Reign of King Otto (1832–1862) , the first king of modern Greece Otto's reign would prove troubled, but managed to last for 30 years before he and his wife,
Queen Amalia, left the way they came, aboard a British warship. During the early years of his reign, a group of Bavarian Regents ruled in his name and made themselves very unpopular by trying to impose German ideas of rigid hierarchical government on the Greeks, while keeping most significant state offices away from them. Nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, but he suffered from two great handicaps, him being a
Roman Catholic while most Greek people were
Orthodox Christian, and the fact that his marriage to Queen
Amalia remained childless. Furthermore, the new kingdom tried to eliminate the traditional
banditry, something that in many cases meant conflict with some old revolutionary fighters (
klephtes) who continued to exercise this practice. The Bavarian Regents ruled until 1837, when at the insistence of Britain and France, they were recalled, and Otto after that appointed Greek ministers, although Bavarian officials still ran most of the administration and the army. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution. Greek discontent grew until a
revolt broke out in
Athens in September 1843. Otto agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November. The
new constitution created a
bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly (
Vouli) and a Senate (
Gerousia). Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, most of whom had been commanders in the War of Independence against the Ottomans. Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. Greeks dreamed of liberating all the Greek lands and reconstituting a state embracing them all, with
Constantinople as its capital. This was called the Great Idea (
Megali Idea), and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, notably
Crete,
Thessaly and
Macedonia. During the
Crimean War the British occupied
Piraeus to prevent Greece declaring war on the Ottomans as a Russian ally. A new generation of Greek politicians was growing increasingly intolerant of King Otto's continuing interference in government. In 1862, the King dismissed his prime minister, the former admiral
Konstantinos Kanaris, the most prominent politician of the period. This dismissal provoked a military rebellion, forcing Otto to accept the inevitable and leave the country. The Greeks then asked Britain to send
Queen Victoria's son Prince
Alfred as their new king, but this was vetoed by the other Powers. Instead, a young Danish prince became King
George I. George was a very popular choice as a constitutional monarch, and he agreed that his sons would be raised in the Greek Orthodox faith. As a reward to the Greeks for adopting a pro-British king, Britain ceded the
United States of the Ionian Islands to Greece.
Religious life Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Church was a part of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Ottoman authorities, who were Muslim, did not interfere with the church. With the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, however, the government decided to take control of the church, breaking away from the Patriarch in Constantinople. The government declared the church to be
autocephalous (independent) in 1833 by a political decision of Bavarian regents acting for King
Otto, who was a minor. The decision roiled Greek politics for decades as royal authorities took increasing control. The new status was finally recognised as such by the Patriarchate in 1850, under compromise conditions with the issue of a special
Tomos (decree), which brought it back to a normal status. As a result, it retains certain special links with the
Mother Church in Constantinople. At the time, there were only four bishops, and they had political roles. In 1833, Parliament dissolved 400 small monasteries having fewer than five monks or nuns. Priests were not salaried; in rural areas, he was often also a peasant farmer, dependent on agricultural work and the fees and offerings of his parishioners. His ecclesiastical duties were limited to administering the
Holy Mysteries, presiding over funerals, blessing of crops, and performing
exorcisms. Few attended seminaries. By the 1840s, there was a nationwide revival, run by travelling preachers; the government arrested several and tried to suppress the revival, but it was too powerful when revivalists denounced three bishops for
purchasing their office. By the 1880s, the
Anaplasis ("Regeneration") Movement led to renewed spiritual energy and enlightenment. It fought against rationalistic and materialistic ideas seeping in from secular
Western Europe. It promoted
catechism schools, and
Bible study groups.
