Otto of Greece

Encyclopedia : O : OT : OTT : Otto of Greece

A Youthful Portrait of King Otto of Greece

King Otto of Greece, Prince of Bavaria (June 1, 1815 - July 26, 1867) was made the first modern king of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and the Russian Empire).

Contents

1 Biography
2 Early Reign
3 September 3rd Revolution and Later Reign
4 Exile and Death
5 Notes and references

Biography

He was born in Salzburg, Austria, as second son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Through his ancestor the Bavarian Duke John II, Otto was a descendant of the Greek Imperial dynasties of Comnenus and Lascaris.

Early Reign

When he was elected King, the Great Powers extracted a pledge from Otto's father to restrain him from hostile actions against the Ottoman Empire, and insisted on his title being that of "King of Greece" instead of "King of the Greeks", which would imply a claim over the millions of Greeks then still under Turkish rule. Not quite 18, the young prince arrived in Greece with 3,500 Bavarian troops and three Bavarian advisors in a council of regency headed by Count Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, who as minister of finance, had recently succeeded in restoring Bavarian credit at the cost of his popularity. The United Kingdom and the Rothschild bank, who were underwriting the Greek loans, insisted on financial stringency on Armansperg. The Greeks were soon more heavily taxed than under Turkish rule; they had exchanged a hated Ottoman tyranny, which they understood, for government by a foreign bureaucracy, the "Bavarocracy" (Βαυαροκρατία), which they despised. In addition, Otto showed little respect for local customs. As a staunch Catholic, and thus considered a heretic among the Greeks, he never changed his religion since he was guaranteed, under the constitutional provisions as the first King of a new Greek dynasty, that he could remain a Catholic. His heirs however would have to be Orthodox according to the terms of the 1843 Constitution. ¹

Otto of Greece entering Náfplio, Peter von Hess, 1835.

In 1837, Otto visited Germany and married the beautiful and talented Duchess Amelie of Oldenburg (December 21, 1818 - May 20, 1875). The wedding took place not in Greece, but in Oldenburg, on November 22, 1836; the marriage did not produce an heir and the new queen made herself unpopular by interfering in the government.

Meanwhile, at the instance of the Swiss Philhellene Eynard, Armansperg had been dismissed by the king immediately on his return, but a Greek minister was not put in his place, and the granting of a constitution was still postponed. The attempts of Otto to conciliate Greek sentiment by efforts to enlarge the frontiers of his kingdom, for example, by the suggested acquisition of Crete in 1841, failed in their objective and only succeeded in embroiling him with the powers.

September 3rd Revolution and Later Reign

Although King Otto tried to function as an absolute monarch, as Thomas Gallant writes, he "was neither ruthless enough to be feared, nor compassionate enough to be loved, nor competent enough to be respected." ² By 1843, public dissatisfaction with him had reached crisis proportions and there were demands for a constitution. Initially Otto refused to grant a constitution, but as soon as German troops were withdrawn from the kingdom a military coup was launched. On September 3 1843, the infantry led by Colonel Kallergis

King Otto of Greece adopted the native Greek garment the Foustanella which eventually became the official dress of King Otto's court..

(Καλλέργης) and the respected Revolution captain Makriyannis (Μακρυγιάννης) assembled in the Square in front of the Palace. Eventually joined by much of the population of the small capital, the rebellion refused to disperse until the King agreed to grant a constitution, which would require that there be Greeks in the Council, that he convene a permanent national assembly and that Otto personally thank the leaders of the uprising. Left with little recourse, now that his German troops were gone, King Otto gave in to the pressure and agreed to the demands of the crowd over the objections of his opinionated Queen. This square was renamed Constitution Square (Πλατεία Συντάγματος) to commemorate the events of September 1843. ³ Now for the first time the King had Greeks in his council and the various Greek factions (mostly denoted as the "French party", "English Party" or the "Russian party" according to which of the Great Powers' culture they most esteemed) vied for rank and power.

The King's prestige, which was based in large part on his support by the combined Great Powers, but mostly the support of the British, suffered in the "Pacifico incident" of 1850, when British Foreign Secretary Palmerston sent the British fleet to blockade the port of Piraeus with warships, to exact reparation for injustice done to a British subject.

The expulsion of Otto King of Greece in 1862 as portrayed in a popular colour lithograph.

The "Great Idea" (Μεγάλη Ιδέα), Greece's dream of restoring the Byzantine Empire under Christian rule, led to his contemplating to enter the Crimean War against Turkey in 1853; the enterprise was unsuccessful, and resulted in renewed intervention by the Great Powers and a second blockade of Piraeus. In 1861, a student named Aristeidis Dosios (son of politician Konstantinos Dosios) ⁵ attempted to murder Queen Amalia, and was openly hailed as a hero. His attempt, however, also prompted spontaneous feelings of monarchism and sympathy towards the royal couple among the Greek population. ⁵

Exile and Death

While on a visit to the Peloponnese in 1862, a new coup was launched and this time a provisional government was set up and summoned a national convention. Ambassadors of the Great Powers urged King Otto not to resist, and the king and queen took refuge on a British warship and returned to Bavaria the same way they had come to Greece (aboard a foreign warship), taking with them the Greek royal regalia which he had brought from Bavaria in 1832. It has been suggested that had Otto and Amalia borne an heir, then the King would not have been overthrown, as succession was a major unresolved question at the time. ⁴ It is also true, however, that the constitution of 1843 made provision for his succession by his two younger brothers and their descendants.

He died in the palace of the former bishops of Bamberg, Germany, and was buried in the Theatiner Church in Munich. During his retirement, he would still wear the traditional uniform nowadays worn only by the evzones; during the rebellion in Crete against the Ottoman Empire in 1866, Otto donated most of his fortune to support the Cretan rebellion by supplying it with arms. He also made provisions for his donation to be kept secret until his death, to avoid causing political problems to the new King, George I.

"|Preceded by:
Augustinos Kapodistrias (Governor)

|- style="text-align: center;" |width="30%" align="center" rowspan=""|Preceded by:
first monarch

|width="30%" align="center" rowspan=""|Succeeded by:
Luitpold I |- |}

Notes and references

Clogg, Richard; A Short History of Modern Greece; Cambridge University Press, 1979; ISBN 0521328373
Gallant, Thomas W.; Modern Greece; Oxford University Press, 2003; ISBN 0340763361
Tompkinson, John L.; Athens: The City; Anagnosis Books, 1996; ISBN 9608718600
van der Kiste, John; Kings of the Hellenes; Sutton Publishing, 1994; ISBN 0750921471
Brekis, Spyros, L Ph.D.; Ιστορια της Νεωτερας Ελλαδος (History of Modern Greece) (in Greek) (coursebook of the University of Athens) 2003

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.