Prince Philip

choi

Ferdinand Mount, The Long Route to Windsor; Of German descent, a prince of Greece--but when World War II loomed, he chose to join the British Royal Navy: 'England is my home.' Wall Street Journal, Nov 14, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 14261606956158.html
(book review on Philip Eade, Prince Philip; The turbulent early life of the man who married Queen Elizabeth II. Henry Holt, 2011)

Note:
(1) Regarding Greek royal family, the book review contends, "Their unlovely family name was Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg."

I am not so sure it was the family name, though it is surely the name of the house. Frequently royal houses have or had no family/last name.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_philip_Duke_of_Edinburgh
(A member of the Danish-German House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Prince Philip was born into the Greek royal family, but his family was exiled from Greece when he was a child)

(a) Schleswig, Holstein, Sønderborg, and Glücksburg were places or regions in the present-day Germany or Denmark.
(b) There is no need to read the Wiki page further.
(2) George I of Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_I_of_Greece
(1845-1913; reign 1863-1913; section 7 Later reign and assassination (1901–1913))

Quote: "Originally a Danish prince, George was only 17 years old when he was elected king by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the former king Otto. His nomination was both suggested and supported by the Great Powers (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Second French Empire and the Russian Empire). He became the first monarch of a new Greek dynasty. * * * In sharp contrast to his own [almost 50-year] reign, the reigns of his successors proved short and insecure.

Take notice his death was a year before World War I.
(3) The book review, and possibly the book itself, calls Philip's father Andrea.

(a) Andrew and Andrea are the English and Italian form of Greek (and later German) Andreas.
(b) Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Andrew_of_Greece_and_Denmark
(1882-1944; the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece; Andrew saw service in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), but the war went badly for Greece)
(4) The book review says Andrew fled the battlefield "during the disastrous Greek invasion of Turkey in 1922."

Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%931922)
(occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I; Result  Decisive Turkish victory)
(5) Corfu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
(a Greek island in the Ionian Sea)

That is the island where the future Prince Philip was born, in 1921--the only son and fifth and final child.

(6) Prince Alice of Battenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alice_of_Battenberg
(1885-1969; congenitally deaf; Her mother was the eldest daughter of Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse--[the latter being] the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; In 1930, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband. After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece)

(a) The phrase "stone deaf" (used in WSJ book review) means "totally deaf."
(b) Battenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenberg
(disambiguation: Battenberg, Hesse, a town in Hesse, Germany; Battenberg, a German noble family from Hesse)
(c) Battenberg, Hesse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenberg,_Hesse
(The town is noted for giving its name to the Battenberg family and through it, the name Mountbatten used by members of the British royal family, a literal translation of Battenberg ("berg" means "mountain" in German; anglicized in 1917))

Quote: "In 778 fighting took place near Laisa and Battenfeld as part of Charlemagne's Saxon Wars. A branch of the Wittgenstein noble family began calling themselves the 'Counts of Battenberg' in 1214

(7) For Brownshirts, see Sturmabteilung
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
(a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (or Nazi Party; members often called "brownshirts" for the colour of their uniforms)

(8) The book review says, "Still, they [Philip's older sisters marrying into SS or Brownshirts] were better off than his relations through his Russian Grandmother. His [Philip's] great-uncle the Grand Duke Serge had been blown up by a terrorist bomb. His Aunt Ella was murdered by the Bolsheviks."

(a) The book review is erroneous. Neither his maternal grandmother (Price Victoria) nor his maternal great-grandmother (Prince Alice) was Russian. (Philip's mother was also Prince Alice, of Battenberg.)

(i) Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pri ... _Hesse_and_by_Rhine
(ii) Philip's great-mother (also consult (6) above):
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alice_of_the_United_Kingdom
(1843-1878; daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; born in Buckingham Palace; in 1862 married Prince Louis of Hesse, heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse)

Quote: "Alice's descendants went on to play significant roles in world history. Her fourth daughter, Alix [or Alexandra], married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia * * * Alice's second daughter, Elizabeth, who married Grand Duke Sergei of Russia, was murdered in 1918. Alice's grandson, Louis Mountbatten, was the last Viceroy of India, and her great-grandson, Prince Philip of Greece, married Queen Elizabeth II.  
  
(b) Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gra ... androvich_of_Russia
(1857-1905; son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia [II's oldest son succeeded him as Alexander III]; married Princess Elizabeth of Hesse)

Quote: "in the afternoon of February 17, 1905, the [unaccompanied] carriage of the Grand Duke passed through the gate of Nikolskaya Tower of the Kremlin * * * Then, from a distance no more than four feet away and still some sixty feet inside the Nikolsky Gate, Ivan Kalyayev, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s Combat detachment, stepped forward and threw a nitroglycerin bomb directly into Sergei’s lap. The explosion disintegrated the carriage and the Grand Duke died immediately, literally blown to bits.

Serge is French form of Russian given name Sergei. The latter is derived from the Roman family name Sergius, of uncertain origin.
(c) For Ella, see Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1864–1918)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pri ... Hesse_and_by_Rhine_(1864%E2%80%931918)
(1864-1916; wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia; an older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress [whose husband was Tsar Nicholas II]; Elizabeth was known as "Ella" within her family)

Quote: "Elizabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow. In 1918 she was arrested and ultimately buried alive by the Bolsheviks.

(9) Kurt Hahn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Hahn
(1886-1774; born in Berlin of Jewish parents; In 1933 Hahn was forced out of Germany and moved to Scotland, where he founded Gordonstoun and served as its headmaster until 1953)

The German or Jewish surname is from Middle High German hane ‘rooster.’
(10) Battle of Cape Mattapan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan
(naval battle; Mar 27–29, 1941; Belligerents UK & Australia v Italy; Result Decisive Allied victory)
(11) The book review states "he rigged up a raft with smoke floats at each side" of the raft.

rig (vt; probably back-formation from rigging): "CONSTRUCT <rig up a temporary shelter>"
(12) The book review mentions Elizabeth and Philip were married in 1947.

Elizabeth was born in 1926 and coronated in 1953.
(13) The book review quoted Harold Macmillan as saying, " I fear this young man [Philip] is going to be as big a bore as Prince Albert."

(a) bore (n): "one that causes boredom"

Definitions in (11) and (13)(a) are from www.m-w.com.
(b) Albert, Prince Consort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert,_Prince_Consort
(1819-1861; born in Saxon Duchy, now Germany; At the age of 20 he married his first cousin, Queen Victoria)
(14) out of turn:
"Not in the proper order or sequence, as in When her doubles partner began to serve out of turn, their opponents called the umpire. (Late 1800s)

In an inappropriate manner or at an inappropriate time, as in I may be out of turn telling you, but shorts are not permitted in the restaurant. (First half of 1900s)"  
Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/out+of+turn