As the ceremonial cannon on Lycabettus Hill fired the royal salute, huge crowds gathered outside the Palace shouting what they thought should rightfully be the newborn prince's name: "Constantine".

He was inevitably christened "Constantine" (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος, Kōnstantīnos) on 12 August, and his official style was the Diádochos (Διάδοχος, Crown Prince, literally: "Successor").

King George responded that the Crown Prince was, in dispersing protesters, merely obeying military orders, and that his conduct lacked political significance.

In the following elections Trikoupis was defeated, and the new prime minister, Theodoros Deligiannis, seeking to downplay hostility between government and the Palace, regarded the matter closed.

Subsequently, Constantine was instrumental in the organization of the 1896 Summer Olympics; according to Pierre de Coubertin, in 1894 "the Crown Prince learned with great pleasure that the Games will be inaugurated in Athens."

[5] At the Crown Prince's request, wealthy businessman George Averoff agreed to pay approximately one million drachmas[6] to fund the restoration of the Panathinaiko Stadium in white marble.

In its aftermath, the popularity of the monarchy fell, and calls were raised in the army for reforms and the dismissal of the royal princes, and especially Constantine, from their command posts in the armed forces.

In its aftermath, he and his brothers were dismissed from the armed forces, only to be reinstated a few months later by the new prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, who was keen on gaining the trust of King George.

[citation needed] In 1912 with the formation of the Balkan League, Greece was ready for war against the Ottoman Empire and Prince Constantine became Chief of the Hellenic Army.

They accordingly allotted their resources, equally divided, in a defensive posture to fortify the approaches to Ioannina, capital of Epirus, and the mountain passes leading from Thessaly to Macedonia.

The Ottomans would be slow to mobilize, and even when the masses of troops raised in Asia were ready, they were able to go no further than the outskirts of Constantinople, fighting the Bulgarians in brutal trench warfare.

With the Bulgarians directing the bulk of their force towards Constantinople, the capture of Thessaloniki would ensure that the railway axis between these two main cities was lost to the Turks, causing loss of logistics and supplies and severe impairment of command and control capability.

At this point, his first clash with Venizelos occurred, as Constantine desired to press north, towards Monastir, where the bulk of the Ottoman army lay, and where the Greeks would rendezvous their Serb allies.

Venizelos, on the other hand, demanded that the army capture the strategic port city of Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedonia, with extreme haste, so as to prevent its fall to the Bulgarians.

[7] In the meantime, operations in the Epirus front had stalled: against the rough terrain and Ottoman fortifications at Bizani, the small Greek force could not make any headway.

In the meantime the Bulgarian army had started to disintegrate: beset by defeat in the hands of Greeks and Serbs, they were suddenly faced by a Turkish counterattack with fresh Asian troops finally ready, while the Romanians advanced south, demanding Southern Dobrudja.

The widely held view of Constantine I as a "German sympathizer" owes something to his marriage with Sophia of Prussia, sister of Wilhelm II, to his studies in Germany and his supposed "militaristic" beliefs and attitude.

Constantine then offended also the British and French by blocking popular efforts by Prime Minister Venizelos to bring Greece into the war on the side of the Allies.

Constantine's insistence on neutrality, according to him and his supporters, was based more on his judgement that it was the best policy for Greece, rather than venal self-interest or his German dynastic connections, as he was accused of by the Venizelists.

Venizelos actually wanted Greece to participate at the Gallipoli operation, but after military objections by the General Staff (Ioannis Metaxas), the King rejected the idea.

Venizelos permitted Entente forces to disembark in Thessaloniki (establishing so the Macedonian front) in aid of Serbia and in preparation for a common campaign over the King's objections.

In June 1916, Constantine, General Metaxas (the future dictator) and Prime Minister Skouloudis allowed Fort Rupel and parts of eastern Macedonia to be occupied, without opposition, by the Germans and Bulgarians, as a counterbalance to the Allied forces in Thessaloniki.

During November/December 1916, the British and French landed units at Athens claiming the surrender of war materiel equivalent to what was lost at Fort Rupel as a guarantee of Greece's neutrality.

After days of tension, finally they met resistance by paramilitary (Epistratoi) and pro-royalist forces (during the Noemvriana events), that were commanded by officers Metaxas and Dousmanis.

The Allied Powers were opposed to Constantine's first born son George becoming king, as he had served in the German army before the war and like his father was thought to be a Germanophile.

Young men had been fighting and dying for years, lands lay fallow for lack of hands to cultivate them, and the country, morally exhausted, was at the brink of economic and political unravelling.

The pro-royalist parties had promised peace and prosperity under the victorious Field Marshal of the Balkan Wars, he who knew of the soldier's plight because he had fought next to him and shared his ration.

However, an ill-conceived plan to capture Kemal's new capital of Ankara, located deep in barren Anatolia, where there was no significant Greek population, succeeded only in its initial stages.

[12] Following an army revolt by Venizelist officers, considering him as key responsible for the defeat, Constantine abdicated the throne again on 27 September 1922 and was succeeded by his eldest son, George II.

As Crown Prince of Greece, Constantine married Princess Sophia of Prussia, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, on 27 October 1889 in Athens.