandoning his post in the face of the enemy. His commander-in-chief General Papoulas and another officer were called to give evidence, the latter asserting that the battle would have been won had the order been obeyed. During the course of the proceedings Andrea wore civilian clothes and one American journalist observed that he thus ‘failed to give the impression of a virile general defending his actions during the war’.46 The court martial found him guilty and he was sentenced to degradation of rank and banishment for life, escaping the death sentence only, as it was stated for public consumption, due to ‘extenuating circumstances of lack of experience in commanding a large unit’.47
On the afternoon of Sunday 3 December Pangalos quietly escorted Andrea and Talbot to the quay at Phaleron, where Alice was already waiting aboard the British light cruiser Calypso. The departure had been arranged in the strictest secrecy, so there were no crowds to send them on their way, although a few boatmen recognized Andrea and greeted him.48 Taking leave of the British counsellor who accompanied him to the pier, Andrea requested that he ‘convey to His Majesty’s Government his deep gratitude for their efforts on his behalf’.49 The same counsellor later drew Curzon’s attention to the ‘great services’ rendered by Talbot. ‘I believe that he has succeeded in checking the Greek Government in their course of madness.’50
The next day, en route for southern Italy, they called in at Corfu to pick up their four daughters and young son, along with Nanny Roose, two maids and a valet.51 Philip’s youngest sister Sophie recalled their hurried departure as ‘a terrible business, absolute chaos’, and many years later she could still smell the smoke from the grates in every fireplace at Mon Repos as her elder sisters burned all their letters and documents before gathering together a few possessions and then being bundled into cars and then a small boat to the cruiser, anchored offshore.52 Philip remembered nothing at all about the whole episode.53
FOUR
Family in Flight
During the passage to Brindisi, several officers of Calypso vacated their cabins for Andrea and Alice’s family, and the crew fashioned a crib from a fruit crate for the eighteen-month-old Philip to sleep in. It was a rough crossing