Mythical Monarchical Figures: Prince Jason

There may be no more appropriate figure to look at here from Greco-Roman mythology than Jason, prince and heir of the Kingdom of Iolcos. As mentioned previously, back when I was in school we still had to learn about these figures of pagan mythology but, as a child, what I first knew about Jason came from watching the 1963 film “Jason and the Argonauts”. I’m sure this has been remade by now because that’s all Hollywood does these days but, I have to say, the film I know was fairly true to the source material, certainly compared to another favorite, “Clash of the Titans” from 1981. The story of Jason was a very important one for the ancient Greeks, was also frequently retold by the Romans and is all about royal authority; the heir of a slain and defeated king who goes on an epic quest to win back his kingdom by obtaining the Golden Fleece which itself, because of this story, came to symbolize royal authority and kingship.

Jason

Jason, like most heroes of Greco-Roman pagan mythology, had an impressive pedigree. Not only was he the eldest son and heir of King Aeson of Iolcos in Thessaly (today the port city of Volos) but he was also the great-grandson of the god Mercury (or Hermes as the Greeks knew him). He was all set to have a normal royal life when everything went wrong thanks to his uncle Pelias, his father’s half-brother. Pelias had the same mother as Aeson, Tyro, but Pelias’ father was Neptune, god of the sea, which might explain a few things about this story but Pelias wanted to conquer Thessaly and so he attacked the Kingdom of Iolcos, overthrowing his half-brother and killing all of his children that he could find. Jason had only just been born and his mother and her ladies-in-waiting clustered around the newborn wailing as if he had been born dead so that Pelias would not kill him. Jason’s mother, Alcimede I, then smuggled the baby out to be raised by the centaur (a half-man, half-horse) Chiron. Pelias, now King of Iolcos, was told by a fortuneteller that he would one day lose his ill-gotten kingdom to a man wearing one sandal.

When Jason had grown up into strapping young manhood, he came back to reclaim his kingdom. Along the way the goddess Juno (Hera) disguised herself as an old woman and pretended to be drowning in the river Anauros. Jason, showing proper princely virtue, jumped in to save her, losing one of his sandals in the process. Obviously, when Pelias was presented with Jason, wearing one sandal, he knew his game was up. However, Pelias, while seemingly resigned to losing his kingdom, tells Jason that he must first retrieve the Golden Fleece. This was the golden skull and skin of a ram that was a gift of the gods (there is a whole other story about why and how it came to be) which brought health, wealth and prosperity to whoever held it and would be just the thing for a new king to have, particularly when his kingdom would be starting out in a sorry state. By retrieving it, Jason would also prove that he had been chosen by the gods and was truly the rightful king. Pelias, of course, also expected Jason might be killed on such a dangerous quest and solve his problem for him.

The Argo

Jason gathered a collection of Greek heroes to accompany him, including the Boreads, the sons of the North Wind who could fly; Orpheus, who could charm even the stones with his music; the Gemini twins from Sparta, the virgin huntress Atalanta, Euphemus, son of Neptune, who could walk on water; Telamon, father of Ajax, and even Hercules, strongest man on earth and son of Jupiter/Zeus and great-grandson of Perseus (who would also have been his half brother because ol’ Zeus couldn’t keep it in his toga). In other words, he had a crew of the best of the best and they set out on their ship the Argo to find the Golden Fleece at the end of the world. Because of the ship, Jason’s crew are known as the Argonauts.

Their first stop was the island of Lemnos, inhabited by bad smelling women who had had killed off all of their husbands. Evidently the

The Gegenees

Argonauts had been at sea long enough that the smell didn’t bother them and they fathered a whole new race with the women of the island, Jason himself producing a set of twins with the Queen. Hercules finally got them to leave and, while we are not told all of the details, you know the debauchery must have reached some pretty freakish depths if even the notorious hound dog Hercules thinks you’re debasing yourself and best to move on. Jason and the Argonauts did, next landing on an island in the Doliones where, while gathering supplies, their ship was raided by a race of giants with six arms called the Gegeines. Fortunately, Hercules was with the ship and managed to fight them off, however, while foraging for food with Jason, Hercules’ houseboy Hylas was pulled into a stream by some nymphs who wanted to make him their boy toy. Hercules then left the Argonauts to recover Hylas though, alas, he was never able to and eventually went on to his other adventures.

The Argonauts next landed in Thrace and found King Phineus of Salmydessus (in the film played by “Doctor Who” Patrick Troughton, I also cannot help mentioning that the part of Hercules was played by Nigel Green who was in a ton of great movies like “Play Dirty”, “Tobruk”, “Khartoum” and “Zulu”). He is being plagued by harpies who snatch away his food every day and so is starving. Jason and the Argonauts feel sorry for the old guy, even though this is made known to be punishment from the gods, and they deal with the harpies for him, chasing them away. In thanks, Phineus tells Jason where he can find Colchis, the land at the end of the world where the Golden Fleece is and that they will have to pass through the Symplegades of “The Clashing Rocks”. These are huge, rocky cliffs that smash anything that sails between them. However, Phineas tells them to send a dove through first to test if it is safe for them to pass before going in. The Argonauts sail on, reach the cliffs and did as they were told. The dove made it through, as did the Argonauts and the cliffs closed behind them, never menacing navigation again. There may be more to the story that I am missing, but I always wondered why no one just sailed around the rocks in the first place instead of always going between them?

Jason taming the fire-breathing bulls

Anyway, Jason and the Argonauts finally arrive at Colchis, at the end of the world which, according to the ancient Greeks, was a smaller world than we have today as the end of the world back then was apparently on the Black Sea coast of Georgia. Jason goes to see the local potentate, King Aeetes, and tells him to cough up the Golden Fleece. Jason has a pretty good story but, as with all of these stories, Aeetes agrees but only if Jason can accomplish a given set of incredible feats. Despite having fought six-armed giants and sailed to the end of the world, Jason thinks these tasks are impossible and practically gives up in despair, going all Hamlet on them all of a sudden. Fear not, though, for the gods have not forsaken Jason and the ladies of Mt Olympus get together to help him out. Juno tells Venus to tell her son Cupid (that’s Hera, Aphrodite and Eros for the Greeks) to made the King’s daughter Medea fall in love with Jason. He does and Medea then uses her womanly ways to motivate Jason into fulfilling his seemingly impossible mission. He must plow a field using oxen that breath fire but Medea gives him some magical, soothing, skin cream to protect himself. He then plants a field with the teeth of a dragon (not the Hydra unfortunately as in the film) which then sprout into an army of really strong but really quite stupid warriors known as the spartoi. Medea clued Jason in on how to deal with them though and he basically just hits one with a rock from a distance and they all get in a big brawl and kill each other (again, not the same as the movie which, in this instance, was far more exciting than the actual story).

