1821 to 1898
In many ways, everything changed in 1821, the year of the mainland Greek uprising against Ottoman rule. For fifty years, since the failure of the Daskalogiannis revolt, Crete had been relatively peaceful, but for most of the nineteenth century repeated uprisings made the island echo to the battle cry of the rebels, Eleftheria i Thanatos (Freedom or Death). This does not mean that there were not periods of peace between the rebellions. Kazantzakis describes the situation succinctly in his novel Captain Michalis:
The cross and crescent side by side, from time to time they were in peace and from time to time a Cretan storm caught them up in a rage, and they attacked one another, and they impaled their teeth to one another’s flesh.1
The same novel, incidentally, contains excellent descriptions of town and village life in nineteenth-century Ottoman Crete, the ambivalent relationship between Ottoman rulers, Muslim Cretans and Christian Cretans, and the heavy weight of history that lay on the minds of the Cretans, with memories of past failures and expectations of future success.
The events of the period from 1821 to 1898 demonstrate an almost tragic monotony, as the same mistakes are made repeatedly and the shifting tides of international affairs influence Cretan history, both for better and worse. Four themes can be isolated: local politics, Greek independence, Ottoman policy and the involvement of the Great Powers (or protecting powers), primarily Britain, France, Italy and Russia.
Beginning with Crete itself, the inability of the revolutionary leaders to agree among themselves or to submit to an overall military commander, or even to be united on the exact form that a free Crete would take, undoubtedly weakened the various rebellions. At the same time, the Greek revolution began in 1821, leading to the liberation of southern and central Greece and the creation of the Greek state in 1830. From this point on, events on the mainland had a direct impact on events in Crete.
As for the Ottoman Empire, the vacillations in policy of the Sublime Porte sometimes worked in Crete’s favour and sometimes disastrously against, but were always disruptive:
The Ottoman authorities seemed incapable of following a consistent policy, sometimes dangerously compliant and sometimes inappropriately autocratic, as moderation and arrogance succeeded each other with the same frequency that the rulers of the day were sent out – thirty-seven governors succeeded each other in the space of forty-six years, with an average term in office of fifteen months.2
There were two causes for these changes in policy. One was the internal politics of the empire, in which a struggle between reformers and conservatives continued for most of the nineteenth century. Perhaps more important from Crete’s point of view, however, was the influence of the Great Powers.
To explain the involvement of European countries in the affairs of Crete, it is necessary to take a step back. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the main aim of the group of countries known as the Concert of Europe had been the maintenance of stability in Europe and the avoidance of another major European war. Britain, France, Prussia (later Germany), Russia, Austria-Hungary and, after unification, Italy “took collective charge of the problems of the continent, while relinquishing nothing of their national sovereignty”, and their efforts led to an unusually peaceful century on the continent.3 Although basically conservative, the Concert did not necessarily oppose all independence movements; as the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans began to break up, it sought to control rather than suppress the new nation states. There were, however, differences of interest between the members of the Concert. While Russia was generally favourably disposed towards its fellow Orthodox peoples of Greece and Crete, Britain and France were suspicious of Russian influence, and for most of the period they tried to maintain the balance of power by supporting the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, self-interest came first, and they were quite prepared to put pressure on the sultan if their interests warranted it.
Before the outbreak of revolution in Greece, the Friendly Society (Filiki Etairia), founded in 1814, was largely responsible for spreading revolutionary ideas. Its members were active in Crete from the beginning, although the network was limited. A rare coded document of initiation exists from that period:
In the name of the Salvation to come, I confirm Ioannis Birakis, son of George of Sfakia and aged fifty-five, to be a member and supporter of the Friendly Society and ardently to desire the well-being of his nation.4
It was taken for granted that the island would take an active part in the uprising when it came, and that Crete would be part of a liberated Greece. From 1816, official representatives from Crete were present on the mainland, and support for the rebellion grew among Cretans, especially the professional class and the clergy. In return, there were expectations that support for Crete would come from the mainland. However, in spite of widespread support for rebellion, Cretans were slow to join the struggle. Their lack of weapons and supplies together with the large Muslim population on the island made them wary of starting something they couldn’t finish. Memories of the Daskalogiannis failure were still at the front of their minds. A nineteenth-century Greek observer of the Cretan uprisings wrote:
Unprepared and cut off from the rest of the Greek world, they looked to their own resources and entered the national struggle ... In the beginning, their weaponry amounted to no more than four hundred barrels of gunpowder ... And what about lead and paper? Ecclesiastical books and weights from the steelyards and whatever else could be found were used, to begin with, for making cartridges and rounds. For many months, the Cretans bought at their own expense a barrel of gunpowder for three, four and sometimes five Spanish gold pieces. The number of weapons that were available was extremely limited during the early period of the revolution and those bearing arms probably amounted to no more than about 1200, of whom eight hundred were Sfakians.5
Moreover, the Ottoman authorities, as soon as they heard of the insurrection on the mainland, began to take precautions, moving many of Crete’s bishops to Candia as hostages.
Nevertheless, following a meeting in Sfakia, in April 1821, the rebels agreed to take up arms. On 14th June, they won their first victory in a battle near Chania. Within a few days, the uprising had spread to the rest of the island, joined by a crypto-Christian janissary, Hussein Agha, who reverted to his Christian name of Michael Kourmoulis and led his whole clan of over sixty men to join the rebellion. Ottoman reprisals were instant and savage. The metropolitan and seven other bishops were hanged. The cathedral in Candia was plundered and burned, while abbots, monks and clerics throughout the island were killed or imprisoned. In some places, the janissaries went on a killing spree against Christians, with 400 victims in Chania and 800 in Candia. Perhaps most horrifying was an attack on a convent in which all the nuns were raped and murdered. The extent of the violence provoked protests from the British and French vice-consuls, which probably prevented a further bloodbath.
In spite of the reprisals, the insurrection continued, with several early successes for the rebels, especially in the Sfakia area, and many of the aghas in the villages being forced to seek refuge in Chania. In a major victory near Kydonia, the pasha of Chania and 5,000 men were defeated and forced to retreat. Meanwhile, a Turkish expeditionary force, attempting to break through from Rethymnon to Sfakia, was annihilated. These victories not only brought an upsurge in morale but, more practically, a large supply of weaponry. In late July, although there was some fighting in the Candia region and the government forces retreated into their fortresses, there was no serious threat from the rebels in that area. Since the rebels in the east of Crete were somewhat isolated from the main forces in the west, the pasha of Candia was now able to direct the bulk of his army, together with troops from Siteia and Rethymnon – 8,000 men in all, plus artillery and cavalry – toward a concerted attack on Sfakia. The rebels were forced back, so that the army from Chania could now join the pasha. Although the rebels checked the Ottoman advance at Theriso, the situation was desperate. Urgent requests for help were dispatched to the Greek navy at Spetses:
We are in great distress, and no longer have the strength to carry on since the enemy is warring against us both by land and sea, certain that the absence of Greek ships will mean the destruction of the Christians.6
No assistance materialised, and the Ottoman army broke through into Sfakia at the end of August. All resistance was crushed, and the whole district was devastated as in 1770. The Ottoman troops returned to their fortresses, and the revolution seemed to have been suppressed.
Not so. In the autumn of 1821, the rebels regrouped and succeeded in expelling the Ottomans from Apokoronas and Kydonia. In spite of this, a problem was emerging that had been seen before in several other eras. It was becoming clear that personal ambition and disputes between the chieftains were weakening the revolution. The Sfakians had set up the Chancellery of Sfakia to plan and co-ordinate the revolution, organise the supply of arms and provisions, protect the civilian population and manage fundraising. However, the chancellery did not have the strength or legitimacy to control local disputes between chieftains, so they appealed to the new Greek government to appoint a commander-in-chief for Crete. Michael Afendoulis was duly given the job and he arrived in Crete in November 1821.
On the whole, the appointment of Afendoulis was not a great success. He did put the revolution on a firmer foundation and was instrumental in spreading the insurrection to the rest of the island. He also attempted to give shape to the struggle for freedom by planning a form of political organisation. However, the Cretans were generally suspicious of the “outsider”, and his weak physique did little to inspire confidence among the tough Sfakians. Moreover, his obvious ambition and arrogance made him unpopular with many, resulting in constant arguments with the chieftains and the creation of more divisions than before, some of which ended in violence and murder. The failure of a siege of Rethymnon and defeat in a major battle were blamed on him, and he became even more unpopular.
