There had been little anti-royalist discourse in Greece, except for a few isolated cases, such as that of Georgios Philaretos, who headed a small coalition of politicians who supported (even at the end of the nineteenth century) the establishment of a republic in Greece and suggested reforms for Greek society.

This is a period when the Crown lost ground and its authority contested. In the following period the Republic was the ideological crowning of the Venizelist civic modernization, related, after the baknruptcy of the policy of irredentism, to the building of a unified national state.

From 1921 onwards Alexandros Papanstasiou became openly republican and anti-royalist. In February 1922 a climate of general unease and anxiety prevailed, being the result of military defeats, diplomatic isolation and economic crisis. Alexandros Papanastasiou, leader of the Liberal Democrat party, circulated the Democratic Manifesto, signed by himself and six of his colleagues. Reaction was immediate. The seven signatories were arrested and remanded in custody with the charge of 'vilifying the King'. They subsequently went to trial, knowm as the 'Trial of Lamia' and were sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The Manifesto caused a sensation in Greek public opinion and various Local Democratic Clubs emerged in different parts of the country.