END OF REVOLUTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22563, 6 May 1935, Page 26

END OF REVOLUTION

* A CRIMINAL ERROR M. VENIZELOS SEEKS SANCTUARY END OF REMARKABLE CAREER (From Oub Own Correspondent.) (By Air Mail.) LONDON, March 16. The people of Greece may congratulate themselves that they have emerged from their latest revolution with a total casualty list on both sides of nine dead and 94 wounded. Material damage will run into many millions of pounds. Speaking from the balcony of his flat at the height of the popular demoastration in Athens, the Prime Minister, M. Tsaldaris, said: " The revolution is at an end, and the time of expiation has come. Greece ; is now free—this time for ever—from the evil influence of the men who are the enemies of her peace and prosperity. We received from their hands the ruins of a country created by four years of extravagance and misgovernment. We have managed to reach a stage of recuperation, good government, and peace. "We shall struggle again, and unhesitatingly apply the utmost rigours of the law to heal the wounds inflicted by our enemies. The punishment of those who fled to foreign countries, taking with them money belonging to the people, will be banishment for life. The Greek people can be sure law will be applied in such a manner that the present generation will not again face the spectacle whici) the country tad presented in the last 10 days. The punishment of the guilty will be such that no one will dare in future to try and stand above the laws and endanger national security." Possibly this mad adventure may do some good for Greece, for it puts an end, for the time at least, to a dangerous rivalry. There have been officers in the Greek Army and Navy who warned the Government against too great a weight of the followers of Venizelos in the services. That they spoke truly, and foresaw the danger, is proved by the revolution. As it happened, the majority of the troops, especially in Athens, remained loyal to the Government. The fleet was almost evenly divided, with the best equipped men-o'-war on the side of the Venizelists. The Government, however, had an important advantage in retaining the services of the air force. Indeed, the miniature war proved beyond doubt the helplessness of troops and ships unsupported by aeroplanes. They proved invaluable, not only for bombing purposes, but for informing the peasants in Thrace and Macedonia as to the real condition of affairs.

Nothing but regret can be felt tbat M. Venizelos should have been guilty oi' this great blunder. The chief cause of the rising appears to have been the longstanding feud between Vcuizelisis and Royalists. M. Venizelos himself does not appear to have been the originator of the plot, but he lent his name to it, and he was ready to reap the fruits if <it had been successful. " A reformer at home, a re-energiser of his nation, architect of the Balkau alliance against Turkey, the leader of his country, in spite of royal opposition, into the war, M. Venizelos acquired during the subsequent peace-making an ascendancy which seemed to secure for Greece everything for which she cared to ask (says The Times in a leading article). But at the moment of his greatest triumph he was rejected by a vot.e of his own people; and now, after further periods of Premiership from 1928 to 1932, and in 1933, his eighth, he suffers what may be presumed to be 'a final eclipse of fortune; for the revolt which has brought him down must appear even to his warmest admirers to' have been a criminal error. When the elections of 1933 went against him, his friend and ally, General Plastiras, set up a dictatorship which lasted only fourteen hours; and last week the same hotblooded general was reported to be speeding from the Riviera towards Greece on the first tidings of revolt. That it was carefully prepared -seems to be proved by its simultaneous outbreak in Crete, Macedonia, and the islands. " Faction has never long been absent from Greek history, and since the wartime quarrel between King Constantine and M. Venizelos it has found a fertile seed-ground in the rivalry of the two parties. If one was in power the partisans of the other had little prospect of official favour, and charges of corruption were regularly made by the Opposition against whichever party was for the time t monopolising profit and promotion. Feelings had become more strained than ever during the last few years, although the Government of M. Tsaularis appeared to be ruling wit]} less than the usual intolerance and bias. It failed, in fact, to satisfy the claims of its own military supporters, owing to the opposition of the Venizelist Senate.. On the other hand, M. Venizelos found the way blocked when he tried to ge*t himself elected President of the Republic, and he was particularly embittered by the discovery that the determined attempt on his life two years ago had been led by a Royalist police official. His own followers in the army, navy, and civil service probably felt that M. Venizelos's return to office would provide them with their best chance of successful careers, and.in his own homeland of Crete, in the Islands, where he has always been popular, and in_ the provinces which his statesmanship had added to Greece, a large proportion of the population geem r to have been ready to stake all in order to secure his triumph over their adversaries."

M. Venizelos and his fellow fugitives, after eleven days #f uncertain dominance in the island of Crete, are now refugees in the Italian inland of Kaseos, in the Dodecanese (writes the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). They landed there from the outlawed cruiser Averoff. That ancient warship is now limping humbly back to Piraeus, tho i port of Athens, where the crew aboard her hope to be received with the charity accorded to a prodigal gon. The other ships which were captured by the rebels—save two—have surrendered in Suda Bay. General Kamenos, leader of the insurrection in Macedonia arid Thrace, is safe across the Bulgarian frontier with 20 members of his staff. Other officers of the Fourth Army Corps implicated in the revolt against the Athens Government and the troops impressed into this mad enterprise have returned to duty. M. Venizelos packed his luggage, including some books, at his villa on the outskirts of Canea. He also took with him a large sum of money. He was accompanied by his wife and a number of personal friends when he went aboard the Averoff, where he was joined by officers of the navy and army who had teen identified with the revolution. He was accompanied by the ex-Minister, M. Koundouros, and M. Voloudakios, who are both members of Parliament; M. Maris, another ex-Minister and an intimate friend of M. Venizelos; M- Kothers; and two Venizelist senators, M. Boulakis and M. Georgiaidrfkis, and their families. The failure of the rebellion is due to the fact that it had no national basis or justification, but was inspired entirely by personal ambitions. It had the great mass of public opinion against it. The majority of intelligent Venizeliste are horrified at their erstwhile idol's im l plication. General Kamenos, who was the com-mander-in-chief of the Greek rebels in Macedonia, and his staff of three colonels, three lieutenant-colonels, and eleven junior officers, and Colonel Xiclis, whom the Greek rebels set up as Governor-General of Macedonia, all of whom took refuge in Bulgaria, will be sent to Karlovo and kept in barracks under strict supervision. The Greek Government have asked for the seizure and return of the 60,000,000 drachmas carried off by General Kamenos from banks in Macedonia. General Kondylis, Minister of War, who crushed the revolt in Macedonia, returned \o a triumphal procession through the streets of Athens. His closed limousine was almost smothered with laurel wreaths. Other laurel-covered cars followed. The end of this triumphal progross was a tall apartment house, where, rather as an anti-climax to so much pageantry, General Kondylis climbed four flights of stairs to the little flat where M. Tsaldaris lives, with the Eastern Telegraph Company as one of his neighbours. The Premier and General Kondylis appeared together at a window and were hailed by the crowds filling the streets below. There were the usual happilyphrased speeches, which did not carry far, and then the crowd trooped back to the centre of the city to spend the night in more merrymaking.