Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos (Greek: Ελευθέριος Κυριάκου Βενιζέλος, romanized: Eleuthérios Kyriákou Venizélos, pronounced [elefˈθeri.os cirˈʝaku veniˈzelos]; 23 August [O.S. 11 August] 1864 – 18 March 1936) was a Cretan Greek statesman and prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movement. As the leader of the Liberal Party, Venizelos served as prime minister of Greece for over 12 years, spanning eight terms from 1910 to 1933.
A prominent figure of the 1897 Cretan Revolt, Venizelos first made his mark on the international stage with his leading role in securing the autonomy of the Cretan State, and later in the island's union with Greece. He led the Theriso revolt in 1905 and the declaration of union with Greece following the Young Turk Revolution. In 1909, he was invited to Athens to resolve the political deadlock and became Prime Minister. He initiated constitutional and economic reforms that set the basis for the modernization of Greek society, culminating in the transformative 1911 Constitution, and of the Greek Army and the Greek Navy in preparation for future conflicts. Before the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Venizelos' catalytic role helped Greece to gain entrance to the Balkan League, an alliance of the Balkan states against the Ottoman Empire. Through his diplomatic acumen with the Great Powers and with the other Balkan countries, Greece doubled its area and population with the liberation of Macedonia, Epirus, and most of the Aegean islands.
In World War I (1914–1918), he brought Greece on the side of the Allies, further expanding the Greek borders. However, his pro-Allied foreign policy brought him into conflict with the nonaligned faction of Constantine I of Greece, causing the National Schism of the 1910s. The Schism became an unofficial civil war of the pro-Venizelos northern provisional government and the pro-royal government of Athens, with the struggle for power between them polarizing the population between the royalists and Venizelists for decades. Following the Allied victory, Venizelos secured new territorial concessions in Western Anatolia and Thrace in an attempt to accomplish the Megali Idea, which would have united all Greek-speaking people along the Aegean Sea under the banner of Greece. He was, however, defeated in the 1920 General Election, which contributed to the eventual Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). Venizelos, in self-imposed exile, represented Greece in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne and the agreement of a mutual population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
As a leading figure of the Second Republic, Venizelos returned to active politics with a landslide victory in the 1928 elections. His final tenure focused on improving relations with Turkey, resettlement policies for refugees from Asia Minor, anti-communism and responding to the Great Depression. After electoral defeats in 1932 and 1933, In January of that year, Venizelos became prime minister for the last time, before a failed coup attempt tried to keep him in power. In March 1935, after a second coup attempt, he was sentenced to death in absentia, after having fled to Paris, where he died.
Under his leadership, Greece underwent profound modernization through liberal-democratic policies. His diplomatic and military efforts expanded Greece's territory, marking a shift in the country's orientation from East to West. Venizelos achieved international fame in his lifetime, and is often called "The Maker of Modern Greece" for his transformative role. His legacy as the "Ethnarch" continues to endure.
Origins and personal life
Ancestry
Historians disagree on the exact ancestry of Venizelos. Chester and Kerofilas, contemporary historians and Venizelos' biographers, stated that the 18th century ancestors of Venizelos, under the surname of Cravvatas, lived in Mystras, in southern Peloponnese. In the Ottoman raids in the peninsula in 1770, a member of the Cravvatas family (Venizelos Cravvatas), the youngest of several brothers, managed to escape and established himself in Crete. His sons abandoned the patronymic name and called themselves Venizelos instead. However, during the National Schism, politician Konstantinos Krevattas denied that his family had any relation to Venizelos. In a letter to a Cretan partner, Venizelos wrote that his father Kyriakos had taken part in the siege of Monemvasia in 1821 with his brother Hatzinikolos Venizelos and three more brothers, suggesting that his grandfather probably was Hatzipetros Venizelos, a merchant from Kythira. Michael Llewellyn-Smith stated in a 2022 biography that Venizelos' father was "born in Crete, in or around 1810, to a family from the Peloponnese." Venizelos' mother, Styliani Ploumidakis, descended from the village of Theriso in Crete, from a well-respected family partly because it was (distant) related to a prominent 1821 revolution general Vasilios Chalis.
Early life and education
On 23 August [O.S. 11 August] 1864, Venizelos was born in Mournies, near Chania (formerly known as Canea) in then Ottoman Crete, to Kyriakos Venizelos, a Cretan merchant and revolutionary, and Styliani Ploumidaki. When the Cretan revolution of 1866 broke out, Venizelos' family fled to the island of Kythira due to the participation of his father in the revolution. After three years and the revolt ended, the family of Venizelos moved to the island of Syros. They were not allowed to return to Crete and stayed in Syros until 1872, when Abdülaziz granted an amnesty.
He spent his final year of secondary education at a school in Ermoupolis, the principal town of Syros, from which he received his certificate in 1880. In 1881, he enrolled at the University of Athens Law School and got his degree in Law with excellent grades. He returned to Crete in 1886 and worked as a lawyer in Chania. Throughout his life, he maintained a passion for reading and was constantly improving his skills in English, Italian, German, and French.
Later life
In December 1891, Venizelos married Maria Katelouzou, daughter of Eleftherios Katelouzos. The newlyweds lived on the upper floor of the Chalepa house, while Venizelos' mother and his brother and sisters lived on the ground floor. There, they enjoyed the happy moments of their marriage and also had the birth of their two children, Kyriakos Venizelos in 1892 and Sofoklis in 1894. Their married life was short and marked by misfortune. Maria died of post-puerperal fever in November 1894 after the birth of their second child. Her death deeply affected Venizelos, and as a sign of mourning, he grew his characteristic beard and mustache, which he retained for the rest of his life.
After his defeat in the November elections of 1920, he left for Nice and Paris in self-imposed exile. In September 1921, twenty-seven years after the death of his first wife, Maria, he married Helena Schilizzi (sometimes referred to as Elena Skylitsi or Stephanovich) in London. Advised by police to be wary of assassination attempts, they held the religious ceremony in private at Witanhurst, the mansion of a family friend and socialite Lady Domini Crosfield. The Crosfields were well connected and Venizelos met Arthur Balfour, David Lloyd George and the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff in subsequent visits to the house.
The married couple settled down in Paris in a flat at 22 rue Beaujon. He lived there until 1927, when he returned to Chania.
Political career in Crete
The situation in Crete during Venizelos' early years was fluid. The Ottoman Empire was undermining the reforms, which were made under international pressure, while the Cretans desired to see the Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, abandon "the ungrateful infidels". Under these unstable conditions, Venizelos entered politics in the elections of 2 April 1889 as a member of the island's liberal party. As a deputy, he was distinguished for his eloquence and radical opinions.
Cretan uprising
Background
The numerous revolutions in Crete, during and after the Greek War of Independence (1821, 1833, 1841, 1858, 1866, 1878, 1889, 1895, 1897) were the result of the Cretans' desire for enosis — union with Greece. In the Cretan revolution of 1866, the two sides, under the pressure of the Great Powers, came to an agreement, which was finalized in the Pact of Chalepa. Later the Pact was included in the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin, which was supplementing previous concessions granted to the Cretans — e.g. the Organic Law Constitution (1868) designed by William James Stillman. In summary, the Pact granted a large degree of self-government to Greeks in Crete as a means of limiting their desire to rise up against their Ottoman overlords. However the Muslims of Crete, who identified with Ottoman Empire, were not satisfied with these reforms, as in their view the administration of the island was delivered to the hands of the Christian Greek population. In practice, the Ottoman Empire failed to enforce the provisions of the Pact, thus fueling the existing tensions between the two communities; instead, the Ottoman authorities attempted to maintain order by dispatching substantial military reinforcements during 1880–1896. Throughout that period, the Cretan Question was a major issue of friction in the relations of independent Greece with the Ottoman Empire.