Jason obtains the fleece (thanks to Medea)

Finally, the only task left to complete is to kill the insomniac dragon that guards the Golden Fleece. This dragon never goes to sleep and so is understandably irritable. However, again, Medea provides Jason with a secret weapon. She gives him a sleeping potion to make the dragon take a nap. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Hydra but it is certainly safer and it works. Jason grabs the Golden Fleece and sails away with his beloved Medea who made his dream come true. Unfortunately, Medea also was sort of a murdering psycho as she got away from her father by murdering her brother, chopping his body into pieces and throwing them in the sea, making her getaway while her father was trying to collect the remains of his dismembered son. Yeah, Jason should really be careful to stay on her good side. This angers Jupiter/Zeus who blows the Argo off course on its way back to Greece and they have to go to Cyrene to get purified by a nymph. They do so, Euphemus becomes King of Cyrene and Jason and the other Argonauts sail on.

Orpheus plays for the Sirens

Now, you probably were not wondering why Jason should have brought along a musician like Orpheus on this quest but, if you had been, the answer is that his centaur childhood guardian told him he would come in handy when passing the rocks where the infamous Sirens lived. The Sirens were bird-women who lured sailors with their irresistible song so that their ships would be dashed on the rocks and the men eaten. The Argos, on its way home, after being blown off course, must sail near the Sirenum scopuli and so Jason has Orpheus start playing his lyre, making such beautiful music that the Siren’s song was drowned out, could not be heard and their ship was able to pass safely. The only other bump in the road, so to speak, was when the Argo sailed near the island of Crete. On the island of Crete was a giant made of bronze named Talos and he starting tossing huge boulders at the Argo so that the ship could not pass. Talos would have to be dealt with but, once again, Medea is the one who saves the day rather than Jason (really, once you get to Colchis this story could be called Medea and the Argonauts). She uses a spell to keep Talos dazed for a bit and then pulls out the nail in his ankle which unplugs his one and only blood vessel, causing Talos to bleed to death and allowing the Argo to sail on.

Jason and his prize

Jason and the Argonauts return with the Golden Fleece and are hailed as heroes. Jason is a little disappointed that his own father is too old and frail to take part in the merriment, so he has Medea use her magic to take a few years off of his life to give to his father, making him a little younger and more robust. That works great but the daughters of Pelias see the change and want the same done for their own father. Medea, who really seems to have a thing for this, convinces them that they need to kill their father, chop his body up into pieces and cook it in a pot for this to work, after which he will emerge looking like a young man. The airheads fall for it, kill their father and hack him up. Needless to say, after that, the whole ‘handing over the kingdom to Jason’ thing rather falls apart as Pelias’ son Acastus drives Jason and Medea out and they must go live in Corinth.

Jason, once again a prince without a kingdom, decides to make a marriage alliance with the King of Corinth by marrying his daughter Creusa. Well, as anyone with half a brain could guess, Medea flies into a rage when she hears about this betrayal by her beloved and recounts everything she has done for Jason. Now, true, Medea does seem to have been a murdering psychopath but it was her who basically made it possible for Jason to get the Golden Fleece and to get back home. Jason, however, says that since Cupid put a spell on her to love him, Venus deserves the credit rather than Medea. No, sorry Jason, that does not wash. Even if Medea had no choice but to love you, it isn’t as though you were treating her like a sister this whole time, you took full advantage of the situation and seeded two sons by Medea during this time, you don’t get off that easy! And, indeed, he did not as the women who butchered her own brother just as a distraction turns out to be the sort of woman you really shouldn’t make angry. She put a curse on Creusa’s wedding dress, causing it to burn her alive, murders her two sons by Jason and then flees to Athens in a chariot of light pulled by dragons sent by the sun god (her grandfather) Sol/Helios.

Order of the Golden Fleece

The only punishment Medea ever received was to have her name used in a long string of really ridiculous Tyler Perry movies. Jason, however, did go on to team up with Peleus, father of Achilles of Trojan War fame, to defeat Acastus and at long last reclaim the Kingdom of Iolcos though it would be his son, Thessalus, rather than himself who became King. Juno/Hera, who had previously looked out for Jason, abandoned him over his treatment of Medea and he died alone and unhappy, sleeping under the stern of the decaying Argo which rotted off, fell on him and crushed him to death. Not a happy ending but that really was not all that uncommon as these stories frequently made a point of the heroes being fallible. His story, of course, would live on forever. Even into the Christian era, the pagan traditions of Europe were not forgotten but were folded in and viewed as important lessons and symbols as well. Jason appeared in the pages of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, being tormented in the Eighth Circle of Hell. The Golden Fleece became a symbol of monarchical divine right and was eventually taken as the symbol for the Order of the Golden Fleece by the Burgundian Habsburgs, going on to be the preeminent order of knighthood for Spain and Austria. At the time of its founding, the enemies of the Habsburgs did note the pagan origins of it but, in a very Renaissance way, the Golden Fleece was reinterpreted, so to speak, to become a significant symbol for Christians, the quest for it being seen as the struggles one must go through to obtain the blessings of Christ, the Lamb of God.

Greek Demands for Compensation Today

Although it is off-topic for this dusty, little corner of internet, having recently talked about Greece in World War II it seemed relevant to also say a few words about the recent demands by the Greek government for further reparations payments from the Federal Republic of Germany which, so far, the German government has not taken seriously. In my view it is not something the Germans should take seriously and, for once, I suspect most of world opinion is on my side in that. Coming as it does at a time when Greece, having spent itself into ruinous debt by a succession of leftist governments so that no one now regards them as a good credit risk, most see this as a transparent effort to force more money from Germany rather than putting their own fiscal house in order. I should also say that, in my view, most cases of reparations payments have seemed unfair to me as they rarely involve the government which actually committed the crimes in question being the ones forced to pay up. This is certainly the current case in regards to Greece and Germany. That might as well be the first issue to be addressed.

The current Hellenic Republic is demanding reparations from the current Federal Republic of Germany in compensation for crimes committed by the former Nazi State of Germany against the former Kingdom of Greece. In other words, the Greek republic is today demanding payment from a government which has done them no harm. Putting aside the issue of the governments involved, only a very few (and ever shrinking) number of people alive in Greece today ever suffered from German occupation just as very few Germans are alive today who were anything more than innocent children at the time of the invasion and occupation of Greece. There is no obvious justification then for the German people of today being expected to pay for wrongs which were committed by their grandparents or great-grandparents to a Greek population which has, for the most part, been born long after such wrongs were committed. That the Greek people suffered under the German occupation is not in question nor is it doubted that many Greek people are still suffering today but those Greeks who are suffering today have only their own governments and, more often than not, their own electoral choices to blame for that.

Secondly, the selective nature of this demand for reparations makes it appear to be more an attempt at moral blackmail than a genuine quest for just compensation. As was mentioned in the previous article on Greece in World War II, most of the country, for most of the war, was under Italian occupation and the acts of cruelty committed by the Italians against the Greeks were few and far between. Additionally, part of Greece was also occupied by the Bulgarians and there were many acts of cruelty meted out to the Greeks in that zone of occupation. However, we only see the current Greek government demanding reparations from Germany and not from the Italians or Bulgarians; perhaps because neither of these countries have the money to give that the Germans do? There were also numerous acts of barbarism committed against the Greeks by the Greeks themselves during the war and in the civil war that grew out of it. These were invariably committed by revolutionary organizations, many of them communists, whose acts of resistance were what often prompted the reprisals by German forces for which the Greeks are now demanding reparations.

