his fifty secret policemen soon sowed hatred and fear amongst the largely pro-Venizelist Greek community there. The two British Vice-Consuls believed that the King and his government lost much prestige during their short time on the island. On the whole, British diplomats tended to be blind to the dislike the King aroused, presumably because he felt able to unbend in their company in a way he could seldom manage with his own countrymen. He once remarked to Charles Mott-Radclyffe with engaging simplicity that 'the most essential piece of equipment for any King of Greece was a Revelation suitcase'.
The King's presence in such a republican stronghold as Crete, loyal to the liberal memory of its most famous son, Venizelos, was unpropitious. Tsouderos, as a Cretan and a monarchist, was a relatively rare bird, but as a banker and a politician, he had in Cretan eyes virtually become an Athenian by profession.
The Cretans, more than any other Greeks, never forgave King George for having granted a dubious legitimacy to the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas on 4 August 1936. Traditional Venizelist sympathies were affronted, and on the second anniversary of the August Decree, the Cretans had risen in revolt. Afterwards, their weapons — both the agent and the symbol of resistance to foreign oppression — were confiscated. That aroused more than disgust when the Cretan population then found itself practically unarmed in the face of the German invasion. After the war, in the plebiscite on the monarchy of 5 September 1946, Crete returned an absolute majority against the King. And yet the Communists in Crete, unlike their comrades on the mainland, never stood a chance of gaining power.
The Cretan character — warlike, proud, compulsively generous to a friend or stranger in need, ferociously unforgiving to an enemy or traitor, frugal day-by-day but prodigal in celebration — was, of course, strongly influenced by the landscape of dramatic contrasts in which the islanders lived.
Rich coastal strips on the north coast, endless olive groves on the foothills, fertile valleys and odd little plains hidden in the highlands, all were overshadowed by the island's spinal mass of limestone Cordilleras — the White Mountains, the Kedros range, the Mount Ida or Psiloriti range, and finally the Lasithi or Dikti mountains in the east. From sub-tropical vegetation with banana trees, carobs and orange groves, a mountain village, only fifteen kilometres away as the crow flew, but probably sixty on foot, seemed to exist in a different world and a different climate.
Mountain villages in the sheep-rearing (and sheep-stealing) regions of the centre consisted of little more than a cluster of white-washed houses round a simple Orthodox church. Often they had only a floor of beaten earth and a few pieces of home-made furniture, including a large dowry chest of clothes and sheets. The diet of sheep's and goat's cheese, potatoes and erratically cooked meat was as hard and monotonous as the life, but the air was invigorating and so clean that wounds healed with astonishing rapidity.*
In the highlands a man was known by the number of sheep he owned, in the lowlands by the number of his olive trees, of which Crete was reputed to have twenty million. Villages in the valleys and lowlands had pollarded mulberry trees down each side of the street, their trunks lime-washed against insects. The houses had plants and flowerpots, cherry trees behind and vine-covered arbours. Life was less harsh, but the people were no less generous. Only in the large cities of Heraklion and Canea were the inhabitants likely to have lost some of those Cretan qualities which had survived, even thrived, over the centuries of foreign occupation with its cycle of repression and revolt.
* Even on the coast at Rethymno, a German paratrooper who received a bullet sideways through the nostrils during the battle found he could blow his nose normally a week later.
For Canea to become the new
The King's presence in such a republican stronghold as Crete, loyal to the liberal memory of its most famous son, Venizelos, was unpropitious. Tsouderos, as a Cretan and a monarchist, was a relatively rare bird, but as a banker and a politician, he had in Cretan eyes virtually become an Athenian by profession.
The Cretans, more than any other Greeks, never forgave King George for having granted a dubious legitimacy to the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas on 4 August 1936. Traditional Venizelist sympathies were affronted, and on the second anniversary of the August Decree, the Cretans had risen in revolt. Afterwards, their weapons — both the agent and the symbol of resistance to foreign oppression — were confiscated. That aroused more than disgust when the Cretan population then found itself practically unarmed in the face of the German invasion. After the war, in the plebiscite on the monarchy of 5 September 1946, Crete returned an absolute majority against the King. And yet the Communists in Crete, unlike their comrades on the mainland, never stood a chance of gaining power.
The Cretan character — warlike, proud, compulsively generous to a friend or stranger in need, ferociously unforgiving to an enemy or traitor, frugal day-by-day but prodigal in celebration — was, of course, strongly influenced by the landscape of dramatic contrasts in which the islanders lived.
Rich coastal strips on the north coast, endless olive groves on the foothills, fertile valleys and odd little plains hidden in the highlands, all were overshadowed by the island's spinal mass of limestone Cordilleras — the White Mountains, the Kedros range, the Mount Ida or Psiloriti range, and finally the Lasithi or Dikti mountains in the east. From sub-tropical vegetation with banana trees, carobs and orange groves, a mountain village, only fifteen kilometres away as the crow flew, but probably sixty on foot, seemed to exist in a different world and a different climate.
Mountain villages in the sheep-rearing (and sheep-stealing) regions of the centre consisted of little more than a cluster of white-washed houses round a simple Orthodox church. Often they had only a floor of beaten earth and a few pieces of home-made furniture, including a large dowry chest of clothes and sheets. The diet of sheep's and goat's cheese, potatoes and erratically cooked meat was as hard and monotonous as the life, but the air was invigorating and so clean that wounds healed with astonishing rapidity.*
In the highlands a man was known by the number of sheep he owned, in the lowlands by the number of his olive trees, of which Crete was reputed to have twenty million. Villages in the valleys and lowlands had pollarded mulberry trees down each side of the street, their trunks lime-washed against insects. The houses had plants and flowerpots, cherry trees behind and vine-covered arbours. Life was less harsh, but the people were no less generous. Only in the large cities of Heraklion and Canea were the inhabitants likely to have lost some of those Cretan qualities which had survived, even thrived, over the centuries of foreign occupation with its cycle of repression and revolt.
* Even on the coast at Rethymno, a German paratrooper who received a bullet sideways through the nostrils during the battle found he could blow his nose normally a week later.
For Canea to become the new
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