Full Name: Odysseas Zeus Venizelos (Greek: Οδυσσέας Ζεύς Βενιζέλος)
Age: 27
Date of birth: November 1st 1996
Birthplace: Chania, Crete, Greece
Current home: Chania, Crete, Greece or in one of the many homes they own in Athens
Blood Status: Pureblood (Former Elite)
Sexual Alignment: Heterosexual
Wand type: 12 1/2" , Phoenix Feather, Birch
Hair colour and style: Short, slightly curly and always styled.
Eye colour: Deep Blue
Height: 6'5
Body type: Athletic and well built. His body could be compared to a Greek God's
Dress sense: Mostly suits, but even when he is casually dressed, it's always elegant.
Birthmarks: N/A
Tattoos: N/A
Scars: N/A
Piercings: N/A
Likes: (3 minimum)
- His country - Greece is his home. He loves every single centimeter of it.
- Being a Pureblood - It has its perks.
- His family - Even though he doesn't understand why his father would allow the Clements to take their Country, Odysseas values his family. They are the source of his power, and he would do anything to protect them and see them rise once again.
- Women - Like every other man, he likes to have fun.
- Water sports - Greece is surrounded by water, he takes advantage of it.
- Books - A good book is always welcome.
- History - Both, his country and his family have great History, and Odysseas takes pride into knowing all of it.
- Quidditch
- Power
- Animals - Especially puppies.
- Children - Even though he doesn't admit it.
- Alcohol - It's necessary, sometimes.
- Working out
- Swimming
- Theater - Odysseas finds going to the theater a very nice way to pass the time.
- Caffeine (When he's out of Bourbon)
- Sketching (It's a hidden talent of his)
- Waking up early - Odysseas is quite the morning person.
- Challenges - Especially when he wins.
- Sex
- Social gatherings
Dislikes: (3 minimum)
- The Clements - They took his Country and a big amount of his power, if not all.
- His father - Because he allowed the Clements to overpower them and make Greece submit.
- Romance - Odysseas was never the sweet, romantic type. Being the oldest sibling, and the heir to the Venizelos name, he learned to be distant and closed off from a young age.
- Music - He doesn't hate it, but he never learned how to play an instrument. He prefers silence.
- Extreme temperatures - In Greece, there are times that the weather is simly too hot to handle.
- Smoking - It's not good for the health, and it smells terrbily.
- Annoying people
- Clingy people
- Being threatened - Odysseas will fight back.
- Being sick - He rarely gets sick, but when he does, he becomes everyone's worst nightmare.
- Dancing - He knows how to dance both, traditional and Ballroom dances, but he simply doesn't like it. It will take a lot of effort to persuade him into it, and most of the time, he does it out of pure olbigation.
- Teenagers - Due to being a Pureblood, he was forced to meet a lot of young ladies. Sadly, all of them acted like children and Odysseas wanted nothing to do with them. He wanted a wife, not a child.
- Idiotic Purebloods - Just because they were born into this elite society didn't mean everyone was truly made for it. Odysseas finds it very hard to deal with Purebloods that have no brain cells.
- Fighting for no reason - He is a Pureblood Lord, he doesn't need to punch anyone to beat him.
- Doing things by himself - House staff and House elves are a must.
- Being told what to do - He hates being ordered around.
- Violence
- Muggles (Sometimes)
- Vanity
Strengths: (3 minimum)
- Multilingual - Odysseas grew up speaking both, Greek and English, and later on added German and Russian to the list (For business purposes)
- Confident - Verging on cocky, sometimes.
- Sociable - He knows his duties as the Venizelos heir
- Charming
- Educated
- Disciplined
- Good - Looking (It's the truth!)
- Visionary
- Passionate
Weaknesses: (3 minimum)
- Arrogant (Sometimes)
- Controlling
- Impulsive (Sometimes, when he's pushed to his limits)
- Stubborn
- Selfish
Positive traits: (3 minimum)
- Loyalty (To his family, his country and the people he loves)
- Responsibility
- Courageousness (In spite of fear of danger, discomfort, or pain, he has the mental fortitude to carry on with a commitment, plan, or decision, knowing it is the right or best course of action.)
- Perseverance
- Reliability (He won't let you down.)
- Self-discipline
Negative traits: (3 minimum)
- Arrogant (Sometimes)
- Bossy
- Cruel
- Cunning
- Manipulative
- Domineering (Sometimes)
- Harsh
- Jealous
- Stubborn
- Selfish
Odysseas was born the first child of Aristides and Theodora Venizelos, the current reigning figures of Greece. From a very young age, Odysseas was following his father's footsteps, making sure to learn everything about politics, in order to be able to continue the work that his family had been doing for many, many years.
Odysseas started showing signs of magic from a very young age, making his father --and the rest of the family-- very proud and sure about the future heir. His professors were very pleased with his progress in every lesson, except the arts of dancing and playing music. The boy refused to learn how to play an instrument, and even though he learned how to dance exceptionally well, there hadn't been a single time he enjoyed doing so.
Years passed and at the age of eleven, it was time for Odysseas to start his education. Even though most wizards went to Hogwarts, Odysseas, due to the fact that he was from Greece, was accepted to Durmstang Institute and was sorted into the Risiko House (The House of Fear). The years spent there taught Odysseas how to be strong willed, ruthless and selfish at times, but determined and persistent. With hard work, he ended up becoming one of Durmstrang's top students, and Greece's most educated Pureblood male. Upon Graduating from Durmstrang, Odysseas returned home, where he was welcomed by his mother, father, sister, and very proud Grandfather.
Odysseas followed after his father's footsteps, being very active with politics, but also managing the business his family had. Greece depended very much on the Venizelos name for years, and Odysseas had promised to his family, and himself, that he would not fail. What he hadn't expected though, was the financial crisis that had struck Greece, allowing the Clements, one of the strongest Pureblood families, to come in and force Greece to surrender to them. His father, had allowed Greece to be humiliated, and Odysseas could not forgive him for that.
Because of that, Odysseas moved out of his family's house, into the one he had built for himself, and started coming up with different plans to get his country back, and make the Clements --and his father, for he was just as responsible-- pay.
Mother: Name: Theodora Ekaterini Venizelos (Greek: Θεοδώρα Αικατερίνη Βενιζέλος) (née Kapodistrias)
Age: 54 (b. 1970)
Living or Deceased: Living
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Mother, Wife
Father: Name: Aristides Eleftherios Venizelos (Greek: Αριστείδης Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος)
Age: 60 (b.1964)
Living or Deceased: Living
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Politician
Siblings: Name: Elektra Atalante Venizelos (Greek: Ηλέκτρα Αταλάντη Βενιζέλος)
Age: 20
Living or Deceased: Living
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Lady
Grandfather: Name: Eleftherios Venizelos the Second
Age: 90 (b.1934)
Living or Deceased: Living
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Former Politician
Great Grandfather: Name: Sofoklis Venizelos
Age: 70 (b.1894 - d.1964)
Living or Deceased: Deceased
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Former Politician
Great Great Grandfather: Name: Eleftherios Venizelos
Age: 71 (b.1864 - d.1936)
Living or Deceased: Deceased
Blood type or Species: Pureblood
Occupation: Former Politician
Mistress: Name: Clio Papadopoulos
Age: 25
Living or Deceased: Living
Blood type or Species: Halfblood
Occupation: Pets: Many. Too many.
The Venizelos name starts in the 18th Century, where the ancestors of Venizelos, named Cravvatas, lived in Mystras, in southern Peloponnese. During the Ottoman raids in the peninsula in 1770, a member of the Cravvatas family, Venizelos Cravvatas, the youngest of several brothers, managed to escape to Crete where he established himself. His sons discarded their patronymic and called themselves Venizelos. The family was of Laconic, Maniot, and Cretan origin.
Eleftherios was born in Mournies, near Chania 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 Syros, due to the participation of his father in the revolution. 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 in 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.
Until then, the magic within the family had remained hidden, because Greece was not yet stable enough, in order for a Wizarding community to be created.
Eleftherios was responsible for many great things in Greece. 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 to 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 them to 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 at 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 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.
Venizelos tried to advance his reform program in the realms of political and social ideologies, of 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 of 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 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, that 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.
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 as a single option to remove Turkey from the Balkans, an idea that most Balkan countries shared. This scenario appeared realistic to Venizelos, because Turkey 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 Turkey 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.
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 Turkey, 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 Turkey on 8 October 1912. On 17 October 1912, Greece along with her Balkan allies declared war on Turkey, thus joining the First Balkan War. On 1 October, in a regular session of the Parliament Venizelos announced the declaration of war to Turkey 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.
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 to 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.
In these conditions the army started a victorious march to Macedonia under the commands of Constantine. Soon the first disagreement between Venizelos and Constantine emerged, and it concerned the aims of the army's operations. The Crown Prince insisted on the clear military aims of the war: to defeat the opposed Ottoman army as a necessary condition for any occupation, wherever the opponent army was or was going; and the main part of the Ottoman army soon started retreating to the north towards Monastir. Venizelos was more realistic and insisted on the political aims of the war: to liberate as many geographical areas and cities as fast as possible, particularly Macedonia and Thessaloniki; thus heading east. The debate became evident after the victory of the Greek army at Sarantaporo, when the future direction of the armys' march was to be decided. Venizelos intervened and insisted that Thessaloniki, as a major city and strategic port in the surrounding area, should be taken at all costs and thus a turn to the east was necessary. In accordance to his views, Venizelos sent the following telegraph to the General Staff:
"Salonique à tout prix!"
and tried to keep frequent communication with the key figure, the King, in order to prevent the Prince from marching north. Subsequently, although the Greek army won the Giannitsa battle situated 40 km west of Salonika, the Constantine's hesitation in capturing the city after a week had passed, led into an open confrontation with Venizelos. Venizelos, having accurate information from the Greek embassy in Sofia about the movement of the Bulgarian army towards the city, sent a telegram to Constantine in a strict tone, holding him responsible for the possible loss of Thessaloniki. The tone in Venizelos' telegram and that in the answer from Constantine that followed to announce the final agreement with the Turks, is widely considered as the start of the conflict between the two men that would lead Greece into the National Schism during World War I. Finally on 26 October 1912, the Greek army entered Thessaloniki, shortly ahead of the Bulgarians. But soon a new reason of friction emerged due to Venizelos' concern about Constantine's acceptance of the Bulgarian request to enter the city. A small Bulgarian unit, which soon became a full division moved into the city and immediately started an attempt to establish a condominium in spite of initial assurances to the contrary, showing no intentions to leave. After Venizelos' protest Constantine asked him to take the responsibility (as a prime minister) by ordering him to force them out, but that was hardly an option since that would certainly lead to confrontation with the Bulgarians. To Venizelos' view, since Constantine allowed the Bulgarians to enter the city, he now passed the responsibility of a possible conflict with them to him, in an attempt to deny his initial fault. To Constantine, it was an attempt by Venizelos to get involved in clearly military issues. Most historians agree that Constantine failed to see the political dimensions of his decisions. As a consequence both incidents increased mutual misunderstanding, shortly before Constantine's accession to the throne.
Once the campaign in Macedonia was completed, a large part of the Greek army under the Crown Prince was redeployed to Epirus, and in the Battle of Bizani the Ottoman positions were overcome and Ioannina taken on 22 February 1913. Meanwhile, the Greek navy rapidly occupied the Aegean islands still under Ottoman rule. After two victories, the Greek fleet established naval supremacy over the Aegean preventing the Turks from bringing reinforcements to the Balkans.
On 20 November, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria signed a truce treaty with Turkey. It followed a conference in London, in which Greece took part, although the Greek army still continued its operations in the Epirus front. The conference led to the Treaty of London between the Balkan countries and Turkey. Τhese two conferences gave the first indications of Venizelos' diplomatic efficiency and realism. During the negotiations and facing the dangers of Bulgarian maximalism, Venizelos succeeded in establishing close relations with the Serbs. A Serbian-Greek military protocol was signed on the 1 June 1913 ensuring mutual protection in case of a Bulgarian attack.
Despite all this, the Bulgarians still wanted to become a hegemonic power in the Balkans and made excessive claims to this end, while Serbia asked for more territory than what was initially agreed with the Bulgarians. Serbia was asking for a revision of the original treaty, since it had already lost north Albania due to the Great Powers' decision to establish the state of Albania, in an area that had been recognized as a Serbian territory of expansion under the prewar Serbo-Bulgarian treaty. Bulgarians also laid claims on Thessaloniki and most of Macedonia. In the conference of London, Venizelos rebuffed these claims, citing the fact that it had been occupied by the Greek army, and that Bulgaria had denied any definite settlement of territorial claims during the pre-war discussions, as it had done with Serbia.
The rupture between the allies, due to the Bulgarian claims, was inevitable, and Bulgaria found herself standing against Greece and Serbia. On 19 May 1913, a pact of alliance was signed in Thessaloniki between Greece and Serbia. On 19 June, the Second Balkan War began with a surprise Bulgarian assault against Serbian and Greek positions. Constantine, now King after his father's assassination in March, neutralized the Bulgarian forces in Thessaloniki and pushed the Bulgarian army further back with a series of hard-fought victories. Bulgaria was overwhelmed by the Greek and Serbian armies, while in the north the Romanian army was marching towards Sofia; the Bulgarians asked for truce. Venizelos went to Hadji-Beylik, where the Greek headquarters were, to confer with Constantine on the Greek territorial claims in the peace conference. Then he went to Bucharest, where a peace conference was assembled. On 28 June 1913 a peace treaty was signed with Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Romania on one side and Bulgaria on the other. Thus, after two successful wars, Greece had doubled its territory by gaining most of Macedonia, Epirus, Crete and the rest of the Aegean Islands, although the status of the latter remained as yet undetermined and a cause of tension with the Ottomans.
With the outbreak of World War I and the Austro-Hungarian invasion in Serbia, a major issue started regarding the participation or not of Greece and Bulgaria in the war. Greece had an active treaty with Serbia which was the treaty activated in the 1913 Bulgarian attack that caused the Second Balkan War. That treaty was envisaged in a purely Balkan context, and was thus invalid against Austria-Hungary, something on which both Venizelos and Constantine agreed.
The situation changed when the Allies, in an attempt to help Serbia, offered Bulgaria the Monastir–Ochrid area of Serbia and the Greek Eastern Macedonia (the Serres–Kavalla–Drama areas) if she joined the Entente. Venizelos, having received assurances over Asia Minor if the Greeks participated in the alliance, agreed to cede the area to Bulgaria.
But Constantine's anti-Bulgarism made such a transaction impossible. Constantine refused to go to war under such conditions and the men parted. As a consequence Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and invaded Serbia, an event leading to Serbia's final collapse. Greece remained neutral. Venizelos supported an alliance with the Entente, not only believing that Britain and France would win, but also that it was the only choice for Greece, because the combination of the strong Anglo-French naval control over the Mediterranean and the geographical distribution of the Greek population, could have ill effects in the case of a naval blockade, as he characteristically remarked:
"One cannot kick against geography!"
On the other hand, Constantine favored the Central Powers and wanted Greece to remain neutral. He was influenced both by his belief in the military superiority of Germany and also by his German wife, Queen Sophia, and his pro-German court. He therefore strove to secure a neutrality, which would be favorable to Germany and Austria.
In 1915, Winston Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty) suggested to Greece to take action in Dardanelles on behalf of the allies. Venizelos saw this as an opportunity to bring the country on the side of the Entente in the conflict. However the King disagreed and Venizelos submitted his resignation on 21 February 1915. Venizelos' party won the elections and formed a new government.
Even though Venizelos promised to remain neutral, after the elections of 1915, he said that Bulgaria's attack on Serbia, with which Greece had a treaty of alliance, obliged him to abandon that policy. The dispute between Venizelos and the King reached its height shortly after that and the King invoked a Greek constitutional provision that gave the monarch the right to dismiss a government unilaterally. Meanwhile, using the excuse of saving Serbia, in October 1915, the Entente disembarked an army in Thessaloniki.
The dispute continued between the two men, and in December 1915 Constantine forced Venizelos to resign for a second time and dissolved the Liberal-dominated parliament, calling for new elections. Venizelos left Athens and moved back to Crete. Venizelos did not take part in the elections, as he considered the dissolution of Parliament unconstitutional.
On 26 May 1916 the Fort Rupel (a significant military fort in Macedonia) was unconditionally surrendered by the royalist government to Germano-Bulgarian forces. This produced a deplorable impression. The Allies feared a possible secret alliance between the royalist government and Central Powers placing in grave danger of their armies in Macedonia. On the other hand, the surrender of Fort Rupel for Venizelos and his supporters meant the beginning of the destruction of Greek Macedonia. Despite German assurances that the integrity of the Kingdom of Greece would be respected they were unable to restrain the Bulgarian forces, which had started dislocating the Greek population, and by 4 September Kavala was occupied.