That brings me to the third point which is that one of the complicating matters in terms of war-time guilt in cases like this is the role played by collaborators. This was also the case in Greece where republican General George Tsolakoglou declared the monarchy abolished and set up the “Hellenic State” which collaborated with the Axis powers occupying the country. He was followed by two other collaborationist leaders, the last of which did not collaborate as much as the Germans were soon forced out of the country. It was this government which paid the so-called “war loan” to Nazi Germany for which the legitimate Greek government later demanded reparations. It was also this collaborationist government which helped the Germans in requisitioning supplies from the already hard-pressed Greek population which resulted in the “Great Famine” in the winter of 1941-42 that cost about hundreds of thousands of Greek lives. Their suffering was immense but some Greeks were complicit in that suffering along with the Nazis and the ring-leaders did not face all that harsh of a punishment. Tsolakoglou was convicted of treason but never executed, he died of disease three years after the war still in prison and his successor fled the country to Nazi Germany, was arrested by the Americans who handed him over to the Greeks who first sentenced him to death but then reduced that to life in prison and then reduced that. He was released in 1951 and died peacefully at home a decade later.

Does this seem like justice? It was certainly a far less harsh fate than befell Hitler, Mussolini or Tojo. For the record, the actions of collaborators does not, in my view, negate the suffering of other people, the vast majority of whom opposed the occupation forces whether they actively resisted or not. However, I do think that it should lessen the “victim-hood” status of such countries where there was widespread collaboration with the side later deemed to have been the guilty party. There are other examples of this, in fact far more troublesome than that of Greece I would say. In France, for example, the level of collaboration with the Nazi regime was far more extensive than most realize and was something that the post-war French government of Charles DeGaulle tried very hard to hush up and forget about in favor of a new narrative of unrelenting resistance to the Nazis to help rebuild French national pride. However, certainly the most egregious example must be that of the Indonesian dictator Sukarno who extracted a huge amount of reparations from a defeated Japan even though he himself had been a Japanese collaborator during the war. In short, he demanded and received compensation for crimes committed by the Japanese occupation forces in his country which he himself helped them to commit!

This latest Greek demand for compensation is also a case of double-dipping and hypocrisy. Although, again, the current Greek government is certainly not alone in trying to run this scam, using guilt to try to coerce a country to pay more than once for wrongs committed in the past. In 1960 West Germany paid the Greek government 115 million D-Marks in compensation for the crimes committed by the Nazis in Greece during the war. The Greek government has since claimed that this was not supposed to be the final amount but in 1990, prior to re-unification, East and West Germany signed another agreement with the Americans, British, French and Russians in which these countries renounced all rights held in Germany, allowing for reunification and for Germany to become a united country with the same rights and obligations as any other. It was supposed to be a return to normalcy and an end to the World War II punishments against Germany.

Keeping that in mind, when the Greek government recently demanded a whopping $303 billion from the Federal Republic of Germany in war reparations, the Germans pointed to the aforementioned agreement with the U.S., U.K., France and Russia which was called the “Treaty on the FINAL Settlement with Respect to Germany” (my emphasis) and that this had concluded all such matters and further reparations would not be discussed. The Greeks objected to this on the grounds that they had not been party to any such agreement. The Germans responded to that objection with the simple statement of fact that Greek involvement was irrelevant as Germany had surrendered to the Americans, British, French and Russians -not to the Greeks. Therefore, these were the only powers that Germany had to deal with in regards to what happened during the war. This is where the hypocrisy part comes in and, under the circumstances, it is rather funny.

The German response to this objection, by Greece, was that it was irrelevant as Germany had not been beaten by the Greeks and had not surrendered to the Greeks but was beaten by the Americans, British and Russians and so had surrendered to them. What is comic about this answer, and why the Greeks have nothing to say about it, is that this was exactly what the Greeks themselves had said in World War II. To over-simplify for the sake of brevity; while the Greeks were fighting the Italians at the front door the Germans had come in by the back door and taken them from behind. When the Greeks surrendered they were very adamant and very dramatic about specifically surrendering to the Germans and not the Italians who they said had not beaten them. As a result, Germany controlled the process and Italy was unable to annex any of the territory Mussolini had wanted for the Third Roman Empire. Thus, perhaps unwittingly, the German republic had caught the Greeks in a technicality of their own making by pointing out that Nazi Germany had not surrendered to Greece and thus had no need of satisfying Greek demands.

Finally, it is extremely doubtful that the Greeks will receive any of these new reparations that they are demanding. The German government has said it is a settled subject and if they do give the Greeks any money it will be because they choose to and not because they believe Greece is legitimately entitled to it. Almost everyone that I have talked to about this subject immediately came to the same conclusion, that this was simply a dishonest way of trying to force more money from the German bank that would loan them no more. It is a ridiculous proposition and the Greek politicians who came up with it have only hurt the image of their country on the world stage by putting it forward.

The Greek Monarchy in World War II

The Second World War was the latest in a series of disasters which had befallen the Greek monarchy in the Twentieth Century. The man in charge, King George II, had already known his share of trials before the war began. During World War I he had followed his father, King Constantine I, into exile when the republican Venizelos had deposed him and placed Alexander on the throne to abandon neutrality and join the Allies. After the death of King Alexander an effort at republicanism was defeated when a plebiscite restored the monarchy in time for a war with Turkey, one of the many after-shocks of World War I. It was a disaster for Greece and forced King Constantine to abdicate in 1922 when his son succeeded him as King George II. However, the republicans were still scheming and only a year later George II was forced to leave the country after an attempted royalist coup failed. There was another republican effort and chaos in Greece as factions battled each other for power, the King looking on from a distance.

Metaxas

The communists were key players in this struggle and their revolutionary plots would bedevil Greece for many years to come. Coup followed coup, governments rose and fell at startling speed until finally order was restored in 1936 with the authoritarian regime of the staunchly royalist General Ioannis Metaxas. King George II backed Metaxas and approved his legislation banning political parties, abolishing the previous constitution and establishing a new regime which Metaxas called the “Third Hellenic Civilization”. Others referred to it as the “Fourth of August Regime” for the day that the de facto dictatorship was formally established. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, law, order and a new type of peaceful normalcy returned to the Greek kingdom. Today, the Metaxas regime continues to be a source of controversy as to how it is labeled. Outwardly, many then and since have viewed it as being of a kind with Fascist Italy, Nationalist Spain or Nazi Germany (though even among those there were considerable differences which the mainstream today tends to ignore).

