Dimitrios Rallis

Dimitrios Rallis

Dimitrios Rallis ( Greek : Δημήτριος Ράλλης; * 1844 in Athens ; † August 5, 1921 in Athens) was a Greek politician and former prime minister .

Family and studies

Rallis came from a family whose roots go back to the time of the Eastern Roman Empire and who had played a leading role in Greek public life since the 15th century . His father Georgios Rallis was a minister in the cabinet of Athanasios Miaoulis and later president of the Supreme Court ( Areopagus ). His son Ioannis Rallis and his grandson Georgios Rallis were also prime ministers.

After finishing school, he studied law . During his studies, the role of King Otto I came into conflict with his father, who was a minister at the time. After participating in protests against the king, he continued his studies in Paris on the orders of his father . There he received his doctorate as Doctor Iuris with a dissertation on "Naval obligations". After his return to Greece in 1868 he became a lecturer in commercial law at the University of Athens.

Political career

MP and Minister

Rallis began his political career in 1872 with the first election to the National Assembly (Voulí ton Ellínon) . There he represented the same constituency of Athens until his death.

After Charilaos Trikoupis founded the so-called “Fifth Party” (Pempto Komma) in 1872, he joined it soon afterwards and was Minister for Churches and Education in Trikoupis' first cabinet from May to October 1875. In the following years there were repeated verbal exchanges of blows with the prime ministers during parliamentary sessions.

It was not until 1882 that Trikoupis reappointed him as Minister of Justice in his cabinet. However, he resigned from this office in 1883 and founded his own party with the so-called "Third Party" (Trito Komma).

After the resignation of Prime Minister Theodoros Deligiannis on March 1, 1892 and the victory of his third party, King George I did not appoint him as chairman of the third party (TC), but Konstantinos Konstantopoulos as prime minister. In protest against this decision, Rallis and most of the MPs resigned from the TK, so that Konstantopoulos had to resign as Prime Minister on June 22, 1892.

During the government of Sotirios Sotiropoulos he was Minister of Finance from May to November 1893.

Prime Minister

On April 30, 1897, Rallis became prime minister for the first time. During his tenure, he negotiated a ceasefire with Turkey on the Crete question , but had to accept international control of state finances . He had to resign on October 3, 1897, because King George I criticized the conditions of his peace policy.

From July 11 to December 19, 1903, June 22 to December 21, 1905 and July 29 to August 28, 1909 he was again Prime Minister of transitional governments. In his governments he also temporarily took over the offices of foreign minister or finance minister. During his tenure, he tried a cautious rapprochement with Turkey as well as military and economic reforms.

During the latter government, a military revolution by the Military League under Colonel Nikolaos Zorbas was put down. However, this led to a strengthening of the former minister Eleftherios Venizelos , who decisively shaped the Greek government policy in the following 25 years. Rallis was fundamentally critical of Venizelos, even if he welcomed Greece's entry into the First World War under Prime Minister Venizelos on the side of the Entente .

He was later finance minister again in Stephanos Skouloudis' cabinet (April to June 1916).

For a short time from November 18, 1920 to February 6, 1921 he was again Prime Minister of a transitional government. At the same time he took over the office of Foreign Minister in his cabinet.

patronage

As a curious example of the ubiquity of client relationships in the political process of the developing Greek state, Richard Clogg points out that Rallis is said to have had around 1,000 sponsored children around the turn of the century, whose name days he had to remember and for whom he might have found work have to.

literature

• Walter Puchner: Rallis, Dimitrios , in: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Vol. 4. Munich 1981, p. 30 f.

Biographical sources and background information

• Short biography of the Rallis family
• List of ministers of governments 1899–1924 ( Memento from May 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Political Developments between 1897 and 1909

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard Clogg: History of Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. A demolition . Cologne 1997, p. 85.

predecessor	Office	successor
Theodoros Deligiannis	Prime Minister of Greece 1897	Alexandros Zaimis
Georgios Theotokis	Prime Minister of Greece 1903	Georgios Theotokis
Theodoros Deligiannis	Prime Minister of Greece 1905	Georgios Theotokis
Georgios Theotokis	Prime Minister of Greece 1909	Kiriakoulis Mavromichalis
Eleftherios Venizelos	Prime Minister of Greece 1920–1921	Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos