George II of Greece

The Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed by parliament on 25 March 1924, before being confirmed by a referendum two and a half weeks later. George and Elisabeth were officially deposed and banished; along with all members of the royal family they were stripped of their Greek citizenship and their property was confiscated by the government of the new republic. Rendered stateless, they were issued new passports from their cousin, King Christian X of Denmark.[7][5]

Exiled in Romania since December 1923, the former Greek ruler and his wife settled in Bucharest, where King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania put at their disposal a wing of the Cotroceni palace for some time. After several weeks, however, the couple moved and established their residence in a more modest villa on Victory Avenue. Regular guests of the Romanian sovereigns, George and Elizabeth took part in the ceremonies which punctuated the life of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family. Despite the kindness with which his mother-in-law treated him, the ex-King of the Hellenes felt idle in Bucharest and struggled to hide the boredom he felt from the splendors of the Romanian court.

Tried by the humiliations of exile, financial difficulties and the absence of descendants, relations between George and Elisabeth deteriorated. After having first assuaged her weariness in too rich food and gambling, the ex-queen of the Hellenes then carried on extra-marital affairs with various married men. She took advantage of a visit to her sick sister, in Belgrade, to flirt with her own brother-in-law, Alexander, the King of Yugoslavia. Later, she began an affair with her husband's banker, a Greek named Alexandros Scavani, whom she made her chamberlain to cover up the scandal.

George II and his wife during a stay in the UK, 1931

At the start of his life as an exile, George spent half the year in Romania with Elizabeth. Alone or with his wife, he divided the remaining six months between Tuscany, where he resided with his mother, at Villa Bobolina, and the UK, where he had many friends.[8][9] On 16 September 1930, he was initiated into Freemasonry in London and became venerable master of the Wellwood Lodge in 1933.[10] After the death of the queen dowager Sophie, in 1932, George chose to leave Bucharest and his wife permanently to establish his residence in London. Accompanied by his squire, Major Dimitrios Levidis, and a faithful servant, Mitso Panteleos, the ex-sovereign rented a small suite with two rooms at Brown's Hotel in Mayfair.[9]

On 28 October 1940, Metaxas rejected an Italian ultimatum demanding the stationing of Italian troops on Greek soil, sparking the Greco-Italian War. The Greeks successfully repelled the Italian invasion and launched a successful counter-attack, eventually occupying the southern half of Albania (then an Italian protectorate). But when the Germans invaded from Bulgaria on 6 April 1941, the Greeks and the British Expeditionary Force were quickly overrun.[17]

Following the suicide of Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis on 18 April 1941 in the face of the rapid German advance, George unable to find a speedy successor, found himself as the de facto head of government as well as head of the armed services.[18] The King had thus a unique opportunity to form a broader government of national consensus, and abolish the hated dictatorial regime—whose sole bastion of support he now was. Though urged to this step by the influential British ambassador, Michael Palairet, George refused.[18]

Instead, several names were put forward to head a government. George initially proposed Konstantinos Kotzias, one of Metaxas' ministers, but his ties to the regime made him an unfeasible choice; instead veteran Venizelist general Alexandros Mazarakis-Ainian was given the mandate to form a government, but returned it on 20 April, partly due to his refusal to collaborate with Metaxas' hated Security Minister Konstantinos Maniadakis; other figures, such as the former dictator Theodoros Pangalos, were also rejected.[19] Finally, Emmanouil Tsouderos, former governor of the Bank of Greece, was chosen, chiefly on account of his known Anglophile sentiments, Venizelist past, and Cretan origin-where with mainland Greece being overrun, the government was preparing to evacuate too. As Cretans cherished the memory of Venizelos but was generally seen as anti-monarchical, this appointment was seen as a sop to local sentiment.[20]

On 23 April the King and the government fled the Greek mainland for Crete.[21] Despite a heroic defense of the island by Greek and New Zealand forces alongside the local population in the face of a German airborne attack, Crete soon fell and George was forced evacuated once again-initially to Egypt. Seemingly at the behest of King Farouk of Egypt and his pro-Italian ministers, George soon relocated to Great Britain, as in his previous exile.[22]