In May 1822, assisted by his friend Petros Skylitsis, he summoned a general assembly at Armeni, near Apokoronas, to vote for an interim revolutionary government for the island. The assembly was chaired by Skylitsis, a much more flexible and diplomatic character, who worked hard for reconciliation between the factions. The forty representatives from all regions of Crete agreed a declaration of freedom, based on the Greek Constitution of 1822, and approved a plan for a caretaker administration. The island would be divided into four prefectures, subdivided into provinces and communities (an arrangement pretty much the same as that which later existed in Crete for most of the twentieth century, until the recent reforms of 2011). Central power rested with a general eparch (provincial governor), supported by a General Chancellery composed of a general secretary and secretaries for the economy, the police, war, the sea and justice. Representation in the Greek parliament was outlined, and a new Cretan flag designed. Afendoulis was appointed general eparch, but Skylitsis fled the island when news of the landing of an Egyptian army reached him.
Even as the assembly was still debating the future, events were taking a turn for the worse. The main Ottoman army was occupied in mainland Greece, and the continuing insurrection in Crete was of some concern to the sultan, who sought the aid of Mehmet Ali, the somewhat rebellious governor of Egypt. With the hope of eventually ruling over Crete and expanding into Sudan and Syria, he sent a large army under the command of his brother-in-law, Hassan Pasha. Hassan landed at Souda at the end of May and immediately set out to crush the rebels. His first attack on a fortified position at Malaxa, south of Chania, succeeded in driving out the rebels, but this was followed by a major defeat at Krousonas, south of Candia. Realising that tough battles lay ahead, Hassan turned to diplomacy. He released the bishop of Kydonia and “persuaded” him to issue a pastoral encyclical commanding the rebels to lay down their arms. At the same time, he published declarations calling on the people of Crete to submit to the “beneficent” ruler of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, and promising a just and honest administration. Both stratagems failed completely, and Hassan resumed military operations in August.
He met with some initial success, but suffered losses, culminating in a long and bloody battle near Tylissos, west of Candia. He decided to concentrate on the Lassithi plateau, the centre of resistance in the east and a major source of food supplies for the rebels. He withdrew to an area near Candia, regrouped his forces and attempted to break through into the plateau. Finding all the passes held securely by the rebels, he set out on a long outflanking movement to the south through Viannos, circling round past Ierapetra, through Kroustas and Kritsa to the Katharo plateau. From this less-protected area, he was able to sweep into Lassithi. He laid waste to the plateau, destroying most of the resistance, and then wintered in the bay of Mirabello.
It was during a battle near Kritsa that the extraordinary Cretan heroine Rhodanthe was killed. The daughter of a priest, she had been abducted by a drunken Ottoman officer, who had killed her mother. She managed to escape by cutting the officer’s throat, and, disguised as a young man, she joined the rebellion, fighting with great courage among the men. It was only after she was shot that her comrades discovered who she really was. Rhodanthe, “The Girl from Kritsa”, is still commemorated in songs and poems, and is highly honoured in her native village.7
After the defeat on Lassithi, a few armed rebels and around 2,000 civilians took refuge in a cave near Milatos. In February 1823, the Egyptians laid siege, bombarding the cave with cannon fire for two weeks. The rebels eventually surrendered, and most were slaughtered, the rest being sold into slavery.8 As Hassan moved his army towards Messara for the next stage of the war, he fell from his bolting horse and was killed, in what the Cretans believed to be an act of divine retribution.
On the political front, Afendoulis finally fell out with the Cretan chieftains, who had him arrested and accused of negligence, inertia, excessive ambition and treasonable inclinations. He was thrown out of Crete, leaving the revolution leaderless. Although Emmanuel Tombazis was now appointed governor-general, he did not arrive in Crete until May 1823. He brought with him five warships, 600 volunteers and, most importantly, new hope for the revolution. After an early success with the surrender of the town of Kastelli Kissamos in the west, he headed towards Chania and the janissary base at Selino. In early June, Hassan’s replacement, Hussein Bey, landed with 3,000 extra men. He decided to continue with Hassan’s strategy of suppressing the east first, and led an army of 12,000 men (plus cavalry and artillery) to meet Tombazis, now near Candia. On 20th August, a battle near Amourgelles resulted in defeat and retreat for the Cretans, leaving the Ottoman army in control of the whole Messara plain.
Hussein continued to move west towards Rethymnon, and the Cretans now faced a critical situation. After the failure of a belated attempt to capture Gramvousa, and with renewed tensions between the revolutionary factions, Tombazis sought help from Greece:
Sir, hard-pressed Crete is now breathing its last. A little military help and the arrival of ships could relieve the island of the threat of annihilation. It is a rich land and could repay the cost many times over; it needs only to be saved from the enemy and the plunderers who squander the national wealth. Sir, if the Greek nation loses Crete, it will lose its right eye and independence will not amount to much. May the honourable Commission therefore hasten to secure the salvation of the island while the enemy still leaves us time to do so; otherwise all will have been in vain.9
Unfortunately, Greece was itself embroiled in a political and economic crisis, and the revolutionary war was facing setbacks, so no help was available from that quarter.
Hussein continued his advance, plundering the area of Apokoronas and attacking Sfakia, where many of the chieftains finally capitulated. When his army reached the harbour of Loutro, the Greek fleet was forced to evacuate over 10,000 refugees, in Crete’s own version of the Dunkirk evacuation. In all, it is believed that about 60,000 Cretans fled the island in early 1824. There was, from then on, a permanent and influential Cretan lobby in Greece. Tombazis himself left, and the revolution was virtually over. With some wisdom and a view to the future, Hussein granted a general amnesty and Crete now became an invaluable supply base for the Ottoman army on the mainland. The rebellion was now reduced to night-time raids, sabotage and guerrilla warfare between the Cretan Kalisperides (Good Evenings, so called because they usually attacked at dusk) and bands of janissaries called Zourides (Cretan Weasels, fierce nocturnal carnivores).
It was not long before rebellion flared up again. In the middle of 1825, a small group captured the island fortress of Gramvousa, while a second force took the fortress at Kissamos. This was of serious concern to the new Egyptian governor, Mustafa Naili Pasha, who immediately dispatched a large army to recapture the fortresses. Although his efforts failed, he was able to prevent the revolt spreading in the west, and Gramvousa and Kissamos remained isolated. With no way of breaking out from the island, the rebels on Gramvousa turned to piracy and harassed shipping operations, both Ottoman and European, along the coast. They also began to establish a community on the island, building a school and a church dedicated to Panagia Kleftrina (Our Lady of the Pirates), still existent but in a ruined state. A new Cretan Council was established on the island as the official revolutionary authority, but was slow to spark any interest in the rest of Crete, until international events changed the situation.
The 1827 Treaty of London sought to bring to an end the Greek War of Independence by establishing an independent Greek state as a dependency of the sultan, under the protection of the Great Powers. Tombazis believed, perhaps wrongly, that only areas of Greece actively involved in revolt against the Ottomans would be included within the borders of the new state. He urged the Cretans to revive and extend the rebellion to ensure Crete’s inclusion in Greece. Reinforcements landed at Aghios Nikolaos in eastern Crete. The rebels quickly gained control of a large part of the east – but, with no overall command and a lack of discipline among the troops, the revolt quickly became fragmented, leading to retreat. Some of the rebels fled to the mountains and some to Gramvousa, while the rest left Crete. By this stage, even the Greek government was losing patience with the piracy on Gramvousa. Early in 1828, the Greek head of state, Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias, asked Britain and France to send fleets to destroy the pirate ships and hand over the fortress to Britain.
Just before the British intervention, in January 1828, Hadji-Michalis Dalianis, a famous revolutionary from Epiros, had landed at Gramvousa with a small force, intending to bring the revolution to life again. By early March, he had captured the great fortress at Frangokastelli and set up a base for further advances. The surrounding area had been so thoroughly intimidated by Mustafa’s threats of reprisals that Dalianis was unable to stir up other districts. Lacking supplies and support, the Sfakian chieftains advised retreat to the mountains and a continuation of the guerrilla war. In spite of this, Dalianis insisted on battle. On 18th May 1828, 600 Cretans with 100 cavalry faced Mustafa’s army of 8,000 men and 300 cavalry. The result was a foregone conclusion: Dalianis and over half his men were killed in a decisive victory for the Egyptian army. It did not all go Mustafa’s way, however, for as he returned towards Chania he was harried by repeated ambushes and attacks, and he reached Chania with his army in disarray.
Over the years, there have been sightings of ghostly figures moving towards the fortress at Frangokastelli at dawn on the anniversary of the battle. There has never been any logical explanation for this phenomenon, but these so-called Drosoulites (Dew Shadows) have been reported on several occasions. In 1890, for example, a small group of Ottoman soldiers thought they were being attacked by rebels, and fled in panic. During the Second World War, even a German patrol found the shadows so convincing that they opened fire, unfortunately giving away their position to a nearby resistance group.
Having been somewhat equivocal in its support of the Greek revolution, the British government was determined to exclude Crete from the new state. Its reasons were a mixture of wanting to keep the balance of power between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, and fear of an expansion of Russian influence in the Mediterranean. The result was that, under British influence, Governor Kapodistrias sent representatives to the island, calling for a halt to hostilities. This request was ignored, the Cretan Council was revived and the revolt spread east again towards Siteia. The Ottoman response was extremely violent: in the summer of 1828, fierce fighting broke out in Messara, followed by a second massacre of Christians in Candia, in which 800 were killed. Similar attacks took place in Rethymnon and other towns. There was an outcry in Europe about the massacres, and a swing in sentiment towards the rebels.
