A member of the House of Hohenzollern and child of Frederick III, German Emperor, Sophia received a liberal and Anglophile education, under the supervision of her mother Victoria, Princess Royal.

However, it was during the wars which Greece faced during the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that Sophia showed the most social activity: she founded field hospitals, oversaw the training of Greek nurses, and treated wounded soldiers.

However, Sophia was hardly rewarded for her actions, even after her grandmother Queen Victoria decorated her with the Royal Red Cross after the Thirty Days' War: the Greeks criticized her links with Germany.

Her eldest brother, German Emperor William II, was indeed an ally of the Ottoman Empire and openly opposed the construction of the Megali Idea, which could establish a Greek state that would encompass all ethnic Greek-inhabited areas.

Sophie's mother described the event to Queen Victoria: "The Christening went off well, but was sad and serious; anxious faces and tearful eyes, and a gloom and foreshadowing of all the misery in store spread a cloud over the ceremony, which should have been one of gladness and thanksgiving".

[e] In Berlin, the union was also unpopular: German interests were indeed important in the Ottoman Empire and the Emperor did not intend to help Greece simply because the Greek crown prince was his new brother-in-law.

Fortunately for the mother and child, the German midwife sent by the Dowager Empress Victoria to help her daughter in childbirth managed to resolve the situation and no tragic consequences occurred.

[33] Of Russian origin, Queen Olga was considered by some Greek nationalists as an "agent of the Pan-Slavism" and the King therefore preferred that Germanus II would guarantee the task that could otherwise create difficulties for the Crown.

[33][34] Though the news of her conversion was greeted calmly by most members of her family, Sophia feared the reaction of her brother William II, who took his status as Head of the Prussian Union of Churches very seriously and hated disobedience more than anything.

Pressed by her mother to appear conciliatory, Sophia ended up writing a letter to her brother explaining the reasons for her conversion but the Emperor would not listen, and for three years he forbade his sister to enter Germany.

In 1897, when the Thirty Days' War broke out, Sophia and other female members of the royal family actively worked with the Greek Red Cross in order to help wounded soldiers.

[48] Unfortunately for the Crown Princess, her help for the wounded soldiers was less appreciated in Greece, where the population blamed the royal family, and especially Constantine, who was commander-in-chief of the Greek army in Thessaly, for the loss against the Ottomans.

Very affected by the death of the sovereign, Sophia traveled to the United Kingdom for her funeral and attended a religious ceremony in her honor in Athens with the rest of the Greek royal family.

[77] While the Crown Prince and his brothers took command of Greek troops,[78] Queen Olga, Sophia, and her sisters-in-law (Marie Bonaparte, Elena Vladimirovna of Russia and Alice of Battenberg) took in charge the aid to wounded soldiers and refugees.

[85] In private, the Crown Princely couple communicated in English and it was mainly in this language that they raised their children, who grew up in a loving and warm atmosphere in the middle of a cohort of tutors and British nannies.

Like her mother, Sophia inculcated in her offspring the love for the United Kingdom and for several weeks every year, the family spent time in Great Britain, where she visited the beaches of Seaford and Eastbourne.

Wanting to release the Greek populations of Asia Minor from Ottoman rule, Constantine I was at first ready to offer his support to the Allies and bring his country into the war.

In Greece, public opinion was outraged by a rumour, spread by Venizelists, who said that the King was not sick but was in fact wounded with a knife by Sophia during an argument where she wanted to force him to go to war alongside her brother.

Various sources from the period-whose diaries, journals and extensive correspondence have been a subject of great study in Greece-note that Sophia used to hide behind a curtain in her husband's apartments during Cabinet meetings and private audiences with the King, in order to be informed on the state of affairs.

[109] It must be said that by refusing to go to war, Greece prevented the Franco-British troops of helping Serbia, whose armies soon found themselves overwhelmed by the Austro-Bulgarian coalition, and it made even more uncertain an Allied victory in the Dardanelles.

The conflict between the King and Venizelos culminated in the so-called National Schism, which was essentially a battle between those who wanted things to remain as they were and those who favoured reform; between conservatism and cosmopolitanism; between the old world and the new.

However, Sophia still had some resentment against the Emperor because of his anger at the time of her marriage and her conversion to Orthodoxy; but the violation of Greece's neutrality by the Triple Entente and the threats against the life of her husband and children gradually changed her views against the Allies.

[117] Meanwhile, a Franco-British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet, occupied the bay of Salamis to put pressure on Athens, while various ultimatums were sent, mainly concerning the disarmament of his army.

[119] On 1 December 1916, Constantine I finally agreed to the French demands, and soldiers of the Triple Entente landed in Athens to seize guns promised by the sovereign two months earlier.

For Sophia, the snub was more difficult to bear because she had always been on good terms with the United Kingdom representatives before the deposition of Constantine I and she continued to nurture loving feelings for the country of her mother.

Although initially opposed to Alexander's marriage with Aspasia Manos, the Queen welcomed their daughter with delight and pressed both her husband and eldest son to give her granddaughter the status and titles reserved to members of the royal family.

[151] While Mustafa Kemal and his armies gradually reconquered Anatolia and east Thrace, thousands of Greeks were murdered and others fled from Asia Minor to find refuge in Greece.

Having consulted his friend, General Ioannis Metaxas, the King abdicated three days later on 27 September in favor of his eldest son, who succeeded him on the throne under the name of George II.

On 30 October 1922 the deposed royal couple, Princesses Irene and Katherine and Prince Nicholas with his family, went again to the port of Oropos to leave their country but, contrary to what happened in 1917, few followers awaited them this time before their departure into exile.

She made frequent trips to Germany, where she reunited with her sister Margaret, but also to Great Britain, after having obtained the permission of King George V.[172] The Dowager Queen also witnessed several strong moments in the life of the European elite.