George II in Egypt, 1942

Throughout the Axis occupation, George remained the internationally recognised head of state, backed by the Greek government-in-exile and the Free Greek Forces. However, the British Foreign Office found George exceedingly difficult to deal with. He was deeply obstinate about upholding what he regarded as his royal prerogatives; he proved notably unwilling to compromise with those who wanted a clear break with the 4th of August Regime.[6] He also resisted British pressure to promise to restore the constitution of 1911, under the grounds that doing so would be to admit he acted illegally in suspending parts of the constitution in 1936.[23] As late as 1942, George kept on cabinet ministers from the Metaxas regime, most notably Maniadakis.[24] Under heavy British pressure, George in a radio broadcast on 28 October 1941 reluctantly proclaimed the end of the 4th of August Regime, and only in February 1942 did he promise to restore articles 5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 20 and 95 of the 1911 constitution.[25]

A deeply paranoid and insecure man, George believed that the British government was plotting to prevent his return to Greece, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.[6] Edward Warner of the Southern Department of the Foreign Office wrote in March 1942 that the king was "under the extraordinary impression that the Foreign Office was 'pro-Republican and anti-himself'".[26] The British ambassador to the government-in-exile, Sir Reginald Leeper, noted that the king's coldness did not win him many friends, writing: "Amongst these vivacious, talkative and intensely political southerners he is very much the reserved northerner who damps the ardour of those who might otherwise acclaim him".[6] Leeper noted that almost every meeting he had with the king, he had to listen to a lengthy litany of complaints.[23] In particular, the king objected to BBC's Greek language service, whose main radio announcer, G.N. Soteriadis, was a Venizelist.[26] George repeatedly asked that Soteriadis be replaced with a monarchist.[26] One of George's few friends was the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was determined to see him restored and often backed the king's complaints against his own officials.[26]

George II during his visit to a Greek fighter station, 1944

In occupied Greece, however, the leftist partisans of the National Liberation Front (EAM) and National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS), now unfettered by Metaxas' oppression, had become the largest Greek Resistance movement, enjoying considerable popular support. As liberation drew nearer, however, the prospect of the King's return caused dissensions both inside Greece and among the Greeks abroad. Although the King effectively renounced the Metaxas regime in a radio broadcast, a large section of the people and many politicians rejected his return on account of his support of the dictatorship. In November 1943, George wrote to the prime minister-in-exile Emmanouil Tsouderos, "I shall examine anew the question of the date of my return to Greece in agreement with the Government". Either deliberately or accidentally, the version released for publication omitted the words "of the date", creating the impression that George had agreed to a further plebiscite on the monarchy, even though a retraction was issued.[27]

After two changes of prime minister, the establishment of a rival Communist-led government in occupied Greece and a pro-EAM mutiny among the armed forces in the Middle East, it was agreed in the May 1944 Lebanon conference that the fate of the monarchy would be decided in a national referendum. George was very much opposed to a regency, and tried his best to turn his friend Winston Churchill against Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens, accusing him of being a Communist and a Nazi collaborator.[28] As late as Christmas Eve 1944, during the height of the Dekemvriana, George had rejected the compromise solution of a regency, demanding that he return to Greece at once to reclaim his throne.[29] On 29 December 1944, at a meeting at 10 Downing Street, Churchill told the king "that if he did not agree to the matter would be settled without him, and that we should recognise the new Government instead of him".[30] The king's private secretary recalled: "I could hear through the door the voices of Churchill and Eden, particularly the latter, raised in anger at the King. In this heated argument the door was flung open and the King stormed out, his face white and taut ... In the car as we drove back to the hotel the King would not trust himself to speak; after recovering his composure he went back to Downing Street and informed Churchill and Eden that had no choice but to acquiesce to their demands".[31]

Bowing to Allied pressure, George was forced to appoint Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens as Regent in January 1945. Damaskinos immediately appointed a republican-dominated government. Ill, exhausted and powerless, George bought a lease on a house in Chester Square, Belgravia, and made a home there with his long-time mistress.[32]