In October 1828, British and French fleets arrived in Souda Bay, and the British admiral was charged with negotiating a ceasefire. While this was going on, Tombazis seized the opportunity to return to Crete with a view to taking control of Siteia region, the only area still entirely in Ottoman hands. Whether he was seeking to strengthen the negotiating hand of the rebels or to continue to work for total independence is not known. He captured Siteia and managed to drive the Ottoman troops into their fortresses, including Ierapetra and Spinalonga. However, an Egyptian army quickly recaptured Siteia, and the revolution again became indecisive. Nearly all of the rural areas were now in the hands of the revolutionaries, and the Ottomans were confined mainly to the large cities and a few fortresses.
All this became academic when the London Protocol of 1830 finally set out the limits of the new Greek state. Crete was not included. The bitterly disappointed Cretans appealed passionately to the Greek government:
Crete has always been and will remain to be an inalienable part of Greece, having fought and still fighting with the rest of the revolutionary parts of the country since the beginning of the struggle for freedom, and no one can understand how, with the various manoeuvres of the representatives of respected monarchies, these same powers can simply neglect to take Crete into account while a violent war is still raging on its land and the Turks have been pushed back by the Greeks into their strongholds ... We can find no other salvation than in our arms and in honourable death; and if Christendom wishes to abandon us to the ferocity of the Turks, having seen our women, children and parents slaughtered, let us then too become victims – but noble victims of constancy of spirit and belief in our inalienable rights.10
A final attempt to retake the island of Gramvousa failed. In June 1830, ships of the Great Powers landed west of Candia to enforce the ceasefire and impose order on the island.
Mehmet Ali was granted rule over Crete, and Mustafa Naili Pasha was confirmed as governor. Mehmet Ali was looking towards permanent control of the island and a minimum of intervention by the Great Powers, both of which gave him an incentive to present the new administration as fair and impartial. At the same time, in Egypt he had shown himself to be a moderniser and an enlightened, if ruthless, ruler. Mustafa Pasha’s first act was to declare a general amnesty and the laying down of all arms. The ceasefire held, although many of those opposed to it left the island, the Muslims emigrating to Asia Minor and the Christians to Greece. He then initiated an ambitious programme of public works, largely ignored by the earlier Ottoman governments. Roads were built, bridges and aqueducts repaired and the harbours dredged. At the same time, he began a whole schedule of welfare policies, issuing a decree claiming that:
The sole object of their master, Mehmet Ali Pasha, was to establish the tranquillity and to cause the prosperity of Crete, and to deliver the Christians from the vexations to which they were formerly exposed.11
To this end, land confiscated from émigré Christian families was returned, destroyed olive presses were restored and schools for Muslims and Christians were built. There were also improvements to the justice system and, perhaps most significantly, the public health system (described below). However, some of Mustafa’s policies were not at all popular with the Muslim community. The janissaries, disbanded and suppressed in 1826, were replaced by Albanian and Egyptian forces that did not show particular favour to the Muslim Cretans, who were also replaced by Albanians in administrative posts. It was now ruled that Muslims had no right of entry to Christian homes without permission, and could not settle in rural areas unless they already had property there, thus initiating further migration to the cities.
Unfortunately, all Mustafa’s reforms required a great deal of money, and now the administration showed the ruthless side of its modernising. An oppressive new tax on agricultural products was established, which caused great hardship to both Christian and Muslim farmers, and the curtailing of the power of upper-class Muslims now made the two communities equal in discontent. There was opposition throughout Crete. Eventually, in September 1833, 7,000 Christians, with the tacit or open support of many Muslims, gathered to protest at Mournies near Kydonia. They also agreed on a petition to be sent to the Great Powers, seeking protection from arbitrary military and political power. The arbitrary military power responded immediately. Although all arms were forbidden at the protest and many armed chieftains had been turned away, Mustafa ordered his cavalry to charge the protesters and disperse them. The ringleaders were arrested and hanged, as were many other Christians and Muslims suspected of complicity. The Egyptian administration was strong enough to prevent intervention by the Great Powers, and the protest collapsed. It became clear that there was no hope of freedom without help from outside, and a group of exiled Cretans twice proposed that the British should invade Crete and declare it a protectorate. They received no response to either proposal.
Meanwhile, the ever-ambitious Mehmet Ali had attacked the Ottoman Empire in Syria, but, in spite of a major victory, he had been forced to withdraw to Egypt by the intervention of the Great Powers. France and Britain, still anxious to keep the Ottoman Empire intact, overcame Russian objections and, at the 1840 Treaty of London, placed Crete back under direct rule from Constantinople. In central and northern Greece, revolts in Thessaly and Macedonia were seeking to join these regions to Greece and, in 1841, simultaneous revolts in east and west Crete sought to achieve the same aim. This time, many chieftains were reluctant to join the uprisings, and there was no support from Greece. In addition, the Great Powers maintained constant pressure to end the rebellion. After fierce battles in Apokoronas and near Chersonisos, the revolt ended.
In spite of the change of rule, Mustafa Pasha remained in Crete as general commissioner until 1850 and began to initiate further reforms. For his long service on the island, he was given the honorary name Mustafa Naili Pasha Giritli (his new epithet meaning “The Cretan”). The capital was moved to Chania and the island divided into twenty-three provinces, each administered by a councillor supported by one Muslim and one Christian sergeant-at arms. The bulk of the tax-collecting rights were removed from the aghas and given to the provincial councillors, who were now responsible for administration, tax collecting, the police and the judiciary. The gendarmerie remained in the hands of the Albanians, who continued to be protective of the Christians and to intervene in their support on many occasions. Mustafa himself seems to have been quite favourably disposed towards the Cretans. He spoke Greek fluently, although he could not write it, and most of the women in his harem were Greek. His first wife was the daughter of a priest and was allowed to remain a Christian, even maintaining a small church in the garden of the pasha’s home.12 Mustafa’s successor was a fair governor, who continued the reforms and was generally looked on favourably by the Cretans, but when Veliyüddin Pasha became governor in 1855, there was a return to a harsher regime.
As part of the 1856 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Crimean War, France and Britain influenced the sultan to issue the famous Imperial Reform Edict, the Hatt-i Hümayun. This clarified and extended the Edict of Gülhane of 1839, which had first officially declared that, contrary to the principles of Islamic Law, Muslims and non-Muslims would thenceforth be legally equal subjects of the sultan. The 1856 text, virtually dictated by the Allied ambassadors to the Sublime Porte, granted religious toleration to Christians throughout the empire, and guaranteed the safety of all subjects without distinction of class or religion. There was no discrimination regarding entry into public services or into civil and military schools. Joint courts were to be set up, and there was to be equal taxation for all religious groups. Under Veliyüddin Pasha, the decree was almost completely ignored, leading to further uprisings. Although these were unsuccessful, the edict had created a clear focus and a forward path for the revolutionary movement. The imposition of new taxes and a general curfew brought renewed protests and, in 1858, 5,000 people assembled near Chania. They elected a committee to send appeals to the Great Powers and to the sultan. The result was somewhat different from that of the deadly protest of 1833. When Veliyüddin ordered an attack on the protesters, his military commander refused to carry out the order and, shortly after, envoys arrived from the sultan, agreeing to satisfy the demands. Veliyüddin was removed from office and his successor, Sami Pasha, began negotiations. An imperial decree was issued, granting religious, tax, administrative and judicial privileges to the Cretans, as well as the right to bear arms.
A small development, but one of great importance for future events, was the creation of Demogerontia (Councils of Elders) in Chania, Rethymnon and Candia. There were separate councils for Muslims and Christians, each composed of six to seven members. The councils were responsible for social welfare, education and family and inheritance law. One member of each council was a clergyman appointed by the Church or Muslim scholars, and the rest were elected by members of guilds, merchants and other well-to-do subjects of the sultan.
After twenty-five years of uneasy peace, 1866 saw perhaps the greatest uprising of the Ottoman years. Underlying this eruption was the Cretan Christians’ continuing dissatisfaction with their inferior status and despair that they would ever attain freedom or union with Greece. As is often the case, the immediate sparks that ignited the rebellion were almost trivial. Ismael Pasha, the governor appointed in 1861, was initially a just and mild ruler, to the extent that the Cretans had petitioned that he stay in post after the end of his term. Then, after a short period, he changed tactics. In spite of the terms of the 1856 edict, he instituted harsh new taxation measures, mainly on agricultural produce. When he began to interfere in Church affairs, involving himself in a dispute between the Councils of Elders and the monasteries, the Cretans felt he had overstepped the mark.
