Greece left the “unfortunate” war of 1897 weakened. Although the losses in men and war material were small, the wound of defeat was deep. Generations of Greeks since the founding of the Greek state, in January/February 1830, grew up with the dream of liberation of the Greeks and expanding the border to the north and to the East. The East issue It remained on the agenda of the country’s foreign policy, although it became apparent that Greece was unable to fulfill its goals in the near future. The difficult financial situation of the country was also contributing to this weakness of Greece. It was deemed necessary to impose international financial control on Greece’s public financesin order to serve the loans, which had ceased to be repaid after the bankruptcy of 1893.
Characteristic of the period that followed after the defeat of 1897 was the political instability and the inability of the parties to form governments, which would withstand time by implementing their pre -election promises. After his death Charilaou Trikoupi In 1896, the leadership of the Trikoupian party was taken over by Corfu George Theotokis. Taking the prime minister four times, between 1899 and 1909, Theotokis linked his name to the Anorthosis of Greece in the years that followed after the defeat of 1897. The main political opponent of Theotokis was Theodore Deligianniswhich represented the most conservative voices of Greek society of the early 20th century. After the assassination of Deligiannis in 1905, his party was split into facilities whose leadership was taken over by Dimitrios Rallis and Kyriakoulis Mavromichalis.
In the 1906 elections, Theotokis managed to elect 111 Memberswhen his opponents elected 13 and 39 MPs respectively.
At the end of 1905, another political crisis in the country occurred when Rallis resigned to George I, unable to satisfactorily control his party. Theotokis, who formed a government to lead the country to elections after the new year, took over the reins of the country. After the agreement of George I, elections were announced on March 26, 1906. The outcome of the elections was a triumph for Theotokis and his party, as managed to elect 111 MPs in the new Housewhen his major political opponents, Mavromichalis and Rallis elected from 13 and 39 MPs respectively.
In the new House that emerged after the election of March 26, 1906, the “Japanese group” It was a group of MPs who emphasized at every opportunity the need for reforms in almost every range of public life while criticizing the government for its deception to implement its proposals. The paternity of the name “Team of the Japanese” belongs to the publisher of the Acropolis newspaper, Vlasi Gavriilideswho likened the parliamentary action of the members of the group with the Japanese, who had bold attacks on the Russians in the 1904-1905 war between them.
The Core of the Japanese consisted of Stefano Dragoumi, Dimitrios Gounaris and Petros Protopapadakiswhile then the Charalambos Vozikis, Andreas Panagiotopoulos, Apostolos Alexandris and Emmanouil Repoulis. The group was essentially dissolved in June 1908, when Gunaris accepted Theotokis’ proposal to take over the Treasury in order to make the reform plans he had announced in the past. Despite its short journey, the Japanese group left its imprint on the political history of Greece.
Column: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poumenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
