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Title: The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8
Author: Stillman, William James
Language: English
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THE
CRETAN INSURRECTION
OF
1866-7-8.
BY WILLIAM J. STILLMAN,
Late U. S. Consul in Crete.
[Illustration; Owl on book]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1874
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
HENRY HOLT,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
TO THE MEMORY OF
LE GRAND LOCKWOOD,
_OF NEW YORK_,
This Volume
IS DEDICATED, IN RECOGNITION OF THE UNOSTENTATIOUS,
UNPROMISED, AND UNRESERVED LIBERALITY WHICH
RENDERED IT POSSIBLE FOR THE AUTHOR
TO REMAIN IN CRETE DURING THE
INSURRECTION.
PREFACE.
In committing to print the subjoined record of the Cretan revolt of
1866-7-8, I am fulfilling a duty in regard to a series of events
_quæque ipse vidi et quorum pars magna fui_, and which, if not in
themselves of importance, are so as a revelation of the manner in
which political influences work in the East, and perhaps still more
as a curious exemplification of the weight which personal accidents,
private intrigue and pique, and the capacity or incapacity of obscure
officials, may have in determining the affairs of great empires.
In taking the position I did with reference to the insurrection, I was
actuated only by a love of justice, and in no wise by sentimental or
religious prejudices; but I hope it may be permitted me to say that, if
I learned how fatal are the defects of the Greek race, its bitterness
in personal rivalry, want of patriotic subordination, and the
extravagance of its political hostilities, I saw also that it possesses
admirable qualities, which the interests of civilization demand
the development of; high capacity for political organization, for
patriotic effort and self-sacrifice; and endurance and equanimity under
misfortunes, which few races could endure and retain any character or
coherence. Their amiable and refined personal qualities, and their
private and domestic morality, have justified in me a feeling towards
them for which I was utterly unprepared on going to the Levant, and
give me a hope that the manifest lesson of the Cretan revolt may not
be lost in their future, either to them or to the friends of the better
civilization. I feel that the Hellenes are less responsible for the
vices of their body politic than their guardian Powers, who interfere
to misguide, control to pervert, and protect to enfeeble, every good
impulse and quality of the race, while they foster this spirit of
intrigue, themselves enter into the domestic politics of Greece in
order to be able to control her foreign, and each in turn, lest Greece
should some day be an aid to some other of the contestants about the
bed of the sick man, does all it can to prevent her from being able to
help herself. No just and right-thinking man can make responsible for
its sins or misfortunes, a people which is denied the right to shape
its own institutions without a studied reference to the prejudices
of its protectors; to manage its own affairs without the meddling of
foreign ministers, who dictate who shall be its administrators; to
protect even its own constitution against the violence and usurpation
of an irresponsible and incapable head, without the secret but
efficacious intervention of some foreign Power. A witness of every
step of the late diplomatic intervention in Greek foreign affairs,
I saw that in all the _corps diplomatique_ at Athens Greece had not
one friend--every one helped to push her into the abyss; not one word
of real sympathy or friendly counsel did she find from any foreign
representative. The United States, which had, perhaps, more than any
other nation a powerful moral influence, and could have helped her by
wise words and calm and disinterested moral intervention, had chosen to
send as the dispenser of that influence the most incapable, ignorant,
and obsequious diplomat I have ever known in the service of our
Government--a man who was an actual cipher in any political sense, and
who, on arriving in Greece (our first representative there), hastened
to mingle himself with the party intrigues of the country, ranging
himself on the side of the king, against the people, in such a way that
his advent was, to use the words of one of the leading statesmen of
Greece spoken to me at the time, "like a wet blanket" to the hopes of
liberalism in Greece.
The Hellenes must learn that they have no friends, save in the
unprejudiced and charitable individuals who know them well enough to be
able to overlook their foibles and petty vices, in view of the solid
and genuine claims which they have to our liking and the support of
Christendom. As one of those, I await the day when Greece shall have
been mistress of herself long enough to prove whether or not she can
govern herself wisely, before I lend my voice to her blame for her
failures or her offences.
* * * * *
The Publishers feel bound to inform the reader that during the delay
which has attended the publication of this work, several of the
personages mentioned in it, and some whose character or conduct is
severely criticised, have died. This explanation will relieve the
author of the appearance either of bad taste or of vindictiveness;
while to the fact that he was unable to give his personal supervision
to the work in passing through the press are due the errata which may
be discovered, and an occasional want of uniformity in the spelling of
proper names.
NEW YORK, February 1, 1874.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Crete and the Cretans, 13
CHAPTER I. (APRIL, 1866.)
Ismael Pasha, 38
CHAPTER II. (MAY, 1866.)
Agitation, 42
CHAPTER III. (JULY, AUGUST, 1866.)
Days of Terror, 50
CHAPTER IV. (SEPTEMBER, 1866.)
Preliminaries of War, 61
Ultima Ratio, 65
Mustapha Kiritli Pasha, 67
CHAPTER V. (OCTOBER, 1866.)
Getting to Work, 72
Russian Intervention, 76
CHAPTER VI. (NOVEMBER, 1866.)
Coroneos, 81
The Convent of Arkadi, 83
CHAPTER VII. (DECEMBER, 1866.)
The Recoil of the Gun, 88
Pym and the Assurance, 91
CHAPTER VIII. (DECEMBER, 1866.)
Ignatieff Again, 95
Respite, 99
CHAPTER IX. (JANUARY, FEBRUARY, 1867.)
More Disaster, 101
A Page from the Blue-Book, 107
CHAPTER X. (MARCH-MAY, 1867.)
Change of Administration, 109
Hellenic Blunders, 113
Effect of Hellenic Politics, 115
CHAPTER XI. (JUNE-SEPTEMBER, 1867.)
Hussein Avni, 118
A New Victim, 121
Sphakia again, 123
A New Campaign, 125
Bottled up, 127
CHAPTER XII. (OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, 1867.)
Attack on Lasithe, 128
Sphakian Campaign, 131
Reschid, 135
CHAPTER XIII. (DECEMBER, 1867.)
Russian Plans Ripening, 137
The Last of the Victims, 143
CHAPTER XIV. (1868.)
A'ali Pasha Fails, 148
The End, 152
THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR.
Visit to Omalos, 154
Alikianu, 157
Hadji Houssein's Story, 159
The Plain of Omalos, 165
The Xyloscala, 167
At Constantinople, 175
APPENDIX, 179
THE CRETAN INSURRECTION OF 1866.
INTRODUCTORY.
A student of classical ethnology, curious to restore the antique man,
can do no better, so far as the Greek variety is concerned, than to go
to Crete and study its people. The Cretan of to-day preserves probably
the character of antiquity, and holds to his ancient ways of feeling
and believing, and, within the new conditions, as far as possible of
acting, more nearly than would be believed possible, and affords a
better field of investigation into the nature of the classical man than
any existing records.
The island is one of those paradisiacal isolations which facilitate
civilization in its early stages, and preserve it from the
encroachments of progress in the later. Its low latitude secures it
against cold in winter, and its insular position against extreme heat,
while the range of high mountains running longitudinally through it
gives its climate a salubrity possessed by no section of the world's
surface so near the sun. The standard summer temperature is from 82°
to 86° Fahr., and once only in a residence of nearly four years I
saw it as high as 92°. The minimum was 52°. Wild flowers never are
wanting except in midsummer. The almond blooms in February (I have seen
it in blossom on Christmas), and all the known fruits follow it in
succession, each finding some locality and climate suited to it.
The fertility of the plains, and the inaccessibility of its mountain
fastnesses, made prosperity easy and conquest difficult, while its
remoteness from the shore of either continent made ancient invasion
not easy, and preserved the type of the composite Greek race from the
barbaric innovations of Greece proper, so that we have the Greek race
of B.C. 700 undoubtedly more purely preserved than anywhere else.
Only in prosperity and weight in mundane matters, in comparative
consideration, they have passed to the other end of the scale from that
in which Homer could say of their land: "There is a country, Crete,
in the midst of the black sea, beautiful and fertile, wave-washed
roundabout, with a population infinite in number, and ninety cities.
The races are different, and with different languages--there are
Achæans, there are the huger Eteocretans,[A] the Cydonians, the
crest-waving Dorians, and the divine Pelasgi. Theirs is Gnossus, a
great city, and theirs is King Minos, who talked nine years with great
Jove."
[A] Aboriginal or true Cretans, of whose distinctive characteristic,
great stature, make note in considering the Sphakiotes, who even
to-day are remarkable for their size, and always assert themselves to
be the most ancient Cretans.
This enumeration has evidently no relation to chronological order, and
unfortunately we have no intelligible traditions as to the order of
settlement in Crete. Diodorus Siculus says that "the first inhabitants
of Crete dwelt in the neighborhood of Mount Ida, and were called
the Idæan Dactyls." But Scylax says that, according to early Greek
tradition, Cydonia (in the western end of the island) was known as "the
mother of cities." Its position and character of site indicate rather a
settlement of Pelasgi coming from the west.
Spratt finds in the geological record clear evidence of the Greek
Archipelago having been formerly a fresh-water lake or series of
lakes, and, if this be true, Crete must have been connected with the
main lands of Europe and Asia Minor, in which case the aboriginal
inhabitants would be a land migration, probably from Aryan sources.
That a Phrygian colony known as the Idæan Dactyls brought here
knowledge of certain arts and religious mysteries, and became to the
people with whom they mingled, semi-divine, appears probable. The
subsequent visit of the Tyrian Hercules, who, on his way to get the
cattle of Geryon, called here as the rendezvous of his forces, and, to
recompense the Cretans for their friendship, purged the island of wild
beasts, may indicate a Phœnician colony or passing expedition.
But admitting, as of possibility, that the Eteocretan was a land
emigration, cavern-dwelling, as the abundance of the caves in the
island suggests; a collation of all the traditions makes it probable
that the first important immigration was Pelasgic, and from the Italian
shores, noted in many Greek traditions as the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi
(Etruscans?), whose colonies came down by the Morea and the isles
of Cerigo and Cerigotto by easy journeys to Crete. [The records of
Karnak show that, in the reign of Thotmes III., a great migration of
Cretan Pelasgi came into Egypt, and became the Philistines (Pilisti or
Pilisgi); proving that at this early period the hive was so full that
it had begun to swarm.]
This first immigration became, if my conjecture goes to the mark, the
Cydonian stock--the subsequent one which Homer speaks of as Pelasgic,
being of much later date; the Dorian, which was of the highest
importance in its effect, as finally assimilating or subjecting all
other races, and the Achæan, a scarcely influential influx, coming
within the recognized traditions. The author of the "Isles of Greece"
supposes two aboriginal races in the island, a needless multiplication
of "original Adams," though an Asiatic or Phrygian race coming in at
the east, and a Pelasgic at the west, seem to have been the first
recognizable elements in the population.
The myth of Jupiter and Europa is regarded as concealing the history of
the introduction of the worship of the moon by a Phœnician colony, who,
combining with the population of the eastern end of the island, whose
peculiar deity was Jupiter, produced the race over which Minos came to
rule, from this fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. The journey
of Europa along the river Lethe indicates the course of this colony
to the capital of Minos, Gortyna, which more anciently had borne the
name of Larissa, a Pelasgic name, from which we might conjecture that
it was founded by the colony of Teutamos, who, with a band of Dorians,
Achæans, and Pelasgi, the builders of all the early Greek cities, is
said by the early historians to have arrived in Crete three centuries
before the Trojan war, and to have settled in the eastern part of the
island, and given the early city its Pelasgic name.
The present inhabitants betray differences of character so great as
almost to indicate difference of race. The Sphakiotes are larger
of build, more restless and adventurous, thievish and inconstant,
turbulent and treacherous, than the people of any other section. The
Seliniotes, in the western extremity, are the bravest of the Cretans,
but less turbulent or quarrelsome, not given to stealing, and of
good faith. In the eastern end, especially the region of Gortyna and
Gnossus, the blessings of the rule of Minos seem to rest in pacific
natures. The great Dorian invasion, about 1,000 B.C., gave the island
a dominant caste, uniformity of language and customs, but without
complete fusion of races.
The language of Crete to-day is a Dorian dialect, and preserves many
characteristics noted by the ancient authors. The use of _Kappa_ as
_c_ is used in Italian, either hard or soft (in terminal syllables
generally the latter), the use of _r_ for _l_, especially with the
Sphakiotes, and the presence of many words in modern Cretan which have
disappeared from modern continental Greek, with a comparative rareness
of Turkish words, and entire absence of Albanian and Sclavonic, show
how much less the Cretans have been affected by outside influences than
other parts of the Greek community. I give a few of the words which
retain their ancient form more closely than on the continent:
CRETAN. ROMAIC. ENGLISH.
ἂγομαι, πηγαίνω, I go.
ἀκατεχος, ἀνίδιος, Inexperienced.
ἀναλαμπὴ, φλόγα, Flame.
ἀναλώματα, ---- Emeutes.
ἁνω, ἔσω, (used to oxen), Haw, jee.
ἀποβόλη, (used in tracking animals), Spoor.
ἀποταχυάς, πρίv, Before.
ἀργατινή, ἑσπέρα, Evening.
{I leave (the Cretan in
κάμπτω, ἀναχωρῶ, { the sense of the American
{ "skedaddle").
δροσια, (lit. dew), τίποτε, Nothing.
δῶρον, (a gift), μπαχσίσι, (Turkish).
ἐργῶ (ῥιγῶ), κρυόνω, I am cold.
καlλταλῶ, φθείρω, I destroy.
κτῆμα, κτῆνος, A beast of burden.
{Bare (of mountains generally),
{ this being the appellation
μαλάρα, ---- { of the central
{ mountains of the Sphakian
{ range, _Madara vouna_.
{A peculiar kind of cream
μαλάκα, ---- { cheese--not the _misithra_
{ of Greece.
μὰιαλ, λογομαχία, A wrangling.
νύχι, τουφεκόπετρα, Gun-flint.
παρασύρω, σερνω, I sweep.
παρίξω, ἐξέρχωμαι, I come out.
πόρος, δίοδος, Passage.
πράμα (πράγμα), τίποτε, Nothing.
ταῦτερου, όυριον, To-morrow.
χαλέπα, πετρόλοφος, {A rocky site (generally
{ applied to villages).
There are few Turkish words in use, and those mainly of objects
brought by the Turks: βουδαλά, a lubber; τσιμπούχι, a pipe; τουφέκι,
a gun, etc. A few Italian: καπιτανός, captain; βετέμα (_vendemmia_),
olive crop; βίστατο (guastato); ματινάδα, a song, and some names
of implements, with idioms which cling, as the use of πίυ, the
comparative, instead of τέρος.
There is a trace of genuine Cretan literature, though its chief work,
the "Erotókritos," is by an Italian colonist, Vincenzo Cornaro. They
have, however, many songs and many bards, though to any but Cretan ears
the music is far from agreeable. I knew one of the popular singers,
Karalambo, poet and singer at once, as most of them are (and many are
_improvisatori_ of considerable facility). He was so much in repute
that no wedding or festivity was considered complete anywhere in the
range of a day's ride from Canéa unless Karalambo was there; and at
other times he used to sing in the cafés on the Marina, screaming, to
the strain of a naturally fine tenor, songs which, though to me not
even music, used to melt his audiences into tears. He was a patriot
as well as poet, and when the insurrection of '66 actually broke out,
his songs were so seditious, and excited the Khaniote Christians so
much, that he was driven into the mountains, and, joining a band of his
neighbors, was one day wounded by the accidental discharge of a pistol
one of his comrades was cleaning. The wound was fatal from want of
surgical attendance.
The Cretan music is always of a plaintive character, and monotonous;
in singing, they have a habit of incessant quavering, and this, with
the drawling tone, makes it far from agreeable to an ear accustomed to
cultivated music, but it has a decided character of its own.
There were in Kalepa before the insurrection two _improvisatori_ of
considerable repute, who were accustomed to carry on musical disputes,
one singing a couplet, and the other replying in a similar one.
Sometimes it was a match of compliments, and sometimes the reverse, but
following with tolerable exactitude the metre, a four-lined stanza,
the second and fourth lines rhyming. All the ballads I have seen are
in this form, the music also differing but little to my ear, though
possibly to a Cretan there may be wide differences.
The Cretans possess, in common with all the Greeks, the avidity
for instruction and quickness of intellect which make of this race
the dominant element in the Levant. They are tenaciously devoted
to their religion and to their traditions, which have kept them up
and preserved the national character against such a continuation of
hostile influences as probably no other people ever lived through. The
history of Crete is a series of obstinate rebellions and barbarous
repressions, since the first conquest by the Saracens in A.D. 820,
a conquest which was followed by an almost complete apostasy from
Christianity--sword-conversion, and by persistent attempts on the part
of the Byzantine emperors to reconquer it, until 961, when Nikephoras
Phocas succeeded in driving the Saracens out. They seem to have made no
considerable addition to the Cretan stock, since the population rapidly
returned to Christianity, to which, judging from the known and more
recent past, they had always probably remained devoted at heart. At the
division of the Byzantine empire, Crete passed to Boniface, Duke of
Montserrat, and from him was purchased by the Venetian Republic, 1204,
from which time till its conquest by the Turks, completed in 1669, the
Cretans were under a yoke that would probably have depopulated any
other section of the Old World. The cruelties and misgovernment of
the governors sent from Venice would be incredible if not recorded by
Venetian historians and official records. The Venetians seem to have
regarded the Cretans much in the same light as the English colonists
of America did the Indians, and, when their wretched state came to
the knowledge of the Senate, they sent commissioners to examine into
it, from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian
by Pashley), who took them from the original documents in the public
library of Venice. Basadonna, the first of these officers whose reports
remain, says (1566): "The tax-gatherers and others dependent on them
use against these unhappy people, in one way and another, strange
and horrible tyrannies. It would be a matter worthy of your clemency
immediately to abolish so odious and barbarous exactions, since to
maintain them is to abandon these wretched men to most cruel serpents,
who lacerate and devour them entirely, or oblige the few of them who
remain to escape into Turkey, following the footsteps of innumerable
others who, from time to time, have gone away from this cause." Then
from Garzoni (1586): "In all the villages in which I have been, I have
seen the houses of the inhabitants, in the greater part of which there
is not be seen any article for the uses of dress or table; and for
food, they are without bread or corn; they have no wine; their women
are despoiled, their children naked, the men slightly covered, and the
house emptied of everything, without any sign of human habitation. And
this wretched people ('_quella meschinità de' huomini_') is compelled
by established custom to give to the cavaliers two 'angarie' [twelve
days' work] each per annum, and is obliged also by ancient regulation
to work as much more as the cavalier may need for the pay of eight
soldini a day, which amounts to a 'gazetta' [two Venetian soldi, or
about one penny] and a fifteenth, introduced by them two hundred years
ago, and not since increased. They are obliged to keep chickens and
hens according to the number of doors [I do not feel sure of having
properly translated this expression, obscure in the original], their
masters having applied the term of doors to houses, which are built
by the peasants themselves, and have no kind of use of doors, because
the Cavaliers, industrious for their own advantage, make doors as
frequently as possible to increase the number of royalties. The
beasts of labor, called donnegals, are obliged to plough a certain
quantity of land, for which, planted or not, the peasant must pay
the third. The donnegals are also obliged to work two angarie per
annum. Mules and other beasts of transport must make two voyages to
the city for the master. Animals of pasture the tenth, and a thousand
other inventions to absorb all the productions of the land. If the
peasant has a vineyard planted (the ground always belonging to the
Cavaliers) and trained by him, although on land before wild, he must
pay to the master, before marking the division for the royalty (which
by ancient regulation gives one-third to the Cavalier and two to the
peasant), five measures, called _mistaches_, for each vineyard, under
pretext that he has eaten part before the vintage, for the use of the
_pattichier_ [in Crete, even now, an open shallow kind of vat built
in the fields, of flat stones, and cemented, in which the grapes are
trampled], and under other most dishonest inventions. And to increase
still more the royalty, they divide the vineyard into so many parts
that few return more than fifteen _mistaches_, in such a way that with
fraud founded on force they take two-thirds for themselves and give one
to the peasant.
"There are chosen for judges of their country, as I have said,
Castellans--writers who serve as secretaries (_cancellieri_); and
'Captains to look after the robbers,' who all set rapaciously to rob
these poor people, taking what little any of them may have hidden from
the Cavaliers under pretext of disobedience, in which the peasant
abounds, by reason of his desperation, so that he is in every way
wretched. The Castellans cannot by law judge the value of more than two
sequins, although by some regulation they are allowed authority to the
sum of two hundred _perperi_, about fourteen sequins; and because they
have eight per cent. for the charges they make, all causes amount to
two hundred _perperi_, however small it may be, in order to get their
sixteen of charges, with thousand other inventions of extortion to eat
up the substance of the poor. The Captains, whose name indicates their
functions, have their use from robberies, and always find means to
draw their advantage from the same, plundering the good and releasing
the guilty, to the universal ruin.... The men chosen for the galleys
are in continual terror of going, and those who have the means,
with whatever difficulty, from some vineyard, or land, or animals,
throw all away unhesitatingly for a trifling price to pay for their
dispensation, which costs fifteen or twenty sequins--expense which
they cannot support. The poorest, hopeless of their release, fly to
the mountains, and thence, reassured by the Cavaliers, return to their
villages, so much the more enslaved as they are fearful of justice, and
by their example make the other villagers more obedient, attributing
to the Cavaliers the power of saving them from the galleys.... To
which, add the extortions to which they are subjected by a thousand
accidental circumstances, execution of civil debts, visits of rectors
and other officers, to whom they are obliged to give sustenance at
miserable prices.... So that the peasantry, oppressed in this manner,
and harassed in so many ways, annoyed by the reasonings of the Papists,
and made enemies of the Venetian name, ... are so reduced by the
influences I have enumerated, that I believe I can say with truth that,
with the exception of the privileged classes, they desire a change of
government, and though they know they cannot fall into other hands
than those of the Turks, yet, believing they cannot make worse their
condition, incline even to their tyrannical rule."
I extract from the opinion of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1615), a more
Jesuitical, and, it would seem, more palatable advice to the Senate,
since it was, in the end, and to the end followed: "For your Greek
subjects of the island of Candia, and the other islands of the
Levant, ... the surest way is to keep good garrisons to awe them, and not
use them to arms or musters, in hope of being assisted by them in
extremity; for they will always show ill inclination proportionably to
the strength they shall be musters of.... Wine and bastinadoes ought
to be their share, and keep good nature for a better occasion.... If
the gentlemen of these colonies do tyrannize over the villages of
their dominion, the best way is not to seem so see it, that there may
be no kindness between them and their subjects; but, if they offend
in anything else, it will be well to chastise them severely, etc....
And in a word, remember that all the good that can come from them is
already obtained, which was to fix the Venetian dominion, and for the
future there is nothing but mischief to be expected from them."
What a pity that Sarpi had not lived before Dante, that he might have
been niched in the "Inferno":
"Questo é de' rei del fuoco furo."
I have only space to epitomize a passage of the history of Crete, under
the Venetians, to show how utterly infamous, unjust, and _devilish_
was their _régime_. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the
provinces of Selino, Sfakia, and Rhizo seceded, and established an
independent government, which was for some time unmolested by the
Venetian authorities. The governor of the seceded republic finally
presuming to ask in marriage for his son the daughter of a Venetian
noble, the latter, to revenge the insult, plotted with the governor of
Canéa, and, pretending to consent, lured the family of the soi-disant
Greek governor, with a company of nearly 500 of his compatriots, to
the marriage feast. The guests having been intoxicated and gone to
sleep, and the signal given to the authorities at Canéa, the governor
came with 1,700 foot and 150 horse, took the whole prisoners, and in
various ways and different places massacred them, except a few who
were sent to the galleys.
This was followed up, for the better terrifying of the seditious, by
a raid on the village of Foligniaco, near Murnies, and on the edge of
the plain of Canéa, in which they took the whole population prisoners
asleep, burned the village, hanged twelve of the primates, ripped open
three or four pregnant women, wives of the principal people, put to
death and exiled the whole population remaining, except five or six who
escaped. The Provveditore then called on all the Greeks of the lately
revolted district to come in and surrender themselves, but, as they
naturally declined, they were put under a ban which is perhaps the most
horrible sentence ever given by a _civilized_ community. No inhabitant
of the proscribed district could secure his life except on condition of
bringing in the "head of his father, brother, cousin, or nephew."
"At length a priest of the family of the Pateri-Zapa entered the city,
accompanied by his two sons and by two of his brothers, each of the
mournful party carrying in his hand a human head. (Of the five heads,
the first belonged to the son of the priest, the second to one of his
brothers, the third to his son-in-law, and the fourth and fifth to
sons of one of his brothers.) The wretched men placed their bleeding
offerings before the Signor Cavalli and the other representatives of
Venice, and with the bitterest tears stated whose heads they were. The
facts were duly established by witnesses; even the governor who had
been sent to Crete to extirpate the seditious Greeks was moved, and the
law was at length abolished."
This was under the auspices of Christianity. Under the Crescent, things
were at first better, but finally such as to cause wonder how there is
still a Cretan people, considering that even Dante could say:
"Nel mezzo 'l mar siede un paese guasto
Diss' egli allora, che s'appella Creta."
The Venetian rule had reduced the population of the island to about
160,000, the tenth of its probable number under the Byzantine
emperors. The anticipations of Garzoni were to the full realized,
for the Cretan, favoring the Turkish conquest, made it possible, and
avenged himself in the way of the weak. The Turks, in recompense for
the important assistance rendered them by the Cretans, exempted them
from conscription or military tax, but learned no lesson from their
conquered enemies, and, until the cession of the island to Egypt in
1830, Crete was the scene of the most unbridled license of individuals
and fanaticism of sects.
In passing from the Venetian to the Turkish despotism the Cretans had
exchanged bad for worse. The Venetian was oppressive to the last degree
in pecuniary extortions, but the Turk brought in slavery of another
form--the harem and all its horrors to a captive people, even then
celebrated for the beauty of its women. The Turkish rule has never
been, and probably never will be, anything but piracy--the rule of
the strong hand. The great object of government was to wring from the
governed the largest possible amount of plunder; it is so still. No
motive of civilized government has ever yet entered into the head of
the Ottoman. The development of a country's resources, even to increase
its revenues, has never been thought of. A race of nomad conquerors,
holding the land as if it waited the trumpet that should expel it, and
could only reap where its predecessors had planted, but never from its
own sowing, it has extorted, butchered, and enslaved, without leaving
behind it more than its bones to fertilize the soil. The noble public
works which marked the Venetian _régime_ in Crete were allowed to fall
into decay, the walls of the cities show the shot-holes made by the
siege-guns, only filled up when it was necessary to keep the wall from
falling.
Of the early period of Turkish rule in Crete we know little. Pirates
keep no record; and the only insurrection of any note we hear of was
that of 1770, which seems to have been mainly a Sphakiote affair, and
to have resulted, on the whole, favorably for the mountaineers, from
their having been allowed to maintain a virtual independence, as up to
1860 no Turkish garrison was ever permitted in Sphakia. The fortress of
Samaria has not been, in the records of modern history, penetrated by
an enemy in arms.
From 1770 to 1821, the condition of Crete was that of a man on the
rack. The conquests and the advantages of apostasy had induced many
Christians to become Mussulmans; others followed from the bitter
persecutions which began soon after the insurrection of 1770, and
made the life of the Christian in the plains utterly intolerable. The
former class generally became, _ipso facto_, fanatical persecutors of
their late fellow-Christians, and the children or grandchildren of the
converts became oblivious of their ancestors' creed and relations,
and as, under the Koran, they lapsed into a more complete ignorance
than the Christians, they soon became as fanatic as any. The influx
of Turks was never considerable, but the Cretan Mussulmans, becoming
the governing class, disposed of the lives and properties of their
Christian fellow-countrymen entirely at their will. Their agas,
or chiefs, by force of character became captains of bands of these
Janissaries, as they were called, and established a sway beside which
the Venetian was a bed of feathers. The Venetian was inhuman; the
Janissary was devilish. I have known several men who lived in the
island while the Janissary government was in full force, and who
have testified to me of the occurrence of such horrors as no system
of slavery known since the establishment of Christianity can show.
Every rayah (beast or domesticated animal) was utterly at the mercy
of his aga, who could kill, rob, or torture him at will, without
responsibility before any law, or any obligation towards him. If the
aga wanted money, he went to any rayah he suspected of being possessed
of any, and ordered him to hand it over. If he wanted work done, he
ordered the rayah to do it. If he fancied the rayah's wife or daughter,
he went to his house, and ordered the man out of it until his lust was
satisfied, and if any resisted he was killed like a dog. If a Christian
celebrated his nuptials with a girl of great beauty, he received from
the aga a handkerchief with a bullet tied in the corner of it, and if
he did not at once send his bride to the aga he paid the penalty with
his life. The only resource was to fly to the mountains before the aga
had time to send his men to seize him. Most of the beautiful girls and
women were sent to the mountains as a precaution, which is probably one
reason why the women of the higher mountain districts are so much more
beautiful than those of the lowlands.
The Janissaries even ruled the governors sent by the Sultan, and
deposed or assassinated them when they did not please. Needless to
say that the poor islanders had no hope of justice as against their
tyrants. It was forbidden to any Christian except the archbishop
to enter the city gates on horseback, and, the Bishop of Canéa
having transgressed this law, the Janissaries took him prisoner, and
determined to burn him and all his priests. About to carry out this
decision, the Pasha intervened, and to pacify them issued an order that
no Christian man should sleep in the walls of Canéa, and accordingly
the whole adult male population was mustered out every night, leaving
their wives and children in the city. There is hardly room to wonder
that the Cretan is still a liar, rather wonder that he is still a man,
with courage to revolt and die, considering that only one generation
has intervened between him and a slavery more abject than any domestic
servitude the civilized world knows of.
The oppression became more and more brutal and blind, and the Cretans,
crushed and stupefied, thought of nothing but saving life by the most
abject submission. Even when the agitation which led to the Greek
war of independence began, the Cretans were not moved; but in June
of 1821, the Mussulmans massacred a large number of Christians, some
thousands, in the three principal cities. This was followed up by a
demand that all the Christians should give up their arms, a demand
which was followed by the revolt of Sphakia, the mountaineers having
never consented to this degradation. The rising of the district about
Ida followed, and the war was so vigorously carried on that in a month
the open country was almost entirely cleared of Mussulmans.
This stage of the war developed a man whose name has become one of
the historical in Crete, Antoni Melidoni. Collecting a small band of
bold men, he swept from one end of the island to the other, falling
on the negligently guarded posts, and taking them by storm in rapid
succession. His hardihood knew no impossibilities, disparity of
numbers made no difference in his calculations, he measured moral
forces alone, and flung his sword and name into the scale against any
opposing numerical force. Surrounded at night by superior forces, he
led a charge sword in hand on the hostile circle, broke it, and drove
the Pasha's army from the field, not permitting its disordered masses
to re-form until the walls of Candia sheltered them. A detachment
that made a sortie to attack him was destroyed, and another victory
following this, the Pasha of Candia, expressing admiration of his
prowess, begged to be favored with an interview. The Cretan hero,
trusting himself to no temptation, treachery, or delay, replied that
the Pasha would soon be his prisoner, and that then he might look at
him as much as he liked. And the prophet fulfilled the prediction to
the letter.
So far, however, Christian and Turk fought on equal terms. No
discipline entered on either side--the Janissary fought the partisan,
and the superior enthusiasm of liberty turned the scale in favor of
the Christian. They had yet to meet their strongest foes--internal
dissension and disciplined force. The first did its work quickly,
and Melidoni was assassinated by Russos, the Sphakiote chief, in
jealousy of his dominant influence. A Moreote chieftain, Afendallos,
was sent from Greece to replace him, but, incapable and without
control of the Cretans, his command was in every way unfortunate,
and he was superseded by a French Philhellene of ability, Baleste,
who for a moment restored the fortunes of Crete, but, deserted by
the wretched Afendallos in the heat of battle, and the Cretans being
carried away in panic by the example, Baleste was surrounded by the
Turks and killed. At the same time, an Egyptian army coming in to
reinforce the exhausted and demoralized Janissaries, the war became
for the Christians a series of disasters, relieved for a time by the
management of Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, who again cleared the open
country of the Turks, and laid siege to Canéa. The arrival of new
forces from Constantinople obliged him to retire to the highlands, and
an Egyptian fleet arriving debarked a fresh army, which, marching into
the interior, surprised a great number of villages, and in a single
raid put to the sword nearly 20,000 men, women, and children. Tombasis,
watching his opportunity, fell on a small detachment of Egyptians, and
cut them to pieces. The Christians rallied, and, swarming down from the
mountains, assailed the retiring army with such fury that they killed
7,000 men.
A new Egyptian expedition of 10,000 troops with a large squadron
reinforced the Ottoman army, and the commander, Ismail Gibraltar,
so-called from having been the first Turk to sail beyond the Straits
of Gibraltar, an able, adroit, and comparatively humane man, began to
assail the Sphakiotes on their weak side, and induced them by bribery
to withdraw from the hostilities. The other districts, many times
decimated, had not the force to maintain the struggle, and Tombasis,
after making a vain effort to rally the elements of another struggle,
abandoned the island, which submitted almost entirely. Thousands of the
most devoted and patriotic Cretans went to Greece, where they fought
bravely for the common nationality. We see still on the plains of
Athens the tomb of the corps that perished there to a man refusing to
turn their backs to the Turk.
After the battle of Navarino, the insurrection broke out anew; an
expedition from Greece under Kalergis captured Grabusa by stratagem,
Kissamos was taken by siege; soon the Cretan Mussulmans (the regular
Egyptian forces being engaged in the Morea) were shut up again in the
three fortresses of Canéa, Retimo, and Candia, and would soon, in all
probability, either have abandoned the island or have perished in it,
had not the three allied powers decided that Crete should be united
to the government of Mehemet Ali, and notified their decree to the
Christian population. (Pashley, "Historical Introduction to Travels in
Crete.")
The establishment of the Egyptian _régime_ was at first productive of
great relief to the Christian population, as Mehemet Ali had shrewdness
enough to comprehend that their oppression would be the disfavor of
the Christian powers, now for the first time clearly recognized to be
mistresses of the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, and to perceive that
for material prosperity the Christian element was far more available
than the Mussulman, corrupted and degraded by long unchecked and
unmeasured abuse of power, and dependence on servitude of others, the
most hopeless of all slavery. Order was re-established, and political
organization, which Crete had never known, was introduced, exiles began
to return, and all promised a better _régime_ than any Cretan could
have hoped for under foreign rule.