In May 1866, representatives from all over Crete gathered near Chania and composed a petition to the sultan, asking him to intervene. At the same time, they again petitioned the Great Powers to support them in achieving union with Greece. The sultan firmly rejected their demands, and after a meeting near Apokoronas the representatives formed themselves into a revolutionary General Assembly and declared revolution. Support from outside was mixed. Britain and France were still determined to keep the Ottoman Empire intact, while the former also had its own reasons for supporting the status quo. After the rebellion of 1857 to 1859 in India and the continuing troubles in Ireland, the last thing the British government wanted was to be seen to support a nationalistic religious group fighting against an imperial master. Russia, on the other hand, after being outvoted at the Treaty of Paris, supported the idea of an independent Crete.
Within Greece itself, opinion was divided. The government, dependent on the support of Britain and France, was definitely opposed to the revolution. A communiqué from the minister of foreign affairs was unequivocal:
Under the present state of affairs in Europe and the East, any imprudent move in Crete would certainly be disastrous. The Cretans must be extremely cautious and not be drawn into any kind of insurgency, whether from a poor estimation of the political situation in Europe or from the irresponsible exhortations and incitements of hasty and reckless persons.13
However, this was not the opinion of all in parliament, and popular opinion in Greece was firmly on the side of the rebels. A Central Committee for the Support of the Cretans was set up, and supplies including money and food were collected in mainland Greece and on the islands. Some areas also sent volunteers and weapons.
The Cretans made a touching appeal to the president of the United States, asking for help in turning the heads of the Great Powers:
Mr. President, if injustice in your mother land was set right by the sacred struggle which through Divine blessing was conducted to triumph by the ever-to-be remembered WASHINGTON, how is ours justified? We should be happy if we had only the shadow of the benefits which your country gained in that epoch. Being in such a condition, we, the respectfully undersigned representatives of the Cretan people dare to ask, Mr. President, the intercession of the great democracy, one in which you happily reside, in order that our matters may obtain attention from the cabinets of the great European Powers. Blessing the highest for the prospects and strength of the glorious democracy of the United States of America, we take the liberty of subscribing ourselves the humble servants of your Excellency, the representatives of the Cretan People.14
The appeal brought little practical help, partly because of the Monroe Doctrine, which limited American influence outside its own continent, and partly because of the economic and political crisis the United States was facing in the aftermath of its civil war. Nevertheless, the Cretans received considerable moral and financial support from the American people, together with a small number of volunteer fighters.
Within Crete, there was a great imbalance between the two sides. Ottoman and Egyptian troops numbered some 45,000, together with about 10,000 Cretan Muslims under arms. The army was well equipped, with up-to-date equipment and the full financial support of the empire. Since the reorganisation of the imperial army, the troops were loyal and well disciplined, with experienced officers and a clear line of command. The rebels had about 25,000 men under arms – including volunteers from Greece itself, other parts of Europe and the United States – but, although most of them were experienced and courageous fighters, the old problem of a command structure, or lack of one, remained a fundamental weakness. Power was in the hands of the General Assembly, but this body varied in its composition and frequently moved its base. Each of the leaders in Chania, Rethymnon and the eastern region had the title “commander”, but there was no overall commander-in-chief.
As news of the uprising spread, there was a general flight of Muslims from the villages to the larger towns, and Christians to the mountains. Early successes by the rebels led the sultan to recall the veteran Mustafa Naili Pasha Giritli. His first step was diplomatic, offering satisfaction of all just demands and an amnesty in return for the rebels laying down their arms. This was rejected immediately by the assembly, which by now would not be satisfied by anything less than freedom. For many, even that was not enough, and the battle cry now became Enosis i Thanatos (Union or Death). Early victories by Mustafa in the area of Theriso were balanced by surprise attacks and defeats on the march, in which he lost many men. The defeat of one of the rebel commanders with heavy losses at Vafes, south-east of Chania, was a tremendous blow to the rebels’ morale, and led to another offer by Mustafa of amnesty and safe passage out of Crete for the Greek volunteers. This time, many villages across the island accepted, and it seemed that the revolution might die before it had really begun.
Mustafa now turned his attention to the Rethymnon area, and led 15,000 men to Arkadi monastery, where the revolutionary commanders had their headquarters. About 300 armed men and 600 women and children took refuge in the heavily fortified monastery, which was surrounded by the Ottoman forces. Having agreed safe passage for the few who wanted to leave, the abbot, Gabriel Marinakis, and the commander, Ioannis Dimakopoulos, rejected the terms of surrender offered by Mustafa. Although the rebels held out for a day, Marinakis being killed fighting on the walls, the Ottomans brought up huge cannons and set up a continuous bombardment, eventually smashing the west gate. As they broke in at dawn on 8th November, the rebels blew up the powder magazine, killing most of the Cretans but also inflicting massive damage on the Ottoman army. Hundreds were killed, but the ramifications of this tragedy went far beyond the immediate battle. The sacrifice became a great moral victory for the rebels, and support for the revolution spread throughout Europe and the United States, bringing fresh volunteers from Serbia, Hungary and Italy, as well as Greece.15
Moving further east, Mustafa had mixed fortunes, defeating the rebels in several battles but suffering heavy losses. Leaving the east unresolved for now, he turned back towards the west. Here there were the usual cases of bickering between the leaders and shortages of weapons, and he met little resistance. Much of Sfakia now capitulated, although Mustafa again suffered extensive losses of men, arms and supplies in ambushes as he withdrew for the winter. European (especially French) opinion was now shifting in favour of Crete, and with the war in something of a stalemate, the sultan again tried diplomacy. He issued a decree calling for the election of representatives, one Muslim and one Christian for each province, to meet in Constantinople for a resolution of the problems. When he received no response from the revolutionaries, he turned back to the military option, replacing Mustafa with a very able general, Ömer Pasha.
Ömer’s strategy was two-pronged. First he attacked Sfakia but, failing to make much progress, he left his second in command to hold his positions in the Apokoronas and Kydonia areas and turned east to Lassithi. All the main passes were held by the rebels, but Ömer joined with forces from western Crete at Kastelli and then, in a clever and courageous flanking manoeuvre, took the army over the mountains, sweeping down on Lassithi to defeat the rebel army on the plain. However, no sooner had he turned back west to resume his attack on Sfakia than the rebels and villagers returned to the Lassithi plateau. Although Ömer again succeeded in subduing Sfakia, the pattern of the war was becoming clear: the Ottoman army was usually able to defeat the rebels in open battle, but was unable to impose a permanent and stable rule in the more remote areas. This stalemate caused the sultan again to consider diplomacy and to adopt a more conciliatory policy.
In September 1867, Ömer was recalled, and a five-week ceasefire and general amnesty were declared. The sultan sent his grand vizier, the reformist but authoritarian Mehmed Emin Aali Pasha, to Crete, with a remit to accept almost any form of government short of union with Greece. He initially offered administrative concessions and various privileges for the Christians, together with a basic form of autonomy for Crete. In spite of a largely negative response from the General Assembly, he went ahead and announced elections in the Ottoman-held areas. An assembly of thirty Muslims and twenty Christians was duly convened in Chania. Although the assembly had little legitimacy on the island as a whole, it did have the support of the British and the anti-revolutionary faction, and pointed the way towards a possible future for Crete.
An imperial decree, the Organic Act, was issued in January 1868, and consolidated the reforms outlined by Aali Pasha. Crete was to become an administrative province of the empire under a governor-general appointed by the sultan. The island was divided into five councils and twenty-five provinces, each governed by both Christians and Muslims, according to a fixed ratio. Turkish and Greek were both recognised as official languages. Some tax concessions were granted, and a Commercial Bank was established. Arrangements were also made for the election of a General Assembly, which would meet for forty days each year and would be responsible for legislation of a strictly local nature, such as transport, public works, trade, farming and education. At the same time, to solve the problem of permanent control, the new governor had a series of heavily fortified towers built at strategic points in all the provinces. Each was manned by a permanent garrison, which could maintain surveillance in all parts of the island.
The revolution was by now rapidly losing steam and, although guerrilla warfare and lightning strikes continued, supplies were much reduced and morale was low. Few Greek ships were able to get past the Ottoman fleet. In any case, as European diplomacy switched back to support of the empire, the Great Powers forbade Greece from setting up volunteer forces to help rebellions in any Ottoman areas and from sending provisions. When the revolutionary government was besieged near Kissamos and most of its representatives killed, the few remaining leaders in the east gave up the struggle, some accepting amnesty, some becoming outlaws. By January 1869, the great revolution was over.
The Organic Act was undoubtedly a step forward, and was seen by the Ottoman government as a major concession to the Christians of Crete. Nevertheless, it had fundamental flaws and remained uneven in its treatment of Muslims and Christians. It was never likely to gain acceptance by the Christians, who now had broader aims. The new General Assembly was of mixed membership, but the Christian population (constituting 74% of the Cretan whole) was only allowed a majority of two, later just one. Moreover, the assembly was indirectly elected by the local committees of elders, which left great scope for fraud and intimidation. The debates of the assembly were chaired by the governor-general, who, together with the sultan, had to ratify all decisions.
