Greece and the Allies, 1914-1922

by G. F. Abbott

A truceless war against the Administration and everyone {135} connected with it ensued. Prince George was attacked—not directly, but through his entourage—as a born autocrat holding in scorn the rights of the people, tyrannizing over the Press, persecuting all those who refused to bow to his will, aiming at the subversion of free institutions. At first this campaign met with more success abroad than at home. The Cretan people expressed its opinion by its vote: among the sixty-four deputies elected to the Chamber in 1903 there were only four Venizelists.

His defeat did not daunt M. Venizelos, who, after a brief repose, resumed operations. He hesitated at no calumny, at no outrageous invention, to get even with his adversaries. Charges of all kinds poured in upon the Prince. Speeches which he had never made were attributed to him, and speeches which he did make were systematically misreported and misinterpreted. At last, in 1904, when Prince George decided to visit the Governments of the Protecting Powers in order to beg them to bring about the union of Crete with Greece by stages, M. Venizelos, dropping the scheme which had lost him his popularity, rushed in with an uncompromising demand for immediate union, though he knew perfectly well that such a solution was impracticable. The Cretans knew it, too. On finding that they looked upon his change of creed with suspicion, he resolved to seize by violence what he could not gain by his eloquence. With some 600 armed partisans (out of a population of 300,000) he took to the hills (March, 1905), called for the convocation of a National Assembly to revise the Constitution, and meanwhile urged the people to boycott the impending elections. Despite his speeches and his bravoes, only 9,000 out of the 64,000 electors abstained from voting; and most of them abstained for other reasons than the wish to show sympathy with the insurgents.

The High Commissioner wrote to the Powers at the time: "If M. Venizelos was truly animated by the desire to defend constitutional institutions, he would have come before the electors with his programme and, whatever the result, he would certainly have earned more respect as a politician. But, instead of choosing the legal road to power, he preferred to stir up an insurrection, disguising his motives under the mask of 'The National Idea,' but, {136} as is proved by his own declarations, really inspired by personal animus and party interest. It mattered little to him how disastrous an effect this upheaval might have on the national cause by plunging the country into civil war or into fresh anarchy. Can anyone recognize in this way of acting the conduct of a genuine and serious patriot?"

M. Venizelos repelled these imputations, protesting that his movement was no way directed against the Prince. Yet it resulted in the departure of the Prince: the Powers who went to Crete to restore order entered into relations with the rebels; the manner in which these intimacies were carried on and the decisions to which they led made the Prince's position untenable, and he gave up his Commissionership in 1906. Likewise M. Venizelos affirmed that he had not stirred up an insurrection, but only headed a spontaneous outbreak of popular discontent. Yet even after his triumph he failed, in the elections of 1907, to obtain a majority.[27]

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." Only, after the liberation of Greece from the foreign invaders, her democratic freedom should be assured by a thorough elucidation of the duties and rights of the Crown—a revision of the Constitution to be effected through a National Assembly.[28]

So spoke M. Venizelos at the outset, partly because the {137} Allies, who did not want to have civil war in the rear of their armies, bade him to speak so,[29] and partly because he wished to give his cause currency by stamping upon it the legend of loyalty. He realized that for the present any suspicion that he wished to embark on a campaign against King Constantine would be fatal, and by declaring war only against the Bulgars he hoped to entice patriotic citizens anxious to help their country without hurting their sovereign. But when time proved the futility of these tactics, the same M. Venizelos avowed that his programme was, first to consolidate his position in Macedonia by breaking down resistance wherever it might be encountered, and then, "when we had gathered our forces, we meant to follow up our work, if need be by arms, on the remainder of Greek territory." If he had not given an anti-dynastic character to his enterprise, that, he naïvely explained, was "because the Entente had been good enough to promise me their indispensable aid under the express stipulation that the movement should not be anti-dynastic." However, the error was not irreparable: "After victory, grave internal questions will have to be solved," he said. "King Constantine, who has stepped down from the throne of a constitutional king to become a mere party chief, must accept the consequences of the defeat of his policy, just as every other defeated party chief." [30]

In other words, the Salonica sedition, though not solely revolutionary, involved a revolution within certain limits. M. Venizelos was far too astute to countenance the republican chimeras cherished by some of his followers. Republicanism, he knew well, found no favour in Greece and could expect no support from England. Therefore, with the monarchical principle he had no quarrel: his hostility was directed wholly against the person of the reigning monarch. A prince pliant to his hand would suit M. Venizelos. If he got the best of it, his avowed intention was to treat King Constantine precisely as he had treated King Constantine's brother in days gone by.

We now understand Prince George's earnestness in urging his brother, as long ago as May, 1915, to run before {138} the gale: he spoke from bitter experience of the Protecting Powers and their protégé.

It is seldom that history repeats itself so accurately; and it is more seldom still that the historian has the means of tracing so surely a rebel's progress. In most cases it is hard to decide whether the hero was guided by events which he could not have foreseen, or whether he had from the first a clear and definite goal in view. In the case of M. Venizelos this difficulty does not exist. Each of his actions, as illuminated by his past, was a step to an end; and he has himself defined that end.