William James Stillman

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The system of farming in operation is not only vexa [Pg 180] tious 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 80] 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" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 115] devoted to it, and the funds of the insurgent committee at Athens were fed directly from the national treasury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [Pg 158] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”