However, despite the symbols, the uniforms, the nationalism and so on, the regime of Metaxas was most of all the product of necessity. Greece had stagnated from so many years of turmoil and in-fighting, the Greek position in Europe had plummeted and the country was in bad shape. Metaxas was authoritarian without question, suppressing dissidents, censoring the media and so on but it was all done to correct this downward spiral. If General Metaxas was a dictator, he was not a bad one. There was no cult of personality around Metaxas, loyalty was reserved for King George II. There was no effort to remake society really but rather an effort to revive Greek culture, Greek traditions and support the Greek Orthodox Church. Enemies were political and those singled out were those who had proven their treasonous tendencies in the past. There was no effort at setting up scapegoats, no racist legislation, no persecution of Jews. If Adolf Hitler admired Metaxas, it was of no great importance. Metaxas deferred to the King and there was no doubt that King George II viewed the Nazi regime with disgust and was, from start to finish, staunchly sympathetic with the Allied nations, particularly Britain.

Metaxas' party flag

When World War II erupted in Europe, Greece remained neutral but the King was prepared to step in and help the Allies if needed. The danger was the Kingdom of Italy. Despite early Italian support for Greek independence, tensions between the two countries had been deteriorating for years. Independent Greek forces had been driven out of Albania in World War I by the Italian army. In 1923 an Italian general and three aides were murdered in Greece with the government refusing any apology or compensation, prompting Italian retaliation. The Greeks demanded that Italy give them the Dodecanese Islands, after the Italian occupation of Albania, the Greco-Albanian border disputes were taken up by Rome. When Metaxas fortified the border with Bulgaria, which was tied by marriage to the Italian Royal Family, Italy took this as a hostile act. Enemies of the Fascist regime in Italy could also find safe haven in Greece which did not go unreported by the Fascist secret police. Things were tense but Metaxas was relatively confident that the good relations with Germany would prevent any direct action from Mussolini.

However, Metaxas was not taking anything for granted. He had already considerably modernized the Greek army and he began to build it up further to be prepared for any eventuality. That would prove extremely important very soon. Italians worried that the Greeks were planning an attack on Albania while their forces were concentrated in North Africa for the invasion of Egypt. After the fall of France, German forces also handed over to Italy captured messages from King George II of Greece offering Britain and France the use of Greek facilities such as air and naval bases should they need them. Finally, in October of 1940, an ultimatum from Mussolini arrived in Athens. The Duce demanded that the Greek government allow Italian armed forces free movement through Greek territory. It was a pretext and nothing more, no one in Rome expected Metaxas of all people to agree to it and he predictably refused. Within a matter of hours, four Italian columns began the invasion of Greece. However, despite the outward confidence of Mussolini, it was the Greeks who were much better prepared for this war.

Italian troops in Greece

Everything about the Italian invasion of Greece was wrong. It was the wrong time of year, cold and wet, in the wrong place, with the Greek army well placed in the rugged mountains and against the wrong enemy as Mussolini had underestimated the Greeks while overestimating his own strength. The result was an Italian invasion force that attacked a larger Greek army with the benefits of a superior position, superior knowledge of the ground and internal lines of support. After some initial success the Italian invasion quickly ground to a halt and the Greeks began to counter-attack, pushing the Italians out of Greece and advancing into southern Albania. When the British offered assistance, Metaxas confidently turned down the offer and promised that the Greek army would soon be marching down the streets of Rome. That was a mistake. As the Greeks advanced their advantages shifted to the Italians, their forces weakened and Italian reinforcements poured in to stabilize the situation. Their offensive ground to a halt as Italian troops repulsed their assaults and began to organize their forces for a more sober and serious offensive. Greek forces also took a severe pounding in the air war and King George II was obliged to ask the British to send all available assistance.

This turned out to be a major mistake for the Allied war effort. In North Africa, British forces were severely depleted in order to reinforce a hopeless battle in Greece. Most would not even arrive in time to participate in the battle. In the spring of 1941 the Italians launched another offensive that began to push the Greeks back, though losses were heavy and the gains were light. However, the coup in Yugoslavia that took that country out of the Axis and into the Allied camp prompted German intervention. Because the Greeks had concentrated all of their divisions on the Albanian border to stop the Italians, the Bulgarian border was almost totally undefended and it was from there that the Germans struck. The result was the swift defeat of the Greek forces and on April 23 King George II relocated to the island of Crete. When that position came under attack by German airborne troops, he was forced to relocate again to the safety of British headquarters in Egypt. By April 20 the Greeks had surrendered, the troops were given very honorable terms in recognition of how hard they had fought and most of Greece came under Italian occupation.

Germans occupy Greece

Mussolini had originally planned for a limited victory with Italy annexing only the northwest coastal region and some additional Aegean islands with Greece being compensated by being given the island of Cyprus from the British, whose defeat he also thought was impending. Only if things went much better than anticipated would the conquest of the whole country be considered and, of course, thing went much worse than the Duce had expected. In the end, Greece was occupied with Italy being responsible for most of it, Germany taking over some areas and islands in the east and Bulgaria obtaining a southern coastline. Ultimately, Italy never annexed any Greek territory. Churchill had blundered in undercutting his forces in Africa but he had nothing but praise for how hard the Greeks had fought, famously saying that, “Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks”. However, for the Greeks, their suffering and struggle had only just begun. Those in the Italian zone of occupation were better off but those living under German occupation fared far worse and were the victims of numerous atrocities. Also in the Bulgarian zone there was a great deal of brutality resulting from the long history of bitter rivalry that characterized the Balkans.

Resistance movements, of course, emerged and they tended to be dominated by communists and other revolutionary republicans who saw this as their great chance to seize power with the King and Metaxas out of the country. King George II did not stay in Egypt long where he was made to feel unwelcome by the pro-Italian King Farouk and so he moved on to England. Regular Greek forces continued to serve alongside the other Allies in the Middle East theater of operations. At home, acts of resistance, first against the Bulgarians and then against the Germans, provoked harsh retaliation. Meanwhile, similar to what happened in regards to other countries in the region, the British government, seeing the preponderance of leftists among those fighting the Germans, pressured King George II to form a government-in-exile that was more to the left, casting off those who had been serving him when the crisis began. As a result, only two members of the Metaxas regime were left in the new government. However, Britain did stand up for Greece when dealing with the Soviet Union that expected to take control of the whole Balkan peninsula when the war was over. While the rest was consigned to the Soviet sphere of influence, Greece would not and the British stuck to their guns on that score.

King George II in Egypt

However, unlike areas in which Britain did not take such an interest, as German fortunes fell, the concern became less about combating the Nazis and more about which power would replace them as King George II and the Greek government-in-exile seemed to have so few supporters on the ground. Fortunately, those supporters were there and the Greek resistance increasingly grew into yet another Greek civil war. The violence was intensified in 1943 when the Kingdom of Italy sought an armistice. Some Italians were immediately taken prisoner by the Germans (and many were massacred) but a great many turned their weapons over to the Greek resistance fighters and some even joined their ranks. An anti-communist resistance did begin to arise as the war was clearly drawing to a close and Greeks, as well as the British supporting them, became more concerned that the end of hostilities might bring a soviet dictatorship being forced on Greece. Nonetheless, the Allies still tended to pressure the King to stay away from those who had previously held power in the Metaxas regime for no other reason than the cosmetic similarities it bore to their current enemies and the very liberal worldview the Allies were supporting.

