Ioánnis Metaxás (in Greek: Ιωάννης Μεταξάς ), born with Ithaque the April 12th 1871 and dead the January 29th 1941 with Athens, was a Greek general and Prime Minister (dictatorial) of the Greece of 1936 to its death.

Biography

Military career, it was distinguished at the time of the war against the Ottoman Empire in 1897. He followed then the courses of the Prussian Military academy of Berlin. Of return in Greece, it entered to the staff where it got busy to modernize the army of his country. It found it very undisciplined compared with the German army which it admired. Its action allowed the Greek victories at the time of the Balkan Guerres. He became Général and Chief of staff.

Enthusiastic monarchist, it supported the king Constantin when this one sought to maintain neutrality Greek at the time of the First World War. He resigned staff in sign of protest against the projects of intervention of the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos in Dardanelles at the sides of the Entente. The final victory of Eleftherios Venizelos in the conflict which opposed it to the sovereign in June 1917 obliged Constantin to flee the Greece. Metaxás accompanies it in exile.

It returned to Greece only in 1920 and resigned then of the army. He criticized the course of operation in Anatolia. He entered in policy to the abolition of monarchy. He founded in 1923 a small movement of extreme-right-hand side: the Party of the Free Opinion.

Following a disputed plebiscite, Georges II, wire of Constantin, returned on the throne in 1935. The elections of 1936 led to a dead end between Panagis Tsaldaris and Themistoklis Sophoulis. The Communist party (KKE), as for him, did not cease gaining ground politically. The king named Metaxás initially Ministre for the war of a transition government, then Prime Minister in March 1936.

Social agitation made it possible Metaxás to declare the state of emergency. It suspended then, sine die , the Parliament and various articles of the constitution. August 4th, 1936, Metaxás was, in the facts, dictator. It was inspired then by the authoritative forms of the Italian fascistic mode of Mussolini. It prohibits the political parties. It made stop the opponents: nearly 15.000 Greeks were stopped and tortured during the five years of the dictatorship of Metaxás. He declared the illegal strikes and founded the censure. He had however only little popular support. Especially, its ideology was very fuzzy. He insisted on the concept of the Third Civilization Hellenic, combining splendors of the ancient Greece pagan and the Byzantine Greece Christian. He had charged his National organization with Youth (EON) with diffusing this ideology. He sought to reconcile the population by improving the work conditions: wage increase and time limit of work.

In spite of its fascination for the fascistic modes, Metaxás was closer to the Western democracies on the diplomatic level. Indeed, if the Germany Nazi and the Italy mussolinienne were for him natural allies, it feared the expansionism Italian in the Mediterranean. The British fleet then became a guarantee for Greek independence. In September 1939, Metaxás chooses neutrality. August 15th 1940, an Italian submarine ran the Greek cruiser Elli in the port of Tinos at the time of the pilgrimage for the Assumption. Mussolini sent in October an ultimatum designed to be unacceptable: Greece was to authorize the occupation by the Italian armies of all its strategic sites. Metaxás was made extremely popular and famous then thanks to the only word which he answered: “Ὄχι” (“Not”). The Italy invades the Greece since the Albania on October 28th. Greek defense was heroic, pushing back the Italians in Albania.

Metaxás died in Athens, on January 29th 1941 of an abscess to the pharynx.

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  • Project on Metaxás and fascistic Greece (in French) documented, but defending the " openly; Greece fasciste".

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