In the event, there were continual violations even of these limited terms, while much of the decree was never fully implemented at all. Very few decisions were ever ratified, and the governor-general frequently dissolved the assembly before its forty days were up. Protests to the Sublime Porte were ignored and the protesters either exiled or imprisoned. For ten years following the end of the revolution, the island was administered by military leaders who were generally anti-Christian and despotic. The beys, wealthy Muslim landowners who now exercised most of the power on the island, were opposed to even the limited rights granted by the Organic Act. In general, after the hope and excitement of the Great Revolution, Crete now entered a period of stagnation. Planned public works were abandoned, and social welfare became virtually non-existent. Even the Orphans’ Fund, set up in 1858 as part of Sami Pasha’s reforms, was riddled with corruption and served mainly as a source of pocket money for the beys who administered it.
In 1875, rebellion against Ottoman rule broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, reigniting the revolutionary spirit in Crete. There were discussions in both Crete and Greece on the way forward and, although there was little support for an uprising, the idea of Crete as a British protectorate gained new impetus. The General Assembly petitioned the Sublime Porte to implement the terms of the Organic Act fully and to issue an imperial decree to safeguard its provisions. This was ignored, and when a further petition was sent to the governor-general asking that Crete be considered a self-administered province, he responded by dissolving the assembly and ordering the arrest of the Christian representatives, who fled to Apokoronas. In 1876, the sultan granted the first constitution to his empire, which allowed Crete to send two representatives, one from each faith, to the parliament in Constantinople. It was a measure of the distrust felt towards the empire that the Cretan Christians regarded this as a step backwards that returned the island to the status of a province. In the first election of March 1877, only five Christians voted, and the representative elected refused office, as did his replacement.
The Bosnian-Herzegovinian rebellion had now escalated into a war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia and, by the spring of 1877, new opportunities for uprising were opening up. The likely victory of Russia and the weakness of the empire also led to renewed support from Greece, including help in returning exiled leaders to Crete. With no prospect of reinforcements from the Sublime Porte, the administration again tried negotiations, supported by the British. In no mood for compromise, a Pan-Cretan Revolutionary Assembly was called in Fres, Apokoronas, which demanded that Crete be immediately declared an autonomous principality, paying tribute to the sultan, and that the governor should be a Christian, his election being guaranteed by the Great Powers. When no reply was received, rebellion broke out across the island in January 1878. The Muslims again fled to the cities and, within a short time, the whole island was in rebel hands except for the three main cities, plus the fortresses at Ierapetra, Spinalonga, Izzeddin, Kissamos and Gramvousa.
Within a month, the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was ended by the Treaty of San Stefano, which obliged the empire to comply with all the provisions of the Organic Act. By now, the rebels expected more, and the Great Powers promised that the Cretan question would be fully considered at the Congress of Berlin which had been called to revise the Treaty of San Stefano. The consuls of the Great Powers ordered a ceasefire but, when the Congress added nothing to the treaty, the armed struggle continued. The British now proposed new concessions to the rebels and, after further negotiations, the Halepa Charter was signed by all parties and ratified by imperial decree.
The charter, while not meeting all the aspirations of the assembly, was a substantial improvement on the Organic Act. The governor-general could be a Christian, although that would not necessarily be the case. He would be appointed for a five-year term, which could be renewable. If the governor-general were a Christian, he would be assisted by a Muslim councillor, and vice versa. The General Assembly would consist of eighty deputies, forty-nine of them Christian and thirty-one Muslim. A Cretan gendarmerie of both faiths was to be set up. Greek would become the official language of the island, although official documents would be issued in both Greek and Turkish. There was to be a general amnesty and temporary tax exemptions. There was even provision for the setting up of literary associations and a free press. The charter ushered in another decade of relative peace, and under Ioannis Fotiadis (governor from 1880 to 1885) there was some progress in social and economic affairs, with new schools being established and the first attempts to protect Cretan antiquities. Nevertheless, there were weaknesses in the implementation of some of the terms of the charter. The first governor was replaced after only fourteen days, and Fotiadis was the only one to serve his full term. The historian Leonidas Kallivretakis makes a pertinent comment:
It is notable that the Sublime Porte appeared more prepared to appoint governors of Christian origin (which was only envisaged as a possibility in the Halepa Pact) than to keep them in post for five years (which was an express obligation).16
This was also a decade of considerable political activity within the assembly. The representatives fell broadly into two parties, conservative and liberal, but the political groupings in the assembly were, in fact, far more complex. The Organic Act had resulted in a number of administrative posts, most of which were filled by members of old Cretan families, very conscious of their social standing and often on good terms with the Ottoman administration. These represented the conservative wing of the assembly. Although they included popular leaders like Hadji-Michalis Yannaris, there was a general feeling that they regarded the assembly as a meal ticket, and they were nicknamed the Karavanades. This term is almost impossible to translate directly, but it includes the ideas of greed, self-interest and social snobbery. The Karavanades were often politically revolutionary but socially conservative, and would sometimes form alliances with powerful Muslim beys to oppose even limited reform measures instituted by the Sublime Porte. Most of the senior clergy were within the group.
The liberals, known as xypoliti (barefoots), were generally more progressive, and included almost all the scholars and many lower clergy. Their aim was to reform the system and, although they were in the majority, they were often persecuted by the more powerful Karavanades as well as by the authorities. There was a similar division on the Muslim side, but the exact composition of all groups tended to fluctuate depending on the exact issue. During this period, the political world was quite anarchic, and disputes often degenerated into violence, vandalism and even murder. The assembly also acted as an electoral court, which meant that much of the forty-day session was often wasted in challenges to the results and attempts to invalidate them. Since the Halepa Charter also called for the majority of public offices to be filled by election, the political volatility spilled over into the administration as well.
The 1888 election was won by the xypoliti and, in spite of continual objections, they managed to pass several useful reforms relating to the organisation of the municipalities and the gendarmerie, and the foundation of a bank. Probably the most significant reform was a new electoral law which, for the first time, introduced secret suffrage for all men. The 1889 election was also won by the xypoliti, with a substantial majority of forty to eleven among the Christian members. The Karavanades immediately tabled a motion calling for union with Greece, an illegal act at the time and probably designed to disrupt the working of the assembly. With the reluctant support of the majority, the resolution was passed, together with a number of economic demands. The governor-general offered to discuss solutions to the economic problems, but rejected the independence movement. He dissolved the assembly and issued an arrest warrant for the leading members, who fled to the mountains and declared revolution. There were armed clashes between Christians and Muslims and amongst rival Christian groups. When the Greek government declared its intention to intervene to protect the Christian population, the Sublime Porte replaced the governor-general with a hard-line military commander, Sakir Pasha.
The new governor declared martial law, instituted courts martial and enforced the death penalty on a regular basis. He restricted the activities of the Muslims and drove the armed Christians into the mountains, while the majority of the Christian members of the assembly fled to Greece. Using the revolt as an excuse, he revoked the Halepa Charter without informing the Great Powers, and returned Crete to direct Ottoman rule. The five-year term for the governor was abolished, judges and public prosecutors were appointed for life, and preference was given to Turkish speakers in appointments to the civil service. The General Assembly was reduced to fifty-seven members, thirty-five of them Christian and twenty-two Muslim, again elected indirectly. All political and religious privileges were revoked, heavy taxation was imposed and it seemed as though Crete had gone back to square one.
Over the next five years, there was much discussion of rebellion but little action, and the Christian Cretans were coming to terms with the fact that union with Greece was not a realistic aim, at least in the short term. The mood was swinging towards the creation of an autonomous or semi-autonomous state under the protection of the Great Powers. From that position, union could be reconsidered when the circumstances were more favourable.
In 1895, a massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire caused European opinion to turn against the Sublime Porte, and again a weak Ottoman government reversed its policy. The governor-general was replaced by a Christian, Alexander Karatheodoris, and Christians again began to participate both in the General Assembly and in public office. This time, it was the Muslim population that objected to the new governor, and bands of Muslims began to commit acts of violence in an attempt to provoke a state of emergency. Their efforts were matched by Christian guerrilla groups, and the general anarchy led to Karatheodoris dissolving the assembly. An able Sfakian politician, Manousos Koundouros, organised a secret action committee, which approved a note to be sent to the consulates of the Great Powers, calling for Crete to be declared autonomous and for the full terms of the Halepa Charter to be restored with improvements. This was considered seditious, and arrests were ordered, without success. A new governor-general decreed a general amnesty, but this was rejected by the revolutionaries, who successfully besieged the Ottoman garrison at Vamos, south-east of Chania. Volunteers again headed for Crete, and violence escalated across the island. The massacre of monks at the monastery of Saint John in Anopoli shocked the Great Powers into intervening. They pressurised the Sublime Porte into making concessions, and new terms were agreed by their consuls and accepted by the rebels. Crete was to have full economic and judicial independence, with the Great Powers as guarantors, and the terms of the Halepa Charter were to be restored. The consuls formed themselves into a consular commission to oversee the reform process.