Reign of King George I (1863–1913) At the urging of Britain and King George, Greece adopted a much more democratic
constitution in 1864. The powers of the king were reduced and the Senate was abolished, and the franchise was extended to all adult males. Nevertheless, Greek politics remained heavily dynastic, as it had always been. Family names such as Zaimis, Rallis and Trikoupis repeatedly occurred as prime ministers. Although parties were centered around the individual leaders, often bearing their names, two broad political tendencies existed: the liberals, led first by
Charilaos Trikoupis and later by
Eleftherios Venizelos, and the conservatives, led initially by
Theodoros Deligiannis and later by
Thrasivoulos Zaimis. Trikoupis and Deligiannis dominated Greek politics in the later 19th century, alternating in office. Trikoupis favoured cooperation with Great Britain in foreign affairs, the creation of infrastructure and an indigenous industry, raising protective tariffs and progressive social legislation, while the more populist Deligiannis depended on the promotion of Greek nationalism and the
Megali idea. Greece remained a quite impoverished country throughout the 19th century. The country lacked raw materials, infrastructure and capital. Agriculture was mostly at the subsistence level, and the only important export commodities were
currants, raisins and tobacco. Some Greeks grew rich as merchants and shipowners, and Piraeus became a major port, but little of this wealth found its way to the Greek peasantry. Greece remained hopelessly in debt to London finance houses. By the 1890s Greece was virtually bankrupt, and public insolvency was declared in 1893. Poverty was rife in the rural areas and the islands and was eased only by large-scale emigration to the United States. There was little education in the countryside. Nevertheless, there was progress in building communications and infrastructure, and elegant public buildings were erected in Athens. Despite the bad financial situation, Athens staged the
revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, which proved a great success. in the 1880s, with PM
Charilaos Trikoupis standing at the podium The parliamentary process developed greatly in Greece during the reign of George I. Initially, the royal prerogative in choosing his prime minister remained and contributed to governmental instability, until the introduction of the principle of
parliamentary confidence in 1875 by the reformist
Charilaos Trikoupis. Clientelism and frequent electoral upheavals, however, remained the norm in Greek politics and frustrated the country's development. Corruption and Trikoupis' increased spending to create necessary infrastructure like the
Corinth Canal overtaxed the weak Greek economy, forcing the declaration of
public insolvency in 1893 and to accept the imposition of an
International Financial Commission to pay off the country's debtors. Another political issue in 19th-century Greece was uniquely Greek: the language question. The Greek people spoke a form of Greek called
Demotic. Many of the educated elite saw this as a peasant dialect and were determined to restore the glories of
Ancient Greek. Government documents and newspapers were consequently published in (purified) Greek, a form which few ordinary Greeks could read. Liberals favoured recognising Demotic as the national language, but conservatives and the Orthodox Church resisted all such efforts, to the extent that, when the
New Testament was translated into Demotic in 1901, riots erupted in Athens and the government fell (the ). This issue would continue to plague Greek politics until the 1970s. All Greeks were united, however, in their determination to liberate the Greek-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Especially in
Crete, a
prolonged revolt in 1866–1869 had raised nationalist fervour. When war broke out between
Russia and the Ottomans in 1877, popular Greek sentiment rallied to Russia's side, but Greece was too poor and too concerned about British intervention to officially enter the war. Nevertheless, in 1881,
Thessaly and small parts of
Epirus were ceded to Greece in the context of the
Treaty of Berlin, while frustrating Greek hopes of receiving
Crete. Greeks in Crete continued to stage regular revolts, and in 1897, the Greek government under
Theodoros Deligiannis, bowing to popular pressure, declared war on the Ottomans. In the ensuing
Greco-Turkish War of 1897 the badly trained and equipped
Greek army was defeated by the Ottomans. Through the intervention of the Great Powers, however, Greece lost only a little territory along the border to Turkey, while Crete was established as an
autonomous state with the
High Commissioner being
Prince George of Greece. Nationalist sentiment among Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued to grow, and by the 1890s there were constant disturbances in
Macedonia. Here the Greeks were in competition not only with the Ottomans but also with the Bulgarians, engaged in an armed propaganda struggle for the hearts and minds of the ethnically mixed local population, the so-called "
Macedonian Struggle". In July 1908, the
Young Turk Revolution broke out in the Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of the Ottoman internal turmoil,
Austria–Hungary annexed
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. On Crete, the local population, led by a young politician named
