Mustapha immediately retraced his steps to Canéa, and, housing himself
outside the walls, having sworn not to re-enter his capital until the
insurgents had been subdued, called a council to plan measures to
strike a quick blow at the insurrection before the effect of Arkadi
should be felt in the public opinion of Europe. Up to that time the
struggle had seemed to me a hopeless and insane one, and though my
warmest sympathies had been, of course, with the Cretans, as victims
of a monstrous injustice--a sequence of crimes--I had not dared utter
a word of hope or encouragement in reply to all the earnest appeals to
me by the friends of the insurrection. Now, seeing the enthusiasm that
Arkadi excited amongst the insurgents and even the mutis (submitted
Christians), I felt that there was a hope that Christendom would be
compelled to listen to the history being enacted before it on this
sea-girt mountain ridge. That the Pasha also felt this was evident both
from his words and acts. He made new and more tempting offers to the
Sphakiote chiefs, and employed the well-known appliances of Eastern
politics to make friends amongst the insurgents, but with only partial
success. At the same time, he made preparations for another attack
on Sphakia, but this time from the west via Selinos. He, therefore,
leaving Mehmet Pasha to guard Krapi with four or five battalions,
concentrated all his available forces besides, at Alikianu, his _point
de départ_ for the first Theriso campaign. All this country had been
abandoned, and had to be reconquered, particularly Theriso, which,
if unoccupied, would be a menace to his communications with Canéa. At
the same time, a concentration of the volunteers and insurgents took
place in the plain of Omalos, by which alone access is had to Sphakia
from this side. A force of volunteers recently landed were engaged in
a foolish siege of Kissamos, a worthless position to either side, as
it was commanded by the men-of-war, and could not be held if taken;
and the different chiefs of the volunteers were kept ineffective by
dissensions and jealousies amongst themselves, each refusing to obey
any other. Coroneos and Zimbrakakis, however, united their forces to
resist the attack on Omalos. The volunteers, under the command of
Soliotis, a Hellenic officer, made a gallant defence of the position
of Lakus, but were compelled to retreat to the upper ridges which
border Omalos, while Theriso was abandoned before a flank movement of
Mehmet Pasha, obliged temporarily to leave the Apokorona undefended.
Omalos, however, resisted direct attack, and the Pasha moved round by
the passes of Kissamos to the west of the mountains, devastating as he
went, and driving before him all the non-combatants of the country he
passed through. By this time the snow had fallen with unusual severity
of cold for that climate, and the insurgents, although ill-provided
against an inclemency they usually escaped from in the plains below,
were in many respects better off than the troops, who were compelled
to march through ravines which were often mountain torrents in this
rainy season; and as they did not carry tents, that they might move
with greater rapidity, and were often cut off from all communication
with the base of supplies for days together by the rain filling the
roads, at best only bad mule-paths, they suffered prodigiously without
fighting or even the encouragement of the sack of villages. The
Egyptians, clad only in linen which their climate required, perished
by cold and wet in hundreds; pneumonia became an endemic in the army;
and, to add to the misery, the beasts of burden perished under the
hardships, and lined the paths with their corpses.
Mustapha was as merciless a commander as enemy, and, though the
army was suffering extreme misery, he kept a vigilant watch for his
opportunity, and when, after two weeks of fatiguing outpost duty,
waiting in hunger, rain, snow, and frost, the Hellenes who guarded the
difficult pass of St. Irene were frozen and starved into negligence,
he made a dash, one foggy morning, surprised the post, and, taking
possession of the heights crowning the ravine, his army defiled
leisurely over into the valleys of Selinos. The Greeks moved over to
the pass of Krustogherako, which admits to the plain of Omalos from
the Selinos side, and the Pasha, believing a defence ready, encamped
in the still undevastated valleys, and passed some days in burning and
ravaging, destroying vineyards and mulberry-trees wherever they could
be reached. The olive-trees, as the reliance of the future income of
the island, were mostly spared.
Meanwhile, a "moral intervention" was being prepared, which brought
respite to the insurrection and deranged all the plans of the Pasha.
The atrocities of Arkadi had finally impressed public opinion with the
conviction that the old barbarities of the Greek and Turkish wars were
being perpetrated anew; and even the English consul at Canéa became
convinced that barbaric massacre and ravage were being employed as the
means of subduing the spirit of the islanders, and had reported to his
Government certain of these atrocities, remonstrating, at the same
time, to the Commissioner. The reports of those consuls who had by this
time become characterized as the "friends of the insurrection"--viz.,
Colucci (Italian), Dendrinos (Russian), Sacopoulos (Greek), and
myself--had spread through the European journals the news of these
barbarities and excesses to such a degree that remonstrances were
made by the ambassadors at Constantinople, while the clear-headed and
true-hearted Murray had from the beginning, with great justice and
discrimination, measured the facts and manifested the warmest sympathy
with the Cretans. 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. Fortunately, Pym had
learned from Murray, in the few days which elapsed between the arrival
of the _Assurance_ and the departure of the _Wizard_, what was the real
position of affairs, and followed the traditions of his predecessor.
