Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance by Giles Milton Read Free Book Online Page B

Lloyd George confessed that in all his years in politics he had never met anyone who left such a profound impression. ‘He is a big man,’ he confessed. ‘A very big man.’ He would later be even more exuberant in his praise, describing Venizelos as ‘the greatest statesman Greece had thrown up since the days of Pericles’.
    Lloyd George was fond of hyperbole, yet on this occasion his praise was shared by all who met Venizelos. Frances Stevenson was also bowled over by his charm. ‘A magnificent type of Greek,’ she wrote, ‘cast in the classical mould, mentally and physically.’ His traits were dynamism, extraordinary energy and a gift of oratory that enabled him to turn almost any argument on its head.
    Venizelos’s revolutionary youth provided colourful copy for the journalists of Fleet Street. He was born into a wealthy merchant family in Crete – then under Turkish rule – and had been christened Eleftherios or Liberator. The liberator spirit was certainly in his blood; his father had fought for Greece’s independence and three of his uncles had died for their country.
    Venizelos soon found himself following in their path, fighting with bravado for Crete’s liberation from the Turk. Once this was accomplished, he turned his thoughts to the large number of Greeks scattered across Asia Minor. Their plight, which was to dominate his political career, had long troubled him. When training to be a lawyer in Athens, he startled his friends by outlining his vision for a Greater Greece. On a map of the Byzantine empire that hung on his wall, he drew the boundaries of the Greece that he hoped one day to create. It included large portions of Asia Minor, with the great city of Smyrna at its heart.
    This, in a nutshell, was the so-called Megali Idea – the Great Idea – that had inspired Athens’ intellectuals for decades. They, like Venizelos, looked forward to the day when all the Greek-speaking peoples of Asia Minor would be brought under the rule of a newly revived Greek empire. It was the stuff of dreams, a foolish fantasy – and a most dangerous one at that. The word ‘megalomania’ comes from the same Greek root.
    The Downing Street breakfast meeting was one of several in which Venizelos spoke with great passion about his ideas of a new Greek empire. Lloyd George listened carefully and pondered how to make it a reality. He wanted a close union between the two countries and requested that ministers should keep ‘in constant and intimate touch with each other’. More alarmingly, he suggested that each country should be able to ‘call upon the other to assist in case of difficulties or war’.
    For the next three weeks, Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and other ministers in Asquith’s government thrashed out a dynamic new foreign policy. By mid-January, most of the key elements were in place. When John Stavridi went to meet Venizelos at the end of his stay, he found him in ebullient mood. Venizelos told him that ‘Greece’s future would be very different to her past, when she had to stand absolutely alone . . . with not a single friend to care what happened to her’. Now, with Lloyd George’s backing, she ‘would become a power in the East which no one could ignore’.
    Venizelos was full of praise for Lloyd George, who had proved a most ingratiating host. ‘He compared [Venizelos] with the old prophets of the Ancient Testament,’ recalled Stavridi, ‘and expressed his great admiration for his splendid capacities and clear insight of people and events.’
    Venizelos’s weeks in London, in which he wooed senior politicians and delighted the British press, were a triumphant success. The Times heaped praise upon ‘the ablest of Greek statesmen’, stating that his vision of creating a mighty Greek empire in Asia Minor was breathtaking in scope and touched with genius. ‘Large, bold and eminently practical, it pays homage to the exalted ideals and the glorious aspirations of Hellas, while it bears