him as a martyr; and the man upon whom they visited their anger
was he whom they regarded as the true cause of their misery. After his
flight to Salonica M. Venizelos was never mentioned except by the name
of The Traitor; after the events of 1 December he was formally
impeached as one; and after the blockade had been in force for some
weeks, he was solemnly anathematized: on 26 December, the Archbishop of
Athens, from a cairn of stones in the midst of a great multitude,
pronounced the curse of the Church upon "the traitor, Venizelos." The
Government had forbidden the demonstration, but that did not prevent
myriads of people from going to add their own stone to the monument.[9]
One old woman was heard, as she cast her contribution, crying: "We made
him Premier; but he was not content. He would make himself king.
Anathema!" Subsequently, every village and hamlet repeated the
ceremony. "These {176} spontaneous ceremonies," observes an
eye-witness, "were vastly more indicative than any elections could ever
have been of the place to which the great Cretan had fallen in the
esteem of his countrymen." [10]

Appeals from the Holy Synod of the Greek Church to the Pope and the
heads of other Christian Churches availed as little as the appeals of
the Greek Government to Allied and neutral Governments. Month after
month the blockade went on, and each month produced its own tale of
suffering: deaths due directly to starvation; diseases due to the
indirect effects of inanition; a whole nation wasting for want of food;
horses starved to provide it; mothers praying to God for their daily
bread with babes drooping at their desiccated bosoms.[11] Yet of
yielding there was no sign: "Give in?" said a woman outside a
soup-kitchen at the Piraeus, in March. "We will eat our children
first!"

In such a manner this ancient race, which has lived so long, done so
much, and suffered so much, bore its martyrdom. By such an exercise of
self-discipline it defied the Powers of Civilisation to do their worst.
In spite of the licence given to brute force, in spite of the removal
of the machinery of civil control, in spite of the internment of the
army and its arms, in spite of the ostentatiously paraded support to
the Rebel, in spite of actual famine and the threat of imminent ruin,
the people held to the institutions of their country, rallied to their
King; and expressed their scorn for the usurper of his authority by
inscribing over the g