THE CRETAN INSURRECTION
Returned to Canea, I found that the Cretan assembly had begun its
deliberations at Omalos. The real agitation began (ten days after my
arrival) on its coming down to Boutzounaria, a little village on the
edge of the plain of Canea, where it could negotiate with the governor
and communicate with the consuls. There was a plateau from which the
plain could be overlooked, so that no surprise was possible, and on
which was the spring from which Canea got its water, an aqueduct from
the pre-Roman times bringing it to the city. It was cut by Metellus
when he besieged Canea, and at all the crises of Cretan history had
been contested by the two parties in its wars. Long deliberation was
required to formulate the petition to the Sultan, but it was finally
completed, and a solemn deputation of gray-headed captains of villages
brought to each of the consuls a copy, and consigned the original to
the governor for transmission to Constantinople. He, in accepting it,
ordered the assembly to disperse and wait at home for the answer.
He had on a previous occasion tried the same device, and when the
assembly had dispersed he had arrested the chiefs, called a counter
assemblage of his partisans, and got up a counter petition, which he
sent to the Sultan. They, therefore, refused this time to separate.
The reverence of the Cretans for their traditional procedure was such
that when the assembly had dissolved, its authority, and that of the
persons composing it, lapsed, and the deputies had no right to hope
for obedience if they called on the population to rise. The assembly
would have to be again convened, elected, and organized in order to
exercise any authority.
As the plan of the pasha was to provoke a conflict, he ordered
the troops out, and called a meeting of the consuls, to whom he
communicated his intention of dispersing the assembly by force. As
this meant fighting, the consuls opposed it, with the exception of
Derché, the French consul, who took the lead in approving the pasha's
proposals. The English consul, Dickson, an extremely honest and humane
man, but tied by his instructions to act with his French colleague,
could only say that the assembly thus far had acted in strict
accordance with its firman rights, and he hoped that they would be
respected, but he did not join in the opposition with the rest of us.
Colucci, the Italian, the youngest of the consular body, said that he
had information that the committee of the assembly had expressed their
willingness to disperse on receiving assurance that they would not, as
in the former case, be molested for the action they had taken; and as
they had committed no illegal act, he considered this their due. His
excellency dodged the suggestion, and, rising, was about to dismiss
the meeting, when, seeing that nothing had been done to avert the
collision, I arose and formally protested against the attempt to
disperse the assembly by force, and against any implied consent of
the consular body to the programme he had announced. The Italian, the
Russian, and one or two of the other consuls followed, supporting my
protest, and the pasha, disconcerted by the unexpected demonstration
against him, sat down again, and we renewed the discussion, when
Dickson said that what he had said was implied in the position, and
that as the assembly had done nothing to deserve persecution, it could
not be supposed that they would be subjected to it, and he regarded
the assurance of immunity as uncalled for. And so the conference broke
up, leaving me in the position of the defender of Cretan liberties,
but the troops were not sent out, and the report spread through the
island that the pasha and the consuls were at loggerheads.
The real reason for the insistence on the formal promise being made to
the consuls was that a list of the agitators indicated for arrest had
been found by the daughter of the Greek secretary of the pasha, in
which, amongst the names of the persons to be arrested, was her lover,
to whom she gave the list. It was possible even then that the Cretans
would have submitted but for the influence of two Greek agents in the
camp of the assembly. These were one Dr. Ioannides and a priest called
Parthenios Kelaïdes, a patriotic Cretan, but long resident in Greece.
These urged the assembly to extreme measures, and promised support
from Greece. When, later, hostilities broke out, Parthenios went into
the ranks and fought bravely, but Dr. Ioannides disappeared from the
scene. The next device of Ismael was to call the Mussulmans of the
interior into the fortresses, and when we protested against this as
dangerous and utterly uncalled for, the pasha sent a counter order;
but the bearers of it met the unfortunate Mussulmans by the way,
having abandoned everything, thrown their silkworms to the fowls, and
left their crops ungathered, and being ready to vent their hostility
on the innocent Christian population, whom they made responsible for
the disaster. The call to come in was then renewed, and the entire
Mussulman population gathered in the three fortresses of Canea,
Candia, and Retimo. A panic on the part of the Christians followed,
and all the vessels sailing for the Greek islands were crowded with
fugitives. The pasha called for troops from Constantinople, though no
violence had been even threatened, and several battalions of Turkish
regulars with eight thousand Egyptians arrived and disembarked. With
one of the battalions was a dervish fanatic, carrying a green banner,
who spread his praying carpet in every public place in Canea,
preaching extermination of the infidels. I took a witness and went to
the general in chief, Osman Pasha, and protested against this outrage,
and the dervish was at once shipped off to Constantinople.