It was an unenviable position for King George II to be in. While being publicly celebrated in London and Washington DC, he was obliged to name Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens to the post of regent in 1945 and he proceeded to appoint a mostly republican government. By this time the British had cleared the Germans out of Greece and the King had been rather forced to agree to yet another plebiscite on the future of the monarchy when the war was over. However, a rival communist government was also set up in Greece and so, as the Germans retreated, outright civil war erupted between the Greek royalists and the communists, backed of course by the Soviet Union. King George II was beginning to suffer poor health and the turmoil and suffering of his people took a heavy toll. Already his wife, Elizabeth of Romania, had divorced him, being unable to cope with the stressful life of the Greek monarchy and being increasingly sidelined he was forced to settle down in England and simply await the results of the struggle at home. Finally, in 1946, World War II having ended, the plebiscite was held and the communists boycotted it, allowing the royalists to sweep to an easy victory.

King George II addresses the U.S. Congress

In the autumn, King George II returned to Greece to a gutted and looted palace, a country in ruins and a public that was war-torn and bitterly divided. This was not the first time a Greek King had returned from exile nor was it the first time that a public referendum had resulted in maintaining the monarchy. However, that very repetition weighed on him. The enemies of the Crown were intractable and continuously resorted to treason and subversion at every opportunity. Indeed, the civil war continued in spite of the referendum, the communists adhering to their own soviet government and within six months, broken in health and spirit alike, King George II died on April 1, 1947. He was succeeded by his brother Paul. He too was sick with typhoid fever and his health as well as the situation in Greece prevented him from attending the marriage of his first cousin, Prince Philip, to Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain. Fortunately, things were set to improve, at least in the short term, though it is still a tragedy that King George II, who had endured so much in his life, was not around to see it.

By 1947 the British were no longer led by Churchill but by the leftist Clement Attlee who started decolonization and moving Britain in a socialist direction. Supporting Greece against communist insurgents was something Britain was no longer capable or, under the current government, very willing to do. The United States of America, from 1947, then became the major supporter of the Greek royalists with President Harry Truman pledging all necessary support for King Paul. Predictably, the communists in Greece began portraying the King and any loyal government of being puppets of the United States, playing on popular anti-American sentiments. Queen Frederika of Brunswick, a zealous anti-communist, was also singled out for particular attack by the treasonous press, some days attacking her for her German background, other times for her close ties with America. Eventually, however, under the steady leadership of King Paul, the civil war ended in a victory for the Greek royalists, peace returned and the economy began to recover. The republicans, as ever, did not go away and, once again, bided their time for another crisis to take advantage of in order to seize power. They would eventually get their chance and the world is free to view how Greece has fared under their rule.

Anniversary of a Greek Tragedy

On this day in 1974 was held the last referendum on the subject of the Greek monarchy, reaffirming the abolition of the institution which had actually taken place effectively some time before. HM King Constantine II had already been overthrown in a coup and replaced by a military junta which held its own staged referendum to abolish the monarchy as a way of putting a “democratic” face on their treason. However, after the junta was overthrown all of its legal rulings were declared invalid and so, in order to keep up the pretense of democracy, it was necessary for the new ruling elite in Athens to stage another referendum to verify the abolition of the monarchy. The result was, not surprisingly, a considerable majority of a little over 69% voting in favor of the republic that then held power. Was this a “free and fair” expression of the will of the Greek people? Of course not, even if there was no chicanery in the voting process (which is highly unlikely to say the least), both sides were not given a fair hearing by the public. The exiled King Constantine II was not allowed to return to his homeland to make his case and campaign on his own behalf. So, only one side was really allowed to be heard.

In this manner, the vote was reminiscent of the referendum which replaced the former Emperor, Bao Dai, as “Chief of State” of Vietnam with his Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem as the first President of what then became the Republic of (South) Vietnam in 1955. There too a vote was held in which the former monarch was not allowed to make his case to the people and in which the voting process was controlled entirely by one side. Again, in Vietnam, it is no surprise that the result was an overwhelming victory for President Diem with even many of his sympathizers admitting that the referendum was more of an exercise of power than a legitimate reflection of the will of the people. Still, given that the Emperor was known for his past associations with institutions officially on the “naughty list” of respectable world opinion in 1955, such as French colonialism and the Empire of Japan, even many monarchists would, it seems, have to agree with prevailing opinion amongst the republicans that it did not matter too terribly much because Diem would have won the vote anyway, though perhaps by not so ridiculously large a margin, if it had been held absolutely fairly. Can the same be said for Greece though?

After all, unfortunate as it is, Greek kings being overthrown was hardly something new, it had practically become a tradition in itself. The King would be overthrown, the state of affairs in the country would become worse and in the end there would be a referendum and the King would be restored again. It was also rather unusual that the military junta did not legally abolish the monarchy outright. Effectively, they operated as unwanted, un-appointed regents of the absent King across the Adriatic in Rome. He was even paid, though it was a mere pittance as the colonels deducted the cost of maintaining all of the royal properties in spite of the fact that the King was not allowed to use any of them. They held their coup in 1967 and it was not until 1973, one year before their own overthrow, that the junta held the referendum which officially abolished the Greek monarchy and replaced it with the Hellenic republic. King Constantine II had tried to restore himself less than a year after his initial removal but the whole plan was badly botched and came to nothing. After the referendum, also within the year, a group of admirals tried to launch a royalist coup of their own but it too failed and King Constantine himself made no effort to take advantage of it.

One of the problems that arises in judging just how true a reflection of the popular will the referendum was has its roots in determining how effective all of the anti-monarchy propaganda was that was fed to the Greek public. The leader of the military junta, George Papadopoulos, had accused King Constantine of being the worst sort of character imaginable, going to plainly absurd lengths to link him to every sort of crime and every sort of criminal any decent person would naturally despise. If the public believed any of what Papadopoulos told them, they would have thought King Constantine was in league with malevolent foreign powers looking to exploit them, all the way down to plain murderers, traffickers and other criminals. Did anyone actually believe this? It seems impossible to think so, certainly for anyone who had any knowledge of the King and Queen at all.

If anything, perhaps stung by the failed counter-coup of December 67, the King took far too passive a part in the efforts to effect his own restoration. He considered that the changes effected by the junta were all illegal and invalid and that he was still the King of the Hellenes and that he would soon be called back to either resume his reign or at least participate in the campaign ahead of the referendum. However, he was never called and events plowed ahead without him under the leadership of the head of the interim government, former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis. The case of this one politician is highly illustrative of what things were like “on the ground” in Greece prior to the infamous referendum of 1974. It was widely said that Karamanlis had no opposition to King Constantine II returning to reign again at all but that he did have a very, very strong aversion to his mother Queen Frederika. A popular phrase was that the only thing Karamanlis held against King Constantine was that he was Queen Frederika’s son.

