Who was last king of Greece?

Answer 1

The last King of Greece was King Constantine II, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, born 2nd June 1940. He was crowned on 18 September 1964.

The defining moment of his reign was a military coup which took place on 21 April 1967. Constantine, not wishing bloodshed, did nothing and the junta kept him as a figurehead of their regime.

Following a meeting with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Autumn of 1967, Constantine began planning a countercoup using the Air Force and Navy, who had remained loyal to him and had not been involved in the original coup. The plan involved capturing the city of Thessaloniki and installing a counter-government. He then hoped that international pressure and pro-democracy demonstrations would force the junta to resign.

The king set his plans into motion on 13 December 1967, but due in part to his over-bureaucratic handling of the counter-coup and his reluctance to countenance bloodshed and not involving local politiacians and dignitaries, the junta quickly arrested his generals and took over their units and advanced on the king's position. The king, his family, and the Greek Prime Minister fled the country and landed in Rome in the morning of 14 December 1967. He spent the rest of his reign in exile, nominally continuing as king until 1 June 1973, when Greece was declared a republic.

By mid 1973, the military dictators, who had never had the support of the people, had grown deeply unpopular. In May the largely loyalist navy staged another failed coup.

The downfall of the Dictatorship was brought abrout by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July 1974, which resulted in the overthrow of the junta by the military.

The first post-junta elections were held in November 1974 and a referendum on whether Greece should remain a republic on 8 December. The result was that almost 69% of the voters voted for the permanent abolition of the monarchy.

The king was stripped of his possessions (although he sued in the European Court of Human Rights and was awarded €4 million) and his Greek nationality, which would be re-instated if he took a surname. To date Constantine has refused to do so.

Constantine currently lives with his wife, Anne-Marie, in Hampstead, London.