Ottoman Crete
Ottoman Crete Eyālet-i Girīt (1667–1867) Vilayet-i Girit (1867–1898) | |||||||||
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1667–1898 | |||||||||
Flag | |||||||||
Capital | Kandiye (1669–1850) Kanea (1850–1898) 35°20′N 25°8′E / 35.333°N 25.133°E | ||||||||
Wali | |||||||||
• 1693-1695 | Çelebi Ismail Pasha | ||||||||
• 1898 | Shakir Pasha | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
• Established | 1667 | ||||||||
1898 | |||||||||
Area | |||||||||
1876[1] | 7,800 km2 (3,000 sq mi) | ||||||||
Population | |||||||||
• 1870[2] | 280,000 | ||||||||
• 1876[1] | 220,000 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Today part of | Greece |
The island of
Crete took part in the
History
During the Cretan War (1645–1669), Venice was pushed out of Crete by the Ottoman Empire. Most of the island fell in the first years of the war, but the capital Candia (Heraklion) held out during a long siege, which lasted from 1648 to 1669, possibly the second-longest siege in history, two years shorter than the First Siege of Ceuta. The last Venetian outposts, the island fortresses of Souda, Gramvousa and Spinalonga, fell in the Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718).
Rebellions against Ottoman rule
There were significant rebellions against Ottoman rule, particularly in Sfakia.
The Greek War of Independence began in 1821, and Cretan participation was extensive. An uprising by Christians met with a fierce response from the Ottoman authorities and the execution of several bishops who were regarded as ringleaders. Between 1821 and 1828, the island was the scene of repeated hostilities. The Muslims were driven into the large fortified towns on the north coast, and it would appear that as many as 60% of them died from plague or famine there. The Cretan Christians also suffered severely by losing around 21% of their population. During the great massacre of Heraklion on 24 June 1821, remembered in the area as "the great ravage" ("ο μεγάλος αρπεντές", "o megalos arpentes"), the Turks also killed the metropolite of Crete, Gerasimos Pardalis, and five more bishops.[5]
As Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, had no army of his own available, he was forced to seek the aid of his rebellious vassal and rival, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, who sent an expedition to the island. In 1825, Muhammad Ali's son, Ibrahim, landed in Crete and began to massacre the majority-Greek community.[6]
Britain decided that Crete should not become part of the new Kingdom of Greece on its independence in 1830, evidently for fear that it would become a centre of piracy, as it had often been in the past, or a Russian naval base in the East Mediterranean. Rather than being included in the new Greek state, Crete was administered by an Albanian from Egypt, Mustafa Naili Pasha (known as Mustafa Pasha), whose rule attempted to create a synthesis of Muslim landowners and the emergent Christian commercial classes.
Though subsequent Greek nationalist historiography has portrayed the Pasha as an oppressive figure, as reported by British and French consular observers, he seems to have been generally cautious and pro-British and to have tried harder to win the support of the Cretan Christians (having married the daughter of a priest and allowed her to remain Christian) than the Cretan Muslims. In 1834, however, a Cretan committee was set up in Athens to work for the union of the island with Greece.
In 1840, Egypt was forced by Palmerston to return Crete to direct Ottoman rule. Mustafa Pasha angled unsuccessfully to become a semi-independent Prince of Greece, but the Christian Cretans instead of supporting him, rebelled and once more drove the Muslims temporarily into siege in the towns. An Anglo-Ottoman naval operation, restored control in the island and Mustafa Pasha was confirmed as the governor of the island but under command from Constantinople. He remained there until 1851 when he was summoned to Constantinople, where, despite relatively advanced age (his early fifties) he had a successful career, he became grand vizier several times.