In January 1897, violence and disorder escalated on the island, thus polarizing the population. Massacres against the Christian population took place in Chania and Rethimno. The Greek government, pressured by public opinion, intransigent political elements, extreme nationalist groups such as Ethniki Etaireia, and the reluctance of the Great Powers to intervene, decided to send warships and army personnel to defend the Cretan Greeks. The Great Powers had no option then but to proceed with the occupation of the island, but they were late. A Greek force of about 2,000 men had landed at Kolymbari on 3 February 1897, and its commanding officer, Colonel Timoleon Vassos declared that he was taking over the island "in the name of the King of the Hellenes" and that he was announcing the union of Crete with Greece.This led to an uprising that spread immediately throughout the island. The Great Powers decided to blockade Crete with their fleets and land their troops, thus stopping the Greek army from approaching Chania.
Events at Akrotiri
Venizelos, at that time, was on an electoral tour of the island. Once he "saw Canea in flames", he hurried to Malaxa, near Chania, where a group of about 2,000 rebels had assembled and established himself as their leader. He proposed an attack, along with other rebels, on the Turkish forces at Akrotiri to displace them from the plains (Malaxa is at a higher altitude). Venizelos' subsequent actions at Akrotiri form a central set-piece in his myth. People composed poems on Akrotiri and his role there; editorials and articles spoke about his bravery, visions, and diplomatic genius as the inevitable accompaniment of later greatness. Venizelos spent the night in Akrotiri and a Greek flag was raised. The Ottoman forces requested help from the foreign admirals and attacked the rebels, with the ships of the Great Powers bombarding the rebel positions at Akrotiri. A shell threw down the flag, which was raised up again immediately. The mythologizing became more pronounced when we come to his actions in that February, as the following quotes display:
On 20th of February [he] was ordered by the admirals to lower the flag and disband his rebel force. He refused!
Venizelos turned towards the port of Souda, where the warships were anchored, and explained: "You have cannon-balls – fire away! But our flag will not come down" ... [after the flag was hit] Venizelos ran forward; his friends stopped him; why expose a valuable life so uselessly?
There was that famous day in February 1897 when ... he rejected the orders of the Protecting Powers and in the picturesque phrase in the Greek newspapers "defied the navies of Europe"
Under the smooth diplomat of today is the revolutionist who prodded the Turks out of Crete and the bold chieftain who camped with a little band of rebels on a hilltop above Canea and there he defied the consuls and the fleets of all the [Great] Powers!
On the same evening of the bombardment, Venizelos wrote a protest to the foreign admirals, which was signed by all the chieftains present at Akrotiri. He wrote that the rebels would keep their positions until everyone was killed by the shells of European warships in order not to let the Turks remain in Crete. The letter was deliberately leaked to international newspapers, evoking emotional reactions in Greece and in Europe, where the idea of Christians, who wanted their freedom, being bombarded by Christian vessels, caused popular indignation. Throughout Western Europe much popular sympathy for the cause of the Christians in Crete was manifested, and much popular applause was bestowed on the Greeks.
War in Thessaly
The Great Powers sent a verbal note on 2 March to the governments of Greece and the Ottoman Empire, presenting a possible solution to the "Cretan Question", under which Crete to become an autonomous state under the suzerainty of the Sultan. The Porte replied on 5 March, accepting the proposals in principle, but on 8 March the Greek government rejected the proposal as a non-satisfactory solution and instead insisted on the union of Crete with Greece as the only solution.
As a representative of the Cretan rebels, Venizelos met the admirals of the Great Powers on a Russian warship on 7 March 1897. Even though no progress was made at the meeting, he persuaded the admirals to send him on a tour of the island, under their protection, in order to explore the people's opinions on the question of autonomy versus union. At the time, the majority of the Cretan population initially supported the union, but the subsequent events in Thessaly turned the public opinion towards autonomy as an intermediate step.
In reaction to the rebellion of Crete and the assistance sent by Greece, the Ottomans had relocated a significant part of their army in the Balkans to the north of Thessaly, close to the borders with Greece. Greece in reply reinforced its borders in Thessaly. However, irregular Greek forces, who were members of the Ethniki Etairia (followers of the Megali Idea) acted without orders and raided Turkish outposts, leading the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Greece on 17 April. The war was a disaster for Greece. The Turkish army was better prepared, in large part due to the recent reforms carried out by a German mission under Baron von der Goltz, and the Greek army was in retreat within weeks. The Great Powers again intervened, and an armistice was signed in May 1897.
Conclusion
The defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish war, costing small territorial losses at the borderline in northern Thessaly and an indemnity of £4,000,000, turned into a diplomatic victory. The Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia, and Italy), following the massacre of Greeks in Heraklion on 6 September, imposed a final solution on the "Cretan Question"; Crete was proclaimed an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty.
Venizelos played an important role in this solution, not only as the leader of the Cretan rebels but also as a skilled diplomat with his frequent communication with the admirals of the Great Powers. The four Great Powers assumed the administration of Crete; and Prince George of Greece, the second son of King George I of Greece, became High Commissioner, with Venizelos serving as his minister of Justice from 1899 to 1901.
Autonomous Cretan State
Prince George of Greece was appointed High Commissioner of the Cretan State for a three-year term. On 13 December 1898, he arrived at Chania, where he received an unprecedented reception. On 27 April 1899, the High Commissioner created an Executive Committee composed of the Cretan leaders. Venizelos became minister of Justice, and with the rest of the Committee, they began to organize the State and create a "Cretan constitution". Venizelos insisted on not making reference to religion so all the residents of Crete would feel represented. For his stance, he was later accused of pro-Turk (pro-Muslim) by his political opponents on the island.
After Venizelos submitted the complete juridical legislation on 18 May 1900, disagreements between him and Prince George began to emerge. Prince George decided to travel to Europe and announced to the Cretan population that "When I am traveling in Europe, I shall ask the Powers for annexation, and I hope to succeed on account of my family connections". The statement reached the public without the knowledge or approval of the Committee. Venizelos said to the Prince that it would not be proper to give hope to the population for something that was not feasible at the given moment. As Venizelos had expected, during the Prince's journey, the Great Powers rejected his request.
The disagreements continued on other topics; the Prince wanted to build a palace, but Venizelos strongly opposed it as that would mean the perpetuation of the current arrangement of Governorship; Cretans accepted it only as temporary until a final solution was found. Relations between the two men became increasingly soured, and Venizelos repeatedly submitted his resignation.
In a meeting of the Executive Committee, Venizelos expressed his opinion that the island was not autonomous since the military forces of the Great Powers were still present and that the Great Powers were governing through their representative, the Prince. Venizelos suggested that once the Prince's service expired, then the Great Powers should be invited to the Committee, which, according to article 39 of the constitution (which was suppressed in the conference of Rome) would elect a new sovereign, thereby removing the need for the presence of the Great Powers. Once the Great Powers' troops and their representatives left the island, the union with Greece would be easier to achieve. This proposal was exploited by Venizelos' opponents, who accused him of wanting Crete to be an autonomous hegemony. Venizelos replied to the accusations by submitting his resignation once again, with the reasoning that it would be impossible henceforth to collaborate with the Committee's members; he assured the Commissioner, however, that he did not intend to join the opposition.
On 6 March 1901, in a report, he exposed the reasons that compelled him to resign to the High Commissioner, which was, however, leaked to the press. On 20 March, Venizelos was dismissed because "he, without any authorization, publicly supported opinions opposite of those of the Commissioner". Henceforth, Venizelos assumed the leadership of the opposition to the Prince. For the next three years, he carried out a hard political conflict until the administration was virtually paralyzed, and tensions dominated the island. Inevitably, these events led in March 1905 to the Theriso Revolution, whose leader he was.
Revolution of Theriso
On 10 March 1905, the rebels gathered in Theriso and declared "the political union of Crete with Greece as a single free constitutional state". The resolution was given to the Great Powers, where it was argued that the illegitimate provisional arrangement was preventing the island's economic growth and that the only logical solution to the "Cretan Question" was the unification with Greece. The High Commissioner, with the approval of the Great Powers, replied to the rebels that military force would be used against them. However, more deputies joined with Venizelos in Theriso. The Great Powers' consuls met with Venizelos in Mournies in an attempt to achieve an agreement, but without any results.
