ATHENS, October 2026 — The King Otto expulsion reached its final act shortly before 1pm on 12 October 1862, when Greece’s first king and his queen left the warship Amalia for a British frigate.
An official white launch collected the royal couple with full honours. The crew stood in formal salute, officers kissed the queen’s hand, and the ship’s cannon fired 21 times.
Queen Amalia, dressed simply for travel, wiped her tearful eyes with a handkerchief and took her place in the launch. Moments later, Otto appeared on deck in the traditional fustanella.
He shook hands with every officer, and some embraced him in tears. Before he stepped into the launch, he looked around and said, “I wish that Greece may prosper.”
The King Otto expulsion at Salamis
As the launch approached the British frigate HMS Scylla, with the cannon still firing, it made a wide circle. It was the last time Greek guns would honour Otto and Amalia.
On the morning of the King Otto expulsion, both ships lay at anchor off Salamis, near Athens. Earlier, the couple had spent the night aboard the Amalia because an angry crowd was waiting for them in Piraeus.
In total, the King Otto expulsion ended a reign of 29 years, eight months and 19 days.
Yet the crisis behind the King Otto expulsion had been building for years before that morning off Salamis.
A kingdom isolated after Crimea
For years, Greece had been a cauldron on a slow simmer. Things turned against the country when Britain and France saw that Otto was helping Russia in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856.
Britain and France, with Prussia and Austria, formed an anti-Russian coalition. They had strong economic interests in the faltering Ottoman Empire.
In contrast, Otto believed that backing Russia would help Greece expand into Greek-speaking lands still under Ottoman rule. That vision was the Megali Idea, or Great Idea.
However, the British and French would not allow Russia access to the Mediterranean. As a result, the Great Powers no longer stood behind Greece.
The country found itself isolated and humiliated militarily. Above all, it was exhausted by the cost of repaying huge loans to its former allies.
Popular anger at the throne followed. Otto kept interfering in political life even after he granted a constitution.
At the same time, an elite that had lost privileges under Bavarian rule worked against him, and a new liberal generation of politicians rejected the palace. By then, the countdown to the King Otto expulsion had begun.
The 1862 revolution reaches Athens
The final stage of the King Otto expulsion began in early October 1862, when the royal couple boarded the Amalia to tour regions in turmoil and calm the unrest.
On the night of 10 October, while Otto and Amalia were in the Peloponnese, citizens, students and the garrison rose up in Athens and Piraeus.
Crowds filled the streets with lit torches and chanted slogans. A revolutionary committee then demanded an end to the monarchy and a provisional government until a national assembly could meet.
Britain and France, for their part, stoked the hostile mood while the king was away.
On 11 October, the Amalia was already off the islet of Fleves on its way back. Those on board grew alarmed when they saw red revolutionary flags on passing ships.
In Piraeus, the French frigate Zenobia lay at anchor. Its captain, Rear Admiral Touchard, approached the Amalia with the rebels’ resolution. He also offered the couple a few hours’ guarantee of safe departure.
Leonidas Palaskas, the captain of the Amalia and a fervent supporter of the king, urged Otto to leave quickly. “A swift departure is necessary to avoid the revolutionary contagion,” he told the king.
A handful of loyal companions
Amalia, however, wanted to resist the King Otto expulsion.
“Let us not waste time!” she cried. She urged Otto to sail for Kalamata and, from there, rally their friends and the military units loyal to them. “Let us fight for our throne!”
But her plan was in vain, since the ship would need at least 15 hours to reach Kalamata, long enough for the call to revolution to travel there too.
Still hesitant, Otto now feared the Amalia’s own crew. If the sailors turned on him, he could fall into rebel hands and have to sign an abdication.
So Palaskas advised him to sail for Salamis and spend the night on board. For safety, the British frigate Scylla and the French steamship Biche escorted the royal ship.
The next day, 12 October, dawned even more hostile. Otto realised that the revolution had triumphed and that his reign was over.
He would leave Greece, he told Palaskas, but he would not sign an abdication. The King Otto expulsion therefore went ahead without one.
When the King Otto expulsion was over and he boarded the Scylla, he could not hold back his tears. Many would later say that the couple loved Greece, but not the Greeks.
Of the hundreds of courtiers and palace politicians, only a handful of aides-de-camp and two ladies-in-waiting went with the couple into exile. No one else followed.
Source: Proto Thema
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