The military chiefs were reasonable, and the Christian population
totally unprepared and averse to hostilities, but the plan at
Constantinople was, as we soon found, to provoke an insurrection in
order to justify a transfer of the island to Egypt. Later we had from
Constantinople all the details, but for the moment we could only
conjecture the Egyptian collusion in the plan by the presence of
Schahin Pasha, the general-in-chief of the Egyptian army, and minister
of war of the viceroy, and the very important part taken by him in the
ensuing negotiations. He came in great state and pomp, and immediately
assumed the lead in the negotiations with the islanders, which were
carried on in secret and through Derché. Ismael Pasha, who was
probably not in the Egyptian secret, had another plan of his own,
equally secret, and the two conflicted. Ismael, as we later learned,
intended to raise and subdue an insurrection, which he hoped to
do easily, and then, on the strength of his Greek blood and the
protection he had at Stamboul, to be named the Prince of Crete. The
Egyptian plan was, on the contrary, conciliatory, and depended mainly
on direct bribery and the promise of concessions to the Cretans. It
had been, as I learned from Constantinople, concocted between the
Turkish government, the Marquis de Moustier, the French ambassador,
and the viceroy, and proposed to coax or hire the Cretans to ask for
the Egyptian protection, when, on the application of the plebiscite,
the island was to be transferred to the viceroy on the payment of
£400,000 down and a tribute of £80,000. The French diplomatic agent in
Egypt had arranged the details in consultation with Derché, but none
would fit. Derché thought that all the Cretan chiefs could be bought,
and the Egyptian pasha began by distributing £16,000 amongst the
churches, mosques, and schools, without forgetting handsome baksheesh
to the leading chiefs, who accepted the money, but promised nothing,
and made no responsive move. Ismael, meanwhile, was doing his best to
provoke hostilities, and finally succeeded in getting up a collision
between Cretan Christians and Mussulmans at Candanos, in the
southwestern part of the island.
As the Egyptian overtures did not seem to succeed, Schahin Pasha
consulted some of the principal merchants of Canea, and was informed
that Derché was of no weight or influence, and that if he wanted
to move the Cretans he must do so through the American or Russian
consuls; whereupon he came to me and frankly told me the whole plan,
and that the viceroy proposed to build a great arsenal and naval
station at Suda, and fortify the bay, the work being already planned
by French engineers. He promised me whatever compensation I should
ask if I could help him out. I sent the details to our minister
at Constantinople, who laid them before Lord Lyons, the English
ambassador, who, I presume, put his foot on the whole affair, as it
was never heard of more in the island; but the condition of active
hostilities which had supervened at Candanos continued.
An Egyptian division of 4000 men had been posted at Vrysis,--a very
important point in the Apokorona, near the position to which the
committee of the assembly had retreated,--under a pretext of Schahin
Pasha that it would facilitate negotiations and protect the committee.
The agitation increased, and isolated murders began to take place at
various points. The exodus of the Christians to Greece went on, and of
the poorer class, who had not the means of emigrating, great numbers
took refuge at the friendly consulates, chiefly the Italian, as my
premises were very small and offered little shelter. Multitudes also
fled to the mountain, pursued by the Mussulman rabble, and many were
killed on the plain in their flight. I had taken a little house in
Kalepa (a suburb of Canea where most of the consuls lived) adjoining
that of the Greek and near that of the Italian consul, whose wife,
being an American, strengthened the alliance which held good between
us to the end. The Mussulman populace, already supplied with arms and
ammunition _ad libitum_, chafed at being confined within the cities,
for the pasha, aware of the danger of an open outbreak at the capital,
had several times shut the gates to prevent a _sortie en masse_ of the
rabble intent on attacking the consulates, for we were now known as
divided into two parties; the Russian, the Italian, the Greek, and
myself friendly to the Cretans, and Derché and Dickson to the pasha;
the Austrian and Swedish completing the corps,--both old men, the
latter having witnessed the insurrection of 1827-30,--taking little
part in the discussions. The Russian, Dendrinos, a Greek by race and
also an old man, was of a timidity which prevented him from taking any
initiative even in discussion, while he was intensely active in the
intrigues which kept up a running accompaniment to the fight between
the pashas.
