Venizelos, Eleutherios 1864-1936
Greek statesman

Born near Chania, Crete, he studied law in Athens, led the Liberal Party in the Cretan chamber of deputies and took a prominent part in the Cretan rising against the Turks in 1896. When Prince George (George I of Greece) became Governor of Crete, Venizelos first served under him as Minister of Justice, then opposed him from the mountains at Therisso with guerrilla warfare. In 1909 he was invited to Athens, became Prime Minister (1910-15), restored law and order but excluded the Cretan deputies from the new parliament and promoted the Balkan League against Turkey (1912) and Bulgaria (1913), so extending the Greek kingdom. His sympathies with France and Britain at the outbreak of World War I clashed with those of King Constantine I and caused Venizelos to establish a provisional rival government at Salonika and in 1917 forced the king's abdication. He secured further territories from Turkey at the Versailles Peace Conference, but his prestige began to wane with his failure to colonize Turkish Asia Minor and he was heavily defeated in the general elections (1920) which brought the royalists and King Constantine back to power. He was Prime Minister again (1924, 1928-32, 1933). In 1935 he came out of retirement to support another Cretan revolt staged by his sympathizers, but it failed and he fled eventually to Paris, where he died.