Cretan State

For the medieval republic, see Sfakians.

Cretan State Κρητική Πολιτεία
Autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty
← 1898–1913 →
Flag Coat of arms
Map of Crete (1861)
Capital	Chania
Language(s)	Greek
Religion	Greek Orthodoxy, Sunni Islam
Government	Constitutional binational state with appointed High Commissioner
High Commissioner
- 1898-1906	Prince George of Greece
- 1906-1913	Alexandros Zaimis
History
- Intervention by the Great Powers	1897
- Established	9 December 1898
- Unilateral union with Greece proclaimed	24 September 1908
- Treaty of London	30 May 1913
- Official act of Union with Greece	1 December 1913
Area
- 1907	8,336 km2 (3,219 sq mi)
Population
- 1907 est.	310,000
Density	37.2 /km2  (96.3 /sq mi)

The Cretan State (Greek: Κρητική Πολιτεία, Kritiki Politia) was established in 1898, following the intervention by the Great Powers on the island of Crete. In 1897 an insurrection in Crete led the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Greece, which led the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia to intervene on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire could no longer maintain control. It was the prelude of the island's final annexation to the Kingdom of Greece, which occurred de facto in 1908 and de jure in 1913.

History

Background

For more details on this topic, see History of Crete.

The island of Crete, an Ottoman possession since the end of the Cretan War (1645–1669), was inhabited by a mostly Greek-speaking population, whose majority was Christian. During and after the Greek War of Independence, the Christians of the island rebelled several times against external Ottoman rule, pursuing union with Greece. These were brutally subdued, but secured some concessions from the Ottoman government under the pressure of European public opinion. In 1878, the Pact of Halepa established the island as an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty, until the Ottomans reneged on that agreement in 1889.

The collapse of the Pact heightened tensions in the island, leading to another rebellion in 1895, which greatly expanded in 1896–1897 to cover most of the island. Nationalist secret societies and a fervently irredentist public opinion forced the Greek government to send military forces to the island, provoking a war with the Ottoman Empire. Although most of Crete came under the control of the Greek forces, the unprepared Greek army was crushed by the Ottomans, who occupied Thessaly. The war was ended by the intervention of the Great Powers, who forced the Greek contingent to withdraw from Crete and the Ottoman army to stop its advance. In the Treaty of Constantinople the Ottoman government promised to implement the provisions of the Halepa Pact.

Establishment of the Cretan State

By March 1897, the Great Powers decided to restore order by governing the island temporarily through a committee of four admirals who remained in charge until the arrival of Prince George of Greece as the first High Commissioner (Greek: Ὕπατος Ἁρμοστής, Hýpatos Harmostēs) of an autonomous Crete, effectively detached from the Ottoman Empire, on 9 December 1898. On the 25th of August in 1898, a Turkish mob massacred hundreds of Cretan Greeks, the British Consul and 17 British soldiers. As a result, the Turkish forces were expelled from the island by the Great Powers in November 1898, and an autonomous Cretan State, under Ottoman suzerainty, garrisoned by an international military force, and with its High Commissioner provided by Greece, was founded.^[1]

Internal turmoil - The Therisos Revolt

For more details on this topic, see Theriso revolt.

The Cretan Executive Council 1898. Venizelos is second from left.

On 13 December 1898, George of Greece arrived as High Commissioner for a three-year tenure. On 27 April 1899, an Executive Committee was created, in which a young, Athens-trained lawyer from Chania, Eleftherios Venizelos, participated as Minister of Justice. By 1900, Venizelos and the Prince had developed differences over domestic policies, as well as the issue of Enosis, the union with Greece.

Five drachmae coin of the Cretan State (1901)

Venizelos resigned in early 1901, and for the next three years, he and his supporters waged a bitter political struggle with the Prince's faction, leading to a political and administrative deadlock on the island. Eventually, in March 1905, Venizelos and his supporters gathered in the village of Therisos, in the hills near Chania, constituted a "Revolutionary Assembly", demanded political reforms and declared the "political union of Crete with Greece as a single free constitutional state" in a manifesto delivered to the consuls of the Great Powers. The Cretan Gendarmerie remained loyal to the Prince, but numerous deputies joined the revolt, and despite the Powers' declaration of military law on 18 July, their military forces did not move against the rebels.

On 15 August, the Cretan Assembly voted for the proposals of Venizelos, and the Great Powers brokered an agreement, whereby Prince George would resign and a new constitution created. In the 1906 elections the pro-Prince parties took 38,127 votes while pro-Venizelos parties took 33,279 votes, but in September 1906 Prince George was replaced by former Greek prime minister Alexandros Zaimis and left the island. In addition, Greek officers came to replace the Italians in the organization of the Gendarmerie, and the withdrawal of the foreign troops began, leaving Crete de facto under Greek control.

Union with Greece

In 1908, taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey as well as the timing of Zaimis's vacation away from the island, the Cretan deputies declared unilateral union with Greece,^[2] but this act was not recognized by Greece until October 1912 and internationally until 1913, after the Balkan Wars.

By the Treaty of London, Sultan Mehmed V relinquished his formal rights to the island. In December, the Greek flag was raised at the Firka Fortress in Chania, with Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine in attendance, and Crete was formally unified with mainland Greece. The Muslim minority of Crete initially remained on the island but was later relocated to Turkey under the general population exchange agreed to in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne between Turkey and Greece.

References

1. ^ Kitromilides M. Paschalis (ed) Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship, Edinburgh University Press, 2008 p. 68
2. ^ Ion, Theodore P., "The Cretan Question," The American Journal of International Law, April, 1910, pp. 276-284

External links

• Enosis: The Union of Crete with Greece

See also

• Eleftherios Venizelos
• Ottoman Crete
• Cretan Gendarmerie
• List of Greek countries and regions

Coordinates: 35°31′N 24°01′E / 35.517°N 24.017°E / 35.517; 24.017