Eleftherios Venizelos

Biography

Eleftherios Venizelos was born in 1864 at Mournies on Ottoman-ruled Crete and studied law at the University of Athens before entering Cretan politics. He emerged as a rebel leader in the Cretan revolt of 1897 and, after the island gained autonomy under Prince George, served as its minister of justice from 1899. His quarrel with the prince led him to head the Theriso revolt of 1905, which forced reforms and the prince's departure, and he later took a leading part in proclaiming Crete's union with Greece.

Invited to Athens after the Goudi coup, he won election in 1910, founded the Liberal Party and became prime minister in October 1910. He pushed through the revised constitution of 1911, reformed the administration and rebuilt the army and navy, and he brought Greece into the Balkan League. The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the peace settlements he negotiated in London and Bucharest roughly doubled the country's territory and population.

His determination to join the Allies in the First World War set him against King Constantine I and split the country in the National Schism. In 1916 he formed a rival government of National Defence in Thessaloniki, and after the king's removal in 1917 he returned to Athens and led Greece into the war. At the peace conference he secured large gains under the treaties of Neuilly and Sèvres, but he survived an assassination attempt in Paris in August 1920 and lost the November 1920 election. From exile he led the Greek delegation that signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

Venizelos returned to power with a landslide in 1928 and governed until 1932, improving relations with Turkey, Italy and Yugoslavia and resettling refugees from Asia Minor. After a final short term in 1933 and a second attempt on his life, he was linked to the failed Venizelist coup of March 1935, was sentenced to death in absentia and died in exile in Paris in 1936.