Queen Frederika of Brunswick had first earned a fearsome reputation during the civil war because of her strident anti-communism. Funded generously by wealthy American friends she established the Royal Welfare Institute to care for orphans being created and victimized by the communists. Not content to sit idle, she went out to the front lines herself to rescue these children whose parents had been killed or who had abandoned them to join the communists. Originally, she was quite popular, but by 1967 she had become the female version of the bogey man of the Greek Royal Family. Being from Germany and a fierce anti-communist she was, of course, accused of secretly being a Nazi as well as a tool of exploitation by greedy American capitalists because of her many friendships with people in the United States. She was blamed for anything unpopular with an ill-advised trip by King Paul and herself to Constantinople in 1952 being one well-known example. Again, she had once been very popular but by the late 60’s it was no longer fashionable to be anti-communist or pro-American and Queen Frederika was seen as both as well as having a reputation for being domineering and independent that made those with power suspicious of her. Needless to say, she featured heavily in the campaign propaganda for the republicans, “warning” Greeks that a return of the monarchy would also mean the return of the now vilified Queen Frederika.

It is both sad and disgusting that King Constantine II was pushed by this to practically denounce his own mother, trying to reassure Greeks through his supporters on the ground that the Queen Mother would not be invited to return if the monarchy was restored. He also apologized profusely for any mistakes, real or perceived that were committed during his reign. As we know, it was to no avail and Greece was proclaimed anew a republic. The result was not that dissimilar to what it had been in the vote held by the colonels and this has caused some to judge that it was probably an accurate reflection of the public mood. However, even if that is so, it still does not make it just. The republican side used every sort of disreputable scare-tactics, outright lies and pandering to popular xenophobic and bigoted sentiments to help their cause while the King was not even allowed to set foot in the country to make his case in person. If he had, it seems very likely that the good-natured monarch, his beautiful queen-consort and charming children could have easily won over the public and, though I am loath to say it, perhaps even reassure them that the Queen Mother would stay away given that the government managed to convince them that she rode a broomstick and ate small children. The fact that the junta failed and was overthrown should have been enough to convince reasonable people on its own to go back to the way things were before, just as the sad state of Greece today should be enough to convince people that a real and fundamental change in Greece is necessary and not simply a continuation of the rotating system of political elites into elected office.

The referendum held on this day in 1974 was unjust in a variety of ways. It should be overturned without delay. My friendly, unsolicited, advice to Greece today would be this: toss out the lot of the political establishment in Athens, restore the monarchy, leave the European Union, restore the drachma and start to make investment in Greece attractive again. You might also want to keep an eye on that rather unsavory Erdogan fellow too…

Mythical Monarchial Figures: Prince Bellerophon

Once again, we look back through the mists of time to the mythic origins of western civilization, of distant Greece long before even Hercules was a twinkle in his divine, philandering dad’s eye. One of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology, and a famous monster-killer, like most of them Bellerophon was a member of royalty. His father was King Claucus of Corinth so Prince Bellerophon was a big shot, strutting around Corinth like a boss. But he wasn’t the only son and, of course, there was drama. The ancient myth makers couldn’t seem to get their story straight exactly but many if not most say that one day the fraternal feuding flamed fabulously followed fast by the flight of the famous figure from the frightening form of his former fratello and the filial fury of their father. In other words, Bellerophon killed his brother and split the scene. Rather than join the circus or the foreign legion, he ran away to be the servant of King Proetus of Argos and Tiryns. It worked out alright since Proetus, being a king, absolved Bellerophon of murder and took him on as an employee with great benefits, vacation time and a generous dental plan. Everything seemed to have worked out for Prince Bellerophon.

However, he soon got into trouble again as the sight of this strapping young warrior-prince threw the King’s wife into a frenzy of lust. She went into full cougar mode and put the moves on Bellerophon but, knowing that doing the nasty with the Queen would be a bad career move, he resisted her romantic rampage. This resulted in rage! She ran to the Rex to report a rape (sorry, that’s habit forming). Her womanly ego having been bruised, the Queen told her husband that Bellerophon had tried to get her on to the nearest pin-ball machine and the King was properly infuriated. However, since he had pardoned the plucky prince (sorry), he didn’t want to execute him personally. Instead, he sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law with a sealed message basically telling daddy that ‘the bearer of this tablet tried to get freaky with your daughter -please kill him’. However, when Bellerophon had arrived, the royal father-in-law, King Iobates, really put on the dog and didn’t want to get dead prince all over his new carpets so he didn’t really want to kill him either. Instead, he came up with a brilliant plan; he would dispatch Bellerophon to kill the Chimera, a lion-goat-snake that breathed fire and which was becoming quite a nuisance. Sure, it seems fantastic, but in those days you really couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting some fearsome mutant hell-beast, the whole Mediterranean area was practically infested with them.

So, Prince Bellerophon was dispatched to save the hapless inhabitants of Caria from the Chimera and, the King hoped, get himself killed in the process. First, of course, Bellerophon went to see a fortune-teller because you didn’t do anything without consulting a fortune-teller in those days. Perhaps the seer intended to dissuade Bellerophon from his wild adventure because he told him that, you know, to kill such a beast as the Chimera, you would need, like, a flying horse. So, oh well, best to just go home and sleep it off. Fire breathing lion-goat-snake my aching… Aha! But there was such a creature; the flying stallion Pegasus which, as we discussed last time, had sprang from the gorgon Medusa whose head was cut off by Prince Perseus. And really, who wouldn’t know that to kill a fire-breathing lion-goat-snake you need a flying horse? It’s just common sense. So, Bellerophon took a nap in the temple of Athena and the goddess appeared to him in a dream, giving him a golden bridle to control the horse. He took it, snuck over to Pegasus’ favorite watering hole and grabbed the flying beast when he came to get a drink. All ready to go, he flew off to find the Chimera -which doesn’t seem as though it would be that difficult but, like I said, mutant hell-beasts were a dime a dozen in those days.

Prince Bellerophon found the Chimera but had a hard time even getting close to it because of the whole fire-breathing thing. Finally, he managed to ram a hunk of lead down the Chimera’s throat. Rather than try to cough it up like most cats would, the Chimera tried to breath fire which then melted the lead and choked the monster to death. So, mission accomplished! Bursting with the pride of the conquering hero, he returned to King Iobates and informed him that he had ridden a flying horse to find the fire-breathing lion-goat-snake which he then chocked to death by stuffing lead down his throat. Shockingly enough, the King didn’t believe him. So, he decided to send him on some more suicidal missions but that darn Prince Bellerophon just kept on winning. He fought off a nest of pirates, a barbarian tribe, defeated the Amazons by dropping rocks on them from his flying horse in the first aerial bombing raid in history. Desperate, the King sent his Royal Guard to just kill him already but, again, Bellerophon survived by calling on the sea god Poseidon (Neptune) who flooded the land around him and was only dissuaded when the ladies at court came rushing out, exposing their naughty bits and “bravely” offering to “sacrifice” their virtue to the noble hero if he would relent. He blushed and called off the rising water but it was clear that King Iobates had been thwarted. He finally came clean with Bellerophon, apologized and even gave the Prince his daughter and half his kingdom in thanks for all his daring deeds.

