Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 Part 19

Under such conditions the People's Chosen formed his Ministry (26 June), and nerved himself to face the people. Every preparation for his entry into the capital had been made. Nothing remained but to fix the hour. But this he evaded doing in a manner which puzzled and exasperated the French General. It was the goal towards which they had moved steadily and methodically, step tracing step, through so many weary months-the crown of their joint adventure. Why, then, did he not seize it? Why did he shrink from possession? What did he mean by it? The General did not know. But he felt that it would not do. "M. le President," he said to him, incisively, "Here you are in power; it is up to you to a.s.sume the responsibility. I have the force in my hands, and it is my business to secure your installation in Athens. But I must have your instructions. Tell me what measures you want me to take." The request was a command. M. Venizelos thanked the General effusively, pressing his hands. "After all," he said, "it is certain that people will always say that I did not return to Athens but with the support of the Allies." Finally it was arranged that he should land in the forenoon of 27 June. An ordeal which could not be avoided ought not to be postponed.

At the appointed hour the French troops entered Athens with their machine-guns and occupied the princ.i.p.al points along the route by which M. Venizelos was to proceed, while the vicinity of the Royal Palace where he was to take the oath of office and the interior of it were watched by 400 Cretan gendarmes, his faithful bodyguard, come from Salonica. Notwithstanding all these precautions, M. Venizelos and his Ministers, modestly averse from exposing themselves to the enthusiasm of their fellow-citizens, motored at top speed straight to the Palace, eschewing the central thoroughfares, and thence to the Hotel Grande Bretagne, in the corridors of which also Cretan stalwarts mounted guard. Thanks to this vigilance, as General Regnault observes, the a.s.sa.s.sins whom the Premier and his friends feared to see rise from every street corner, and even in the pa.s.sages of the Palace and hotel, had not materialized. But M. Venizelos, where his own life was concerned, took no chances: a Cretan regiment {205} from Salonica landed that afternoon to replace the foreign battalions.[14]

Towards evening a demonstration organized in the square before the hotel gave M. Venizelos an opportunity of appearing on the balcony and making an eloquent speech. He reminded his hearers how the last warning he had addressed to King Constantine from the balcony of his house ten months ago had been disregarded, and how, in consequence, the part of the nation still healthy had risen to save the rest. The cure thus begun would go on until it had wrought out its accomplishment. In due time a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would be elected to revise the Const.i.tution so as to place beyond peradventure the sovereignty of the people. Meanwhile, the national system had been singularly enfeebled and corrupted by the late autocratic regime: the public services did not do their work as they ought; impurities had crept into the blood; the body politic needed purging. He would put all this right. He would restore the system to vigorous activity. Every impurity would be cleansed from it, and pure, refreshed blood would circulate all over the body politic, giving health to every fibre of the State. As to matters external, he thought it needless to say that the place of Greece was by the side of the Powers who fought for democracy.[15]

The next two days saw this programme at work.

A rupture of relations with the Central Empires, to be followed by a mobilization, marked the end of Greek neutrality. King Alexander, as yet a novice in statecraft, expressed surprise at the inconsistency between these acts and the repeated a.s.surances given to the Greek people. He was told that the accession of M. Venizelos could mean nothing else but war: his Majesty knew it: having accepted Venizelos, he must accept his foreign policy.[16]

Not less was the young king's shock at another act of the new Government-the suspension, by a Royal Decree, of the irremovability of judges which is expressly guaranteed by the Const.i.tution. "They accused my father of {206} violating the Const.i.tution," he said to M. Jonnart, "and the first thing they ask me to do is to violate it." So acute an interpreter of Const.i.tutional Law could have small difficulty in disposing of these scruples. He explained to the young monarch that he could sign the decree without any compunction: the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly which would be elected by and by to revise the Const.i.tution would legitimatize everything. He went on to give him a little, simple lecture on the elements of Const.i.tutional Verity, its theory and its practice: "In a short time," he concluded suavely, "Your Majesty will know on this subject as much as any of your Ministers,"-whenever he experienced the need of further instruction, he only had to call the High Commissioner, who promised to come and solve his perplexities in a trice.[17]

The soundness of the instruction might be questionable. But the source from which it came gave it unquestionable weight.