I had not long before received a present from my brother of some
samples of a new revolver and breech-loading hunting rifles, with
ammunition, some of which I had, at his request, given Schahin Pasha,
as they were novelties to him. With the rest I provided for the
defense of my house, barricaded the windows with mattresses,
took another cavass guaranteed as faithful by my old one,--Hadji
Houssein,--put a rifle and a box of cartridges at each window, besides
organizing, with Colucci, a strong patrol of Cretans from the refugees
in the consulate, to watch the roads, and waited events. We had
written urgently for the dispatch of a man-of-war of one of the
European powers, without the protection of which there was imminent
danger that an accident might precipitate a fight, and all the
friendly consuls be murdered. In this request Derché and Dickson
refused to join, on the ground that the presence of a man-of-war of a
Christian power (we had plenty of Turkish at Suda) might encourage the
Christian Cretans. These on their side gathered, with such arms as
they had, to protect the committee, sitting in the Apokorona, and face
to face with the Turkish-Egyptian troops, a movement of whom forward
would at once bring on the collision we were working to prevent and
Ismael and Derché to bring on, but which was really prevented by the
discord between Ismael and Schahin. The irregulars, proud of their new
rifles, were firing in every direction, and one heard balls whistling
through the air, falling on the roofs. On one occasion, when my wife,
with other ladies of the consular circle, was walking between Canea
and Kalepa, some of the Mussulmans amused themselves by firing as near
their heads as it was safe to do. I begged Laura to take the children
and go to Syra until the troubles were over, but she refused, saying
that the women gathered around the friendly consulates, seeing
her yielding to the panic, would lose all courage and fly to the
mountains.
We were then at the end of August, 1866. My vice-consul lived in the
city and provided for our communications, and when I had to go to the
konak I went armed, and with a cavass also armed _cap-à-pie_, but I
received several warnings not to be out after nightfall, as the Turks
had decided to kill me, though my known and often ostentatiously
displayed skill with the revolver made them timid in any attempt in
broad daylight, lest if their first shot failed I might have the
second.
Weeks passed. The nervous strain became very great. I found myself
continually going unconsciously to my balcony, which commanded a
wide range out to sea, telescope in hand, to see if the sail so long
implored was in sight, though five minutes before I had seen nothing.
Finally there came a loathing at the sight of the masts of a steamer
on the horizon, feeling that it would be only a Turkish man-of-war.
My children, for months, did not pass the threshold, though Laura
insisted on showing her indifference to the danger by walking out; and
one night when some mischievous Mussulmans started a cry of "Death to
the Christians," in the streets of Kalepa, and the entire Christian
population in a few minutes were at our doors, beating to be admitted,
the cavasses refusing to open without orders, she had flown to the
door in her night-dress and thrown it open to the crowd, who passed
the rest of the night sitting on the floor of the consulate. The
sentinel at the city gates, whose duty it was to salute as I passed,
turned his face the other way, with a muttered "Dog of a Christian,"
on which I called back Hadji Houssein, who was marching in front of
me, and, ordering him to look the soldier well in the face, so that he
might remember him, sent him directly to the governor to repeat what
had passed, and demand summary punishment for the insult. I was
informed that the man had six weeks of prison. I don't believe he had
a day, but the insults were stopped, which was what I wanted. Of those
weeks of intense, prolonged anxiety the impression remains indelible
to this day.
The relief from the tension, grown almost unendurable, came with the
arrival at Suda of the Psyche, with Admiral Lord Clarence Paget,
direct from Constantinople, to inform us that the Arethusa frigate had
been ordered to Crete. If the Psyche had been a reprieve the Arethusa
was a pardon. The hilarious blue-jackets flying over the plains of
Crete brought all the Mussulman world to its senses, and we took down
our barricades; but for the poor Cretans there was no change,--the
Turks were so fully persuaded that England was with them that the
severities towards the Christians underwent no amelioration, unless
it be that the ostentatious brutality ceased, as the chiefs knew that
they must keep up appearances. We attended service on Sunday on board
the Arethusa and stayed to luncheon, in the midst of which an orderly
came down and whispered to Captain MacDonald, on which he turned
to me, saying, "If you would like to see something pleasant, Mr.
Stillman, you may go on deck." I reached the deck just in time to see
the Ticonderoga round the point of the Suda island, entering Suda Bay.
Commodore Steedman, her commander, was an old friend, and, hearing at
Trieste of the insurrection, came on his own initiative to give me the
support my government had not thought worth its while to accord me.
He stayed a few days and sailed direct for Constantinople, which so
impressed the authorities that I was no longer annoyed. The Arethusa
was followed a few days later by the Wizard,--a small gunboat which
could lie in Canea harbor,--where, for the next few months, its
commander, Murray, was our sole and sufficient protector. In him and
his successors I learned to honor the British navy as a force in
civilization whose efficiency few not situated as we were can
understand. I have ever since been ready to take off my hat to an
English sailor.
Meanwhile the dissension between Schahin and Ismael intensified. The
Egyptian wanted a show of force with effective conciliation, hoping
still to effect his object of bringing the Cretans to him, and he
looked to the consular body for support, while Ismael was urging on
the collision, hoping to defeat the Egyptian plan. We were constantly
doing all in our power to lead the Cretans to conciliation and
submission, though the hotheads among them were indignant with us.