So, Prince Bellerophon was on top of the world. He had a hot wife, half a kingdom all his own and soon a house full of sons. However, even in Greco-Roman mythology, pride goes before a fall and Bellerophon got seriously too proud and had a major, major fall. With all of his glories and victories, the once modest and humble prince became a major egomaniac. Emperor Nero on his most bizarre day couldn’t compete with Bellerophon. He decided that he was worthy to be a god and should not have to stay in the company of mere humans like his wife and children so he saddled up his trusty flying steed and set off to fly to the top of Mount Olympus where the gods hung out. This did not go over well with the King of the gods Zeus (Jupiter) who decided to teach the upstart a lesson. He sent a tiny little fly to bite Pegasus on the rump which caused him to buck (somehow -not sure how that works when you’re flying) and throw Bellerophon back to earth. Ouch. Plus, he landed on a thorny bush. Major ouch. That was the figurative and literal “fall from grace” for Bellerophon who, because of his pride, then had to live out the rest of his life as a poor, blind cripple, isolated from the rest of humanity.

Favorite Royal Images: A Greek King

HM King Constantine II of the Hellenes

The Greek Tragedy

Greece is a country that cannot be ignored. That is true in terms of current events but is also just as true when taking a broader, historic view. Alongside ancient Rome, probably no other culture in the world has had so great an impact as Greek culture, much of which was adopted by the Romans. All of our founding ideas about good government, philosophy, reason, medicine, history etc were all built on Greek foundations. Christianity as well, first grew up in the more Greek-dominated half of the Roman Empire and Christianity would have had a much harder time in its formative years were it not for Emperor Constantine the Great who later founded the city of Constantinople and more or less established what became the Greek Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. After the fall of Rome, it was the Eastern Empire, the Greek Byzantines, who continued to hold on, who defended the Church, fought off the invasions that came from every side and under rulers like Emperor Justinian or Emperor Heraclius, even managed to somewhat rebuild the crumbling edifice that was Imperial Rome. But, in a way, the Greeks were TOO successful. The Byzantine Empire became such a tempting prize that coups became commonplace and even the word “Byzantine” became synonymous with intrigue.

Rather than fighting foreign enemies, the Byzantines fought each other for power and external warfare was increasingly left to hired mercenaries while Constantinople became wealthy and prosperous as the hub of all trade with the near and Far East. It is ironic that, during this period of decline, the Turks, who ultimately became the arch-enemy of the Greeks, were actually invited into the Empire by the Byzantine Emperor to help suppress rebellions in the Balkans. Calling in outsiders to deal with internal enemies ultimately proved to be an unwise policy. If the assumption was that the Turks could be easily manipulated and expelled later, they were very much mistaken as to Turkish strength and determination. Unfortunately for the Greeks, once the Turks had their foot in the door, the combined powers of Christendom were never able to force them out again. One also cannot help but notice the difference with today, when Greece is so indebted and in such dire financial difficulty, that the city of Constantine was once the most fabulously wealthy city in the world. How things change. The Greeks spend several hundred years under Turkish rule but, eventually, that changed too. The Greek War of Independence attracted volunteers from across Europe and moral support from countries across the western world. The war was finally won in 1829.

First, Greece was established as a republic, but it proved totally unable to unite and solidify the new Greek state and, after a period of some chaos, a monarchy was established under the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, which gave Greece their national colors of blue and white. Their first King was Prince Otto, who took the Greek form of King Othon of Greece, who reigned for thirty years but who became quite unpopular due to the actions of his ministers who favored German over Greek traditions. A military coup overthrew King Othon in 1862 and with the cooperation of the international community a new monarchy was established by King George I of the ancient Danish Royal Family. Many liberal reforms were adopted in this time, with the powers of the king being reduced and the vote extended to all adult males. The country was very poor at this time, but the sort of modernization Greece required after so many years of Ottoman rule could not happen overnight, and the situation slowly began to improve. After the defeat of Turkey by Britain and Russia, Greece was able to reclaim some lost territories, though the strategic island of Cyprus was denied them (sure to cause trouble in the future). The fate of those Greeks still living under foreign control continued to be the main concern of the people for some time. During the Balkan Wars, Greece was able to double her land and population, though at considerable cost.

In 1913, King George was assassinated by an anarchist and was succeeded by his son, King Constantine I. Due to the fact that he was the first king born in the independent Greece, and the first to be Greek Orthodox, he was proclaimed by many of his subjects as “Constantine XII” heir to the legacy of the last Byzantine Emperor. Greek pride was still alive and well. However, the reign of King Constantine I was soon overshadowed by the outbreak of World War I in which many wanted to enter the war on the allied side in order to attack Turkey, but in which the King, knowing how exhausted the army was since the Balkan Wars, wanted to stay out of. His preference was to remain neutral but it was a neutrality that the allies did not always respect. Factions emerged, for and against the war, with some Greeks acting on their own to occupy parts of southern Albania. Pressures increased and eventually King Constantine abdicated in favor of his son and Greece did enter the war on the allied side which won Greece some more territory, though they never regained the highly symbolic prize of Constantinople. In the following war with the new secular government in republican Turkey, Greece lost some of her prior gains which caused a great deal of dissatisfaction and government turmoil, opening the era of conflict between the liberal republicans and the conservative monarchists.

One of the first big trouble-makers was Prime Minister Venizelos, a republican, who, after the downfall of King Constantine I during World War I, replaced him with his brother, King Alexander, who died in 1920 after being bitten by a monkey (you can’t make this stuff up!) and King George II came to the throne in 1922. However, the republicans were desperate to ruin the power of the King and to keep George II off the throne. A royalist coup in 1923 gave them the pretext to demand that George II leave the country but he refused to abdicate. The republicans, again, made a mess of things and finally the military took control and held a plebiscite which saw 98% of Greeks vote to restore the monarchy in 1935. King George II happily returned but trouble still remained, particularly as the communist revolutionaries were becoming a force to be reckoned with in Greek politics for the first time. This caused a chaotic and dangerous situation which was not relieved until the coming to power of the former general Ioannis Metaxas, an ardent royalist, who King George II granted extraordinary powers to in order to save the national situation. Subversive groups were suppressed and pride in Greek civilization was encouraged under the new government, known as the “Fourth of August Regime”.

A great deal of negative material has been written about Metaxas and his government, many referring to him as a dictator. However, he never encouraged the sort of cult of personality seen in most dictatorships. Everything was done in the name of the King and the monarchy was always given pride of place in national life. His aim was not to transform Greece but to strengthen the Greek kingdom, defend Greek culture and restore a sense of patriotic national pride among the people. The need for a strong country was clearly felt with the outbreak of World War II in which King George II naturally favored Great Britain and the allied powers. This caused tension with the Fascist regime in Italy and when Mussolini demanded certain privileges from Metaxas he refused and Italy invaded Greece from Albania. Mussolini had expected to make short work of the Greeks but after coming to power Metaxas had greatly strengthened and modernized the Greek military and they were stationed in the right place in excellent defensive positions.