By the time M. Jonnart left Athens (7 July), he had every reason to feel gratified at the complete success of his efforts. France's protege was installed at the head of the h.e.l.lenic Nation, ready to lead it forth by her side; the regular working of Const.i.tutional inst.i.tutions was a.s.sured; and the foundations of a democratic government were well and truly laid. In all history it would be difficult to find a more signal instance of brute force and bad faith triumphing in the name of Law and Verity.

[1] Reuter, Athens, 16 June, 1917; Jonnart, pp. 137-40.

[2] Jonnart, pp. 147-51, 179-80.

[3] See Art. 4 of the Greek Const.i.tution.

[4] Jonnart, p. 147.

[5] Ibid, p. 160.

[6] Ibid, p. 170.

[7] The New Europe, 29 March, 1917, p. 327.

[8] Jonnart, p. 159.

[9] Sarrail, pp. 102, 153, 234-5. One of their quarrels arose from the fact that General Sarrail claimed entire jurisdiction over the inhabitants of the country, many of whom he had deported to France as suspects and refused to give them up to the courts competent to deal with them.

[10] Reuter, Athens, 21 June, 1917.

[11] Jonnart, p. 161.

[12] Jonnart, pp. 162-73, 180-1.

[13] Jonnart, pp. 176-8, 199-201. The Italians, who had stepped into Epirus, only evacuated it when they made sure that their allies were quitting Thessaly and Attica.

[14] Regnault, pp. 100-2; Jonnart, p. 184; The Morning Post, 29 June, 1917.

[15] Jonnart, pp. 185-90.

[16] Ibid, pp.191-3, 195-6.

[17] Jonnart, pp. 194-5.

{207}

CHAPTER XX

It is not my intention to give a minute and consecutive account of the abnormal state which prevailed in Greece during a period of more than three years. I will, for once, flatter its authors by imitating their summary methods.

M. Venizelos, hating monarchy, yet unable to dispense with it; despising democracy, yet obliged to render it lip-homage; maintained his own unlimited power by the same system of apparent liberty and real violence by which he had attained it. The semblance of a free Const.i.tution was preserved in all its forms: Crown, Parliament, Press, continued to figure as heretofore. But each only served to clothe the skeleton of a dictatorship as absolute as that of any Caesar. King Alexander, without experience or character, weak, frivolous and plastic, obediently signed every decree presented to him. When recourse to the Legislature was thought necessary, the Chamber perfunctorily pa.s.sed every Bill submitted to it. The newspapers were tolerated as long as they refrained from touching on essentials.

At the very opening of Parliament, for so we must call this illegitimate a.s.sembly, the King, in a Speech from the Throne written by M. Venizelos, expounded his master's policy, external and internal. Externally, Greece had "spontaneously offered her feeble forces to that belligerent group whose war aims were to defend the rights of nationalities and the liberties of peoples." [1] Internally, she would have to be purified by the removal of the staunchest adherents of the old regime from positions of trust and influence. But neither of these operations could be carried out save under the reign of terror known as martial law. Parliament, therefore, voted martial law; and M. Venizelos, "irritated by the arbitrary proceedings" {208} of the Opposition, which protested against the restrictions on public opinion, "emphasised the fact that the Government was determined to act with an iron hand and to crush any attempt at reaction." [2]

Never was promise more faithfully kept. Within the Chamber it soon became a parliamentary custom to refute by main force. Sometimes Liberal Deputies volunteered for this service; sometimes it was performed by the Captain of the Premier's Cretan Guard, who of course had no seat in the House, but who held a revolver in his hand.

Out of Parliament the iron hand made itself felt through the length and breadth of the country.

With a view to "purging and uplifting the judiciary body" and "securing Justice from political interference," [3] all the courts were swept clean of Royalist magistrates, whose places were filled with members of the Liberal Party. In this way the pernicious connexion between the judicial and political powers, abolished in 1909-perhaps the most beneficial achievement of the Reconstruction era-was re-established, and Venizelism became an indispensable qualification for going to law with any chance of obtaining justice.