I found on my table one morning a message written in fair English,
saying that if I continued to oppose the Cretans, I should lose my
influence; to which I replied by a messenger, who knew the provenance
of the message, that I was indifferent to my influence if it did not
help to keep peace. The committee insisted on the withdrawal of the
Egyptian troops from Vrysis, where they offered constant danger of a
collision. This request we urged on Schahin, and he asked permission
of the governor, who replied by withdrawing the Turkish division which
had supported him.
At this juncture the pressure of Ismael had produced a serious fight
at Candanos, where the Mussulmans made a sortie and were defeated.
Ismael then called on Schahin for a battalion of his troops to support
the garrison of Selinos. Schahin sent for me to advise him. My advice
was that, as the matter was an affair between the Cretans of the two
religions, it was not advisable for him to identify himself with
either party, on which he refused the battalion. But the testiness of
the Cretans on the other side developed a collision where none need
have occurred. They insisted on the withdrawal of the Egyptians from
Vrysis, and Schahin came again to demand the good offices of Dendrinos
and myself, promising that if his men were left unmolested he would
take no part in the action of the Turkish troops. We sent messengers
to the Cretan camp, urging this course, but they were not allowed to
pass the Turkish lines; and the committee, not receiving the message,
repeated the summons to the Egyptians to leave Vrysis immediately
or take the consequences. Schahin refused to withdraw them, and the
insurgents, for such they now became, closed on them, cut off all
supplies and water, and compelled them to surrender at discretion.
They were permitted to march out with their arms and equipments and
send the next day for their artillery.
This was the end of all hopes of peace. I do not know what the real
influence of Dendrinos had been, for he was a man not to be believed,
but we,--the Italian, the Greek, and myself,--had done everything in
our power to keep the Cretans within the legal limits. In the face,
however, of such provocations as those of Ismael, and vacillation like
that of Schahin, our efforts were useless. The state of the country
on the occurrence of another defeated sortie of the Mussulmans from
Candanos was terrible. Two Christians were murdered in the streets
of Canea, and the remainder in the villages round about fled
precipitately to the mountains. Many were killed, and Mussulmans
coming in from the country reported groups of dead bodies in houses,
in chapels where they had taken refuge, and by the roadside. The new
Greek consul rode out to Galata, a village three miles from Canea,
and counted seven dead bodies naked by the roadside. The public
slaughterhouses were midway between Canea and Kalepa, and there were
always large flocks of ravens battening on the offal which was thrown
out on the ground; but for weeks the ravens abandoned the place
entirely, and the flocks were seen only hovering over certain
localities on the great plain between Canea and the nearest hills.
None of the Christians dared take the risk of a voyage of exploration
to see what they were feeding on there.
The Egyptian troops, humiliated at their surrender, attacked the
villages around their camp in the plains, killing the peaceable
inhabitants; the governor-general lost his head and gave contradictory
orders, and the confusion became anarchy. The few remaining Christians
in the cities were then forbidden to emigrate, and the Mussulmans in
the city met in their quarter and organized a sortie to massacre all
the Christians outside; the Wizard in the port protecting those in
Canea, otherwise it had gone hardly with them. The Christians in the
interior, encouraged by the victories over the Egyptians and Turks,
took such arms as they had, and raided down to the plain about Canea,
carrying off as prisoners a number of Mussulmans who were gathering
the grapes in their vineyards. There was no longer any hope of peace,
and though I still refused to offer any encouragement to the Cretans,
I was obliged to hold my peace, for I saw that there was no room
longer for negotiations. Neither was there any hope for the
insurrection, Schahin Pasha was recalled, and the great Egyptian plan
utterly collapsed.
At this moment arrived Mustapha Kiritly Pasha, the Imperial
Commissioner, appointed because he had once governed Crete and had a
great _clientèle_ there, with relatives by marriage. Had he come three
months before, he might have saved the situation, for then the blood
was cold. He was a man of merciless rigor, but with a strong sense of
justice, and was much respected in the island; but now only his
rigor was in place, for there was no room for compromise. Ismael was
dismissed in disgrace, and ordered off to Constantinople, not even
being allowed to pack up his furniture. Mustapha enrolled the Cretan
Mussulmans regularly as bashi-bazouks to the number of 5000, gave
the Christian population the choice of going into the mountains or
submitting and taking the written protections of the government,
and made vigorous preparations for a serious campaign. He found the
Egyptian army, which had increased by reinforcements to the number
of 22,000, utterly demoralized by defeat; but he had 12,000 Turkish
regulars, indifferently equipped, but disciplined, and a few hundred
Albanians. Organizing from these a force of 10,000 men, he marched to
the relief of Candanos, always closely beleaguered by the insurgent
force, which had no artillery and could not attack the fortress, but
had brought it into great straits for food.
