Eleftherios Venizelos

“ Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece, as genuine a friend of man as ever lived and as able a friend honest people ever had, and a man on whose face a glow comes when you state a great principle, and yet who is intensely practical and who was there to insist that nothing was to be done which would put the small nations of the world at the disposal of the big nations. So that he was the most influential spokesman of what may be called the small powers as contrasted with the great. ”

“ A new man was needed—a man free from the deadening influences of a corrupt past—a man daring enough to initiate a new course and tenacious enough to push on with inexorable purpose to the goal.
During the first period of his career, M. Venizelos had been a capable organizer of administrative departments no less than a clever manipulator of seditious movements. But he had mainly distinguished himself as a rebel against authority. And it was in the temper of a rebel that he came to Athens. Obstacles, however, external as well as internal, made a subversive enterprise impossible. ”

“ At the Paris Peace Conference his recognition was complete. The Greeks, however, have always shown themselves to be a fickle and ungrateful people, and from the time of Socrates have turned against their foremost philosophers and statesmen, and their attitude toward Venizelos is the most recent illustration of those traits. Venizelos is practically a refugee from his own country and at this writing is visiting our country to study American institutions. ”

“ As for M. Venizelos, history will probably say of him {229} what it has said of Themistocles: Though he sincerely aimed at the aggrandizement of his country, and proved on some most critical occasions of great value to it, yet on the whole his intelligence was higher than his morality—a man of many talents and few principles, ready to employ the most tortuous and unscrupulous means, sometimes indeed for ends in themselves patriotic, but often merely for aggrandizing himself. By nature he was more fitted to rule in a despotic than to lead in a constitutional State. ”

“ And so he reached Salonica, took up his abode at the royal residence, and with Admiral Coundouriotis and General Danglis composed a Triumvirate which, having appointed a Ministry, began to levy taxes and troops, and to negotiate for a loan.
The metamorphosis of a Prime Minister into an insurgent chief, though a remarkable phenomenon, is no matter for surprise. M. Venizelos sprang from people among whom insurrection formed the traditional method of asserting political opinions. His father was a veteran of the Greek Revolution of 1821, and passed most of his life plotting. ”

“ Ever since the landing of the Allies, and largely through their own actions, his prestige in Greece declined progressively. He was reproached more and more bitterly for his "invitation" to them; and these reproaches grew the louder, the closer he drew to the foreigners and the farther he diverged from his own King. In a letter from Athens, dated 24 May, occurs the following passage: "Venizelos becomes every day more and more of a red republican. How that man has duped everybody! We all thought him a genius, and he simply is an ambitious maniac." ”

“ Never were sympathies so great for Venizelos, never was the spirit of the Irredenta so outspoken as among the Greeks in Turkey, who had been the dupes since 1909 of every possible kind of Young Turkish intrigue. In contrast to the Armenians, the great mass of whom thought and felt as loyal Ottoman citizens right up to the very end when Talaat and Enver's policy of extermination set in against them—in contrast to these absolutely helpless and therefore all the more easy victims to the Turkish national lust of persecution, the attitude of the Greek citizens was all the more marked. ”

“ His advent in Crete had been so efficiently prepared by the British Secret Service and naval officers—without whom there would have been neither mutiny nor insurrection—that, on landing, M. Venizelos had nothing to do but instal himself in the best hotel at Canea and proclaim himself with his confederate Admiral Coundouriotis the Provisional Government. [18]
Under the fostering care of the Allied men-of-war the movement spread to Samos, Mytilene, Chios, Lemnos, and Thasos, where the constitutional operations witnessed in Crete were duly repeated. ”

“ Anarchy was spreading, at that time I expressed the opinion that the only person capable of saving Greece—if Greece could yet be saved—was the Cretan insurgent, M. Venizelos. This suggestion appealed to the Chief of the Military League and was adopted. Venizelos was invited to Athens with the results known to all the world. At first reluctantly tolerated, he was subsequently highly appreciated by King George and was afterwards handicapped by King Constantine, whose impolitic instructions during the Bucharest Conference resulted in sowing seeds of discord between Greece and Bulgaria. ”

“ The "Military League," composed of the army officers, had been organized and began to institute certain reforms that should end the corruption and inefficiency that had been characteristic of Greek politics. The members of the league being military men, were also modest enough to realize their unfitness to undertake the task unaided, so they called upon Venizelos to take charge, he being then the cleanest Greek in politics. This task he assumed, as prime minister, with such ability and effectiveness that he at once became the most popular man in Greece. ”

“ The Therisos performance in every point—plot and staging, methods and motives—was a rehearsal for the Salonica performance. Would the denouement be the same? This question taxed M. Venizelos's dialectical dexterity very severely.
At the outset he repudiated as a monstrous and malicious calumny the common view that his programme was to march on Athens and to dethrone the King. His movement was directed against the Bulgars, not against the King or the Dynasty: "We are neither anti-royalist nor anti-dynastic," he declared, "we are simply patriots." ”

“ The French and British press, skimming lightly on the surface of the Conference, dealt with personalities in preference to principles. M. Venizelos was their favourite delegate, and held that position to the end. Success in any walk of life is profitable; success in rebellion is the shortest road to fame. M. Venizelos had begun his career as a Cretan rebel. In 1913 he shared with King Constantine the honours of two victorious campaigns in Macedonia, and was credited with the resurrection of the old Hellenic spirit. At Bucharest this remarkable man was in a difficult position ”