Eleftherios Venizelos, declared , union with Greece, provoking another crisis. The fact that the Greek government, led by
Dimitrios Rallis, proved unable likewise to take advantage of the situation and bring Crete into the fold, rankled with many Greeks, especially with young officers. These formed a secret society, the "
Military League", with the purpose of emulating their Ottoman colleagues and seeking reforms. The resulting
Goudi coup on 15 August 1909 marked a watershed in modern Greek history: as the military conspirators were inexperienced in politics, they asked Venizelos, who had impeccable liberal credentials, to come to Greece as their political adviser. Venizelos quickly established himself as an influential political figure, and his allies won the
August 1910 elections. Venizelos became Prime Minister in October 1910, ushering a period of 25 years where his personality would dominate Greek politics. Venizelos initiated a major reform program, including a
new and more liberal constitution and reforms in the spheres of public administration, education and economy. French and British military missions were invited for the army and navy respectively, and arms purchases were made. In the meantime, the Ottoman Empire's weaknesses were revealed by the ongoing
Italo-Turkish War in Libya. Through spring 1912, a series of bilateral agreements among the Balkan states (Greece,
Bulgaria,
Montenegro and
Serbia) formed the
Balkan League, which in October 1912 declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
Balkan Wars Macedonian front Ottoman intelligence had disastrously misread Greek military intentions. In retrospect, it would appear that the Ottoman staff believed that the Greek attack would be shared equally between the two primary avenues of approach, Macedonia and Epirus. The 2nd Army staff had therefore evenly balanced the combat strength of the seven Ottoman divisions between the
Yanya Corps and
VIII Corps, in Epirus and Macedonia respectively. The Greek Army also fielded seven divisions, but, having the initiative, concentrated all seven against VIII Corps, leaving only a number of independent battalions of scarcely divisional strength in the Epirus front. This had fatal consequences for the Western Group of Armies, since it led to the early loss of the strategic centre of all three Macedonian fronts, the city of
Thessaloniki, a fact that sealed their fate. In an unexpectedly brilliant and rapid campaign, the
Army of Thessaly seized the city. In the absence of secure sea lines of communications, the retention of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople corridor was essential to the overall strategic posture of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Once this was gone, the defeat of the Ottoman Army became inevitable. To be sure, the Bulgarians and the Serbs played a significant role in the defeat of the main Ottoman armies. Their great victories at
Kirk Kilise,
Lule Burgas,
Kumanovo, and
Monastir shattered the
Eastern and
Vardar armies. However, these victories were not decisive in the sense that they ended the war. The Ottoman field armies survived, and in Thrace, they actually grew stronger day by day. In the strategic point of view these victories were enabled partially by the weakened condition of the Ottoman armies brought about by the active presence of the Greek army and fleet. With the declaration of war, the Greek Army of Thessaly under Crown Prince
Constantine advanced to the north, successfully
overcoming Ottoman opposition in the fortified Straits of Sarantaporo. After another victory at
Giannitsa on , the Ottoman commander
Hasan Tahsin Pasha surrendered Thessaloniki and its garrison of 26,000 men to the Greeks on . Two Corps HQs (
Ustruma and VIII), two Nizamiye divisions (14th and 22nd) and four Redif divisions (Salonika, Drama, Naslic and Serez) were thus lost to the Ottoman order of battle. Additionally, the Ottoman forces lost 70 artillery pieces, 30 machine guns and 70,000 rifles (Thessaloniki was the central arms depot for the Western Armies). The Ottoman forces estimated that 15,000 officers and men had been killed during the campaign in Macedonia, bringing total losses up to 41,000 soldiers. Another direct consequence was that the destruction of the Macedonian Army sealed the fate of the Ottoman Vardar Army, which was fighting the Serbs to the north. The fall of Thessaloniki left it strategically isolated, without logistical supply and depth to manoeuvre, ensuring its destruction. Upon learning of the outcome of the battle of Yenidje, the Bulgarian high command urgently dispatched their 7th
Rila Division from the north in the direction of the city. The division arrived there a week later, the day after its surrender to the Greeks. Until 10 November, the Greek-occupied zone had been expanded to the line from
Lake Dojran to the
Pangaion hills west to
Kavalla. In southern Yugoslavia however, the lack of coordination between the Greek and Serbian HQs cost the Greeks a setback in the
Battle of Vevi on , when the Greek
5th Infantry Division crossed its way with the
VI Ottoman Corps (a part of the Vardar Army consisting of the 16th, 17th and 18th Nizamiye divisions), retreating to Albania following the
Battle of Prilep against the Serbs. The Greek division, surprised by the presence of the Ottoman Corps, isolated from the rest of Greek army and outnumbered by the now counterattacking Ottomans centred on
Bitola, was forced to retreat. As a result, the Serbs beat the Greeks to Bitola.
Epirus front In the
Epirus front the Greek army was initially heavily outnumbered, but due to the passive attitude of the Ottomans succeeded in conquering
Preveza (21 October 1912) and pushing north to the direction of
Ioannina. On 5 November, Major
Spyros Spyromilios led a
revolt in the coastal area of
Himarë and expelled the Ottoman garrison without facing significant resistance, while on 20 November Greek troops from western Macedonia entered
Korçë. However, Greek forces in the Epirote front had not the numbers to initiate an offensive against the German-designed defensive positions of
Bizani that protected the city of Ioannina, and therefore had to wait for reinforcements from the Macedonian front. After the campaign in Macedonia was over, a large part of the Army was redeployed to Epirus, where Crown Prince Constantine himself assumed command. In the
Battle of Bizani the Ottoman positions were breached and Ioannina taken on . During the siege, on 8 February 1913, the Russian pilot N. de Sackoff, flying for the Greeks, became the first pilot ever shot down in combat, when his biplane was hit by ground fire following a bomb run on the walls of Fort
Bizani. He came down near the small town of
Preveza, on the coast north of the Ionian island of
Lefkas, secured local Greek assistance, repaired his plane and resumed his flight back to base. The fall of Ioannina allowed the Greek army to continue its advance into
northern Epirus, the southern part of modern Albania, which it occupied. There its advance stopped, although the Serbian line of control was very close to the north.
Naval operations in the Aegean and Ionian seas on 5/18 October 1912, before sailing for Lemnos On the outbreak of hostilities on 18 October, the
Greek fleet, placed under the newly promoted Rear Admiral
Pavlos Kountouriotis, sailed for the island of
Lemnos, occupying it three days later (although fighting continued on the island until 27 October) and establishing an anchorage at
Moudros Bay. This move was of major strategic importance, as it provided the Greeks with a forward base in close distance to the Dardanelles, the Ottoman fleet's main anchorage and refuge. In view of the Ottoman fleet's superiority in speed and
broadside weight, the Greek planners expected it to sortie from the straits early in the war. Given the Greek fleet's unpreparedness resulting from the premature outbreak of the war, such an early Ottoman attack might well have been able to achieve a crucial victory. Instead, the
Ottoman Navy spent the first two months of the war in operations against the Bulgarians in the Black Sea, giving the Greeks valuable time to complete their preparations and allowing them to consolidate their control of the Aegean. By mid-November Greek naval detachments had seized the islands of
Imbros,
Thasos,
Agios Efstratios,
Samothrace,
Psara and
Ikaria, while landings were undertaken on the larger islands of
Lesbos and
Chios only on 21 and 27 November respectively. Substantial Ottoman garrisons were present on the latter, and their resistance was fierce. They withdrew into the mountainous interior and were not subdued until 22 December and 3 January respectively.
Samos, officially an
autonomous principality, was not attacked until 13 March 1913, out of a desire not to upset the Italians in the nearby
Dodecanese. The clashes there were short-lived as the Ottoman forces withdrew to the Anatolian mainland so that the island was securely in Greek hands by 16 March. At the same time, with the aid of numerous merchant ships converted to
auxiliary cruisers, a loose naval blockade on the Ottoman coasts from the Dardanelles to
Suez was instituted, which disrupted the Ottomans' flow of supplies (only the Black Sea routes to Romania remained open) and left some 250,000 Ottoman troops immobilized in Asia. In the
Ionian Sea, the Greek fleet operated without opposition, ferrying supplies for the army units in the Epirus front. Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of
Vlorë in Albania on 3 December, and
Durrës on 27 February. A naval blockade extending from the pre-war Greek border to Vlorë was also instituted on 3 December, isolating the newly established
Provisional Government of Albania based there from any outside support. Lieutenant
Nikolaos Votsis scored a major success for Greek morale on 31 October: he sailed his
torpedo boat No. 11, under the cover of night, into the harbor of
Thessaloniki, sank the old Ottoman ironclad battleship
Feth-i Bülend and escaped unharmed. On the same day, Greek troops of the Epirus Army seized the Ottoman naval base of
Preveza. The Ottomans scuttled the four ships present there, but the Greeks were able to salvage the Italian-built torpedo-boats
Antalya and
Tokat, which were commissioned into the Greek Navy as
Nikopolis and
Tatoi respectively. On 9 November, the wooden Ottoman armed steamer
Trabzon was intercepted and sunk by the Greek torpedo boat No. 14 under Lt.
