Meanwhile the unfortunate King of Greece was faced by a state of things
which he himself describes with admirable lucidity in a dispatch to his
brother Andrew, then in London, labouring, vainly enough, to obtain a
fair hearing for the Royalist side, while another brother, Prince
Nicholas, was engaged on a similar mission at Petrograd. The document is
dated 3/16 September, 1916, and runs thus:
"The resignation of the Cabinet of M. Zaimis, who enjoyed my absolute
confidence, as well as the unanimous confidence of the country, and whom
the Entente Governments declared to me that they surrounded with their
entire sympathy, has rendered the situation very difficult.
"I charged M. Dimitracopoulos to form a new Cabinet. He declared himself
ready to continue the conversations opened recently by M. Zaimis in the
hope of bringing them to a happy conclusion. Before accepting
definitely, he thought it necessary to sound the views of the Powers on
important questions of an internal order, and went to the _doyen_ of the
Diplomatic Corps, the British Minister, whence he carried away a very
clear impression that, not only the coercive measures would not be raised
before mobilization, but that they might be intensified, notably by
direct interference in personal domestic questions, and that, even after
mobilization, the measures would be only relaxed. As to the question of
elections, after having demanded by the Note of 8 (21) June the
dissolution of the Chamber and new elections, which we accepted, now they
demand that the elections shall not take place, without, at the same
time, allowing the existing Chamber to meet. M. Dimitracopoulos has laid
down his mandate.
"Under these conditions the situation becomes inextricable. The military
and naval authorities of the Entente foment and encourage in the country
a revolution and armed sedition, and they favour by every means the {124}
Salonica movement by continuing the vexatious measures and restricting
all freedom of thought and action. The Entente Ministers paralyze all
Government. Thus the country is pushed towards anarchy.
"Such conduct not only conflicts with the assurances which they have
given us, but excludes all practical possibility of reconsidering our
policy freely to the end of taking a decision in a favourable direction.
For the rest, Greece divided would not be of any use as an ally. It is
necessary that there should return in the country comparative calm and
the feeling of independence, indispensable for taking extreme
resolutions. It is necessary that confidence in the sympathy of the
Entente should be restored. A resolution to participate in the war taken
under present circumstances would run the risk of being attributed to
violence and of being received with mistrust. More, that resolutions may
be taken without danger of disaster, there is need of circumspection and
discretion, so as not to provoke an attack from the Germano-Bulgars who
are in our territory, before we are ready to lend real assistance to the
Entente. A more definite declaration of principle, which would have to
be kept secret in the common interest, would be of no practical value.
"Under certain circumstances, rendering the participation of Greece
useful and conformable to our interests, I have already declared that I
am ready to enter into the war on the side of the Entente. I am ready to
envisage negotiations in this sense. But, before all, I need, that I may
be able to occupy myself usefully and with a certain mental calmness with
foreign questions, to see comparative quiet restored at home, and so to
save the appearances of liberty of action. In this I ask, for the sake
of the common interest, the Powers to give me their help.
"I have charged M. Calogeropoulos to form a Ministry: he is equally
animated by the best intentions towards the Entente."
The new Premier, who had already held office with distinction as Minister
of the Interior and as Minister of Finance, possessed every qualification
for the delicate task entrusted to him. On the day of his accession _The
Times_ Correspondent wrote of him: "In the Chamber he is highly esteemed.
Although he is a Theotokist, and {125} therefore anti-Venizelist, M.