After Greece had achieved its independence, Crete became an object of contention, as the Christian part of its population revolted
The uprising, which lasted for three years, involved volunteers from Greece and other European countries, where it was viewed with considerable sympathy. Despite early successes of the rebels, who quickly confined the Ottomans to the northern towns, the uprising failed. Ottoman
During the Congress of Berlin in the summer of 1878, there was a further rebellion, which was halted quickly by the intervention of the British and the adaptation of the 1867-8 Organic Law into a constitutional settlement, known as the Pact of Halepa. Crete became a semi-independent parliamentary state within the Ottoman Empire under an Ottoman governor, who had to be a Christian. A number of the senior "Christian Pashas", including Photiades Pasha and Kostis Adosidis Pasha, ruled the island in the 1880s and presided over a parliament in which liberals and conservatives contended for power. Disputes between the two powers, however, led to a further insurgency in 1889 and the collapse of the Pact of Halepa arrangements. The international powers, disgusted at what seemed to be factional politics, allowed the Ottoman authorities to send troops to the island and to restore order but did not anticipate that Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II would use that as a pretext to end the Halepa Pact Constitution and to rule the island by martial-law. Thatbaction led to international sympathy for the Cretan Christians and to a loss of any remaining acquiescence among them for continued Ottoman rule.
When a small insurgency began in September 1895, it spread quickly, and by the summer of 1896 the Ottoman forces had lost military control of most of the island.
The
The International Squadron forced the Ottoman troops to depart Crete in November 1898. Rural Turks and
Demographics
Ottomans never
Administrative divisions
Sanjaks of Ottoman Crete in the 17th century:[20]
Sanjaks, circa 1876:[21]
References
Notes
- ^ a b Pavet de Courteille, Abel (1876). État présent de l'empire ottoman (in French). J. Dumaine. pp. 107–108.
- ^ Reports by Her Majesty's secretaries of embassy and legation on the ... Great Britain. Foreign office. 1870. p. 176.
- ^ "Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Geonames.de. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
- ^ a b c Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, p. 157, at Google Books By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters
- ^ Dr. Detorakis, Theocharis "Brief Historical Review of the Holy Archdiocese of Crete"
- ^ Peacock, A History of Modern Europe, p. 220
- ^ McTiernan, pp. 13-23.
- ^ McTiernan, p. 28.
- ^ Kitromilides M. Paschalis (ed) Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship, Edinburgh University Press, 2008 p. 68
- ^ Enosis: The Union of Crete with Greece Archived 2012-04-25 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ McTiernan, pp. 35-39.
- ^ P. Hooper, Thesis, University of New Mexico p. 27
- ^ Greene Molly (2000) A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean, Princeton University Press. p. 87.
- ^ Barbara J. Hayden, The Settlement History of the Vrokastro Area and Related Studies, vol. 2 of Reports on the Vrokastro Area, Eastern Crete, p. 299
- ^ "Black Cretans and 1922". 5 May 2022.
- ^ "Made in Greece: Studies in Popular Music [1 ed.] 113881198X, 9781138811980, 9781138489523, 9781315749075". 17 September 0410.
- ^ Nabil Matar. Islam in Britain, 1558-1685. Cambridge University Press. p. 25.
- ^ Excerpts from William Yale, The Near East: A modern history by (Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1958)
- ^ A. Lily Macrakis, Cretan Rebel: Eleftherios Venizelos in Ottoman Crete, Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1983.
- ^ Narrative of travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the ..., Volume 1, p. 90, at Google Books By Evliya Çelebi, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall
- ^ Pavet de Courteille, Abel (1876). État présent de l'empire ottoman (in French). J. Dumaine. pp. 91–96.
Bibliography
- Chidiroglou, Pavlos (1980). "Εξισλαμισμοί στην Κρήτη" [Islamizations in Crete]. Πεπραγμένα του Δ' Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου, Ηράκλειο, 29 Αυγούστου - 3 Δεκεμβρίου 1976. Τόμος Γ′ Νεώτεροι χρόνοι (in Greek). Athens: University of Crete. pp. 336–350.
- Detorakis, Theocharis E. (1986). Ιστορία της Κρήτης [History of Crete] (in Greek). Athens. )
- McTiernan, Mick, A Very Bad Place Indeed For a Soldier. The British involvement in the early stages of the European Intervention in Crete. 1897 - 1898, King's College, London, September 2014.