The revolutionary government asked that Crete be granted a regime similar to that of Eastern Rumelia. On 18 July, the Great Powers declared martial law, but that did not discourage the rebels. On 15 August, the regular assembly in Chania voted in favor of most of the reforms that Venizelos proposed. The Great Powers' consuls met Venizelos again and accepted his proposed reforms. This led to the end of the Theriso revolt and to the resignation of Prince George as the High Commissioner. The Great Powers assigned the authority for selecting the island's new High Commissioner to King George I of Greece, thereby de facto nullifying the Ottoman suzerainty. An ex-Prime Minister of Greece, Alexandros Zaimis, was chosen for the place of High Commissioner, and Greek officers and non-commissioned officers were allowed to undertake the organization of the Cretan Gendarmerie. As soon as the Gendarmerie was organized, the foreign troops began to withdraw from the island. This was also a personal victory for Venizelos, who, as a result, achieved fame not only in Greece but also in Europe.
Following the Young Turk Revolution, which Venizelos welcomed, Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire on 5 October 1908, and one day later Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria announced the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Encouraged by these events, on the same day, the Cretans, in turn, rose up. On that day, thousands of citizens in Chania and the surrounding regions formed a rally in which Venizelos declared the union of Crete with Greece. Having communicated with the government of Athens, Zaimis left for Athens before the rally.
An assembly was convened and declared the independence of Crete. The civil servants were sworn in the name of King George I of Greece, while a five-member Executive Committee was established, with the authority to control the island on behalf of the King and according to the laws of the Greek state. Chairman of the committee was Antonios Michelidakis, and Venizelos became Minister of Justice and Foreign Affairs. In April 1910, a new assembly was convened, and Venizelos was elected chairman and then Prime Minister. All foreign troops departed from Crete, and power was transferred entirely to Venizelos' government.
Political career in Greece
Goudi military revolution of 1909
In May 1909, a number of officers in the Greek army emulating the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress, sought to reform their country's national government and reorganize the army, thus creating the Military League. The League, in August 1909, camped in the Athenian suburb of Goudi with their supporters, forcing the government of Dimitrios Rallis to resign, and a new one was formed with Kiriakoulis Mavromichalis. An inaugurating period of direct military pressure upon the Chamber followed, but initial public support for the League quickly evaporated when it became apparent that the officers did not know how to implement their demands. The political dead-end remained until the League invited Venizelos from Crete to undertake the leadership.
Venizelos went to Athens, and after consulting with the Military League and with representatives of the political world, he proposed a new government and Parliament's reformation. His proposals were considered by the King and the Greek politicians dangerous for the political establishment. However, King George I, fearing an escalation of the crisis, convened a council with political leaders and recommended they accept Venizelos' proposals. After many postponements, the King agreed to assign Stephanos Dragoumis (Venizelos' indication) to form a new government that would lead the country to elections once the League was disbanded. In the elections of 8 August 1910, almost half the seats in the parliament were won by Independents, who were newcomers to the Greek political scene. Venizelos, despite doubts as to the validity of his Greek citizenship and without having campaigned in person, finished at the top of the electoral list in Attica. He was immediately recognized as the leader of the independents, and thus, he founded the political party, Komma Fileleftheron (Liberal Party). Soon after his election, he decided to call for new elections in the hope of winning an absolute majority. The old parties boycotted the new election in protest and on 11 December 1910, Venizelos' party won 307 seats out of 362, with most of the elected citizens being new in the political scene. Venizelos formed a government and started to reorganize the economic, political, and national affairs of the country.
Reforms in 1910–1914
Venizelos tried to advance his reform program in the realms of political and social ideologies, education, and literature by adopting practically viable compromises between often conflicting tendencies. In education, for example, the dynamic current in favor of the use of the popular spoken language, dimotiki, provoked conservative reactions, which led to the constitutionally embedded decision (Article 107) in favor of a formal "purified" language, katharevousa, which looked back to classical precedents.
