World War II
On 2 June 1940 Frederica gave birth to the future Constantine II. Simultaneously, World War II began to spread across Europe and France collapsed to Nazi Germany under Blitzkrieg. Fascist Italy soon joined on 10 June as an Axis Power. Mussolini commenced a violent propaganda campaign against Greece and accused George, who had declared Greece's neutrality, of harbouring British ships in Greek waters. On 15 August an Italian submarine sunk the Elli, which was escorting a ship of pilgrims off Tinos. The Nazi government in Germany proposed mediation between Italy and Greece. Hitler promised that if George, who he saw as an anglophile, abdicated from the throne, Germany would guarantee no Italian invasion of Greece and grant Greece territories off the coast of the Balkans. George was outraged at this proposition and stated, "[The Nazis] would do better to not stick their noses in the affairs of this country if they know what is good for them!" On 28 October 1940 Metaxas rejected an Italian ultimatum demanding the stationing of Italian troops on Greek soil, sparking the Greco-Italian War. Plastiras, head of the opposition-in-exile, proclaimed their support of George and Metaxas. George consequentially took charge of Greek armed forces and established contact with the Allies, while conducting daily war council meetings at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. George travelled up north to support soldiers as well. Greece successfully repelled the Italian invasion and launched a successful counter-attack, eventually occupying the southern half of Italian Albania.
Metaxas died on 29 January 1941 and George refused to set up a government of national unity, despite calls from both wings of politics to do so. George appointed Alexandros Koryzis as the new prime minister and he retained the dictatorial powers that Metaxas had held. The Invasion of the Balkans by the Axis Powers ensued and the Luftwaffe conducted Operation Punishment on 6 April, in which Belgrade was bombed when the government denounced the Tripartite Pact. On 9 April the Metaxas Line was penetrated by German troops from Bulgaria and Thessaloniki was occupied. Greek forces had to retreat further south as the Axis Powers continued to make progress within Greek borders. On 20 April a squadron of the Greek army surrendered for the first time. Koryzis told George to accept capitulation, but George reportedly burst into anger and gave his intentions of never surrendering. Following Koryzis' suicide on 18 April 1941 in the face of the rapid German advance, George, unable to find a speedy successor, found himself as the de facto head of government as well as head of the armed services.
George had thus a unique opportunity to form a broader government of national consensus, and abolish the hated 4th of August Regime—whose sole bastion of support he now was. Though urged to this step by the influential British ambassador, Michael Palairet, George refused. Instead, several names were put forward to head a government. George initially proposed Konstantinos Kotzias, one of Metaxas's ministers, but his ties to the regime made him an unfeasible choice. Instead, veteran Venizelist general Alexandros Mazarakis-Ainian was given the mandate to form a government, but returned it on 20 April, partly due to his refusal to collaborate with Metaxas's hated Security Minister Konstantinos Maniadakis. Other figures, such as the former dictator Pangalos, were also rejected. Finally, Emmanouil Tsouderos, former governor of the Bank of Greece, was chosen, chiefly on account of his known Anglophile sentiments, Venizelist past, and Cretan origin—with mainland Greece being overrun, the government was preparing to evacuate to Crete. Most Cretans supported Venizelos but were generally seen as anti-monarchical; this appointment was seen as a sop to local sentiment.
On 22 April most members of the royal family were evacuated from the Greek mainland to Crete, but George and Paul remained in Athens until the next day, when they and the government fled as well. George established headquarters in Chania, a few weeks before a German airborne attack. Despite defense of the island by Greek, Australian and New Zealand forces, alongside the local population, Crete slowly succumbed to Nazi forces. Hitler had named George the "number one enemy of the Reich in Greece" and George had narrowly escaped German paratroopers, so he decided that the royals and the government were to evacuate. They escaped on HMS Decoy and fled to Egypt. For his actions on Crete, George was awarded with the Distinguished Service Order, becoming the only monarch in history to be decorated with the award.
Throughout the Axis occupation, George remained the internationally recognised head of state, backed by the Greek government-in-exile and the Free Greek Forces. However, the British Foreign Office found George exceedingly difficult to deal with. He was deeply obstinate about upholding what he regarded as his royal prerogatives. He proved notably unwilling to compromise with those who wanted a clear break with the 4th of August Regime. He also resisted British pressure to promise to restore the constitution of 1911, under the grounds that doing so would be to admit he acted illegally in suspending parts of the constitution in 1936. As late as 1942, George kept on Cabinet ministers from the Metaxas regime, most notably Maniadakis.
