M. VENIZELOS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3147, 11 December 1922, Page 2

M. VENIZELOS.

BOM ANTIC CAREER

PATRIOT AND STATESMAN

The announcement that M. Venizelos has been entrusted with a mission to protect Greek interests abroad is of great interest and moment to the whole of Europe. It means that the compatriots of the famous Greek statesman, have once more turned to him in the darkest hour of their national fortunes as being the only man who can save Greece from the wreckage of all her hopes and the extreme punishment for all her follies. M. Venizelos returns to international life once more after being in strict retirement for nearly two years since his ungrateful fellow-countrymen, in November, 1920, voted him and 1 his Cahi net out of office and recalled his archenemy, the 1 King, who has just abdicated the Greek Throne. M. Venizelos has played the game in that trying interval. As a. Constitutionalist he accepted the verdict of the Greek people. Re left Greece, where it would not have been safe for him to remain, but he has most honorably refrained from intriguing against the King and his Ministers, and lie has simply waited for the hour 1 of recall, which all his friends were certain must strike sooner or later. But they were, much too patriotic to hope that the call would comet under such disastrous circumstances as the present. A new chapter, therefore, of M. Venire I os’ romantic career is opening, and the occasion is a- fitting one in which briefly to recall his past ivdiievements. Eleutherios Venizelos was horn, at Murniaos, in Crete, in 1864, and began life as an advocate in Cane'a. Crete was then a Turkish island 1 , and he threw himself into the. struggle of constitutionalism, taking a leading part in the successful 1 revolution of 1896, during which he commanded 1 troops in the field 1 against the Turk. The National Assembly of Crete elected him its President, but he soon resigned that office for the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and then followed an uneasy period under the High Co mm i s sion e rehip of Prince George, whose resignation he eventually forced, and then secured, with the consent of the Powers, the annexation of Crete: to the Hellenic kiugdiom. His success as a Cretan patriot and 1 the ■ statesmanship which lie had displayed in his dealings with the Powers made him a marked man throughout the Hellenic world, and iu 1910 King George of Greece summoned him to Athens to help to reorganise the country, which had fallen into a shocking state of political confusion, Parliamentary institutions being practically in abeyance, and: the whole power of the country vested, in the hands of the military League. Venizelos’ first slop was to hold elections for a National Assembly to revise the Constitution. The Constitution was thoroughly revised, and in the free election of 1912 for an ordinary Chamber he was maintained in power by an overwhelming majority. In those two

years Venizclos had worked marvels. Ho had cleared out the political stables which were thick with corruption : he had reorganised the army and navy; lie had re-established the Throne on a firm basis, and he had recreated a new national spirit in the Greek people. H uving thus forged an effective instrument for his purpose Venizelos next tinned to the great ambition of his life, that of enlarging the boundaries of Greece at the expense of the national enemy and oppressor —Turkey. The Balkan League was his creation, and Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia declared war on Turkey weakened ’by her recent war with Italy—and the Turks collapsed. The division of tbe spoils, however, and the greed of Bulgaria brought on a new war between the allies. which terminated after a month in the Treaty of Bucharest. By these two wars Greece obtained possession of many of the principal islands in the Aegean, off the coast of Asia Minor, and. had advanced her frontier to Salonika, in Macedonia, and the line of the Maritza. in Thrace, besides pushing them northwards in Epirus to the border rtf Albania. It was an immense accession of territory for Greece, and: the credit was mainly due to the statesmanship of Venizelos. Un lortunalcly. however. King George was assassinated in Salonika in 11)13, and his successor. Constantino, was jealous of M. Venizelos’ popularity au4 renown. There was no harmony between them, and when the Great "War broke out in 1911 it found King

and Prime Minister ranged in irreconcilable opposition. Venizeios was heart

and soul lor the Entente; Hie King was the brother-in-law of the Kaiser. and German inllnence was. ftrong at Court and among the officers of the

army. Venizeios hailed the war as a glorious opportunity for striking yet. another Mow at the Turk and re-estab-lishing Hellenism in Asia Minor. He urged' the King to honor Greece's Treaty obligations with Serbia. Constantine refused. He next urged the King to join the Entente and 1 land a Creek army on the Asiatic (-bore of the Dardanelles so as lo open the Straits in conjunction with the Mritish Fleet. Again Constantine refused, and gave away the whole plan to the Germans. Into the perpetual quarrels between them there is no need to enter here. Suffice it to say that at the general election of September. Did. the Greek nation! again endorsed his policy, and' sent him hack to power, hot when the. Allies, at Venizeios’ invitation—reluctantly accepted by the King —occupied Salonika., it was Constantine who gave orders that Fort Hupei should he surrendered to the Ihilganans, together with a whole Greek division, and so betrayed to the national enemy the key of Macedonia. Venizeios resigned, and his partisans abstained! from the polls at ilie election which followed, whereupon the Gennanophile sympathies ol Hie King became so pronounced thSt Venizeios and Admiral Cond’otmoti- 1 left Athens iin September. DIO. and raised the standard of Greek pa trio t-j-nj in Crete and Salonika. They were welcomed with open arms in Crete, and collected powerful military forces. Meanwhile King Constantine fell more and more under German inllnence. and at last provoked the active inlefvent ion of the Entente Powers. who_ compelled his abdication in May. 1917. and! his second son, Alexander, was called 1 to rhe Throne. Venizeios then', returned to take u]i the reins of power, and In- first act was to declare t ha I rerouted Greece was at war with the Central Empires and their allies. lire Greek armv wav. once more reorganised, and placed a valiant and worthy part in the overthrow of Hulgaria.. which was ihc first of Germany's allies to drop out of tin 1 war. Again Hie reward 1 of Greece was great, and Venizeios looked forward, with the help of the Entente to a large extension of Greek sovereignty in the' islands and on tile i mi inland of Asia Minor. Pv DIS Venizeios' was recognised as one of the foremost statesmen in Europe. He had an honored place among (hose who assembled' in Paris to draw up the Treaty of Peace. He enjoyed (he con lido i ice and trust of the British Government-, and of the British Prouder in particular. When it came to drawing rqr the Treaty of Sevres ’e again pressed the claims of Greece with great boldness and persistency and succeeded perhaps only too well with the Entente statesmen. He it was who, by

maintaining the Greet army at war strength—when the other Powers were disbanding theirs persuaded France and Great Britain to allow him to land a large ,army in. Smyrna, and advance beyond the frontiers of the Greek enclave arranged for in the Treaty. He promised to thrust back the levies # of the Turkish Nationalists, and he' did. When that operation succeeded beyond expectation he persuaded the' Powers to allow him to land another army m Eastern Thrace and capture Adriam'ple. These exploits marked the zenitb\ Venizelos’ triumph), for a. few weeks later, to the great surprise of all Europe, when a general l election was 1 held in Greece after the death of King Alexander, Venizelos’ party was routed .at the polls and he himself lost his seat. The explanation usually given was that the Greek soldiers were tired of being so long under arms and anxious to return to their homes, while Venizelos himself had been so much absent from Greece in attending the various conferences that hi si enemies had had time to qsuittoc s;oj3iuo[o papiiapnoosip |[ii him.

The exiled King returned, but ho: has had no joy of his triumph. He' was constrained to adopt the Vgnirelist policy in Asia, Minor, whether he approved of it or not, and he put himself at the head of the Greek offensive in the autumn of 1921, with the object of thrusting his way through to Angora and dictating peace in the Turkish capital. It failed, and everyone knows tire melancholy sequel, which concluded with the, burning of Smyrna three weeks ago and the utter dishonor of Greek military reputation.