KING CONSTANTINE, WHY HE LOST HIS THRONE ?
Last week king Constantine the second of Greece died at the age of 82.
Many royals from all over the continent came to the funeral.
From the UK princess Anne.
King Charles wanted to come but as it was not a state funeral the protocol did not allow him, as well as prince William, to attend.
The story is dramatic as well as strange, so I will try to resolve the mystery.
It all started with two butterfly effects.
First butterfly effect was the untimely death of Sophocles Venizelos - the son of Eleftherios Venizelos.
Sophocles Venizelos was the deputy of the Centre Union party.
He died from pneumothorax in a boat as medical assistance could not arrive in time.
If he was alive in 1965 there could n't possible be a government crisis. Leftists and rightists would just not have the power to cause a governemnt crisis.
Second butterfly effect was Andreas Papandreou being the son of George Papandreou, the popular centrist prime minister.
Andreas had some strange leftist ideas but if he was n't the son of George Papandreou that would amount to nothing.
In 1965 the king suspected Andreas of trying to take over his father's party and subsequently turn Greece into a neutralist baathist state.
So he made George Papandreou resign and tried to form a new government made up by the conservatives and some centrist defectors.
All hell broke lose, but in the end this succeeded and a royalist government was formed.
But the success was only temporary. Two years passed and elections had to be held.
The Papandreous were certain to gain something like 55% of the vote. There were no gallop polls at the time and the lowest estimate for the Papandreous
was 49%, made by no other than Evangelos Averof the deputy of the conservative ERE party. But even 49% was easy overall majority.
Was Papandreou something like a baathist (Saddam - Assad) ?
Well now we know for certain that he was.
His father denied everything strenuously at the time and the people believed him, but now we know Andreas was something like that.
What we don't know is to what extent - maybe just a little Baathist to be fair.
We also don't know how really dangerous he was back then as he was n't the party leader himself.
But the king believed that Andreas Papandreou was the danger man and that maybe he even had secret ties with the Soviet Union
(n.b. the same mistake Anthony Eden made about Naser in the Suez crisis in 1955 - Eden believed Naser was a communist while Naser was something else really).
So -the mystery starts now- why did n't the king declare a dictatorship himself ?
He did n't.
He believed a dictatorship was bad and also he himself would become an outcast by the other royals of Europe, including the Queen of England.
It was disaster either way (or so he thought).
But just at the moment the colonel's arrive ! George Papadopoulos and co.
It was the 21st of April 1967 and what did I do two days before ?
On Wednesday 19th of April after school I took the train to Philadelphia stadium to see Greece U21 v. England U 21.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw, Glezos scored for Greece and Francis Lee for England.
But the important thing here is the platform in the central train station, Omonia.
This is a place where you can see all of the country's newspapers in the kiosks, small and big, political and sports.
So I read "the known junta man Papadopoulos new district commander of Athens region !". Below that it said "it's yet another plan of the dark circles of disorder that will fail" !
So can that happen unbeknownst to the king ?
Really no.
The only explanation is this:
Without knowing Papadopoulos or his "brothers" personally he allowed them to command key posts.
So a dicatorship from the lower echelons of the military, but without him getting involved.
Is there any other explanation possible ?
So on the 21st of April the coup d' etat takes place and indeed the palace itself is surrounded.
What does Constantine do ?
Everybody is hiding the truth but here is what he did:
He calls upon the leader of the conservatives Panayiotis Kanellopoulos and says to him "listen here, whatever happens you and your party will have no relation whatsoever".
At the same time he manages to send a message to dame Vlachos the conservative press editor and says to her "close down your newspapers".
This last is imporant because just the day before she wrote this: "even a small dictatorship would n't be bad to get rid of the monster Andreas Papandreou" !
But now ordered by the king shuts down her newspapers and declares herself against the dictatorship !
After that king Constantine accepted to swear in the junta government and they were of course crazy people with fascist ideas.
