KING WHO RUINED HIS COUNTRY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3145, 27 November 1922, Page 2

KING WHO RUINED HIS COUNTRY.

King Constantino of Greece, commonly known as "Tino," was born at Athens on .Inly 21, 1868, avid on the assassination of his father, the easygoing King George, on March IS, 191.3, he succeeded to the throne. The first Balkan war was then drawing to a close. "Tino's" career prior to the outbreak of the great European war calls lor little comment. Under his leadership the (Jreek army suffered a disastrous defeat in. 1897 at the hands of tho Turks, but his reputation Was somewhat more than re'habilitatc'd by his victory in the war of 1911$ culiniu-. ating. as it did, in tho capture of .laniua. This remarkable success may have been due. as some say, to the attention of the Turks being full occupied elsewhere by the Kerbs and Bulgarians, or, as others claim, to the strict course of .military studies followed b.y "Tino" in the interval. At any rate it gained him tho devotion of the army and great popularity throughout Greece. More important is the accident that his military studies were pursued in Germany,' for there can be little doubt that this fact, together with his marriage (in 1889) to Sophia, the favorite sister of the ex-Kaiser, was responsible for the sympathy with and belief in Germany that he showed so strongly in tho great war. When M. Venizelos proposed to join iu the Gallipoli expedition in March, 1915, the King refused his consent, thereby undoubtedly helping to lengthen the war. Even after the general elections in Greece had gone emphatically against him he refused to support the Cretan statesman's policy. so that eventually M. Venizelos was driven to form a. separate Government. Constantine abdicated a- few months later—under pressure—in favor of his .son. Prince Alexander. He retired with his family to Zurich, where he' seems to have indulged in t'he usual intrigues favored by deposed and exiled! monarchs, hut with greater fortune, for hardly three years after his enforced retirement, King Alexander died from a monkey-bite, the Greek electorate declared itself even more decisively against M. Venizelos than it had previously declared itself in his favor, and Constantino was back iu Athena. Since then the fortunes of Greece, raised to a pitch undreamed of, and: perhaps undeserved, by the genius of one man, Venizelos,'have steadily sunk, until they finally collapsed on the battlefield of Asia Minor. Queen Sophie, Tino's consort, its a sister of the ex-Kaiser and granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The new king and queen, are both second cousins of King George of England, Queen Elizabeth being a daughter of the Queen of Houmania, who is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.