An equally violent pa.s.sion for purity led at the same time, and by a process as unconst.i.tutional as it was uncanonical, to ecclesiastical reforms, whereby the Holy Synod was deposed and an extraordinary disciplinary court was erected to deal with the clerical enemies of the new regime, especially with the prelates who took part in the anathematization of M. Venizelos. Only five bishops were found in Old Greece competent or compliant enough to sit on this tribunal; the other seven came from Macedonia, Crete, and Mytilene, though those dioceses were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose sanction was neither asked nor given. With the exception of six, five of whom belonged to the disciplinary court, all the prelates of the Kingdom were struck by it: some were degraded and turned out to subsist as they might, on charity or by the sale of their holy vestments; others were sentenced to humiliating punishments; and {209} where no plausible excuse for a trial could be discovered, exile or confinement was inflicted arbitrarily. On the other hand, as many as repented received plenary absolution. For instance, the Bishops of Demetrias and Gytheion were deprived for having cursed M. Venizelos; but on promising in future to preach the gospel according to him, they were not only pardoned, but nominated members of the second disciplinary court created to continue the purification of the Church. Even more instructive was the case of the Metropolitan of Castoria who was tried, convicted, and confined in a monastery, but after recanting his political heresies was retried, unanimously acquitted, and reinstated. All this, in the words of the Speech from the Throne, "to restore the prestige of the Church."

Side by side went on the reform of every branch of the Administration. All the Prefects, and many lesser functionaries, were discharged. Schoolmasters and schoolmistresses were dismissed by the hundred. The National University, the National Library, the National Museum, the National Bank, underwent a careful disinfection. In every Department the worst traditions of the spoils system prevalent before 1909 were revived and reinvigorated. Other measures marked an improvement on tradition. Some two thousand Army and Navy officers, from generals and admirals downwards, were put on the retired list or under arrest. And an almost hysterical desire manifested itself to strike terror into every civilian whom his opinions rendered objectionable and his position dangerous to the new order: tactics the full brutality of which was revealed in the treatment of M. Venizelos's princ.i.p.al adversaries.

M. Rufos, a former Cabinet Minister, languished in the Averoff gaol from 1917 until the spring of 1920, when the Athenian newspapers announced his release. About the same time M. Esslin, an ex-President of the Chamber, who had been imprisoned at the age of seventy-eight in the Syngros gaol, was released by death.

All the members of the Skouloudis Cabinet, with the exception of Admiral Coundouriotis, Minister of Marine who had afterwards proved his patriotism by enlisting under the Cretan's banner, were arraigned for high treason, {210} referring mainly to the surrender of Fort Rupel. The preliminary examination dragged on from year to year and produced only evidence which established the innocence of the accused.[4] One of them, ex-Premier Rallis, in April 1920, after being for years libelled as a traitor, suddenly found himself exempted by Royal Decree from further persecution, because at that time M. Venizelos conceived the hope that this statesman might be induced to undertake the leadership of an Opposition accepting his regime. The rest, particularly M. Skouloudis and M. Dragoumis, one aged eighty-two and the other seventy-seven, after a long confinement in the Evangelismos Hospital, remained to the end under strict surveillance, with gendarmes guarding their houses and d.o.g.g.i.ng their footsteps.

The Lambros Cabinet was similarly hara.s.sed, until one of its members turned Venizelist and three others died; among the latter M. Lambros himself and his Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Zalocostas. Both these gentlemen, though in poor health, had been confined on desolate islets of the Archipelago, where they were kept without proper medical attendance or any of the comforts which their condition required, and were only brought home to expire.

In each case-as also in that of the soldiers responsible for the surrender of the Cavalla garrison, whose "treasonable" conduct became likewise the subject of judicial investigation-trial was sedulously deferred by a variety of ingenious contrivances; nothing being more remote from the Government's mind than an intention to draw the truth into the light. The motive of these proceedings doubtless was one of policy chiefly-to ruin the enemies of the regime in public esteem by branding them as traitors, even if no conviction could be obtained. But policy was not the only element. To judge by the harshness displayed, there was the personal factor, too. M. Venizelos had had a feud with these men and had vanquished them. They were men whom, all things considered, it was more a shame to fight than an honour to vanquish-and they were humbled: they were in his power. For a proud spirit that would have been enough; it was not enough for {211} M. Venizelos. He acted as if he wanted to enjoy their humiliation, and because he had them down to profit by their helplessness.

