The end of the monarchy

Would the referendum for abolishing the monarchy had been held if Constantine had returned to Greece before Konstantinos Karamanlis after the fall of the junta? And if it had, would the king have lost for certain? No one knows. What is obvious, however, is that Constantine had not accounted for the fact that the protagonists of the right and the center, as well as a good chunk of the military leadership, no longer relied on the palace.

As the restoration of democracy gathered pace, the royal dynasty was replaced by the political dynasties that emerged with the downfall of the junta. Georgios Papandreou in 1965, the junta in 1967 and Konstantinos Karamanlis in 1974 exploited Constantine's inexperience and credulity to sharply expose all the failings of the monarchy, stripping it of its legitimacy and leading it to its fall. The left's vehement opposition to the palace also...