English Party (Greece)

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The English Party (Greek: Αγγλικό Κóμμα), was one of the three informal Early Greek Parties that dominated the early political history of Modern Greece, the other two being the Russian and the French one.

[edit] History and party development

The creation and evolution of these Parties was the effect of the interest that the three Great Powers (the United Kingdom, France and Russia) displayed for Greek affairs. As a result, they counted on the hope that Greeks had, that by supporting them those countries would also help the Greek Kingdom to fulfill its expectations for economical progress and territorial expansion.

The establishment of the English Party should probably be considered the action that some leaders of the Greek War of Independence took in June of 1825, urged by Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos and Georgios Kountouriotis, to compose a letter, whereby Greece applied for protection to the United Kingdom.

The party lacked support in Central Greece but was very powerful among the Phanariotes, the landholders of the Peloponnese and the wealthy shipowners of the Aegean Islands. During John Capodistria's period lost much of its influence due to the establishment of the other parties, but it regained most of it after the arrival of King Otto, since the political sympathies of the principal Regent, Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, lay with Britain.

Its unquestioned leader was Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos, and the party quickly started to decline in influence after his death in 1855.

[edit] Sources

1. Clogg, Richard; A Short History of Modern Greece; Cambridge University Press, 1979; ISBN 0-521-32837-3
2. John A. Petropulos; Politics and Statecraft in the Kingdom of Greece; Princeton University Press, 1968