page_title: Otto of Greece
section_title: Early life and reign
hierarchical_section_title: Otto of Greece / Early life and reign
context_page_description: Otto Friedrich Ludwig was a Bavarian prince who became the first King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London. He reigned until he was deposed in 1862.
  The second son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended the newly created throne of Greece while still a minor. His government was initially run by a three-man regency council made up of Bavarian court officials. Upon reaching his majority, Otto removed the regents when they proved unpopular with the people, and he ruled as an absolute monarch. Eventually his subjects' demands for a constitution proved overwhelming, and in the face of an armed insurrection, Otto granted a constitution in 1843.
  Throughout his reign Otto was unable to resolve Greece's poverty and prevent economic meddling from outside. Greek politics in this era were based on affiliations with the three Great Powers that had guaranteed Greece's independence, Britain, France and Russia, and Otto's ability to maintain the support of the powers was key to his remaining in power. To remain strong, Otto had to play the interests of each of the Great Powers' Greek adherents against the others, while not irritating the Great Powers.
context_section_description: Otto was born as Prince Otto Friedrich Ludwig of Bavaria at Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg (when it briefly belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria), as the second son of Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. His father served there as the Bavarian governor-general. Through his ancestor, the Bavarian Duke John II, Otto was a descendant of the Byzantine imperial dynasties of Komnenos and Laskaris.
  When he was elected king, the Great Powers extracted a pledge from Otto's father to restrain him from hostile actions against the Ottoman Empire. They also insisted that his title be "King of Greece", rather than "King of the Hellenes", because the latter would imply a claim over the millions of Greeks then still under Turkish rule. Not quite 18, the young prince arrived in Greece with 3,500 Bavarian troops (the Bavarian Auxiliary Corps) and three Bavarian advisors aboard the British frigate HMS Madagascar. Although he did not speak Greek, he immediately endeared himself to his adopted country by adopting the Greek national costume and Hellenizing his name to "Othon" (some English sources, such as Encyclopædia Britannica, call him "Otho").
  Otto's reign is usually divided into three periods:
  The years of Regency Council: 1832–1835
  The years of Absolute Monarchy: 1835–1843
  The years of Constitutional Monarchy: 1843–1862
  The Bavarian advisors were arrayed in a Regency Council, headed by Count Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, who, in Bavaria as minister of finance, had recently succeeded in restoring Bavarian credit, at the cost of his popularity. Von Armansperg was the President of the Privy Council and the first representative (or Prime Minister) of the new Greek government. The other members of the Regency Council were Karl von Abel and Georg Ludwig von Maurer, with whom von Armansperg often clashed. After the king reached his majority in 1835, von Armansperg was made Arch-Secretary, but was called Arch-Chancellor by the Greek press.
  Britain and the Rothschild bank, who were underwriting the Greek loans, insisted on financial stringency from Armansperg. The Greeks were soon more heavily taxed than under Ottoman rule; as the people saw it, they had exchanged a hated Ottoman rule for government by a foreign bureaucracy, the "Bavarocracy" (Βαυαροκρατία).
  In addition, the regency showed little respect for local customs. As a Roman Catholic, Otto himself was viewed as a heretic by many pious Greeks; however, his heirs would have to be Orthodox, according to the terms of the 1843 Constitution.
  King Otto brought his personal brewmaster with him, Herr Fuchs, a Bavarian who stayed in Greece after Otto's departure and introduced Greece to beer, under the label "Fix".
  Popular heroes and leaders of the Greek Revolution, such as generals Theodoros Kolokotronis and Yiannis Makriyiannis, who opposed the Bavarian-dominated regency, were charged with treason, put in jail and sentenced to death. They were later pardoned under popular pressure, while Greek judges who resisted Bavarian pressure and refused to sign the death warrants (Anastasios Polyzoidis and Georgios Tertsetis, for instance), were saluted as heroes.
  Otto's early reign was also notable for his moving the capital of Greece from Nafplion to Athens. His first task as king was to make a detailed archaeological and topographic survey of Athens. He assigned Gustav Eduard Schaubert and Stamatios Kleanthis to complete this task. At that time, Athens had a population of roughly 4,000–5,000 people, located mainly in what today covers the district of Plaka in Athens.
  Athens was chosen as the Greek capital for historical and sentimental reasons, not because it was a large city. At the time, it was a town consisting of only 400 houses at the foot of the Acropolis. A modern city plan was laid out, and public buildings erected. The finest legacy of this period are the buildings of the University of Athens (1837, under the name Othonian University), the Athens Polytechnic University (1837, under the name Royal School of Arts), the National Gardens of Athens (1840), the National 
caption: "The Entry of King Otto in Athens" by Peter von Hess, 1839
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