Calogeropoulos, who studied in France, declared to me that all his
personal sympathies are with the Entente. He is likewise a member of the
Franco-Greek League." [1] In harmony with this character was his
programme: "The new Cabinet, inspired by the same policy as M. Zaimis, is
resolved to pursue it with the sincere desire to tighten the bonds
between Greece and the Entente Powers." This declaration, made in every
Allied capital, was supplemented by a more intimate announcement in Paris
and London: "Sharing the views which inspired the negotiations opened by
its predecessor, the Royal Government is resolved to pursue them in the
same spirit." [2]
No sooner had M. Calogeropoulos spoken than M. Venizelos set to work to
cast doubts on his sincerity, with remarkable success: "M. Venizelos does
not believe that the composition of the new Ministry permits of the hope
that a national policy will be adopted, since it springs from a party of
pro-German traditions," [3]--this ominous paragraph was added by the
_Times_ Correspondent to his report the same day. And next day the
British Minister, in an interview with the editor of a Venizelist
journal, said: "The situation is certainly not an agreeable one. I have
read in the papers the declaration of the new Premier. What has
surprised me is to find that M. Calogeropoulos characterized his Ministry
as a political one, whereas in their last Note the Allies required that
Greece should be governed by a business Cabinet. This, as you see, makes
a distinct difference." [4] Simultaneously, the Entente Press, under
similar inspiration, reviled the new Cabinet as pro-German, clamoured for
M. Venizelos, whom they still represented as the true exponent of the
national will, threatened King Constantine with the fate of King Otho,
and his country with "terrible and desperate things." [5]
{126}
It was in such an atmosphere that M. Calogeropoulos and his colleagues
attempted to resume the conversations which M. Zaimis had opened. They
realized that, since elections and like legal methods no longer commended
themselves to the Allies, since they menaced the country with "terrible
and desperate things," Greece might drift into chaos at any moment. They
were anxious to avoid chaos. But how? A blind acceptance of the
Venizelist policy of an immediate rush into the War, without regard to
ways and means, might prove tantamount to burning one's blanket in order
to get rid of the fleas: while saving Greece from the coercion of the
French and the British, it might expose her to subjugation by the Germans
and the Bulgars: the plight of Rumania afforded a fresh warning. They
therefore adopted the only course open to sane men.
On 19 September Greece formally offered to the Entente Powers "to come in
as soon as by their help she had accomplished the repair of her military
forces, within a period fixed by common accord." But, "as her armed
intervention could not, obviously, be in the interest of anyone
concerned, unless it took place with chances of success, the Royal
Government thinks that Greece should not be held to her engagement, if at
the time fixed the Balkan theatre of war presented, in the opinion of the
Allies' General Staffs themselves, such a disequilibrium of forces as the
military weight of Greece would be insufficient to redress." [6]
Russia received these advances with cordiality, her Premier declaring to
the Greek Minister at Petrograd that she would be happy to have Greece
for an ally, and that the Tsar had full confidence in the sentiments of
King Constantine. He added that he would immediately communicate with
Paris and London.[7] There was the rub. French and British statesmen
affected to regard the offer as a ruse for gaining time: they could not
trust a Cabinet three members of which they considered to be ill-disposed
towards the Entente: a "national policy" {127} should be carried out by a
"national Cabinet"--that is, by M. Venizelos.[8]
While frustrating his country's efforts to find a way out of the pass
into which he had intrigued it, the Cretan and his partisans did not
neglect other forms of activity. We have seen that rebellion had already
broken out at Salonica. In Athens itself the walls were pasted with
Venizelist newspapers in the form of placards displaying headlines such
as these: "A LAST APPEAL TO THE KING!" "DRAW THE SWORD, O KING, OR
ABDICATE!" It was no secret that arms and ammunition were stored in
private houses, that the French Intelligence Service had a depot of
explosives in a ship moored at the Piraeus, and a magazine of rifles and
grenades in its headquarters at the French School of Athens.[9] The
Royalist journals threatened the Venizelists with condign punishment for
their treasonable designs. The Venizelist journals, far from denying the
charge, replied that they would be fully justified in arming themselves
against the hostile Reservist Leagues. In short, the capital swarmed
with conspirators, but the guardians of public order were powerless,
owing to the proximity of the Allied naval guns, ready to enforce respect
for the Allied flags under whose protection the conspiracy was carried
on. By this time the French and British detectives had usurped the
powers and inverted the functions of the police organs;[10] and the
French and {128} British agents, after fomenting those fatal differences
which divide and degrade a people, had developed into directors of plots
and organizers of sedition.