On 16 August 1916, during a rally in Athens, and with the support of the allied army that had landed in Thessaloniki under the command of General Maurice Sarrail, Venizelos announced publicly his total disagreement with the Crown's policies. The effect of this was to further polarize the population between the royalists (also known as anti-Venezelists), who supported the crown, and Venizelists, who supported Venizelos. On 30 August 1916, Venizelist army officers organized a military coup in Thessaloniki, and proclaimed the "Provisional Government of National Defence". Venizelos along with Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis and General Panagiotis Danglis agreed to form a provisional government and on 9 October they moved to Thessaloniki and assumed command of the National Defence to oversee the Greek participation in the allied war effort. The triumvirate, as the three men became known, had formed this government in direct conflict with the Athens political establishment. There they founded a separate "provisional state" including Northern Greece, Crete and the Aegean Islands, with the support of the Entente. Primarily, these areas comprised the "New Lands" won during the Balkan Wars, in which Venizelos enjoyed a broad support, while "Old Greece" was mostly pro-royalist. The National Defence government started assembling an army for the Macedonian front and soon participated in operations against the Central Powers forces.
In the following months after the creation of provisional government in Thessaloniki in late August, negotiations between the Allies and king intensified. The Allies wanted further demobilisation of the Greek army as a counterbalance of the unconditional surrender of Fort Rupel by the royalist government and military evacuation of Thessaly to insure the safety of their troops in Macedonia. On the other hand, the king wanted assurances that the Allies would not officially recognise Venizelos' provisional government or further support it, guarantees that Greece's integrity and neutrality would be respected, and a promise that any war material surrendered to the Allies would be returned after the war.
The Franco-British use of Greece's territory in co-operation with the Venizelos government, throughout 1916 was opposed in royalist circles and therefore increased the Constantine's popularity, and caused much excitement and several anti-Allied demonstrations took place in Athens. Moreover, a growing movement had been developed in the army among lower officers, led by military officers Ioannis Metaxas and Sofoklis Dousmanis, determined to oppose disarmament and the surrender of any war materials to the Allies.
The Allies' pressure on the government of Athens continued. On the next day, 24 November, du Fournet presented a new ultimatum ending on 1 December to the government of Athens demanding the immediate surrender of at least ten mountain batteries. The admiral made a last effort to persuade the king to accept France's demands. He advised the king that according to his orders he would land an Allied contingent, with aim to occupy certain positions in Athens until his demands were satisfied. In reply, the King claimed that he was pressed by the army and the people not to submit to disarmament, and refused to make any commitment. However, he promised that the Greek forces would receive orders not to fire against the Allied contingent. Despite the gravity of the situation both the royalist government and the Allies let the events take their own course. The royalist government decided to reject the admiral's demands on 29 November and armed resistance was organised. By 30 November military units and royalist militia (the epistratoi, "reservists") from surrounding areas have been recalled and gathered in and around Athens (in total over 20,000 men) and occupied strategic positions, with orders not to fire unless fired upon. On the other hand, the Allied authorities failed in their assessment of the prevailing temper. A diplomat characteristically insisted that the Greeks were bluffing, and in the face of force they would "bring the cannons on a plater"; a viewpoint that Du Fournet also shared.
The Allies landed a small contingent in Athens on 1 December [O.S. 18 November] 1916. However, it met organized resistance and an armed confrontation took place for a day till a compromise was reached. After the evacuation of the Allied contingent from Athens the following day, a royalist mob raged though the city for three days targeting supporters of Venizelos. The incident became known as the Noemvriana in Greece, which was using the Old Style calendar at the time, and drove a deep wedge between the Venizelists and their political opponents, deepening what would become known as the National Schism.
