The Young Turks at the outset of their crusade against the government were tolerant to all the other races and religions in their country.  At first the Armenians, the Jews, the Albanians, the Greeks, and the Bulgarians in the Turkish Empire were very happy over the result of the revolution.  It looked as if a new day were dawning for Turkey, when it would be possible for these various races and different religions to live side by side in peace.

No sooner were the young Turks in control of the government, however, than they began to change.  “Turkey for the Turks, and for the Turks only” became their motto.  With this in mind they massacred Bulgarians and Greeks in Macedonia (page 85) and Armenians in Asia Minor.  The thought of the loss of Crete roused their anger and they began scheming to get it back under Turkish rule.

In 1910 Venizelos, seeing the danger of his beloved island, left for Greece, hoping there to stir up the people to oppose the Turks and annex Crete.  His wonderful eloquence and his single-hearted love for his country soon made him as prominent on the mainland as he had been in his island home.  Before long he was chosen as prime minister of Greece.

He found the country in a very sad condition.  The military officers were poorly trained.  What was worse, they did not know this, but imagined that their army was the best in the world.  The politicians had plundered the people and there was graft and poor management throughout the government.

Venizelos made a wonderful change.  He sent to the French republic for some of their best generals.  These men thoroughly made over the Greek army and taught the Greek officers the real science of war.

[Illustration:  Venizelos (left) with Greek ambassador to England]

Venizelos soon showed the politicians that he could not be frightened, controlled, or bribed.  He discharged some incompetent officials and forced the others to attend to business.  In fact he reorganized the whole government service in a way to make every department do better work.  Few countries in Europe were as well managed as was Greece with Venizelos as its prime minister.

Every Greek hates the Turks and looks forward to the time when no man of Greek descent shall be subject to their cruel rule.  You have been told how the Russians have looked forward to the day when Saint Sophia, the great mosque of the Turks, shall once more become a Christian cathedral.  In the same way the Greeks have passionately desired to see Constantinople, which was for over a thousand years the capital of their empire, freed from the control of the Turk.  Little by little, from the time when the Greeks first won their independence from Turkey in 1829, the boundary of their kingdom has been pushed northward, freeing more and more of their people from the rule of the Ottomans.  Venizelos, aiming to include in the kingdom of Greece as many as possible of the people