Hello and welcome to an edition of CHI the Contemporary History Intervention
that will be a bit different from the previous videos that you've seen
for reasons that require no elaboration on the 9th of April
his royal highness the duke of Edinburgh passed away
at the age of 99 years we are in a period of national mourning
there is a time for critical history but maybe it's not a time
of national mourning so this will be my personal tribute
to Prince Philip when I wrote this tribute I encountered two challenges
one is that I was wondering well is there anything that is left to say
about Prince Philip you all know him and if you didn't
you had plenty of refreshers over the last few days in the media
Prince Philip was married to Her Majesty the Queen for 73 years
he was the Queen's strength and stay in her own words
he was the longest-serving royal consort in British history
he was a moderniser who helped the royal family to make its way into the 21st
century a family man an intellectual man who had
a broad range of interests a man with a personal library that
included more than 11 000 books yes historians judge people
by the libraries that they have and it was a patron of many organizations
and courses as an environment historian I should specify
his work for the world wildlife fund he was first president
of the UK branch and then president of
world wildlife fund international so is there anything left to say here
there is a second complication in play here I’m
not a British citizen I’m one of those
EU migrants that you know come to this country and take away British jobs
but here I am born and raised in Germany
but then I realized well Prince Philip wasn't born in this country either
he was born on the Greek island of Corfu so we have another migrant here
who ended up on the British Isles and I’ll make that
the put that at the centre of this tribute and talk a little bit
about the migration background of Prince Philip and I’ll ask that
question that every migrant knows
where does he come from? well Prince Philip talked about this
himself he once described himself as and I quote
a discredited Balkan Prince of no particular merit or distinction
that's the self-description of a member of the Greek
Royal Family Prince Philip was the grandson of
the King George the first his successor Constantine the first was his uncle
that's how he described it discredited Balkan Prince of no particular
merit or distinction that's the kind of candour that we at least I
appreciate about Prince Philip and I think we historians should honour this
candour in our own assessment and we should speak out and say that this
assessment is by all means adequate the Balkan is
full of Princess royals with dubious standing
and equally dubious merits and even there
Greece may be a special chapter being King of Greece is one of the
crappiest jobs that was available to nobilities in
Europe when you talk about nobility you need to be clear about
which house they come from Prince Philip comes from the house of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg Sonderburg is an island that
is nowadays part of Denmark I checked on the map that's nowhere
close to Corfu it takes 29 hours by car nowadays to go from
Sonderburg to Corfu more than 2 000 kilometres
why does somebody from the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg
end up in Greece well the answer is simply that is the default
approach of the European powers when it comes to newly independent states
in the Balkans whenever a nation or something that thinks it is a nation
becomes independent in the Balkans the European powers settle on someone
who is then parachuted in and arrives in that country and says hello my name is
blank and I will be your King from nowadays where is my castle
to the best of my knowledge the last individual who was part of this
ambiguous tradition was the Duke of Spoleto the
member of the house of savoy who becomes Tomislav ii of Croatia in 1941.
by virtue of fascist Italy you might wonder well why
does anybody become King of Croatia in 1941 at that time Croatia
is effectively under the control of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy if there is a
ruler in Croatia it's certainly not the King of Croatia it's underpa village
and is notorious mustacha militias
so what do you do if you become King of Croatia in 1941 well one thing you do is
never never enter the country Thomas love the second never makes it to
Croatia until he abdicates in the summer of 1943. so against that
background I think you can say it is one
achievement of the Kings of Greece they actually made it to that country
the story of the Royal Family in Greece doesn't actually start with
tracy carlstein's on the book luxembourg it starts with the
Bavarian house of Wittelsbach otto the first becomes King of Greece in 1832
and he tries to run the country in the manner of
absolutism well you can see the success of this project
in that 12 years into his reign Greece
enacted the constitution of 1844 which included universal
male suffrage just as I said that is 1844
in Greece that's when Greece obtains universal male suffrage
in Britain this was not achieved as you will know until 1918. that's one of the
advantages of importing royals from abroad you don't
have any domestic nobility that can ask any
silly questions about you know out in the countryside should you really
grant suffrage to every male subject now this constitution of 1844
is a result of a coup against otto the first otto is allowed to
continue his reign under the new constitution until another coup
actually pushes him out of the office his successor George the first
is then from the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg
he ends up being assassinated his successor is Constantine the first
whose main achievement is dividing the country during
the first world war there are countries in the first world war that
side with Germany there are countries that side with the anton
and there is Greece that sides with both sides there is
the northern part of Greece that sides with the anton under prime minister
venizelos
and there is the southern half which sides with constantly the first
who is more pro-German he is a honorary field marshal
of the German army and he is married to a sister of Kaiser William
the second that's where the historian says congratulations
it ends as the rest of the first world war ends
constantly in this pushed into exile in
1917 his son takes over his name is alexander now if you become King of
Greece and your name is alexander that sounds very promising it doesn't really
end up that way alexander King of Greece dies in 1920
from blood poisoning opponent by from a bite
of a monkey these are the things that you really can't make up but he actually
died from a monkey bite and I think we should see it
as an underrated achievement of Prince Philip that he never
died to the best of my knowledge from a bite
of a monkey now we have two more Kings of Greece until
20 1924 when Greece ditches becomes a republic well monarchy
returns to Greece in 1935 but King George ii spends half of his
reign in exile due to the second world war
there were a few more coups and attempts thereof
in the post-war years I should maybe say here that
I don't think there was ever a real risk for Prince Philip
to become a King of Greece of course if you're a member of the Greek
Royal Family that's just one of the risks to take
but the Greece for all the turbulent history of royalty in
Greece the Greek are pretty good at recycling their Kings well they are
until 1973 when they finally ditch monarchy and
become a republic I think the lesson is clear
if you want to establish a stable dynasty
in Greece don't try to become King go into party politics where
these family networks are actually really really stable and you can see the
consequences of this turbulent royal history to the
present day because one of the consequences of this
switch between monarchy and republic this back and forth is that the
authority of the Greek state is notoriously weak to the present day
and one of the challenges for politicians in Greece is how do you
buy loyalty for the Greek state well one of the ways in which
loyalty has been brought as well to buy it in the most literal sense by putting
people
on the public payroll that is one of the reasons why
Greece has this bloated bureaucracy that creates
problems to the present day but then what does this story say about
Prince Philip well I guess it depends on what you think about migrants if you
think that migrants should stay in the place where they were born
and work to make that a better place rather than go to place with greater job
security like Britain or if you think that migrants
take away British jobs well I think this is one such person
Prince Philip took a job that could have been done by someone in Britain and he
kept that job for 73 years but maybe
at this time and in light of Prince Philip’s achievements
it's time for a different view from the migrant’s perspective
if you know the world that Prince Philip grew up in
it is no smart achievement to be a member of a Royal Family
and to be that for decades without eruption
and to die peacefully in your bed so against this background and maybe on
behalf of many EU migrants in this country
thank you Prince Phillip for your service