Identical treatment could not be meted out to those in Corsica and Switzerland, though some of them were sentenced to death by default for conspiring against M. Venizelos. But all that could be done from a distance to embitter their lot was done. Whilst at home the blackest calumnies were thrown upon them: in exile they were pursued by the same blight. Special attention was directed to the "arch-traitor." He had been dethroned and expatriated; but this was not enough. His pension was cut off. He and all the members of his family, with the exception of Prince George, who stayed in Paris, were forbidden to visit Entente countries, even for the purpose of attending the death-bed of a relative. Entente subjects visiting Switzerland were forbidden to go near them: lest any particle of the truth should percolate. Until the end of the War they lived segregated, shunned, and spied upon like malefactors. During the Liberal regime in Greece, while Italian and Swiss hotels flourished all the year round on Royalist refugees, Royalist exiles populated the semi-desert islands of the Archipelago: they were gathered in batches and shipped off-persons of every degree, from general officers whose guilt was attachment to their King, down to poor people convicted of owning the King's portrait. For the possession of a portrait of Constantine supplied one of the most common proofs of "ill-will towards the established order" (dysmeneia kafa tou kathestotos)-a new crime invented to meet a new const.i.tutional situation. It extended to the utmost confines of the kingdom. As the farmers were at work in the fields, gendarmes raided and ransacked their cottages for such portraits; butchers and fishmongers were haled before courts-martial for like indications of ill-will; and-matter for laughter and matter for tears are inseparable in modern Greek history (perhaps in all history)-one met a cabman beaten again and again for calling his horse "Cotso" (diminutive of "Constantine"), or a woman dragged to the police-station because her parrot was heard whistling the Constantine March. Volumes would be needed to record the petty persecutions which arose from {212} the use of that popular name: suffice it to say that prudent parents refrained from giving it to their children.

If enemies had to be frightened by every exhibition of severity, it was not less imperative to gratify friends by every mark of generosity. As already noted, a Mixed Commission had been appointed under the old regime to indemnify out of the public purse the Venizelists who suffered during the Athens disturbances of 1 and 2 December, 1916. This body, after the expulsion of the King, was remodelled by the subst.i.tution of a Venizelist for the Royalist Greek member; was authorized to enlarge its purview so as to cover all losses occasioned, directly or indirectly, by Royalist resentment throughout the Kingdom throughout the six months' blockade-including even the cases of persons who, compelled to flee the country, were torpedoed in the course of their voyage; and was invested with powers of deciding unfettered by any legislation or by any obligation to give reasons for its decisions. Thanks to their unlimited scope and discretion, the Commissioners, after rejecting some 2,500 claims as fraudulent, were still able to admit 3,350 claims and to allot damages representing a total sum of just under seven million drachmas.[5]

The number of old adherents confirmed in the faith through this expedient, however, was as nothing to the legions of proselytes won by the creation of new Government posts of every grade in every part of the Kingdom, by the facilities afforded in the transaction of all business over which the State had any control-which under existing conditions meant all important business-and by the favours of various sorts that were certain to reward devotion to the cause. Beside the steadily growing swarm of native parasites, profiteers, jobbers and adventurers who throve on the spoils of the public, marched a less numerous, but not less ravenous, host of foreign financiers, concession and contract hunters, to whom the interests of the State were freely bartered for support to the party in the Entente capitals.

The economic exhaustion caused by this reckless waste of national wealth, in addition to the necessary war {213} expenditure, was concealed at the time partly by credits furnished to M. Venizelos in Paris and London, and partly by an artificial manipulation of the exchange for his sake. It became apparent when these political influences ceased to interfere with the normal working of financial laws. Then the Greek exchange, which at the outbreak of the European War stood at 26 or 27 drachmas to the pound sterling, and later was actually against London, dropped to 65, and by a rapid descent reached the level of 155. Thus in the domain of finance, as in every other, the valuable reconstructive achievement of 1909-which had led to the transformation of a deficit of from ten to twelve millions into a surplus of fifteen millions and to the acc.u.mulation of deposits that enabled the Greek exchange to withstand the shock of several conflicts-was demolished by its own architect.

The illusion that M. Venizelos had the nation behind him was diligently kept up by periodical demonstrations organized on his behalf: joy bells announced to the Athenians his home-comings from abroad, the dest.i.tute refugees harboured at the Piraeus were given some pocket money and a free ticket to attend him up to the capital, the cafes at the bidding of the police disgorged their loafers into the streets, and the army of genuine partisans thus augmented with auxiliaries, accorded their Chief a reception calculated to impress newspaper readers in France and England. But observers on the spot knew that the "national enthusiasm" was as hollow as a drum, which under the manipulation of an energetic minority could be made to emit a considerable amount of noise; that the demonstrators to a large extent were a stage crowd which could be moved rapidly from place to place and round the same place repeatedly; that since the schism the great Cretan had loomed small in his own country and that he had grown less by his elevation.

Such terrorism of opponents and favouritism of adherents; such encouragement of oppression and connivance at corruption; such a prost.i.tution of justice; such a cynical indifference to all moral principle-unparalleled even in the history of Greece-could not but make the Cretan's rule both odious and despicable. What made it more hateful still in the eyes of the people was the fact {214} that it had been imposed upon them by foreign arms, and what made it more contemptible still was the fact that it functioned under false pretences. As free men, the Greeks resented the violence done to their liberty; but as intelligent men they would have resented open violence less than a profanation of the name of liberty that added mockery to injury and administered a daily affront to their intelligence. There was yet a spirit of resistance in the country which would not be crushed, and a fund of good sense which could not be deceived. If they formerly anathematized M. Venizelos as a traitor, the ma.s.ses now execrated him as a tyrant: a mean and crafty bully without bowels of mercy who gave licence to his followers to commit every species of oppression and exploitation in the interest of party.

Such were the feelings with which the very name of Venizelos inspired the ma.s.s of the people. And that the ma.s.s of the people was in the main right can scarcely be contested. It would, of course, be absurd to hold M. Venizelos directly responsible for every individual act of oppression and corruption, most of which occurred during his absences from the country and of which he was not cognizant. But it was he who had initiated both oppression and corruption. M. Jonnart's prescriptive lists were really M. Venizelos's, who had long since made his own enemies pa.s.s for enemies to the Entente. The "purification" of the public services, as well as the prosecutions, the imprisonments and deportations of eminent personages, some of whom died of the hardships and privations they underwent, were his own doing. The multiplication of offices and officials began with his creation, at the very outset, of two new Ministries; a measure to which even King Alexander demurred when the list of M. Venizelos's Cabinet was presented to him.[6] Nor is there upon record a single case in which the Chief seriously attempted either to restrain or to punish his subordinates. In truth, he was not free to do so. He was bound to the system he had brought into being and was irretrievably committed to all its works.

A man who gains supreme power against the wishes of {215} the majority, and only with the consent of a faction, cannot maintain himself in it except by force and bribery. He must coerce and corrupt. Moreover, to rule without a rival, he must surround himself with men vastly inferior to him both in talent and in virtue: men who, in return for their obsequious servility, must be humoured and satisfied. Whenever such a usurpation occurs, all the maxims upon which the welfare and freedom of a community normally rest are annihilated, and the reign of profligacy and of tyranny inevitably supervenes: a regime born in party pa.s.sion must live for purely party ends.

We may break or circ.u.mvent all laws, save the eternal and immutable law of cause and effect.[7]

The best of M. Venizelos's followers sincerely regretted the unceasing persecution of their adversaries: they saw that stability could not be attained without conciliation and co-operation; but they did not see how clemency could be combined with safety. The thousands of officers and officials who had been turned out of their posts, and the politicians who were kept out of office found employment, and the private individuals who had suffered for their "ill-will towards the established order" relief in plotting and intriguing: there was so much unrest that the authorities had to use severe measures.

M. Venizelos himself wished to make his administration milder and cleaner and to broaden its basis-he was even credited with the one joke of his life in this connexion: "I will yet head anti-Venizelism." But the thing was beyond his power: he had not a sufficient following in the country to replace armed force; and he dared not trust the Royalists with a share in the government for fear lest they should use it against him. None, indeed, was more painfully conscious of the hate for him which every month increased in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of his countrymen than M. Venizelos himself. From the very beginning of the schism he had a.s.sumed a prophylactic in the form of a cuira.s.s;[8] and since his installation he neglected none of {216} the precautions requisite for his personal security. During his rare sojourns in Athens he always went about escorted by his Cretan guards; while on the roof of a building facing his house stood two machine-guns, "for," as a witty Athenian informed an inquisitive stranger, "the protection of minorities."