It is mighty strange is n't it ?
But what was the plan ?
The plan was this:
Allow the Papadopoulos government to prevent the elections and to stay for three-four months in power.
Then kick him out.
Then replace them with the generals.
But the generals would not call themselves dictatorship. Rather something like "government of national conciliation".
After all this he reckonned the politicians would accept his terms, the elections could be held and things would become normal.
Well, this was the plan.
Now three months later, on June 15 they say, his advisers break the bad news to him:
"your majesty the plan has failed. Papadopoulos controls everything, we have no chance"
He did n't like this at all.
He started making small comments against the colonels in public, such as when he went to a UN meeting in New York and said "this is not my government".
Eventually he did try to overthrow them. The counter-coup of the 13th of December 1967.
It failed and many people call him "silly" and "incompetent" because of that.
But that's not the truth. The truth is he did not have enough loyal forces and the chances were slim.
Then he fled the country and went to Rome where he lived for the next seven years.
However it is from now on that he makes the big mistakes.
For seven years he says nothing.
In Greece he remains the king nominally until in 1973 the colonels organize a pseudo-referendum and depose him.
It is absurd but he said nothing !
Should have turned his Rome residence into a "radio freedom" but he did nothing.
At the same time Andreas Papandreou was making statements everyday from his exile in Canada.
Andreas Papandreou was detained briefly in 1967 but after the intervention of US president Johnson he was set free and went to Sweden and then Canada.
But the people of Greece were not really looking forward to Andreas Papandreou to liberate them from the junta,
Much much later, in 1981, Andreas Papandreou was made pm, but during the junta years it was different.
Andreas had not become unpopular but he was too radical to really have any hope so the best bet was Constantine Karamanlis.
Karamanlis lived in Paris and he too was making frequent statements against the junta.
Karamanlis was the Greek p.m. from 1955 to 1963. Used to be an ultra-conservative but not anymore.
He condemned the junta and everyone saw in him the viable alternative.
Yet Karamanlis and king Constantine had a strange vendetta between them. They disliked each other intensely after an old quarrel !
So the king by staying silent precipitated his downfall.
Why did he do that ?
He already had an issue with the Papandreous and he was -of course- an anticommunist but why fail to at least partially remedy things ?
It's a mystery but I have the answer:
He believed in a sort of "Don Juan" solution !
Don Juan as we know was nominated heir to Franco sometime in the sixties. Throughout he planned to transform Spain into a democracy,
something that Franco did not really mind (I 'm the life long president he said and when I die who cares ...).
So Don Juan succeeded Franco peacefully and he even allowed the old regime to continue to exist for a little before beginning to restructure things.
Constantine in Rome was thinking along these lines, but it was a mistake - his really bad mistake.
It's true that he had supporters in Greece. Hero major Moustaklis who was paralyzed after the junta tortured him was a royalist. But Constantine himself remained silent.
The post junta events now are better known to you.
Junta collapses in July 1974, Karamanlis returns and there are nation-wide celebrations.
But they don't call the king to return as well !
Instead Karamanlis orders a referendum in December 1974 (proper this time) and also declares himself neutral as to the outcome of the referendum.
Result, king loses and he becomes a deposed king after that.
In those 49 years since to his credit he never caused problems.
He always condemned the junta and maintained his innocence. It happened without him knowing anything, he used to say (but after the event everybody says what he likes, the critics might argue ...).
He acted as the informal ambassador of Greece, helped bring the Olympic games in 2004.
Recently he spoke out against racism and the antics of the Golden Dawn ultras.
Those who hated him are two groups:
One is the Papandreou lovers. The other is the communists. But the communists hated him more because of 1949, when their invading army was defeated in the mountains, not for 1965.
My verdict is he was unlucky and he also made the wrong decision when he was in Rome.
Karamanlis could not find a way to prevent his return in 1974 if it was n't for that.
