| Expulsion of Otto of Greece | |||||||
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 King Otto and Queen Amalia embarking on HMS Scylla. | |||||||
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King Otto of Greece was deposed in a popular insurrection in October 1862. Starting on 18 October in Vonitsa, it soon spread to other cities and reached Athens on 22 October.
King Otto had ruled the Kingdom of Greece since 1832. [1] Greece had been transformed into a constitutional monarchy in the aftermath of the 3 September 1843 Revolution. However, Otto continued to intervene into internal affairs of the state by frequently dissolving the parliament and ignoring large scale electoral fraud when it benefited him. By 1861, Greek opposition had grown into a broad front, which largely saw parliamentary politics as futile and instead wished to remove Otto from power. In March 1861, Greek authorities uncovered a plot to overthrow the king consisting mainly of university students and low ranking military officers. On 6 September, student Aristeidis Dosios attempted to assassinate Queen Amalia. The following day a crackdown was launched on the anti-Ottonian opposition. [2]
On 1 February 1862, an insurrection broke out in Nafplio, led by Dimitrios Grivas , Petros A. Mavromichalis and Dimitrios Botsaris. [3] Soon, the revolt started to spread to Santorini, Hydra, Syros, Tripoli, Argos and Messenia. [4] [5] However, the royal authorities quickly managed to restore control by thwarting an outbreak of the revolt in Athens and mobilize a large body of troops to suppress it. [6] and the revolt was suppressed by 20 March. [7]
On 16 October, King Otto and Queen Amalia left for a royal visit to Peloponnese in order to strengthen the bonds between the Greek people and the crown. However, an insurrection erupted two days later in Vonitsa, on the Ambracian Gulf, led by Dimitrios Voulgaris, Konstantinos Kanaris and Benizelos Roufos. Soon, the insurrection spread to Missolonghi and Patras. On 22 October, the insurrection reached the capital Athens and a provisional government was established, with Rouphos as the Prime Minister. On the following day, the revolutionaries proclaimed the deposition of the royal couple, and convened an assembly for the election of a new monarch. [8]
The royal couple was then brought from Kalamata by the Minister of Police and placed under the protection of a British warship, HMS Scylla. At the same time, the property of the royal couple which remained in the Old Royal Palace was inventoried before being returned to their legitimate possessors. Advised by ambassadors of the Great Powers, Otto and Amalia left Greece and went into exile. In spite of everything, the king refused to abdicate and did not envision his departure as being definitive. [9]
Otto was a Bavarian prince who ruled as King of Greece from the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece on 6 Feb 1832, under the Convention of London, until he was deposed on October 1862.
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted by the British Empire, Kingdom of France, and the Russian Empire, while the Ottomans were aided by their North African vassals, particularly the eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece, which would be expanded to its modern size in later years. The revolution is celebrated by Greeks around the world as independence day on 25 March every year.
The Orlov revolt was a Greek uprising in the Peloponnese and later also in Crete that broke out in February 1770, following the arrival of Russian Admiral Alexey Orlov, commander of the Imperial Russian Navy during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), at the Mani Peninsula. The revolt, a major precursor to the Greek War of Independence, was part of Catherine the Great's so-called "Greek Plan" and was eventually suppressed by the Ottomans.
Olga Constantinovna of Russia was Queen of Greece as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920.
Antonios Kriezis was a captain of the Hellenic navy during the Greek War of Independence and a Prime Minister of Greece from 1849 to 1854.
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Amalia of Oldenburg was a Bavarian princess who became Queen of Greece from 1836 to 1862 as the wife of King Otto Friedrich Ludwig. She was loved widely by the Greeks due to her patriotic love for the country and her beauty. During her tenure as queen, she was dedicated to social improvement and the founding of many gardens in Athens, and she was the first to introduce the worldwide Christmas tree to Greece.
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Vonitsa is a town in the northwestern part of Aetolia-Acarnania in Greece, seat of the municipality of Aktio-Vonitsa. Population 4,916 (2011). The beach town is situated on the south coast of the Ambracian Gulf, and is dominated by a Venetian fortress on a hill. Vonitsa is 13 kilometres southeast of Preveza, 18 kilometres northeast of Lefkada (city) and 90 kilometres northwest of Agrinio. The Greek National Road 42 passes through Vonitsa.
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Juliane Wilhelmine Ditlefine von Plüskow was a German noblewoman and Greek court office holder. Von Plüskow was the principal lady-in-waiting of the queen of Greece Amalia of Oldenburg from 1839 to 1862. Von Plüskow was considered to have a strong influence with the queen. Von Plüskow was described in the diary of Christiane Lüth.
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