The Pasha, in his designs of obtaining complete independence, saw also
that he must some day count the Turkish population of Crete as his
enemies; all these causes combined gave the Christians an advantage
over the Mussulman element. After a time, however, the pirate's
instincts took the predominance, and Mehemet Ali, well assured of his
possession, began to measure the capacity of the island for extortion
of taxes. The promises made at the time of pacification were unheeded,
imposts succeeded each other, until the population, alarmed, had
recourse to their immemorial expedient of an assembly, and, several
thousand strong, Christian and Mussulman alike, they met at Murnies,
unarmed and accompanied by their families. This habit of so assembling
has from ancient times played an important part in the history of
Crete, and was known as Syncretism. To this day, every crisis and every
important measure referring to the general welfare is discussed in a
full assembly of deputies of the whole population.
The assembly of Murnies was peaceful; _no one_ brought his arms,
no violence of any kind was perpetrated on any interest or person.
The assembly petitioned the _protecting powers_ for redress and
the fulfilment of the promises made at their submission, but the
indifference of the _soi-disant_ Christian powers to everything that
implied the rights of the subject had already descended on the Greeks,
so lately emancipated by the "untoward event;" and the French and
English residents at Alexandria, more charmed by Egyptian music than
the claims of justice, heard what was agreeable to the Viceroy, and the
English agent even advised him to make an example of insubordination
which should save him any future trouble. So encouraged, the arbiter of
life or death to this brave people sent orders to execute a number of
persons, both Christian and Mussulman. The Governor, Mustapha Pasha,
now known as Mustapha Kiritli (Cretan), a hard and barbarous Albanian,
bred in the brutalities of the long wars with the Christians, readily
complied, and seized a number of persons at Canéa indifferently. At
the same time, the same orders were sent to other provinces, and a
general and simultaneous execution took place. Many of the victims had
no connection with the assembly, nor does the number or quality seem
to have been fixed. The Albanian butcher caught the spirit of his
master's order, and hanged at random. Pashley says that thirty-three
were hanged, but perhaps he had a desire to diminish the enormity of
the deed for which he declares the English agent at Alexandria to have
been largely responsible. Residents at Canéa at that time have assured
me that over eighty were hanged at Murnies, and the then Austrian
consul at Canéa has repeatedly declared to me that there were several
hundred victims, and that he himself had seen the bodies hanging on the
trees of Murnies, until the whole air round was infected by them. This
was in 1833, and until 1840 the Butcher held the island tranquil under
the rod of his menace.
In 1840, insurrectionary movements took place, which were attributed
to English influence, and said to be encouraged by the English admiral
at Suda. I have heard from residents at Canéa[B] (non-Cretan) that the
admiral facilitated the introduction of muskets and ammunition, and
advised the chiefs to ask for an English protection. This proposition
was favored at the assembly of that occasion, but the Turkish
authorities secured its rejection by persuading secretly the chiefs
that their choice would be between annexation to Greece and English
protection, and as, of course, they preferred the former, the project
was unanimously rejected, having secured which, and the consequent
English indifference, Mustapha, by an energetic blow, suppressed the
movement.
[B] One of whom was a dragoman of the English consulate at the time.
In 1858, a similar crisis was made use of by the French government,
whose agent openly took the part of the insurgents, bullied the
authorities, and encouraged the Cretans to look for French support.
The assembly was held at Nerokouro, and petitioned the Sultan for
relief from the most weighty grievances of the population. It was at
once determined to suppress the movement, like the former, by force,
but disturbances breaking out in the Christian provinces of Turkey, and
the attitude of France causing distrust, the Porte finally yielded,
made the concessions demanded, and the assembly broke up. This outbreak
was remarkable for one incident which may have had much to do with the
solution arrived at. The government had determined to obtain from its
adherents an address in opposition to that of the assembly, and it was
considered needful to have the signature of the Bishop of Canéa.
This prelate, one of the most worthy and pious bishops Crete has had
in modern times, refused to sign, and compulsion was applied, the
Bishop being shut up in a room with the council, and a pen put into his
hand and applied to the paper by force. But he resisted all pressure,
declaring that, if they killed him, he would not sign what he knew to
be a falsehood. This contest of will lasted hours, when the physique of
the Bishop gave way, and he fainted, not having yielded. He was carried
to his house in great excitement, which rapidly spread and increased,
until he died in the course of the day. The Cretans regarded him as a
martyr, and his death fired them with still greater enthusiasm.
Never was moment more favorable for insurrection; and that the Cretans
contented themselves with such moderate demands as the relief of some
of the newest and most oppressive taxes, and yielded _on the promise
only_ of redress, dispersing quietly to their homes, shows that they
were not, as they were represented by unfriendly writers, disposed to
factiousness and insurrection.
The promises made in 1858 were never fulfilled--if there is honor
amongst thieves, there is none amongst Turks; and when, at the death
of Abdul Medjid, his successor, Abdul Aziz, was reminded of the
promises made to the Cretans, he replied that he was not bound by the
engagements of his predecessors, and Cretan reforms lapsed into the
abyss of good (and bad) intentions. From that time the island was moved
by discontent. The next governor, Ismail, a clever, cunning Greek
renegade, charlatan in everything but intrigue, of the worst possible
faith and honesty, avaricious, mendacious, and cruel, but plausible and
persuasive, succeeded in delaying agitation by promises and bribes,
by dividing the chiefs one against the other, till 1864, when another
assembly was held, and another petition drawn up and delivered to
the governor to be forwarded to Constantinople, when the assembly
dispersed. Ismail immediately convoked an assemblage of his adherents,
and had a counter-petition forwarded, assuring the Porte of the perfect
content of the Cretans with their governor and their state. The true
petition was never heard of again, but the bearers of the false one
received the Medjidieh, and Ismail the thanks of the Sultan, with
presents which he valued much more.
The ensuing winter was one of great distress, and the spring passed
without renewal of the disturbances or petitions, but in the autumn of
that year, after my arrival in the island, I heard that there would be
an assembly the following spring, 1866. The discontent was very great.
New taxes on straw, on the sale of wine, on all beasts of burden,
oppressive collection of the tithes, together with short crops for two
years in succession, had produced very great distress, and the Governor
added to these grievances his own extortions, with the most shameful
venality in the distribution of justice, and disregard of such laws
of procedure and punishment as existed. The councils were absolute
mockeries, and the councillors his most servile tools. The summer
of my arrival, I was told by the surgeon of the civil hospital of a
death that had just occurred under his care, in prison, of an old man,
arrested for an offence which his son had committed, and because the
son could not be found.
Men accused of offences by Ismael's partisans were thrown into prison,
and kept indefinite periods without trial until some friend went to
bribe his accuser. Ismael never went out into the island for fear of
assassination, so well did he know the hatred borne him. This was the
state of the island when I arrived in 1865.
CHAPTER I.
There was an annual fair at Omalo in the month of April, and I had
intended to make this the occasion of a journey through Sphakia. The
Pasha was very earnest in counselling me not to go, and magnifying
difficulties for the passage; but this only made me more disposed to
go, if only to cross his humor, as he had been exceedingly annoying
to me, and we carried on a polite war, defensive on my side, but on
his, part of a systematic course of bullying the consuls in order to
diminish their influence with the people. His tactics were to encourage
infractions of the consular prerogatives, imprison their employees or
protégés, make questions at the custom-house, etc. He had, immediately
after my arrival, got up a question with me, a patrol of zapties
(Albanian police) having entered the consulate to seize and carry off
one of the sons of the vice-consul, who resided in the consulate.
I demanded an apology, which he refused. We then exchanged sharp notes,
first in French, and then on his part in Turkish, to which I replied in
English--a mutual checkmate. Meeting him at a whist party just after,
he complained that I had written in English, and he had been obliged to
hunt Canéa for three days in order to find some person in confidence
who could translate it for him, to which I replied that after four
days' search for a person whom I could admit into the secrets of the
consulate, I had been finally obliged to have recourse to the public
interpreter. He thereupon promised to write in French, and in this
language the diplomatic broil went on. The beginning of the row had
been an exchange of words between the patrol and the offending protégé.
Whose the fault of the first word was an open question, but one with
which mine had nothing to do, as no provocation justified infringement
of the consular privilege of exterritoriality. The zapties were put
on trial. I had four witnesses, who deposed that they saw them in the
house. The four zapties swore that they had not entered the doors, and
the Pasha declined to render judgment against them, saying that, as
there were four witnesses for and an equal number against, the truth
could not be ascertained. I demanded that the testimony should be taken
down for transmission to Constantinople, whither I intended to appeal.
By this time the affair occupied the whole attention of the population
of Canéa, a large majority being on my side, and the declaration of
my intention to refer the affair to Constantinople annoyed the Pasha
very much, as he saw that he would be compelled to make excuses.
He, ingeniously, in taking the testimony of my witnesses, omitted
administering the oath, while he administered it to his own. When,
therefore, the certified copy of the proceedings was delivered me, I
called in the parish priest, and took the evidence anew under oath,
affixed it to the record, and sent it all on. This was having a trump
too many for him, as he had intended to invalidate the evidence of my
witnesses on the ground that they had refused to take the oath.
Judgment was delivered in Constantinople, ordering the apology to be
made for violation of domicile, and the minister on my part engaged
my protégé to make a declaration that he had not had any intention of
insulting the authorities. But, with this positive order communicated
to both of us, he denied for several weeks that he had had any orders
on the subject; but as I stuck to the affair like a leech, having
nothing else to absorb my energies, he finally admitted judgment,
and ordered the mulazim to ask my pardon, but cunningly managed to
have the amends made in his own audience-room to escape _éclat_. I
said nothing, but waited until he made me a visit, and without any
warning introduced my culprit; and before he knew what was passing,
the Roland was delivered for his Oliver. He did not attempt to
conceal his annoyance, nor I my satisfaction, for he had notified me
that he expected our apology _chez lui_. This was not the end of the
Lilliputian diplomatics, for on my next visit to him the Pasha insisted
on presenting me with an intaglio, which, he said, he had bought of
a peasant some days before. He knew that I was an amateur of gems,
and he was a collector, and had several very fine ones. The intaglio
was exquisite, but the genuineness doubtful, and, when he insisted on
forcing it on me in spite of my repeated refusals, I accepted it, with
the intention of sending it to the government if genuine, so as not to
be under obligations to him. Reaching home, I drew a file across it,
and found it to be a paste copy worth a dime. I immediately wrote him
a note, enclosing the file, and telling him that, as he was a buyer of
gems, and might not know how well they were counterfeited, I begged to
enclose him an instrument I had found very useful.
After this skirmish, the general result of which, enormously magnified
in popular report, was a mortifying defeat to the Pasha, merely from
the obstinacy with which he had fought the question, we got into a
chronic state of pique, and my resolution to go to Omalo and Sphakia
put him into a great irritation. He had no right to oppose my going,
but tried to make trouble, and began to talk about intrigues, etc.
However, the news coming down from the mountains that the fair was
to be turned into an Assembly stopped me, for a Cretan imbroglio
is something into which no wise man will allow himself to be drawn
voluntarily. On the 12th of April, the Assembly began to gather at
Omalo, whence it moved to Boutzounaria, then to Nerokouro, nearer to
Canéa, where it remained until the gathering was nearly complete, when
it moved back to Boutzounaria.
CHAPTER II.
The real agitation began when the Assembly finally adjourned to
Boutzounaria, a tiny village at the edge of the plain of Canéa. Three
thousand men were assembled on a little plateau overlooking the plain,
and about three miles from the city. Here gushes out of the living rock
the stream which supplies the city with water, by an aqueduct which
dates from the Hellenic times. Metellus cut it when he laid siege to
Cydonia, and the Cretans in the war of Greek independence repeated the
offence, and though, in the latter case, the siege was raised by a
fleet and army coming to the assistance of the Turks, the sufferings
produced by cutting off the water were very great.
From here the people had a safe retreat into their fastnesses above,
and had nothing to fear from the Turkish forces. They came unarmed, but
kept patrols at night on all the roads leading from the city to guard
against surprise. By day they could observe the whole plain from Suda
to Platania; and here, looking down on the orange groves of Murnies and
Perivoglia, the wide expanse of olive orchards, and the fields where
thousands of sheep, the property of Mussulmans mainly, feed while the
herbage is green with the spring rains, they passed the time much after
the old Greek fashion, games of agility and strength occupying the
time of the young, while the old discussed the affairs of state; but
no disorder occurred during the session of the Assembly proper. Sheep
were roasted whole, the messengers came and went, deputations from
the further districts came in slowly, others whose affairs demanded
their presence at home went away, there being none of those professed
politicians who live by attending conventions, and making the public
harm their good, so that there could be no vicarious expression of
opinion.
Finally, all was done, the _ne plus ultra_ of democracy had said its
say, and signed its name for the indignant regards of the most despotic
of sovereigns. A solemn deputation of gray-headed captains of villages,
the executive committee, brought to each of the consuls a copy of the
petition, and consigned the original to the Governor for transmission
to Constantinople. This functionary had been growing uneasy about the
apparent unanimity and deliberateness of the Assembly, and, having cast
his lead occasionally and found the water deeper than he thought, began
to be anxious to see the Assembly dispersed. The moral force of the
recognition by the consular corps of the peaceful and legal character
of the meeting had dissuaded him from interrupting its labors; but,
the petition once delivered, he peremptorily ordered the Cretans to
go home and wait the answer, intending to repeat the trick he had so
successfully tried before, namely, arresting the chiefs and calling a
counter-assembly; and, further ordering the committee to disperse, it
refused.
This was the position into which the Pasha had desired to draw the
Cretans. Their Assembly was perfectly legal, they having a firman which
permitted them to meet unarmed, the Porte having long before seen the
impolicy of depriving them of a custom which was of so great antiquity
and reverence; but the Pasha hoped to give an illegal color to their
refusal to obey his order, and, according to his habit of making his
will the supreme law, determined to make use of their persistence in
their rights to precipitate the collision which he knew they were
unprepared for; and, having once excited armed resistance, even against
an illegal use of authority, he confidently counted on the support
not only of his own government, but of the consuls. To this end, he
called a conference of the consular corps, at which, having stated the
measures he had taken, he declared his intention to use the military
force at his disposal to disperse the Assembly. In this conference, a
division was shown as to the advisability of using force. The French
consul (a Levantine[C] of the lowest order, a bastard of one of the De
Lesseps family by a Jewish adventuress, and an intense hater of the
Greeks ever since the society of Syra, where he was once _Chancelier de
Consulat_, refused to recognize his mistress, a retired saltimbanque
from a café chantant of the Champs Elysées) supported the Pasha in
everything, and even urged him to greater arbitrariness. The English
consul, Mr. Dickson, a man of the most humane character and entire
honesty, had an unfortunate weakness before constituted authorities,
and the greatest possible respect for the Turks, coupled with an
Englishman's innate dislike for a Greek. He had his orders, moreover,
to co-operate with his French colleague, and, with his good faith and
unsuspecting nature, he was no match for his intriguing and mendacious
yoke-fellow, who led him wherever he wished. It was like coupling a
faithful mastiff to a dirty bazaar dog. These two supported the Pasha
from very different motives, but with the same result. All the others
opposed any violence as inexpedient and unjustifiable, being entirely
assured of the peaceful intentions of the committee. Ismael opened
the discussion by rehearsing his labors with the Assembly to induce
them to submit and disperse, and declared that, having exhausted
persuasion, he should employ force if the committee did not at once
dissolve. Mr. Dickson said that his Excellency deserved great credit
for his moderation, and hoped that he would continue to show the same
quality, adding that thus far the Assembly had behaved in a strictly
legal manner, being convoked in accordance with their privileges, but
admitted that, if they refused to disperse on order, they rendered
themselves amenable to force. M. Derché, the French consul, urged their
immediate violent dispersal, but the others all declared their opinion
that, the Assembly having met for a legal purpose, and having so far
comported themselves in an entirely unoffensive manner and showed no
intention of going beyond the object for which they had met, the Pasha
had no pretext for the employment of force. Mr. Colucci, the Italian
consul, then stated that he had received information that the committee
had expressed their willingness to disperse on receiving the assurance
that the signers of the petition should not be persecuted by the Pasha,
and that he considered that the Governor owed this assurance, since
he and all others admitted that the Assembly and committee had so far
committed no illegal act. His Excellency dodged the suggestion, and,
rising, was about to dismiss the conference, when, seeing that all
was on the point of being won to the arbitrary course of the Pasha, I
begged to offer my protest against any implied endorsement on my part
of the proposed violence, as, until the assurance of immunity had been
given the Cretans, the peaceful expedients for assuring tranquillity
had not been exhausted, or need for employment of force arisen. The
Italian, Russian, and other consuls followed me in protest. The Pasha,
disconcerted, sat down again, and the discussion was renewed. His
Excellency hesitated, but Derché came to his relief with reasons for
his not according the immunity asked, saying that the Pasha had no
right to compromise the intentions of his government. I replied that
there was no question of Constantinople in the matter. The Cretans had
confidence in the good-will of the Sultan, but not in his Excellency.
Mr. Dickson was of opinion that the assurance was already implied in
the Pasha's promise to support the petition with the Porte, and that,
as the Assembly had committed no act to deserve persecution, it could
not be supposed that they would be subjected to it. He therefore
regarded the assurance as uncalled for. Six consuls were against the
Pasha, and two with him, but he took M. Derché's clue, and stood firm
on the ground which that led him to, and so the conference ended.
[C] Levantine is a term applied to people of foreign ancestry born in
Turkey and brought up there. With few exceptions, they are the most
corrupt, venal, and morally degraded class of the population of the
Turkish empire. They furnish all the legation and consular dragomans,
a class whose corruptibility has passed into a maxim.
The Pasha had, however, failed in getting the moral support of the
consular corps to the blow which he had intended to strike, and dared
not send the troops out. He made a great blunder in calling the
conference, as the consuls had no right of intervention in the affair,
but, like all over-cunning people, he caught himself in the trap he
set for us. Having invited us not really to get our opinion, though he
asked it, but to get our endorsement to his policy, he not only failed
in this, but got a rebuff which made the experiment more hazardous than
if he had said nothing. It had another bad effect for him in making
public the difference between his Excellency and the consular corps,
and, as the latter is believed in Turkish countries to be omnipotent,
the popular feeling was immensely strengthened.[D] The irritation of
the Pasha against the consular corps was unbounded, especially against
Colucci and myself; indeed, I may say, peculiarly against myself as an
old enemy and the spokesman of the opposition.
[D] The real reason for the insistence of the committee on the promise
of immunity was this: A daughter of one of the Pasha's council, his
_âme damnée_, a Cretan, by the name of Petrides, finding one day a
list of persons designated for exile and the bagnio, in which was
the name of her lover, a young Cretan, stole the document and gave
it to him. It contained the names of all the prominent chiefs of the
petition movement, and many in the city who were only known for their
liberal opinions.
Popular rumor magnified the difference, and myths as wild as those
of the day of Minos made the tour of the island; one which I saw in
a Greek newspaper represented me as rising in the conference and
declaring that, if the Pasha sent troops against the committee, I would
go and put myself in front of them, and then we should see if the
troops dared fire!
Meanwhile, all the friendly consuls united in urging the dissolution
of the committee, and leaving the protection of individuals to the
governments of the protecting powers, as the only means of averting
what was seen to be a disastrous affair for the Cretans. That this
was the true policy events have shown. The Cretans were not prepared
to fight at that time, their friends on the Continent were no more
prepared to assist them, and there was no supply of powder or arms in
the island, nothing but old tufeks, trophies of the war of 1821-30;
the whole Turkish empire was at peace, and its available force ready
to be poured on the island. The committee wavered and half-decided to
disperse, they offered to put themselves as a committee into the hands
of the Pasha, and await in his palace, or other quarters assigned
them, the reply to the petition. This was refused, and the critical
question hung by a hair. The influence of two persons prevailed
over the committee against that of the consuls--one a priest called
Parthenius Kelaïdes, there being two Parthenii in the committee; the
other a Greek physician, temporarily in the island, known by the
two names of Joannides and Pappadakis, long resident in England, an
ultra-radical, and one of those who, ultra-demagogical in all their
tendencies, are really honest in their intentions, and, wishing to do
good, only succeed in doing the greater evil. In Crete, Dr. Joannides
is generally considered as the immediate cause of the disastrous turn
events took, and, as soon as the insurrection took active form, he
abandoned it to its manifest destiny, and has never been heard of since
in the island. It has always been a question if the Russian consul was
sincere in his union with his colleagues of the majority, it being
thought by some that in his hostility, mainly personal, to the French
consul, he secretly took ground against the unconditional submission,
that the Pasha and M. Derché might not carry the day. Be this as it
may, I am confident that with regard to fighting he was in accord
with his colleagues, and considered that actual insurrection should
be avoided, and that the instructions of the government were to this
effect. But he was a man of very unsound judgment, and so passionate
and personal in his way of seeing men and matters that I have always
been of the opinion that, from mere personal feeling against Derché, he
secretly strengthened Parthenius, over whom his influence was supreme,
in his obstinacy, and so prevented the dispersal of the committee,
which finally withdrew to the mountains to be secure from a _coup de
main_. Before doing so, however, they offered to allow two or more
battalions of troops to guard them at Boutzounaria, a proposition which
the Pasha refused peremptorily, knowing that, so long as the committee
remained a constituted body, the Cretans would respect its authority,
but that, if they dissolved and dispersed, they would lose all right to
act, or control over the people. So ingrained is the Cretan's regard
for the law of his ancient tradition that, while the whole population
would have risen at once at the call of the committee as long as it was
constituted, not one of the districts would have regarded an appeal
made by the individual members when they had ceased to represent in
due form the original Assembly. The question at issue was not, then, a
trivial one, and in the reply to it lay the decision of peace or war.
CHAPTER III.
Unable to provoke a direct collision with the committee, the Pasha
had recourse to another expedient: he called in the entire Mussulman
population of the island to the walled cities. Totally unprepared for
this unnecessary step, the unfortunate Mohammedans broke up their
establishments of all kinds, and repaired to the fortresses in a state
of the greatest irritation at the sacrifice they had made and the
privations they had had to endure.
One complained that he had left his harvest uncut, and another had left
his after it had been garnered; one told how he had been obliged, at a
ruinous sacrifice, to dissolve partnership with a Christian neighbor
with whom he had been engaged in silk-growing, the chief industry of
the island, the Christian having no money to pay him for his share; and
another had thrown all his silk-worms to the fowls. The consuls, on
becoming aware of this movement, protested to the Pasha against a step
so likely to produce collisions between the two religions; on which the
Pasha sent counter-orders to his co-religionists to remain at home. The
bearers of these orders met the Mussulmans on the roads, and succeeded
in halting several bodies of them, while others, without provisions
or protection from the weather, insisted on entering the cities. This
confusion and vacillation increased the suffering and irritation of the
people, and finally brought about the effect desired by the Pasha--a
feeling of hostility against the Christians. A large body of these
refugees encamped before the gates of Canéa, and menaced the Pasha with
insurrection if they were not permitted to enter. The Pasha yielded,
threw open the gates, and again sent secret messengers to invite the
fugitives _en route_ to come into the city.
Candia, Canéa, and Retimo were speedily filled to overflowing by an
exasperated mob of fanatics, whose menaces against the Christian
population were neither measured nor secret. The Christians remembered
past insurrections, and most of them had been witnesses of the
scenes of 1858, when the armed Mussulmans had dragged the body of a
Christian they had killed through the streets of Canéa, and before the
consulates, firing their pistols at the doors of the most obnoxious,
and were only prevented from wholesale massacre by European men-of-war
in the port. The entry of the Mohammedans was the signal for a panic
with the Christians, and a frantic exodus commenced. The Lloyd steamers
were overcrowded every trip; several Greek steamers came over, and
caïques, and sailing-boats even, were freighted full, and sailed for
Milos, Cerigotto, and other islands. In Candia, unrestrained by the
presence of European representatives, the Mussulmans entered the
houses of the Christians by force, and obliged the latter to make room
for them; the same took place in Retimo; while in Selinos the whole
Christian population took to the mountains. Meanwhile, the Pasha had
informed his government that insurrection was imminent, and demanded
reinforcements of troops. These, beginning to arrive, exhilarated the
Mussulman population, who now began to prepare for hostilities, and
their priests began openly to preach a crusade against Christianity. A
Dervish, who arrived with a battalion in which he served as chaplain,
landed with a green banner, spread his carpet on the marina in front
of the custom-house, and, after his prayer, began to preach the holy
war and the extermination of Christianity, declaring that "the cross
must no longer stand, but be put in the dust." The rabble of porters
and boatmen, mainly Arabs, Syrians, and other foreign Mussulmans, and
intensely fanatical, were roused to the highest enthusiasm, and shouted
"Amin! amin!" to his exhortations, when he continued his itineracy
of the city. Information of the fact being brought to me, I took a
witness of the Dervish's conduct, and remonstrated at once with the
general-in-chief, Osman Pasha, who ordered the Dervish on board a
frigate and sent him to Candia, where was no European to report his
proceedings.
The emigration of Christians to Greece continued until about 12,000
souls left the island, and at all points of contact mutual irritation
of Christian and Mohammedan increased. The hostility of the Mussulmans
to the consuls who opposed the Pasha became especially virulent, and we
were openly and continually threatened with being the first victims of
the new crusade.
By this time it became evident to all in the island that the Pasha was
laboring to provoke a collision, and that M. Derché was doing his best
to assist him, but neither side seemed inclined to take the first step
in open hostilities--the committee because they did not desire them,
and the Pasha because he desired to avoid the responsibility of them.
The first blood shed was of Christian by Christian, and furnishes so
good an illustration of Cretan manners that it seems worth detailing.
During the exchange of words which had taken place between the Pasha
and the Assembly, a messenger of the former, a Cretan Christian,
was insulted by one of the committee's people, spit on, and bitterly
reproached for his unpatriotic subserviency. His son shortly after
assassinated the insulter. Both were Sphakiotes, a race with whom
blood-vengeance is a religious obligation. It was supposed that the
assassination was instigated by the Pasha as the means of bringing
on hostilities; and, when the relatives of the murdered man went to
execute justice on the murderer, they found the house fortified, and
after a short skirmish, during which a child of the murderer was killed
by a ball fired through the door, the attacking party retired to wait a
more convenient opportunity, and the Pasha sent a battalion of troops
to the locality to protect the murderer's house, making no pretence
whatever of bringing him to judgment. The move very nearly succeeded in
bringing on hostilities, a captain of one of the adjoining villages,
with his men, going at once to drive out the intruding Turks. The
committee sent a body of picked men to disarm the villagers, in which
they succeeded by stratagem, and so averted a collision.
Amongst the troops which arrived were 8,000 Egyptians, and with
them the general-in-chief of the Egyptian army, Schahin Pasha, an
accomplished diplomat and administrator of the Eastern type, munificent
in gifts and promises, and magnificent in ceremonies and negotiations.
He came in pursuance of a grand plan, concocted at Constantinople
between the Marquis de Moustier, the Turkish and Egyptian governments,
which was to coax or hire the Cretan chiefs into appealing to the
Viceroy for protection, when, on the application of the plébiscite, the
island was to be transferred to Egypt, on the payment by the Viceroy to
the Sultan of a certain consideration, said to be £400,000 down, and
£80,000 per annum tribute. De Moustier was to have received £100,000
as payment for his services in managing the affair, and in due course
of time, it was whispered, the Bay of Suda, having been duly fortified
by the Egyptians and made a naval station, was to have been transferred
_tale quale_ to France. Schahin, on arriving, placed himself in
relations with the French consul, and under his advice concocted the
plan of operations. It was a fatal mistake, and led to the ruin of the
whole intrigue. Derché could comprehend but two kinds of men--those who
are bought and those who buy them. He himself was of the former class;
Schahin was a prince in the latter. Derché's opinion of the Cretans was
that any could be bought or frightened into their project, and Schahin,
accepting Derché's estimate, bid munificently for the votes of the
Cretan chiefs, made presents to the churches, startling professions of
liberality towards the Christians, and comported himself in the most
approved style of Eastern potentates towards the consuls and all other
influential personages.
Having prepared, as he supposed, a favorable reputation with the
Cretan committee-men, he set out for the Apokorona, the rocky region
which contains the passes to Sphakia, where the committee had moved
its headquarters. There he commenced direct operations by distributing
large sums of money amongst the influential Cretans, who, nothing
loath, accepted the money, making no promises. At this juncture,
the Governor-General, getting wind of Schahin's plans, insisted on
attending him during his interviews with the committee, and joined him
in the Apokorona. He had a plan of his own, with which that of Schahin
militated, and for which he had been for several years preparing.
This was, having prepared and precipitated the insurrection, and
crushed it, as he confidently anticipated doing between bribery and
force, to draw up a petition for signature by the Cretans, praying
that the island might be made a principality, with Ismael as prince.
He therefore did all in his power to prevent an understanding between
Schahin and the committee. Many days passed thus in intrigues and
counter-intrigues, until Ismael was struck down by a dangerous fever,
and was brought back to Canéa scarcely alive, leaving the field open
to Schahin, who thereupon made a rendezvous with the committee, but,
with Egyptian faith, arranged a battalion of troops so as to catch them
as they came to keep it. The wily mountaineers detected the trap, and
broke off all communications, so that Schahin was obliged to return to
Canéa, having gained nothing, and cursing the Cretans as a hard-headed,
impracticable set of villains. He left, however, 4,000 troops at
Vrysis, an important strategical point in the Apokorona, menacing
the approaches to Sphakia and the headquarters of the committee, and
holding the most direct communication between the eastern and western
parts of the island.
Having learned the worthlessness of M. Derché as a means of influencing
the Cretans, he had begun to enquire amongst the islanders whose
influence would best be employed to serve his purposes, and was
referred to the Russian consul and myself; I presume primarily to
myself, from the fact that all the new proposals and negotiations were
directed at me, and, after many idle compliments and some magnificent
entertainments, his Excellency condescended to open his plans with
apparent frankness to me, and proposed to me in so many words to pay me
any sum I should name if I could bring to bear the influence necessary
to secure the success of the Egyptian scheme. I took his propositions
into consideration, and immediately communicated them to our minister
at Constantinople, by whom they were, I believe, laid before Lord
Lyons, who, I presume, quashed the matter, as it never was heard of
more in the island.
Meanwhile, the agitation in the island, and the hostility between the
Mussulman and Christian population, were rapidly increasing. One of the
principal Cretan Mohammedans, notorious for his activity and cruelty
in the war of 1821-30, and who served the troops at Vrysis as guide
and interpreter, was killed under the following circumstances: Having
entered a café in one of the Christian villages near Vrysis, he was
boastingly narrating his former feats, amongst which was the murder of
a white Christian family of eleven persons, whom he found at supper
in their own house unarmed, and, after having been welcomed by them,
he closed the doors, and killed the whole on the spot. He continued
boasting of what he would do in the coming war in the same vein, and on
leaving the café was waylaid by a relative of the murdered family, and
shot dead.
This was the first Mussulman blood, and the body was carried with great
pomp to Canéa, and lay in state outside the gates, the remonstrances of
the consuls preventing it from being carried through the city according
to the intention of the relatives. The family of the new victim being
large and influential, it gathered in numbers outside the gate,
blocking it up temporarily, while the women of the connection went _en
masse_ to the palace of the Pasha to demand vengeance on the murderers.
The Mussulman population became intensely exasperated, and proposed
retaliating on the Christians in general, beginning with the consuls.
The whole consular body united in pressure on the Pasha to induce
him to repress the agitation, and succeeded so far that no immediate
outbreak occurred. The body was buried without worse demonstrations
than insults and menaces to all Christians, whoever and wherever, and
the crowd dispersed by order of the Pasha.
But though no actual violence occurred, the state of excitement was
intense, and it became evident that, in spite of all the influence of
the consular body, the least untoward incident might precipitate a
general massacre of the Christians in the cities. The exodus by sea
continued, and the houses of the Russian, Italian, and Swedish consuls,
and my own, at Khalepa, were besieged by terror-stricken crowds of
Christians without the means of emigrating to Greece, and bringing
their household goods to be stored under the protection of the flags.
In the Italian consulate alone were over 150, and several cabins
clustered round my door were filled with women and children, while
hundreds more, abandoning everything, took to the mountains.
The Mussulmans were anxious for the fighting to begin. The Governor
had distributed rifles and ammunition _ad libitum_ to his Cretan
co-religionaries. The Russian and Italian consuls and myself urged at
Constantinople concessions and the removal of the Governor, and all
except the English and French begged for the despatch of a man-of-war
for the protection of European residents. M. Derché and Mr. Dickson,
considering that the presence of any European flag would be an
encouragement to the insurrection, refused to unite in this request.
Several times the gates of the city had been closed to prevent a sortie
of the Mussulmans in the city to attack the consulates. We doubled the
number of our cavasses, got revolvers and rifles in order, prepared
mattresses for barricading the houses, and organized a strong patrol
from the Cretans who had taken refuge in the consulates, to watch the
roads by which the Turks would come from Canéa.
At this juncture news arrived of the appointment of the former
Governor-General of the island, Mustapha Kiritli Pasha, to supersede
Ismael. The Imperial Commissioner, for this was the title by which he
was to be known, had great personal influence over the Cretans of both
religions, and, if he had come immediately on his appointment, would
probably have succeeded in averting the insurrection. I find in my
correspondence of this date, August 28, 1866: "As to the insurrection
itself, it waits to draw first blood. The Greeks to the number of
thirty to thirty-five thousand [an enormously exaggerated estimate,
I afterward found] are concentrated in the mountains, and determined
to fight it out to the bitter end. The delays of diplomacy to right
a wrong that was too patent even for your [English] consul to blind
himself to, have permitted a trouble to grow that might have been
rooted up with reasonable concessions on the part of the government,
and now nothing but death and desolation will bring back Crete to
Turkish rule. They will now insist on independence where they only
demanded common justice. We shall doubtless have another sanguinary,
desperate struggle, and a depopulated island, unless Europe intervenes
to right the wrong it did in 1830."
