Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States

Eleftherios Venizelos: The program of his foreign policy

ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS: THE PROGRAM OF HIS FOREIGN POLICY Title: Τό πρόγραμμα τyς dξωτερικyς αšτο™ πολιτικyς (The program of his foreign policy) Originally published: Appendix to the newspaper Πατρίς (Motherland), Athens , 1915 Language: Greek The excerpts used are from the original. About the author Eleftherios Venizelos: [1864, Mournies (the island of Crete) – 1936, Paris]: the most prominent Greek politician of the twentieth century. He was born to a well-off merchant family. He completed his secondary education in Chania (Tur. Hanya) in Crete. His father reluctantly sent him to study at the School of Law in Athens, from which young Eleftherios graduated in 1866 and returned to Crete. He was immediately involved in politics and soon elected deputy in the Parliament of what was then the autonomous Cretan polity under Ottoman suzerainty where he demonstrated his rhetoric mastery and political instinct. In 1905, he was the leading figure of the Therissos uprising, the most important among a series of similar revolts, fueled by the conflict between Christians and Muslims. In September 1908, following the Young Turk revolution, the Cretan Congress unilaterally declared the annexation of the Cretan polity to the Hellenic Kingdom. In the newly established cabinet, Venizelos participated as a foreign minister. Finally, in April 1910, he was elected president of the Congress and thus prime minister. In August 1910, following the ‘Goudi movement’ in Athens, he was invited by the ‘Military League,’ the secret society behind the coup, to take over as a prime minister of the Hellenic Kingdom. After the successful Balkan Wars in 1912–1913 his popularity increased immensely. The rivalry, however , and the eventual break with King Constantine, led Greek society to extremely high tension. In August 1920, with the Sèvres Treaty, Venizelos accomplished his vision of a Greece that extended between ‘two continents and five seas.’ However, on his way back to Greece, royalist officers attacked him at the Lyon train station. He survived the attempted murder and returned to Greece, where he dissolved the Parliament and proclaimed elections for 1 November. However, his Liberal Party was defeated and Venizelos was not even elected as a deputy, upon which, he decided to quit politics and leave for Paris. He returned when he was asked by the leaders of the military coup following the Asia Minor defeat, in September 1922 (see ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS: THE PROGRAM OF HIS FOREIGN POLICY 259 Alexandros Papanastasiou, The republican manifesto) to lead the Greek delegation to the negotiations at the Lausanne conference. He returned to politics in July 1928, after the Republic had been declared and after the Liberal Party had been divided. In the election of 19 August 1928, Venizelos achieved an overwhelming majority and governed until 1932. During this period, unlike the period between 1910 and 1915, he pursued an extremely anti-popular policy, demonstrated mainly by the new labor legislation. At the same time, in 1930, he signed a pact of friendship with the Turkish prime minister, İsmet İnönü, thus initiating a period of peace between the two countries . In 1935, after a series of failed military coups, he attempted to take over power, relying upon his supporters in the army. After he failed, he was forced to leave for Paris, where he died a year later. Venizelos’s impact on Greek political life was immense . The term bενιζελισμός (Venizelism), used to describe his domestic policy, was identified with bourgeois modernization supported by state interventionism. In ideological terms, it is significant to stress that the split between Venizelists and Royalists formed an ideological cleavage which influenced Greek political life until well after the Second World War. Moreover, many Venizelist officers and civilians joined the Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο (National liberation front), which during the Second World War gradually developed into a communist movement. Thus, the ensuing conflict between communists and royalists reproduced, to some extent, the previous political rivalry. In 2000, Venizelos was proclaimed by the Greek public the Greek politician of the century. Main works: La politique de la Grèce: ouvrage contenant les discours prononcés par l'homme d'état aux séances historiques du Parlement hellénique (octobre et novembre 1915): le traité Greco-Serbe, le péril Bulgare, la Grèce, l'entente et les puissances centrales, l'expédition des Dardanelles, la politique intérieure (1916) ; FÇ FÅλληνοτουρκική συμφωνία καί α ßπροσφυγικαί Pποζημιώσεις: Δύο ßστορικαί Pγορεύσεις το™ Πρωθυπουργο™ κ. Βενιζέλου [The Greco-Turkish treaty and compensation for the refugees: two historic speeches by Prime Minister Venizelos] (1930) ; Ποιοί οj ›πεύθυνοι διά τήν Μικρασιατικήν Καταστροφήν: τά n Pπώτερα αnτια τ§ν σημεριν§ν οkκονομικ§ν μας δυσχερει§ν: τρεsς jστορικαί Pγορεύσεις [Who are responsible for the Asia Minor disaster: The ulterior causes of...