CRETE. 



should be maintained. He promised to appoint 

 a Christian Governor with the approval of the 

 powers, urging, however, that a Turkish subject be 

 selected for the post. 



The Christian inhabitants of the cities, who 

 formed the bulk of the population, were fugitives 

 from their homes, living on the charity of their 

 Hellenic sympathizers in the Greek islands and the 

 towns of the mainland. The Cretan towns were 

 full of refugee Mohammedans who had been driven 

 from their farms, now devastated or occupied by 

 Christian insurants. Their olive groves and 

 buildings were destroyed, their land was tilled by 

 others, and the cattle "that they had brought away 

 with them were starving, being restricted to the 

 herbage that grew within the narrow limits of the 

 international cordon. Sometimes, with the con- 

 nivance of the Turkish military, they drove their 

 herds outside the limits, and then they usually came 

 into conflict with the armed insurgents who sur- 

 rounded the occupied zone. They occasionally 

 broke through the lines to raid undefended vil- 

 lages and farms in the surrounding country, and 

 they broke into the deserted houses of the Christian 

 citizens to steal whatever articles they could use 

 or sell. They slept miserably on the floors of the 

 mosques and schoolhouses, and for the most part 

 subsisted on the scanty doles that the Sultan orig- 

 inally, and afterward the European governments, 

 gave to be distributed among them. The Chris- 

 tians were permitted to enter the towns only when 

 they arrived by sea. The International Council of 

 Admirals would not permit access by land until 

 the Christians should allow the Moslems to visit 

 their properties in the interior. Small parties of 

 Moslems were conducted occasionally to their es- 

 tates outside the military cordons by European 

 troops, and similarly Christians were allowed to 

 visit their houses in the towns under escort. The 

 Christian insurgents had full possession of the 

 rural districts, and, except when interrupted by 

 the political agitation and frequent calls of their 

 leaders to arms, tilled the soil and gathered the 

 crops as well as could be expected amid the pre- 

 vailing demoralization and anarchy. They lived 

 on the fruits not only of their own lands, but of 

 those of their Mohammedan neighbors, but suffered 

 from the ruin that had been wrought in the civil 

 conflict and from the lack of many things that are 

 in ordinary times supplied from abroad, especially 

 sulphur for dusting tne vines to save them from the 

 phylloxera. 



The ambassadors at Constantinople formulated a 

 scheme of autonomy modeled after the organic 

 statute of Eastern Roumelia, the Sultan to retain 

 political and military control and to keep a garrison 

 m Crete. To this the Cretan Assembly vigorously 

 objected, saying that it would leave Crete only a 

 privileged province under the Sultan's sovereignty 

 instead of creating a separate government under 

 his suzerainty. The question of who was to carry 

 autonomy into effect as Governor-General was of 

 no less practical importance than that of what par- 

 ticular form of autonomy should be established. 

 Numu Droz. a Swiss statesman, had been proposed, 

 afterward Col. Scliiiffer. an officer of the Luxem- 

 burg army, and then Bozo Petrovich, a Montene- 

 grin prince. Just before the opening of the year 

 the Russian Government suggested Prince George 

 of Greece. He was formally proposed later, and 

 although he was willing to renounce his claims of 

 succession to the Greek throne, and his candidature 

 was supported by Great Britain, France, and Italy, 

 the Porte strenuously protested against the choice 

 as being only a preliminary to the annexation of the 

 island ti> Greree, and was upheld by Austria-Hun- 

 gary and Germany. The Germans, who were not 



before represented in the force of occupation, sent 

 the cruiser " Oldenburg," from which a detachment 

 of sailors was landed at Canea on Jan. 7. The Cre- 

 tan Assembly, which had called for the instantaneous 

 withdrawal of the Turkish troops, declared that, if 

 the powers considered the immediate and simulta- 

 neous evacuation impossible, it would not object to a 

 gradual withdrawal, provided that the great powers 

 guaranteed complete evacuation within a short speci- 

 fied period. The situation at Candia, where there 

 were 30.000 starving Mohammedan refugees, became 

 so serious that the admirals of the fleet determined 

 to send detachments of all the international troops 

 to re-enforce the English garrison, now reduced to 

 about 600. The cordon, 20 miles long, was guarded 

 by the 3,000 Turkish regulars, who were unable or 

 unwilling to prevent occasional forays. Condi- 

 tions improved, however, after a band of Bashi- 

 bazouks that had sallied out to commit depreda- 

 tions was deported. The Turkish Governor of 

 Candia, Chefki Bey, was replaced, at the request of 

 the admirals, by Edhem Pasha. The Christian in- 

 surgents, who gathered in force rouad the outposts 

 as a demonstration against the ambassador's plan 

 of autonomy and in favor of the appointment of 

 the Greek prince to be their ruler, frequently at- 

 tacked the Turkish military cordon. The Assembly 

 complained of the indifference or the impotence of 

 the Europeans, who had not succeeded in prevent- 

 ing raids on the Christians or in securing for them 

 free communication with the largest and richest 

 town in the island. The Deputies gathered at 

 Plakouves, in Akrotiri, on Feb. 1, and unanimously 

 appealed to the powers to give them Prince George 

 as Governor-General. A Turkish circular to the 

 powers on Feb. 24 called attention to the miserable 

 condition of the Mohammedan Cretans, who were 

 absolutely at the mercy of the Christians, and urged 

 the governments to terminate the evils by execut- 

 ing their own remedial scheme of autonomy, long 

 before accepted by the Sultan. It contained a 

 veiled threat to hold on to Thessaly until the 

 Cretan question was settled. The German Govern- 

 ment proposed to intrust the introduction of the 

 organic statute to a commissioner of the powers. 

 The question of the governor-generalship remained 

 in abeyance until after the Greek loan to secure the 

 deliverance of Thessaly from Turkish occupation 

 had been guaranteed by England, France, and Rus- 

 sia. When Russia then pressed the Ottoman Gov- 

 ernment to accept Prince George, the German ves- 

 sel, on March 16, was withdrawn from Cretan 

 waters. Herr von Billow, who had recently assumed 

 charge of the Foreign Office in Berlin, said that 

 Germany had played only the flute in the Euro- 

 pean concert. If the Greeks were to be rewarded 

 for their efforts to disturb the peace of Europe and 

 the Cretans for their , rebellion against their lawful 

 sovereign, the German Government, which had not 

 a sufficient stake in the Eastern question to risk 

 the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier, would not 

 gainsay the will of the other powers, but did not 

 care to incur any share in the trouble and expense 

 of pacifying the island under such conditions. 

 The Austro-Hungarian Government a month later 

 recalled its squadron from the blockade and ts 

 troops at Canea and Kisamo. Neither Germany 

 nor Austria withdrew definitely from the European 

 concert. The British Government, which Lord 

 Salisbury had declared willing to accept any candi- 

 date on whom the powers were ready to agree, pro- 

 vided he were not an Englishman nor a Turk, sup- 

 ported warmly the candidature of Prince George. In 

 the middle of March the Porte sent out another 

 circular asking the co-operation of the powers in 

 the establishment of Cretan autonomy. On March 

 23 the Porte proposed as Governor Alexander Kar- 