After the armed confrontation in Athens, on 2 December [O.S. 19 November] 1916, Britain and France officially recognised the government under Venizelos as the lawful government, effectively splitting Greece into two separate entities. On 7 December [O.S. 24 November] 1916, Venizelos' provisional government officially declared war on the Central Powers. In reply, a royal warrant for the arrest of Venizelos was issued and the Archbishop of Athens, under pressure by the royal house, anathematised him. The Allies unwilling to risk a new fiasco, but determined to solve the problem, established a naval blockade around southern Greece, which was still loyal to the king, and that caused extreme hardship to people in those areas. In June France and Great Britain decided to invoke their obligation as "protecting powers", who had promised to guarantee a constitutional form for Greece at the time the Kingdom was created, to demand the king's resignation. Constantine accepted and on the 15 June 1917 went to exile, leaving his son Alexander on the throne as demanded (whom the Allies considered as pro-Entente), instead of his elder son and crown prince, George. His departure was followed by the deportation of many prominent royalists, especially army officers such as Ioannis Metaxas, to exile in France and Italy.
The course of events paved the way for Venizelos to return in Athens on 29 May 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially entered the war on the side of the Allies. Subsequently, the entire Greek army was mobilized (though tensions remained inside the army between supporters of the monarchy and supporters of Venizelos) and began to participate in military operations against the Central Powers army on the Macedonian front.
By the fall of 1918, the Greek army numbering 300,000 soldiers, was the largest single national component of the Allied army in the Macedonian front. The presence of the entire Greek army gave the critical mass that altered the balance between the opponents in the Macedonian front. Under the command of French General Franchet d'Espèrey, a combined Greek, Serbian, French and British force launched a major offensive against the Bulgarian and German army, starting on 14 September 1918. After the first heavy fighting (see Battle of Skra) the Bulgarians gave up their defensive positions and began retreating back towards their country. On 24 September the Bulgarian government asked for an armistice, which was signed five days later. The Allied army then pushed north and defeated the remaining German and Austrian forces that tried to halt the Allied offensive. By October 1918 the Allied armies had recaptured all of Serbia and were preparing to invade Hungary. The offensive was halted because the Hungarian leadership offered to surrender in November 1918 marking the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The breaking of the Macedonian front was one of the important breakthroughs of the military stalemate and helped to bring an end to the War. Greece was granted a seat at the Paris Peace Conference under Venizelos.
Following the conclusion of World War I, Venizelos took part in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as Greece's chief representative. During his absence from Greece for almost two years, he acquired a reputation as an international statesman of considerable stature. President Woodrow Wilson was said to have placed Venizelos first in point of personal ability among all delegates gathered in Paris to settle the terms of Peace.
In July 1919, Venizelos reached an agreement with the Italians on the cession of the Dodecanese, and secured an extension of the Greek area in the periphery of Smyrna. The Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria on 27 November 1919, and the Treaty of Sèvres with the Ottoman Empire on 10 August 1920, were triumphs both for Venizelos and for Greece. As the result of these treaties, Greece acquired Western Thrace, Eastern Thrace, Smyrna, the Aegean islands Imvros, Tenedos and the Dodecanese except Rhodes.
The assassination attempt by Greek royalists at the Gare de Lyon.
In spite of all this, fanaticism continued to create a deep rift between the opposing political parties and to impel them towards unacceptable actions. On his journey home on 12 August 1920, Venizelos survived an assassination attack by two royalist soldiers at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris. This event provoked unrest in Greece, with Venizelist supporters engaging in acts of violence against known anti-Venizelists, and provided further fuel for the national division. The persecution of Venizelos' opponents reached a climax with the assassination of the idiosyncratic anti-Venizelist Ion Dragoumis by paramilitary Venizelists on 13 August. After his recovery Venizelos returned to Greece, where he was welcomed as a hero, because he had liberated areas with Greek populations and had created a state stretching over "five seas and two continents".
King Alexander died of blood poisoning caused by a monkey bite, two months after the signing of the treaty, on 25 October 1920. His death revived the constitutional question of whether Greece should be a monarchy or a republic and transformed the November elections into a contest between Venizelos and the return of the exiled king Constantine, Alexander's father. In the elections anti-Venizelists, most of them supporters of Constantine, secured 246 out of 370 seats. The defeat came as a surprise to most people and Venizelos failed even to get elected as an MP. Venizelos himself attributed this to the war-weariness of the Greek people that had been under arms with almost no intermission since 1912. Venizelists believed that the promise of demobilization and withdrawal from Asia Minor was the most potent weapon of opposition. Abuse of power by Venizelists in the period of 1917–1920 and prosecution of their adversaries were also a further cause for people to vote in favor of the opposition. Thus, on 6 December 1920, King Constantine was recalled by a plebiscite. This caused great dissatisfaction not only to the newly liberated populations in Asia Minor but also to the Great Powers who opposed the return of Constantine. As a result of his defeat Venizelos left for Paris and withdrew from politics.