It was becoming clear that, while the Christians of Crete were inching towards their aim of full autonomy, it was now the Muslim population that was afraid of losing its privileged position. Communal violence increased, and both sides burned olive plantations, causing disruption to agricultural production. In the summer of 1896, many mosques and Muslim settlements were burned down, and in September 1896 the situation deteriorated further with the murder of a Christian public prosecutor in Chania. Under pressure from the Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire implemented some of the rulings of the constitution of 1878, agreed in the Halepa Charter. A Cretan gendarmerie was set up under a British major, but this never got off the ground before the fighting broke out in earnest. The violence spread, and included the burning of the bishop’s residence and the Christian areas of Chania. Four hundred sailors and marines from Britain, France and Austria-Hungary landed at Chania to protect European lives and property. These were later followed by Italian and German contingents. It is estimated that, during this period, over 3,000 Christian families and over 5,000 Muslim families were left homeless, the latter mainly taking refuge in the cities, putting great pressure on the infrastructure and creating public health problems.
At this point, the Greek government intervened, sending warships under the command of Prince George, second son of the king of Greece, to blockade transports from the Ottoman Empire. Cretan officers in the Greek army were ordered to resign and set up a volunteer force to send to Crete and, in February 1897, 1,500 men landed under the command of Colonel Timoleon Vassos, a representative of the king. Vassos proclaimed that he had come to occupy the island in the name of the king of the Hellenes. The expeditionary force was greeted with jubilation by the Christians, and the rebellion quickly spread, with some initial successes. Meanwhile, the governor-general, Berovic Pasha, took refuge on a Russian ship and fled to Trieste. With the arrival of Prince George and Vassos, the international troops in Chania now turned their attention to trying to stop the revolution getting out of control. Before long, a larger force of regular troops landed, and a 6 km exclusion zone was established around Candia. At one point, the rebel army violated the exclusion zone; the response was swift and severe. European warships bombarded the revolutionary military camp on the Akrotiri peninsula, leading to widespread outrage across Europe. Similar bombardments occurred at Malaxa and Kissamos in support of Ottoman forces under attack from Greek and Cretan Christian forces. To co-ordinate their actions, the Great Powers set up the Council of Admirals, formed from the commanders of each of the fleets.
The Great Powers now controlled all the principal coastal towns and had complete control of the sea, but their military position was not brilliant. They were faced with the opposition of 1,500 Greek troops plus an unknown number of armed Christian rebels, not to mention a potentially violent reaction from several thousand Ottoman troops and armed Muslim irregulars. In this context, they continued their attempts to persuade the insurgents to accept a ceasefire and limit their demands to autonomy, which was now becoming almost a certainty. In a memorandum, the Powers made their intentions explicit:
Europe has decided that Crete is to be no longer governed by the Turks, but to be autonomous and governed by its own people; any aggressive acts by Cretan Christians therefore only prejudice the case before Europe.17
Nevertheless, both the Cretan rebels and the Greek government still refused to agree to anything short of union and the war raged on in all parts of the island, especially the Candia area.
In April and May 1897, in response to the Greek intervention in Crete and Greek attacks over what was then its northern border into Ottoman territory, the empire declared war on Greece: Greece lost the war within 30 days. As a result, Greece was forced to withdraw its troops from Crete, and the Cretan leaders were no longer in a position to hold out for union. In a unanimous vote, the General Assembly accepted autonomy. The Cretans requested a governor from among the Great Powers, believing that this would add legitimacy to the island and ensure it received the support of Europe. Since there was total disagreement among the Great Powers over who should be selected, Prince George of Greece was finally appointed as high commissioner, against the wishes of the Sublime Porte, which did not want a Greek. An executive council of five men took over the internal administration until his arrival. The council included a young politician who we will see much more of later: Eleftherios Venizelos.
On 18th July 1898, the General Assembly issued a statement:
The Assembly of the Cretans, working with exemplary order and unanimity of purpose, has decided to accept the plan for a caretaker administration of the island proposed by the commanders of the fleets in accordance with the decision of the Protecting Powers.18
Germany had for some time been drawing closer to the Ottoman Empire, and had finally withdrawn from the Cretan Concert late in 1897, followed in 1898 by Austria-Hungary. The protecting powers were therefore Britain, Italy, Russia and France. Oversight of the island was provided by the Council of Admirals, whose main duty was the maintenance of order. One of its actions, however, ended up creating considerable disorder. In order to raise funds to begin establishing the new administration, the Council of Admirals decided to take over the customs houses at the beginning of September 1898, replacing the Muslim staff with Christians. Reservations were expressed by the British admiral and by the Russian, Italian and British consuls, but these were ignored. Many of the Muslims were, of course, outraged. Not only had the customs officials lost their jobs, at a time when the towns were packed with refugees, but they felt that they were being unfairly targeted for tax collection anyway. While this might not have been the intention of the admirals, it was effectively true. At that time, the Christians in the countryside were largely out of reach of the tax collectors, so that any taxes collected came from the predominantly Muslim cities. In short, as the historian Mick McTiernan has written, “The Muslims considered themselves as being asked to pay for the introduction of a Christian dominated regime, intent on removing existing Muslim privileges.”19
While Muslims in Chania and Rethymnon generally accepted the takeover of the customs houses by the admirals, it was a very different matter in Candia. After meeting some opposition, the British consul and the commander of the British troops managed to reach a compromise, which defused the situation, but were immediately ordered by the admirals to “take possession at once even by force”.20 When a small group of British soldiers attempted to seize the customs house, they were met by angry Muslim demonstrators. It is not known whether the British or the Muslims fired first, but very soon there was an exchange of fire, leading to a full-scale battle in which the British troops were forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the protesters continued to attack Christian areas, burning shops and offices, and killing hundreds. The governor declared martial law on 9th September, which was sufficient to restore order until reinforcements could be brought in. About 800 Christians – including the British vice-consul, who was a Cretan, and two British subjects – died in the riots, as did twenty-nine Muslims. Seventeen British servicemen were killed, and thirty-nine seriously wounded. A Victoria Cross was awarded to Royal Naval Surgeon William Maillard. Having reached the relative safety of the customs house, he saw a sailor fall wounded and, according to the official citation:
Returning through a perfect deluge of bullets into the boat ... [he] endeavoured to bring into safety Arthur Stroud, Ordinary Seaman, who had fallen back wounded into the boat as the other men jumped ashore. Surgeon Maillard failed to bring Stroud in only through the boat being adrift, and it being beyond his strength to lift the man (who was almost dead) out of so unstable a platform. Surgeon Maillard returned to his post with his clothes riddled with bullets, though he himself was unhurt.21
After order had been restored, the British authorities set up courts martial to try the riot leaders and those believed to be guilty of the murders of British servicemen, although many in Britain regarded the institution of courts martial in the circumstances as being of dubious legality. It was argued that the British military did not have the authority to try Ottoman citizens for crimes committed against British troops, when those troops were in Crete with the consent of the Ottoman government. In any event, courts martial were set up in Candia to try those accused of killing British soldiers, and a separate tribunal was established to try those involved in the murder of British civilians. Although the latter was organised entirely by the British, it was designated an International Military Tribunal. At the two courts martial held, twelve people were sentenced to death, four to twenty years of penal servitude and one acquitted, while the International Military Tribunal resulted in a further five executions. Although public executions had been abolished in the United Kingdom thirty years before, all the executions were public hangings from the ramparts above Candia. Even contemporary observers considered this to be somewhat unusual, but justified it as a way of intimidating other potential rioters, as one observer noted in his diary:
Upon the wall ... rose ... a giant box-like hut ... In England a public execution is unthinkable; as an example to the fanatical hordes in the East it is often imperative for the common safety. The gallows was of a design set up on the highest point of the city where none could fail to see it.22
A British sailor was even blunter in his appraisal:
Each nationality had its own way of punishing the blood-thirsty native. The Italian shot them on sight; the French chopped their heads off; the Russian whipped them to death – all without a vestige of a trial. But the British – good old solid British – brought them on board the battleships, imprisoned them in cages composed of torpedo nets on the mess-deck and solemnly tried them by Court-Martial. Afterwards we hanged them – solemnly, and in the face of all men; and I don’t think there was a man among us who felt sorry for these degraded beasts whose murders had been so fearful.23
Sixty further cases were referred to the Italian Military Commission in Chania, of whom two were executed by firing squad for the murder of Cretan Christians.