The troops in the Apokorona were face to face with the Cretans
armed to protect the committee, and that step forward would make a
collision certain. The irregulars, proud of their new rifles, were
firing in every direction all over the country. One heard rifle-balls
whistling past, falling on the roofs and everywhere continually. Still
no European ships. By every post we pleaded with our ministers at
Constantinople for protection. The anxiety and excitement became almost
unendurable. The whole community seemed to be in a state of tension and
apprehension that approached madness. I found myself going continually
and unconsciously to my balcony, telescope in hand, although ten
minutes before I failed to discover an object in the range of vision.
I grew, like the genius of the Arabian tale in his vase of lead, ready
to curse the tardy deliverer that he tarried so long. The sight of a
steamer on the horizon produced a loathing, as one after another we
had watched them approach only to see the accursed crescent increase
on our vision. One night a party of Mussulmans, passing through the
suburb in which we resided, in frolic fired several pistol-shots,
yelling "Death to the Christians!" In a few minutes, all that remained
of Christianity in the quarter outside the gates of the consulates
were rushing in a state of uncontrollable panic to beg admission. My
cavasses were obdurate and indifferent, being Mussulmans, and refused
to open, and, while I lay listening for indications of further and
serious disturbance, my wife had descended, thrown the doors open,
admitting the crowd of women and children, who passed the rest of the
night seated on the floor of the consulate. None of us left our walls
needlessly, and then only with an armed guard. My children for weeks
did not pass the threshold, and, when business called either of us,
whom the Cretans called the friendly consuls, to the palace of the
Governor-General, we were greeted passing through the streets with
unmistakable scowls and menaces. The sentinel at the city-gate as I
passed one day, instead of presenting arms, as etiquette requires
to a consular officer, saluted me as an infidel dog, accompanying
the epithet with a menace and grimace comprehensible even to one who
understood not a word of Turkish. I begged my wife at last to take
the children and go to Syra, where they would be in security, but she
resolutely refused, believing that her departure would be the signal
for the last panic among the Christian women, who depended on our
protection. Only they who know the extent and bitterness of Mussulman
fanaticism can estimate the danger or anxiety of those few weeks.
CHAPTER IV.
The first relief was the flying visit of Admiral Lord Clarence Paget,
in the _Psyche_ despatch-boat, direct from Constantinople _en route_
for Malta, to inform us that the _Arethusa_ had been ordered to Crete.
This was a reprieve of a few days, and was followed by complete
freedom from anxiety on the arrival of the _Arethusa_, the sound of
whose saluting guns at Suda Bay (the port of Canéa for large ships)
produced an emotion which was like waking from a long nightmare. We
all went to Suda to pay our official and personal visits, which the
officers returned, and bluejackets swarming in the town, and racing
over the plain of Canéa like mad fox-hunters, hilarious, indifferent
to yataghan or bullet, as if they were anything but Giaours, assured
both Turk and Christian that at least the Europeans must be respected.
We took down our barricades, and again moved about freely; yet the
feeling was so strong amongst the Mussulmans that the English were
on their side that the native Christians experienced no benefit from
the cause which brought us comparative relief. We attended service
the Sunday subsequent to the arrival of the _Arethusa_ on board, and,
lunching with Captain McDonald, were called from the table to see
the stars and stripes rounding the point and entering the bay. They
floated from the gaff of the corvette _Ticonderoga_, whose commandant,
being at Trieste, came for old friendship's sake to look after us
on getting the first news of the insurrection. Her stay for a few
days was a demonstration of force which, so far as I was concerned,
left a most healthy impression as to my being supported by the United
States Government, the more that the _Ticonderoga_ sailed from Suda
direct for Constantinople (according to her commander's original
intention), a course which produced a general impression in Crete that
she had gone to support my view on the question. Nothing could exceed
in friendliness and cordiality the manner in which the commander,
Commodore Steedman, and his officers supported me in my difficult
position, and identified the national dignity with the respect due to
the humblest of its representatives. The _Arethusa_, a few days after
her arrival, was succeeded by H. B. M.'s gunboat _Wizard_, which during
several subsequent months was our only and sufficient protector. Her
humane and gallant young commander, Murray, will ever be remembered
with gratitude and honor by every European resident in Crete during the
insurrection. He placed us all under obligations of many kinds which a
passing notice can only faintly recognize.
Meanwhile, the dissension between the Governor-General and the Egyptian
Pasha increased in violence, until anything like co-operation became
impossible, the policy of the latter being clearly pacific with a show
of force. He wished to avoid a collision as long as possible, hoping
still to conciliate Cretan public opinion, while Ismael was determined
to do everything in his power to bring about hostilities. The Egyptian
therefore threw himself for support on the consular body, from whom he
received that degree of support which their instructions and personal
sympathies rendered possible, as, with the exception of M. Derché, all
the members of the corps were anxious to prevent bloodshed.
The committee sent to the Italian and Russian consuls and myself
urgent entreaties that we would persuade the Egyptians to withdraw
from Vrysis, a position which provoked attack by the Cretans, as, if
maintained by the troops, it prevented all strategical movements by
the insurrectionary forces. This request we all urged on the attention
of Schahin, and he energetically demanded from the Governor-General
permission to withdraw the menaced battalions. The effective reply
of the Governor was to withdraw all the Turkish supports, and leave
Schahin to his own resources, compelling him to devote two of his four
battalions remaining to keeping open the communications of Vrysis with
the sea-shore. While this family quarrel paralyzed the government at
Canéa, the Mussulmans in Selinos, a fortress on the south side of the
island, were shut in by strong guards of Christians posted on the
hills round about, and were even more impatient than at Canéa because
more inconvenienced, and finally made a sortie on one of the adjoining
Christian villages. They were fruitlessly warned back, and, persisting,
were fired upon, and several killed and wounded. Ismael immediately
called a council of war, and made a requisition on Schahin for a
battalion of Egyptians to go with another of Turks to the relief of the
Seliniotes. Schahin sent for me at once to advise him on the matter. I
recommended him strongly not to obey the requisition, as the breach of
the peace having taken place between the indigenes of the two religions
justified him in assuming that hostilities did not exist, and,
according to his instructions, that he was under no circumstances to be
drawn into an offensive movement. He therefore returned answer that,
his battalions at Vrysis being menaced, and this affair being only a
collision between Cretans of the two religions, he was not justified
in withdrawing any of his remaining troops from a position where they
might be needed to secure the safety of those already compromised,
and declined to obey the requisition. The expedition was therefore
abandoned, though the steamers were lying in the roadstead with steam
up ready to transport the troops. At the same time, news arrived from
Vrysis that the Cretans had concentrated at the passes, and forbade
the sending of any more supplies to the Egyptian camp, under penalty
of attack. This produced another request from Schahin to the Russian
consul and myself to urge the committee to take no such offensive step,
he promising at the same time not to make common cause with the Turkish
troops, even should they be attacked, so long as the Egyptian troops
were not molested in any way.
On the heels of this came news of another sortie from Selinos of the
Mussulmans, which had been repulsed, as well as another of the regular
troops made in support of them. The receipt of this news brought
excitement in Canéa to its culmination, and irritation toward the
insurgents (for such they had substantially become) began to find
expression in acts of violence to unoffending Christians in and about
the city. A Christian who kept horses for hire at the gates of the
city, was attacked and beaten and stabbed to death; immediately after,
another, in the city, met the same fate; and the authorities taking no
notice whatever of these murders, the fanatics, emboldened and having
tasted blood, murdered, pillaged, and robbed in every direction.
The panic which ensued amongst the few remaining Christians was
indescribable. Many started on foot, alone or in small parties, for the
mountains, but, having been entirely disarmed, most of them were cut
off and murdered on the way. Others, coming to the city in ignorance of
these events, were met and shot down on the roads. No one was allowed
to carry arms to defend himself, nor was any investigation made into
these matters. The state of the country for the next few days defies
description. Gunshots were heard in every direction, and the more
friendly of the Mussulman peasantry brought news of single bodies here,
and groups there, by the roadside, in houses, and in chapels, where
they had taken refuge. No one dared go out to investigate the truth
of most of these reports, but the secretary of the Greek consul made
an excursion, accompanied by several cavasses, as far as Galatas, a
village of the plain, three miles from Canéa, and counted seven dead
bodies naked by the way. By the sea-side, between my house and the
city, were the slaughter-houses where all the cattle and sheep for the
use of the city and army were butchered. Here were ordinarily immense
flocks of ravens, accustomed to batten without disturbance on the offal
thrown out on the shore. Within two or three days the whole of those
birds deserted the shore, where they did not reappear for weeks, but
were to be seen in small flocks hovering amongst the olive-groves of
the plain.
During this state of things, extreme hostilities broke out at several
points of the island. The messengers we had sent to the committee to
urge a truce with the Egyptians had not been permitted to pass the
lines, or for some other reason failed in reaching their destination,
so that our message was never received by the committee, who, in
pursuance of their previous resolution, summoned the Egyptians
peremptorily to leave the Apokorona or take the consequences, and, the
refusal being equally peremptory, the committee ordered their forces to
close at once upon the troops, cut off access to the springs, and close
the passage to all relief. The unfortunate Egyptians, disastrously
repulsed in an attempt to recover the springs of water from which they
had their daily supply, were driven within their entrenched camp and
closely blockaded. The battalions ordered to reopen the communications,
being also repulsed in their attack in the passes, and those in camp
having exhausted all their ammunition, food, and water, were compelled
to surrender at discretion. The Cretans permitted them to march out
with their arms and all of their equipments they could carry, and gave
them forty-eight hours to send mules without escort to carry off the
remainder. No parole even was exacted not to bear arms in future.
Simultaneously with this affair, the Turkish troops at Selinos,
having made a sortie in force on the Christians who beleaguered
them, were drawn into the defiles of the mountains, and were then
attacked, beaten, and driven into the mountain fortress of Candanos,
where they were blockaded closely. These feats of arms naturally
elated the Cretans, and exasperated the Turks correspondingly. The
Governor-General lost all self-possession, and abandoned the reins
of government to his subordinates. Confusion became anarchy, and,
to increase the dismay, the few remaining Christians in the cities
were forbidden to leave the island. The Egyptians, mortified by their
defeat, assailed the Christians in the villages nearest their new
encampment in the most brutal and barbarous manner.
The presence of the _Wizard_ in the port alone prevented a general
massacre of the Christians in Canéa. Assemblies of the Mussulman
Cretans were held in their quarter of the city, with the avowed purpose
of going out to kill the Christians in the suburbs, beginning with
the consuls. The military authorities had the presence of mind to
close the gates to all Christians entering or Mussulmans leaving the
town. The whole Christian population of the island seemed in arms, and
considerable parties of them made raids within sight of the walls of
the city, carrying off as prisoners a number of Mussulmans who were
engaged in getting in the vintage.
At the moment when it seemed impossible that confusion should not
end in universal anarchy and massacre, the Imperial Commissioner
arrived. Mustapha Kiritli Pasha had, by an impartial and energetic,
if barbarous, administration of the affairs of the island, secured
the respect and even esteem of the Christians, while his merciless
repression of previous insurrections had inspired the strongest belief
in his military capacity. As he entered the town, a Christian was shot
down in the road behind him, one of the few who, influenced by the old
regard for the Pasha, ventured to follow in his train; and, at the same
moment, another was stabbed to death within a few hundred yards--a
well-known employee of one of the principal Turkish beys, whose
position had hitherto been his protection. The installation of Mustapha
checked these disorders, and, investigation being ordered into them,
the Governor-General, whose incapacity and malevolence became apparent,
was peremptorily ordered to leave for Constantinople, not even being
allowed time to pack his household furniture. The Commissioner at once
commenced organizing and preparing expeditions to attack the Christians
and relieve the troops cooped up at Candanos. The Cretan Mohammedans,
to the number of 5,000, were regularly enrolled as volunteers. Strict
orders were given in every direction for the protection of unarmed
individuals, and in all the villages within the power of the government
forces the option was given to the inhabitants of inscribing themselves
as friends of the government and taking written protection--a course
which would expose them to the hostility of the insurgent forces--or
of joining their co-religionists in the mountains. A proclamation
was issued, directed to the committee, in which the insurgents were
summoned instantly to submit and give up their arms. No concessions
were made, none even promised; the purport of the firman was, "Submit,
be good children, and you shall see what you shall see!" As was to be
expected, the committee, flushed by its recent successes and encouraged
by the promise of succor from Greece, where committees had been formed
at the first news of hostilities having commenced, rejected the
proclamation contemptuously, and issued a counter-proclamation, which
was forwarded to all the consuls and to the ministers at Constantinople.
As I shall have, in the course of this history, to make serious
question of the conduct of the Greek government, I shall do it the
justice to say that, to the best of my information, it had up to this
time utterly discouraged the insurrection as injudicious and ill-timed.
But the affair of Vrysis had so great an effect on public opinion in
Greece that the government was obliged to make concessions to it.
Mustapha found the Egyptian army diminished and utterly demoralized by
defeat. About 12,000 Turkish troops were in the island, indifferently
equipped and in a poor state of discipline; added to these, he had his
5,000 irregulars and a few hundred Albanians. From these he organized
an army of about 10,000 men, with whom he marched to the relief of
Candanos. The direct passes were all held by the Cretans in such
strength that the Turks were unable to force their way, and they were
obliged, therefore, to make a long détour through the western part of
the island, constantly harassed by parties of the insurgents, who held
all the advantageous positions on the route.
The expedition succeeded in relieving Candanos without a fight, the
Cretans retiring before the overpowering forces of the Commissioner,
not too soon for the besieged, who were at the verge of starvation
before relief arrived. The siege was marked by the usual atrocities
of those religious barbarian conflicts. An incident, related to me by
a Christian Cretan who assisted at the siege, will suffice to show
the animus by which they were already possessed. Some of the besieged
Cretans, recognizing a brother of a prisoner in their possession
amongst the besiegers, killed the prisoner, and, cutting him up as the
butchers cut meat, hung the members above the parapet, calling to the
besiegers that they had meat yet. The besiegers retaliated by treating
half-a-dozen prisoners in the same way, and calling to the besiegers
that, if they wanted more, they might come and get it.[E]
[E] The position of Candanos, although impregnable to direct assault,
was commanded on all sides by hills within speaking distance, but
which the Cretans had neither artillery nor rifles to take advantage
of.
The Commissioner withdrew immediately, taking in his escort all the
Mussulman families who had been blockaded in Selinos and Candanos,
together with those of some neighboring villages who had not hitherto
been molested by the Christians, the insurrectionary committee having
still hopes of conciliating the opposition of their Mussulman
compatriots, and, in pursuance of this policy, having given orders
to do everything possible to induce the Mussulmans to make common
cause with the Christians. These, however, augmented the train of the
Commissioner with their families and flocks, and the return of the
army so encumbered was slow and dangerous, the Christians following
and harassing the flanks, showing resistance in front at all difficult
passes, and cutting off stragglers; the troops, in retaliation,
destroying all villages on the road of return as they had on that of
going. I had been able to watch from my balcony the departure of the
troops, and follow their line of march by the smoke of the burning
villages; and after two weeks' absence, during the latter part of
which no communications had been kept up between the army and the
capital, the wildest panic prevailing at headquarters, where rumors
were generally believed to the effect that the whole army had been
blockaded, I was able, from the same point, to perceive the return of
the troops by the same ominous indications. In returning by a shorter
route than that followed in going, the army had to pass by a difficult
ravine, called Kakopetra, where the Christians made a determined
attack and attempt to block the road, in which they would certainly
have succeeded had they possessed modern firearms, but as they were
armed mostly with the tufeks of their grandfathers, or pistols of the
war of Greek independence, an attack on equal terms was impossible.
The Pasha, by throwing out his irregulars on both sides to keep back
the insurgents, and pressing down the road, with the imperial troops
and Egyptian regulars escorting the families and flocks, succeeded in
forcing his way through, though with serious loss. A European surgeon
attached to the government hospital at Canéa assured me that the killed
amounted to 120 and the wounded to upwards of 800, the wounds being
mostly slight from spent balls apparently fired from pistols. In fact,
if the Cretans had been well armed and provided with good ammunition,
the campaign would probably have ended there and then, and Kakopetra
become as famous as Askypho in the great insurrection, when the same
Mustapha, in 1823, was blockaded, and his army almost exterminated,
himself, with his immediate followers, only escaping by scattering the
contents of the military treasury on the road.
The successful return of the army to Canéa was the signal of the most
enthusiastic rejoicings on the part of the Mussulman population of
Canéa, who, with the extravagance of a semi-barbaric people, had passed
the last few days in the wildest frenzy of fear and irritation.
CHAPTER V.
The rescue happily concluded, the Pasha organized a movement against
Lakus, Theriso, Keramia, strong points where the Christians had
assembled in considerable numbers and from whence they might harry the
plains of Canéa, carrying off flocks and occasionally prisoners. This
expedition consisted of twelve thousand men. While the organization was
going on, the Christians came down to the number of several hundred,
and took possession of the direct road to Theriso, and attacked the
block-house on the hill of Malaxa overlooking the plain, and three
miles from Canéa. The attack on the block-house necessarily failed from
the want of artillery, and the Commissioner succeeded in reinforcing
the garrison strongly after a sharp repulse in which the reinforcements
were driven back nearly to the plain country, as I myself was able to
perceive, watching the skirmish through a telescope. The day after,
two battalions were ordered to clear the road to Theriso, held by
the insurgents, and were assisted by a battery of artillery, taking
the Cretans in flank from the block-house of Malaxa, firing across
an impassable ravine. The attack lasted the whole afternoon, and,
watching the affair through my glass, I could perceive that neither
the direct nor the flank movement produced the least impression on the
insurgents, who maintained their position till nightfall, when the
troops were withdrawn to the plain. The next day the attack was renewed
with five thousand men and a considerable force of irregulars. The
Cretans fell back from their position of the day before to the ridges
and ravines which cut up the plateau of Keramia, where they received
the attack of the troops, and, always retreating but contesting every
inequality of ground, they fell back to the precipitous spurs of the
White or Sphakian Mountains on the further side of the plain, where
they made good their position during the remainder of the day. The
losses on either side we were never able to ascertain, though the
Cretans admitted a loss of seven killed and thirty or forty wounded,
among the former being a son of Manosouyanaki, the chief captain of
the district, who commanded the defence. The troops returned at night,
having occupied the whole day in making an advance of about three
miles, but the official report the next day declared that the movement
had been perfectly successful, without the loss of a man killed or
wounded. The expedition against Lakus, proceeding westward, turned that
position, which the Cretans abandoned without contest, and retreated
across the almost impassable ravine which separates the hill of Lakus
from the central chain of mountains, to Zurba, a village situated on a
bold bastion, which could only be attacked successfully from the higher
mountains, and which they had fortified in a rude manner as depot and
hospital. The number of Cretans at Zurba amounted to six hundred, the
attacking force as many thousand, with two batteries of artillery; but
after two days' bombardment, during part of which time I counted (Zurba
being only nine miles in a straight line from my house) thirty shots
per minute, and three assaults, the Turks were obliged to abandon the
attack and move on to Theriso. This village, an ancient stronghold of
Crete, which, with the ravine leading to it, has been the scene of many
disasters to the Turkish troops in the different insurrections, is
situated in a valley surrounded on all sides but one by abrupt hills,
and could easily have been held by five hundred well-disciplined and
resolute men against the whole Turkish army. The Cretans lacked not
resolution, but unfortunately for their discipline the news arrived
at this moment that the Panhellenion blockade-runner had landed her
first cargo of arms and supplies on the north side of the island, on
learning which nearly the whole force stationed for the protection
of Theriso went to assist in the debarkation of the cargo. Mustapha
took this moment for the attack on Theriso, which he occupied without
opposition, and evacuated with equal celerity on receiving warning of
the return of the Cretans, armed with the rifles of the Greek national
guard and reinforced by a body of Hellenic volunteers. The Cretans,
following their usual policy, however, gathered on his flanks and
harassed his retreat, for it virtually became such, until he reached
the positions attained in the previous attack by Keramia, where he
encamped to reorganize the movement onward through the Rhizo[F] against
the Apokorona.
[F] The Rhizo or "root" of the mountains is the hilly district
intervening between the higher mountains and the plains which border
the sea. Malaxa it the "root" nearest the sea.
In a campaign of seven days, he had destroyed nearly a score of
villages, most of them undefended; had utterly destroyed all hope of
compromise or conciliation; and, though he had penetrated the strongest
outposts of the insurgents, had attained no other result than the
temporary possession of the position of Lakus, the village being a
mass of ruins, as a base of operations in case of a new attack on
Theriso or an expedition against Omalo, amid the western peaks of
the White Mountains. He had anticipated great moral effects from his
mountain artillery, but the Cretans learned to despise it. With their
old-fashioned firearms, they had managed to harass the Turkish troops
to such an extent that they looked to the days when they should fight
with rifles with enthusiasm and resolution. Then every burned village
left an additional number of men who, having lost all their property,
had no interest in peace; so that every advantage he had gained had
only increased the force opposed to him. I urged this consideration as
strongly as possible on the Commissioner in several visits, which was
all the better reason in his mind to make him insist on his policy. He
had expected that his name would induce immediate submission, or, at
least, that in a single battle he would make so decided an impression
that the favorable terms he was then prepared to offer would be at once
accepted, but, till the military power of the Cretans was completely
broken, the Porte was determined to make no concessions of any kind.
The insurgents, on the other hand, were already under the influence
of Hellenic enthusiasts, and receiving munitions of all kinds by the
blockade-runners, and the drift of their counsels was toward war. It
was clear now that the Porte had made a most disastrous blunder, in
fact an unbroken series of blunders in all its measures. It should
not have entertained the project of transference in the beginning;
in the second place, having decided on the transfer, it should have
carried it out logically, and not by a bastard popular vote enforced
by the presence of an Egyptian army; and finally, having decided to
send the Commissioner, it should have sent him at once, instead of
keeping him and the answer to the petition waiting for three months.
Its whole course was irritating and unjust. It had had no excuse for
the employment of force, and was warned by the consular corps, without
exception, of the previous dishonest, tyrannical, and impolitic conduct
of Ismael Pasha. If it had a consistent policy in the whole matter,
it could only have been to provoke an insurrection in Crete when all
the other provinces were unable to rise, and so disarm by a crushing
suppression the enemy most dreaded of all its subject provinces.
The finale of the Theriso campaign was marked by the appearance of
the great _Deus ex machinâ_ of the insurrection, the Russian frigate
_Grand Admiral_, and the commencement of the real moral intervention
of Russia in the already complicated affair. The Russian commander,
Boutakoff, was too fit a selection for the rôle which events compelled
(or permitted) him to play to have been intentionally chosen by any
government. In the three years subsequent to his arrival, I saw
him often, and knew as much of his opinions and feelings as it is
permitted an outsider to know of a Russian official, and both his acts
and language have always confirmed my impression that the Russian
Government did not influence the turn events took, and anticipated only
a speedy and disastrous end to the insurrection, while entertaining
the most cordial sympathy and good wishes for a more prosperous end
than any sane man would have expected. In fact, with the exception of
the boldest of the insurgents and some harebrained Greeks, no one in
the island anticipated anything but ruin from the movement. Captain
Boutakoff was a devout and liberal Christian, a type of all that is
most chivalric, patriotic, and compassionate in manhood, large-brained,
prudent, and, if zealous enough to merit all the honors then and
since conferred on him by his sovereign, he was never capable of any
patriotic vice worse than the most profound reticence. To know him as I
knew him was to conceive a better opinion of his country. I am morally
certain that Boutakoff never said or did anything to encourage in any
way the hopes of the Cretans, or lead them to indulge in dreams of
European intervention in their favor. His position was that of a humane
observer, and with all the sympathy which existed between him and
myself, and the mutual confidence in our personal intercourse, I could
find in his language and acts no trace of _arrière-pensée_ in favor of
any other interest than the real good of the Cretans. My own strong
sympathy with the unhappy islanders made me the ally and co-operator
with whoever gave them any help, and placed me, I have good reason to
believe, high in the confidence of the Russian authorities in Crete and
Constantinople; and, with no political interest in the matter other
than Cretan, I am free to confess that, while I believed Russian policy
in Crete to be the good of Crete, I was willing to aid in carrying
out any plans that policy might point out. If, then, these plans had
pointed out the secret encouragement of the insurrection as desirable,
I am certain that I should have been influenced in that direction. It
will be seen before I have finished that I am no apologist for the
Russian conduct of this affair when it had become a matter of European
interest and action; but I must do the Russian Government the justice
to declare that it is in no wise responsible for the disaster and
carnage which the war brought on, and that it was not until several
months that it openly gave the revolt moral encouragement (as a means
of weakening the Turkish empire?)
The Imperial Commissioner having concentrated and reorganized his
troops at Bondapoulo, a village of the plain of Keramia, transferred
his base of operations to Kalyves, on the sea and at the mouth of
the river which drains the Apokorona, and as soon as the change was
effected commenced his march toward Krapi, the main pass of Sphakia.
The troops were first opposed at Stylos, the first of the natural
positions of which the country affords so many, and were repulsed
in a first attack. The vanguard were of Egyptians, who were in this
campaign systematically put foremost and encouraged in every brutality
and ferocity, in the hope apparently of making them good troops, their
natural temper being unfavorable to that end. Though the result of this
treatment certainly did show that nobody is so brutal and devilish
as a coward, and the fellahs eminently distinguished themselves in
devastation and killing of defenceless people, they never succeeded
in exciting any other feeling than hatred and contempt in the Cretan.
At Stylos, as in other places, they were beaten with ease, and it was
only on the following day, when the Cretan positions were flanked and
the irregulars sent forward, that the insurgents evacuated their strong
positions. In this affair the Egyptian general, Ismael Pasha, urging
his troops to retrieve their disgrace at Vrysis, was mortally wounded.
The troops attacked the position of Campos, which was abandoned by
all combatants, the remaining inhabitants being put to death, and
the insurgents relinquished all the country as far as Vafé to the
Turks, who ravaged it in the most thorough manner, with the extreme
of barbarity and atrocity to all the Christian inhabitants who were
unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. In the neighborhood
of Kephalá there are numerous grottoes, partly natural and partly
excavated, as places of refuge from immemorial times, some of them
celebrated in the traditions of the island for the sieges they had
maintained. Into these many of the Christians retreated, taking with
them their effects. In one of these about two hundred villagers,
mostly old men, women, and children, had taken refuge, and, refusing
to surrender, were stifled in the cave.[G] A woman came, one day,
to my house to obtain protection and charity, having been brought a
prisoner to Canéa, and narrated to me the circumstances of her capture.
She was, she told me, on her way from her village to a larger one in
the Apokorona to purchase bread, and was in the company of eleven
men, all Christians and unarmed, going with the same intention. They
were stopped in the road by a party of Seliniote irregulars, who
deliberately beheaded the men and piled their heads in the path,
taking her with them to headquarters to extort from her information
as to the places of concealment of her compatriots. Giving no desired
indications, she was about to be beheaded, when two Egyptians whom she
had sheltered and fed after the defeat of Vrysis recognized her, and,
stating her kindness to the Pasha, she was released and sent to Canéa.
[G] Certain European journals, discrediting this atrocity, and,
strangely enough, on the ground that it had really happened in the
previous great revolution, affected to consider all the atrocities as
fictitious. The incident repeats itself in Cretan history, and I had
information from European officers of the Turkish troops of several
cases in this war committed under their personal observation.
The consequence of this severity was not what Mustapha Pasha expected
it to be, to intimidate the Cretans into submission, but to drive them
into the high mountains, where hundreds perished from hunger and cold.
As children as well as adults of both sexes were welcome game to the
fanaticism called out by the first taste of Christian blood, and no
partial submission was accepted, the cruelty being the means to an end
quite characteristic of Turkish policy and the nature of the Albanian,
who years before had earned the title of the "butcher of Crete"; and
as the submitted had no power to induce the submission of the more
resolute insurgents, there was no possible safety to any portion of
the population except in the mountains, where a large proportion of
the weakest died, leaving the men unencumbered for vengeance. Every
step of the Turkish authorities was a blunder. Submission being useless
unless complete, and complete submission out of the power of any one
to enforce, there remained only complete insurrection, and this the
commissioner succeeded in exciting, with a renewal of all the old
religious animosity, and a desperation natural to men to whom surrender
brought no protection, and submission no guarantee.
CHAPTER VI.
No resistance was after this offered until Vafé was reached. Here about
two hundred Greek volunteers and a thousand Cretans, under the command
of Hadji Mikhali, of Lakus, and Costa Veloudaki, of Sphakia, were
concentrated. The Cretan chiefs were opposed to any regular fighting,
and counselled a retreat into the ravines, where they could entangle
the troops and attack them without serious risk to themselves, while
a pitched fight was not only not in the way of the islanders, but, if
lost, as they considered it must be in view of the overpowering Turkish
forces, it would discourage the movement greatly. Zimbrakaki, the
commander of the volunteers, with the most of his men, wished not to
abandon so strong a position, at which they had, moreover, constructed
a strong redoubt, without fighting, and it was decided to make a stand.
The majority of the Cretans, however, recognizing no authority but that
of their captains, withdrew before the fight, which, had Mustapha been
a commander careful of the lives of his troops, might have been decided
by flanking movements without firing a shot, as his army was composed
of ten thousand regulars and fully three thousand irregulars, Albanian
and Cretan, while the Christians were hardly five hundred. No forces
the committee could have assembled would have made the stand a prudent
or justifiable one under the circumstances, and its result was what the
Cretan chiefs had foreseen. Mustapha, as usual, opened with a direct
assault of Egyptians, which was repulsed with heavy loss; but, in the
meantime, a body of Albanians were engaged in climbing the heights
which protected the flanks of the position, and so nearly succeeded in
surprising the Greeks that they only saved themselves by precipitate
flight. A few gallant fellows, indifferent to the odds or the certainty
of defeat, were killed, taken prisoners, or escaped by suicide. The
committee, with the Hellenes, retreated to Askyfó, and made the best
preparations to defend the ravine which their demoralized forces
permitted; and so formidable was the position that Mustapha decided not
to attack it, but to be content with the moral advantage of the victory
at Vafé, which was nearly fatal to the insurrection, in spite of the
triviality of the losses of the Christians, which did not surpass
thirty killed of both Hellenes and Cretans. The latter had attributed
invincibility to their allies, and to find them defeated so utterly at
the first encounter paralyzed the insurrection for the moment; and,
if the Turkish commander had moved energetically on Askyfó, it is not
probable that any serious defence would have been made, and, as there
was then no other centre of resistance, the taking of Askyfó would have
left the movement without any power of forming another nucleus of moral
force. The committee must have dispersed, and the thousands of families
assembled in Sphakia must have surrendered.
But Mustapha, remembering his former disaster in the defile of Krapi,
hesitated, waited at Prosnero and in the Apokorona, while the Sphakiote
chieftains craftily negotiated, and made their calculations on the
amount of assistance they could get from Greece, the measure of
concessions or personal advantages they could hope for as the price
of submission, and prolonged the practical truce until the reaction
from the effects of the late defeat began. Hadji Mikhali, with his
Lakiotes, went back to Lakus and Theriso, entirely abandoned by the
troops, and resumed his old policy of little and incessant raids to
harass the Turkish commander and keep his own men from the despondency
of inaction.
The immediate salvation of the insurrection was, however, the arrival
of Col. Coroneos, the ablest by far of the Greek chiefs, and the only
one, it would seem, who was capable of adapting his plans to the
kind of material he had to work with. He arrived too late either to
prevent or assist in the battle of Vafé, and, seeing the danger the
insurrection was in of dying of despondency and the dissidence of its
chiefs, moved at once into the central provinces, and, collecting
together such Cretans as he could find, surprised and cut off two small
Turkish detachments, and with unimportant advantages reawakened the
enthusiasm of the fickle and excitable islanders, gained for himself
the prestige of victory, and rapidly recruited a considerable force.
At the same time, slight advantages were won by Hadji Mikhali near
Canéa, and by other chiefs in the eastern provinces, where an Ottoman
detachment had been disastrously repulsed in an attempt to penetrate
into the Lasithri district. Coroneos, with a small body of volunteers,
established his headquarters at the old fortified convent of Arkadi,
a building of Venetian construction of such size and strength as to
be a fit depot of supplies and place of refuge as against anything
less than a regular siege. From here he harassed the detachments
which issued from Retimo, and kept alive the movement in the district
between Sphakia and Mount Ida, and on several occasions menaced the
city of Retimo, which is fortified by a low wall, almost unprovided
with artillery. Mustapha, after nearly a month of indecision and
negotiation, in which the Cretans showed a diplomatic ability and
duplicity quite worthy the antique reputation of the race, found
himself compelled to act against the new dangers which Coroneos had
conjured for him. He moved with great rapidity from Episkopi, where
he had made his headquarters in order that he might watch both the
great passes into Sphakia, Krapi and Kallikrati, to Retimo, and thence
to the attack of Arkadi, which had been left with a small detachment
of volunteers and about one hundred and fifty Cretan combatants,
including the priests. Besides these, there were about one thousand
women and children, whom Coroneos had made every attempt to dissuade
from remaining, but, on account of the opposition of the Hegumenos,
who would not consent to the expulsion of his own relatives, the rest
could not be induced to leave a place of traditional security, well
provisioned and adequately defended against any attack they could
conceive of. Coroneos only persuaded about four hundred to return to
their villages. The Greek commander, with the main body of his forces,
had been watching Mustapha after his taking position at Episkopi, and
followed his movements to prevent, if possible, his investment of
Arkadi. Taking the circuit of the hills, he only reached the convent
after Mustapha's vanguard, which he engaged until nightfall, when
his men mostly withdrew to the mountains, and Arkadi was necessarily
abandoned to its fate.
Mustapha, arriving the next day, summoned the convent to surrender,
but, having no faith in his observance of the conditions, the
Christians refused, and the attack was ordered. The small rifled pieces
(mountain-guns) were found to produce no effect on the walls or on the
new masonry with which the gateway had been filled up, and, the fire
from the convent being found to be unexpectedly hot and effective, the
investment was made complete, and reinforcements sent for from Retimo,
whence nearly the whole garrison and Mussulman population came to his
aid, making the total force employed about 23,000 men,[H] regulars and
irregulars, being, in fact, by much the greatest part of the Ottoman
force in the island. Heavy artillery was also ordered from Retimo, and
two or three old siege-guns were transported with great difficulty (a
distance of about twelve miles), and placed in battery; and, having
demolished the masonry in the gateway, an assault was made, but the
fire from the monastery was so vigorous that the attacking column was
unable to face it, and after two or three assaults had failed, neither
the Turkish regulars nor their officers being willing to renew it, a
body of Egyptians were placed in front and driven in at the breach by
the bayonets of the Turkish soldiers in their rear.
