Dimitrios Gounaris becomes prime minister of Greece

On 9 March 1915 King Constantine I of Greece entrusted the office of prime minister to Dimitrios Gounaris. The new government was sworn in on 10 March, that is 25 February according to the Julian calendar then used in Greece. This date appears in Greek lists as the start of his term. Three days earlier Eleftherios Venizelos had resigned when the King rejected his plan for Greek participation in the Dardanelles operation.

The new prime minister

According to Greek sources, the King first looked for a head of government among former prime ministers, but both Alexandros Zaimis and Stefanos Skouloudis declined. The choice fell on the 48-year-old Gounaris, a politician of the younger generation. Born in 1867 in Patras, he studied law in Athens and then in Germany, England and France. He entered parliament in 1902 and belonged to a group of reformers known as the “Japanese”, who demanded that the state’s finances be put in order. In 1908 he became minister of finance in the government of Georgios Theotokis. After Venizelos came to power he found himself in opposition and grew into one of his main opponents.

In the new cabinet Gounaris also took the ministry of war. Foreign affairs were headed by Georgios Zografos, and Nikolaos Stratos became minister of the navy. The government had no support in parliament, where the majority belonged to Venizelos’s Liberal Party. It was therefore decided to dissolve the chamber and hold new elections, in which the inhabitants of the lands won in the Balkan Wars were to vote for the first time.

Neutrality with reservations

The government announced that it would continue the policy adopted at the start of the war: neutrality, while recognising the obligations arising from the alliance with Serbia. The Entente ministers in Athens received this coolly, because the statement made no mention whatsoever of their countries. Zografos therefore assured the Entente capitals that the new cabinet had no intention of departing from its friendly attitude towards them, and differed from its predecessor only in its assessment of the risk of entering the war immediately. On 12 April the Entente ministers renewed the promise of gains in Asia Minor, and two days later the Gounaris government offered to take part in the war against Turkey on condition that Greece’s territorial integrity was guaranteed. The Allies did not take up this offer.

A short government

The elections were held only on 13 June 1915, because electoral lists had to be prepared in the new provinces. Venizelos’s Liberals won them decisively. The King’s serious illness, however, delayed the convening of parliament, and Gounaris remained in power until August, when Venizelos again became prime minister. The dispute between the King’s supporters and the Venizelists grew into the National Schism, and Gounaris became one of the leaders of the royalist camp. After the war, in 1921–1922, he once more headed the government. After Greece’s defeat in the war with Turkey he was charged with high treason, sentenced to death and shot on 28 November 1922.