But, in spite of such encouragement, the capital--or, indeed, any part of
Old Greece--had never appealed to M. Venizelos as a starting-point of
sedition. He knew that only in the recently acquired and as yet
imperfectly assimilated regions--regions under the direct influence of
the Allies--he could hope to rebel with safety. His plan embraced,
besides Salonica, the islands conquered in 1912, particularly his native
Crete. In that home of immemorial turbulence his friends, seconded by
British Secret Service and Naval officers, had found many retired bandits
eager to resume work. Even there, it is true, public opinion was not
strikingly favourable to disloyalty; but the presence of the British
Fleet in Suda Bay had much of persuasion in it.[11]
Our diplomacy did not openly commit itself. Sir Francis Elliot still
nursed the hope of effecting a reconciliation between the ex-Premier and
his King. When, in August, a conference was secretly held at Athens
between M. Venizelos and a number of Cretan conspirators, the latter
carried back the depressing intelligence that British official sympathy
with their project lacked the necessary degree of warmth. And again, on
11 September, when the British Consul of Canea went over to Athens with
some of those conspirators, he was ordered by the British Legation to
stay there, so as to avoid any suspicion of complicity. This attitude of
correct reserve on the part of the British Foreign Office, however, did
not prevent the British naval authorities on the spot from working out,
in concert with the insurgents, a plan of operations under which some
chieftains were to invest the coast towns on the land side, while our
men-of-war patrolled the sea in their interest.[12]
{129}
France, on the other hand, made no distinction between diplomatic and
naval action. On 18 September M. Guillemin informed Admiral Dartige du
Fournet that M. Venizelos was sailing for the islands, and orders were
given for a French escort. But at the last moment M. Venizelos did not
sail. He hesitated. The French Secret Service urged the National Leader
to lead, instead of being prodded from behind; but he resisted their
pressure and their plain speaking.[13] When questioned by the Associated
Press Correspondent if there was any truth in the reports that he was
going to put himself at the head of the revolutionary forces, he replied:
"I cannot answer now. I must wait a little while yet and see what the
Government propose to do."
It is possible that this was the reason why M. Venizelos paused
irresolute on the brink. It is possible that he suffered, as the
disrespectful Frenchmen hinted, from one of those attacks of timidity to
which he was subject in a crisis. It is possible that the ambiguous
attitude of England damped his martial spirit. For the rest, to make a
revolution is a matter that may well give the strongest-minded pause.
What wonder if, reckless, obstinate, and unscrupulous as he was, M.
Venizelos, when faced with the irrevocable, felt the need to weigh his
position, to reconsider whether the momentous step he was taking was
necessary, was right, was prudent?
However, events soon put an end to his hesitation. The decisive
event--the hair which turned the scale--according to M. Venizelos
himself, was supplied, appropriately enough, by a barber. One day,
whilst the Leader of the Liberals wrestled with his soul, a friend called
and reported to him a talk he had just had with his hairdresser, "a
terrible Venizelist, who spoke thus: 'We here, simple folk, say that
Venizelos bears a heavy responsibility: he tells us we are going to the
dogs. Eh, well then, why doesn't he stop us?' This conversation shook
me deeply. My friend gone, I said to myself: 'Indeed, this barber speaks
wisely, and my hesitations to discharge my duty to the end must vanish,
because they may possibly spring from purely egotistical motives. Sir, I
said to myself, having laid up from many struggles and many successes
{130} a capital above the average, you don't wish to risk it and think it
better to sit quiet, choosing to enjoy the moral satisfaction of seeing
the fulfilment of your prophecies rather than make an effort to prevent
it.'" [14] It is always interesting to trace mighty events to trifling
causes; and it would have been particularly pleasant to believe that the
destinies of Greece for once literally stood "on a razor's edge." [15]
But we will do M. Venizelos the credit of believing him less childish
than he represents himself. There were weightier things "to shake" him
into a decision.
