3 Kings Who Lost Their Thrones

On the 1st of June 1973 King Constantine II of Greece was deposed as the last King of Greece by the military committee which had ascended to power six years earlier in 1967. The colonels who were effectively in charge of the country from that point on had determined that Constantine was involved in a new attempted coup by the Greek navy commanders in May 1973 and so they deposed him and abolished the monarchy. Constantine’s removal as King of Greece brought to an end a long period in the history of the Balkans during which most of the newly formed states of the region, countries like Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania, were ruled by monarchs as heads of state. And yet in the period between the Second World War and Constantine’s deposition in 1973, monarchies were brought to an end across the Balkans. Here we chart that story by looking at three of the kings who lost their thrones during this period: Peter II of Yugoslavia, Simeon II of Bulgaria and Constantine II of Greece.
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Sources:

Charles Fenyvesi, Royalty in Exile (London, 1981).

Misha Glenny, The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804–2012 (London, 2017).

John van der Kiste, Kings of the Hellenes: The Greek Kings, 1863–1974 (London, 1994).

Robert K. Massie and Jeffrey Firestone, The Last Courts of Europe (New York, 1983).

Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945 (Stanford, 1975).