the Venizelists, Sophia asked Olga to go to Athens to care for Alexander. After several days of negotiations, the dowager queen obtained permission to return to Greece but, delayed by rough seas, she arrived twelve hours after her grandson's death on 25 October. On 29 October, Alexander was buried at Tatoi; Olga was the only member of the royal family at the funeral. Still opposed to the return of Constantine I and Crown Prince George, the government of Eleftherios Venizelos offered the throne to Constantine's third son, Prince Paul, who refused to ascend the throne before his father and older brother unless a referendum named him head of state. Only days after Alexander's death, however, Venizelos was defeated in a general election. On 17 November, Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, regent since the death of Alexander, retired and the new prime minister, Dimitrios Rallis, asked Olga to assume the regency. She served as regent for about a month until her son Constantine returned to the throne on 19 December after a referendum in his favor. Second exile and death Constantine I returned to the throne 18 months into the Greco-Turkish War, launched in May 1919. In September 1921, the Greek defeat at the battle of Sakarya marked the beginning of the Greek retreat from Anatolia. Resentment among the allies for Constantine's policy during World War I prevented Athens from receiving outside support. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the new leader of Turkey, regained Smyrna and Eastern Thrace, annexed by Athens at the end of World War I. Following a coup by disgruntled military officers, Constantine I abdicated for a second time on 27 September 1922. With several other members of his family, including Queen Olga, he went into exile in Italy and his eldest son succeeded him for a few months on the throne as George II. Within months, Constantine died in Italy. One of Olga's sons, Prince Andrew, was among those arrested by the new regime. Many defendants in the treason trials that followed the coup were shot, including senior politicians and generals. Foreign diplomats assumed that Andrew was also in mortal danger, and George V of the United Kingdom, Alfonso XIII of Spain, the French president Raymond Poincaré and Pope Pius XI sent representatives to Athens to intercede on his behalf. Andrew, though spared, was banished for life and his family (including the infant Prince Philip, later Duke of Edinburgh and consort