of York at Stamford Bridge on April 23 1921, when the King presented the Football Association's cup to the Tottenham Hotspur team on its victory over the Wolverhampton Wanderers in the final tie. On June 21–2 1921, the King and Queen visited Belfast, going and returning by sea, in order that His Majesty might inaugurate the new Northern Irish Parliament under Sir James Craig's premiership. In Dec. the engagement of Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood, was a happy event in the Royal Family. (H. Ch.)
GEORGE I. (1845–1913), King of Greece (see 11.746), had all but completed the soth year of his reign and was about to celebrate his jubilee (if we may believe his friend and biographer, Capt. Christmas) by abdicating the throne in favour of the Crown Prince Constantine, when he was shot down by a half-crazed Greek, named Schinas, at Salonika on March 18 1913. His assassination was at first attributed to Bulgarian instigation but after the first few days Greek public opinion dismissed this suspicion. On the other hand the crime has sometimes been attributed to Austrian and German intrigue Austrian for political, German for dynastic reasons. This suspicion is quite unproved, although a certain atmosphere of mystery that covered the examination and the subsequent “suicide” of the assassin helped to make it popular.
It had been characteristic of King George's political acumen that in 1900 he promptly recognized Venizelos' rare ability and gave him his wholehearted support, overlooking the fact that only four years before Venizelos had practically driven the King's second son, Prince George, out of Crete, and came to Greece in 1910 with the avowed readiness to force the King himself to abdicate, if he persisted in his life-long policy of laisser faire. And the King's discernment was rapidly and amply justified. Internal politics played only a secondary part in King George's, as in King Otho's, reign. The Panhellenic, or " Great," idea, i.e. the hope of uniting all the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire with the Greek Kingdom, had absorbed the thoughts and resources of the Greek people, ever since the recognition of the independence of Greece. King George, warned by Otho's example, and being of a totally different temperament, as well as of a far superior acumen, consistently strove, throughout his long reign, to restrain the patriotic exuberance of his subjects on the one hand, while endeavouring, on the other, to use his great personal influence and family connexions abroad in favour of the aspirations of the Greek people. As the brother-in-law of Edward VII. of England, and of Alexander III. of Russia, the uncle of Tsar. Nicholas II., the friend of Francis Joseph and of Gladstone, De Freycinet and many other British and French statesmen of his day, he had the ear of those upon whose decisions European politics depended; and while he was not always able to win them to his point of view, nor to spare Greece humiliations like the blockade of 1886 or cruel disappointments like the successive phases of the Cretan question, yet it is beyond doubt that his personal influence obtained for Greece, from the Great Powers, the maximum of friendly consideration consistent with their own interests and policies. It has been said more than once that at the time of his accession to the Greek throne he was made to undertake a secret engagement toward the Powers to act as a check upon the Panhellenic agitation; and in order to strengthen his hands in this undertaking Great Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1 864. Only once did King George depart from his pacific policy in Feb. 1897, when he approved of Col. Vassos' expedition to Crete. In a proclamation to the nation he declared that " his patience was at an end," and that, since the Great Powers persisted in dallying with the Cretan question, he felt that the moment had come for Greece to settle it by herself. Even in Oct. 1912, when Greece, in alliance with the other Balkan states, was preparing to declare war against Turkey, King George came hurrying home from Denmark, very much opposed to this venture. Venizelos went to meet the Royal yacht at Corinth, and the vessel was kept at quarter-speed for four hours between Corinth and Piraeus while Venizelos argued and wrestled with the King to win him over to his point of view. Finally the King, still unconvinced, observed that in obedience to the constitutional principle he had no choice but to consent.
King George's violent death was thus fraught with momentous consequences for Greece and for Europe. Greece lost a sagacious sovereign, and the Anglo-French Entente a devoted friend. He was succeeded by his eldest son, as Constantine I.
See Capt. Walter Christmas, King George of Greece (1914).
GEORGE, SIR ERNEST (1839–), English architect, was born in London June 13 1839. He began his career in the office of S. Hewitt, and at 19 became a student at the Royal Academy, where in the following year he was awarded the gold medal in architecture. He started professional practice in 1861, in conjunction with T. Vaughan, and with him carried out his earliest large commission—Rowsdon, Devonshire. On his partner's death in 1871 he was joined by Harold Peto, and subsequently by Alfred Yeates. During his connexion with the former of these many of his important works were done. They were almost wholly domestic, his public buildings being inconsiderable in number, and his church work confined to a few small churches, two of them in the Engadine. Amongst the houses for which he was responsible are Buchan Hill, Sussex; Stoodleigh Court, Tiverton; Motcombe, Dorset; Rawdon House, Herts; additions to Welbeck Abbey; Crathorne Hall, Berks, a villa at Antibes, and very many others. To this short list of a few only of his country houses may be added the many town residences with which he almost formed new quarters of London, such as those in Mount Street, in Collingham Gardens, and in parts of Chelsea, and an elaborately finished house in Berkeley Square. Amongst his commercial buildings are the Royal Exchange buildings, London, the (late) Albemarle hotel, and the interesting Venetian design for Sotheran's bookshop in Piccadilly. Before he ceased to take an active part in work his last design was for a great palace for the Maharajah Holkar of Indore.
George was also a most diligent painter and water-colour artist, and the influence of his sketching work not only in England but especially in Belgium, Holland and France makes itself evident in his picturesque design. He published volumes of his etchings on the Loire, and on the Mosel and in Belgium, Venice, etc., and was a constant exhibitor of his water-colour drawings at various galleries. In 1896 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1910 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and full member in 1917, and received a knighthood in 1911.
GEORGIA, the former province of Russia (see 11.758), in 1917, in consequence of the collapse of the Russian Empire, recovered an independent position, first as part of the Federal Republic of Trans-Caucasia, and then, alone, as the republic of Georgia.
As a republic Georgia comprised the two old Russian “governments” of Tiflis and Kutais, and the “districts” of Batum and Artvin, and was contained by the range of the Caucasus Mountains in the north, the Black Sea and the Turkish frontier in the west, and the borders of the sister republics of Erivan and Azerbaijan in the south and east. As a whole the country lacks geographical unity. Only on the north and west are its frontiers natural ones; in the south and east they had not yet been determined in 1921, except in part. The eastern half of Georgia, containing the old Russian “government” of Tiflis, occupies the upper basin of the Kura, a river entering the Caspian Sea; the western half, comprising Kutais, Batum and Artvin, is drained by various smaller streams flowing to the Black Sea. Much of the country where not mountainous is very fertile; forests cover a considerable area, and the mineral wealth is great, particularly in manganese, copper and coal.
Area and Population.—The area of the republic is about 28,000 sq.m., but in addition are some 4,500 sq.m. in dispute with the adjoining republics of Erivan and Azerbaijan. The territory of the republic contained, by the Russian census of 1916, a pop. of 2,770,000, comprising 1,620,000 Georgians, 233,000 Russians and other Europeans, 425,000 Armenians, 249,000 Moslems, and 244,000 other elements. Territory in dispute had a pop. of about 240,000, of whom Georgians numbered perhaps 9,000, Russians and other Europeans 8,000, Armenians 50,000, Moslems 160,000, and other elements 14-15,000.