The King and Metaxas rallied the Greek people to war and in the resulting campaign the Italian invasion was halted and Greek counter-attacks cleared their homeland of the enemy and even advanced into southern Albania where the situation stalemated. Britain rushed aid to Greece and Germany rushed aid to Italy and in the end it was the Axis forces that prevailed. The King escaped to Crete but later had to withdraw to Egypt and later Britain when all of Greece was occupied by German and Italian forces. Everyone on the world stage still recognized George II as King but in Greece, alongside the Axis occupation, a civil war simmered with the communists being given great resources to wage a guerilla war against both the German and Italian armies as well as against the Greek royalists. In 1944 the Germans retreated from Greece and Athens was seized by the communists only to later be liberated by British troops. From 1944 to 1949 Greece became the first Cold War battleground as Greek royalists supported by Great Britain and the United States fought a civil war against the communist revolutionaries supported by the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the monarchists were victorious in gaining control of the situation, at least enough for elections to be held, followed by yet another referendum on the form of government. The first elections won a majority of seats for the monarchists and, once again, when the issue was put to the Greek people a majority of 69% favored keeping the monarchy in 1946.

King George II was finally able to return home but it was to a homeland torn by civil war, with a shattered infrastructure and facing economic crisis. Less than a year later George II died and was succeeded by his younger brother King Paul. In many histories today, King Paul is subject to a great deal of unfair criticism. The fact is that during his reign the Kingdom of Greece came roaring back to life with American aid from the Marshall Plan, a surge in tourism and the good relations with foreign countries established by King Paul on his many tours. During his reign, one of the few times there were no major problems with rebels but a period of peace and stability in which the people could enjoy their constitutional monarchy, Greece rapidly recovered, rebuilt and prospered. It was a great success story. But, of course, republicans never take “no” for an answer and they continued to try to encourage discord and to spread every sort of slander against the King and the Royal Family. When economic growth began to slow they were quick to point to the monarchy as the cause of the problems. In fact, King Paul had shown financial common sense and had actually cut his own salary, cut his own expenses and even handed over to the government valuable royal properties. To republican ideologues, of course, none of that mattered.

They didn’t care about national stability, economic prosperity or the new laws giving full equal rights to women, they continued to wage their subversive campaign against the Greek monarchy. This continued after the death of King Paul and the accession of the young King Constantine II in 1964. One of the main sources of trouble was Prime Minister George Papandreou, who had studied in Berlin where he became infatuated with the Social Democrat movement and who had been a republican from early on (Metaxas had exiled him for his opposition to the monarchy). However, he made friendly overtures to the monarchists even though he came to power with the support of the communists when he first became prime minister. Tensions rose between Papandreou and the King, especially after the Prime Minister tried to take control of the army. Papandreou also had ambitions and in-fighting in his own family and the political situation in Greece had fragmented. The turmoil on the left threatened to engulf the whole government and a center emerged that opposed the right and the left. The result was that the Greek government rested on the most unstable of structures; a political tripod.

King Constantine II finally came into open opposition to Papandreou over his effort to take control of the army by naming himself defense minister as well as prime minister. The King offered to appoint anyone Papandreou might choose for the post but refused to allow him to fill it himself. Papandreou refused the offer, ultimately resigned and a succession of weak governments followed as both sides tried to enlist the support of government officials. Papandreou took the radical step of openly trying to rally the people in opposition to the King. The results were mixed but this populism frightened the other politicians and made it impossible for the King to form a stable government. All of this worked together to create a fear by members of the army that the communists would take advantage of the situation to seize power. In 1967 a military coup was launched led by a brigadier general and two colonels. Within a few hours the whole country was under their control with leading problematic politicians and subversives arrested and troops stationed outside the royal palace.

Since that time, many have tried to blame King Constantine II for the coup and the subsequent military regime. However, nothing could be further from the truth. While many senior officers were ardent royalists and would have obeyed any order from the King, junior officers, such as those involved, refused to obey either the King or their generals and the instigator of the plot, Colonel George Papadopoulos, had long had republican sympathies having previously participated in an attempted coup against King Paul. Some have still argued that Constantine II could have rallied those forces loyal to him to suppress the colonels but this is mere speculation and the King did not want to bring on another Greek civil war. Finally, in 1967 he decided to take action and organized what he hoped would be a non-violent counter-coup against the junta. Unfortunately, junior officers refused to obey their royalist generals and the plan fell apart. The King and his family left Greece for Rome but was confident that, like so many times in the past, the monarchy would eventually be restored. This time, however, things were different. Colonel Papadopoulos simply declared Greece a republic on his own on June 1, 1973 and the next month held a staged plebiscite. Even long-time anti-monarchists campaigned for a “no” vote but with the regime in control of the whole process the result was naturally a 78.6% in favor of the republic with Papadopoulos as President.

After only about a year of life the military regime came to an end in 1974 and the republican constitution was declared illegitimate. King Constantine II expected to return to Greece but, again, he was betrayed and yet another referendum was organized with the usual troublemakers in favor of keeping the republic but, most troublingly, with many supposed monarchists refusing to take a stand. Again, the outcome was less than honest. The King was not allowed to return to Greece to meet his people face to face and campaign on his own behalf. Not surprisingly the result was 69% in favor of a republic and the King has remained a monarch-in-exile ever since. Since the birth of the new republic, Greece has often resembled a power-sharing enterprise between the Karamanlis and Papandreou families. The socialists have held most political power from the beginning and over the years turned the country into a very top-heavy bureaucratic state. In 1981 Greece joined the European Union and in 2001 adopted the Euro. With easy money on loan from the EU, the Greek government plunged down the road to economic ruin as politicians bought votes by promising more government spending, more subsidies, more lavish pension plans and so on which put the country into massive debt.

Eventually, the EU financiers began to doubt the ability of Greece to ever repay such a debt and the Greek economy went into a nosedive. The only response, so far, has been for bailouts from the EU, essentially more loans, but after a time greater austerity measures were demanded of Greece to get the money. When news of cuts in government spending reached the public there were riots in the streets. Greece has now seen more and more national decisions being made by the European Union and a resulting rise in extremist political parties along with widespread anger among the populace. Suicide rates have jumped up and record numbers of Greeks are abandoning their country to move abroad. Yet, even while their republican rulers have plunged the country into so desperate a crisis that it threatens to drag the Euro-zone down with it, all the years of vilifying the King and Royal Family seem to have been the one republican policy that has worked well. In recent elections, even with Greece in near chaos, openly communist and fascist political parties were allowed to stand for election but those advocating a restoration of the monarchy were banned from the political process.

Can Greece survive this current disaster? The country has certainly survived worse, however, it will require some honesty and hard decisions. The people will have to admit the mistakes that have been done, such as getting rid of the monarchy or thinking one can get something for nothing, and then press ahead with hard work and determination. It will be difficult, but it can be done. If the will exists, there is a way.