8. Grand Ambitions
After the war, Premier Venizelos and his puppet king were committed to a political platform called Great Greece. It consisted of capturing from the defeated Ottoman Empire, now reduced to modern Turkey, all the lands that had once been inhabited by Greeks, dating back millennia. So in 1919, with tacit French and British support, Greek armies were sent to invade Turkey and seize the Ionian coast.
The king never got to see the end of that adventure, however, because his own undignified end intervened. It began with a visit to the Royal Gardens on September 30th, 1920 – a turning point in Greek history. While walking his dog through the Gardens that day, king and pooch came across somebody’s pet Barbary macaque monkey. The dog attacked the monkey, which fought back. Alexander rushed in to separate the brawling animals. Unbeknownst to the king, however, the monkey had friends. King Alexander was about to have a great oops moment, and rue his decision to jump into the fight.