ROYALIST MOVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22566, 9 May 1935, Page 17

ROYALIST MOVE

GREEK REVOLT A TEN DAYS' WONDER With the flight of the rebel General Komenos to Bulgaria and of former Premier Eleutherios Venizelos to Italy, there ended the 10-day Greek civil war, which was indeed a 10 days' wonder, says a writer in the New York Times. It showed Greece's most brilliant statesman and lifelong Francophile, M. Venizelos, engaging in a fantastio revolutionary adventure —so fantastic that Field-marshal George Kondylis's contemptuous assertion that M. Venizelos had been attacked by senile insanity finds the widest acceptance—which if successful would have made him France's enemy.

For M. Venizelos's first act would certainly have be"en denunciation of the Balkan Pact, which, in February, 1934, brought together Turkey, Greece, Jugoslavia and Rumania under France's auapices to oppose Italy's anti-Jugoslav policy on the Balkan Peninsula. The movements of Turkish and Bulgarian troops during the Greek unrest made murmurs of an approaching war louder than for many months. , EXTENT OF STRUGGLE.

The war saw the greater part of the Greek fleet and a large part of the army ranged against the loyal forces in a "struggle" comprising the storming of buildings in Athens, naval aerial bombardments in many parts of the country, the landing of hostile troops by both parties, and days and nights of machine-gun and rifle fire, all with casualties, if the Government statement is believable, amounting to the operettalike figure of 11 killed and 28 wounded. Such figures can be explained only by the supposition that the rank and file took no risks on cither side, but left the artillery and aeroplanes to bombard positions carefully vacated in advance.

But the Government's explanation that tho revolt was due to M. Venizelos's " insanity," coupled with scornful denials that it resulted from an effort by him to forestall a projected restoration, was not quite convincing. It is established that the Government's prohibition of a Republican demonstration at Salonika, planned as a protest against Monarchist efforts by the Government, was the signal for the revolt. Particularly resented were reports that the Government was supporting the scheme of M. Theoktis, former Minister of Agriculture, for putting up many members of the former royal family as Senatorial candidates in the forthcoming elections. The outburst of Monarchist propaganda that accompanied the Government-organised victory celebrations shows that something more than senility was behind the staunch Republican suspicions of M. Venizelos. M. Venizelos opposed restoration on practical, as well as political, grounds, expressing privately the opinion that economic discontent in Greece and the constant growth of Communism made a restoration a possible forerunner of a revolution that might overthrow the political and economic structures of Greece. It seems certain that Italian influence supported this overthrow; it is less certain, though Belgrade insists on it, that .Italy's desire to smash the Balkan Pact caused her to support the Venizelos revolt. The clearest lesson to be drawn from the revolt is how fragile still is the structure of peace that hides the latent interstate hostility in the Balkans. GOVERNMENT'S PLANS. It is already announced that Austria's and Germany's examples will be followed in suspending the inviolability ot judges, in order to fill the Judiciary with "Government men." The Senate

will be abolished for no better reason than that it was favourable to M. Venizelos. The Opposition parties' newspapers will be suppressed, and military courts will be set to work to strike terror into opponents. The victor, Kondylis, supported by Republican elements, is strongly opposed to General Metaxas, who is a Monarchist and Fascist. General Metaxas is a

strict legitimist and insists on the restoration of King George, whereas other Monarchists dream of offering the throne to the British Duke of Kent and his Greek bride Marina. In view of the British Foreign Office's hostility to having a British Prince mixed up in Balkan affairs, it seems a hopeless project, but it is not without the support of influential British naval circles, in-

cluding the Greek expert, Admiral Mark Kerr. Neither nationally k nor internationally does the crushing of VenJzelism promise perfect peace.