GREEK POLITICAL REALITIES

The "Government of National Unity" which reached liberated Athens on October 18, 1944 represented an elaborate compromise and a balance of forces whose intricacy defies simple analysis. It had brought together men without a demonstrable power base or a coherent program and with a popular appeal yet to be determined. It had been the product of the complete collapse and demoralization of the country's political parties since the mid-1930's, of sharp clashes inside and outside occupied Greece, of the menacing spectre of a powerful Left and of persistent British pressure for some semblance of unity while the war was still in progress. Even under the best of circumstances such a government could be expected to serve only as a temporary accommodation until the country's political life could be revived and its component parts had regained their confidence and individuality.

The legacy of past failures and bitter partisan divisions did not augur well for Prime Minister Papandreou's frail coalition. The war had found Greece's political forces in a state of enforced paralysis, and foreign occupation had done nothing to heal old sores. Instead, new explosive issues aggravated traditional rivalries, mixing fundamental discord with fear, mutual suspicion, and petty vituperation. The psychological damage which the first Great War had caused had never been repaired. The tug-of-war between Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine before Greece finally joined the Entente in 1917 had crystallized into a schism which profoundly affected the country's internal development and foreign relations. The forced departure of the pro-German King and Venizelos' impressive diplomatic accomplishments at the Paris Peace Conference had seriously weakened the royalist cause but had left unanswered the "constitutional question" of the throne's prerogatives regarding the expression of the national will. Although Constantine returned triumphant following the plebiscite of December 5, 1920, his image remained tarnished, particularly since the Allied powers would no longer accord him formal recognition, and withdrew their support from the Greek military campaign into Turkey. That disastrous Anatohan adventure and the consequent frantic search for scapegoats culminating in the hasty execution of six prominent figures had deepened the Venizelist-royalist cleavage and had unleashed powerful emotions destined to reverberate for decades. The dream of Megali Idea, of a Greater Greece vaguely reminiscent of Byzantine glories, had now turned into a horrible national nightmare. While Venizelos, whose Liberal Party had suffered a crushing defeat in November 1920, watched sullenly from abroad, Constantine left the country once again (in September 1922), this time never to return. His eldest son and successor, George II, fared no better: following the military coup of Colonel Nikolaos Plastiras, a rising republican tide forced the new monarch to accept exile. In May 1924 the count