Ancestral Trails 2016 » Otto Friedrich Ludwig von BAVARIA (1815-1867)

Persoonlijke gegevens Otto Friedrich Ludwig von BAVARIA 

• Hij is geboren op 1 juni 1815 in Schloss Mirabell, Salzburg, Austria.
• Titel: King of Greece
• (Ancestry) : House of Wittelsbach.
• (Alternative Name) : Otto of Greece.
• Hij is overleden op 26 juli 1867 in Bamburg, Upper Franconia, Bayern, Germany, hij was toen 52 jaar oud.
• Hij is begraven juli 1867 in Theatinerkirche, Munchen, Oberbayern, Germany.
• Een kind van Ludwig von BAVARIA en Therese Charlotte Luise von SAXE-HILDBURGHAUSEN

Gezin van Otto Friedrich Ludwig von BAVARIA

Hij is getrouwd met Amalia Maria Frederica von OLDENBURG.

Zij zijn getrouwd op 22 november 1836 te Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany, hij was toen 21 jaar oud.

• Het echtpaar heeft gemeenschappelijke voorouders.



Notities over Otto Friedrich Ludwig von BAVARIA

Otto, also spelled Otho; 1 June 1815 - 26 July 1867), was a Bavarian prince who became the first modern 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 but peaceful insurrection Otto in 1843 granted a constitution. However he rigged elections using fraud and terror.

Throughout his reign Otto was unable to resolve Greece's poverty and prevent economic meddling from outside. Greek politics in this era was based on affiliations with the three Great Powers, 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 aggravating the Great Powers. When Greece was blockaded by the British Royal Navy in 1850 and again in 1854, to stop Greece from attacking the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War, Otto's standing amongst Greeks suffered. As a result, there was an assassination attempt on the Queen, and finally in 1862 Otto was deposed while in the countryside. He died in exile in Bavaria in 1867.

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 second son of Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. His father served there as Bavarian governor-general. Through his ancestor, the Bavarian Duke John II, Otto was a descendant of the Greek 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. Aged not quite 18, the young prince arrived in Greece with 3,500 Bavarian troops 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" .

Otto's reign is usually divided into three periods:
The years of Regency: 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 Turkish rule; as the people saw it, they had exchanged a hated Ottoman tyranny, which they understood, for government by a foreign bureaucracy, the "Bavarocracy", which they despised.

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 Library of Greece (1842), the Old Royal Palace (now the Greek Parliament Building, 1843), and the Old Parliament Building (1858). Schools and hospitals were established all over the (still small) Greek dominion, Due to the negative feelings of the Greek people toward non-Greek rule, historical attention to this aspect of his reign has been neglected.

During 1836-37, Otto visited Germany, marrying a beautiful and talented 17-year-old, Duchess Amalia (Amelie) of Oldenburg (21 December 1818 to 20 May 1875). The wedding took place not in Greece, but in Oldenburg, on 22 November 1836; the marriage did not produce an heir, and the new queen made herself unpopular by interfering in the government and maintaining her Lutheran faith. Otto was unfaithful to his wife, and had a liaison with Jane Digby, a notorious woman his father had previously taken as a lover.

Due to his having overtly undermined the king, Armansperg was dismissed from his duties by King Otto immediately upon his return from Germany. However, despite high hopes on the part of the Greeks, the Bavarian Rudhart was appointed chief minister, and the granting of a constitution was again postponed. The attempts of Otto to conciliate Greek sentiment through efforts to enlarge the frontiers of his kingdom, for example, by the suggested acquisition of Crete in 1841, failed in their objective, and only succeeded in embroiling him in conflict with the Great Powers'

Succession
It is well known that Otto was a great admirer of the rural Sarakatsani, a nomadic group of Greek mountain shepherds thought by some scholars to be descended from the Dorians. It is believed that at an early age he fathered an illegitimate child in the Sarakatsani clan named "Tangas". This child named Manoli Tangas, was brought to Athens and remained there after Otto's 1862 departure, living as a merchant trader with children of his own. The descendants of Manoli still reside in Athens today. However, since Otto had no legitimate issue, he chose his brother as Crown Prince of Greece.

With the removal of the Wittelsbach dynasty from the Greek throne in 1863 and the election of Prince William of Denmark as King George I of the Hellenes in 1863, the rule of the Wittelsbachs was over.

Exile and death
While on a visit to the Peloponnese in 1862 a new coup was launched and this time a Provisional Government was set up and summoned a National Convention. Ambassadors of the Great Powers urged King Otto not to resist, and the king and queen took refuge on a British warship and returned to Bavaria aboard (the same way they had come to Greece) taking with them the Greek royal regalia which they had brought from Bavaria in 1832. It has been suggested that had Otto and Amalia borne an heir, then the King would not have been overthrown, as succession was also a major unresolved question at the time. It is also true, however, that the Constitution of 1843 made provision for his succession by his two younger brothers and their descendants.

He died in the palace of the former bishops of Bamberg, Germany, and was buried in the Theatiner Church in Munich. During his retirement, he would still wear the Greek traditional uniform, nowadays worn only by the evzones (Presidential Guards).

It is generally accepted by historians that, although Otto failed, he deeply loved Greece as his own new homeland. His failure was mainly a result of the continuous intrigues and competition among the three Great Powers. Before his death, Otto asked to be buried in his own Greek traditional uniform. Αccording to witnesses, Otto's last words were "Greece, my Greece, my beloved Greece".
SOURCE: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_of_Greece


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