Crete, Ottoman eyalet of

Most of mainland Greece and the Aegean islands had come under Ottoman control by the end of the fifteenth century, but Cyprus and Crete remain Venetian territory and do not fall to the Ottomans until 1571 and 1670 respectively.

The only part of the Greek-speaking world that escapes long-term Ottoman rule was the Ionian Islands, which will remain Venetian until their capture by the First French Republic in 1797, then pass to the United Kingdom in 1809 until their unification with Greece in 1864.

While some Greeks in the Ionian Islands and Constantinople live in prosperity, and Greeks of Constantinople (Phanariotes) achieve positions of power within the Ottoman administration, much of the population of mainland Greece suffers the economic consequences of the Ottoman conquest.

Heavy taxes are enforced, and in later years the Ottoman Empire enacts a policy of creation of hereditary estates, effectively turning the rural Greek populations into serfs.

The Ottoman Empire is a world power when Suleyman dies in 1566.

Most of the great cities of Islam—Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad— are under the sultan's crescent flag.

The Porte exercises direct control over Anatolia, the sub-Danubian Balkan provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.

Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces are governed under special regulations, as are satellite domains in Arabia and the Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars.

In addition, the native rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) are vassals of the sultan.

The Ottoman Empire (having annexed Cyprus decades earlier) has gradually pushed Venice out of Crete, with most of the island lost after the siege of Candia (1648–1669), possibly the longest siege in history.

The Ottomans have also taken small portions of Austria and Poland.

Ottoman imperial decadence is finally halted by a notable family of imperial bureaucrats, the Koprulu family, which for more than forty years (1656-1703) provides the empire with grand viziers, combining ambition and ruthlessness with genuine talent.

Mehmet, followed by his son Ahmet, overhaul the bureaucracy and institute military reforms.

Crete and Lemnos are taken from Venice, and large provinces in Ukraine are wrested temporarily from Poland and Russia.

The Koprulu family also resumes the offensive against Austria, pushing the Ottoman frontier to within one hundred and twenty kilometers of Vienna.

An attempt in 1664 to capture the Habsburg capital is beaten back, but Ahmet Koprulu extorts a huge tribute as the price of a nineteen-year truce.

When it expires in 1683, the Ottoman army again invades Austria, laying siege to Vienna for two months, only to be routed ultimately by a relief force led by the king of Poland, Jan Sobieski.

Omission of the strategically crucial island of Crete in the formation of the Kingdom of Greece remains a sore point, and the island's status has become more problematic as the fate of the Ottoman Empire assumes a greater role in Great Power relations.

In the early 1860s, the Great Powers had agree to the unification of Italy and the transfer by Britain of the Ionian Islands to Greece.

As the Orthodox population and nationalist sentiments grows on Crete and King George openly supports the Cretan reunification factions, these changes also reinforce Greek advocacy of claims to Crete.

The result is a guerrilla rebellion on Crete that receives wide support from the Greek government and people.

Armed bands have been formed in Crete as tensions run high in the island, and several petitions to the Sultan have gone unanswered.

The uprising is officially proclaimed on August 21, 1866.

The revolt causes immediate sympathy in Greece, but also elsewhere in Europe.

The rebels initially manage to gain control of most of the hinterland although, as always, the four fortified towns of the north coast (Chania, Rethymno, Irakleio and Agios Nikolaos) and the southern town of Ierapetra remain in Ottoman hands.

The Christian Cretans had risen up together with the rest of Greece in the Greek Revolution of 1821, but despite successes in the countryside, the Ottomans had held out in the four fortified towns of the northern coast and the island had been eventually reconquered by 1828, becoming an Egyptian province (Muhammad Ali's Egypt had been a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, but a powerful and semi-independent one with its own military).

In 1840, Crete had been returned to direct Ottoman rule, followed by an unsuccessful 1841 uprising in support of Union with independent Greece.

Another uprising in 1858 had secured some privileges, such as the right to bear arms, equality of Christian and Muslim worship, and the establishment of Christian councils of elders with jurisdiction over education and customary and family law.

These concessions are resented by the Muslim community, while the Christians press for more, while maintaining their ultimate aim of Union with Greece.

One particular event in Crete, the "Holocaust of Arkadi", causes strong reactions among the liberal circles of western Europe,

The event occurs in November 1866, as a large Ottoman force besieges the Arkadi Monastery, which serves as the headquarters of the rebellion.

In addition to its two hundred and fifty-nine defenders, over seven hundred women and children have taken refuge in the monastery.

After a few days of hard fighting, the Ottomans break into the monastery.

At this point, the abbot of the monastery sets fire to the gunpowder stored in the monastery's vaults, causing the death of most of the rebels and the women and children sheltered there.

As reported by the American writer and consul William Stillman and others over the recently introduced telegraph, this event causes enormous shock in the rest of Europe and in North America and decreases the perceived legitimacy of Turkish rule.

The major European powers consider, but eventually reject, intervention in 1868 to prevent the Ottomans from suppressing the Cretan Revolt.

Serbian and Russian support of the Cretan rebellion has softened by 1869, and the Ottoman fleet has used a blockade of the island to its advantage.

The Cretan rebels find considerable public sympathy in the West but efforts by Russia and Serbia to profit from the Ottoman Empire's distraction in Crete bring diplomatic pressure from Britain and France.