The insurgents retired before the advance of Mustapha, who gathered
the garrison and all the Mussulman families and began his return. I
had from my balcony followed his course going out by the smoke
of burning villages, and after two weeks, during which we had no
authentic information of his progress, all messengers having been
intercepted by the Christians, I got the first intimation of his
return by the same ominous signal in the distance. At Kakopetra, a
very difficult pass in the extreme west of the island, he was beset
by the bands of the insurrection, and had they been armed adequately
there had been an end of Mustapha and his army, who managed to
struggle through only after a running fight of several days, with
losses amounting, as one of the surgeons in the hospital assured me,
to 120 killed and 800 wounded, most apparently with pistol balls, the
Cretans having only the old _tufeks_ and smooth-bored pistols of their
fathers. At that moment, there was probably not a rifle in the ranks
of the insurgents.
There was, of course, now no question of conciliation. Both sides had
their blood up, and the successes had been mainly for the insurgents.
They held the hills above Canea, whence all their movements were
visible, and the next operation of Mustapha was to clear the road to
their headquarters at Theriso, a very strong position in the foothills
of the Sphakian mountains, from which the insurgents raided the plain.
From my balcony I could see all the operations, and that the two
battalions sent out, after fighting all day over the first line of
defenses, were obliged to retire, having effected nothing. The next
day a force of 5000 men went out, before whom the Cretans made a
fighting retreat to Theriso, where they held their own during the rest
of the day, the Turks returning to the city after nightfall. The next
movement was a turning one, taking the position of Theriso on the
flank, by Lakus, a strong position, but at which no defenses had been
prepared. The insurgents moved their depot and hospital across the
valley to Zurba, a village high on the mountain-side and impregnable
to direct attack, but which Mustapha proceeded to bombard with
mountain guns for two days. I could hear every gun-fire, Zurba being
only nine miles in a direct line from my house, and I counted fifteen
shots a minute during a part of the time.
Three attempts at assault were repelled, and then Mustapha moved on to
Theriso, now abandoned by the Cretans, who had just then received the
news of the arrival of the Panhellenion blockade-runner with arms
and ammunition, the first open aid they had received from Greece. A
considerable body of Hellenic volunteers also came, and the resistance
became more solid, and the influence of Athens assumed the direction.
Up to this time, and indeed much later, I had persistently urged
submission, considering the event as hopeless; but with the
encouragement from Athens it was wasted breath. I went to see
Mustapha, and pointed out to him that his severity was making the
position beyond conciliation, and that every village he burned only
added to the number of desperate men who had nothing more to lose by
war and nothing to hope in peace. I saw that he was prejudiced as to
my sincerity, and perhaps I only influenced him to act against my
counsels, though I was ready to do anything in my power to stop what I
considered a hopeless struggle.
To add to the confidence of the Cretans, at this juncture arrived the
Russian frigate General-Admiral, Captain Boutakoff, who took a most
important part in the subsequent development of the affair. I was
never able to see that the Russian government did anything at that
stage to stimulate the insurrection, though Boutakoff expressed in the
most unreserved manner his sympathies. Later I became convinced that
Dendrinos did secretly, and more from antagonism to Derché than
from any orders from his government, advise against concession, as
Parthenios used to come secretly by night to him for consultation. But
I am persuaded that at that time the Russian government had not
urged the movement, though a secret visit from Jonine on the Russian
dispatch boat at an early stage of affairs was evidence that the
position was being studied by Russia. With Boutakoff I was for several
years in the closest sympathy, and we subsequently acted together, but
never did I discover any indication of his taking an active part, or
being aware that Dendrinos had taken one, in the early movement. In
fact, the anxiety of the latter that I should keep secret, even from
Boutakoff, his action in the matter, indicated the contrary. What
Russia had done at Athens I had no opportunity to learn, but in Crete
I am convinced that she then did little or nothing.
