Assassination of George I of Greece

Assassination of George I
Karl Haupt, The Assassination of H.M. the King of the Hellenes, 1913
Location	Thessaloniki, Greece
Date	March 18, 1913 17h 15 (UTC+02:00)
Target	George I of Greece
Attack type	Regicide
Weapon	Revolver
Perpetrator	Alexandros Schinas
Motive	Anarchism

George I of Greece was assassinated on the late afternoon of March 18, 1913, in Thessaloniki, Greece. It was carried out by an alleged Greek anarchist named Alexandros Schinas.

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, the king 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, Alexandros 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 Amphitrite [el] 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.