tion, M.
Repoulis, a Minister who in the absence of M. Venizelos acted as his
Deputy, declared that the attempt on the Premier formed part of a plot
long-planned for the overthrow of the regime: it had failed, but the
heads of the culprits would fall without fail. In fact, one of the
Opposition leaders--Ion Dragoumis, son of the ex-Premier of that
name--was assassinated by the Cretan guards who had arrested him. The
others, after being kept in solitary confinement for twenty-four days,
had to be released for want of any incriminating evidence.

M. Venizelos in Paris, when he heard of the riots, was reported as being
beside himself with righteous indignation; and he sent a strongly-worded
telegram to the Government, expressing the fear that part of the
responsibility for the disorders rested upon its organs, and assuring it
that he should exact full account from everyone concerned.[4] But when
he returned home he publicly embraced M. Repoulis, who explained in the
Chamber to the entire satisfaction of his Chief that the Government had
been overawed and very nearly overthrown by the extremists in its own
ranks (8 Sept.).

Everything that could be done--short of a massacre--to disorganize and to
intimidate the Opposition having been done, martial law was suspended (7
Sept.), and the question of Elections began to engage M. Venizelos's
attention seriously. It was a trial which involved his political life or
death, and therefore required the utmost care and vigilance: one
ill-considered step, one omission on his part might send him to his doom.

He began with the enfranchisement of Thrace (9 Sept.). This province,
still under military occupation and martial law, was to vote: further, a
political frontier was erected between it and the rest of Greece, which
only those possessing a special pass could cross, whilst a rigorous
censorship kept all anti-Venizelist newspapers out of it; and, lastly, it
was enacted, for the benefit of an electorate alien in its majority and
unable to read or write Greek, that the {223} Thracian votes, contrary to
the general rule, should be polled by ballot paper, instead of by a ball.

Another Bill enabled the army on active service, for the first time in
the history of Greece, to participate in elections, the assumption being
that among the soldiers Venizelist feeling predominated, or that, at all
events, they would be controlled by their officers.

As exceptional importance has always