Cretan Autonomous State Established - Dec. 9, 1898

The Cretan Autonomous State was established on this day in 1898 under the Julian calendar. By the Gregorian calendar, it was December 21.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and it's December nine.

(00:22):
The Cretan Autonomous State was established on this day in
eighteen under the old style Julian calendar, that was December
twenty one under the Gregorian calendar. This followed a link
the occupation of the island of Crete by the Ottoman
Empire back during the Fourth Crusade. Crete had been sold
to Venice, but the predominantly Greek population largely objected to this,

(00:43):
and the Venetians weren't all that benevolent when it came
to the Greek populations. So the Ottoman Empire concluded that
Crete might welcome them as liberators and fight with them
against Venice. So to that end, the Ottomans invaded Crete
in sixteen forty five. Venice, though, was to term and
to stay in control, and this led to a lengthy

(01:03):
standoff in a twenty two year siege of the city
of Candia before Venice finally ceded the island of Crete
to the Ottomans on September six of sixteen sixty nine.
Fast forward more than two hundred years to eighteen ninety six,
at which point the Ottoman Empire is starting to wane
and numerous other international powers have a vested interest in

(01:25):
making sure that warfare doesn't start in the wake of
this power vacuum. This included Russia, France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany,
and Austria Hungary. All of them had a vested interest
in what was happening on Crete. International team finally convinced
the Ottoman Empire to reform the government of Crete and

(01:46):
to place a Christian governor and a European commission that
would oversee things like police and the courts. But at
this point, Creed's population included both Christians and Muslims, and
while the Christians were delighted at the idea of having
a Christian government in charge, the Muslims were not. This
led to ongoing religiously motivated violence as international powers tried

(02:08):
and failed to put Crete under local control. The Great
Powers had taken for granted that the Ottoman Empire would
ultimately leave Crete, but it wasn't exactly clear to anyone
when or how that would happen. Ultimately, there were only
four nations who still were actively involved in Crete at
this point. That was Russia, France, Italy, and Great Britain.

(02:31):
They divided up the island, placed forces in each of
these four quadrants that they created, and they started searching
for a high commissioner who would take over the island,
and that search started in the spring of perhaps unsurprisingly,
this led to huge amounts of unrest, with local residents
objecting to various aspects of the rule that they were under,

(02:51):
and this ended up in what was known as the
candy At massacre, which started in August under the Julian
calendar or September six under the Gregorian calendar, and we
talked about that on this show on September six, which
is also why some of what we've talked about might
sound a little familiar. As many as eight hundred Christians

(03:13):
on Crete were killed in this massacre, and the aftermath
of the massacre of the British authorities tried to restore order,
tried to bring the perpetrators to justice, and they became
increasingly impatient and frustrated with the Ottoman forces that were
still on the island, the international powers finally ordered the
Ottoman forces to withdraw entirely, although the last of their
force were not removed until they've Eber sixth. That same month, Russia, France,

(03:37):
Italy and Great Britain finally agreed on a High Commissioner
to take over Crete, and that was Prince George of
Greece and Denmark. This is a three year renewable term
for him to act as High Commissioner. He arrived on
December ninth under the Julian calendar, and that's what marked
the beginning of the Cretan autonomous state. The other forces

(03:57):
started to withdraw after the High Commissioner arrived, and while
this did, at least in name, create an autonomous state
of Crete, it also started the process of Crete becoming
increasingly connected to Greece before finally becoming part of the
Nation of Greece. In one note about our next week
of episodes, Christopher hasciotis whose name you have heard as

(04:21):
a researcher on this show before. We'll be filling in
for me as a guest host. This is going to
make sure we still have podcasts over the holidays. Thanks
to Eve's Jeff Cote for her research work on today's show,
and thanks to Ksey Pgraham and Chandler Maze for their
audio work. You can subscribe to This Day in History
Class on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, I Heart Radio app,

(04:41):
and We're alps to get podcast And you can tune
in tomorrow for a massive and unsolved heist