There had been an agreement that small garrisons of Ottoman troops be left in the fortresses as symbols of the continuing sovereignty of the sultan, but it was decided that the admirals would be unable to restore order as long as the troops remained. Some 10,000 Ottoman troops and officials were therefore forced to leave the island, and the Ottoman fleet was banned from Cretan waters. The evacuation proceeded peacefully for the most part, although it was subject to delaying tactics by the Sublime Porte. One elderly Ottoman colonel refused to leave voluntarily and had to be taken to the boat by an armed escort, thus preserving his honour. By the evening of 6th November, the last member of the Ottoman administration had left the island.
The Council of Admirals now issued a proclamation that all Cretans should give up their arms, and that Muslims would be under their protection. They should return to their villages and their lives and property should be respected. Throughout the island, the troops of the Great Powers set up temporary administrations, and were successful in the collection of arms from both Muslim and Christian civilians. Communal violence became extremely rare, although a potential flashpoint involved the way in which the new high commissioner was to arrive on the island. The proposal that Prince George should land from the Greek royal yacht was quickly vetoed by the Great Powers, and so he arrived in Crete in the French flagship, escorted by warships of the other three Great Powers.
Prince George landed on 21st December 1898, and on 26th December the Council of Admirals was dissolved. Although Crete was still legally under Ottoman sovereignty, in reality it was now able to govern itself for the first time in about 3,000 years.
The fighting of the nineteenth century resulted in large fluctuations in the population, due to both death and emigration. For example, the total population of Crete virtually halved between 1821 and 1830. Although the figures are approximate, there were about 213,000 people across Crete before the rebellion, but only 129,000 by 1832, according to that year’s census. By 1858, the population had recovered to about 279,000, but then another 30,000 are believed to have died or emigrated during the revolution of 1866 to 1869. The reasonably accurate census of 1881 shows another recovery taking the population back to over 276,000. This period shows a gradual but significant increase in the proportion of Cretan land owned by Christians, from 20% at the beginning of the century to 60% in 1866. This caused one governor to comment wryly that, if the trend continued, the Christians would ultimately buy Crete from the Ottomans without the need for revolution. There was also a change in the proportions of the Muslim and Christian populations. The 1881 census includes a breakdown of the population by religion, and shows it to have been 73% Orthodox Christians and 26% Muslims (with the other 1% accounted for by a handful of Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Armenians). This is very different from before 1821, when the population was about half-and-half Muslim and Christian. The same census also shows that over 82% of the rural population was Christian, while 70% of the urban population was Muslim.
Not surprisingly, there was little development in the economy, and Crete remained almost exclusively agricultural. For much of the period, the land was under-cultivated and there were few developments in farming. As much as two thirds of the available land was left for grazing by sheep and goats, while the lack of a good road system restricted the amount of trade both locally and through the ports. During the revolutions, many Muslim landowners abandoned the countryside and sold their land to Christians. This generally led to the break-up of large estates into smallholdings, which tended to be less efficient. The farmers and their labourers shared harsh conditions and heavy taxation. Since there was no agricultural bank, loans against next year’s crop could only be obtained from passing traders at exorbitant rates, sometimes as much as 25–39%.
The most important crop remained olive oil, which accounted for just under 50% of total agricultural production.24 However, during the rebellion of 1821, there was large-scale destruction of olive trees, both by the Ottoman troops (for use as fuel) and by the Christians (as reprisals against the Muslims). This led to a decline in supply until the situation improved in the 1830s. Due to harvesting practices, lack of pruning and poor storage, Cretan olive oil was, at this time, of poor quality, and most of the production went to supply the soap industry, or was used for engine lubrication and lamp oil. Any surplus oil was sold to merchants who had the facilities to store it and then sell it on when prices peaked. Soap manufacture in Crete continued to prosper until the 1870s, when a number of poor olive harvests led to a fall in olive oil supply. At the same time, after the 1860s, Cretan soap began to suffer competition from the poorer-quality but cheaper soap from Rhodes and Mytilene. Markets in Anatolia were lost and, by the 1880s, some Cretan producers were desperate enough to add soapstone to the product, increasing the weight but reducing the quality. The only result was a further decline in demand for Cretan soap, and by 1893 there were just five factories left in operation, serving the domestic market only. This was in sharp contrast to 1881, when there were fifteen factories in Candia and ten in Chania. This collapse was one of many examples of the de-industrialising of Crete during the late nineteenth century.
The vineyards, like the olive groves, had been largely destroyed in the 1821 rebellion, and were mostly abandoned by their owners. For a long time there was little growth, but massive destruction of French vineyards by disease in the 1870s led to increased demand for grapes, raisins, wine and raki from Crete, which in turn led to higher prices and the planting of new vines. The government encouraged the expansion of vineyards by various measures, including a thirteen-year exemption from some taxes if the new cultivation was on previously abandoned or unused land. By the mid-1880s, demand dropped again as the vine disease in France came under control, and the French immediately imposed a high tariff on wine imports. Much of Crete’s wine industry was now devoted to the production of brandy and, by the 1890s, there were already two distilleries operating in Iraklion, in a rare case of exceptions to the general trend towards de-industrialisation.
Otherwise, carob and citrus tree production increased to meet overseas demand, and levels of exports remained relatively steady for most of the period. In contrast, textile production was extremely volatile and was largely controlled by external factors. Cotton, for example, was in limited supply and of poor quality, but during the American Civil War Britain encouraged cotton farming in Crete to compensate for the loss of United States supplies. After the end of the American Civil War, demand for Cretan cotton plummeted, and this, together with the disruption of the 1866 Great Cretan Revolution, saw the virtual extinction of cotton production in Crete. Silk farming also had fluctuating fortunes. A silkworm disease in France in 1853 led to increased demand, and the price of Cretan silk in 1856 was double the price of 1836. The silk was of a high quality, and silk-spinning mills were set up in Chania and Candia. Then, in the 1860s, it was the turn of Crete to suffer losses, which were due to disease and damage caused by its 1866 revolution, leaving the silk farmers in no position to compete with silk being imported to Europe from the Far East. Prices plummeted, the farmers began to export the raw silk cocoons for spinning elsewhere, and another industry died.
From the middle of the century, a cottage industry of weaving developed, working mainly with wool but also with flax, cotton and silk. However, the cloth produced was chiefly for personal use within the household, with any surplus being sold in the domestic market. There were growing imports of European fabrics, mainly from England. Another disturbing trend in the balance of trade was the increasing import of flour rather than grain, implying that even the industry of milling was in decline. Before 1857, there had been no flour imports. By the 1880s, flour represented 9% of all imports, while in the early years of the twentieth century this percentage had climbed to 18.5%. All in all, in spite of occasional successes, the Cretan economy was fairly stagnant during the nineteenth century. Overseas trade was frequently interrupted by naval blockades by one or the other side during rebellions, and what industry existed was either small in scale or in decline. Imports exceeded exports for most of the period, and the trade gap widened.
There were some improvements in infrastructure and social welfare during the Egyptian rule of Mehmet Ali, among which were significant public health reforms.25 An Austrian doctor and botanist had visited Crete in 1817 and reported a pretty grim picture. There were very few doctors in the towns and a total lack of medical care for the majority of the population. The plague and smallpox were rampant, and yet there was a complete absence of hospitals and a total disregard of hygiene. Once Egyptian rule was established, Mehmet Ali set out to emulate in Crete the major improvements he had already begun in the Egyptian health system. His aim was to protect and improve the health of the occupying army and administration, but this, of course, had the bonus of also protecting the local population from disease. Italian and French doctors and pharmacists were brought to the island, and an ambitious programme of building was begun. Sanitary stations, lazarettos, dispensaries and hospitals were built, and generous funding was allocated for the purpose. The lazarettos and sanitary stations actually ended up making a profit from the issuing of certificates of health for travellers and goods. Most importantly, the smallpox vaccine was imported from France for the free vaccination of all children, regardless of religion.
The government also took steps to eradicate, or at least control, the social causes of ill health. Vagrancy was reduced by giving a small pension to all soldiers retired on medical grounds, while some financial support was given to the very poor – in return for which they had to cultivate some idle land. Even prostitution was controlled and restricted to specified areas. Street cleaning was carried out more thoroughly, both for hygienic reasons and in response to the great importance placed on cleanliness in the Qur’an. Quarantine rules were enforced, in spite of various medical theories of the time that the plague was not communicable and that quarantine was an unacceptable interference with trade, communication and the free movement of people. Although the rules were not always followed, it is noticeable that there were no outbreaks of the plague in Crete during the 1830s. Health and social reforms were not always welcomed by the Cretans, who regarded them with suspicion as being yet another means of control by the government. They probably had a point, as the reforms primarily served military needs and helped to legitimise Egyptian rule in the eyes of the Great Powers, with promotion of social welfare being a secondary consideration. Nevertheless, the reforms did help to improve the health of Cretans during the decade of Egyptian rule, and, to a lesser extent, in the years after.
