Othonas metaxas biography for kids

Born 12 April, in Ithaca Died 29 January, Section 5, Number In , Ioannis Metaxas - 65 years old, short, pot-bellied, and scholarly looking, realized a vision. His 4th of August Regime lasted from August 4 th until his death on the 29 th of January, — long enough to have affected Greek politics right up until the present day. His Life.

Ioannis Metaxas grew up in Cephalonia, an island where a branch of his family had an illustrious history. He went on to the German Kriegsakademie in Berlin where he studied military strategy for three years until and graduated at the top of his class in every subject. A royalist and an admirer of the German Military order , by , he had risen in the ranks to become a Lieutenant General in the Greek army, a position of real power and one in which he advised the prime ministers of the era including Eleftherios Venizelos and the king.

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His reasoning was both strategic his area of expertise and emotional. In a letter to his wife in , he had written: German culture is the culture of the future and the hope of humanity. It was a sentiment shared by many at the time. Things went from bad to worse in as the Greek army went into Asia Minor, an adventure and dream the King supported, but Metaxas, the military strategist, had realized was a terrible mistake.

The Asia Minor debacle 3 effectively ended the monarchy for the next 13 years. Greece would become a republic until Metaxas again went into exile, but not for long. His small party had some success in the politically turbulent s, less so in the early 30s. Then Fate, in the person of the newly reinstalled Greek king, intervened.