Constantine I was King of Greece from 18 March 1913 to 11 June 1917 and from 19 December 1920 to 27 September 1922. He was commander-in-chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Greece expanded to include Thessaloniki, doubling in area and population. The eldest son of George I of Greece, he succeeded to the throne following his father's assassination in 1913.
Alexander was King of Greece from 11 June 1917 until his death in 1920.
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek military officer and politician who was Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for the first four months of his tenure, and thereafter as the strongman leader of the 4th of August Regime following his appointment by King George II.
Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos was a Cretan Greek statesman and prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movement. He is noted for his contribution to the expansion of Greece and promotion of liberal-democratic policies. As leader of the Liberal Party, he held office as prime minister of Greece for over 12 years, spanning eight terms between 1910 and 1933. During his governance, Venizelos entered in diplomatic cooperation with the Great Powers and had profound influence on the internal and external affairs of Greece. He has therefore been labelled as "The Maker of Modern Greece" and is still widely known as the "Ethnarch".
The end of 1921 with the death of the King of Greece, Alexander, the fall of Eleftherios Venizelos, and the return of King Constantine I to the throne brought Greece once more to the fore in international politics. Although "unrecognized" by the great Allied Powers, King Constantine I resumed his interrupted reign amidst frantic acclamations of the population, a wave of anti-Venizelist reprisals, and dark war clouds in Anatolia where the Turkish Nationalist leader, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, was daily increasing his following.
The following lists events that happened during 1920 in Greece.
Nikolaos Plastiras was a Greek general and politician, who served twice as Prime Minister of Greece. A distinguished soldier known for his personal bravery, he became famous as "The Black Rider" during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, where he commanded the 5/42 Evzone Regiment. After the Greek defeat in the war, along with other Venizelist officers he launched the 11 September 1922 Revolution that deposed King Constantine I of Greece and his government. The military-led government ruled until January 1924, when power was handed over to an elected National Assembly, which later declared the Second Hellenic Republic. In the interwar period, Plastiras remained a devoted Venizelist and republican. Trying to avert the rise of the royalist People's Party and the restoration of the monarchy, he led two coup attempts in 1933 and 1935, both of which failed, forcing him to exile in France.
Sophia of Prussia was Queen of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922 as the wife of King Constantine I.
Venizelism was one of the major political movements in Greece from the 1900s until the mid-1970s.
The Provisional Government of National Defence, also known as the State of Thessaloniki, was a parallel administration, set up in the city of Thessaloniki by former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and his supporters during World War I, in opposition and rivalry to the official royal government in Athens.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 13 June [O.S. 31 May] 1915. The result was a landslide victory for Eleftherios Venizelos and his Liberal Party, which won 187 of the 316 seats in Parliament. Venizelos claimed that his victory was proof that the Greek people approved of his policy, favoring the Allies of World War I.
The People's Party or Populist Party was a conservative and pro-monarchist Greek political party founded by Dimitrios Gounaris, the main political rival of Eleftherios Venizelos and his Liberal Party. The party existed from 1920 until 1958.
The National Schism, also sometimes called The Great Division, was a series of disagreements between King Constantine I and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos regarding the foreign policy of Greece in the period of 1910–1922 of which the tipping point was whether Greece should enter World War I. Venizelos was in support of the Allies and wanted Greece to join the war on their side, while the pro-German King wanted Greece to remain neutral, which would favor the plans of the Central Powers.
A referendum on becoming a republic was held in Greece on 13 April 1924. It followed the catastrophic outcome of the Asia Minor Campaign. As a result of the military defeat, King Constantine I was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, King George II. King George himself later went into exile in the Kingdom of Romania, the home of his wife Elisabeth of Romania, while the government debated the fate of the monarchy. Ultimately, a plebiscite was called. This referendum, following the restoration of Constantine I in 1920, reflected the see-saw nature of the Greek electorate and the then-present dominance of the Liberal and Republican Venizelists in Greek politics and abolished the Crown.
Panagis Tsaldaris was a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece twice. He was a revered conservative politician and leader for many years (1922–1936) of the conservative People's Party in the period before World War II. He was the husband of Lina Tsaldari, a Greek suffragist, member of Parliament, and the Minister for Social Welfare.
The history of the Hellenic Republic constitutes three republican periods in the modern history of Greece: from 1822 until 1832; from 1924 until 1935; and from 1974 through to the present. See also the constitutional history of Greece.
The Noemvriana of December [O.S. November] 1916, or the Greek Vespers, was a political dispute which led to an armed confrontation in Athens between the royalist government of Greece and the forces of the Allies over the issue of Greece's neutrality during World War I.
Viktor Dousmanis was a Hellenic Army officer, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant General. He distinguished himself as a staff officer during the Balkan Wars and became a leading monarchist during the National Schism, serving three terms as Chief of the Hellenic Army General Staff.
The 11 September 1922 Coup was an uprising by the Greek army and navy against the government in Athens. The coup took place on 24 September 1922, although the date was "11 September" on the Julian calendar still in use at the time in Greece.
Georgios Streit was a Greek lawyer and professor. A legal advisor to King Constantine I, Streit was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1913–14, on the eve of World War I. Later, he served as a Judge at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague after 1929.
