Family, infancy and exile from Greece Philip () was born on 10 June 1921 on the dining room table at
Mon Repos, a villa on the Greek island of
Corfu. He was the only son and the fifth and final child of
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and his wife,
Princess Alice of Battenberg. Philip's father was the fourth son of
King George I and
Queen Olga of Greece, and his mother was the eldest child of
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, and
Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven (formerly Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine). A member of the
House of Glücksburg, Philip was a prince of both Greece and Denmark by virtue of his patrilineal descent from George I of Greece and George's father,
Christian IX of Denmark; he was from birth in the
line of succession to both thrones. Philip's four elder sisters were
Margarita,
Theodora,
Cecilie, and
Sophie. He was
baptised in the
Greek Orthodox rite at St. George's Church in the
Old Fortress in Corfu. His godparents were his paternal grandmother, Queen Olga of Greece; his cousin
George, Crown Prince of Greece; his uncle
Lord Louis Mountbatten; and the municipality of Corfu, represented by its mayor, Alexandros Kokotos, and by the president of the council, Stylianos Maniarizis. Shortly after Philip's birth, his maternal grandfather died in
London. The Marquess of Milford Haven was a naturalised
British subject who, after a career in the
Royal Navy, had renounced his German titles and adopted the surname
Mountbattenan
Anglicised form of
Battenbergduring the
First World War owing to
anti-German sentiment in the
United Kingdom. After attending his grandfather's
memorial service in London, Philip and his mother returned to Greece, where Andrew had remained to command a
Greek Army division in the
Greco-Turkish War. Greece suffered significant losses in the conflict, while the Turkish forces made substantial gains. Philip's uncle,
King Constantine I, who was high commander of the Greek
expeditionary force, was blamed for the defeat and
forced to abdicate in September 1922. The new military government arrested Andrew and several others. General
Georgios Hatzianestis, the army's
commanding officer, and five senior politicians were tried and executed in the
Trial of the Six. Andrew's life was also believed to be in danger, and Alice was placed under surveillance. In December, a revolutionary court banished Andrew from Greece for life. The British naval vessel evacuated Andrew's family, with the infant Philip carried to safety in a fruit box.
Upbringing in France, Britain and Germany Philip's family settled in a house in the Paris suburb of
Saint-Cloud lent to them by his wealthy aunt
Princess George of Greece and Denmark. He was first educated at The Elms, an American school in Paris run by Donald MacJannet, who described him as a "know it all smarty person, but always remarkably polite". In 1930, Philip was sent to Britain to live with his maternal grandmother at
Kensington Palace and with his uncle
George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, at Lynden Manor in
Bray, Berkshire. He was then enrolled at
Cheam School. Over the next three years, his four sisters married
German princes and moved to Germany, his mother was diagnosed with
schizophrenia and placed in an asylum, and his father settled in
Monte Carlo. Philip had little contact with his mother for the remainder of his childhood. In 1933, Philip was sent to
Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, which had the "advantage of saving school fees", because it was owned by the family of his brother-in-law
Berthold, Margrave of Baden. With the
rise of Nazism, Salem's Jewish founder,
Kurt Hahn, fled persecution and established
Gordonstoun School in Scotland, to which Philip transferred after two terms at Salem. In 1937, his sister Cecilie; her husband,
Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse; their two sons; and
Georg Donatus's mother were killed in an
air crash at Ostend. Philip, then 16, attended the funeral in
Darmstadt. Cecilie and Georg Donatus were members of the
Nazi Party. The following year, Philip's uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of
bone marrow cancer. Milford Haven's younger brother, Lord Louis, assumed parental responsibility for Philip for the remainder of his youth. Philip did not speak Greek because he had left Greece as an infant. In 1992, he said that he "could understand a certain amount". He stated that he considered himself Danish and spoke mostly English, while his family was multilingual. == Naval and wartime service ==