An antidote to anarchy? Images of monarchy in Greece in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries

Abstract

Since Roman times the representation of monarchy as an antidote to anarchy was a strong form of legitimization for the monarchical institution. In modern Greece, this formula dates back to 1821. The Greek Revolution and its republican constitutions were identified by European statesmen with anarchy and demagogy. Thus, a foreign monarch, alien to Greece's internal factions, was deemed the ideal remedy for internecine strife, and the best guarantor of internal unity as well as stability in the Near East. This image of monarchy proved its usefulness again during the First World War, when a controversy between the premier Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine over foreign policy and constitutional issues led to the National Schism (1915–17).