DEATH OF CONSTANTINE

Evening Star, Issue 18173, 13 January 1923, Page 3

DEATH OF CONSTANTINE

A SUDDEN CALL. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, January 11. , Constantine died of cerebral hemorrhage. He had been suffering from arterial sclerosis, but the end was not expected. He had arranged to settle in Florence shortly. Queen .Sophia and her three daughters were present at his death.—Reuter. HOME, January I'd. Constantine’s death was not expected. Ho had arranged to travel to .Naples, whore he was to bo guest of the Duke of Aosta, lie took a bath at 8 o'clock, immediately became ill, and died before the doctors arrived at the Villa Igca Hotel, where the ex-King and Queen were slaying. It is believed that his end was hastened by the shock of the execution of his former Ministers, from which ho never recovered. —A. and S.Z. Cable. "THE SON OF THE EAGLE." Constantine, who was born on August 2, 1868, was the son of George 1. He married Sophia, a sister of the ex-Kaiscr, on October 27, 1889, and come to the throne of Greece on March 1, 1915. when his father was assassinated. Greece was I hen recovering from the Balkan Wars. Goring the war of 1914-1918 his German sympathies were all too apparent, and events eliminated in June, 1917, by his being forced to abandon the throne fe his second son, Alexander. The administration of 31. Venizclos, however, made itself obnoxious to the Greek people. King Alexander died towards the end of 1920, ns the result of a bite from a monkey, and the plebiscite on December 5 resulted in the recall of Constantine, who returned to Greece on December 19. The rout of the Greek forces in Asia Minor in September of last year led to revolution at homo, and Constantine’s abdication, was announced from Athens on September 26. Kina Constantine, a tall and rather imposing" figure, with a curiously squarehead, in happier times was easily accessible to ihc visiting foreigner in Greece, and habilunllv talked English, even among his farni'lv. As the hero of the popular war sung, ‘‘Son of the Eagle,’ ho enjoyed a far greater prestige among his people than Ids father had ever done, although "Papa Gcorgi” was a far abler man; and as Koumbaros, or godfather, of all the children born to his soldiers during the Balkan Wars, Constantine was regarded as a close relative by half the families in the countrv. Born in Greece, Orthodox by birth,'and crowned with victory in Macedonia and Epirus, he was far and wide regarded by the superstitious as the Consum line who, wedded to a Sophia, was la recover Constantinople and liberate Agin, Sophia from the Turk in accordance with a widely-cnrrent prediction. In the blaze of his triumphant restoration in 1920 neither he nor the leaders of the party which was profiting; politically by that restoration conidl bring themselves to demobilise, economise, deflate, and in general suffer the drab inconveniences of reconstruction. They preferred to march gaily forward to the inspiring strains of ■ The Son of the Eagle' to bankruptcy, defeat, and disaster. King Constantine went to Anatolia to compel the Turks to accept Greek rule in lonia, and .posed', with seeming success at one time, as the new Alexander shattering the hosts of Asia. But the campaign demanded greater generalship than the King or his staffcomd muster, greater resources than his Treasury could supply, greater effort than his people could make. The last scenes of the dream that waa to have ended on the Golden Horn turned into a nightmare. A military stalemate turned into disaster, wherein the Greek army disgraced itself, much as it did in Thessaly in 1897, and by its behaviour daring its flight added infamy to disgrace. The defeated army turned against its fallen idol, and Genii nntine ceased to reign.