Book Review
Venizelos The Making of a Greek
Statesman, 1864-1914
By
Michael Liewellyn-Smith
Oxford University Press.2021
This biography of the great Greek statesman is the first of a two volume biography by Smith. Smith is also the author of “Ionian Vision Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922”. It is a very good and detailed read focusing heavily on the early life and subsequent rise of Venizelos from his life in Crete to his leadership of Greece during the Balkan Wars.
Venizelos was active in the movement in Crete to break from the Ottoman Empire. Union with Greece was not possible at the beginning of the struggle and Crete originally became an autonomous part of the empire. It is during this period that tensions between Venizelos and the Greek monarchy developed.
Tensions developed between Venizelos and Prince Nicholas who governed Crete. These are the roots of what would become the national schism in 1920. Interesting is the fact that relations between Venizelos and then Captain John Metaxas were good after the former became Prime Minister of Greece.
This is very good but cannot be judged until the second and final volume is completed. The book ends after the great success of Greece in the Balkan Wars. The high point of the career of Venizelos was to come later when Greece entered Smyrna.
The best biography of Venizelos hithero was written by Doris Alastos in 1942. The most politically important biography of Venizelos as it pertained to the Asia Minor campaign was written by Herbert Adam Gibbons in 1920.
This is a fine addition to the study of the life of Venizelos but is incomplete until the arrival of the final volume.