Periklis Argyropoulos off
Ayvalık.
Confrontations off the Dardanelles , 1913 The main Ottoman fleet remained inside the
Dardanelles for the early part of the war, while the Greek destroyers continuously patrolled the Straits' exit to report on a possible sortie. Kountouriotis suggested
mining the straits, but was not taken up for fear of international reactions. On 7 December, the head of the Ottoman fleet Tahir Bey was replaced by Ramiz Naman Bey, the leader of the hawkish faction among the officer corps. A new strategy was agreed, whereby the Ottomans were to take advantage of any absence of the Greek flagship
Averof to attack the other Greek ships. The Ottoman staff formulated a plan to lure a number of the Greek destroyers on patrol into a trap. A first such effort on 12 December failed due to boiler trouble, but the second try two days later resulted in an indecisive engagement between the Greek destroyers and the cruiser
Mecidiye. The war's first major fleet action, the
Naval Battle of Elli, was fought two days later, on . The Ottoman fleet, with four battleships, nine destroyers and six torpedo boats, sailed to the entrance of the straits. The lighter Ottoman vessels remained behind, but the battleship squadron moved on north under cover of the forts at
Kumkale and engaged the Greek fleet, coming from Imbros, at 9:40. Leaving the older battleships behind, Kountouriotis led the
Averof into independent action: utilizing its superior speed, it cut across the Ottoman fleet's bow. Under fire from two sides, the Ottomans were quickly forced to withdraw to the Dardanelles. The whole engagement lasted less than an hour, in which the Ottoman fleet suffered heavy damage to the
Barbaros Hayreddin and 18 dead and 41 wounded (most during their disorderly retreat) and the Greeks one dead and seven wounded. In the aftermath of Elli, on 20 December the energetic Lt. Commander
Rauf Bey was placed in effective command of the Ottoman fleet. Two days later he led his forces out, hoping again to trap the patrolling Greek destroyers between two divisions of the Ottoman fleet, one heading for Imbros and the other waiting at the entrance of the straits. The plan failed as the Greek ships quickly broke contact, while at the same time the
Mecidiye came under attack by the Greek submarine
Delfin, which launched a torpedo against it but missed; the first such attack in history. Similar sorties followed on 10 and 11 January, but the results of these "cat and mouse" operations were always the same: "the Greek destroyers always managed to remain outside the Ottoman warships' range, and each time the cruisers fired a few rounds before breaking off the chase." ''. Its exploits during its eight-month cruise through the Mediterranean were a major morale booster for the Ottomans. In preparation for the next attempt to break the Greek blockade, the Ottoman Admiralty decided to create a diversion by sending the light cruiser
Hamidiye, captained by Rauf Bey, to raid Greek merchant shipping in the Aegean. It was hoped that the
Averof, the only major Greek unit fast enough to catch the
Hamidiye, would be drawn in pursuit and leave the remainder of the Greek fleet weakened. In the event,
Hamidiye slipped through the Greek patrols on the night of 14–15 January and bombarded the harbor of the Greek island of
Syros, sinking the Greek
auxiliary cruiser Makedonia which lay in anchor there (it was later raised and repaired). The
Hamidiye then left the Aegean for the Eastern Mediterranean, making stops at
Beirut and
Port Said before entering the
Red Sea. Although providing a major morale boost for the Ottomans, the operation failed to achieve its primary objective, as Kountouriotis refused to leave his post and pursue the
Hamidiye. Four days later, on , when the Ottoman fleet again sallied from the straits towards Lemnos, it was defeated for a second time in the
Naval Battle of Lemnos. This time, the Ottoman warships concentrated their fire on the
Averof, which again made use of its superior speed and tried to "
cross the T" of the Ottoman fleet.