“ But M. Venizelos knew better. Whilst at Salonica, he used to assure his Western friends that "the great majority at Athens remained Venizelist. If proof be desired, it is only necessary to organize a referendum, subject, of course, to guarantees of impartiality. Let the King and his satellites be put aside for the moment, let controllers be appointed from all countries . . . and let the people be asked to vote freely. . . . I am sure of a great majority. ”

“ M. Venizelos and his partisans could not afford to be very fastidious: their political existence was at stake: they must make every effort, and summon every resource at their command. Anyone who was in Athens at that time and saw the Cretan guards, often with the Premier's photograph pinned on their breasts, assault such citizens as displayed the olive-twig (emblem of the Opposition) , or saw the gendarmes, who patrolled the streets with fixed bayonets, protect the excesses of Venizelist bravoes, would appreciate how far the Government was prepared to stoop in order to survive. ”

“ General Sarrail, however, cared nothing for appearances, but itched to get M. Venizelos out of Salonica at the earliest possible moment. His first favourable impression of the Cretan as "somebody" had not survived closer acquaintance. He considered him wanting in courage. He had no patience with his hesitations. He felt, in short, no more respect for him than men usually feel for their tools; and since he had never learned to put any restraint on his tongue, he expressed his opinion of this "ex-revolutionary transformed into a Government man" freely. ”

“ Eleutherios Venizelos and the Greek Spirit
Eleutherios Venizelos, the foremost statesman of Greece, the man to whom in fact she owes that growth in territory and influence that has come as a result of the first and second Balkanic wars, continues to exert paramount influence in the solution of the Eastern question, in spite of the we believe mistaken policy of the Triple Entente which permitted King Constantine of Greece for so long a period of time to prevent the direct application of the power of Greece to and in the successful termination of the war against Germany. ”

“ The Greek premier’s answer was the triumphant march on Brusa and the expulsion of the Nationalists from Thrace.
Two days after the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, an attempt was made to assassinate Venizelos as he was taking the train in Paris to return to Greece. He was in poor physical condition when he got back to Athens and found internal conditions in a very bad state. The head of a Government cannot be away two years on an end and have things run smoothly at home. ”

“ We cannot penetrate into the minds of men, and we cannot always believe their words; but their actions are open to observation and speak more truly than their lips.
As soon as he settled at Salonica, M. Venizelos applied to the Entente Powers for official recognition of his Provisional Government. ”

“ Young, handsome, ascetic, gifted with fiery eloquence, and as religious as his flock, he supplied a moral impulse which redeemed much that was trivial in the conduct of the revolution; his premature death from consumption was a real loss to Epirus and its already hopeless cause.
M. Venizelos said little about general Balkan matters, he appeared tired and dispirited, and it was evident that the Greek Government was not going to get itself into trouble over the Epirotes, in spite of their pure Greek origin. ”

“ But his military and naval reforms, and his foreign policy, have been so important in making possible the Balkan alliance and its successes that they cannot be passed over.
M. Venizelos, when he first came to Athens, saw what was the matter with the Greek military and naval establishments. Like Peter the Great and the Japanese, he realized that the Greeks must learn from Europe by submitting to European teachers. To persuade his fellow-countrymen, who have a very exalted opinion of their own ability (the Greeks are always sure they were born to command, without first having learned to obey!) ”

“ But the Greeks, interpreting it as a proposal for perpetual separation, remained bitterly hostile, and the fact that autonomy was known to be favoured in certain foreign quarters deepened their resentment. M. Venizelos was roundly denounced as a tool of foreign Powers, and Prince George was accused of complicity, and threatened with the lot of a traitor unless he dismissed him. The High Commissioner made use of the right which the Constitution of the island gave him, and M. Venizelos was dismissed (March, 1901) . ”

“ Had you asked the leading statesmen of Europe five years ago what country presented the most formidable and at the same time most hopeless task tor a Premier, there would have been unanimity in selecting Greece.
But for Eleutherios Venizelos there was no difficulty which could not be overcome. It is the nature of the man to refuse to see failure ahead. "If one loves to work, and works for love," he has declared, "failure does not exist." ”

“ In Greece this cry has always been among the Opposition's common stock-in-trade: it is enough for a Minister to misapply fifty drachmas to acquire the title of a violator of the Constitution, and nobody ever is the wiser or the worse for it. M. Venizelos himself had often been accused by his opponents of aiming at the subversion of Parliamentary Government. ”

“ France and Britain brought about Constantine’s fall and the return of Venizelos. We limited ourselves to occupying Epirus for a short time, as a pendant to the French occupation of Thessaly; we made ourselves still more unpopular with the Venizelists, without gaining the sympathies of the Royalists. Our true policy should have been to send important reinforcements to the East. Had we done so we should have been, after the Armistice, in a far better position to defend our own aspirations and interests in the negotiations with our Allies. ”

“ There can be no trust in the West that is broken in the East. Much of the recent mischief in the Entente came from the clandestine negotiations at Angora.
The last fatal change was the Greek revolt against Venizelos. It is often said that he is the greatest statesman thrown up by that race since Pericles. In all he has undertaken he has never failed his people. Disaster has always come to them when they refused to follow his guidance. When King Alexander was killed by a monkey, the Greeks were called upon to decide between Constantine and Venizelos. ”

“ Venizelos has never lost faith in the mission of Greece in the eastern Mediterranean. He insists that a balance of power in the Balkans will prevent an all powerful Bulgaria from selling herself and her neighbors to the Pan-German octopus which has stretched its tentacles toward Constantinople and on to the Persian Gulf. ”