[H] This estimate, and some of the details I give, I received from the
secretary of Mustapha Pasha after the war was over.
The convent was a hollow square of buildings, with a large court, in
the centre of which stood the church. The inner and outer walls were
equally solid, and the cells and rooms opening into the court were
garrisoned with bodies of the insurgents, who poured a hail of bullets
into the mass of Ottomans entering, but, the entrance once made,
defence and submission were alike fruitless. The troops killed all
who fell into their hands, fighting their way from cell to cell, and
bringing even their artillery into the rooms to penetrate the partition
walls. And so the struggle of extermination was fought out, until one
of the priests, who had previously expressed to his companions the
determination to blow up the magazine if the convent were entered,
finding death inevitable, fulfilled his threat, and changed what was
before but a profitless butchery into a deed of heroism, which again
saved the insurrection from the jaws of failure. The result of the
explosion was very limited so far as the combatants were concerned, and
probably did not kill a hundred Turks.
But even this catastrophe did not stop the carnage. The troops
recoiled, but again returned, and the last of the combatants defending
themselves in the refectory, having exhausted their bullets,
surrendered on the faith of an oath that their lives should be spared,
and were at once put to death. At the end, thirty-three men and
sixty-one women and children were spared.[I] Of the pandemonium that
the walls of Arkadi enclosed, I have heard many and ghastly hints,
and have in vain asked eye-witnesses to tell me what they saw; they
all said it was too horrible to be recalled or spoken of. One of the
most violent of the Mussulman fanatics of Crete, who had performed all
the pilgrimages and holy works required by the Koran, and earnestly
desired as the last grace of this life to die in the holy war against
the infidels, and had fought recklessly in all the battles he had been
able to participate in, went home after Arkadi in despair, declaring
that destiny forbade his dying the holy death. Mustapha was a general
of the old type, and did not care to win bloodless victories or spare
the lives of his troops, and the result, apart from the moral effect,
was far more disastrous to the Porte than to the insurrection. The
losses in killed and wounded were certainly not less than 1,500,
and were estimated at a much higher figure. The army was occupied
thirty-six hours in bringing the wounded into Retimo, and nearly 500,
unable to find place there, were brought on to Canéa (480 was the
number given me by a European surgeon in the Ottoman service). The
Pasha himself saw that he had made a blunder, and everything which the
local administration could effect to disguise and conceal the nature of
the event was done. I had, however, fortunately sent a trusty man to
Retimo on the first intimation of the movement, with orders to get me
the most minute and exact information possible, and his report, with
the confirmation of certain Turkish employees and submitted Christians
residing at Retimo, was in the main accepted by most of my colleagues
of the consular corps as the nearest to the truth which had been
obtained; and, though in these lands of fable and myth no exact history
can well be written, I believe that this is substantially the truth as
to Arkadi.
[I] The few men who were spared from this massacre were those who
were able to appeal to Mustapha Pasha, or some of his suite, on the
ground of ancient personal relations, or who succeeded in obtaining
his clemency by some sufficient plea, after surrender. That all the
butchery was not due to the heat of assault is shown by this and by
several incidents reported to me. One of the latest parties of the
combatants who surrendered on a promise of their lives was passed in
review before the Pasha himself, and all who wore European clothing
passed under the sword at once, as volunteers, though amongst them
were several Cretans from the adjacent villages, whose relatives
attested their nativity. When the refectory surrendered, the Pasha
swore on the head of the Sultan to spare its inmates, who were
required to hand out all their arms, and were afterwards butchered,
even to the women. Mr. Skinner, in his "Roughing it in Crete," gives
an account of his visit to Arkadi some months later, when he found the
bodies still unburied, and describes the scene in the refectory with
ghastly verity. After the fighting was all over, a party of irregulars
went round with lighted candles, and, holding them to the noses of the
corpses, gave the _coup de grace_ to all who breathed. Two Cretans
had managed to hide on the roof of one of the buildings, where they
remained till the next day, when, as the Albanians were leaving, one
of them shot a pigeon which fell on the roof where the Cretans had
hid, and, going up to secure his game, discovered the unfortunates,
who were put to death in cold blood. On the march back to Retimo, all
who could not keep up were at once killed, and those who reached the
city were kept for months in prison and in extreme misery.
CHAPTER VII.
Mustapha immediately retraced his steps to Canéa, and, housing himself
outside the walls, having sworn not to re-enter his capital until the
insurgents had been subdued, called a council to plan measures to
strike a quick blow at the insurrection before the effect of Arkadi
should be felt in the public opinion of Europe. Up to that time the
struggle had seemed to me a hopeless and insane one, and though my
warmest sympathies had been, of course, with the Cretans, as victims
of a monstrous injustice--a sequence of crimes--I had not dared utter
a word of hope or encouragement in reply to all the earnest appeals to
me by the friends of the insurrection. Now, seeing the enthusiasm that
Arkadi excited amongst the insurgents and even the mutis (submitted
Christians), I felt that there was a hope that Christendom would be
compelled to listen to the history being enacted before it on this
sea-girt mountain ridge. That the Pasha also felt this was evident both
from his words and acts. He made new and more tempting offers to the
Sphakiote chiefs, and employed the well-known appliances of Eastern
politics to make friends amongst the insurgents, but with only partial
success. At the same time, he made preparations for another attack
on Sphakia, but this time from the west via Selinos. He, therefore,
leaving Mehmet Pasha to guard Krapi with four or five battalions,
concentrated all his available forces besides, at Alikianu, his _point
de départ_ for the first Theriso campaign. All this country had been
abandoned, and had to be reconquered, particularly Theriso, which,
if unoccupied, would be a menace to his communications with Canéa. At
the same time, a concentration of the volunteers and insurgents took
place in the plain of Omalos, by which alone access is had to Sphakia
from this side. A force of volunteers recently landed were engaged in
a foolish siege of Kissamos, a worthless position to either side, as
it was commanded by the men-of-war, and could not be held if taken;
and the different chiefs of the volunteers were kept ineffective by
dissensions and jealousies amongst themselves, each refusing to obey
any other. Coroneos and Zimbrakakis, however, united their forces to
resist the attack on Omalos. The volunteers, under the command of
Soliotis, a Hellenic officer, made a gallant defence of the position
of Lakus, but were compelled to retreat to the upper ridges which
border Omalos, while Theriso was abandoned before a flank movement of
Mehmet Pasha, obliged temporarily to leave the Apokorona undefended.
Omalos, however, resisted direct attack, and the Pasha moved round by
the passes of Kissamos to the west of the mountains, devastating as he
went, and driving before him all the non-combatants of the country he
passed through. By this time the snow had fallen with unusual severity
of cold for that climate, and the insurgents, although ill-provided
against an inclemency they usually escaped from in the plains below,
were in many respects better off than the troops, who were compelled
to march through ravines which were often mountain torrents in this
rainy season; and as they did not carry tents, that they might move
with greater rapidity, and were often cut off from all communication
with the base of supplies for days together by the rain filling the
roads, at best only bad mule-paths, they suffered prodigiously without
fighting or even the encouragement of the sack of villages. The
Egyptians, clad only in linen which their climate required, perished
by cold and wet in hundreds; pneumonia became an endemic in the army;
and, to add to the misery, the beasts of burden perished under the
hardships, and lined the paths with their corpses.
Mustapha was as merciless a commander as enemy, and, though the
army was suffering extreme misery, he kept a vigilant watch for his
opportunity, and when, after two weeks of fatiguing outpost duty,
waiting in hunger, rain, snow, and frost, the Hellenes who guarded the
difficult pass of St. Irene were frozen and starved into negligence,
he made a dash, one foggy morning, surprised the post, and, taking
possession of the heights crowning the ravine, his army defiled
leisurely over into the valleys of Selinos. The Greeks moved over to
the pass of Krustogherako, which admits to the plain of Omalos from
the Selinos side, and the Pasha, believing a defence ready, encamped
in the still undevastated valleys, and passed some days in burning and
ravaging, destroying vineyards and mulberry-trees wherever they could
be reached. The olive-trees, as the reliance of the future income of
the island, were mostly spared.
Meanwhile, a "moral intervention" was being prepared, which brought
respite to the insurrection and deranged all the plans of the Pasha.
The atrocities of Arkadi had finally impressed public opinion with the
conviction that the old barbarities of the Greek and Turkish wars were
being perpetrated anew; and even the English consul at Canéa became
convinced that barbaric massacre and ravage were being employed as the
means of subduing the spirit of the islanders, and had reported to his
Government certain of these atrocities, remonstrating, at the same
time, to the Commissioner. The reports of those consuls who had by this
time become characterized as the "friends of the insurrection"--viz.,
Colucci (Italian), Dendrinos (Russian), Sacopoulos (Greek), and
myself--had spread through the European journals the news of these
barbarities and excesses to such a degree that remonstrances were
made by the ambassadors at Constantinople, while the clear-headed and
true-hearted Murray had from the beginning, with great justice and
discrimination, measured the facts and manifested the warmest sympathy
with the Cretans. At this juncture came H.B.M.'s sloop _Assurance_,
Commander Pym, relieving the _Wizard_, ordered to Malta. We parted from
our gallant protector with an emotion not easily comprehended by those
who do not know the nature and nearness of the dangers of the previous
four months, or how the resolute and outspoken manhood of the young
officer in his one-gun steamer had stood so long between us and death,
as the representative of a power in civilization which subsequent years
made me honor more and more--the English navy. Fortunately, Pym had
learned from Murray, in the few days which elapsed between the arrival
of the _Assurance_ and the departure of the _Wizard_, what was the real
position of affairs, and followed the traditions of his predecessor.
He had, moreover, a certain defiance of red-tape and a feverishness to
distinguish himself which did not always measure carefully the purport
of general orders, and which, perhaps, in battle would have made him
turn a blind eye to a signal of recall, and now disposed him to abandon
on any pretext the cold-blooded neutrality of his government.
Pym soon determined that a very small pretext would suffice to make him
throw himself in the way of a decided intervention in behalf of the
non-combatants, and did not fail to exert all his influence on Dickson
to obtain an official request that he should cruise on the coast in
advance of the Pasha's army, and to "seize every available opportunity
for affording refuge to any Christian in distress who may seek
protection on board his ship," and to convey such refugees to Greece.
Pym had declared to me (and possibly to Dickson) that he should, on his
own responsibility, take such a step if he did not get the requisition
from the consul; and, on leaving for a run to Candia, said that he
should go thence to Selinos and put himself in the way of humanity.
Under these circumstances, Dickson's humanity, further stimulated
by Murray's and Pym's enthusiasm, got the better of his official
prepossessions, and, without waiting for a reply from his Government
to a petition addressed to all the Christian powers to send ships to
save the women and children exposed to such chances as those of Arkadi,
had followed up his remonstrances to the Commissioner with a proposal
to send a ship to pick up the families gathered before the army in its
movement into Selinos. The Commissioner, still under the impression of
the effect produced by recent events on European public opinion, dared
not refuse his consent to such a demand from his best friend, and, it
may be conceived, reluctantly, verbally, and evasively gave it. But
Dickson, too honest and earnest to comprehend the duplicity, took him
literally at his word. As a consequence of all these considerations and
conclusions, the _Assurance_ found herself at Suia of Selinos while
Mustapha was pounding away at the passes, and took three hundred and
fifteen women and children and twenty-five wounded men on board and
transported them to Peiræus.
No act could have been purer or more free from ulterior views than
this of Pym's--an expression of what not only he, but all of his
fellow-officers of the English navy whom I saw on the station, with one
exception, felt--the compassionate desire to stand between women and
children and the devilish policy which butchered them to terrify their
husbands and fathers into submission. I saw Pym and his officers on
their return from this voyage, and not one of them but would have given
a month's pay to have gone on another similar trip. Their Government,
in passing judgment on the act, could not condemn it, but to two
parties, unfortunately, it was a political movement--the Hellenes,
who insisted on considering it an intervention in _their_ favor, and
so compelled the English Government to forbid its repetition; and the
French, who regarded it as a manœuvre to block the game of the Viceroy.
The French agent who afterwards succeeded Derché assured me that they
had the most conclusive evidence that Captain Pym had orders from
London to give the insurrection a jog, because the annexation to Egypt
would have been the result of the failure of the insurrection at this
juncture, and that, although Pym was immediately recalled and, to all
intents and purposes, disgraced, and I believe retired on account of
his venture, he was only so in appearance, and really had been rewarded
for his apparent punishment.
There were, at this time, two Italian corvettes, an Austrian frigate
and gunboat, and a French gunboat, besides the Russian frigate, all
of which, except the Frenchman, had, or were reported to have, orders
to follow the lead of any other Power in rendering assistance to the
non-combatants, and most of the commanders were anxious to follow Pym,
but their delay in learning of his venture, and the quick disapproval
of it, deterred all from intervention, and while correspondence was
going on the war seemed suspended. It appeared finally to be decided
that no one should imitate the English commander. The insurrection
seemed on the point of collapsing, through the severity of the winter
and the discouragement of the Cretans. Volunteers had been coming over
from Greece--a motley mass of all nations--many of them from Smyrna
and other Turkish parts, who, as soon as they landed, began to breed
disaffection and maltreat the Cretans, creating the most angry feeling
in the island, which did not stop short of violence. At this time, the
whole body were driven into the Sphakian mountains, where, exposed to
intense cold, half-fed, and without any discipline, they were dangerous
only to the insurrection, and yielded readily to proffers of the Pasha
to give them free exit and conveyance to Greece. A portion of them
accepted the proposition on condition that they should be sent on
European ships, and the Vice-Commissioner called a council of those
consuls whose governments had naval representatives in Cretan waters,
to propose that their ships should go to receive the disaffected
volunteers, but with the condition that no non-combatants or Cretans
should be accepted. None of the commanders were willing to accept
the mission on these terms, except the French, and the gunboat which
he commanded went, therefore, to Loutro, a port of Sphakia (the Port
Phœnix of St. Paul), and embarked four hundred and eighty men, who were
landed at Peiræus, where they were received with violence and insults
by the excited populace, and some barely escaped paying the last
penalty for their defection.
CHAPTER VIII.
The remaining auxiliaries, paralyzed by want of organization, the usual
dissensions of the chiefs, and their mutual jealousies, even more than
by their want of supplies, retreated before Mustapha, who, after some
weeks of indecision, resumed his campaign; but, instead of following up
his advantages by land, and getting possession of Omalos as a better
base of operations, and preventing the Cretans from reoccupying it, he
embarked his troops at Suia, and attempted to land at St. Rumséli, the
entrance of the ravine of Samariá, the stronghold and place of refuge
_par excellence_ of Sphakia, and where, at this time, were gathered
thousands of women and children. This movement menaced too closely
the mountaineers, who opposed the landing, and finally repelled the
attack, as well as a subsequent one at Tripiti, nearer to Suia, when
Mustapha returned to his camp in Selmos, and passed another period
of inaction, during which the insurrectionary committees in Greece,
admonished by the imminent danger the movement seemed to have evaded
for the moment, renewed their efforts to send relief, and threw over
other bodies of volunteers, mainly Mainotes, a hardy, courageous race,
regarded as better irregulars even than the Albanians, who, landing in
the eastern provinces, revived the insurrection where the government
was ill able to meet it. The best of the volunteers, under Coroneos
and Yennissarli, recovering from their demoralization by rest and the
removal of the more disorderly elements, moved eastward to join the
new bodies, leaving the Sphakiotes to guard their own country. If
Mustapha, after the affair of Krustogherako, had followed the attack up
with vigor, two weeks would have finished the insurrection. Even as it
was, Sphakia being strongly disposed to purchase freedom from conquest
by neutrality, and several of the captains having openly embraced the
Turkish cause, there seemed very little hope for the prolongation of
the insurrection, when another of those wanton acts of barbarity, which
had on more than one occasion strengthened the insurgents instead of
weakening their courage, gave it another jog.
The Russian minister at Constantinople had, as soon as the news reached
that place that an English ship had rescued a number of non-combatants
from Crete, obtained from the Grand Vizier a reluctant consent that
other ships might intervene, and despatched a steamer at once to Crete,
with orders to the Grand Admiral to commence deportation. A violent
storm favored the Turks by delaying the avviso for several days,
and, when finally the order came, we had the news that the English
Government had disapproved Pym's acts, and the Commissioner (who had
plenary powers in all matters connected with Crete) had withdrawn the
permission given to Dickson, and both Dendrino and Boutakoff hesitated
to execute the order, anticipating its revocation. The former, a timid,
irresolute man, master of the arts of intrigue, but lost as soon as he
had an open part to play in which he must bear the responsibility of
decision, was more concerned for his own security than for the fate of
the Christians, and hesitated to give a requisition to the captain to
move, while the latter, indifferent to the consequences to himself, as
weighed against the relief of the Christian sufferers, hesitated to
move before getting renewed orders after the long delay, lest he might
compromise his Government in the event of a change of its momentary
policy, which was to avoid all appearance of ultra-advocacy of the
insurgent cause. It lacked but two or three days of our regular weekly
courier when the avviso had arrived, and both the Russian officials had
decided to wait the courier before moving.
As for myself, since the affair of Arkadi I had thrown aside
all reserve, and, while never going beyond the limits of moral
intervention, I had used all my influence with my colleagues, and with
our minister at Constantinople as well as our Government, to provoke
acts of positive intervention. I made no secret of it, nor did the
Turkish Government of its hostility to me. A patrol of zapties watched
my front door, and another my back door, and no Cretan dared enter
my house. I was regarded as the postman of the insurgents, and so
complete was the delusion that the authorities entirely neglected to
watch my colleagues, two of whom daily received and sent letters to the
mountains. All the little persecutions which a petty local government
could inflict were laid on me, and I reciprocated, as I best could,
by disseminating news of the true condition of the insurrection, and
stimulating the activity of my colleagues. Mr. Morris, our minister at
Constantinople, at first strongly under the influence of the English
ambassador, the just and liberal Lord Lyons, became convinced that
nothing was to be expected in the way of humane intervention from
England, and passed entirely over to the Russian policy, and lent me
his whole prestige and influence, made himself my defender at the
Porte, and gave me instructions after my own drawing up. I made common
cause, therefore, with my Russian colleague, on whose irresolution
I managed, in most cases, to impose my resolutions, and, little by
little, gained all the control over him which I desired for critical
emergencies, while I flattered his _amour propre_ by giving him the
credit of making up his own mind. I had also organized a sort of news
agency, by which I was able to get the earliest and most reliable
news of all movements in the island, so that gradually not only the
consuls but the naval officers came to expect from me the most reliable
information.
During the few days of suspense between the arrival of Boutakoff's
orders and the arrival of the courier which should confirm or revoke
them, the act of brutality to which I have alluded came to quicken
decision. I had received news that a Turkish frigate, hoisting English
colors, had run in near the coast of Sphakia, and when the unfortunate
refugees, expecting aid, came down to the shore, the Turks opened on
them with shot and shell. A Turkish cannonade is generally a pretty
harmless affair, except for accidental casualties, but the affair gave
me all the justification I needed to put a pressure on Dendrino to
issue a requisition for the Grand Admiral to go at once to the south
coast of the island. That night the post steamer was due, and, from
the absence of any despatches to the Italian commander similar to
those to the Russian, I anticipated that the movement had failed, and
that counter-orders would come to Boutakoff by the post. I went at
once, therefore, to Dendrino, and, putting the most energetic pressure
on him, dictated a letter to Boutakoff, who was on board the frigate
at Suda, requesting him to get up steam and go to the Sphakian coast
without delay, and did not leave till I saw the messenger on the way
and beyond recall, knowing that if I left Dendrino it would stop
there. Boutakoff, nothing loth, fired up at once, and at nine P.M. was
on his way. At midnight the post arrived, as anticipated, with counter
orders, but too late. Except myself, no one was so glad that the
countermand failed as General Ignatieff, the Russian minister.
The Grand Admiral went to Tripiti, where were thousands of
non-combatants hiding in caves and living amongst the rocks, waiting
the relieving European ships, but when the Russian boats ran in they
were fired on by the Cretan guards, made suspicious by the Turkish
frauds. Once assured of their friends, however, the people swarmed out
of their holes like ants, and, as Boutakoff told me, in a few minutes
the whole coast was lined with them, more than he could possibly stow.
He took about 1,200, and sailed for Peiræus.
This deportation had a triple effect: first, in strengthening the
Russian party in the island by assuring the Cretans of the good faith
of the Russian Government, that party having been hitherto very
inconsiderable; second, in relieving a large body of men of the care
of their families; and, third, in deciding doubtful and uninvaded
districts to take up arms, and breaking off the negotiations between
the Commissioner and the Sphakiote chiefs, by which the former had
hoped to have Sphakia given up without combat. The most tempting offers
were refused, and the people of Eastern Sphakia, under the command of
old Costa Veloudaki, entered on the war-path again, and, surprising
a Turkish post at Episkopí, drove the garrison, with serious losses,
back to Retimo; and, near the same time, Coroneos and Korakas on one
slope of Ida, and Petropoulaki, the chief of the Mainote volunteers,
on the other, harassed and drove back all the outposts in the open
country, and shut up the Turks of the central district in the fortress
of Retimo; while some battles, better worth the name than the desultory
skirmishes which most of the combats had been, were fought in the open
country around Candia, where Reschid Effendi proved himself a shrewd
and capable strategist, and drove the insurgents back to the western
slopes of Ida after sharp fighting, in which the dissensions of the
Greek and Cretan chiefs were more conspicuous than their wisdom; but
everywhere the insurrection showed new vigor.
CHAPTER IX.
Immediately after the affair of Arkadi, I had, in conveying to our
Government the petition of the Cretans for ships to be sent to carry
away their families, recapitulated the course I had taken, and proposed
to the Government that, if an American man-of-war came to Crete for
the deportation of non-combatants, and the local government made any
protest, I should reply that, their conduct having been in violation
of every dictate of humanity and law, they were not entitled to appeal
to the latter in their own behalf, and that I should advise the
officer in command to remove the families without reference to Turkish
prohibition. I received in reply the following despatch:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, Dec. 25, 1866.
W. J. STILLMAN, Esq., U. S. Consul, Canéa:
SIR: Your despatch No. 32, with regard to the Cretan insurrection and
the attitude you have assumed in the matter, has been received.
Your action and proposed course of conduct, as set forth in said
despatch, are approved. Mr. Morris, our minister resident at
Constantinople, will be informed of the particulars set forth in your
despatch, and of the approval of your proceedings.
Rear-Admiral Goldsborough has been instructed to send a ship-of-war to
your port.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
W. H. SEWARD.
This despatch was immediately communicated to Mr. Morris; by him to the
Hellenic minister at Constantinople; and thence to the committee at
Athens; thence to the insurgents, through whom it rapidly spread and
confirmed their warlike resolutions. The Russian commander, like Pym,
had been obliged to desist from any new attempt, and waited for our
steamer to come. The Italian commanders were eager to avail themselves
of their standing instructions to follow the ships of other nations in
this work, and so a new phase of the struggle awaited the appearance of
the Stars and Stripes.
Meanwhile, Mustapha Pasha, skirmishing along the coast of Sphakia,
bargaining and cajoling the chiefs of the formidable Sphakiotes, wasted
his time and troops in fruitless encounters and under the inclement
season. At length, unable to proceed by land, and compelled by his
programme to pass through the canton, he embarked all his troops at
Suia, and transported them to Franco Castelli, where there is a plain
country between the mountains and the sea, and, after negotiations with
the chiefs of the villages on the south slope, was permitted to go,
without molestation, through the defile of Comitades into the plain of
Askyfó, where he encamped to receive the submission of the Sphakiotes.
What were the inducements which permitted him to pass by a ravine where
one hundred resolute men could have destroyed his whole army, I do not
know; but it is hardly conceivable, considering subsequent events,
that it was owing to any general complicity of the mountaineers, but
probably to the defection or bribing of that chief whose place it was
to guard the shore end of the defile near which his village was. He had
long been known to be a warm personal friend of the Pasha, and had on
one occasion prevented a blockade-runner from landing her cargo on his
territory.
The day after Mustapha had entered Askyfó, one of the captains of
that section came to me to ask for counsel, saying that they were
undecided whether to submit or fight, on account of their families;
but, if the foreign ships were coming, as they had heard, they would
attack Mustapha in Askyfó. I replied that I could in no wise counsel
him, or make myself responsible for what they should do, but translated
for him Mr. Seward's despatch, and told him that I expected daily a
ship, and that as soon as she came she would go, in company with the
Russian, to the coast of Sphakia, and relieve the families there. He
returned to Askyfó, and a council was held, at which it was decided
to attack Mustapha at once. The Pasha, warned by his spies, broke up
his camp at midnight, and, when the Christians gathered at the head of
the defile of Krapi at daybreak, they found the heights guarded and
the rear-guard of the Turkish army already entering the ravine. The
Christians were but six hundred men, but they attacked at once. The
pass is not a simple gorge, but a precipitous pass, in some places
divided by sub-ridges with only mule-paths, and in some passages
very bad at that, the way being partially choked with boulders and
overgrown with scrubby oaks, amongst which the Christians concealed
themselves in squads, and fired on the passing troops in security
and deliberation, sometimes even throwing stones on them. The latter
lost all order, and in confusion and separate parties passed through,
scarcely having the courage to stop and return the fire. An attendant
of the Pasha, who rode at his side (when the path permitted), told me
that the balls were like an infernal hail, and that the Pasha pushed
through without stopping to make any defence. Defence was impossible,
indeed; for no rear-guard dared make a stand, with the certainty of
being blockaded and cut off when the main body had passed through. The
Egyptians--timid as sheep in danger, but brutal as wolves when they had
to deal with defenceless Christians--paid the penalty of their cruelty,
and received no quarter. The native guides saved themselves in the
rout, and many of the troops, confused in the intricacies of the way,
hid themselves in the thickets, where, for several days after, parties
were discovered and despatched, no quarter being given.
What the losses were was never known, returns not being to the taste of
the old irregular, or consoling to his Government; but when the army
reached the Apokorona and reassembled, it was reported by Mustapha
(official report, February 6, 1867) at 6,000 men, too large an estimate
in the opinion of the officers of the men-of-war at Suda, who witnessed
the defile as they debouched on the plain of Canéa, whence they had
gone out for the Theriso campaign, in October, 17,850, with eight
guns, by the official statement to Mr. Dickson (Cretan Blue Book, Mr.
Dickson's despatch of October 15, 1866), besides several thousand
irregular reinforcements. The commander of one of the Italian ships,
who took the trouble to count some of the battalions, reported one
of them to me at less than 300, and this an Egyptian battalion which
had come 900 strong. It was evident to all in Canéa that Mustapha's
administration was an utter failure. The spring had come; new bodies
of volunteers had been thrown into the island, and the trips of the
blockade runners continued without a single disaster. The Turkish
forces, which, at the assumption of the command by the Commissioner,
had been above 30,000, were now, by my estimate, less than 20,000. The
official reports, as usual, chanted victory, but the under-officials
at Canéa were not so reticent, and a profound gloom settled over
the whole Mussulman population. The more energetic of the Turkish
commanders openly attacked Mustapha's cautious policy, and demanded a
more dashing campaign.
Mustapha, by way of reply and justification, gave to the most noisy
of his insubordinates a division to attack the insurgents at Omalos,
where the prudent, if a little useless, Zimbrakaki commanded a body
of volunteers, and was supported by Hadji Mikhali with his Lakiotes,
Criaris, one of the bravest of Crete, with the Seliniotes, and all the
men of the destroyed villages of the Rhizo and Kissamos, a desperate
throng which every movement of the Turks did but increase. Ali Riza
Pasha, to whom the movement was entrusted, unwilling to risk again the
twice-attempted road by Lakus, made his attack by a pass further to the
west, which led to a declivity by which approach to the plain of Omalos
was possible but not easy, and which the Cretans call _kakoi plevroi_
(bad slopes). The assault was against men hidden amongst huge fragments
of rock and brushwood, and, though obstinately pushed, made no headway,
and the troops, after losses, as usual unreported, retreated to Hostí
in the valley, where they were followed and surrounded by the Cretans,
and all communication was cut off with Canéa for two or three days.
Here Hadji Mikhali performed one of those feats which recall the old
days of Greek heroism. Descending at night with a small party of picked
men, he cut his way through the Turkish camp, and disappeared on the
other side. The Turks began an indiscriminate firing of musketry
and artillery in every direction, and kept it up until daylight.
Mikhali was certainly the most remarkable character developed by the
insurrection. The son of a chieftain of the same name, who is one of
the traditional heroes of the "great insurrection" (1821 to 1830), he
inherited an influence, with genuine strategic abilities and undaunted
courage, which, with great personal prowess, made him the terror of the
Turkish authorities. I have often remarked the unconscious adaptation
of Homer's description of Achilles used by the Cretans in speaking
of Mikhali, his most-dwelt-on characteristics being his beauty, his
swiftness of foot, and immense strength and stature.
Ali Riza was only rescued from the hands of the Cretans (for M.
Zimbrakaki never ventured from his safe retreat, though he had now an
opportunity to destroy the whole division of Turks by an energetic and
concentrated attack, and the Hadji had to work with his own people)
by a strong column from Canéa opening up the way for his retreat; and
with the abandonment of this plan all hopes of making any impression on
Sphakia were abandoned, the more as all the villages now took up arms
and threw off any pretence of composition.
In the eastern provinces, at the same time, Reschid Effendi, organizing
an army including all the disposable forces at Candia and Retimo,
estimated at 10,000 men, moved to attack the volunteers and Cretans
under Coroneos, Petropoulaki (chief of the Mainotes), Korakas, Skoulas,
and others, for once fortunately united, in Amari, the broken country
on the western slope of Ida. Their plan seemed to be to pass through
the canton to the south shore, and return by the plain of Messara and
the eastern slope of the mountain to Candia. The Christians drew the
whole force of the Turks into a difficult position at Yerakari, and
then, by a vigorous hand-to-hand attack, cut the column in two, the
smaller half pursuing the proposed route, the other being driven back
to Retimo, losing baggage, two guns, and quantities of ammunition and
provisions. The smaller detachment, pursued, were overtaken at St.
Thomas, where they had halted to rest, and again routed and pursued to
the neighborhood of Candia.
Both the divisions of Ali Riza and Reschid, in returning, avenged
themselves on the submitted Cretans in their way. The following extract
from a letter from Lieut. Murray to Mr. Erskine, English Minister at
Athens, characterizes the position of things in the whole island:
"CANEA, February 24, 1867.
"Things appear to get worse and worse, and the end appears further
off than it did six months ago. To-day the troops returned from an
unsuccessful attempt to force a passage into Omalos, partly owing,
they say, to the plain being covered with melted snow, but in a great
measure owing to the stubborn resistance offered by the insurgents
under Zimbrakaki. What the next move will be I am as yet unable
to say; report says they are going to Kissamos. I fancy, unless
reinforcements arrive, they will soon have to withdraw inside the
fortified towns.
"_February 25._--A sad tale was told to me yesterday. A shoemaker
living in Canéa, and well known to all as a quiet, peaceful man, fled
to the hills when the insurrection broke out. There he followed his
trade till three months ago, when, the country round Canéa appearing
to be pretty quiet, he came and settled at the village of Fourna,
in the plain of Alikianu. A few days ago, his wife ran in and said,
'There are soldiers coming into the village.' He replied, 'Don't be
alarmed, they have been here before.' A few minutes afterwards, two
soldiers dragged him out of the house, and beat him so that they
broke his arm, which caused him to faint. His wife brought him some
water, as did also an officer, and left him. Shortly afterwards, while
he was still unable to rise, two other soldiers came up and despatched
him with their swords. This is the history of one out of eighteen
killed in the same village that day, told me by his poor wife, who,
together with her four children, came to seek redress from Mustapha
Pasha. He gave her two hundred piastres, and said he would enquire
about it.
"I am sorry to tell you that the troops have again gone out--one
division to Kissamos, the other to Apokorona. The people are again
flying to the hills before the advent of the troops, and I greatly
fear more atrocities."
CHAPTER X.
By this time, the Powers had learned how utterly mendacious all the
Turkish official reports were, and that the insurrection was further
than ever from being suppressed; and the Porte, dreading the effect
of the knowledge of the utter failure of the Imperial Commission
from which it had promised itself such immense results, developed
a new plan, in which the _douceurs_ of a _plébiscite_ were to be
administered by its armies, and a new assembly constituted, who
were to sit at Constantinople, and represent both the Mussulman and
Christian populations as an advisory council on the new measures
of reform which were to pacify the _conquered_ islanders. The most
curious of all the strange characteristics of this affair were the
persistence of the Turkish Government in misinforming Europe of the
position of the struggle, and the willingness of official Europe to be
misinformed. Now, at a moment when every corps of the Turkish army had
been defeated, the Porte, with a ludicrous gravity which would have
been comical in the extreme if one could have forgotten the misery
of starvation, of barbarism, death by cold and fire and sword, with
atrocities without name which were momentarily being perpetrated by its
authority on the helpless victims of its paternal tenderness, sent to
Crete its ablest diplomatic agent, Server Effendi, with the following
proclamation, nominally addressed to the Commissioner, but really to
the Powers, Server Effendi being actually the plenipotentiary, Mustapha
being in disgrace, but openly honored by an honor as delusive as the
victories by which he had secured it:
"It is needless to tell thee that we are deeply grieved at the
insurrection which has been fomented in Crete by ill-intentioned
people, at the evils which have resulted from it to the inhabitants,
and at the blood which a cruel necessity has forced to flow. If,
notwithstanding all their efforts, our Government have not been able
to prevent these misfortunes, if the paternal advice which they gave
to the misguided inhabitants, in order to bring them back to the line
of duty, have remained fruitless, the responsibility must wholly fall,
before God and the tribunal of public opinion, upon the instigators of
these calamities.
"The wise behavior, however, of the islanders who, understanding the
real state of things, remained faithful to us, and, on the other hand,
the bravery of which our Imperial army has given most signal proofs in
fighting against the insurgents, as well as the wise measures which
thou hastenedest to take, have powerfully contributed to restore peace
and security in all parts of the island, with the exception of such
as are infested by the presence of foreign brigands. Those islanders
who, giving way to culpable insinuations and deluded by false promises,
have some time followed these seditious agents, have hastened to profit
by the general amnesty granted beforehand, and have returned to their
duties. A committee has therefore been formed in our capital for the
purpose of examining and framing a future mode of administration of
the island for the new Governor, who is to be sent there as soon as
matters shall have reassumed their normal condition. Thus the committee
will have to look to the best means of repairing the ills sustained
by the country, to perfect the administration in conformity with the
legitimate and indispensable wants of the people, and to effect thus
that prosperity which results from the development of agriculture and
commerce; in a word, they will have to procure a general bettering of
the condition of the country. But for these measures relating to the
government of the island to succeed, and for the welfare and prosperity
to be realized, it has been deemed necessary to consult likewise some
of the principal people of the island, who enjoy the confidence of
the inhabitants. On the suggestion, therefore, of our Government, we
have approved of and instruct thee to proceed to the election, by
the inhabitants, of one or two notables, Mohammedans or not, taken
in each district, and to send here as soon as possible those who may
have been selected. Be careful to bring to the knowledge of the public
the present Imperial firman, and to be at the same time with the
inhabitants of the island the interpreter of the good intentions with
which we are animated towards them."
Server Effendi was really a most intelligent and (for a Turk) humane
administrator, and, had he not been crippled by the necessity of
keeping up the absurd pretence of an actual conquest achieved, might
have found some sortie from the difficulty, which would have arrested
the train of disasters which afterwards brought the Porte so near
to its final quietus. He made himself no delusions, and, I believe,
propagated none at Constantinople. In point of fact, no one of the
responsible governments there was now deceived; but the Sultan had
passed into a monomaniacal condition of fury on the subject of the
conquest of Crete, and no Grand Vizier could have remained in office
who proposed an abandonment of the war without conquest. The powers,
except England, counselled the Porte to yield a principality, and
it is probable that, if England had acceded, the Cretans would, at
that time, have accepted this solution of the question in spite of
the Hellenic influence. The policy of England has always seemed to me
mistaken to Turkey and faithless to the Cretans, for, in effect, all
the powers signatory of the protocol of February 20, 1830, were morally
bound to secure to the Cretans a similar condition to that of Samos.
But it must at the same time, be admitted that this policy was open,
consistent, and, so far as Turkey was concerned, loyal, while that of
France was double, disloyal to all her allies, wavering, and entirely
egotistic; and that of Russia was consistent only in its unfaltering
hostility to Turkey, and its willingness to favor any affair that
promised to weaken her empire. The tactics of Greece were of a nature
to make the chances of Crete more precarious than they need have been.
The policy of Crete for Greece, rather than Crete for her own good,
made confusion and jealousy in the conduct of the war much greater
than they need have been. What the Cretans wanted was a good leader,
arms, and bread. Greece sent them rival chiefs without subordination, a
rabble of volunteers, who quarrelled with the islanders, and weakened
the cause by deserting it as soon as they felt the strain of danger
and hardship; and if, after the first campaign, they were more wise in
enrolling men to go to Crete, they still allowed the jealousies and
hostilities of the leaders to go unchecked by any of those measures
which were in their power. But the radical fault of the Hellenes was
that they compromised the question by the introduction of the question
of annexation, and forced it into the field of international interests,
disguising the real causes and justification of the movement, and
making it impossible for England consistently with her declared policy
to entertain the complaints of the Cretans without also admitting
to consideration the pretensions of the Hellenes. If the latter had
not intruded their views on the _tapis_, the former might have been
heard; but, from the moment in which annexation to Greece became the
alternative of the reconquest of Crete, the English Government could
clearly not interfere against the Porte without upsetting its own
work, and if, in some minor respects, especially the question of the
principality, she had been more kind to Crete, no one could have found
fault with a policy which was, in its general tendency, obligatory on
her. Her great mistake was in not recognizing more clearly the utterly
irresponsible nature of the Turkish administration, and compelling the
Porte to redress the wrongs which even Dickson, philottoman as he was
to the last degree, could not ignore the reality of, before they had
passed into the arbitration of arms. I believe that, if Lord Lyons had
had the direction of affairs from the beginning, he would have composed
the difficulty without bloodshed, for he saw clearly and understood the
real merits of the question.
Server Effendi succeeded in naming deputies from nearly all the
districts of the island, and in compelling most of them to go to
Constantinople. One escaped, and came to my house to ask asylum. Of
course I was compelled to give it, and he remained for six weeks my
guest, when he escaped, disguised as a Russian sailor, on board a
Russian corvette, and went to Greece. The others were sent under guard
to the capital, where they also demanded protection from the Russian
Legation, declaring that they came against their own will, and that of
the Cretan people; and so in effect ended a farce, put on the stage
with all the appliances of the Turkish Government, and played with
their best actors.
The arrival of a new swift steamer from England, for the purpose of
running the blockade, gave a new _élan_ to the insurrection, and the
_Arkadi_ (formerly the _Dream_ of American blockade celebrity), was
from this time until her destruction in August of 1867 an element
of the first importance in the war. The former blockade-runner, the
_Panhellenion_, was a slow steamer, never making above nine miles per
hour, and her success in provisioning without a mishap the insurrection
for nearly a year, with a squadron of thirty ships to watch her, is
one of the most surprising instances of capacity on one side, or
incapacity on the other, in the history of marine warfare. The _Arkadi_
not only brought arms and supplies, but she carried away at almost
every trip numbers of non-combatants, and formed a safe and reliable
means of communication between Greece and Crete, by which messengers,
supplies of all kinds, and every requisite for the war were transported
with tolerable certainty. The warm weather enabled the insurgents to
re-enter the field in greater numbers, and it finally became evident
that the war was to be one which would only be finished by the
exhaustion of the resources either of Greece or Turkey.
A change in administration at Athens had brought a more capable and
thoroughly national council into power, under the presidency of
Mr. Comoundouros, the ablest and clearest-headed statesman of the
Hellenic kingdom, who had discouraged an appeal to arms until the war
became a _fait accompli_, when he advocated a policy of aid to Crete
_coûte qu'il coûte_, and, on assuming power, made the insurrection
his chief care. The whole resources of Greece were devoted to it,
and the funds of the insurgent committee at Athens were fed directly
from the national treasury. There was, no doubt, scarcely any
disguise about the complicity; but public feeling in Greece was so
thoroughly enlisted that no government could have existed which did
not unmistakably favor the insurrection. Unfortunately for the success
of the Greek plans, the government did not impose on the Cretans an
effective organization and a supreme commander. It still based its
chief hope on European intervention, and counted on a limitation
of the struggle by their influence, instead of preparing to act in
the most complete independence. There was some excuse for this in a
statesman-for-the-moment, in the fact that intervention had already
begun by the overtures of Russia, acceded to at this date by France,
whose Emperor was at the juncture ready to come to an understanding
with the Czar on the basis of mutual concession; but Comoundouros
should have seen that the readiness of Greece to endure and prolong a
war with Turkey would be the best argument for the intervention the
former desired. Greek politics have always had the fault of being
based on sentimentality, and calculating too much on the sympathy of
Christendom and classical scholars, neither of which has ever played
a noteworthy part in modern Hellenic history, for even the genuine
philhellenism of 1821 would have accomplished nothing had it not been
that Turkey stood in the way of Russian combinations. The Greeks
seem never to comprehend that governments are purely political, and
never influenced by sentiment or religious affinities. They count
that Hellenism and Christianity must always be weighed in the Eastern
question, and in this case calculated on forcing the hand of the
Christian powers by these appliances; while if they had proved that
they were capable of conducting the war with energy and good system,
preparing themselves meanwhile for a war with Turkey, Europe must
have interfered, as a war between Greece and Turkey involved too
momentous questions to be risked for so small an affair as Crete, and
Christianity might have got the casting vote in deciding which side
interference should favor. If Russia had been sincere in her friendship
for Greece, she might have helped the question to a speedy ending by
giving the word to the Danubian provinces to rise; but she has never
desired a strong Hellenic kingdom, and this Comoundouros understood
clearly, and that any intervention voluntarily made by Russia would be
for her own interest purely, and that, holding as he did the initiative
in a movement of all the Christian races, he could, by the employment
of it, compel Russia to favor his plans or lose her prestige with them,
and to a great extent her moral influence. It was with this view that
he prepared movements in Epirus and Thessaly, while Montenegro became
agitated, and the seeds of the Cretan trouble seemed wafted over the
whole Turkish Empire.
Pending the question of intervention, the transport of families
waited the arrival of the American ship, of which no advices came. I
telegraphed to Admiral Goldsborough for news of her, and received reply
that he knew nothing of any orders for Crete. Subsequent information
showed that our Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, a Levantine,
and, like his class in general, devoted to the Turkish Government,
and a most rancorous and persistent assailant of both Mr. Morris and
myself in the journals of Europe and America (and whom the disgraceful
condition of our diplomatic service permitted to assail the acts of his
superior and the declared policy of his own government), acting in the
interests of the Turkish Government, had put himself in communication
with the naval authorities by the intermediation of officers attached
to the squadron in European waters, and instigated the revocation of
the decision of the Government, and, when finally the _Canandaigua_
arrived in the middle of March, she had orders to do nothing in any
way disagreeable to the Turkish authorities; and I soon found that
the state of feeling in the navy was anything but favorable to the
employment of our ships for humane purposes, I myself, as instigator
of their discomfort, being treated by the officers with a degree of
incivility which showed as little good-breeding as _esprit de patrie_,
and was manifested so openly as to encourage the local authorities in
their systematic persecution of me. With the exception of two or three
of the younger officers, the whole wardroom broadly expressed their
sympathies with the Turkish Government, so that, after having persuaded
Captain Strong, who sympathized somewhat with the awkwardness of my
position, to run down to Retimo with me to look into the condition of
the Christian families shut up in that town, I saw the _Canandaigua_
sail, with a heartfelt desire not to see one of my country's men-of-war
again while I was on the station. The Commissioner showed his
appreciation of our official servility by ostentatiously ignoring the
visit of Captain Strong, passing the _Canandaigua_ by without notice,
while he visited all the other foreign men-of-war in the harbor.
CHAPTER XI.
To compensate myself for the slights of my fellow-countrymen, and at
the same time escape from and retaliate for the annoyances of the
Turkish officials, I sent to Corfu for a little cutter-yacht, and until
it came sent my family to Syra. All official intercourse had ceased
between the Commissioner and myself, and, encouraged by our Secretary
of Legation, who maintained a correspondence with the dragoman of the
Commission, the Pasha showed his determination to drive me out of
the island. It was forbidden to let me a house, the one I had having
become untenable from the number of military hospitals gathered round
it. I found it almost impossible to be served in the market, which was
under official control, and every movement I made was so watched, and
locomotion made so dangerous by the random discharges of the muskets
of the irregulars, which were fired off on all occasions, and even
with none, the balls constantly being heard passing overhead, that
I determined on passing the summer on board the _Kestrel_, which I
did, running from port to port in the island, and over to the Greek
islands, whenever the fancy took me. In this way I revenged myself most
agreeably. My satisfaction was greatly increased by seeing the disgrace
of my adversary, the Commissioner, who was recalled, having utterly
failed in everything but devastation. He was replaced by Hussein Avni,
a cautious and heavy-witted man, a good disciplinarian, but a most
fanatical Mussulman, and so forewarned of my dangerous qualities that I
found, to my great amusement, that I was considered the head and front
of the insurrection. As with all the espionage they could apply, no
act of complicity could be discovered, I was credited with superhuman
cunning, it never entering the heads of the _rusés_ Mussulmans that I
had nothing to conceal, and that, while they were watching my house
at Kalepa, the insurgent messengers came in at the city gates almost
every day. In fact, except as a witness of events, I had ceased to be
of any importance to the insurrection; and, entirely unsupported by
any moral or diplomatic influence of my own Government, and wearied
of a struggle which brought to me but a succession of spectacles of
misery and barbarity, I would gladly have left the island, where the
extraordinary expense of living was devouring my substance without any
recompense, but that I had become in public opinion, both in Greece
and Crete, so identified with the existence of the insurrection that
my resignation or recall would have been a danger to it in the eyes
of its friends. The moral intervention of my own Government amounted
to the despatch before quoted, a fustian despatch from Mr. Seward to
Mr. Morris about "the brave and suffering Cretans," and a buncombe
resolution of Congress, in view of which the people of the East, having
to deal generally with governments whose words have a positive value,
supposed that we were the friends of the Cretans, and I determined to
avail myself of the delusion, as far as my own position was concerned,
and conform to what was really public opinion in America, confident
that the Government cared nothing about the matter _pro_ or _con_. The
Porte threatened to revoke my exequatur. Nothing would have pleased
me better, for I knew that this would compel my Government to do
something, and Ali Pasha seemed to have the same opinion, for the
threat was dropped. A strong pressure was then applied at Washington
to have me recalled, and Mr. Seward had consented, and decided to call
me home, I was informed, under pretext of consultation on some public
affairs; but General Ignatieff, getting wind of it, telegraphed to
St. Petersburg that I must be retained, and a telegram from there to
Washington settled the matter, I conjecture, as nothing more was heard
of it. This I believe was the extent of the part performed by the
American Government, and, trivial as it was, it seems to me the least
creditable played by any government concerned.
Hussein Avni was only the _locum tenens_ of the Serdar Ekrem, Omar
Pasha, whom the Porte had decided on sending to Crete as a final and
reliable agent, his name being, as was supposed, so formidable as to
discourage any protraction of the resistance. In the interregnum,
Hussein undertook no measures against the insurrection. Ali Riza Pasha,
being beaten at Topolia in an attempt to penetrate into Selinos,
where a new gathering of volunteers and insurgents had been made,
contented himself with ravaging the plain districts of Kissamos which
had hitherto escaped. Whole villages, which had submitted without
any resistance, were plundered, the women violated by order of the
officers, until in some cases death ensued; and of the men, some were
killed, others beaten and tortured in many ways, all who could escape
taking refuge in the caves and hiding-places along the shore, where
they escaped by small boats to Cerigotto. I ran over later in the
_Kestrel_, and saw several hundred of these miserable wretches, women
and children mainly, and saw two row-boats arrive with their lading, so
crowded that it was a marvel how they could have made the passage of
twenty miles or more of open sea, in any weather. I saw one old blind
man of ninety who had been wrapped by the soldiers in cloths on which
they poured oil, and then, setting them on fire, left him to his fate.
His friends came back in time to save his life, but I saw the broad
scar of the burning, covering nearly his whole chest.
Omar Pasha arrived on the 9th of April, and on the 11th a body of 2,000
insurgents came down to the heights of Boutzounaria, and attacked the
guard of the aqueduct, to show his Highness, apparently, that they
were not discouraged. They were driven back with the loss of three
killed, the plan of attack having been betrayed by a miller in the
neighborhood, and the troops been reinforced in the night before the
appointed day. At the same time, a more decidedly offensive strategy
seemed to be adopted by the whole insurrection, owing to the new
material brought over by the _Arkadi_, and in several places combats
of comparative importance took place. The insurgent chiefs made no
concealment of their satisfaction at the change in the command,
fearing the wiles and personal influence of Mustapha more than all the
artillery and discipline of the Generalissimo. Omar had landed with
great pomp and circumstance--horses and guns, cavalry and a staff, new
and splendid uniforms. Amongst the others I paid my respects to the new
victim, and found him, to my surprise, a weak, conceited, bombastic
old man. He assured me that his plan and appliances were so complete
and irresistible that within two weeks from the time he set out the
insurrection would be crushed. I ventured to suggest that he would find
on getting into the interior that the work was much more difficult than
he imagined, and that the neglect of the Porte to construct good roads
when they had command of the island made their work very difficult. He
replied that it could not be more difficult than Montenegro, and he
had conquered that, etc. I left him with much less apprehension for the
success of the campaign than I had previously entertained. He was a
strong contrast to the quiet, concentrated, _rusé_ Mustapha.
The political intervention of Russia commenced at this juncture by
the negotiation of a secret arrangement with the Viceroy, by which he
engaged to withdraw his troops from Crete, and a division was actually
embarked for Egypt before the Serdar Ekrem succeeded in arresting
the defection, which was completed on his return from the campaign,
seven months later, when a number, which, with the previous departure,
amounted to about 10,000 men, the remainder of a total of 24,000
Egyptians landed in Crete, returned to Egypt. The change in French
policy was also marked by the recall of the slavishly pro-Turkish
consul Derché, incapable either of honesty or good policy, and whose
demoralization had made him worthless even to his own government, and
the replacing of him by M. Tricou, a clever, quick-witted Parisian,
but long in the service, and lately stationed at Alexandria. There
seems to be little doubt that he was authorized to use his eyes to
the disadvantage of Omar Pasha if possible. [Tricou arrived just too
late to be received by Omar before setting out, and followed him to
Candia with the intention, if not the order, to follow him through his
campaign; a surveillance which Omar bluntly declined, to his cost, as
events proved.]
He occupied about two weeks in organizing his troops, receiving heavy
reinforcements from Turkey, including some splendid-looking regiments
with full ranks, and then, with about 15,000 men, set out for the
conquest of Sphakia. The Cretans, as if to reply to the new manifesto
of the Porte, formed a provisional government, and chose Mavrocordato,
an able Greek administrator, and most trustworthy and patriotic man,
as president, decreeing at the same time that all authority should be
exercised in the name of the King of the Hellenes. But the difficulty,
not to say impossibility, of reconciling the claims of the rival
chieftains, and of enforcing any kind of administrative system in
the island, deterred Mavrocordato from assuming his post, though the
_brutum fulmen_ of proclamation on both sides still continued, the
only practical question being which side would stand most killing.
Strategy on either side was of trivial importance, tactics of none.
The Cretans rolled stones and felled trees into the passes, already
nearly impassable, and Omar and his staff planned, on the chart,
a campaign for a country none of them had ever seen, and with the
greatest contempt for the judgment of those who knew it. Mehmet Pasha,
who still retained command in the Apokorona, though he had been obliged
to retreat to the seaside, advanced anew, and formed an entrenched
camp near Vrysses, while Omar, with the bulk of the army, moved on to
Episkopi, and waited there the arrival of the troops at Retimo. When
all were ready, a joint attack was made, by Mehmet on Krapi and the
Serdar Ekrem on Kallikrati, a much longer but less precipitous pass,
which led into Askyfó from the east.
Zimbrakaki, with Veloudaki and other Cretan chiefs, and Soliotis of
the Greeks, commanded at Krapi, and Coroneos at Kallikrati, and the
affair ended as had all the former attacks, Mehmet being driven back
to his camp, and Omar to Episkopi. These were affairs of sharpshooters
entirely, where no opportunity of employing discipline for the attack
offered, and the troops exposed themselves to a fusillade which
they could not reply to. But, with the irritation of defeat, the
Ottoman Generalissimo gave way to the most brutal impulses of revenge.
Villages which had just submitted, and whose people had remained within
the Turkish lines, were put to sack, and the last outrages of war
perpetrated on the inhabitants.
The rumor which accompanied the Serdar Ekrem, that in spite of his
professions of moderation and legality (as opposed to Mustapha's
policy) he had secret orders to stamp out the disaffection by
the severest rigor, found now clear confirmation. What under the
Commissioner, subsequent to Arkadi, was variable and overlooked
barbarity in the subordinates, was, under the Generalissimo, the law
and order of things, and he himself partook of the plunder of the
defenceless, and rejuvenated the lusts of his old age with the pick of
the captive Cretan maidens. The testimony of several of the European
officers in the army was offered me, proving that Omar Pasha dishonored
even his adopted country by his violation of his word, by his depravity
and his cruelty, and himself set the example to his army of everything
which could add to the misery and despair of unhappy Crete.
It is as natural for the Turkish authorities to deny as for the
Christians to exaggerate the atrocities committed, but evidence of a
nature not to be rejected, or even questioned in its general import,
establishes that the policy adopted was one of subduing Crete by
terror, and to this end full license was given to the soldiery. One
entry in a memorandum book kept by Geissler (Dilaver Pasha), Omar's
chief of artillery, and which I had the chance to read, said, noting
the entry into one of the villages near Goïdaropolis: "O. Pasha ordered
the division to ravage and rape." All villages were burned, and all
prisoners murdered or worse. The chiefs of four villages who came to
make their submission were at once beheaded. The population invariably
fled to the high mountains on the approach of the troops.
It will hardly be edifying to follow further in detail this barbarity;
and with the general statement that the policy here indicated was
followed throughout Omar's campaign unflinchingly, and that the French
consul was refused permission to accompany Omar in his movements, that
no civilized witness might bring his deeds to light, I shall drop the
theme, which sickens me to recall even at this long interval. My duty
then compelled me to investigate, as now to declare, these things, but
I spare the civilized world and myself any further recital of the deeds
of the Croat Pasha.
The 6th of May a force of volunteers, commanded by Dimitrikarakos,
landed in the eastern provinces, where up to that time hostilities
had been very unimportant. A large body of insurgents quickly rallied
round the volunteers, and, establishing their headquarters at Lasithe,
they swept the country up to the walls of Candia. This compelled
a new concentration of forces to meet the new emergency, and Omar
set out, via Retimo, through Mylopotamo to Candia, sending word to
Reschid Effendi to come to meet him _en route_. Coroneos, meanwhile,
had not been idle, and while Zimbrakaki and Costa Veloudaki, with the
Apokoroniotes, some volunteers, and most of the Sphakiotes, remained
to keep Mehmet in check, and profit by an unguarded moment to attack
him, Coroneos and his followers kept near the army of Omar Pasha,
waiting until he should be entangled in the ravines of Mylopotamo to
attack him, and when he had reached Margaritas, he was beset furiously
by the whole body of the men of Agios Basilios and the Amariotes,
with the volunteers who accompanied Coroneos. The Turks, shut into
narrow ravines overlooked by bold heights, defended themselves with
difficulty, and were soon entirely hemmed in, unable to advance or
retreat. The fire of the Cretan rifles penetrated into every part of
the Turkish encampment, Omar's tent being several times pierced. At a
council of war, called on the emergency, the opinion was general that
the position was critical, and some considered it as next to hopeless.
There was nothing to do but take shelter and wait for Reschid and his
irregulars, who, well acquainted with the mountains and the Cretan
method of fighting, would be able to form an advance-guard, and, by
skirmishing vigorously, protect the march of the regulars, utterly
helpless in this kind of warfare.
The passage of the troops through this section was described to me by
several eye-witnesses as anything but military. They cowered at the
first attack, and refused to move forward in the ravines except when
preceded by a cloud of irregulars to drive back the Christians, every
onslaught of whom produced a panic; but, as they were behind as well
as before, retreat was impossible, and there was no alternative to the
Turks but to take to such defences as the ground permitted and defend
themselves as they best could. The Albanians and Circassians were not
sufficiently acquainted with the country, cut up with interminable
ravines, covered with olive groves, and defended by men who knew every
inch of the ground. The wretched Turks lost all courage, even that of
despair, and a European officer in the Egyptian service who was present
said to me that most of his comrades entertained no hope of escape, and
Coroneos has since assured me that if the other chiefs had responded
to his call for help, the total destruction of the army, including the
Serdar Ekrem and his staff, was practicable.
As has generally been the case in Greek wars, the jealousies of the
chiefs were the safety of the Turks. Petropoulaki, a Mainote palikari
of the old war, who commanded in Malavisi and Temenos, and watched
Candia from the eastern slopes of Ida, refused to come to the aid of
Coroneos; and when Reschid moved from the east, entered the defiles
of Mylopotamo at Damasta, instead of throwing himself before the
Turkish division and delaying their advance, he attacked them in the
rear after they had gone through, and, though he inflicted severe
losses on them and took much of the baggage, he rather facilitated
than otherwise the junction of the two Turkish corps, and, after a
short pursuit, abandoned him, instead of following up and uniting
with Coroneos. Skoulas, chief of Mylopotamo, alone kept up the chase,
and Coroneos, warned in time of the advance of Reschid, despatched a
small body of men to oppose his junction with Omar. Reschid, however,
with the greatest obstinacy and gallantry, hammered away regardless
of loss, and, fighting all night long, effected his junction, with
which Coroneos's hope of bottling up Omar was lost. The Generalissimo
embraced Reschid as his saviour, and promoted him on the spot.
What made the matter still worse for the Cretans was that their
ammunition was exhausted, and supplies did not arrive in time, so
Coroneos reluctantly fell back, leaving the way open. The next day his
ammunition arrived.
CHAPTER XII.
On the march forward through Mylopotamos the troops avenged themselves
for their flight and losses in the most barbarous manner. Olive-trees
were burned and cut down, every house burned, and every luckless
Christian who fell into their hands sent with short shrift to his
account. The European officer above alluded to declared to me that he
was an eye-witness of the oft-repeated incident of burning the refugees
in one of the caves, around the mouth of which a huge pile of green
wood was piled, and fired while the troops hurried on, without waiting
to see what the result might be; and so reached Damasta only slightly
opposed, and debouched on the open country of Candia.
This occupied from the 18th to the 20th of May. The Turkish army then
concentrated near the remains of Gnossus, and without entering into
Candia moved on to Pediada, where Omar established his headquarters at
Castale, near the foot of the Lasithe Mountains. He now announced his
plan, which was to sweep round the insurgent forces, and push them all
westward into Sphakia, where he would shut them up and finish the war.
That he entertained no such expectation, however, was evident from the
order of his attack on Lasithe, which he made at a single point, so
as rather to disperse than gather in the insurgents. The 3d of June
he sent Reschid to attack the northern pass of Lasithe, by Abdou.
The column of irregulars entered the little plateau, which is as an
ante-chamber to the great plain of Lasithe, without opposition, and
his men at once camped, and began to cook their supper, or whatever
else the desire of the bashi-bazouk might be. They were, in this
state of confusion and security, suddenly attacked by the Cretans,
and utterly routed and driven back to the plains below, leaving their
dead and wounded on the ground. The news of the disaster followed the
despatch announcing the entry so closely, that both became known in
Candia that same night. Reinforcements were continually arriving, and
the Pasha had now in the field for the attack 18,000 men. With these
he renewed the attack on Lasithe in two directions, from Abdou on the
north, and from the west by Mathea and the pass which was defended by
the mountain called Lasithe Effendi--a very strong position, but in
a state of defence in no ways equal to its natural advantages. The
insurgent force gathered in the Lasithe at this time was the largest
the insurrection had ever seen assembled, and is estimated by competent
assistants at about 5,000, but with no head, though many commanders.
The force was sufficiently well organized to have defeated Omar Pasha,
but, after three days' cautious skirmishing, the Turks penetrated
on several sides, the irregulars turning Abdou by a difficult and
undefended approach at the east, and the insurgents retired in disorder
and in every direction; some by Messara into the Ida district, but the
larger portion into Rhizo Castron, south of Lasithe, and the higher
ridges of the Lasithe range, which Omar did not attempt to penetrate.
On hearing that Omar had arrived at Candia, and was about attacking
Lasithe, I ran down in the _Kestrel_ to watch his movements from
nearer, and get more reliable information than the consular agents
there generally furnished, as well as to convey more promptly the news
to Greece and Constantinople, the agents only reporting back to their
superiors at Canéa. On the arrival of the first news of the entry of
Reschid into Abdou, Omar sent off an express with the news to Syra and
Constantinople, but when the later report came, of the surprise and
repulse, I was able, to the great annoyance of the authorities, to
send by the Austrian post steamer, which left the next day, to correct
the advices by the new information which I received from the son of
Reschid Pasha, who was in great anxiety for the fate of his father, a
raid of the Christians having temporarily cut his communications with
headquarters. For two or three days the panic and confusion in Candia
were extreme.
Orders were then issued for the bulk of the army to concentrate at
Dibaki, and Omar moved across the plains of Pediada and Messara,
Reschid taking a line further west by St. Thomas and the slopes of
Ida, while the troops who had moved further into the Lasithe country
attempted to pass directly to the coast. Two battalions of Egyptians
in this movement were caught in the ravines of Sime, and almost
annihilated, leaving baggage, arms, and mules, loaded with ammunition
and provisions, in the hands of the Cretans, who hung on the rear of
every detachment, harassing more successfully than they had opposed
them.
At Dibaki the army was reorganized for the Sphakian campaign. It
was the beginning of July when it began to move. The fleet had been
waiting at Dibaki some time, and embarking the bulk of the regulars,
still strengthened by fresh troops from Constantinople, they were
landed at Franco Castelli, and took immediate possession of the
heights commanding Kallikrati. The forces under Coroneos were on
their way to oppose this movement, but, moving by land, were too
late, and Zimbrakaki and his Sphakiotes made no opposition. Reschid,
meanwhile, moved from Dibaki through Agios Basilios, his march being
facilitated by the assassination of the chief of that district, which
left the Christians without a head, and paralyzed their defence in
great measure, though opposition enough was made to render his march
slower than the plans of Omar had provided, and gave time to Coroneos
to get to Kallikrati, where he immediately commenced operations by an
attack on Omar's positions on the hills south of the plain. He began
the combat with forty men, who were rapidly increased to 1,500, whom
he divided into two bodies, of which the heavier, massing unperceived
on the left flank of the Turkish position, after the defence had been
concentrated against the feint made by Coroneos himself, charged
energetically, and carried the two positions on the Turkish left. The
ground was very favorable to irregular operations, rocky, with much
small growth of trees, making artillery useless. The Cretans held the
positions taken, and in them prepared an attack for the day after.
On this day the insurgent force had augmented to 2,000 men, and the
plan of operation was a slight variation only of that of the day
before, the feint being on the left, but, unfortunately for it, the
order to the commander who should have made the real attack was kept
in the pocket of the officer who carried it until an hour after the
time at which the assault was ordered to be made, so that though the
diversion of Coroneos was very well carried out, and the Sphakiotes
under him penetrated to an abattis which had been constructed around
the principal position of the Turkish army on a conical hill called
Avgon (the egg), the expected flank attack was not delivered, and the
troops who had held the positions on the right had time to concentrate
against Coroneos, and he was driven back. Preparations were, however,
made for the third day, with forces still increasing, when the news
that Reschid had arrived at Gaiduropolis, and consequently menaced
their rear, demoralized the Cretans, compelling Coroneos with his
volunteers to fall back on Askyfó.
Mehmet Pasha, once more attacking Askyfó by Krapi, while Omar's
troops and Reschid with his bashi-bazouks passed by the mountains
from Kallikrati to Asfendu, and so into Askyfó, had been opposed by
Zimbrakaki, Soliotis, and the Sphakiote chiefs for three days, when,
finding the defence concentrated at the head of the gorge, he climbed
the hills at his right, passed over into Askyfó, took possession of
Kares, on the edge of the plain, barricading himself there without
attempting to advance further. Coroneos, on his retreat to Askyfó,
threw a force of several hundred Sphakiotes and volunteers behind
him, and for several days his communications with Canéa and his base
at Vryses were cut off, when Reschid succeeded in getting into Askyfó
and supplying him with provisions, of which he stood much in need,
having left Vryses with six days' rations, and now been twelve days out
without further supplies. Zimbrakaki had retired to the heights between
Askyfó and Anopolis, followed by Omar's forces, while Reschid occupied
the southeastern part of Askyfó, Mehmet being in the northeastern. The
indefatigable Coroneos took position at Muri with about 800 men, and
thence menaced the communications between the latter chiefs, and so
effectually that Mehmet was obliged to evacuate Askyfó, and get back
to Vryses, when, falling on the rear of Reschid, Coroneos compelled him
to fall back to Kallikrati. The Greek chief then placed himself between
Omar and his auxiliaries, and watched both, ready to attack either when
the development of their plans should tell him what to do. Omar pushed
on to Anopolis, and thence to Aradena, where he was gallantly opposed
by a small force of Greek volunteers under Smolenski and Nicolaïdes.
The Greeks, attacked in front and on both flanks, while Zimbrakaki,
at an hour's journey, remained idle, and Petropoulaki, a league away,
guarded an unattacked pass, were forced to fall back, and leave
Aradena to the Turkish troops, after a display of courage which called
forth the praises of their enemies. But here the defences of nature
stopped the invaders. The great stronghold of Sphakia, Samaria, was
impregnable from the side of Aradena, the mountains hardly giving place
for undisputed passage to pedestrians. The troops were accordingly
withdrawn to the sea-side, and as the shore gives no passage, a
detachment was carried by ships to the entrance of the gorge of Agios
Roumeli. An energetic assault penetrated as far as the village which
gives name to this valley, a distance of half a mile, but here the
Cretans, concentrating in numbers, and aided by the masses of rock and
torrents, stopped all further advance, and the troops were withdrawn;
and, their passage through Sphakia to Canéa being barred, they were
sent round by sea, leaving the country as hostile as they had found
it, but desolated and ravaged as the "_paese guasta_" never had been
before. The losses of the army in this campaign had been frightful. The
sun of July, beating on those bare rocks with southern slopes, with
rare and unhealthy wells, fatigues of climbing and battle, merciless
driving and pushing to enable Omar to telegraph to the Sultan at Paris
the conquest of Sphakia, had been a hundredfold more fatal to the Turks
than Cretan bullets. Sunstrokes and dysenteries carried off hundreds.
Amongst the deaths was that of Geissler, Omar's chief of artillery, in
whose journal the writer read after his death these words: "Who could
have believed that I could ever have assisted in the subjugation of
these unhappy Christians!" He had done his utmost at the beginning of
the campaign to check the barbarities by which it was sought to terrify
the Cretans into submission, and having remonstrated with Omar for one
case of peculiar and repulsive atrocity, a coolness arose between them,
which continued until Geissler's death.
Omar reached Canéa by ship August 30, not having even done as much
towards the conquest of the island as Mustapha, no division of his
troops having passed from sea to sea except by the plain of Pediada,
etc. His losses since leaving Canéa cannot be estimated at less than
20,000 to 25,000 men--the estimate made by the most competent persons
of the total force employed in the Sphakian campaign being not less
than 45,000, while, on leaving, he himself declared that he had not
over 20,000 troops, all told, in the island, and European officers in
the service declared to me that this was an overestimate.
Returning for a moment to follow Reschid in his retreat from Sphakia,
we shall so conclude this campaign. Waiting a day or so at Kallikrati,
he seemed undecided what course to take, and Coroneos watched him,
fearing a raid on the undevastated district near Kallikrati, but,
urgently summoned by the Assembly to Sphakia to resist Omar, he was
on the way to obey, when he received news that Reschid had broken up
his camp, and was in retreat on Dibaki. He instantly sent messengers
to the men of Agios Basilios to hasten to stop the way at Halará, a
most difficult pass of their canton, while he followed him with all
the forces he could muster. Flight and pursuit were rapid, but when
at Halará Coroneos overtook the Mussulmans, he found no force in
Reschid's way, and that he had occupied the pass without resistance.
Pursuit recommenced next day, and in passing by Amari, Reschid escaped
an ambush of the Amariotes by taking an unused and difficult way in
preference to the commonly travelled one at which they lay in wait for
him, and, incessantly harassed, and losing men and baggage continually,
was caught again by his Greek adversary near Melambos, in a parting
fight, in which, it is said, he received a wound from which (or from
some other cause) he died a few weeks later at Candia.
This was the general result of the great expedition which would end the
insurrection in two weeks. Nothing had been gained, an army wasted; and
when, on October 3, the remnant of Egyptian troops left, there was no
Turkish force out of gunshot of the fortresses except a small garrison
at Dibaki, under the guns of the fleet.
With the practical and complete failure of Omar Pasha to subdue the
island, all hope of military success seemed to fail the Turkish
authorities. Omar returned from Sphakia with his army by sea, save a
body left in Selinos, who made an expedition on Omalos, and, after
penetrating with slight resistance to the plain, found themselves
unable to keep up their communications with the coast, and abruptly
evacuated it again, suffering considerable loss in forcing the passes
outwardly. The elastic system of resistance adopted by the Cretans, and
finally acceded to by the Greek chiefs, wore out the Turkish forces
without giving them the prestige of tangible victory. There were no
fortresses to capture, no accumulation of stores to destroy, and the
very poverty and want of military coherence made a strength for the
insurgents in face of the wretched strategy of the Turks.
CHAPTER XIII.
Another step of the _moral_ intervention which the Russian Government
had been so long and so skilfully engineering came at this juncture
to make the cause of the Porte more hopeless. The negotiations with
France had resulted in a kind of _entente_ on the Eastern question,
by which the French emperor had agreed, under certain contingencies,
to unite with the Russians in deporting the families of the Christian
combatants. The new French agent, Tricou, had from the beginning shown
a tendency to criticise Omar Pasha unfavorably, which the latter had
increased by his contemptuous treatment of the new consul. Tricou
had, consequently, set his agents to find out all the instances of
Turkish barbarity obtainable--a ghastly roll, obtained from easily
read records. It happened during the operations against Sphakia, which
Omar nominally directed from on board the flag-ship of the squadron
off the coast, that news came in of his having blockaded a number of
families in a cave on the sea-side and having attempted unsuccessfully
to stifle them out (or in), and the active Murray went at once to make
his Highness a visit, and ascertain if the catastrophe were avertible.
He obtained from the Generalissimo a promise that the prisoners
should not be attacked by any inhuman appliances, and should be
guaranteed honorable treatment on surrendering.[J] In the course of the
conversation, Omar animadverted on Tricou in terms which Murray, in
narrating his visit to me, declined to repeat, and which, in all their
vagueness and possible malignity, I at once applied as a caustic to
Tricou's already wounded pride, in accordance with a systematic policy
to make all the bad blood possible between the Pasha and my colleagues.
The ruse succeeded to my best hopes, and thenceforward the irritated
Frenchman sought every opportunity to punish the illustrious renegade,
and his activity resulted in the following despatch, sent while Omar
was still engaged in the Sphakian raid:
[J] A promise which Omar kept by violating and keeping on his ship as
his mistress the most beautiful of the young girls who surrendered.
(Translation.)
CANEA, July 21, 1867.
M. LE CHARGÉ D'AFFAIRES:
The situation grows daily worse. I have had the honor of notifying to
you the deplorable excesses which have been committed in the district
of Kissamos; to-day I learn that massacres have broken out in the
eastern part of the country.
For the last month, isolated murders took place daily in the
neighborhood of the town of Candia; the native Mussulmans overran
the country and abandoned themselves to the saddest iniquities in
the Christian villages. These barbarous expeditions over, they would
return to the town, and the gates opened before them to give passage
to their bloody trophies. I had made strong complaints to the local
authorities, but all my representations had remained without effect.
Emboldened by impunity, the bashi-bazouks on the 12th and 13th of
this month spread themselves over the district of Rhizo and massacred
women and children. To revenge themselves, the insurgents carried off
a young Turkish girl and killed her father. The Canadian Government,
which has for a long time forbidden Christians to enter the town,
doubtless counted upon these atrocities remaining buried in silence.
They let them go on, and the irregulars could glut their ferocity
entirely as they pleased.
On the 17th, they invaded the villages of Huméri, Alcolohuri, Aghias
Paraskevi, Shilus, and a great number of the villages of the district
of Pediada, murdering the peaceable and defenceless villagers, old
men, women, and children. The consular agents of Candia unite, and
wish to send their dragomans to the places; but the Governor opposes
this, and the carnage continues.
These sad tidings have deeply moved the consular body. As soon as I
had been informed of them I went to the Imperial Commissioner, whom I
found, I must say, deeply afflicted, but overwhelmed with the feeling
of his impotence. He no longer attempts to deny the evil, but he feels
himself incapable of staying its progress. From all parts of the
island the most sinister reports reach us. Women and children wander
along the shore, dying of hunger and exposed to the most horrible
treatment. I am in a position to inform you, M. le Chargé d'Affaires,
that three young Turkish officers, witnesses of the barbarities which
have taken place at Kissamos, have given in their resignation, to
avoid presiding over such butcheries.
In so serious a situation, my English colleague and I thought it our
duty to inform our respective governments in the promptest manner. We
consequently drew up the following telegraphic despatch, which we sent
this day to the Peiræus to be transmitted to Constantinople, as well
as to the Cabinets of London and Paris:
"Massacres of women and children have broken out in the interior of
the island. The authorities can neither put down the insurrection
nor stay the course of these atrocities. Humanity would imperatively
demand the immediate suspension of hostilities, or the transportation
to Greece of the women and children."
The Russian and Italian consuls address an identical telegram to St.
Petersburg and Florence.
We cannot, M. le Chargé d'Affaires, remain blind to the fact that from
impotence the Turks passed to fury, and from fury to extermination.
I do not hesitate to say that, if this useless struggle were to be
prolonged, the women and children would have no refuge but exile or
death.
Omar Pasha continues his expedition of Sphakia. It is asserted that
he has effected his junction with the corps of Mehmet Pasha, which is
said to be entirely free. It would be very desirable that the Serdar
should make himself master of this position as soon as possible; it
is true that the insurrection would be scarcely weakened by it, but
this success might perhaps induce the Porte to order a suspension of
hostilities.
The aviso of the Imperial navy, the _Prometheus_, which has come
to relieve the _Salamander_, anchored on the 17th in the harbor of
Canéa.--Accept, etc.
(Signed) TRICOU.
The consequence of the Russo-Frankish accord was that, on the receipt
of the above despatch at Constantinople, the French and Russian
squadrons at Peiræus proceeded to Crete, and there commenced to embark
the families gathered along the coast. This undertaking, which had
probably as little as possible to do with humanity in its secret
springs, was evidently concerted, and waited only the arrival of
some signal like Tricou's telegram, followed accordingly by this
preconcerted rejoinder from the French representative at Constantinople:
_M. Outrey to A'ali Pasha_.
"THERAPIA, July 26, 1867.
"HIGHNESS: The consul of France at Canéa sends me the following
telegram [given above].
"In view of such acts, which the Porte can but reprove, and in virtue
of orders which I have received from my Government, I hasten to inform
your highness that I have ordered Admiral Simon to repair to the
Cretan coast with the ships under his orders, to receive and transport
to Greece all the women and children who wander on the shores, dying
of hunger, and exposed to frightful treatment. The mission of Admiral
Simon, having no political character, cannot, I imagine, meet any
difficulty from the Ottoman authorities, and I beg your highness to
have the goodness to instruct his Highness Omar Pasha to lend all his
sympathy to a work of humanity."
Which is made clearer by the extract from the despatch of the English
_chargé_ to Lord Stanley:
(Extract.)
_Mr. Barron to Lord Stanley (Received August 6)._
CONSTANTINOPLE, July 23, 1867.
"The French _chargé d'affaires_ has called to inform me that, having
received instructions from his Government to despatch vessels to Crete
for the purpose of removing homeless victims of the war, whenever
it should be advisable, he deemed the last advices from the French
consul at Canéa (enclosed herewith in copy) to be such as to oblige
him to use the discretionary power placed in his hands. On the
receipt of this despatch he immediately concerted measures with the
Russian Ambassador, who was provided in advance with corresponding
instructions, and they both sent late on the 26th identical
instructions by telegraph to their respective naval officers in the
Mediterranean."
The number of relieving ships sent to Crete in obedience to this
accord was four French, three Russian, followed by two Italian; and,
lest isolation should seem intervention, three Austrian, not over
well-willed, and one small Prussian gunboat, that the now great Power
might not be left out of the new question.
This movement had, in my opinion, no direct effect on the military
question, the Sphakian expedition having already done its worst, and
begun to recoil, before the arrival of Admiral Simon with his ships;
but it did, no doubt, prevent the success of the conciliatory movement
which followed. The Generalissimo, after his return to Canéa, about the
middle of September, issued a proclamation prepared at Constantinople,
offering a general amnesty and an armistice of six weeks, preparatory
to measures of a softer and more persuasive character. The Turkish
officials, in their intercourse with the consuls, frankly admitted that
force had failed, and that no hope of its more successful appliance
remained. The depleted army could only with great difficulty, and
slowly, be refilled. Reinforcements were obtained, but not enough to
keep the cadres at their full condition, and a despatch of the English
consul at Beyrout[K] attests the dread of this service which had
infected the troops in other sections of the Ottoman empire, while
battalions in Crete mutinied and refused to labor any longer.
[K] _Acting Consul-General Rogers to Lord Stanley (Received November
27)._
BEYROUT, November 14, 1867.
MY LORD: I have the honor to report to your lordship that yesterday
the Turkish steam-frigate _Peikizaafar_, 72 guns, commanded by Captain
Selim Bey, having embarked nearly 2,000 soldiers at this port, started
direct for the island of Candia.
Of the soldiers intended to be sent on this mission, I am assured that
about ninety deserted, and most of them were kept in close confinement
till they were sent on board, and they openly expressed their grief at
being sent on this expedition.
They are in considerable arrears of pay.--I have, etc.,
(Signed) E. T. ROGERS.
Early in October, A'ali Pasha arrived, to put in effect the sober
second thought of the head of Islam. The manner and views of the
Grand Vizier impressed me with profound respect and sympathy--his
proffers seemed to me reasonable, and likely to assure to the Cretans
a substantial liberty and reform. But they were too shrewd not to see
that the ablest man in the Turkish empire had only come to Crete to
try the last resort of his persuasion, because his case was nearly
hopeless, and simultaneously with his arrival came stimulating
despatches from the Russian agents, encouraging the Cretans to hold
out and strike now the final blow at the Turkish domination. They
were assured by these despatches in the most positive terms that if
they withstood this temptation, and refused all the conciliatory
propositions of A'ali Pasha, their independence and annexation to
Greece were certain. I feel confident that but for these assurances
the scheme of A'ali Pasha would have been accepted, for the island was
harrowed and ravaged and miserable to the last degree. The campaign of
Omar Pasha had destroyed, according to the declaration of a European
officer engaged, six hundred villages. Except in Sitia, the extreme
eastern peninsula, there was hardly a house with its roof on, and the
people had no means to provide new rafters. The discouragement was
great, and required as counterpoise all the confident promises of
Russia and the means and appliances of Greece to induce the people to
decide to keep up the resistance.
My own opinion was that the Cretans had better accept A'ali Pasha's
propositions, but our minister at Constantinople wrote me to urge
their rejection with all my influence, as the certain condition of
independence. I do not believe that our Government had any part in
these instructions or policy. Mr. Seward had at one time given me the
fullest endorsement of my pro-Cretan views, and at another was ready,
on the remonstrance of the Turkish minister, to recall me for having
done what he approved both in myself and Mr. Morris, and abstained
only on another application being made by the Russian Government.
Being on the spot, and as well able to judge as any one, it seemed to
me wisest for the Cretans to accept autonomy and peace, but I obeyed
the instructions sent me against my own feelings. I communicated the
advices of my minister to those whose business it was to advise the
insurgents. I felt a confidence in A'ali Pasha which no other Turkish
official had ever inspired me with, and a certainty that he would act
in good faith. Humanity demanded peace in defiance of all politics.
Dissensions had arisen between the volunteers and Cretans; and the
chiefs of the former, wearied of a pointless and resultless guerilla
warfare, and sure that the question was only to be settled on the
continent, in order to hasten the preparation of movements on Epirus
and Thessaly, one by one returned to Greece, followed by most of their
retinues. The Cretan combatants, relieved of their families, were
quite sufficient for all the needs of the situation, and, well armed
and provided, could have kept up the struggle for years, if disposed.
But the fatal blow to the insurrection was being prepared by its own
friends. The Russian Government had, during the nuptial visit of the
King of Greece to St. Petersburg, secured a complete ascendency over
him, and immediately on his return to Greece it became evident that
the dismissal of the Comoundouros ministry had been decided in that
conclave with the execution of whose plans no motive of humanity ever
interferes, whose deliberations no curious House of Commons pries into
or clamoring journal opposes. The Russian Government had decided to
take the direction of the insurrection, and to that end, to get rid of
Comoundouros and his friends, whose anti-Russian tendencies were too
strong to be bent to the desired course, the king, when the moment had
arrived, made a difference with the ministry on some trivial point,
and peremptorily dismissed it. But the chamber, with an unexpected
constancy, refused to sanction any change in the administration, and
the Russian minister in Athens then made overtures to the dismissed
president of the council, offering to bring him back to power if he
accepted the programme of St. Petersburg. He refused, and the chamber,
unyielding, was also dissolved, and in the new election, in which
the whole influence of the court and throne was exerted against the
Comoundouros party, by the most violent and illegal measures the
deposed chief and his principal adherents were kept out of the new
chamber, which was, to a sufficient degree, subservient; and Bulgaris,
the evil genius of Greece since her independence, under whose auspices
at all times disorder and dishonesty, brigandage and peculation, had
especially thriven, became the arbiter of the destinies of Crete.
At this time all means and supplies for the war came directly from the
Hellenic treasury. Private contributions had never been great, and were
almost exclusively confined to Greeks abroad--a comparatively trivial
supply of food and clothing from America being the exception. Nearly
50,000 refugees from Crete were dependent on the Hellenic Government,
which, with the means supplied to the war committee for military
operations, constituted a drain on the resources of Greece sufficiently
alarming, yet popular opinion was so strong in favor of continuing the
insurrection that no government dared seem even to be lukewarm towards
it; and with excellent opportunities for observing, I am able to assert
confidently that the Hellenic people were ready to run all the risks
of war with Turkey, rather than allow the Cretans to be reconquered,
and that no government could have lived a day which did not proclaim,
as the chief condition of its existence, the vigorous support of the
Cretan insurrection.
What the views of Russia were in regard to the insurrection no outsider
can, of course, say; but they seemed to be in favor of only making
the Greek agitation a part of a great scheme, having its direction at
St. Petersburg. The only immediate change, however, in the direction
of the insurrection was the gradual suppression of the powers of the
Cretan committee at Athens, and an occasional relaxation in the vigor
of support, as if to try the condition of public feeling. I judge
that Russia had made other combinations, which made the success of
the insurrection as a Hellenic movement undesirable, and that she was
gradually getting it in hand, to be able to suppress it when the
proper moment came. To do this without sacrificing that influence over
the Hellenes which would be so useful in certain contingencies, it
was necessary to have a Hellenic instrument to do the work--hence the
position of Mr. Bulgaris.
CHAPTER XIV.
In judging of such acts as the intervention of Russia, we have no
standard but success, and the greater or less fitness of one of the
participants to rule; but from the point of view from which I must
look at it, the conduct of Russia seems to me as the most base, cruel,
and politically dishonorable which I have ever known, being, as it
was, practised on a wretched people, co-religionary, whose sufferings
had been extreme, and which, being offered a tangible and not
inconsiderable concession in return for its efforts, was only induced
to refuse it from faith in Russian promises of better things.
A'ali Pasha landed on the 4th of October, and on the 13th Captain
Murray reported to his Government: "The insurgents have thrown away a
golden opportunity in the advent of A'ali Pasha, for I believe, short
of annexation, they might have anything they asked for. Whether the
concessions would be temporary or not, is a matter of opinion; but his
mission has completely failed." This was clear to all, and in December
following, the highest Christian functionary of the Turkish Government
in the island said to me: "We have got to come to the principality
with a Christian prince, and that before it is too late to gain even
that--we have nothing to hope for from arms."
Yet in a desultory way fighting went on. Omar Pasha went home in
disgrace on the 11th of November, but left for his successor, Hussein
Avni, a plan for paralyzing the insurrection, by lines of block-houses
running across the island and cutting it into three principal parts,
each of which was then to be subdued in turn. But if the Cretans had
been weakened by the withdrawal of the most of the volunteers, the
Turks were enfeebled by sickness and extreme dejection, and the war was
languidly carried on, the Turks maintaining themselves within their
fortified lines and now and then making a sortie on some bold party
of insurgents, the principal affair of the winter being an attack on
Zurba, on the 13th of December, which was, like all the previous ones
on the village, repulsed with disaster. And under such auspices--the
insurrection, less disputed on its ground than at any previous period,
holding posts within sight of Canéa; the hospitals of the island filled
with sick troops (at and about Canéa alone were an average of 3,000
in the hospital, with unexampled mortality from hospital gangrene and
fevers, and the funerals ranging from ten to twenty per day); supplies
very low, and the troops only paid three months' pay for the last
twenty--the year 1867 went out and the third year of the insurrection
came in. And all through the spring and summer this state of things
continued, neither the Government nor the insurrection capable of
making the feeble effort necessary to extinguish the forces of the
other. We in the Turkish lines suffered almost as much as if we were
in a besieged town, for supplies from the interior were cut off, and
they came not by sea; meat was very dear and poor, vegetables rare and
sometimes unattainable, so that I was shut up in my house for three
months with a scorbutic malady. What the unfavored must have suffered
may be conceived. Despondency and gloom were dominant in all official
circles. Building of block-houses went on slowly, but there were not
troops enough left in the island to garrison all that were planned,
while on the other hand the Hellenic Government gave only assistance
enough to keep the insurgents from surrendering, and the Greeks from
revolution, which would have been the most probable result of the
open abandonment of the insurrection. In August of this year, I had
unmistakable proof of the reality of the insurrection, having witnessed
a skirmish between Zurba and Lakus, and narrowly escaped being taken
prisoner near Theriso, with some of my colleagues and several officers
of the men-of-war in port, Mr. Dickson and a portion of our excursion
party having been actually captured by Hadji Mikhalis' forces within an
hour's walk of Canéa.
This season brought no change in the military position, there being
a gradual weakening of the army until only about 5,000 regulars were
disposable for field operation, and a total of less than 17,000 were
reported to me by Turkish officers as the effective remaining from 82
battalions of Turkish troops, which with 22,000 Egyptians were the
regular forces employed since the commencement of the insurrection, and
of which only 10,000 of the latter had been since sent home otherwise
than as sick or wounded.
In September of 1868 I left Crete under medical orders, and with the
impression, generally felt in Crete, that the Hellenic Government
was about abandoning the insurrection. On arriving at Athens, where
I determined to wait the result, I found the Cretan committee so
far convinced of the bad faith of the Bulgaris government that they
meditated resignation _en masse_ as an appeal to the people, and to
discharge themselves of all responsibility for the impending collapse
of the revolt. The Minister of Foreign Affairs soon after waited on
me at my house to beg me to use my influence with the committee to
persuade them to hold on, assuring me in the most earnest manner that
the Government had no intention of withdrawing its support from the
Cretans, and that it intended organizing an expedition on a most
effective scale to reassure and reanimate the movement; and that it had
the intention of directing this organization officially to ensure its
efficiency.
Meanwhile the Provisional Government of the island had made an earnest
appeal to Coroneos to return and assume the command-in-chief of the
insurrection, and he had prepared a plan by which he was confident of
keeping up the war through another winter by a judicious employment of
Cretan forces. His plan was accepted by the committee, but, on being
laid before the Government, was rejected under the pretence that the
sum demanded (£10,000) was beyond its means, and it proceeded without
reference to the committee to organize at more than double the expense
an expedition under the old Mainote palikari, Petropoulaki, in so open
and undisguised a manner that, with most other friends of the Cretans,
I was convinced that it was meant to give Turkey an opportunity to
_brusquer les choses_ by (what Greece had hitherto avoided) _open_
violation of international law.
Every subsequent movement of the Government confirmed me in this
opinion. The bands paraded the streets openly with the Cretan flag;
were furnished with artillery from the national arsenal; and embarked
in two detachments for Crete, unmolested by any of the Turkish ships,
though all the world knew when and where they were going; on landing
they sent back the artillery, and not only made no offensive movement,
but did not even defend themselves; the smaller detachment being cut
to pieces in a few days, the other, fleeing in disorder to the plain
of Askyfó, made overtures at once for surrender, carrying with them
in their defection most of the Cretans of the western provinces.
There still remained in the eastern provinces a strong nucleus of
insurrection undismayed even by this apparent disaster, and capable of
rallying 5,000 men. In compliance, however, with what has always seemed
to me a preconcerted plan between the Porte and Bulgaris, Hobart Pasha,
the new English commander of the Turkish fleet, waylaid the _Ennosis_
blockade-runner in Greek waters on her return from Crete, and pursued
her into the port of Syra, where he blockaded her with the whole
squadron, leaving the coast of Crete utterly unguarded, though there
were still three good steamers at the disposal of the committee. But
in the new excitement of this patent outrage on international law the
Bulgaris government found its opportunity to withdraw all support from
Crete, and, while public opinion was diverted to the not slight chances
of war with Turkey, further supplies to the insurrection were cut off
and it collapsed almost without notice.
In all this shaping of events there was no disguising the control of
the Russian Government. The insurrection became a menace to bring on
the Eastern question, for which Russia was not yet ready, and which
she could not permit to be brought on under Hellenic auspices. The
moment could not have been more auspiciously chosen for Greece to carry
on a war with the Ottoman empire, and public opinion in Greece was
unanimous in favor of this emergency rather than abandoning Crete, be
the risks and event what they might. The Turkish army was already fully
occupied--a further levy of troops would have been perilous, and Joseph
Karam waited at Athens the signal to arouse the Lebanon. The Greeks
had little money, but the Turks had comparatively less, for their army
and navy had not been paid, were discouraged and mutinous, and the
treasury was empty. Egypt was hostile, the Principalities ready to
revolt. My own opinion then was, and is still, that if Greece had gone
to war she had a reasonable chance of victory--not without disasters
or great sacrifices, but her history has shown that she is capable of
enduring both the one and the other; and if Russia had been friendly
to her in this crisis, success would have been _most_ probable. The
Bulgaris administration, its object gained in the suppression of the
insurrection, was in its turn overthrown by the popular indignation
at the discovered trick, but when the diplomatic flurry had passed,
and tranquillity had returned to the Ægean, we had only to see drift
over to the shores of their kindred land the débris of one of the best
justified and best deserving revolts against misgoverning tyranny which
modern history has recorded. All was quiet in Crete.
THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR.
The last year of the war I had left Crete on a leave of absence of two
months, which was extended indefinitely by Mr. Washburn, then Secretary
of State, on account of the health of my family; but in April my wife,
broken by the hardships of our Cretan life and sick-bed watching; and
dejected greatly by the loss of a cause in which she had the most
passionate sympathy, and by the misery of the unhappy Cretans around
us, became insane and ended her life.
Simultaneously, Mr. Fish, now become Secretary of State, removed me
from the consulate at the request of the Turkish Government, and in
June I went to Crete to hand over the consular effects to my successor,
and, on the petition of the Cretan chiefs still remaining in Athens, to
obtain, if possible, some mitigation of the measures which prevented
them from repatriating themselves. I found the island as I had left it,
in peace indeed, but the peace of destruction and paralysis. Roads were
being made, and block-houses being constructed, but no houses being
rebuilt, and the roads were all military. The new Governor-General
seemed amiable, just, and good-willed, but in Turkish disorganization
the best will does not go far. The subordinates of the local
administration were the spies, the traitors, and "loyal" people of the
war, with rancors to vent and revenges to take. There was nothing to
rob the people of, but there remained prisons and persecutions.
I found, naturally enough, all my efforts with the Governor useless,
and that the condition of things made return unsafe for any one who
had taken a prominent part in the war; and so, despairing of finding
any opening, I was about to return to Athens without awaiting my
successor, but before going decided to make that visit to Omalos and
Samaria which the insurrection had stopped and the state of hostilities
ever since had rendered impracticable from the Turkish posts.
Even when peace had been restored and not a recusant fugitive remained
in the mountain hiding-places, the local authorities could with
difficulty reconcile themselves to the idea of my going there; and it
was only after the failure of several petty intrigues to prevent my
getting away, that they determined to pass to the other extreme and do
handsomely what they could not avoid doing. I set out in the dawn of
a July day with an officer of the mounted police, a chosen and trusty
man, with one private of the same force and my own cavass. The private
rode a hundred yards ahead _en vidette_ against any attack on the
official dignity by unknowing peasant or unheeding patrol or straggler
of the faithful, and discharged his duty on the road to my complete
satisfaction, no countermarching troops daring to hold the narrow
way to the detriment of the consular dignity. The lawlessness of the
Turkish administration in Crete has kept alive, more than in most of
the Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the power of and respect
for foreign officials. Just as much as the unjust Governor dreads the
inspecting eye and the exposing blue-book, so much the Rayah hopes from
them, and honors the Effendi as the Turk curses the Ghiaour; and so in
Crete the extreme of official deference is kept up, corresponding to
the degree of official oppression hitherto obtaining.
So, when my _avant-courrier_ announced to the awkward squad of
Anatolian infantry, ragged, sullen, that the "Consolos Bey" demanded
the road, a savage frown of unwelcome gleamed through the disciplinary
respect; while the shouting, chattering groups of Christian peasants
ambling along on the mules and donkeys, with their little loads of
fowls or oil for the market at Canéa, were generally arrested by the
summons of the guard, and drew up respectfully at the roadside, the
most respectful dismounting until I had passed.
The road for ten or twelve miles runs westward over a level plain, the
ancient bed of the Iardanos, by whose banks we know, from Homer, that
the Cydonians dwelt. The fact that the Iardanos (now called Platanos,
from the immense plane-trees growing on its banks) now empties into the
sea ten miles from Canéa, has puzzled geographers to reconcile Cydonia
with Canéa; but, on arriving at the point where the river debouches
into and cuts across the plain, it will be seen that the new channel to
the sea has been cut through the hills by the action of the river, and
that the ancient course was evidently eastward through the still marshy
plain into the bay of Suda, passing close to the position of Canéa.
The roads in Crete are marked with historical associations of all
ages, as the Appian Way with recollections of the great dead. The
town that we pass, near the mouth of the Platanos, was the ancient
Pergamos, whither Lycurgus, to evade the possibility of his laws
being revoked, banished himself, where he died, and was buried. The
town which we enter as we cross the Platanos at the ford is Alikianu,
the scene of that atrocious and perfidious massacre of which I have
told the story. It is a town of half ruinedd villas--some, of the
Venetian days--buried in orange-trees, and so surrounded with olive
groves that but little of it can be seen from the river. The road we
must follow only skirts it, following the river, until it rises on a
ridge of mountains, zigzag and undulating, up to Lakus. The Lakiotes
are accounted among the bravest of the Cretans; and though military
science, flank movements, and artillery made their town untenable in
the late insurrection, it is still a formidable position. The village
itself lies along under the summit ridge of the chain of hills which
form a buttress to the Asprovouna, stretching north, with steep
approaches from every side. It used to be a prosperous village, one
of the largest in the island, but now its straggling houses were in
ruins, two or three only having the roofs replaced, others having only
a canopy of boughs laid over one end of the space enclosed by the
blackened walls, enough to keep the dews off while the inhabitants
slept, for rain never falls here through the summer months. All bespoke
utter exhaustion and extreme poverty. The jaded, listless look of the
people, the demoralization of war and exile, most of them having been
of the refugees in Greece, the ravage and misery of all surroundings,
made a picture which never has passed from my memory.
In the first capture by Mustapha Pasha, Lakus was taken by surprise
and a flank movement of the Turkish irregulars, the Lakiotes having
only time to secure their most valuable and portable goods and bury
the church-bell, retiring up the mountain slopes beyond, firing a few
shots of defiance as they went. When A'ali Pasha arrived in Crete, he
ordered the reconstruction of the church of Lakus, demolished by the
Turks at the capture of the village, and the primates were ordered to
find the bell. Declining to know its whereabouts, they were thrown into
prison, to lie until they did, a few days of which treatment produced
the desired effect, and the bell was hung over the reconstructed
church. That afternoon notes of compulsory joy sounded from the belfry,
and the insurgents from the ridge of Zourba opposite came down to the
brink of the ravine to ask who had betrayed the bell. Their submitted
townsmen replied by an avowal of the _modus operandi_ of getting at
the required knowledge; and the "patriots" replied, "Ring away. We
will come and ring it to-night." And agreeably to promise, a band of
insurgents came across the ravine at midnight, carried off the bell,
and, hanging it on a tree near Zourba, rang the night out. The Turkish
guard, which occupied the block-house in the village, scarcely thought
it worth while to risk the defence of the bell, if indeed they knew of
its danger.
At Lakus I had made my plans to breakfast and pass the noon-heat,
but I had reckoned without my hosts, for, on "pitching my tent" and
sending out my cavass to find a lamb to roast, I found evidence of the
inroads of civilization--I could not get one for less than three pounds
sterling--about fifteen times the usual price, and a sure attempt at
swindle based on my supposed necessities. Fortunately my escort had
amply provided themselves, and we had bread and cheese, caviar and
coffee, to stay our appetites until we should reach Omalos, where
were a garrison and an army butcher. So I ate my modicum of what they
gave me, smoked my cigarette, and tried to doze, while the chattering
villagers, holding themselves aloof in reminiscent dread of the Moslem,
mingled their hum with that of the bees from the hives near us. My
"tent" was an ancient mulberry-tree above, and a Persian carpet
beneath; and, though I tried to sleep away the time, I did nothing
but listen to the story my cavass, Hadji Houssein, was telling his
companions of the adventure we had had the year before in the valley
below, and which, lest he have not given the true version, I will tell
as it happened.
In the bottom of the valley at our feet lies the village of Meskla,
built along the banks of the Platanos, where it is a pure, cold,
rushing mountain brook, of which, in any other part of the world,
the eddies would have been alive with trout, but in which now there
are only, as in all other Cretan rivers, eels. A party of official
personages in Canéa, including her Britannic Majesty's consul, myself,
the American ditto, with the captain and officers of the English and
French gunboats on the station, and an English colonel in the Turkish
army, had made a picnic party to Meskla, in August of the last year of
the war. The Turkish troops held Lakus and Omalos and the western bank
of the Platanos down to the plain; but the insurgents still remained
in possession of all the northern spurs of the Asprovouna, from Lakus
east for twenty miles, including Zourba; and, while we drank toasts
and ate our roast-lamb under the plane-trees by the river, a perpetual
peppering of rifles was going on from the hill-tops on each side of the
valley above. Was it fighting, or was it fun? I began to climb one of
the nearest spurs on the Turkish side of the ravine to see, and, not
to be suspected of both sides, took my way to the picket of Turkish
irregulars, which, sheltered by a group of trees on the summit, was
firing across the valley in a desultory way. As I showed myself in
one of the windings of the path to the patriots at Zourba, I saw the
smoke-puff of a rifle on the edge of a ravine, and the ball glanced
along the rocks within three feet, spattering the lead over me in a
most convincing way. I naturally made a flank movement, which shortly
degenerated into the retrograde of a satisfied curiosity.
The incident had a side interest to the whole party, for it showed us
that the road we proposed to take might be dangerous, the more as we
had a Turkish officer and his two attendants in uniform in our company.
We had purposed following the river up still higher, and then crossing
the ridge to Theriso.
Consulting one of the submitted Meskliotes, who waited his chance for
the _débris_ of the picnic, we were informed that it would be very
far from safe to follow our proposed route, which was exposed in its
whole line to the chance of shots from the main mountain ridge; but
he offered to guide us by a road running along the side of the ridge
furthest from the insurgents, and where he could warn any outposts of
them that we were coming. This road was a fair sample of those which
existed in Crete before the war, a mere bridle-path scratched in the
slope of a huge landslide, which rose above us two or three hundred
feet, and descended three or four times that distance into the bed of
the Platanos. Part of it was too dizzy and dangerous to ride, and we
led our beasts hesitating and hobbling along. We were soon amongst
the outposts of the insurgents, as we had unmistakable evidence on
arriving at Theriso, where we found a detachment of a dozen or more
rough, motley-looking fellows, armed with all kinds of guns, and clad
in all ways except well. They looked askance at our fez-wearing colonel
and his two cavalrymen, but from respect for the consular presences
respected _their_ persons. We drank with them at the spring, exchanged
identifications, and pursued our way down the celebrated ravine, the
scene of two terrible disasters to the Turkish army during different
insurrections. Nothing can be more uncomfortable, in a military point
of view, than one of these Cretan ravines. Cut in the limestone rock
by the glacier torrents of ages, zigzag in their courses, and shut
between abrupt ridges, with no road but an unsatisfactory bridle-path,
the troop which is incautious enough to enter without crowning the
heights on each side as it advances is certain to be hemmed in, and to
be severely treated by a comparatively small foe or exterminated by a
large one.
We had delayed too long, and, as we entered the most precipitous
portion of the ravine, the red sunlight on the eastern cliffs told us
that the sun, long shut from direct view, was sinking; and in our haste
we missed the way, and fell into a vineyard-path, out of any line of
travel. Immediately we heard voices hailing us from the hill-tops, to
which we paid no attention, thinking them the cries of shepherd-boys,
and continued until we found ourselves in a maze of vineyards, and
the path and sun gone at the same instant. Now the hailing began with
bullets. The uniforms of our Turkish escort demanded explanation, and
as our guides had left us at Theriso we were helpless. To go back and
explain was to be a better mark, and to march ahead, anywhere, was
our only chance. Unfortunately, Hadji, who carried my hunting rifle,
considered it his military duty to return the fire, and in a few
moments, other pickets coming in, we had about forty sharpshooters
popping away at us in the twilight. Our further passage was shut by
an abrupt hillside, along which we must make a movement by the flank
toward the road we had lost, and directly across the line of fire.
The sound of the bullets suggested getting to cover, and as all path
had now disappeared we dismounted and led our beasts at random, no
one knowing where we were going or should go, and only aiming to turn
the point of the ridge above us, to get out of the fire, which was
increasing, and the pinging of Enfield bullets over our heads was a
wonderful inducer of celerity. It was a veritable _sauve qui peut_.
I saw men of war ducking and dodging at every flash and whistle in a
way that indicated small faith in the doctrine of chances, according
to which a thousand shots must be fired for one to hit. We found, at
length, where the ridge broke down, a maze of huge rocks, affording
shelter, but beyond was a deep declivity, down which in the dark we
could see nothing; further on again was the river, along which the road
led. We could hear the shouts and occasional shots of a detachment
running down the road to intercept us, and another coming along the
ridge above us. My mule was dead-beat, and could scarcely put one
leg before another, and few others were better off. A short council
showed two minds in the party--one to lie still to be taken, with the
chance of a shot first; the other to push on for the road before the
insurgents reached it. The only danger of any moment was to Colonel
Borthwick and his Turks, who would be prizes of war, and to me the
chance of a fever from lying out all night. The majority, nine, voted
with me to go on, and, abandoning mules and horses, we plunged, without
measuring our steps, down the slope, falling, slipping, tripping over
rocks, in bogs, through overtopping swamp-grass, bushes (for the
hillside was a bed of springs), pushing to strike the road before the
insurgents should head us off, so as to be able to choose our moment
for parleying. I knew if I could get there first, saving the chance,
that all would be well; if a rash boy of fourteen saw me first, I might
be stopped by a bullet before any explanation would avail.
Tired, muddy, reeking with perspiration, bruised on the stones,
exhausted with haste and trepidation, we won the race, and halted
behind a little roadside chapel to gather the state of things. Above,
we heard voices of a colloquy, and knew that the remainder of the party
were in safe custody, and our road was quiet. A short walk brought
us to the outpost of the Turkish army, a village garrisoned by a
couple of companies of regulars and a few Albanians. The commandant,
a major, was outranked by Borthwick, who ordered him at once to send
out a detachment to rescue Consul Dickson and his companions. The poor
major protested and remonstrated, but in vain. "It was dangerous,"
he said; but the colonel insisted, he ordered out a detachment, and
then called for pipes and coffee, after which, under a heavy escort,
we started for Canéa. Borthwick obtained a battalion of the regulars
in garrison, and started next morning at early dawn to rescue our
friends; but no persuasion could induce the Turkish commander to enter
the ravines. He posted his troops along the overlooking ridge and
waited in ambush. I have it on Borthwick's word that, while the troops
were lying concealed, under orders to keep the most profound silence,
a hare started up at the end of the line, and the Turkish commander
instantly ordered the first company to their feet, and to make ready,
and was about to give the order to fire when a hound of the battalion
anticipated the volley by catching the poor beast and despatching him
on the spot.
Meanwhile, Dickson and his companions were in the hospitable hands of
a party of Hadji Michali's men, and at about eight A.M. came down
the road into view of the ambush, escorted by a guard of honor of
insurgents, none the worse for their adventure, and bringing back our
beasts and baggage; but nothing would induce the Turkish officer to go
the mile separating him from the insurgent outpost which had fired on
us.
While Hadji told his story to his admiring companions (he was an
excellent _raconteur_, and put the whole of his barbaric soul into the
narration, though his respect for the Effendi kept his voice low and
quieted a little his camp manner), one or the other of the three made
my cigarettes and brought me fire, and only when the sun began to sink
from the meridian did we move on.
As we passed the blockhouse, I found that the General-in-Chief had
preceded me, and given orders that the honors due to a consular
personage--the same as those paid to a superior officer in their own
army--should be carefully observed, and so we had the whole garrison
of each blockhouse on the way out at the "Present arms!" The road
not only zigzags going from Lakus to the plain of Omalos, but makes
such ascents and descents as well accounted for the fruitlessness of
so many attempts to enter the plain, which is a sort of portico to
Samaria. But now a fair artillery road followed the ridges up to the
very plain, and blockhouses covered with their fire every point where
an ambush could be made, and those little glens, famous in Cretan
tradition for extermination of Turkish detachments, will never again
help native heroism against organized conquest. We passed, in one of
the wildest gorges through which the road passes, a blockhouse perched
high on a hill-top like an eyrie, a peripatetic atom on the parapet
of which caught my eye, as a wild goat might have done amongst the
cliffs around. As we came into sight, looking again, I saw the garrison
swarming down the hillside amongst the rocks like ants, wondered what
they were at, and rode on, when at another turn the officer said, "They
salute, Effendi!" I looked around, and, only on his indication, saw
drawn up in rank, hundreds of feet above me, a line of animalcules,
which, by good eyesight, I could perceive was the whole garrison
presenting arms, and they so continued presenting until, after turn
upon turn of the road, they disappeared from view definitively, when I
suppose they swarmed back to their fastness.
We passed through the ravine of Phokes, where Hadji Michali once caught
a small detachment which incautiously attempted to penetrate to Omalos.
I had heard the story of the fight, told at the time by an Albanian who
was in it, in a brief but graphic way. The Christians waited invisible,
he said, till the troops were in the bottom of the ravine, and then
began to fire from many directions. The troops stopped, made a show
of resistance, and then broke and made for the blockhouse at Lakus;
"and those who couldn't run well never got there," he interjected
laconically. He frankly admitted that he was so far in advance that
he saw very little actual fighting, and made no halt, nor did any
others, Mussulman or Christian, till they arrived at the door of the
blockhouse, which he was surprised at their shutting in time to keep
out the Christians.
It was well into the afternoon when we entered the plain of Omalos,
evidently a filled-up crater, its level about five thousand feet above
the sea. The snows and rains of winter and spring flood it, and as no
stream runs from it the waters disappear by a Katavothron--a gloomy
Acherontic recess--into whose crooked recesses the eye cannot pierce,
and down whose depths is heard a perpetual cavernous roaring of water.
In the plain was no vestige of human habitation visible, except the
tents of a battalion of regulars, and a two-story blockhouse on a
spur of hill which projected into the plain. We rode into the camp,
and were received with emphasis by the Pasha, who, with true Eastern
diplomacy, expressed unbounded, surprise at my visit, "so entirely
unexpected;" and, learning the result of my attempts at feeding in
Lakus, called to the mess-boy to bring me the remains of the breakfast,
apologizing abundantly, and informing me that I should be expected to
dine with him and the commander of the post at eight. The residual
breakfast, supplemented by a plate of kibaubs, the mutton-chop of the
East, despatched; the ceremonial pipes and coffee finished, and the
more than usually complimentary speeches said, the shadows meanwhile
falling longer on the plain; I accepted the Pasha's offer of a fresh
horse, and rode across to the famous descent into the glen of Samaria,
the Xyloscala, so-called from a zigzag colossal staircase made with
fir-trunks, and formerly the only means of descent into the glen. There
was a detachment of troops building a blockhouse to command the upper
part of the glen, and the commander kept me salaaming, coffee-taking,
etc., until I saw that the sunlight was getting too red to give me time
to explore the ravine, and I contented myself with a look from the
brink down into the blue depths.
I doubt if, in the range of habitual travel, there is another such
scene. It was as if the mountains had gaped to their very bases. In
front of me were bare stony peaks 7,000 to 8,000 feet high, whose
precipitous slopes plunged down unbrokenly, the pines venturing to
show themselves in increasing number as the slope ascended, and ended
in a narrow gorge. At the side, the rock rose like the aiguilles
of Chamouny, cloven and guttered, with the snow still lying in its
clefts, and broad fields of it on the opposite eastern peaks. I looked
down through the pines and cedars that clung in the crevices of the
rocks below me, and the bottom of the glen looked blue and faint in
their interstices. The Xyloscala, destroyed by the insurgents at the
beginning of the insurrection, was replaced by a laborious zigzag road,
which sidled off under crags, and came back along slopes, blasted out
of rock, and buttressed up with pines, seeming to me, where I stood, as
if it finally launched off into mid-air, and would only help another
Dædalus into the mystery of the labyrinth of pines and rock gorges
below.
As I watched, the flame of the sunlight crept up the peaks across the
glen, the purple-blue shadow following it up, changing the snow-fields
from rosy to blue, and the peaks of pale-gray rock to russet, as the
day died away. The chill of night reminded me to put my overcoat on. We
rode back across the plain in the twilight, accompanied by the building
gang, whose polyglot murmur was as cheerful and full of mirth as though
they were peasants going home from the vintage.
Nothing can surpass the good-humor and patience of the Turkish soldier.
Brutal and barbarous they doubtless were when their fanaticism and the
rage of battle united to excite them, but in camp and in peace I have
found them always models of the purely physical man.
Our dinner was luxurious, and in the true Eastern manner. The Pasha,
the Bey commanding the place, and his aide-de-camp made four with me,
and one dish, placed in the middle of the table, served our fingers
or spoons according as the viand was dressed, each one of the four
scrupulously adhering to his quadrant of the copper circle. The dinner
was almost interminable; it was dark and cold when the end did come.
The soldiers, gathered round their camp some half a mile away, had
eaten their suppers and were at ease, the shouting of their merriment
coming to us occasionally above the general hum. Presently we saw them
taking fir-branches, and, each lighting one at the nearest campfire,
come running to us at full speed, making a long madcap procession of
torch-bearers, the pitchy fir giving out an immense flame; and, making
for the headquarters, followed by the battalion band playing, they
threw their branches in a pile on a level space before the Pasha's
tent, and then, turning to the right and left, sat down in a semicircle
open towards us. A detachment was told off to keep up the fire, and a
sort of glee club, accompanied by rude instruments, drums beaten by the
hand, and a kind of flute and mandolin, commenced singing at the top of
their voices the plaintive monotonous songs which all who have been in
the East know.
This was the overture to a terpsichorean and dramatic entertainment
most unique and amusing. The programme opened with a dance of Zebeques,
the barbarous race who occupy the country behind Smyrna. They are
wrapped in a sash from the armpits to the hips, with a sort of baggy
knee-breeches, and bearing long knives thrust crosswise through their
sashes. They formed a circle, and began a movement which seemed like a
dance of men in armor, half stage-stride and half hop. The music struck
up an appropriate air, and the dancers, joining in the song, circled
slowly two or three times in the same staid and deliberate manner,
then, drawing their knives, brandished them in time, quickening their
pace, and hurrying around quicker and quicker as the song grew more
excited, when they finally came to a climax of fury, rushing in on
each other at the centre of the circle as if to cut each other down.
But the raised knives were arrested by the opposing empty hands; and,
the paroxysm passed, the song died down to its lower tone and moderate
time, and the dance began a new movement, each dancer thrusting his
knife into the ground at the centre, and then repeated the quickening
circles; this time, rushing, at the climax, on their knives and drawing
them from the earth, they threw themselves on an imaginary enemy
outside the circle, and, having hypothetically demolished him, returned
to their gyrations, varying the finale by lifting one of the company
into the air on their hands, and dropping him simultaneously with their
voices. This lasted half an hour.
After an intermission, in which the soldiers, unawed by the presence of
the Pasha, laughed and joked and shouted to their content, a soldier
entered the circle dressed as an Egyptian dancing woman. He was one
of the tallest men in the regiment, capitally travestied, and all who
have seen the dance of the Almah can imagine the bursts of laughter
with which his grave, precise imitation of one of them was received
by the circle. I have never seen anything more exquisitely ludicrous.
His figure seemed lithe as a willow-wand, and he twisted and bent,
and bowed and doubled, with the peculiar expression of physique which
seemed impossible to any other than the slender Egyptian girl.
Roars of applause followed this performance, and the next was a
pantomime--"The Honey-Stealers." Two men enter dressed as peasants, one
carrying a gun on his back, and begin groping about as in the dark, run
against each other, stumble and fall, and finally, by much listening,
find a box, which had been placed to represent the hive. The thief lays
down his gun to be more free in his motions, and a soldier runs into
the circle and carries it off. Enter presently a third honey-seeker,
blacked to represent a negro or some diabolical personage, it was
impossible to say which, and, stumbling on the other two, an affray
ensues, in the course of which the bees get disturbed, and come out
in swarms, the luckless black getting the lion's share of the stings.
At this moment an alarm is given, and the gunner misses his gun, upon
which he falls on the black as the thief, and between the stings and
the blows the intruder expires, the play ending with the efforts of
the two living to carry out and dispose of the one dead, interfered
with greatly by a spasmodic life remaining in the members, which
refuse to lie as they are put. But this finally subsiding, the body is
satisfactorily disposed of, and the pantomime gives way, amid the most
uproarious laughter and applause, to a Circassian dance. The dancers
were few, and the dance tame, and, not meeting any appreciation, gave
way to a repetition of the Zebeque saltations, of which they seemed
never disposed to tire.
The entertainment lasted till eleven o'clock, when, each soldier taking
a branch of fir, the actors and audience raced off like a demoniac
festival breaking up, the band following with a blare of trumpets and
bang of drums, and we were left to our dignity and the dying embers
of the theatre fire. Although in July, the night was so intensely
cold that, sharing the Pasha's tent, and with all the covering he
could spare me, in addition to my own Persian carpet over instead of
under me, I was almost too cold to sleep, and the morning found me
well disposed to put my blood in motion by vigorous exercise. Coffee
served, we rode over to the Xyloscala, and, after more coffee-and-pipe
compliments, we began the descent of the new zigzag road. It was so
steep that no loaded beast could mount it, and it took me two hours'
walk to get to the bottom, where the road straightens and follows the
river, here a dancing, gurgling stream, rushing amongst boulders and
over ridges, under overhanging pines, as though there were no tropics
and the land had not had rain for two months. The whole gorge was
filled with the balsamic odors of firs and pine, which covered the
slopes wherever the rock would give them place; and above that, bare
splintery cliffs overhung the gorge, so that it seemed that a stone
would fall three thousand feet if thrown from the summit. A few Turkish
soldiers, lazily felling or trimming pines for the blockhouses, were
the only signs of humanity we saw. Above, in the pines, we heard the
partridge's note, as the mother called to her young brood to follow
her. The gorge widened to a glen; the slopes receded slightly, and
then, after another hour of walking, we came to a sharp turn in its
course, where the high mountains walled up the glen to the east with a
sheer slope of five or six thousand feet from the peaks to the brook
bed, and the rocks on each side shut in like the lintels of a doorway.
Here is the little village of Samaria, so long the refuge of the women
and children of this section of Crete, and where, so long as arms and
food lasted, a few resolute men might have defended them against all
comers. I doubt if in the known world there is such another fortress.
No artillery could crown those heights, no athletes descend the slopes;
while the only access from below is through the river-bed, in one place
only ten feet wide, and above which the cliffs rise perpendicularly
over a thousand feet; the strata in some places matching each other, so
that it seems to have been a cloven gorge--the yawn of some earthquake,
which suggested closing again at a future day--and for two hours down
from the glen there is no escaping from the river course, except by
goat-paths, and these such as no goat would care needlessly to travel.
Pashley has described the village of Samaria, and its magnificent
cypresses and little chapel, as they are now. No destruction, no
sacrilege, has entered there; and perhaps this is the only church in
Crete, outside the Turkish lines of permanent occupation, which has not
been desecrated. The roof of the chapel is made of tiles, which must
date from the early Byzantine Empire.
The river below here, the St. Roumeli, is a rapid perennial stream,
which at times of flood shuts off all travel by the road. Lower down
is a tiny village of the same name as the river, in a gorge into which
only an hour's sunlight can enter during the day--damp, chilly, and
aguish--the residence of a half-dozen families of goat-herds. Pashley
identifies a site near the mouth of the river as that of Tarrha, the
scene of Apollo's loves with Acacallis, who, if bred in this glen, must
have been of that icy temperament which should have best suited the
professional flirt of Olympus.
To travellers who care to visit Samaria, I would give the hint to leave
their horses at Omalos, and have a boat to meet them at the mouth of
the St. Roumeli, as the ascent is long and painful, even by the new
road, which, since I saw it the torrents may have demolished. They may
thus visit the Port Phœnix of St. Paul, which lies a few miles to the
eastward, and landing at Suia, west of St. Roumeli, have their horses
come down by the pass of Krustogherako, and so return by way of St.
Irene--a very wild pass of the Selinos mountains--to Canéa.
We had made no such provision, and so we were obliged to toil back in
the intense heat of the July sun beating down into the gorge, and,
arriving past noon, to be refreshed by sherbet and coffee by the
hospitable commander of the station at Xyloscala, the snow of the
sherbet being brought from the opposite cliff two hundred yards away,
but an hour's climb to get to it. The commander was a more intelligent
man than it is usual for Turkish officers to be, and he related how
during the insurrection he had led a detachment round to the top of the
opposing cliffs, and how when they got there they were like the twenty
thousand men of the King of France, and had to come back by the way
they went.
However, they have now a blockhouse at the Xyloscala, another at
Samaria in sight and signalling of it, and a third at St. Roumeli, so
that, for the future, there need be no doubt as to who holds the Heart
of Crete.
The night's discomforts had been too great to allow me to spend another
in Omalos, so, after a slight detour to look at the immense wild
pear-trees which grow on the plains, we rode directly back to Canéa,
accompanied by the Pasha. Meeting the priest of Lakus by the way, I
gave the village a vicarious berating for having in such an ungrateful
manner refused hospitality to a man who had been their advocate and
friend so long, and whom they had obliged to go back to their enemies
and his for a dinner. He seemed much ashamed, and the day after I
received a profound apology from the primates pleading ignorance of my
personality.
I improved the acquaintance with the Pasha (Mehmet Ali, "the Prussian,"
so-called from his race, though he was brought up from boyhood as a
Mussulman), whom I found more intelligent and liberal than any Turkish
official I had met with, except A'ali and Server Effendi, to introduce
the condition of the chiefs of the insurrection remaining in exile,
many of them old and worn out, afflicted with the nostalgia which
mountain people know so well, and ready to submit unreservedly to the
government. A nominal amnesty had been granted, relieving all from
any political prosecution, but not from the civil suits for damages,
etc., which might be brought against the chiefs who had taken sheep or
cattle or destroyed any property. Two or three of the chiefs who had
returned had already been thrown into prison on suits of this kind, and
as the complainants were always adherents of the government through
the war, and all the minor officials were of that class whose loyalty
had been beyond question from the beginning, a civil suit had pretty
much the same color as a political persecution. This state of things
effectually prevented the return of any of the prominent personages of
the insurrection, who, living in exile, were reasons of the strongest
against the restoration of tranquillity, and made a convenient
appliance for agitation and renewed strife on any disturbance of the
political atmosphere of Europe.
My only interest was the restoration of the island to such peace as was
possible, and this Mehmet Ali comprehended, and, throwing aside all
hostility, he entered into the discussion of the positions, and on a
subsequent interview begged me to go to Constantinople and place the
matter before A'ali Pasha, to whom he gave me a letter of introduction.
I accordingly went to Constantinople, and was received in the kindest
and most considerate manner by the Grand Vizier, to whom I stated at
length my ideas of the difficulties of the pacification, and at his
request made a memoir of all the facts and motives involved, with a
description of the class of men to whom was entrusted the carrying out
of the measures by which the Porte had hoped to conciliate the Cretans,
embittered political and religious adversaries, full of wrath at the
losses and indignities they had suffered, and more anxious to avenge
their own wrongs than to secure the true interest of the Porte. He
begged me to wait until he could send to Crete and obtain a report on
my memoir, and, as he found on its receipt that my assertion was just,
he promised to correct the abuses of administration, and proposed to me
to go to Crete to superintend the carrying out of the measures which
seemed necessary to restore the confidence of the late insurgents,
pledging himself to accord complete immunity to any individuals whom
I should designate as possessing my confidence, and offering me a
stipend more than sufficient for all my needs in the service. I knew
that so long as he was Grand Vizier I could depend on the fulfilment
of these promises, but, in the event of any change of administration,
the understanding between us would fail as between his successor and
myself. I demanded, therefore, a comprehensive measure securing all
the insurgents from civil suits on account of acts of war committed
during the insurrection, as a condition of my acceptance of the
official position thus created for me. This the Grand Vizier declared
the government could not grant without assuming all the personal
liabilities thus discharged, which he was not willing to recommend, and
so, after several interviews and thorough discussion, I was obliged to
decline the offer made me, much to my regret, for the islanders had
ever a place in my regard, which, with the interest of common suffering
and loss, the years of advocacy of rights kept back and redress denied,
and perhaps the personal attachment I had found for me and mine in so
many of them, disposed me to make any effort in my making to secure
their good. But to engage my faith and influence with them on such
uncertain grounds as the continuance in power of a Grand Vizier, or the
maintenance of harmony between myself and the local administration, was
too great a risk for a prudent man, unwilling to engage others in a
position from which he might not have the power to extricate them.
It was with such a pain as the waiting of my own sentence of exile
would have given me that I went to meet the old captains on my return
to Athens, and told them that there was no hope of their repatriation
through my efforts at least. I never shall forget the silent despair
in the face of old Costa Belondaki, tall and straight under his
seventy-odd years, white-haired, and meagre, but alert as a man of
forty, as he turned from me when he got his sentence. As with his
elder compatriots, the mountain nostalgia fevered him and the idle
exile broke his spirit, but I could give him no hope that in his day
European civilization or Turkish administration would be wise enough
to economize his devotion to his country, and make use of rather than
crush the spirit which makes Crete rebellious while its government is
criminal.
APPENDIX.
[Translation.]
PETITION FROM THE LATE CRETAN GREEK ASSEMBLY TO THE SULTAN.
TO HIS IMPERIAL AUGUST MAJESTY, OUR SOVEREIGN ABDUL AZIZ KHAN.
MAJESTY: We, the humble undersigned, having been specially delegated
by the whole Christian population of Crete to avail ourselves of the
benevolent and philanthropic intentions which the Imperial Government
have at all times evinced towards this island, now take the liberty to
lay at the feet of your Imperial Majesty the following humble prayer,
in the hope that the same may be favorably acceded to:
1. And in the first place, we humbly pray to be relieved from the
exorbitant duties levied on all articles of food since the year 1858 up
to this day. Contrary to the concessions made to us, verbally and in
writing, not only have the duties in question been increased, but new
ones have been added, namely, the duties on salt, tobacco, snuff, wine,
and spirits, on land rents, porterage, on sales of real and personal
property, on sales of animals in general, on weighing, on stamps (which
last are particularly heavy), those on dyeing, on sales of fish and
meat, etc., and, finally, various others which are onerous and unjust.
We are, moreover, able to prove by statistical accounts that within
the last two years we have paid what, with duties and taxes, would
exceed the amount of our incomes. Above all things, then, the system
of taxation requires imperial solicitude, like unto the care a father
would bestow on his dutiful children. The mode of levying duties also
requires reform.
The system of farming in operation is not only vexatious and
perplexing to the population, but is also baneful to the Imperial
Government, inasmuch as the farmers, being bound in sureties, one for
the other, at the time of the sale of the articles by public auction
incur greater responsibility than they are able to meet when their
obligations become due. Hence they oppress the taxpayer by fraudulently
exacting more than they ought, while, on the other hand, they often
quit the island secretly, thus both damaging their sureties and
entailing loss on the public treasury.
The unequal system of levying the taxes in all the provinces of the
island, which is contrary to the spirit of the Tanzimat published by
the Imperial Government, and which latter secures equal rights to
all your Imperial Majesty's subjects indiscriminately, also requires
amending.
We humbly pray your Imperial Majesty that the district of Sfakia,
hitherto exempt from taxation owing to the barrenness and sterility of
its soil, may continue to enjoy the same privilege.
2. We humbly submit, for the consideration of your Imperial Majesty,
the utter want of means of communication throughout the interior of the
island, and the absence of bridges, whereby the conveying of produce
from one part to another is materially impeded, and many persons are
annually drowned in the rivers.
3. We humbly venture to submit to your Imperial Majesty that the
concessions granted to us by your illustrious predecessor in 1858,
through the medium of the distinguished delegates sent hither, be put
into execution.
It is true that we possess a Demogerondia, Councils, and Heads of
Communities ("Ephoria"), but when we are called upon to exercise the
right of election, our charter, which to all appearances exists,
becomes in fact a dead letter. We venture to suggest that the last
Regulation, which refers to the mode of electing the members of the
Demogerondia and Councils, is defective, and therefore requires
modification.
4. We beseech your Imperial Majesty graciously to consider the evils
to which we are subject in consequence of the possessors of oil stores
assuming to be money-lenders, but who are, indeed, monopolists, thus
selling the produce of the island at half its value.
As it frequently happens that the crops fail, we are compelled to pay
double the price, having under pressure already effected the sale of
such produce.
We trust, therefore, that this system be abolished, and a bank duly
established, for which latter the Hatti-Humayoun duly provides in its
29th paragraph.
5. We venture to submit to the paternal solicitude of your Imperial
Majesty the deplorable condition of the local tribunals. Unprovided
as these are with a general code, the form of procedure observed
therein is necessarily irregular. In corroboration of this allegation,
we assert that many have been persecuted, while no redress has been
granted to those who have so suffered. We are enabled to enumerate
various abuses which have occurred in every province. Hence, every
branch of these law-courts requires amendment, so that on a sentence
being awarded no undue favor shall be shown to the stronger party, or
the creed of the individual be made to serve as a bias, as happened
to some of the inhabitants of Kritza, Lasithe, and others. In that
affair the Khaniollis family, having at one time held the produce
of "malikianeh" or the tithes, presumed to consider themselves sole
proprietors of that privilege, and went so far as to take possession
of half of the property of Kritza, and nearly the whole of that of
Lasithe, and some other. In consequence of such a proceeding, the
inhabitants of the last-quoted village incurred considerable expense
in the defence of their rights, and otherwise suffered grievously.
Examples of this kind are not wanting in the Provinces of Retimo and
Canéa.
Moreover, the sentences of the local tribunals used formerly to be
drawn up in Turkish and Greek; but nowadays, although the vernacular
be modern Greek throughout the island, no judicial award, or any
other official document, must be written out in Greek, but merely in
Turkish; a fact at once perplexing to both parties at suit, as also to
the judicial and other administrative offices.
We consequently entreat of your Imperial Majesty that the use of the
modern Greek and Turkish languages be freely permitted to all classes.
At the Mekhemeh the testimony of a Christian is held invalid against
that of a Mohammedan. This is contrary to the letter and spirit of
the Hatti-Humayoun, which removes all legal disabilities from the
non-Mussulman subjects of your Imperial Majesty.
6. From your Imperial Majesty we look forward with hope and confidence
to obtain our personal liberties. At present, this depends entirely
upon the discretion of the Honorable Governors and officers charged
with the Imperial Government. A simple pretext is sufficient to cause
the imprisonment of the most respectable man, and without sentence
being awarded to him he may be detained there for an indefinite period.
7. We humbly request the attention of your Imperial Majesty to the want
of schools in the villages belonging to the three provinces, and we
pray that any teacher, irrespective of his nationality, be allowed to
exercise his profession in the provinces as well as in the towns, and
that the hospitals may be properly looked after.
8. Another drawback which impedes the prosperity of our island is the
closing of the numerous ports with which Nature has so bountifully
supplied it; and while in all countries of the world commerce has
been materially developed by the reduction of duties, we are obliged,
after long journeys, and after being exposed to the inclemency of the
seasons, to convey our produce to one of the three principal fortresses
of the island. The opening, therefore, of all the ports for the free
importation and exportation of produce and general merchandise would
greatly contribute to our well-being.
9. The liberty of worship, in virtue of the provisions of the
Hatti-Humayoun, exists only by name in Crete, since, on a Greek
becoming Mussulman, he is allowed to remain in the island, and inherit
property; whereas if a Turk be converted to Christianity, he must
forthwith quit the island, and forfeit all his rights.
10. Majesty! Similar griefs we, two years ago, took the liberty of
submitting to the clemency of your Imperial Majesty, when were added
such disproportionate duties and taxes on food, and when the privileges
conceded to us in 1858 were violated; but unfortunately, and contrary
to every hope, we were not listened to, and although even to-day we may
have been obliged from higher motives to assemble, in order to give
utterance to our grievances, we hope that for such reason we shall not
be considered disturbers of the public peace, such imputation the local
Governor-General, in his Excellency's proclamation of the 28th of April
last, having ascribed to us.
On the other hand, perceiving as we do warlike preparations, while our
gathering has altogether been a peaceful one, and presuming that the
same has been misrepresented to the Imperial Government, we entreat of
your Imperial Majesty a general pardon for all those who may have taken
part in the present popular movement.
With a view to an impartial investigation of all the above-stated
grievances on the part of your Imperial Majesty's faithful subjects in
this island, we venture to submit that an upright person be sent hither
for the purpose.
We beg leave to express a hope that your Imperial Majesty may take pity
on this poor people, who suffers so unjustly, and who implores that its
prayer may be soon transmitted to your Imperial Majesty.
From this day we raise our voices for the long life and happiness
of your Imperial Majesty, and we shall never cease to hope for an
improvement in our condition under the powerful ægis of the Imperial
Government.
CANEA, May 14 (26), 1866.
The most obedient and humble subjects representing
the Christian population of Crete.
(Here follow signatures.)
[Translation.]
TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN.
MADAM: The undersigned representatives of the Province of the Island
of Candia venture to place the present petition at the feet of your
Majesty, addressing at the same time a similar one to the sovereigns of
the two other protecting powers of the Hellenes.
The inhabitants of Candia, having taken an active part with the whole
Greek race in the bloody war of independence, which, begun in 1821,
has continued through many years, succeeded, at great sacrifice, in
making themselves masters of the island and of Grambousse, one of its
principal fortresses.
Consequently, they hoped that, enjoying the same rights as their
brethren of the Continent of Greece, their efforts would have been
crowned by the consecration of their independence, but the three Great
Powers in their wisdom decided otherwise. The Cretans, heartbroken,
submitted to this decision, and since then have dragged on their
existence, at one time under the sovereignty of the Pasha of Egypt, at
another under that of his Majesty the Sultan.
In recommending to us to submit to this decision of Europe, the
President of Greece, the late Count Capodistria, who was greatly
interested in us, led us to hope that this great misfortune would
be of short duration, and that in a short while our wishes would be
fulfilled. On the other hand, we received solemn promises that we
should be governed in a kindly manner.
Thirty-five years have elapsed since then, and during this long period
our existence has not ceased to be exposed to every kind of oppressive
injustice and misfortune. Not a traveller has visited our beautiful but
unfortunate country without being touched by our sufferings.
We pay enormous taxes, which are increased each year, without
enjoying any of the advantages which all nations receive in return for
such taxation. Justice is a thing unheard of. We have no tribunals
worthy of that name; nor have we any laws. Our government depends on
the arbitrary will of the representative of the Sublime Porte. Our
children, from want of public instruction, wallow in ignorance; the
few schools we have are maintained at our own small means. The clergy
are even paid by us. We are not admitted into the public service. We
have no roads or bridges. Our evidence is of no avail against that of
a Mussulman. The excesses committed by the Turks are rarely punished.
We have never experienced any of the advantages enjoyed by the poorest
subjects of civilized nations. We are the slaves of another race.
The population of this unfortunate country, being unable to bend
itself to this state of things, has several times since 1830 found
itself forced in its despair to have recourse to arms to recover its
rights. At this present time it has again risen, and in abstaining
from all acts of violence, it peaceably asks for justice from his
Majesty the Sultan, the reduction of taxes, and an improvement in the
administration. And if we, the most prudent, had not restrained its
impetuosity, the population would have flown to arms, to engage in its
despair in an unequal and sanguinary contest.
Madam, one of the reasons of state policy which led the great Powers to
replace us under the dominion of Turkey, was no doubt the amount of the
Mussulman population in our island, which was considered higher than
that of the Christian population.
But now the Turks compose but one-fourth of the whole population,
which amounts to 300,000 souls. It is unjust that the most numerous
should suffer on account of the lesser number, whereas if we were
under a Christian government our Turkish brethren would enjoy the same
happiness and the same advantages as ourselves.
Moreover, in order to keep the country in subjection, Turkey is obliged
to keep up an army and a fleet, and to spend enormous sums of money,
without its being of much service to her, whereas Crete, if united to
Greece, would confer great advantages on the whole Greek race, and
would be able to embark on a system of civilization. If the creation
of an Hellenic kingdom has for its object the regeneration of this
people, Crete, which is purely Hellenic country, would become one of
its foundation stones.
Madam, long experience has proved that, from the manner in which our
island is governed, all improvement and all advancement are impossible
for this wretched country.
We consequently entreat your Majesty and their Majesties the Sovereigns
of the two other Protecting Powers of the Greek nation, to deign to
excuse our one wish, viz., union with our brethren of Greece.
It is only under this condition that we can be happy, and contribute to
the advancement of our race.
Should that, however, be impossible at present, we beg your Majesty,
in your infinite goodness, to endeavor to obtain for us a political
organization, under which there may be laws and regular tribunals,
less grievous and better imposed taxes, by which the morality of the
people may become possible, that at least one part of the revenues
of the country should be expended on its improvement, and generally
that our just grievances may be redressed by a Christian and paternal
administration.
This is what, in imploring the magnanimous interposition of your
Majesty, we venture to ask of the powerful monarchs of the three Great
Powers.
We sign ourselves, etc.
The Deputies of the Section of Canéa, Heraclim,
Rethymne, etc.
CANEA, May 15, 1866.
[Translation.]
OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND OF CRETE, DATED 2
REBI-UL-EVEL, 1283 (JULY 15, 1866).
Your Excellency's despatches, with their enclosures, forwarded through
Kadri Bey on his return from an official mission to Crete, have
arrived, and his report on the state of affairs, as witnessed by him in
that island, has been thoroughly understood.
It was hoped and expected that the non-Mussulman inhabitants, who had
assembled together in several districts of the province, would have
listened to the benignant and paternal exhortations of the Imperial
Government; that they would have broken up these assemblies, and,
showing obedience and submission to authority, have returned to their
own homes. And the reluctance of the Porte up to the present moment
to inflict the punishment due to their offences has been based upon
this expectation. But it appears, on the contrary, that although these
persons have made a show of breaking up their meetings, yet they
have not abandoned their religious proceedings; and it is evident
that at the present time they are still continuing in the course of
excitement and commotion. Now, according to the sense of the petitions
which have reached the Porte on the part of these persons, both at
the commencement of the affair and subsequently, the object of these
assemblies was to obtain the abolition of certain duties on such
articles as tobacco, snuff, salt, and stamps; the facilitating of
the means of communication in the island; reform in the election of
the Medjliss or Demogerondia; the prevention of the evil practice
of wearing arms; the formation of schools, hospitals, and such like
institutions.