On 20 September, when, according to plan, he was due in Crete, the train
laid there exploded. His friends had come down from the hills thirsting
for the blood of Greek and Mohammedan victims: should the massacre they
meditated take place, M. Venizelos would never leave Athens alive.[16]
The news was of a nature to compel him at last to take the plunge; and in
the small hours of 25 September, the National Leader stole out of Greece
on a ship escorted by a French torpedo-boat. His flight had been
organized by the French Secret Service like a carnival masquerade, on the
painful details of which, says Admiral Dartige, it would be better not to
dwell.[17]
His advent in Crete had been so efficiently prepared by the British
Secret Service and naval officers--without whom there would have been
neither mutiny nor insurrection--that, on landing, M. Venizelos had
nothing to do but instal himself in the best hotel at Canea and proclaim
himself with his confederate Admiral Coundouriotis the Provisional
Government.[18]
Under the fostering care of the Allied men-of-war the movement spread to
Samos, Mytilene, Chios, Lemnos, and Thasos, where the constitutional
operations witnessed in Crete were duly repeated. But all the other
islands and the mainland--that is, the whole of the Hellenic Kingdom,
with the exception of the new territories--adhered {131} steadfastly to
the person and the policy of their King. As for the armed forces of the
Crown, Admiral Coundouriotis had hoped by his prestige, deservedly high
since the Balkan wars, to bring away with him the whole or a large part
of the Fleet: he brought away only two torpedo-boats and another small
unit, the desertion of which was effected by a trick, "for which," says
the French Admiral, "France would have cause to blush." [19]
In itself the Venizelist movement, as a disruptive force, was
negligible.[20] But the co-operation of the French Republic and the
British Empire invested it with an alarming significance.
M. Calogeropoulos and his colleagues who watched this rising tempest
anxiously did everything they could to conjure it. Although to their
offer no reply was given, on hearing informally that the Entente Powers
would not accept the proffered alliance unless Greece declared war on
Bulgaria at once, they signified their willingness so to do, if, content
with that, the Entente would accord Greece adequate military and
financial assistance during the struggle and support her territorial
claims at the conclusion of peace; if, in addition, M. Briand deemed the
Cabinet question of immediate importance, they were prepared to solve it
definitely for the sake of restoring complete harmony between Greece and
the Entente Powers.[21]
The authors of this message were given to understand that the reply would
be handed to King Constantine himself, the Entente Governments declining
to recognize the actual Cabinet; that it would be in the form of an
ultimatum, demanding that Greece should declare war on Bulgaria within
forty-eight hours unconditionally, after which they promised to supply
her with money and munitions during the struggle and at the conclusion of
peace to take into account her territorial claims as far as {132}
circumstances would permit; meanwhile, they demanded the formation of a
new Ministry, and, failing compliance, they threatened "most energetic
measures." M. Briand kindly added that he delayed the presentation of
this ultimatum in order to give His Majesty the advantage of making a
spontaneous gesture without the appearance of compulsion.[22]
Whereupon (3 Oct.) M. Venizelos at Canea was sounded whether, if the
Calogeropoulos Cabinet made place for one ready to declare war on
Bulgaria, he would insist on presiding over such a Cabinet or would be
satisfied with being represented in it by some of his partisans.
These overtures may be regarded as a last attempt on the part of Athens
to take the Cretan at his word. For M. Venizelos had never tired of
professing his willingness to support any Government which would adopt
his policy of prompt action: it was not personal power he hungered after,
but national prosperity. Even at the moment of going to head a
rebellion, he had not ceased to proclaim his patriotic unselfishness.[23]
We have seen to what extent hitherto his actions had accorded with his
professions: how adroitly he had maintained abroad the reputation,
without incurring the sacrifices, of magnanimity. Once more he gave
proof of the same adroitness:
"True to his previous declarations, M. Venizelos replied that he was
ready to give his support and that of his party to a Government which
would declare war on Bulgaria, and that he asked neither to preside over
such a Government nor to be represented in it by his partisans. As a
patriot and a statesman, seeking only his country's welfare," etc., etc.,
etc. But--"the principal followers of M. Venizelos do not believe that
this new step taken by the authorities at Athens indicates a change in
the right direction in the councils of the Palace. They maintain that
the idea behind this _démarche_ is simply to gain time. I have pressed
M. Venizelos on this, and, although he did not wish to appear to be as
emphatic as his followers, he had to admit to me that he had no illusions
and that he remained sceptical. If King Constantine is really {133}
sincere, he can give a proof which will allay all doubts. Let him order
a mobilization at once . . . and call in M. Venizelos to form a new
Government." [24]
King Constantine, instead of treating the Cretan as a rebel, still wished
to treat him as a responsible citizen, and by his moderation to give him
an opportunity of a decent return to legal order. But he could not, even
if he wished, call to power a man in open revolt: by so doing he would
alienate the loyal majority without conciliating the disloyal minority.