As with almost every other aspect of society between 1821 and 1898, the education system waxed and waned. By the end of the eighteenth century, elementary schools had begun to appear in the towns. But, after the rebellion of 1821, the Ottoman authorities became suspicious of Christian schools as offering opportunities to teach sedition. All schools were closed, and their teachers either fled or were imprisoned. Apart from the school established by the rebels on Gramvousa in 1826, there was little formal education on the island for several years.
This is perhaps a good point at which to tackle the thorny issue of “secret schools”. Throughout Greece, it was widely believed that, under oppressive Ottoman rule, children were forced to have lessons in secret, usually in monasteries. Although most historians, including Greeks, have found no evidence for the existence of these schools, the story refuses to die out completely. It seems possible that, although there was never any widespread use of or even need for secret schools, they may have existed as a temporary measure during periods of oppression such as between 1821 and 1830. It is also conceivable that the Ottoman authorities were correct in their suspicions, and secret revolutionary training may have taken place.
During the period of Egyptian rule, the situation improved, and the administration allowed the schools to open again. On a visit to Crete in 1833, Mehmet Ali gave his somewhat supercilious blessing to the establishment of schools:
It is only right that the government should save the people of the island from ignorance and perdition and that they should be enlightened by knowledge and education.26
In 1837, an American school was founded in Chania with 400 boys, 150 girls, four male teachers and two female teachers. It quickly gained a considerable reputation, but was viewed with suspicion by the Patriarch of Constantinople, who regarded it as a den of Lutheran and Calvinist ideas. He made several attempts to have the school shut down, but without success. In the event, the school was closed by the sultan in 1843, along with all American schools in the Ottoman Empire.
Outside the main towns, education was still largely in the hands of the Church, which ran small schools in the monasteries and villages. In 1842, an interesting development occurred in Rethymnon, where the school began a process of training the best twenty-four pupils to be elementary teachers. They were provided with teaching aids, given a small salary and sent to establish elementary schools in villages around the island. After the Hatt-i Hümayun of 1856, the number of schools of all types increased and, by 1866, there were boys’ and girls’ schools in all the major towns.
These promising improvements in educational standards were completely disrupted by the rebellion of 1866 to 1869, but recovery was relatively quick, aided by the Organic Act’s establishment of Greek as the official language. Greek was now taught in both Christian and Muslim schools and, by 1872, education was again in a healthy situation. The Halepa Charter made provision for education associations to be founded, and this resulted in renewed cultural activity including the publishing of newspapers and the founding of public libraries. After years of spasmodic and unco-ordinated education in Crete, the General Assembly passed the 1881 Education Act, which made elementary schooling compulsory for all boys and girls, and established secondary schools in Chania, Candia, Rethymnon and Neapolis.
Sadly, in spite of this progress, illiteracy remained a problem, especially in rural areas. Some wealthier families were able to send their children to schools in Athens or Constantinople, but the vast majority were unable to read a newspaper. According to the 1881 census, the illiteracy rate for Christian men was 82% and for Christian women it was 97%. The situation was marginally better for the mainly town-dwelling Muslims, with illiteracy rates of 81% and 88% for Muslim men and women respectively. After the Education Act, the situation began to improve, but there can be no doubt that the nineteenth century was the nadir of education in Crete.
Throughout the period of revolutions, the Church played an important role in the struggle for freedom. From the beginning, prominent Church leaders were involved in the Friendly Society, and Church wealth was often put at the disposal of the rebels. As we have seen, clerics were regularly on the front line as hostages or victims of reprisals, but many went further and gave up their religious vocations in order to fight beside the insurgents. Others offered their education to the revolutionary assemblies by acting as secretaries or diplomats. In general, the Orthodox Church does not canonise warriors, so, although they are revered by the people of Crete, the abbot and monks of Arkadi are not regarded as saints. The story of the New Martyr, Saint George of Alikianos, is different. During the 1866 uprising, he acted as a courier, carrying messages and proclamations between the revolutionary leaders in the Apokoronas region. Captured in possession of documents, he was executed in February 1867. Because he did not bear arms but showed tremendous courage in his work for the revolution, he was declared a saint, representative of many others who undertook similar feats.
As for the organisation of the Church, there were few significant developments. Pastoral care was limited for much of the time, especially in the years after 1821, when so many bishops were executed and the island was without a metropolitan for two years. Due to the drastic decline in the population, the patriarch merged the existing dioceses into five in 1831 but, by 1862, the number of dioceses had been restored almost to the status quo. In 1877, the General Assembly abandoned the system of paying the bishops from a special tax, a procedure that had been wide open to corruption and abuse, and began paying them a salary from the state treasury.
In 1859, there was an intriguing attempt to restore the fortunes of the Roman Catholic Church in Crete, which had been almost non-existent since the Venetians departed. A rumour began that France would step in and act as a protecting power if Crete converted to Catholicism and recognised the pope as head of the Church. Whether this originated from the Catholic Church or was subtle French diplomacy, there were 30,000 converts by the end of the year. The Church of Crete and the Patriarchate responded forcefully, supported by the Church of Greece and the Greek government. High-ranking clerics were sent to Crete to preach against the conversions, while the Greek government also supported the Orthodox cause. When the other Great Powers expressed alarm at the potential threat of excessive French influence, the movement quickly folded.
The policy of the Ottoman administration towards church buildings became somewhat milder in the nineteenth century, especially under Egyptian rule. Permission was granted more often for the repair and restoration of churches and, under the terms of the Hatt-i Hümayun, the ban on building new churches was finally lifted in 1856. In 1862, work began on the construction of Aghios Minas in Candia, which was finished and consecrated in 1895. During the same period, belfries were allowed, and church bells could be rung for the first time since 1669. The general relaxing of restrictions led to many crypto-Christians returning to the fold.
Earlier in the period of Ottoman rule, there had been severe penalties attached to converting from Islam to Christianity. It was for such an offence that the only other major Cretan saints of the period met their deaths. The two brothers Angelis and Manuel and their cousins George and Nicholas were prosperous young farmers, living near Rethymnon. They were crypto-Christians but, after taking part in the 1821 revolutionary war on the mainland, they decided the time was right to declare their Christianity. In spite of the certainty of a death sentence, they joined the other Christians to pay their taxes and were arrested as apostates from Islam. Refusing to fully embrace Islam, they were beheaded in October 1824.
Relations between Muslims and Christians generally deteriorated during the period of revolutions, and religious intolerance on both sides increased dramatically. Desecration of places of worship and graves and attacks on the religious symbols of both faiths became more frequent. After the 1821 revolution, the number of mixed marriages decreased, partly as a result of a ban on conversions or mixed marriages by the Egyptian rulers, and partly because of the increasing alienation between the two communities. As noted above, there was a substantial decline in the proportion of Muslims on the island, which cannot be explained by purely demographic causes such as birth rate or emigration. There seems to have also been a great increase in reconversion to Christianity, due to reasons such as fear of the growing power of the Christian community and, in some cases, desire to recover ancestral property that was now in the hands of Christians. The converts were generally looked down on by the Christians, given nicknames such as “Turko-Maria” or “Turko-Manolis”. The sultan’s Hatt-i Hümayun of 1856 proclaimed:
All forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my dominions, no subject of my Empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on this account. No one shall be compelled to change their religion.27
This admirable statement of religious tolerance had the unfortunate effect of making the Muslim community feel increasingly under threat and, especially after the bitter fighting of 1866, there was a substantial increase in religious fanaticism among the Muslims, mainly in the cities. On the other hand, Muslims in the villages often felt themselves vulnerable and could expect little protection outside the towns. As one Muslim of the time described it, they risked their lives even travelling to the local mill. The guarantees of safe passage given by the government and by the Great Powers were generally not trusted, and the second half of the century saw the beginnings of large-scale emigration of Muslims to Anatolia.
In spite of the general distrust between the two communities and the level of violence on both sides, there were instances of humanitarian acts. There are stories of Muslims protecting local Christian families from attack, and vice versa. For example, the courageous actions of two groups of sympathetic Christians are known to have saved some Muslims’ lives in February 1897, when a serious outbreak of violence by Christians in and around Siteia – previously a relatively peaceful area – led to over 800 Muslim deaths. The British consul, Sir Alfred Biliotti, reported afterwards that one group rescued forty-five Muslims, including thirty-two women and children, from a cave where they had taken refuge, “declaring that they would be killed before allowing the Mussulmans whom they had taken under their protection to be molested”.28 Biliotti also reported on another case:
Four Christians of the village of Sfaka ... undertook to convey to the sea-shore twenty-five Mussulmans living in their village, and that having met a band of about seventy armed Christians who wanted to kill them, the four Christians mentioned above stood in front of the Mussulmans, and declared to their co-religionists that they would have to pass their corpses to reach the women and children whom they had promised to rescue. This resolute attitude saved the twenty-five Mussulmans. These are the only two cases which have been mentioned to me by the Mussulmans I met but there may have been many more as praiseworthy.29