Greece, 1967 — palace coup attempt
Event Summary
On 13 December 1967 King Constantine II of Greece launched a counter-coup against the military junta of colonels that had seized power on 21 April 1967. After eight months as a powerless head of state who had reluctantly sworn in the colonels, Constantine flew with his family and Prime Minister Konstantinos Kollias to the northern city of Kavala, intending to rally loyal army and air force units, march on Thessaloniki, and set up a rival government whose international recognition would force the junta to resign. The plan was badly organized and had been infiltrated, and the loyalist commanders Constantine counted on were swiftly neutralized by the junta, which arrested his supporters and ridiculed the king.
Realizing the counter-coup had failed, Constantine flew into exile in Rome in the early hours of 14 December. He remained the nominal head of state from abroad until the junta abolished the monarchy in 1973, and he never reigned in Greece again.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
35012131967- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-350-1967-12-13-2
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: King Constantine II failed and fled into exile; the colonels' junta retained power and later abolished the monarchy.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; fled the country; exiled. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →