The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—TurkeyHogarth, D. G. (David George)
History
The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Hogarth, D. G. (David George)
Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
mutiny, during which the country lay paralysed, with no programme
whatsoever before it.
Then the man demanded by the situation appeared unexpectedly from the
centre of disturbance, Krete. Venezelos started life as a successful
advocate at Canea. He entered Kretan politics in the struggle for
constitutionalism, and distinguished himself in the successful
revolution of 1906, of which he was the soul. Naturally, he became one
of the leading statesmen under Zaimis’ régime, and he further
distinguished himself by resolutely opposing the ‘Unionist’ agitation
as premature, and yet retaining his hold over a people whose paramount
political preoccupation was their national unity. The crisis of 1908-9
brought him into close relations with the government of the Greek
kingdom; and the king, who had gauged his calibre, now took the
patriotic step of calling in the man who had expelled his son from
Krete, to put his own house in order. It speaks much for both men that
they worked together in harmony from the beginning. Upon the royal
invitation Venezelos exchanged Kretan for Greek citizenship, and took
in hand the ‘Military League’. After short negotiations, he persuaded
it to dissolve in favour of a national convention, which was able to
meet in March 1910.
Thus Greece became a constitutional country once more, and Venezelos
the first premier of the new era. During five years of continuous
office he was to prove himself the good genius of his country. When he
resigned his post in April 1915, he left the work of consolidating the
national state on the verge of completion, and it will be his country’s
loss if he is baulked of achievement. Results speak for themselves, and
the remainder of this pamphlet will be little more than a record of his
statesmanship; but before we pass on to review his deeds, we must say a
word about the character to which they are due. In March 1912 the time
came for the first general election since Venezelos had taken office.
Two years’ experience of his administration had already won him such
popularity and prestige, that the old party groups, purely personal
followings infected with all the corruption, jingoism, and insincerity
of the dark fifteen years, leagued themselves in a desperate effort to
cast him out. Corruption on a grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos’
success at the polls was sweeping. The writer happened to be spending
that month in Krete. The Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in
good time to the parliament at Athens, and once more the foreign
warships stopped them in the act of boarding the steamer for Peiraeus,
while Venezelos, who was still responsible for the Greek Government
till the new parliament met, had declared with characteristic frankness
that the attendance of the Kretan deputies could not possibly be
sanctioned, an opening of which his opponents did not fail to take
advantage. Meanwhile, every one in Krete was awaiting news of the
polling in the kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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