General Notes

The eldest son of King Constantine I, George II, b. July 20, 1890, d. Apr. 1,
1947, was king of the Hellenes from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1935 to 1947.
He went into exile after the British and French forced his father to abandon
the throne in June 1917. Constantine returned in late 1920, and when he was
compelled to abdicate after Greece's defeat by Turkey in Asia Minor, George
became king on Sept. 27, 1922. In the aftermath of an abortive military revolt
(October 1923) involving proroyalist officers, republicans in military and
civilian circles pressed George into leaving Greece. In the early spring of
1924, a republic was declared.

The republic fell when ardent royalists engineered the restoration of the
monarchy in the autumn of 1935. George II returned in November 1935, hoping to
reconcile opposing factions. When moderate methods failed to improve
conditions, he approved the establishment of a dictatorship under Ioannis
Metaxas in August 1936. The German invasion of Greece in the spring of 1941
drove George into exile. A plebiscite on Sept. 27, 1946, approved his return,
but he died soon after.