Caricature related to the 1920 parliamentary election, depicting Venizelos and his main political opponent Dimitrios Gounaris.
Once the anti-Venizelists came to power it became apparent that they intended to continue the campaign in Asia Minor. However, dismissal of the war experienced pro-Venizelist military officers for petty political reasons and underestimating the capabilities of the Turkish army, influenced the subsequent course of the war. Italy and France also found a useful pretext in the royal restoration for making peace with Mustafa Kemal (leader of the Turks). By April 1921 all Great Powers had declared their neutrality; Greece was alone in continuing the war. Kemal launched a massive attack on 26 August 1922 and the Greek forces were routed to Smyrna, which soon fell to the Turks on 8 September 1922 (see Great Fire of Smyrna).
Eleftherios Venizelos on the cover of Time magazine, 18 February 1924.
Following the defeat of the Greek army by the Turks in 1922 and the subsequent armed insurrection led by Colonels Nikolaos Plastiras and Stylianos Gonatas, King Constantine was dethroned (and succeeded by his eldest son, George), and six royalist leaders were executed. Venizelos assumed the leadership of the Greek delegation that negotiated peace terms with the Turks. He signed the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey on 24 July 1923. The effect of this was that more than a million Greeks (Christians) were expelled from Turkey, in exchange for the more than 500,000 Turks (Muslims) expelled from Greece, and Greece was forced to give up claims to eastern Thrace, Imbros and Tenedos to Turkey. This catastrophe marked the end of the Megali Idea. After a failed pro-royalist insurrection led by General Ioannis Metaxas forced King George II into exile, Venizelos returned to Greece and became prime minister once again. However, he left again in 1924 after quarreling with anti-monarchists.
In the elections held on 5 July 1928, Venizelos' party regained power and forced the government to hold new elections on 19 August of the same year; this time his party won 228 out of 250 places in Parliament. During this period Venizelos attempted to end Greece's diplomatic isolation by restoring normal relations with the country's neighbors. His efforts proved to be successful in the cases of the newly founded Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Italy. Firstly Venizelos signed an agreement on 23 September 1928 with Benito Mussolini in Rome, and then he started negotiations with Yugoslavia which resulted in a Treaty of Friendship signed on 27 March 1929. An additional protocol settled the status of the Yugoslav free trade zone of Thessaloniki in a way favorable to Greek interests. Nevertheless, despite the co-ordinated British efforts under Arthur Henderson in 1930–1931, full reconciliation with Bulgaria was never achieved during his premiership. Venizelos was also cautious towards Albania, and although bilateral relations remained at a good level, no initiative was taken by either side aiming at the final settlement of the unresolved issues (mainly related with the status of the Greek minority of South Albania).
Venizelos' greatest achievement in foreign policy during this period was the reconciliation with Turkey. Venizelos had expressed his will to improve the bilateral Greek–Turkish relations even before his electoral victory, in a speech in Thessaloniki (July 23, 1928). Eleven days after the formation of his government, he sent letters to both the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs of Turkey (İsmet İnönü and Tevfik Rüştü respectively), declaring that Greece had no territorial aspirations to the detriment of their country. İnönü's response was positive and Italy was eager to help the two countries reach an agreement. Negotiations however stalled because of the complicated issue of the properties of the exchanged populations. Finally, the two sides reached an agreement on April 30, 1930; on October 25, Venizelos visited Turkey and signed a treaty of friendship. Venizelos even forwarded Atatürk's name for the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize, highlighting the mutual respect between the two leaders. The German Chancellor Hermann Müller described the Greek-Turkish rapprochement as the "greatest achievement seen in Europe since the end of the Great War". Nevertheless, Venizelos' initiative was criticized domestically not only by the opposition but also by members of his own party that represented the Greek refugees from Turkey. Venizelos was accused of making too many concessions on the issues of naval armaments and of the properties of the Greeks who were expelled from Turkey according to the Treaty of Lausanne.