After thus burning the last boat that might have carried him back to
legality, M. Venizelos took the first boat that travelled in the opposite
direction. He left Suda Bay on 5 October, amidst the cheers of the
Allied squadrons, bound for Salonica by way of Samos and Mytilene. At
Samos he received a fresh token of the approval with which the Entente
viewed his operations: the commander of a British man-of-war, acting on
instructions, officially called on him and paid his respects.[25]
And so he reached Salonica, took up his abode at the royal residence, and
with Admiral Coundouriotis and General Danglis composed a Triumvirate
which, having appointed a Ministry, began to levy taxes and troops, and
to negotiate for a loan.
The metamorphosis of a Prime Minister into an insurgent chief, though a
remarkable phenomenon, is no matter for surprise. M. Venizelos sprang
from people among whom insurrection formed the traditional method of
asserting political opinions. His father was a veteran of the Greek
Revolution of 1821, and passed most of his life plotting. His
grandfather is supposed to have been a refugee of the earlier Greek
revolt of 1770.[26] He himself had grown up amidst vivid echoes of the
Cretan Rebellion of 1866. While contact with the frock-coated world of
{134} modern Europe during the latter period of his career had clothed
him with a statesman's proper external circumstance, it had not
eradicated the primitive instincts implanted in him by heredity and
fostered by environment. Sedition was in his blood, which perhaps
explains the _flair_--the almost uncanny _flair_--he had for the business.
Nor did he lack experience. After sharing in one Cretan insurrection
against the Sultan in 1896, he led another against Prince George in 1905.
This exploit--known as the Therisos Movement--deserves special notice,
for it bears a curious and most instructive analogy to the enterprise
with which we are now dealing.
In 1899 M. Venizelos became a member of the first Cretan Administration
appointed by the High Commissioner, Prince George--King Constantine's
brother. The status of the island was provisional, and the fulfilment of
the national desire for union with Greece depended partly on the policy
of the Powers which had combined to act as its Protectors, partly on the
prudence of the islanders themselves and of their continental kinsmen.
Such was the situation when, in 1901, M. Venizelos suddenly conceived
the idea of turning Crete into an autonomous principality. Prince George
objected to the proposal, arguing that neither in Crete nor in Greece
would public opinion approve it. M. Venizelos sounded the Hellenic
Government and the Opposition, and was told by both that, from the
standpoint of national interest and sentiment, his scheme was absolutely
unacceptable. Nevertheless, he persevered and succeeded in forming a
party to support his views. It may be, as he affirmed, that his scheme
was a merely temporary expedient intended to pave the way to ultimate
union. But the Greeks, interpreting it as a proposal for perpetual
separation, remained bitterly hostile, and the fact that autonomy was
known to be favoured in certain foreign quarters deepened their
resentment. M. Venizelos was roundly denounced as a tool of foreign
Powers, and Prince George was accused of complicity, and threatened with
the lot of a traitor unless he dismissed him. The High Commissioner made
use of the right which the Constitution of the island gave him, and M.
Venizelos was dismissed (March, 1901).
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.
[1] _The Times_, 18 Sept., 1916.
[2] Carapanos to Greek Legations, Paris, London, Rome, Petrograd, 3/16
Sept., 1916.
[3] _The Times, loc. cit._
[4] Exchange Tel., Athens, 17 Sept., 1916. Cp. Romanos, Paris, 5/18 Sept.
[5] See leading articles in _The Times_, 19 Sept., and the _Morning
Post_, 20 Sept., 1916.
[6] Carapanos to Greek Legations, Paris and London, 6/19 Sept., 1916.
[7] Panas, Petrograd, 14/27 Sept., 1916.