He had, moreover, a certain defiance of red-tape and a feverishness to
distinguish himself which did not always measure carefully the purport
of general orders, and which, perhaps, in battle would have made him
turn a blind eye to a signal of recall, and now disposed him to abandon
on any pretext the cold-blooded neutrality of his government.
Pym soon determined that a very small pretext would suffice to make him
throw himself in the way of a decided intervention in behalf of the
non-combatants, and did not fail to exert all his influence on Dickson
to obtain an official request that he should cruise on the coast in
advance of the Pasha's army, and to "seize every available opportunity
for affording refuge to any Christian in distress who may seek
protection on board his ship," and to convey such refugees to Greece.
Pym had declared to me (and possibly to Dickson) that he should, on his
own responsibility, take such a step if he did not get the requisition
from the consul; and, on leaving for a run to Candia, said that he
should go thence to Selinos and put himself in the way of humanity.
Under these circumstances, Dickson's humanity, further stimulated
by Murray's and Pym's enthusiasm, got the better of his official
prepossessions, and, without waiting for a reply from his Government
to a petition addressed to all the Christian powers to send ships to
save the women and children exposed to such chances as those of Arkadi,
had followed up his remonstrances to the Commissioner with a proposal
to send a ship to pick up the families gathered before the army in its
movement into Selinos. The Commissioner, still under the impression of
the effect produced by recent events on European public opinion, dared
not refuse his consent to such a demand from his best friend, and, it
may be conceived, reluctantly, verbally, and evasively gave it. But
Dickson, too honest and earnest to comprehend the duplicity, took him
literally at his word. As a consequence of all these considerations and
conclusions, the _Assurance_ found herself at Suia of Selinos while
Mustapha was pounding away at the passes, and took three hundred and
fifteen women and children and twenty-five wounded men on board and
transported them to Peiræus.
No act could have been purer or more free from ulterior views than
this of Pym's--an expression of what not only he, but all of his
fellow-officers of the English navy whom I saw on the station, with one
exception, felt--the compassionate desire to stand between women and
children and the devilish policy which butchered them to terrify their
husbands and fathers into submission. I saw Pym and his officers on
their return from this voyage, and not one of them but would have given
a month's pay to have gone on another similar trip. Their Government,
in passing judgment on the act, could not condemn it, but to two
parties, unfortunately, it was a political movement--the Hellenes,
who insisted on considering it an intervention in _their_ favor, and
so compelled the English Government to forbid its repetition; and the
French, who regarded it as a manœuvre to block the game of the Viceroy.
The French agent who afterwards succeeded Derché assured me that they
had the most conclusive evidence that Captain Pym had orders from
London to give the insurrection a jog, because the annexation to Egypt
would have been the result of the failure of the insurrection at this
juncture, and that, although Pym was immediately recalled and, to all
intents and purposes, disgraced, and I believe retired on account of
his venture, he was only so in appearance, and really had been rewarded
for his apparent punishment.
There were, at this time, two Italian corvettes, an Austrian frigate
and gunboat, and a French gunboat, besides the Russian frigate, all
of which, except the Frenchman, had, or were reported to have, orders
to follow the lead of any other Power in rendering assistance to the
non-combatants, and most of the commanders were anxious to follow Pym,
but their delay in learning of his venture, and the quick disapproval
of it, deterred all from intervention, and while correspondence was
going on the war seemed suspended. It appeared finally to be decided
that no one should imitate the English commander. The insurrection
seemed on the point of collapsing, through the severity of the winter
and the discouragement of the Cretans. 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. A portion of them
accepted the proposition on condition that they should be sent on
European ships, and the Vice-Commissioner called a council of those
consuls whose governments had naval representatives in Cretan waters,
to propose that their ships should go to receive the disaffected
volunteers, but with the condition that no non-combatants or Cretans
should be accepted. None of the commanders were willing to accept
the mission on these terms, except the French, and the gunboat which
he commanded went, therefore, to Loutro, a port of Sphakia (the Port
Phœnix of St. Paul), and embarked four hundred and eighty men, who were
landed at Peiræus, where they were received with violence and insults
by the excited populace, and some barely escaped paying the last
penalty for their defection.