Having scoured the plains and lower hilly district west of Canea,
Mustapha now organized an expedition against Sphakia, defended by the
Hellenic volunteers and the bands of the Apokorona and Sphakia at
Vafé. He obtained a decisive victory with heavy loss of the Egyptian
contingent, but his courage failed him before Askyphó, the great
natural fortress of Sphakia, and he waited a month at Prosnero in the
Apokorona, negotiating to gain time, but offering no concessions. At
this juncture arrived the only man who made any military mark in the
war, Colonel Coroneos, a Greek veteran, and competent commander of
such a force as Crete could furnish. As Zimbrakaki, who commanded the
Greek volunteers, had assumed the command of the western section,
while the chiefs of the eastern section, around and beyond Ida, had
their own organization, Coroneos went to Retimo and established the
headquarters of the district at the fortified convent of Arkadi, a
building of Venetian construction and of sufficient strength to resist
any attack not conducted with heavy artillery. Here he established his
depot, and here the families of the Cretans took refuge when menaced
by the Turkish bands. Coroneos himself kept the field and harassed the
Turks everywhere in the province, and so annoyed Mustapha that after
a month's indecision he suddenly marched off to the attack of Arkadi,
which Coroneos, after having harassed him on the march as much as
was possible, was obliged to leave to its fate, as neither his
organization nor his outfit, which included no artillery, permitted
him to shut himself up in the little fortress. He had provided as
garrison a small body of Greek volunteers and 150 Cretan combatants,
including the priests. Besides these there were about 1000 women and
children, whom Coroneos had tried to induce to return to their homes,
succeeding, however, owing to the opposition of the _hegumenos_ to the
departure of his own relatives, with only about 400, the rest being
shut in by the sudden investment. To prepare for resistance, the great
gate of the convent had been solidly walled up, and when Mustapha
opened fire with his mountain artillery on the walls he made no
impression on them or on the gate, and, the rifle fire from the
convent being terribly hot and effective, he made the investment
complete and sent to Retimo for heavy artillery. It came accompanied
by nearly the entire garrison of Retimo and the Mussulman population,
making his total force about 23,000 men, of whom the most zealous
combatants were the Cretan Mussulmans.
By this time I had become the recognized official protector of the
Cretans, although I had always done my best to discourage hostilities
and persuade the Cretans to leave their wrongs to diplomatic
treatment; not that I had great faith in that, but because I could
see no hope for a success for the insurrection. Around me had
spontaneously formed an efficient service for information, the runners
of the various sections coming to me at Kalepa with the earliest
information on every event of importance, and I communicated with
the legations at Athens and our own minister at Constantinople. The
exactness of my news was so well recognized that even the grand vizier
sent regularly to our minister for information, remarking that he got
nothing reliable from his own officials. Now happened one of those
curious cases of mysterious transmission of news which have often been
known in the East. Arkadi was at least forty miles, as the roads
go, from Kalepa,--a long day's journey as travel goes there; but I
received news of the fight soon after it began, and information of the
progress of the combat during the day, one of my customary informants
coming every few hours with the details. This service I subsequently
checked by the information given me by Mustapha's Cretan secretary,
who lived in the house next to mine at Kalepa, and by the accounts
given by some Italian officers of the Turkish and Egyptian regulars
engaged in the siege for the final struggle, and found to be correct.
I believe the account which I gave the world by the next post, and
which was the only complete one ever given, is as near the true
history as history is ever told.
The heavy artillery soon breached the great gate, and an assault was
ordered, but being met by a murderous fire from the convent walls, it
was repulsed with great slaughter; and the succeeding attempts on
the part of the Turkish regulars faring no better, a battalion of
Egyptians was put in the front and driven in at the point of the
bayonet by the Turkish troops behind them. The convent was a hollow
square of solidly built buildings, the inner and outer walls alike
being of a masonry which yielded only to artillery, and from the
windows and doors of these a hail of bullets at close quarters met
the entering crowd of regulars and swarms of bloodthirsty Cretan
irregulars, all furious at the resistance and wild with fanaticism.
The artillery had to be brought in to break down the divisions between
the houses and cells, and the fight was one of extermination until all
the buildings were taken except the refectory, the strongest of the
buildings. At this juncture one of the priests fired the magazine,
with an effect far greater on the outside world than on the
combatants, for it did not kill over a hundred Turks. The insurgents
in the refectory were then summoned to surrender, and, having
exhausted their ammunition, they complied, on the solemn promise of
Mustapha that their lives should be spared; but, having handed out
their rifles, they were all immediately killed.
One of the Egyptian officers--an Italian colonel--told me many
incidents of the fight, of a sufficiently horrible nature, but he
said that he saw things which were too horrible to be repeated.
Thirty-three men and sixty-one women and children were spared,
mostly through personal pleas to Mustapha of ancient friendship. The
secretary told me of a fanatic of Canea who had volunteered in the
hope of being killed in a war with the infidel, and who had been in
all the fights of the insurrection, and, escaping from Arkadi unhurt,
went home and hung up his sword, saying that Kismet was against him
and he was not permitted to die for the faith. He also told me that
all the ravines near Arkadi were filled with the dead, while Retimo
was filled with the wounded; and from the report of the hospital
surgeon at Canea, I learned that four hundred and eighty were brought
to our hospital, being unable to find shelter at Retimo.