Barbaros Hayreddin was again heavily damaged, and the Ottoman fleet was forced to return to the shelter of the Dardanelles and their forts. The Ottomans suffered 41 killed and 101 wounded. It was the last attempt of the Ottoman Navy to leave the Dardanelles, thereby leaving the Greeks dominant in the Aegean. On , a Greek
Farman MF.7, piloted by Lt.
Moutousis and with Ensign
Moraitinis as an observer, carried out an aerial reconnaissance of the Ottoman fleet in its anchorage at
Nagara, and launched four bombs on the anchored ships. Although it scored no hits, this operation is regarded as the first naval-air operation in military history. General
Nikola Ivanov, commander of the
2nd Bulgarian Army, acknowledged the role of the Greek fleet in the overall Balkan League victory by stating that "the activity of the entire Greek fleet and above all the
Averof was the chief factor in the general success of the allies".), and the Turkish-held islands of
Imvros and
Tenedos, where there were smaller Greek minorities.
Postwar Greece and the fall of the monarchy (1950–1973) with his wife
Frederica During the Civil war (1946–1949) but even more after that, the parties in the parliament were divided into three political concentrations. The political formation Right-Centre-Left, given the exacerbation of political animosity that had preceded dividing the country in the 1940s, tended to turn the concurrence of parties into ideological positions. At the beginning of the 1950s, the forces of the
Centre (EPEK) succeeded in gaining the power and under the leadership of the aged general
Nikolaos Plastiras they governed for about half a four-year term. These were a series of governments having limited manoeuvre ability and inadequate influence in the political arena. This government, as well as those that followed, was constantly under the American auspices. The defeat of EPEK in the
elections of 1952, apart from increasing the repressive measures that concerned the defeated of the Civil war, also marked the end of the general political position that it represented, namely political consensus and social reconciliation. The left, which had been ostracised from the political life of the country, found a way of expression through the constitution of EDA (
United Democratic Left) in 1951, which turned out to be a significant pole, yet steadily excluded from the decision making centres. After the disbandment of the centre as an autonomous political institution, EDA practically expanded its electoral influence to a significant part of the EAM-based Centre-Left. ) The developmental strategy adopted by the country was embodied in centrally organised five-year plans; yet their orientation was indistinct. The average annual emigration, which absorbed the excess workforce and contributed to extremely high growth rates, exceeded the annual natural increase in population. The influx of large amounts of foreign private capital was being facilitated, and consumption was expanded. These, associated with the rise of tourism, the expansion of shipping activity and with the migrant remittances, had a positive effect on the balance of payments. The peak of development was registered principally in manufacture, mainly in the textile and chemical industry and in the sector of metallurgy, the growth rate of which tended to reach 11% during 1965–1970. The other large branch where distinct economic and social consequences were brought about, was that of construction. Consideration, a Greek invention, favoured the creation of a class of small-medium contractors on the one hand and settled the housing system and property status on the other. During that decade, youth came forth in society as a distinct social power with the autonomous presence (creation of a new culture in music, fashion, etc.) and displaying dynamism in the assertion of their social rights. The independence granted to Cyprus, which was mined from the very beginning, constituted the primary focus of young activist mobilisations, along with struggles aiming at reforms in education, which were provisionally realised to a certain extent through the educational reform of 1964. The country reckoned on and was influenced by Europe – usually behind time – and by the current trends like never before. Thus, in a sense, the imposition of the military junta conflicted with the social and cultural occurrences. The country descended into a prolonged political crisis, and elections were scheduled for late April 1967. On 21 April 1967 however, a group of right-wing colonels led by Colonel
Georgios Papadopoulos seized power in a
coup d'état establishing the
Regime of the Colonels. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Several thousand suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands. Alleged US support for the junta is claimed to be the cause of rising
anti-Americanism in Greece during and following the junta's harsh rule. However, the junta's early years also saw a marked upturn in the economy, with increased foreign investment and large-scale infrastructure works. The junta was widely condemned abroad, but inside the country, discontent began to increase only after 1970, when the economy slowed down. Even the armed forces, the regime's foundation, were not immune. In May 1973, a planned coup by the
Hellenic Navy was narrowly suppressed but led to the mutiny of the , whose officers sought political asylum in Italy. In response, junta leader Papadopoulos attempted to steer the regime towards a
controlled democratization,
abolishing the monarchy and declaring himself President of the Republic. ==Politics==