The Greek royals' presence in Egypt upset Farouk of Egypt and his pro-Italian ministry, forcing George to find a new place of refuge for the family. George VI of the United Kingdom opposed having Frederica in Britain out of worry that she would bring attention to the British royal family's German origins. After deliberation, George and Paul only were granted permission to reside in London, with the rest of the family relocating to Cape Town, South Africa. George, Wallach, Paul and Levidis stationed themselves at Claridge's in Mayfair. George and Tsouderos organised with Winston Churchill and the British Cabinet the placement of Greek troops in the Middle East and the purification of the Greek army by eliminating communist and Venizelist ideals. However, this provoked republican groups and several mutinies within the army and navy were conducted, which disrupted the Allies' efficiency in the Levant. On 22 October 1941, George finally, yet reluctantly, drafted with his Cabinet-in-exile, due to pressure from the British government and republican Greek opposition, a decree that would establish a new parliamentary regime. He also restored articles 5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 20 and 95, which had been suspended by Metaxas. The decree was signed on 4 February 1942, finally abolishing the 4th of August Regime. The following month, George and Tsouderos returned to Egypt to organise Greek troops and stayed there until June. George travelled to the United States and met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, before flying to London and then Cairo. In Cairo in March 1943, an official government-in-exile was finally proclaimed.
Perhaps deeply paranoid and insecure, George believed that the British government was plotting to prevent his return to Greece, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Edward Warner of the Southern Department of the Foreign Office wrote in March 1942 that the king was "under the extraordinary impression that the Foreign Office was 'pro-Republican and anti-himself'". The British ambassador to the government-in-exile, Sir Reginald Leeper, noted that the king's coldness did not win him many friends, writing: "Amongst these vivacious, talkative and intensely political southerners he is very much the reserved northerner who damps the ardour of those who might otherwise acclaim him". Leeper noted that almost every meeting he had with the king, he had to listen to a lengthy litany of complaints. In particular, the king objected to BBC's Greek language service, whose main radio announcer, G.N. Soteriadis, was a Venizelist. George repeatedly asked that Soteriadis be replaced with a monarchist. One of George's few friends was Churchill, who was determined to see him restored and often backed the king's complaints against his own officials.
In occupied Greece, however, the leftist partisans of the National Liberation Front (EAM) and National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS), now unfettered by Metaxas's oppression, had become the largest Greek Resistance movement, enjoying considerable popular support. As liberation drew nearer however, the prospect of George's return caused dissensions both inside Greece and among the Greeks abroad. Although he effectively renounced the Metaxas regime in a radio broadcast, a large section of the people and many politicians rejected his return on account of his support of the dictatorship. In November 1943, George wrote to Tsouderos, "I shall examine anew the question of the date of my return to Greece in agreement with the Government". Either deliberately or accidentally, the version released for publication omitted the words "of the date", creating the impression that George had agreed to a further plebiscite on the monarchy, even though a retraction was issued. After Italy joined the Allies on 8 September 1943, communists in Greece seized weapons of the Axis and gained territorial power within the country. There were growing calls for George to hold a referendum and appoint a regent before he returned to Greece. It was suggested that the regent be the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Archbishop Damaskinos, but as Damaskinos was a strong supporter of republicanism, George heavily opposed this. Communists became the monarchy's main political opponent: a rival communist-led government, called the Political Committee of National Liberation, was established in occupied Greece, and a pro-EAM mutiny occurred among the armed forces in the Middle East. On 8 April 1944, Tsouderis resigned and George appointed the liberal Sophoklis Venizelos. However, when Venizelos was discovered to have been involved in the mutiny, George appointed Georgios Papandreou as prime minister, and Papandreou selected a Cabinet made up of multiple republican ministers. It was agreed in the May 1944 Lebanon conference that the fate of the monarchy would be decided in a national referendum. George was very much opposed to a regency, and tried his best to turn Churchill against Archbishop Damaskinos, accusing him of being a communist and a Nazi collaborator.
Finally, Greece was liberated from the Axis. As late as Christmas Eve 1944, during the height of the Dekemvriana, George had rejected the compromise solution of a regency, demanding that he return to Greece at once to reclaim his throne. On 29 December 1944, at a meeting at 10 Downing Street, Churchill told the king "that if he did not agree to the matter would be settled without him, and that we should recognise the new government instead of him". George's private secretary recalled, "I could hear through the door the voices of Churchill and Eden, particularly the latter, raised in anger at the king. In this heated argument the door was flung open and the king stormed out, his face white and taut ... In the car as we drove back to the hotel the King would not trust himself to speak; after recovering his composure he went back to Downing Street and informed Churchill and Eden that had no choice but to acquiesce to their demands". Bowing to pressure, George was forced to appoint Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens as regent in January 1945. Damaskinos immediately appointed a republican-dominated government. Ailing, exhausted and powerless, George bought a lease on a house in Chester Square, Belgravia, and made a home there with Wallach, his long-time mistress.