Mustapha immediately returned to Canea, but having sworn not to enter
the city till he had conquered the island, he camped outside. He
called a council to devise some means of subduing the insurrection
before the effect of the siege of Arkadi should provoke intervention,
for he saw that that had been a mistake. The enthusiasm of the
insurgents rose, and for the first time it seemed to me that there was
a chance of the Powers taking their proper position as to Crete, and I
began to hope that the bloodshed would not have been entirely wasted.
But no effect was produced on the Powers by the horrible event, except
that Russia made some effort to provoke intervention; England and
France, who held the solution in their hands, showing the most stolid
indifference, and Russia, as afterwards became clear, only looking at
the occasion as creating more trouble for the Sultan. Greek influence
took entire control of affairs, and the Cretan committee at Athens
began to pour in volunteers, rifles, and ammunition, without any
attempt at organization or intelligent direction.
The pasha saw that the situation was critical and demanded his
greatest energy, and, with one hand offering bribes to the Sphakiot
chiefs, with the other he hurried his military preparations. Leaving
his second in command, Mehmet Pasha, at Krapi, the ravine which
approached Sphakia from the east, he marched all his remaining forces
round to the west, hoping, as he said, to sweep all the rebels and
their Greek allies into the mountains and either starve or otherwise
compel them to submission. The chiefs of the Greek bands refused to
submit to a common plan or authority, and wasted their strength in a
series of little combats, Coroneos and Zimbrakaki alone, and only for
a very brief period, coöperating for the defense of Omalos, which
was the depot and refuge of the families, and where the cold of the
approaching autumn and the want of supplies would act as Mustapha's
best allies. He moved along the coast to the west, relieving
Kissamos,--a seacoast walled town to which a band of Greek volunteers
had, in an insane effort, laid siege,--and, sweeping families
and combatants together before him, drove them all into the high
mountains, where the snow had already begun to fall. In the rapidity
of his movements he carried no tents or superfluous baggage, and the
poor Egyptians, clad still in the linen of their summer uniforms,
perished in hundreds by cold alone, and even the beasts of burden left
their bodies in quantities by the way, forage and shelter for man and
beast alike failing. The volunteers held the pass of St. Irene, by
which alone from the west the approach to Omalos was practicable; but,
ill provided for the rigor of the season, they grew negligent, and,
after two weeks of waiting, Mustapha made a sudden dash and took them
by surprise in a fog, and occupied Selinos, the volunteers and Cretans
retreating to the pass of Krustogherako, which lies between Omalos and
Selinos.
The story of Arkadi had begun to move public opinion all over Europe,
but it had no power on the governments, although the consuls friendly
to the Cretans had continually appealed to their governments with the
report of the barbarities which accompanied the march of the Turkish
army. For myself, under the advice of our minister at Constantinople,
I had thrown off all reserve within my consular rights and used all
my influence with my colleagues, especially the honest, if too
pro-Turkish, Dickson, and at the same time disseminated the truth as
to the condition of the island in every possible way. The Turkish
authorities naturally retaliated to the best of their power, and
patrols of zapties watched my house in front and rear, for the idea
had entered the mind of the governor that I was the postman of the
insurrection. But I held no direct communication with the insurgents,
and no letter ever passed through my hands, while the Greek and
Russian consuls, unwatched, kept up a regular postal service. Our
minister at Constantinople, who, in the beginning, had been in the
closest personal relations with his English colleague, the just and
humane Lord Lyons, replaced at this juncture by Sir Henry Elliott,
finding that nothing was to be expected from England, joined forces
with General Ignatieff, and thenceforward my action was directed by
the Russian embassy.
In communicating the news of the affair of Arkadi to our government,
I had fully explained my actual position and my proposed action on
behalf of the insurgents, and begged that a man-of-war might be sent
to convey from the island the refugee families who were dying of cold
and hunger in the mountains, or being murdered in the plains. In reply
I received the following dispatch (December 25, 1866):--
W.J. STILLMAN, ESQ., U.S. Consul, Canea:--
_Sir_,--Your dispatch No. 32, with regard to the Cretan
insurrection and the attitude you have assumed in the matter, has
been received.
Your action and proposed course of conduct, as set forth in said
dispatch, are approved. Mr. Morris, our minister resident at
Constantinople, will be informed of the particulars set forth
in your dispatch, and of the approval of your proceedings.
Rear-Admiral Goldsborough has been instructed to send a
ship-of-war to your port. I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
W.H. SEWARD.
