Popular Autocracy in Greece, 1936-1941: A Political Biography of General Ioannis Metaxas

244 Pages·1998·8.649 MB·English

by  P.J. Vatikiotis

POPULAR AUTOCRACY
IN GREECE
1936-41
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POPULAR AUTOCRACY
IN GREECE
1936-41
A Political Biography of
General Ioannis Metaxas
P.]. Vatikiotis
Emeritus Profissor of Near East Politics, University of London
I~ ~~o~:!;n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published 1998 ~Y
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS.
Published 2014 by Routledge
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711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 1998 P. J. Vatikiotis
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
Vatikiotis, PJ. (Panayiotis]erasimo~, 1928-
Popular autocracy in Greece, 1936-41: a political
biography of General Ioannis Metaxas
I. Metaxas, Ioannis 2. Statesmen-Greece-Biography
3. Greece-Politics and government--1935-67
I. Title
949.5'074'092
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Vatikiotis, PJ. (Panayiotis]erasimo~, 1928-
Popular autocracy in Greece, 1936--41: a political biography of
General Ioannis Metaxas / PJ. Vatikiotis.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Metaxas, Ioannis, 1871-1941. 2. Dictators-Greece--Biography.
3. Generals-Greece--Biography. 4. Greece-History- 1917- 1944.
5. Greece-Politics and government- I 935- 19 67 . I. Title.
DF849.58.M48V37 1998
949.507-dc21 97-39080
CIP
All rights reserved. No part tif this publication mtry be reproduced in any form or ~ arry means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission tif
the publishers.
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64869-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64445-5 (pbk)
Typeset by
Vitaset, Paddock Wood, Kent
Cover illustration: Metaxas with King George II
(a rare photograph of a monarch who never
smiled.) (Source: ELlA, Athens.)
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
PARTI
Formative Years: School, Military Training,
Cultural and Political Influences
1. Origins and Formative Years 19
2. Early Military Career 22
3. The 1897 Greek-Turkish Thessaly War 27
4. The European Experience: The Berlinkriegsakademie,
1899-1903 39
PART II
Soldiering and Diplomacy: Rapid Professional Advancement
and Growing Political Involvement, 1910-25
5. The Balkan Wars, 1912-13 51
6. The Great War, 1914-18 68
7. Exile and Return, 1917-20 101
8. Entry into Politics and Second Exile, 1920-24 109
9. The National All-Party (.Ekoumeniki) Government 127
PART III
Prelude to Power: The Momentum of Leadership
10. Greece in the 1930s 133
11. Political Party Leader, Prominent Member of
Parliament, and Rivalry with Venizelos 139
12. Metaxas becomes Prime Minister 153
13. On the Eve of War 164
PART IV
Radical Reformer and Wartime Leader,
Architect of Military Victory
14. The Nature of the 4th August Regime 185
15. How Others Saw Metaxas and His Regime 196
16. Assessments and Conclusion 202
Index 219
List of Illustrations
Between pages 116 and 117
1. Ioannis Metaxas as a boy of about nine or ten
2. Metaxas with fellow students, Berlin 1902
3. Portrait of Metaxas with his wife Lela Hatziioannou
4. Formal portrait of Metaxas as Captain in 1910
5. Greek delegation at London Peace Conference with Turkey, 1912
6. Metaxas with Crown Prince Constantine at Emin Aga, 1913
7. Metaxas with Crown Prince Constantine and officers in Yanina,
1913
8. Grand Hotel, Ajaccio, Corsica, 1917—18
9. Metaxas, his wife and two daughters in exile in Corsica, 1918
10. Metaxas with King George II during manoeuvres, 1937
11. Metaxas with King George II
12. Metaxas with his Minister for Athens, Costas Kotzias, July 1937
13. The Council of Ministers, 1940
14. The Children’s Sanatorium for Tuberculosis in Pendeli, 1940
15. Metaxas with members of his government, March 1940
16. Return from Thessaloniki, February 1940
17. Portrait of Metaxas as Prime Minister
18. Last photograph with the'Leader5, 1 January 1941
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Preface and
Acknowledgements
I embarked on this work after I retired from university teaching. The
generosity of the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust helped me
embark on this study. My friend John Campbell, Emeritus Fellow of St
Antony’s College, Oxford, a social and cultural anthropologist and
leading scholar of modern Greece, was a steady reference on things
Greek and modern Greek society. The work of a younger generation of
Greek scholars, many of them incidentally, trained, supervised and
nurtured byjohn C ampbell himself over the last three decades in Oxford,
was enlightening and helpful. The fact that on the two or three occasions
I had ventured to comment in print on limited aspects of modern Greek
politics and had engaged the lively attention of some Greeks in Greece,
including critics in the media and a number of university colleagues, I
found encouraging.
Thanos Veremis, Professor of Modern European Political History at
the University of Athens, and Director of ELIAMEP (Helenic
Foundation For European and Foreign Policy) was always helpful with
references and suggestions; Ioanna Pepelasi-Minoglou, Nicos Mouzelis,
Dimitris Livanios, Yannis Nicolaou, Mina Kalogridou, Yannis
Koliopoulos, and many others helped by discussing with me their own
research. Petros Gavallas, a semi-retired Athenian journalist, was a
veritable ‘Who’s Who’ about Athenian politicians and Athenian society
of the interwar period; he clarified for me the links between them, the
web of alliances and alignments proving to me finally that what Petros
Gavallas did not know about the Athens of the last sixty years is not
worth knowing.
Most valuable was the time I spent in Athens working closely with the
late Professor Yannis Georgakis, when he was Karamanlis’s Special
Ambassador to the Arab countries in the Middle East. I helped him with
the expertise of the specialist, and slaved valiandy, albeit without much