fme_1118775 - GREECE - CONSTANTINE I Médaille, Constantin Ier et Basile II dit le Bulgaroctone

GREECE - CONSTANTINE I

(1913-1917 and 1920-1922)

Eldest son of Georges I, he succeeded him in 1913 following his assassination. A supporter of Greece's neutrality in the First World War, he opposed Prime Minister Elefthérios Venizélos, a supporter of the Triple Entente. In 1917, faced with the threat of the Allied forces to bomb Athens, King George I was finally dismissed in favor of his second son Alexander I. In November 1920, Alexander I died following the bite of a monkey. Faced with a serious dynastic crisis, the Greek parliament was forced to recall Georges I. Following the disaster of the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922, the loss of Smyrna and the massacres of the Greek populations in Asia Minor, the king was definitively discredited. The coup of September 11, 1922 put an end to his reign: he was forced to abdicate in favor of his eldest son George II..