Kalogeropoulos becomes Prime Minister of Greece

On 16 September 1916, that is, 3 September according to the Julian calendar then used by Greece, the government of Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos was sworn in in Athens. This date is given by Greek lists of governments, by the American annual “The American Year Book” and by the American journalist Paxton Hibben, who at the time knew the king and the new prime minister personally. The country had been without a government for several days: Alexandros Zaimis had resigned, and the first candidate to succeed him, Nikolaos Dimitrakopoulos, withdrew after a conversation with the British minister. On the same day King Constantine I wrote to his brother, Prince Andrew, who was in London, that he had entrusted Kalogeropoulos with forming a cabinet because the new prime minister was “equally animated by the best intentions towards the Entente”.

Who the new prime minister was

Kalogeropoulos was born in 1851 in Chalcis on Euboea, studied law in Athens and Paris, and entered parliament many times as a deputy for Euboea. He belonged to the party of Georgios Theotokis, who had died at the beginning of 1916, that is, to the camp of the opponents of Eleftherios Venizelos. He had earlier served, among other posts, as Minister of the Interior and of Finance. The correspondent of the London The Times wrote on the day of his appointment that he was highly regarded in the chamber and that, although as a Theotokist he belonged to the anti-Venizelists, he had assured the correspondent that all his personal sympathies lay with the Entente, and that he was a member of the Franco-Greek League.

In the new cabinet the prime minister also took the Ministry of Finance and, temporarily, the Ministry of War. According to Greek documents cited by the British writer George F. Abbott, foreign affairs were directed by Alexandros Karapanos, and according to the Greek list of governments the interior was taken by Loukas Roufos and the navy by Rear Admiral Ioannis Damianos. The new government announced in the Allied capitals that it was guided by the same policy as Zaimis and sincerely wished to strengthen its ties with the Entente, and in Paris and London it declared that it would continue the talks begun by its predecessor.

A cool reception

The Allies received the change badly. The British official history of the naval war states that little was known about the new prime minister, but that the king could not have made a more unfortunate choice. The minister, Sir Francis Elliot, at once telegraphed to London that the purely political composition of the cabinet was a “flagrant violation” of the Powers’ note of 21 June, which had demanded a government without political colour. The British government shared this view. The next day Elliot told the editor of a Venizelist newspaper that he had been surprised that Kalogeropoulos himself had called his cabinet political. The War Committee in London decided to point out to Athens that the minister Roufos had openly acted as an opponent of the Entente.

From the first day Venizelos questioned the sincerity of the new government. According to the correspondent of The Times, he declared that the composition of the cabinet left no hope of a national policy, since it came from a party with pro-German traditions. The British and French press called the government pro-German. Hibben, who sympathised with the king, wrote on the contrary that the cabinet at once set about preparing a formal offer of alliance with the Entente, and that the accusations rested on the statements of three of its members who were opposed to the war. The Powers were not convinced. According to some studies they did not recognise the new cabinet, and the British author J. Selden Willmore, critical of the king, wrote in 1919 that the government resigned because it was unable to arrange its relations with the representatives of the Protecting Powers.

What came next

The British official history records that in a conversation with Elliot a few days after the change of government the king complained angrily about the Allied generals and admirals and about the squadron off Salamis, whose guns were trained on the capital, and said that he would declare war only when he saw fit. The Kalogeropoulos cabinet made an offer for Greece to enter the war once the army had been rebuilt, but the Powers demanded an immediate declaration of war on Bulgaria. The government lasted less than three weeks and resigned at the beginning of October, and at the end of September Venizelos had left Athens to head the National Defence movement. The National Schism divided Greece into two camps.