The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8. William James Stillman
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