On 20 May 1911, a revision of the Constitution was completed, which focused on strengthening individual freedoms, introducing measures to facilitate the legislative work of the Parliament, establishing obligatory elementary education, the legal right for compulsory expropriation, ensuring permanent appointment for civil servants, the right to invite foreign personnel to undertake the reorganization of the administration and the armed forces, the re-establishment of the State Council and the simplification of the procedures for the reform of the Constitution. The aim of the reform program was to consolidate public security and the rule of law as well as to develop and increase the wealth-producing potential of the country. In this context, the long-planned "eighth" Ministry, the Ministry of National Economy, assumed a leading role. This Ministry, from the time of its creation at the beginning of 1911, was headed by Emmanuel Benakis, a wealthy Greek merchant from Egypt and friend of Venizelos. Between 1911 and 1912 a number of laws aiming to initiate labor legislation in Greece were promulgated. Specific measures were enacted that prohibited child labor and night-shift work for women, regulated the hours of the working week and the Sunday holiday, and allowed for labor organizations. Venizelos also took measures for the improvement of management, justice, and security and for the settlement of the landless peasants of Thessaly.
Balkan Wars
Background
At the time, there were diplomatic contacts with the Ottoman Empire to initiate reforms in Macedonia and in Thrace, which at the time were under the control of the Ottoman Empire, for improving the living conditions of the Christian populations. Failure of such reforms would leave a single option to remove the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans, an idea that most Balkan countries shared. This scenario appeared realistic to Venizelos because the Ottoman Empire was under a constitutional transition, and its administrative mechanism was disorganized and weakened. There was also no fleet capable of transporting forces from Asia Minor to Europe, while in contrast, the Greek fleet was dominating the Aegean Sea. Venizelos did not want to initiate any immediate major movements in the Balkans, until the Greek army and navy were reorganized (an effort that had begun from the last government of Georgios Theotokis) and the Greek economy was revitalized. In light of this, Venizelos proposed to Ottoman Empire to recognize the Cretans the right to send deputies to the Greek Parliament, as a solution for closing the Cretan Question. However, the Young Turks (feeling confident after the Greco-Turkish war in 1897) threatened that they would make a military walk to Athens, if the Greeks insisted on such claims.
Balkan League
Venizelos, seeing no improvements after his approach with the Turks on the Cretan Question and at the same time not wanting to see Greece remain inactive as in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 (where Greece's neutrality left the country out of the peace talks), he decided that the only way to settle the disputes with Ottoman Empire, was to join the other Balkan countries, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro, in an alliance known as the Balkan League. Crown Prince Constantine was sent to represent Greece to a royal feast in Sofia, and in 1911 Bulgarian students were invited to Athens. These events had a positive impact and on 30 May 1912 Greece and the Kingdom of Bulgaria signed a treaty that ensured mutual support in case of a Turkish attack on either country. Negotiations with Serbia, which Venizelos had initiated to achieve a similar agreement, were concluded in early 1913, before that there were only oral agreements.
Montenegro opened hostilities by declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on 8 October 1912. On 17 October 1912, Greece along with her Balkan allies, declared war on the Ottoman Empire, thus joining the First Balkan War. On 1 October, in a regular session of the Parliament Venizelos announced the declaration of war to the Ottomans and accepting the Cretan deputies, thus closing the Cretan Question, with the declaration of the union of Crete with Greece. The Greek population received these developments very enthusiastically.
First Balkan War – The first conflict with Prince Constantine
The outbreak of the First Balkan War caused Venizelos a great deal of trouble in his relations with Crown Prince Constantine. Part of the problems can be attributed to the complexity of the official relations between the two men. Although Constantine was a Prince and the future King, he also held the title of army commander, thus remaining under the direct order of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and subsequently under Venizelos. But his father, King George, in accordance with the constitutional conditions of the time, had been the undisputed leader of the country. Thus in practical terms, Venizelos' authority over his commander of the army was diminished due to the obvious relation between the Crown Prince and the King.