Greece (5)

Some History of Greece in WW1
Eleutherios Venizelos, the prime minister of Greece, who tried to get that country to stand by her bargain from Crete with Serbia. Now Venizelos had originally come from Crete, a large island inhabited by Greeks, but controlled by Turkey for many years. In 1897 the Turks
had massacred a number of Greek Christians on the island, and this act
had so enraged the inhabitants of Greece that they forced their king
to declare war on Turkey.

Poor little Greece was quickly defeated, but the war called the
attention of the Great Powers of Europe to the cruelties of the Turks,
and they never again allowed Crete to be wholly governed by them. For
over a year Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy had their
warships in Cretan ports and the government of Crete was under their
protection.

Finally they called in, to rule over the island, a Greek prince,
Constantine, the son of the king. Eight years later he had become very
unpopular through meddling with Cretan politics--on the wrong
side--and had to leave.

The It was at this time that Venizelos came to the front. The Cretan
government was really independent, like a little kingdom without a
king, and he was its true ruler. Now all the Greeks had looked forward
to the time when they might be united in one great kingdom. The shores
of Asia Minor and the cities along the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles
were largely inhabited by Greeks. Crete and the islands of the Aegean
had once been part of Greece and they never would be content until
they were again joined to it. The Cretan government was ready to vote
that the island be annexed to Greece, when in 1908 there came the
revolution of the "Young Turks" which drove the old Sultan from his
throne.

The Young Turks at the outset of their crusade against the government
were tolerant to all the other races and religions in their country.
At first the Armenians, the Jews, the Albanians, the Greeks, and the
Bulgarians in the Turkish Empire were very happy over the result of
the revolution. It looked as if a new day were dawning for Turkey,
when it would be possible for these various races and different
religions to live side by side in peace.

No sooner were the young Turks in control of the government, however,
than they began to change. "Turkey for the Turks, and for the Turks
only" became their motto. With this in mind they massacred Bulgarians
and Greeks in Macedonia (page 85) and Armenians in Asia Minor.
The thought of the loss of Crete roused their anger and they began
scheming to get it back under Turkish rule.

In 1910 Venizelos, seeing the danger of his beloved island, left for
Greece, hoping there to stir up the people to oppose the Turks and
annex Crete. His wonderful eloquence and his single-hearted love for
his country soon made him as prominent on the mainland as he had been
in his island home. Before long he was chosen as prime minister of
Greece.

He found the country in a very sad condition. The military officers
were poorly trained. What was worse, they did not know this, but
imagined that their army was the best in the world. The politicians
had plundered the people and there was graft and poor management
throughout the government.

Venizelos made a wonderful change. He sent to the French republic for
some of their best generals. These men thoroughly made over the Greek
army and taught the Greek officers the real science of war.

Venizelos soon showed the politicians that he could not be frightened,
controlled, or bribed. He discharged some incompetent officials and
forced the others to attend to business. In fact he reorganized the
whole government service in a way to make every department do better
work. Few countries in Europe were as well managed as was Greece with
Venizelos as its prime minister.

Every Greek hates the Turks and looks forward to the time when no man
of Greek descent shall be subject to their cruel rule. You have been
told how the Russians have looked forward to the day when Saint
Sophia, the great mosque of the Turks, shall once more become a
Christian cathedral. In the same way the Greeks have passionately
desired to see Constantinople, which was for over a thousand years the
capital of their empire, freed from the control of the Turk. Little by little, from the time when the Greeks first won their independence
from Turkey in 1829, the boundary of their kingdom has been pushed
northward, freeing more and more of their people from the rule of the
Ottomans. Venizelos, aiming to include in the kingdom of Greece as
many as possible of the people of Greek blood, was scheming night and
day for the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe. You have been
told how the Russian diplomats astonished the world by inducing
Bulgaria to unite with the Greeks and the Serbs, two nations for whom
she had no love, in an alliance against the Turks. Many people felt
that this combination would never have been possible without the
far-seeing wisdom of of Venizelos. In fact, some historians give him
the credit of first planning the alliance.

His greatest trouble was with his own countrymen. The Greeks, as you
have been told, have always claimed Macedonia as part of their
country, whereas, in truth, there are more Bulgarians than Greeks
among its inhabitants. Venizelos, having agreed before the attack on
Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria,
had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this
was fair. In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district
proved the one weak spot in the combination. The occupation of this
country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against
Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just
northwest of Constantinople, brought on the second war. Bulgaria was
not willing to give up Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, and her
troops made a treacherous attack on her former allies (June, 1913)
which brought on the declarations of war referred to.