GENERAL KONDYLIS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 1 February 1936, Page 7

GENERAL KONDYLIS

DEATH REPORTED AT ATHENS

SOLDIER AND POLITICIAN

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received Ist February, 10.45 a.m.) ATHENS, '3lst, January. The death has occurred of General G Kondylis, former Prime Minister.

General Kondylis, who was in his 59th year, began his military career as a soldier in the Greek army at the beginning of the century. In 1905 he left the army to fight with irregulars against the Bulgarian bands in Macedonia, lie had the daring, cunning, aggressiveness, and reckless bravery, as well as the jingoist, bombast, that are typical of the average comilarji chief, with the defeat of Venizelos in (he elections of November, 1920, and tho subsequent return of King Constantine to Athens, Kondylis left the Asia Minor army and retired to Constantinople, then occupied by the Allied armies. Here he began conspiring to overthrow the Constantinists and to put thlie Venizclisls back in power. This was Kondylis’s first ap. pearanec on Lhe Greek political scene — albeit under cover. In 1023 Kondylis resigned from the army to participate as a candidate in the elections. Kondylis became Minister of War in (lie first Republican Government in April, 1924, but resigned four months later over a question of army discipline. In Parlia-

ment he gathered about him a small but loyal group of followers, and after a number of changes of Government the end of 1924 found Kondylis Minister of Interior in the Michalacopoulos Government. In May, 1925, Kondylis resigned after a dispute with the Refugee Settlement Commission of the League of Nations. Since the rise to powerjof Pangalos, Kondylis had waited patiently for his opportunity. He found it when the erstwhile dictator left Athens to spend a short vacation on the Island of Spetsai. Kondylis, like his predecessor, took over the Government in the name of constitutionalism. He was leader of the Government troops which defeated the Venizelos rebellion last year. He resigned recently from the Premiership when he disagreed with the King on the granting of a general political amnesty.