Meanwhile the Wizard gunboat had been relieved by the Assurance,--a
larger vessel,--the commander of which (Pym) had an American wife, and
perhaps had been influenced by her, and certainly shared her sympathy
with the Cretans. I showed him Seward's dispatch and fired him with
the desire of distinguishing himself by taking the initiative in
the work of humanity. I then made the strongest possible appeal to
Dickson, who had by this time come through his own informants to
recognize the atrocity of Mustapha's plan of campaign, to order Pym to
obey his good impulse; and Pym at the same time informed me that he
intended to go, with Dickson's order if possible, but in any case to
go. Meanwhile he ran down to Candia to watch events there and protect
the Christians. Dickson in the end obtained the consent of Mustapha
to the deportation of the families, and sent the order to Candia, on
which the Assurance went to Selinos and took on board three hundred
and fifteen women and children and twenty-five wounded men, menaced
by the approach of Mustapha's army, and carried them to Peiraeus.
Mustapha Pasha had given his permission for the ship to take the
refugees, and Dickson had given the order, so that Pym's action was
regularized; but he was, nevertheless, punished by his government,
being ordered to the coast of Africa, and shortly after retired. I saw
him on his return from the trip, and there was not a man or officer
who would not have given a month's pay to repeat the expedition, but
it was peremptorily disapproved by the English government.
There were at Suda at the time two Italian corvettes, an Austrian
frigate and gunboat; the Russian General Admiral, and a French
gunboat; all of which, with the exception of the Frenchman, were
anxious to follow the example of Pym. But the prompt disapproval of
Pym's expedition by the English government, and the withdrawal of the
permission given by Mustapha, prevented any of them from repeating the
feat. Ignatieff had, on hearing of Pym's exploit, obtained from the
grand vizier the permission that other ships might follow him, and
dispatched at once the embassy dispatch boat with orders to Boutakoff
to follow. But a violent storm coming on, the boat had taken refuge at
Milos, where she lay four days, and by the time she arrived another
post was due from Constantinople. Both Boutakoff and Dendrinos
hesitated to execute the order, having learned of the disapproval
of Pym and the revocation of his permission. Dendrinos was a timid,
irresolute man, always afraid of assuming responsibility, and
Boutakoff's orders were to go only on the requisition of the consul. I
was very much afraid that under the circumstances the order would be
revoked, and had in vain urged the two Russian officials to move.
At this moment came another act of the Turkish brutality, which
carried me through. A Turkish man-of-war ran in to the shore where
Pym had taken his refugees, flying the English flag, and, when the
refugees poured out from their rocky shelter, opened its broadsides on
them. One of my runners came in with the news of this atrocity, in
the morning of the day the post should arrive, and I went at once to
Dendrinos and insisted on his sending the order to Boutakoff to go to
the relief of the Cretan families at Selinos. The frigate lay at
Suda, and I dictated the letter to Boutakoff, saw it consigned to
the messenger, and never left Dendrinos alone till time had elapsed
sufficient for the delivery of the message on the frigate, being
certain that if I left the timid man to himself he would send a
counter order. Boutakoff, nothing loath, got up his anchor, and
came round to the roadstead of Canea to await the post and the last
advices, but I hurried him off without delay, apprehensive of the
counter order from Ignatieff. This did in fact arrive by the post,
but three hours too late. The General Admiral carried 1200 women and
children to the Greek ports, but the repetition was forbidden.
The insurrection flamed up anew, however, and negotiations were broken
off, though the deportations were stopped. Mustapha, finding it
impossible to force his way into Sphakia from the west, ordered the
fleet round, and transported the army entire to Franco Castelli on the
southern shore, and bribed the chief of the district to allow him to
pass to Askyphó without resistance. In this great plain, which is the
stronghold of eastern Sphakia, as Omalos of western, he encamped to
negotiate and try a last effort at conciliation. The next day one of
the captains of the section bordering on Askyphó came to me for advice
as to accepting Mustapha's propositions. I told him I could not advise
him to fight or make peace, but I translated Mr. Seward's dispatch,
and assured him that when the ship arrived I would send it at once to
the relief of the families. On his return, resistance was decided on,
and all the men of the vicinity gathered to attack the Turks. The pass
of Askyphó could have been easily blocked, and the army compelled to
surrender, being scantily provisioned, but some spy in the Cretan
councils warned the pasha, and he broke up his camp at midnight and
crowned the heights at the head of the ravine, so that his army was
able to pass, though with terrible losses.
It was the most disastrous campaign of the whole war, for the troops
were slaughtered almost without resistance, killed by rolling down
boulders on them. Bewildered in the intricacies of the defiles,
without guides or provisions, and in small parties, they were
dispatched, for days after. The army which had set out 17,850 strong,
Egyptian and Turkish regulars, according to Dickson's official
information, beside several thousand irregulars, was reported by
Mustapha, after its return and reorganization, as amounting to
6000 men. We saw them as they defiled past Suda coming in, and the
commander of one of the Italian ships took the trouble to count some
of the battalions, one of which, consisting of 900 men when it set
out, returned with only 300. The losses were certainly not less than
10,000 men, not counting the irregulars.