But besides all these things, they have got certain ideas into their
heads, to which they also now give expression.
Now, from first to last, as is most manifest and natural, the
principal wish of the Imperial Government is to secure the tranquillity
and welfare of all classes of its subjects; and the inhabitants of
Crete especially, and in many instances, have been the object of
concessions and peculiar favor; above all, in the matter of the
property tax ("virgu"), the sheep tax, and such like imposts which are
levied in all other parts of the Ottoman dominions, the inhabitants
of this island have alone been exempted. And up to the present day
the Porte has never entertained the idea of depriving them of this
indulgence. But the inhabitants of Crete now put forward a claim for
the abolition of taxes which belong to a different category. For, as
every one knows, the Porte some years ago, solely with the view of
increasing the exports from its dominions, and in order to encourage
and facilitate commercial enterprise, agreed to the abolition of the
tax of 12 per cent. on exports to foreign countries; and owing to the
tax being diminished at the rate of 1 per cent. annually, it will
be reduced in the course of a few years to only 1 per cent. for a
permanence.
In consequence of this measure, the loss to the Imperial treasury
amounts to more than 300,000 purses a year.[L] The abolition of
this tax on exports being of immense benefit to the people of this
empire, in order in some slight degree to compensate for the loss thus
entailed, certain new taxes of universal application to all parts of
the country were imposed; and as the people of the Island of Crete are
amongst those most benefited by the abolition of the duty on exports,
it is only just and natural that they should pay their share of the
new imposts which were intended to make up the loss to the treasury.
For, whilst the inhabitants of other places have had 50,000 purses
added to their property tax ("verghi"), in consequence of no such tax
existing in Crete, no part in the payment of this augmentation falls
to their lot. Crete, then, enjoying as she does this exceptional
favor and advantage, cannot with right and justice pretend to be
exempted from the imposts mentioned above. As regards the matter of
the construction of roads, bridges, hospitals, etc., it is true that
such wishes are amongst the requirements of the age, and the Porte is
exceedingly anxious for the carrying out of such useful projects. It
is clear, moreover, that all countries and governments stand in need
of improvements of this kind. But their execution can only be effected
by degrees, and according to convenience and opportunities. If the
inhabitants of Crete required such public works and improvements,
then it behooved them to make application to the Government at
Constantinople, and in a manner consistent with their allegiance. But
the essentially illegal and irregular demand for the abolition of
taxes, the mixing up with this demand of other matters which might
possibly be conceded, and their proceedings in assembling together for
the promotion of these objects, can only be regarded by intelligent
persons as acts of rebellion which cannot be tolerated, and they have
now incurred the extreme reprobation of the Imperial Government.
[L] A purse is 500 piastres.
In short, from the misconduct of this people up to the present time
in declining to listen to advice, in imputing probably to erroneous
motives the gracious clemency of his Imperial Majesty, who has hitherto
delayed to visit their offences with punishment, and in preferring
to follow the suggestions of seditious intrigues rather than the
tranquillity and welfare of their families, it has become manifest that
they will not be guided by prudential motives. Henceforth, then, the
Imperial Government is compelled to perform its duty. A military force
will at once be despatched to a convenient locality, and in the first
instance the orders and resolutions of the Porte will once more be made
known to the inhabitants of Crete, viz., that in obedience to orders
the assemblies should disperse, and each individual return to his own
home and ordinary occupation, under the protection of the Sultan;
and, if they have any demands to prefer, let them make them in a wise
and decorous manner to the Government. But if they continue in the
course explained above, this will be regarded as a grave offence by the
Government, and they will be dispersed by force and visited with severe
chastisement. Let them understand this and take warning. Let them break
up their assemblies, and give assurances and obligations in writing to
the effect that they will no more act in contravention of the principle
of submission to authority.
If after this they immediately return to their homes and occupations,
well and good. But if, on the contrary, they persist in their
misconduct, the troops will be sent against them, and the ringleaders
of the sedition will be arrested and imprisoned in the Sultan's
fortresses, while the rest of the people will be dispersed by force;
and, in the event of their presuming to have recourse to arms, they
will meet with reprisals in kind and be severely chastised. Should
these persons dare to resist to arms, it will also be necessary to
disarm them.
Your Excellency is instructed to execute the measures necessary in
accordance with what is stated above.
[Translation.]
REPLY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CRETANS TO THE ANSWER OF THE
GRAND VIZIER TO THEIR PETITION.
TO HIS HIGHNESS THE GRAND VIZIER:
YOUR HIGHNESS: We, the Undersigned, the Representatives of the
Christian population of the Island of Crete, received yesterday
(July 19), after a delay of three months, the answer of the Imperial
Government to the humble petition we addressed to His Majesty the
Sultan, which answer has been transmitted to us through his Excellency
the Governor-General of Candia.
It is with great pain that we remark the silence kept in this answer
in regard to the chief complaints in our petition--that is to say, on
what concerns the tribunals, freedom of worship, personal liberty, the
municipal elections, the use of the Greek language, etc.
It is also with pain and astonishment that we have learnt by this
answer that not only we have no right to complain of direct and
indirect taxes which weigh so heavily upon us, but that we are in a
privileged position, in so far as regards other subjects of the empire,
in reference to the direct taxes--viz., the one under the denomination
of "verghi" and that on sheep.
Highness, we take the liberty to again call your kind attention to the
following points:
First. It is all the Christians of Candia, and not some, as it pleases
your Highness to say, who think that they cannot in any way be compared
to other subjects of the Porte in what concerns the taxes since the
period when, by the advice and under the guarantee of the great
Christian Powers, the Cretans submitted themselves to the Sublime
Porte; and it is notorious that since that period up to a few years ago
they have not paid other taxes, direct or indirect, beyond tithes and
the military tax, in conformity with the law and decrees. It is true
that the duties on exportation diminish gradually from one per cent.,
as is stated in the answer of the Porte. Nevertheless, in a country
like Crete, where there is no industry, the import duties, which still
remain the same, neutralize the advantages arising out of the lowering
of the export duties. Such being the case, we not only do not enjoy the
benefits which your Highness is pleased to mention, but we are still
crushed by the exorbitant taxes, which are far above our means, as is
evident from the financial report of the last two years, during which
time we have paid almost as much in taxes as the amount of our incomes,
without enjoying in return any material advantage.
Secondly. In what concerns roads, schools, and hospitals, we do not
doubt the benevolent intentions of His Majesty; but the unfortunate
inhabitants of Candia see with sorrow that the execution of these
generous intentions is indefinitely postponed, notwithstanding the
oft-repeated promises of the Sublime Porte.
Thirdly. It is, nevertheless, our sacred duty to protest openly
against the reproach addressed to us by your Highness, namely, that
we had not made known our complaints to the Imperial Government in a
respectful manner; that we had mixed up claims altogether inadmissible
with those which might be entertained; and that we had held meetings
and made demonstrations which could not be considered otherwise than
treasonable by all conscientious and impartial persons. To these
reproaches we take the liberty to reply respectfully that in a country
like Crete, where there is no press or parliament, and that experience
has shown that, whenever and in whatever manner the Christians have
sought to obtain justice from the Sublime Porte, their mouths have
been shut by intimidation and by low intrigues, we had no other means
of bringing our grievances to the knowledge of our Sovereign, and of
acquainting him with the real state of the country, beyond a recourse
to a peaceable meeting without arms. It is also our bounden duty--we
think so, at least--to repeat here that all the Christians in Candia,
without exception, took part in this manifestation, and not merely some
of the inhabitants, as was said by the Governor-General, and which is
believed by your Highness.
It would be absurd, your Highness, almost childish, to assume that the
Representatives of the Christian population of Candia have obeyed or
obey the suggestions of foreigners, and that the Central Committee is
exciting the people and acting in a seditious spirit. Such allegations
are only put forward by those impostors and wicked men who, whether
Mohammedans or Christians, are imbued with the most hostile feelings
towards the Imperial Government and towards the Candiotes, and are only
interested in imposing upon the goodness of our gracious Sovereign. It
is notorious that the demonstration of the Candiote people is quite
spontaneous, and that the assemblage of Cretans, far from compromising
public tranquillity, was to upset the projects of such wicked people
who seek for any pretext for calumny.
Finally, we, the undersigned, the Representatives of the Candiote
people, not considering ourselves as rebels, cannot answer for the
future by solemn declarations ("senets") in the name of a people which
has only confided to us expressly and in writing a limited authority,
namely, to forward its petition and to receive the answer which may be
returned thereto.
It is this answer alone which we have in consequence bound ourselves to
bring to the knowledge of the people, with the fullest confidence in
the promises of the Imperial Government, which has declared that the
persons fulfilling this sacred duty need not fear the threats made to
them. It is for your Highness to arrive at such a decision as may be
dictated by a sense of justice and conscientious feeling.
Done at Prosnero, July 20, 1866.
We have, etc.,
The Members of the Central Committee.
(Here follow the signatures.)
TRANSLATION OF AN ADDRESS TO THE EUROPEAN CONSULS OF THE CHRISTIAN
DEPUTIES, ASSEMBLED UNDER THE NAME OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF CRETANS,
SITTING AT PROSNERO, CANTON OF APOCORONA.
MM. LES CONSULS: The Representatives of the Christian people of the
Isle of Crete, respectfully undersigned, assembled under the title of
the Assembly General of the Cretans, feel it our imperative duty to
call you to bear witness to the violence which obliges us, in spite of
our wishes to the contrary, to take up arms by right of lawful defence.
Greeks by origin and by tongue, having taken part in the struggle
borne by our brothers in 1821 for our national independence, but yet
not having profited by the advantages of that war, our only object
in assembling here is to claim the enjoyment of the rights which
were guaranteed to us by the three Protecting Powers by Treaties and
Protocols, and of those which His Imperial Majesty the Sultan deigned
spontaneously to decree to us by a Hatti-Humayoun.
But the Governor-General, changing the meaning and the point of our
humble petition, by which we claimed pacifically, and without resorting
to arms, the execution of written promises, after leaving us for three
months in a state of uncertainty, finally incited the Porte to return
an unfavorable and menacing answer, and, opposing violence to right, he
appeared before us in arms.
Calling the Representatives of the protecting and guaranteeing Powers
to bear witness to this, we take up arms for our defence and safety,
and we make the Turkish Government responsible before the civilized
world for all the consequences of the struggle which is about to break
out.
Done at Prosneron, July 20-21, 1866.
The humble Representatives of the Christian
People of the Isle of Crete.
(Here follow the signatures of 46 Deputies.)
[Extract.]
LORD LYONS TO LORD STANLEY.--(Received September 7.)
CONSTANTINOPLE, August 28, 1866.
I had, on the 25th instant, the honor to receive your Lordship's
despatches respecting the affairs of Crete, of the 13th instant.
Yesterday, in obedience to your Lordship's instructions, I informed
A'ali Pasha that Her Majesty's Government strongly advise the Porte to
deal with the Cretans with the utmost forbearance and in a conciliatory
spirit, to redress any grievances of which they may have cause to
complain, to relieve them from any exceptional treatment which bears
hard upon them, and generally to study to reconcile them to the
Sultan's Government. I added, that Her Majesty's Government conceive
that in the present state of the Continent of Europe, it would be
a great misfortune to Turkey if any question were to arise which
should excite the sympathies of Europe in favor of the resistance of
Christian subjects of the Sultan to the Ottoman Government, and that
it is manifestly most important to the interests of the Porte that the
Provincial authorities should be enjoined to act justly and in a kindly
spirit towards the Christians.
A'ali Pasha said that he entirely concurred in the views of Her
Majesty's Government. He told me that it had been definitively settled
that Mustapha Kiritli Pasha should be sent to Crete with large powers;
that this measure would show the Cretans that their petition had been
seriously taken into consideration by the Sultan; and that he had
reason to hope that order would very soon be restored.
I said that I hoped that Mustapha Pasha's powers were not merely
conferred with a view to quelling the present resistance of the
Christian Cretans, but that they were to be exerted for the purpose of
removing causes of complaint and placing matters in the island on a
footing likely to be permanently satisfactory.
A'ali Pasha said that Mustapha Pasha would be empowered to take into
consideration all reasonable complaints, which were brought before him
in a loyal and dutiful spirit, but, of course, he would not listen
to men unlawfully assembled in defiance of the Government, and would
repress revolt and treasonable attempts to change the relation of the
island to the Porte. On being further pressed by me, A'ali Pasha said
that no Christian blood had been shed; that he was confident none would
be shed; and that it was the earnest desire of the Porte to avoid, if
possible, a collision between the troops and the Christians. He added
that he was convinced that the movement was due to foreign instigation,
and that, if that instigation ceased, it would rapidly subside.
INDEX.
A'ali Pasha arrives in Crete, 143, 148;
rebuilds church at Lakus, 157
_Abdou_, 128
Abdul Aziz, Sultan, accession, 36;
rage over Crete, 111
Abdul Medjid, Sultan, deceased, 36
Afendallos, a Moreote chieftain, 30
_Agios Basilios_, 126, 131, 135
_Agios Roumeli_, 133
_Alikianu_, plain of, 88, 107;
town, 156
Ali Riza Pasha, movement against Omalos, 105;
rescued, 106;
beaten at Topolia, 120
_Amari_, 106, 135
American Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, 116;
intrigue against Consul Stillman, 118
_Anopolis_, 132, 133
_Apokorona_ district, 54, 58;
Egyptians surrender, 66;
movement against, 74, 89
_Aradena_, 133
"Arethusa" man-of-war, 61
_Arkadi_, convent of, 83;
bombardment of, 84;
butchery at, 86;
effect on European opinion, 90
"Arkadi," blockade-runner, 114
_Asfendu_, 132
_Askyphó_(Askyfó), 71, 82, 102, 132
Assembly at Murnies (1833), 33;
at Nerokouro (1858), 35, (1864), 36;
at Omalo, gathers April 12, 1865, moves to Boutzounaria and
Nerokouro, 41;
games at Boutzounaria, 42;
sends a deputation of captains with a petition to the Porte,
refuses to adjourn when ordered by Ismael Pasha, 43;
insists on a promise of immunity, dissolution urged by all friendly
consuls, 47;
decided by Parthenius Kelaïdes and Joannides, 48;
committee retreat to the mountains, 48;
counter-proclamation to Mustapha's, 68;
provisional government, headed by Mavrocordato, 123;
appeals for Coroneos to become commander-in-chief, 151
"Assurance" sloop-of-war, 91
Baleste, a French Philhellene, 30
Barron, Mr., English chargé at Constantinople, 141
Bishop of Canéa threatened with burning, 29;
(another), heroic end, 35
_Bondapoulo_, 78
Boniface, Duke of Montserrat, possesses Crete, 20
Borthwick, Col., adventure at Meskla, 162
Boutakoff, commander of "Grand Admiral," 76, 96;
ordered to the Sphakian coast, 98
_Boutzounaria_, seat of the Assembly, 41, 42;
source of water supply of Canéa, 42;
attack on aqueduct, 121
Bulgaris, evil genius of Greece, 145;
tool of Russia, 146;
withdraws all support from Crete, 152
_Campos_, 78
"Canandaigua," American ship-of-war, 117
_Candanos_, fortress, refuge of Mussulmans, 66;
expedition for relief of, 67, 69
_Candia_, 106, 125
Cave-stifling at Kephalá, 79;
in Mylopotamos, 128, 137
Christians persecuted in Crete, 27, 29;
panic and exodus, 51, 52, 57;
massacres, 64, 65;
stifled in caves, 79, 128, 137
Colucci, Italian consul, advises giving an assurance to the
Assembly, 45;
wins the Pasha's ill-will, 47
_Comitades_, pass, 102
Comoundouros, premier at Athens, 114;
prepares insurrection in Turkey, 116;
dismissal effected by Russia, 145
Consular corps summoned by Ismael Pasha, 44;
refuse him support, 46;
protest against calling in the Mussulmans, 50;
unite in preventing a Mussulman outbreak, protect Christian
refugees, 57;
fortify the consulates, 59;
side with Schahin Pasha against Ismael, 62
Coroneos, Col., timely arrival, 83;
headquarters at Arkadi, 83;
unites with Zimbrakakis to defend Omalos, 89;
moves eastward, 95;
operations on Mt. Ida, 99;
at Kallikrati, 123; attacks
Omar at Margaritas, 125;
at Kallikrati, 131;
falls back on Askyfó, holds Muri, 132;
drives Reschid, 133, 135;
wanted for commander-in-chief, 151
Cretans, the best types of ancient Greeks, 13;
ancestors, 14;
present characteristics, 16, 19
_Crete_, climate and products, 13;
antiquities, 14, 16;
present inhabitants, 16;
language, 17, 18;
literature, 18;
music, 19;
conquered by Saracens, 19;
recovered by Byzantine emperors, 20;
transferred to Boniface, and sold to Venetian Republic, 20;
cruel government, 20-26;
conquest by Turks favored, 26;
Turkish rule, 26-37;
Sphakiote insurrection of 1770, 27;
of 1821, 29-31;
united by the allied powers to government of Mehemet Ali, Egyptian
régime, 32-34;
assembly at Murnies in 1833, repression by Mustapha Pasha, 33;
insurrection of 1840, 34;
Assembly of 1858, 34;
of 1864, 36;
hardships preceding the insurrection of 1866, 36
Criaris, a Cretan chief, 105
_Damasta_, 127, 128
Dante's description of Crete, 26
Dendrino, Russian consul, sincere in advising against insurrection,
but probably strengthened Parthenius, 48;
character, 96;
orders a frigate to the Sphakian coast, 98
Deportations, 92, 99, 140, 142
Derché, French consul, supports Ismael Pasha in everything, 44;
urges violent dispersal of the Assembly, 45;
confirms the Pasha against consular protests, 46;
labors to provoke a collision, 52;
intrigue with Schahin Pasha, 54;
refuses to ask for a man-of-war, 57;
recalled, 122
_Dibaki_, port, 130, 135
Dickson, English consul, humane and honest, ordered to co-operate with
his French colleague, 44;
supports Ismael Pasha against the Assembly, 45;
declares an assurance unnecessary, 46;
refuses to ask for a man-of-war, 57;
reports the atrocities at Arkadi, 90;
proposes to send a ship to pick up Cretan families, 92;
dispatch on the affair at Krapi, 104;
captured by Cretans near Canéa, 150
Dimitrikarakos, an Hellenic chief, 125
Diodorus Siculus, on the first inhabitants of Crete, 14
Egyptian régime in Crete, 32;
troops in Crete, 30, 31;
under Schahin Pasha, 53;
at Vrvsis, 63, 64, 66;
as found by Mustapha, 68;
beaten at Stylos, 78;
driven to the assault of Arkadi, 85;
sufferings in the mountains, 90;
slaughter at Krapi, 104;
recalled home, 122;
losses at Sime, 130
"Ennosis" blockaded at Syra, 152
_Episkopi_, 84, 123;
surprised, 99
Erskine, English minister at Athens, 107
Fair at Omalo, April, 1865, 38;
turned into an Assembly, 41
_Foligniaco_, Venetian raid on, 25
_Franco Castelli_ port, 102, 130
_Gaiduropolis_, 132
Geissler (Dilaver Pasha), Turkish chief of Artillery, 124;
death, 134
_Gnossus_, 128
Goldsborough, Rear-Admiral, 101, 116
_Grabusa_, captured by Kalergis, 32
"Grand Admiral," Russian frigate, 76;
ordered to assist in deportation, 96
Greek Government and the insurrection, 63, 112, 114;
under Russian influence, 145;
ostentatious pretence of aiding the revolt, 151
_Halará_, 135
Hobart Pasha blockades the "Ennosis" at Syra, 152
Homer, account of Ancient Crete, 14, 15
_Hostí_, 105
Hussein Avni replaces Mustapha, 118;
locum tenens of Omar Pasha, ravages plains of Kissamos, 120;
block-house plan, 148
_Ida_, Mt., 83, 99
Ignatieff, Gen., Russian minister, 96, 99;
prevents Mr. Stillman's recall, 120
Insurrection of 1866, preparation, 42-52;
first bloodshed, 52;
overtures from Schahin Pasha, 54;
first Mussulman blood, 56;
collision at Selinos, 63, 64;
general outbreak of hostilities, 65;
Vrysis taken, 66;
engagement at Kakopetra, 70;
at Malaxa, 72;
Lakus abandoned, Zurba held, 73;
Theriso lost, 73;
stand at Stylos, 78;
Campos abandoned, 78;
Vafé lost; retreat to Askyfó; loss of confidence in Greek
volunteers, 82;
revived by Coroneos, 83;
Arkadi lost, 84-87;
Kissamos besieged, Omalos defended, 89;
shut up in Sphakian Mountains, collapse imminent, 94;
revival in Eastern Sphakia, 99;
Turks shut up in Retimo, 100;
affair at Krapi, 103;
defeat of Ali Riza Pasha, 105;
of Reschid Effendi, 106;
aid from the Greek Government, 115;
defeat of Ali Riza Pasha at Topolia, 120;
of Mehmet Pasha at
Krapi, and Omar Pasha at Kallikrati, 123;
reinforcements in the east, 125;
Omar shut up at Margaritas, 126;
Reschid beaten at Lasithe, 129;
Omar attacked at Kallikrati, 131;
at Aradena, 133;
checked at Agios Roumeli, 133;
retreat to Canéa, 135;
Reschid killed, 135;
armistice, 142;
pusillanimous surrender of volunteers, 151;
collapse, 152
Ismael Gibraltar, 31;
killed, 78
Ismael Pasha, appointed governor, outwits the Assembly of 1864, 36;
hated for his extortions and cruelty, 37;
quarrels with Consul Stillman, 38;
shirks the apology ordered by the Porte, 39;
makes a present of a paste intaglio, 40;
orders the Assembly at Boutzounaria to disperse, 43;
calls a conference of the consular corps, 44;
threatens to disperse the Assembly by force, 45;
fails to get the support of the consular corps, 46;
calls in the Mussulmans to the walled cities, 50;
attacked with fever, 55;
arms his co-religionaries, 57;
superseded by Mustapha Kiritli, 58;
quarrel with Schahin Pasha, 62;
withdraws Turkish supports from him, demands a battalion of
Egyptians, 63;
unnerved at Cretan successes, 66;
packed off to Constantinople, 67
Italian words in Cretan speech, 18
Janissary sway in Crete, 28
Joannides, a Greek physician, decides the Assembly not to disperse, 48
_Kakopetra_, ravine of, 70
Kaìergis, a Greek chief, 31
_Kallikrati_, pass, 123, 130
_Kalyves_, 78
_Kares_, 132
_Kephalá_, cave-stifling, 79
_Keramia_, movement against, 72, 73
_Khalepa_, 57
_Kissamos_, captured by Kalergis, 32;
besieged by volunteers, 89;
plain districts ravaged, 120
Korakas a Cretan chieftain, 99
_Krapi_, 78, 88, 99;
passage by the Turks, 103;
attack of Mehmet Pasha, 123
_Krustogherako_, pass, 90
_Lakus_, movement against, 72, 73, 157;
reoccupied by Cretans, 83;
abandoned, 89:
situation, 157;
church-bell strife, 158
_Lasithe_, 125;
attacked, 128
_Lasithe Effendi_ mountain, 129
_Lasithri_ district, 83
Levantine, a person of foreign ancestry, born and bred in Turkey, 44
_Loutro_, a port of Sphakia, 94
Lyons, Lord, 56, 97, 113
McDonald, Capt., 61
Mainote irregulars, 95, 99
_Malavisi_, 127
_Malaxa_, block-house attacked, 72
Manosouyanaki, a Cretan captain, 73
_Margaritas_, 126
_Mathea_, 129
Mavrocordato appointed president by the Cretans, 123
Mehemet Ali, awarded Crete by the allies, 32;
oppression, 33
Mehmet Ali, "the Prussian," 174
Mehmet Pasha guards Krapi, 88;
out-flanks Theriso, 89;
attack on Krapi, 123;
shut up at Kares, 132;
driven back to Vryses, 133
_Melambos_, 135
Melidoni, Antoni, a Cretan captain, 29;
assassinated, 30
_Meskla_, 159
_Messara_, 106, 129, 130
Mikhali, Hadji, of Lakus, 81;
reoccupies Lakus and Theriso, 83;
successes near Canéa, 83;
fights Ali Riza Pasha, 105;
character, 106, 163, 168
Morris, Hon. E. Joy, U. S. Minister at Constantinople, 97, 101, 119
Moustier, Marquis de, plan to transfer Crete to Viceroy of Egypt, 53
_Murnies_, 25;
Assembly at, in 1833, 33;
executions at, 34
Murray, commander of "Wizard," 62, 91;
letter to Minister Erskine, 107;
visit to Omar, 137
Music of the Cretans, 19
Mustapha Pasha (Kiritli), the "Albanian butcher," 33, 34;
made Imperial Commissioner, 58;
arrival, 67;
summons insurgents to submit, 68;
relieves Candanos, 69;
retreat harassed, 70;
return to Canéa, 71;
moves against Lakus, Theriso, and Keramia, relieves Malaxa, 72;
attacks Zurba, occupies Theriso, 73;
march on Krapi, opposed at Stylos, takes Campos, 78;
carries Vafé, 81;
tarries at Prosnero, takes Arkadi, 82-87;
return to Canéa, prepares for Theriso campaign, 88;
moves through the passes of Kissamos, 89;
ravages the valleys of Selinos, 90;
permits Dickson to ship off Cretan families, 92;
embarks at Suia, repulsed at St. Rumséli and Tripiti, returns to
Selinos, 95;
removes to Askyfó, 102;
losses at Krapi, 104;
orders an attack on Omalos, 105;
slights Capt. Strong, 117;
replaced by Hussein Avni, 118
_Mylopotamo_, 125, 127
_Navarino_, result of battle on Cretan insurrection, 31
_Nerokouro_, seat of the Assembly of 1858, 35
Nicolaïdes, an Hellenic chief, 133
Nikephoras Phocas drives the Saracens from Crete, 20
_Omalos_, annual fair at, April, 1865, 38; turned into an Assembly, 41;
situation, 74, 89, 90, 105, 165;
concentration of insurgents and volunteers at, 89;
attacked by Ali Riza Pasha, 105;
expedition against, 135
Omar Pasha arrives, 121;
moves on Sphakia, 122;
attacks Kallikrati, 123;
faithlessness, lust, and cruelty, 124;
sets out for Candia, 125;
bottled up at Margaritas, 126;
rescued by Reschid Effendi, 127;
orders an attack on Lasithe, 128;
prepares for Sphakian campaign, 130;
attacked at Kallikrati, 131;
at Aradena, 133;
transports his troops to Agios Roumeli and to Canea, 133;
losses, 134;
gets the ill-will of French consul, 138;
proclamation of amnesty, 142;
return in disgrace 148
Osman Pasha, 52
Outrey, French minister at Constantinople, 141
Paget, Lord Clarence, arrives in the "Psyche," 61
"Panhellenion" blockade-runner, 74, 114
Pappadakis, Dr., see _Joannides_
Parthenius Kelaïdes, priest, decides the Assembly not to disperse, 48
Pashley, on the Venetian rule in Crete, 20-26;
on the rule of Mustapha Kiritli, 34
_Pediada_, 128, 130, 134
_Pergamos_, 156
_Perivoglia_, 42
Petropoulaki, Mainote chieftain, 99;
jealousy, 127, 133;
made head of Greek Government's expedition, 156
Platanos (Iardanos) river, 156
Porte, change of policy, 109;
proclamation, 110;
threatens to revoke Consul Stillman's exequatur, 119
_Prosnero_, 82
"Psyche" despatch-boat, 61
Pym, commander of "Assurance," 91;
carries Cretan families to the Peiræus, 92;
act disapproved by government, 93
Reign of terror, 57-60
Reschid Effendi drives back the insurgents, 100;
moves on Amari, 106;
ordered to join Omar, 125;
rescues him, 127;
attacks Lasithe, 128, 129;
marches from Dibaki, 131;
to Askyfó, 132;
rescues Mehmet, 132;
driven back to Kallikrati, 133;
fatally wounded at Melambos, 135
_Retimo_, 83, 84, 99, 100
_Rhizo_, 74
_Rhizo Castron_, 129
Rogers, E. T., Acting English Consul-General at Beyrout, 142
Romaic and Cretan speech compared, 17, 18
Russia's relations to the insurrection, 76, 77;
Russian minister at Constantinople sends a ship to aid in
deportation, 96, 99;
intrigues with the Viceroy, 122;
agreement with France, 137;
encouragement to the revolt, 143;
overthrows Comoundouros ministry, 145
Russos, a Sphakiote chief, 30
Sacopoulos, Greek consul, 91
_Samariá_, impenetrable fortress, 27, 95, 133;
glen of, 166;
chapel, 172
Saracen conquest of Crete, 19
Sarpi, Fra Paolo, advice to Venetian senate, 23
Schahin Pasha, general-in-chief of Egyptians, 53;
intrigue with the French consul, 54;
fruitless mission to the Apokorona, 54;
approaches Consul Stillman, 55;
difference with Ismael, 62;
refuses him troops, 64
Scylax on the settlement of Crete, 14
Seliniotes, 16
_Selinos_ shut in by insurgents, 63;
second sortie, 64;
third sortie, 66;
entered by Mustapha, 90, 135
Server Effendi sent to Crete, 109;
character, 111;
compels delegates to go to Constantinople, 113
Seward, Hon. Wm. H., instructions to Consul Stillman, 101;
despatch to Minister Morris, 119;
decides to recall Stillman, 120, 144
_Sime_, 130
Simon, French Admiral, ordered to Cretan coast, 141
_Sitia_, 143
Skoulas, a Cretan chieftain, 106, 127
Smolenski, an Hellenic chief, 133
Soliotis, an Hellenic officer, 89;
at Krapi, 123, 132
Sphakian mountains, 73
Sphakiotes, 16;
insurrection of 1770, 27
Spratt, on the geology of Crete, 14
_St. Irene_ pass surprised, 90
_St. Roumeli_ river, 172
_St. Rumséli_, entrance to Samariá, 95
ST. THOMAS, 107, 130
Stanley, Lord, 141, 142
Steedman, Commodore, 62
Stillman, William J., U. S. consul,
arrives in Crete in summer of 1865, 36;
plans a journey to Sphakia _via_ Omalos, opposed by Ismael Pasha,
consulate violated, broil with the Pasha, 38;
checkmates him at Constantinople, 39;
and in Canéa, 40;
returns a spurious gem, 40;
abandons the journey to Sphakia, 41;
protests against using violence towards the Assembly, 46;
remonstrates against the conduct of a dervish, 52;
approached by Schahin Pasha, 55;
besieged in his home, 59;
advises Schahin Pasha to disobey Ismael, 63;
warns Mustapha of the result of his successes, 75;
hopes after Arkadi, 88;
urges European intervention, Turkish espionage, 97;
news agency, pressure on the Russian Consul, 98;
asks for an American ship-of-war, 101;
rude treatment from officers of the "Canandaigua," 117;
sends his family to Syra, lives on yacht "Kestrel," 118;
anxious to leave the island, 119;
recall determined on at Washington, trip to Cerigotto, 120;
to Candia, 129;
sends first news to Constantinople, 130;
excites Tricou against Omar, 138;
favors acceptance of A'ali Pasha's terms, 144;
scorbutic illness, 149;
witnesses a skirmish between Zurba and Lakus, 159;
leaves Crete under medical orders, 150;
death of Mrs. Stillman, 154;
deposed by Secretary Fish, revisits Crete after the war, 154;
trip to Omalos, 155;
mission to Constantinople, 175
Strong, captain of ship "Canandaigua," 117
_Stylos_, 78
_Suda Bay_, 61
_Suia_, of Selinos, 92, 95
_Temenos_, 127
_Theriso_, movement against, 72, 73;
occupied, 74;
reoccupied by Cretans, 83, 83, 89
"Ticonderoga," corvette, 61
Tombasis, a Hydriote chief, 31
_Topolia_, 120
Tricou, French consul, succeeds Derché 122;
refused permission to accompany Omar Pasha, 125;
makes a list of atrocities, 137;
despatch, 138
_Tripiti_, 95
Turkish rule in Crete, 26-37
Turkish words in Cretan speech, 17, 18
_Vafé_ 78;
attacked, 81
Veloudaki, Costa, of Sphakia, 81;
surprises Episkopí, 99;
at Krapi, 123
Venetian Republic purchases Crete, 20;
barbarous régime, 20-25
Volunteers distrusted, 82;
behave badly, and are carried home, 94;
Mainote reinforcements, 95;
surrender, 151
_Vrysis_, 55, 123, 132, 133;
held by Egyptians, 63;
threatened by Cretans, 64;
taken, 66;
effect on Greek Government, 68
White Mountains, 73
"Wizard" gunboat, 62, 66;
ordered to Malta, 91
_Xyloscala_, 166
Yennissarli, a Greek chief, 95
_Yerakari_, 106
Zebeques, dance of, 168
Zimbrakaki, commander of volunteers, 81;
joins Coroneos, 89;
attacked by Ali Riza Pasha, 105;
inertness, 106, 133;
at Krapi, 123;
pursued by Omar, 132
_Zurba_, attacked, 73, 149
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, but
variations in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation and accents have been
retained.
In the discussion of language in the Introduction the non standard use
of ς within the words ἑςπέρα, τςιμπούχι, and βίςτατο has been
normalised.
In the Introduction the sentence: The Venetians seem to have regarded
the Cretans much in the same light as the English colonists of America
did the Indians, and, when their wretched state came to the knowledge
of the Senate, they sent commissioners to examine into it, from whose
reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian by Pashley), who
took them from the original documents in the public library of Venice.
has ben amended from:
.....from whose reports I translate some extracts (quoted in Italian
by Pashley), who, from the original documents in the public library of
Venice.
The section "THE YEAR AFTER THE WAR." had no heading within the text.
This has been added.
Index
_Askyphó_(Askyfó), 71, 82, 102, 132 the variant spelling has
been added.
Bondapoulo 78 was Condapoulo in the text. The text has been changed to
correspond to the index.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8" ***
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