In 1929, the Venizelos government, in an effort to avoid reactions from the lower-classes whose conditions had worsened due to wave of immigration, introduced the so-called Idionymon , a law that restricted civil liberties and initiated the repression against unionism, left-wing supporters and communists.
His domestic position was weakened, however, by the effects of the Great Depression in the early 1930s; and in the elections of 1932 he was defeated by the People's Party under Panagis Tsaldaris. The political climate became more tense and in 1933 Venizelos was the target of a second assassination attempt. The pro-royalist tendencies of the new government led to two Venizelist coup attempts by General Nikolaos Plastiras: one in 1933 and the other in 1935. The failure of the latter proved decisive for the future of the Second Hellenic Republic. After the coup's failure Venizelos left Greece once more, while in Greece trials and executions of prominent Venizelists were carried out and he himself was sentenced to death in absentia. The severely weakened Republic was abolished in another coup in October 1935 by General Georgios Kondylis and George II returned to the throne following a rigged referendum in November.
Venizelos left for Paris and on 12 March 1936 wrote his last letter to Alexandros Zannas. He suffered a stroke on the morning of the 13th and died five days later in his flat at 22 rue Beaujon. A crowd of supporters from the local Greek community in Paris accompanied his body to the railway station prior to its departure for Greece.
His body was taken by the destroyer Pavlos Kountouriotis to Chania, avoiding Athens in order not to cause unrest. A great ceremony with wide public attendance accompanied his burial at Akrotiri, Crete.
His two sons, Kyriakos and Sofoklis, remained in Greece. Sofoklis Venizelos followed in the footsteps of their father, chasing after a political career, sadly not as big as his father's, but equally as important.
During World War I he served with distinction in the Greek Army and in the initial phases of the Asia Minor campaign, reaching the rank of Captain of Artillery.
He resigned from the Army and was elected as a MP with his father's Liberal Party in the 1920 elections.
In 1941, after the Axis occupation of Greece, he became ambassador to the United States, representing the Greek government in exile based in Cairo. He became a minister of that government in 1943 under Prime Minister Emmanuel Tsuderos, and briefly its Prime Minister in 1944 (April 13–26).
After the end of the war, he returned to Greece; where he became Vice President of the Liberal Party (led by Themistoklis Sofoulis) and a minister in the first post-war government.
Venizelos died on the passenger ship Hellas in the Aegean Sea, en route from Chania to Piraeus. His grave lies next to his father's on the island of Crete. His wife Kathleen died in 1983 aged 86.
His son, though, Eleftherios Venizelos the Second, born in 1934, made a radical change. Unlike his two progenitors, Eleftherios didn't want to keep the Wizarding world hidden from the world. In his mind, Greece was ready to house the existence of magic, and the family shouldn't be forced to hide away their talents, in fear. All they had to do was learn how to control it.
He, too, was involved in politics, but did not serve as the Prime Minister, like his father and Grandfather. On the contrary, he focused on expanding the family wine business. The acres they owned in Crete were turned into vineyards, and the business became widely spread, after they were successfully able to produce one of the finest wines in Europe. He was later on married to Anatoli Stratigopoulos, and gave birth to a son in 1964, Aristides Venizelos.
Aristides was the first Venizelos who actually gave shape to the Greek Wizarding World. He had, of course, continued with the family business, but took part into politics, mostly as a counselor and assistant of the Prime Minister. He got married to Theodora Venizelos (née Kapodistrias) and gave birth to two children. Odysseas (in 1996) and Atalante (in 2004). During the big financial crisis that took place in 2007-2008, Aristides tried to keep things under control, especially for the Wizarding World, since and unstable magic community could easily turn against him. Thankfully, he was able to manage things with the right calculations, and the Wizarding Community kept on developing.
In 2019 though, another big financial crisis struck Greece, and this time, Aristides was unable to save the country. He knew that they were drowning in debt, and the only way to help the country was to surrender to a nation of greater power. By that time, Odysseas was already starting to take action, actively participating in politics, just like his father, but also trying to come up with new way to expand their business. He told his father not to betray Greece, but after great pressure had been placed upon them, finally in 2023, Aristides agreed to surrender to the Clements.
This was the turning point, for Odysseas, who refused to follow the ways of his father. His goal was to win his country back, and watch it ascend from the ashes. He was going to make Greece great again, and the Clements --and his father-- would pay for every single day the Greeks had to live humiliated.
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