On 20 June 2012, Samaras successfully formed a coalition with PASOK ( now lead by former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos ) and DIMAR.

When Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister at the time, was asked if the Greek army should move towards Thessaloniki or Monastir ( now Bitola, Republic of Macedonia ), Venizelos replied " Salonique à tout prix!

In the elections that followed, Constantine ’ s loyalists managed to force Venizelos to flee, but Zaharoff stayed around and persuaded the same king that he had to attack Turkey again, but with Mustafa Kemal now in charge of Turkey, this venture was bound to fail.

Constantine wanted a decisive victory despite objections by Eleftherios Venizelos, who realized that Serbs, having won their territorial objectives, now wanted to stay passive and move the weight of the rest of the war to the Greeks.

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.

| PLACE OF BIRTH = Mournies, Crete, Ottoman Empire ( now Eleftherios Venizelos, Crete, Greece )

The IATA code formerly used for the airport is now in use for Eleftherios Venizelos Airport.

It is the home of the Ellinikon International Airport, now replaced by Eleftherios Venizelos.

It is perhaps worth recording here that the Chamber which was now dissolved was that which had been elected in 1915 and had been dissolved by King Constantine in the following year, and had then been recalled by Venizelos in 1917.

The leadership was offered to the now ex-Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who strongly believed that Greece should enter the war in favour of the Allies.

On 20 June 2012, Samaras successfully formed a coalition with PASOK ( now lead by former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos ) and DIMAR.

Although parties were centered around the individual leaders, often bearing their names, two broad political tendencies existed: the liberals, led first by Charilaos Trikoupis and later by Eleftherios Venizelos, and the conservatives, led initially by Theodoros Deligiannis and later by Thrasivoulos Zaimis.

On Crete, the local population, led by a young politician named Eleftherios Venizelos, declared Enosis, Union with Greece, provoking another crisis.

The two protagonists of the fateful decade 1912 – 1922: King Constantine I of Greece | Constantine I and PM Eleftherios Venizelos in the days of their close cooperation during the Second Balkan War, before the deep political and personal rift between the two materialized and led to the National Schism.

Venizelos was forced to default on Greece's national debt in 1932, and he fell from office after the 1932 elections, being succeeded by a monarchist coalition government led by Panagis Tsaldaris of the People's Party.

Setting up a press agency in Greece to spread news favorable to the allies led, within a few months, to Constantine ’ s being deposed in favour of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.

His disagreement with Eleftherios Venizelos over whether Greece should enter World War I led to the National Schism.

This event led to the arrival in Greece of the Cretan politician Eleftherios Venizelos.

Venizelos, in self-imposed exile, represented Greece in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, and the agreement of a mutual exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey.

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.

In 1917, Zaimis served as Prime Minister under King Constantine I, while Eleftherios Venizelos led a rival government controlling northern Greece.

In October 1916 a pro-Entente group formed a separate, provisional government in Thessaloniki, led by Eleftherios Venizelos.

On 18 March 2012, Venizelos was elected unopposed to replace George Papandreou as PASOK president and led the party in the May 2012 general election as well as the June 2012 general election.

He held important posts in several governments led by Eleftherios Venizelos, Alexandros Zaimis and Konstantinos Tsaldaris ; Foreign Minister ( 1928 – 33 ), Minister for Economy ( 1912 – 916 ), Minister for Agriculture ( 1917 – 1918, 1920 ), Minister for Military Affairs ( 1918 ).

Stamps were issued by a rebel group led by Venizelos and based at Theriso, south of Khania.

Against Venizelos ' policy were united politicians of different political orientation during the 1910s.

* 1864 – Eleftherios Venizelos, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece ( d. 1936 )

The resulting Goudi coup on 15 August 1909 marked a watershed in modern Greek history: as the military conspirators were inexperienced in politics, they asked Venizelos, who had impeccable liberal credentials, to come to Greece as their political adviser.

Since Greece, a maritime country, could not oppose the mighty British navy, and citing the need for a respite after two wars, King Constantine favored continued neutrality, while Venizelos actively sought Greek entry in the war on the Allied side.

When Bulgaria entered the war as a German ally in October 1915, Venizelos invited Entente forces into Greece ( the Salonika Front ), for which he was again dismissed by Constantine.

In no small measure through the diplomatic efforts of Venizelos, Greece secured Western Thrace in the Treaty of Neuilly in November 1919 and Eastern Thrace and a zone around Smyrna in western Anatolia ( already under Greek administration since May 1919 ) in the Treaty of Sèvres of August 1920.

Yet so deep was the rift in Greek society, that on his return to Greece, an assassination attempt was made on Venizelos by two royalist former officers.

Staunch supporters of Venizelos and the Republic, many would also radicalize and play a leading role in the nascent Communist Party of Greece.

Venizelos meanwhile, in exile, urged an end to the conflict over the monarchy in view of the threat to Greece from the rise of Fascist Italy.

* 1924 – Eleftherios Venizelos becomes Prime Minister of Greece for the fourth time.

* 1905 – Eleftherios Venizelos calls for Crete's union with Greece, and begins what is to be known as the Theriso revolt.

* 1894 – Sofoklis Venizelos, Greek politician, three times Prime Minister of Greece ( d. 1964 )

* 1910 – Eleftherios Venizelos is elected Prime Minister of Greece for the first time ( 7 times in total ).

Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary of that time, was the chief negotiator for the Allies, while Eleftherios Venizelos negotiated on behalf of Greece.

The Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic told Greece it could have Thrace if Greece helped Serbia keep Bulgaria out of Serbian part of Macedonia and the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos agreed.

In particular, he set out to ensure that Greece and Venizelos received a proper share of the spoils from a badly weakened Turkey.

Eleftherios Venizelos, who hailed from Mournies near Chania, was the leader of the 1896-97 uprising against Ottoman rule and went on to be Prime Minister of Greece and a great statesman.

The Abwehr also predicted the Cretan population would welcome the Germans as liberators, due to their strong republican and anti-monarchist feelings, and would want to receive the "… favourable terms which had been arranged on the mainland …" While it is true the late republican prime minister of Greece, Eleftherios Venizelos, had been a Cretan, and support for his ideas was strong on the island, the Germans seriously underestimated the depth of patriotic feeling on the part of the Cretans.

Constantine forced Venizelos to resign twice, but in 1917 he left Greece, after threats of the Entente forces to bombard Athens ; his second son, Alexander, became king.

Constantine offended British and French interests by blocking efforts by Prime Minister Venizelos to bring Greece into the war on the side of the Allies.