Under Ottoman rule, Crete's 90% Christian majority were subjugated by an abusive Muslim governor. The Christians rose up, massacring their Muslim neighbours and, with the consequent involvement of the great powers, each with its own different aims, the hostilities led to the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.
Leaving the hottest room labelled Crete, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II complains that he thought the earlier room, scene of the Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896 had been hot enough, but the room of the Cretan Uprising was even hotter.
© Malcolm Shifrin, 1991-2023