[8] Romanos, Paris, 10/23 Sept. Cp. Reuter statement, London, 26 Sept.,
1916. This view is crystallized in a personal dispatch from the Greek
Minister at Paris to the Director of Political Affairs, at Athens:
"_L'appel au pouvoir par S.M. le Roi de M. Venizélos paraît au
Gouvernement français le seul moyen de dissiper la méfiance que
l'attitude des conseillers de S.M. le Roi ont fait naitre dans l'esprit
des cercles dirigeants à Paris et à Londres. . . . L'opinion publique en
France n' approuveraii une alliance avec la Grèce et les avantages qui en
découleraient pour nous, que si l'homme politique qui incarne l'idée de
la solidarité des intérêts français et grecs était appelé au
pouvoir._"--Romanos to Politis, Paris, 29 Sept./12 Oct., 1916.
[9] Du Fournet, p. 116. Small wonder that the honest sailor's gorge rose
at such proceedings: "Could I associate myself with manoeuvres of this
sort?" he asks in disgust. "When German arms and bombs were seized in
the bag from Berlin to Christiania, when similar things were discovered
at Bucharest, and were detected in the United States under Bernstorf's
protection, the Allies manifested their indignation. They were a hundred
times right; but what was odious in America, was it not odious in Greece?"
[10] The British Intelligence Service demonstrated its sense of humour
and shame by furnishing its secret agents with a formal certificate of
their identity to be presented at the central office of the Greek Police:
one such patent of British protection was issued to an ex-spy of Sultan
Abdul Hamid who had also spent six months in German pay. Besides the
certificate, was issued a brassard, which the rogue might wear to protect
him from arrest when breaking the Greek Law on British account.
Incredible, yet true. See J. C. Lawson's _Tales of Aegean Intrigue_, p.
233.
[11] Lawson, pp. 143-66.
[12] Lawson, pp. 168-78.
[13] Du Fournet, pp. 130-1.
[14] Orations, p. 190.
[15] "Now, to all of us it stands on a razor's edge: either pitiful ruin
for the Achaians or life." Homer, _Iliad_, X, 173.
[16] Lawson, pp. 180-9.
[17] Du Fournet, p. 131.
[18] Lawson, pp. 198-226.
[19] Du Fournet, p. 136.
[20] A paragraph of the Debierre Report, adopted by the French Senate on
21 Oct., 1916, may be quoted in this connexion: "_La révolution
Salonicienne vue de près, n' est rien. Elle est sans racine, sans
lendemain probable. Venizélos est trés amoindri. La Grèce, dont les
officiers et les soldats ne veulent pas se battre, est avec
Constantin._"--Mermeix, _Le Commandement Unique_, Part II, p. 60.
[21] Romanos, Paris, 14/27, 15/28 Sept.; Carapanos to Greek Legation,
Paris, 15/28 Sept., 1916.
[22] Romanos, Paris, 16/29, 17/30 Sept.; Gennadius, London, 17/30 Sept.,
1916.
[23] See "Message from M. Venizelos," in _The Times_, 27 Sept., 1916.
[24] The _Daily Telegraph_, 5 Oct., 1916.
[25] The _Daily Telegraph_, 7 Oct., 1916.
[26] The authentic history of the Venizelos family begins with our hero's
father; his grandfather is a probable hypothesis: the remoter ancestors
with whom, since his rise to fame, he has been endowed by enthusiastic
admirers in Western Europe, are purely romantic. In Greece, where nearly
everyone's origin is involved in obscurity, matters of this sort possess
little interest, and M. Venizelos's Greek biographers dwell only on his
ascent.
[27] For one side of this affair see _Memorandum de S.A.R. Le Prince
Georges de Grèce, Haut Commissaire en Crète, aux Quatre Grandes
Puissances Protectrices de la Crète_, 1905. The other side has been
expounded in many publications: among them, _E. Venizelos: His Life, His
Work_. By Costa Kairophyla, pp. 37-65; _Eleutherios Venizelos_. By K.
K. Kosmides, pp. 14-16.
[28] See _The Times_, 27 Sept.; _The Eleutheros Typos_, 23 Oct. (O.S.),
1916.
[29] Du Fournet, p. 176.
[30] The _New Europe_, 29 March, 1917.
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