Otto of Greece

Otto Friedrich Ludwig von Wittelsbach arrived in Greece at seventeen on 7 May 1832, the second son of Bavaria's King Ludwig I, crowned under a treaty among European powers who had carved out a new kingdom. A regency council of Bavarian officials ran the country until he came of age, then he dismissed them and ruled as an absolute monarch. Pressure from below forced him to grant a constitution in 1843 after an armed but bloodless uprising. He built schools and state institutions but couldn't fix Greece's poverty or shield it from foreign interference; survival meant balancing the Greek factions…