Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 Part 12

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 a.s.sistance 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} circ.u.mstances 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 princ.i.p.al 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 demarche 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 a.s.serting political opinions. His father was a veteran of the Greek Revolution of 1821, and pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 a.n.a.logy 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 princ.i.p.ality. Prince George objected to the proposal, arguing that neither in Crete nor in Greece would public opinion approve it. M. Venizelos sounded the h.e.l.lenic 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 Const.i.tution 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 inst.i.tutions. 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 a.s.sembly to revise the Const.i.tution, 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 const.i.tutional inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sured by a thorough elucidation of the duties and rights of the Crown-a revision of the Const.i.tution to be effected through a National a.s.sembly.[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 navely 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 const.i.tutional 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 protege.

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. Venizelos parait au Gouvernement francais le seul moyen de dissiper la mefiance que l'att.i.tude des conseillers de S.M. le Roi ont fait naitre dans l'esprit des cercles dirigeants a Paris et a Londres... . L'opinion publique en France n' approuveraii une alliance avec la Grece et les avantages qui en decouleraient pour nous, que si l'homme politique qui incarne l'idee de la solidarite des interets francais et grecs etait appele 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 a.s.sociate 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 ident.i.ty 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 bra.s.sard, 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 revolution Salonicienne vue de pres, n' est rien. Elle est sans racine, sans lendemain probable. Venizelos est tres amoindri. La Grece, 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 Grece, Haut Commissaire en Crete, aux Quatre Grandes Puissances Protectrices de la Crete, 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.