Part 23

Sphakia lies on the south coast of the island, almost exactly opposite the Bay of Suda on the north. Foscarini describes it as consisting of “a very weak tower,” occupied by a Venetian garrison of eleven men, and a small hamlet built in terraces on the hills. The wildness of the scenery was in keeping, he says, with the wildness of the inhabitants, whose bravery, splendid physique, and agility in climbing the rocks he warmly praises. Their appearance suggested to him a comparison with “the wild Irish,” and they have certainly vied with the latter in the trouble which they have given to successive Governments. Their long hair and beards, their huge boots and vast skirts, the dagger, sword, bow and arrows, which every Sphakiote constantly carried, and the unpleasant odour of goats, which was derived from their habit of sleeping in caves among their herds, and which clung to their persons, struck the observant Venetian in a more or less agreeable manner. Yet he remarked that, if they were let alone and not agitated by family feuds, they were a mild and gentle race, and the peasant spokesman of the clan seemed to him one of nature’s noblemen. With this man Foscarini came to terms, promising the Pateroi a free pardon, their return to their homes, and the restoration of their villages, on condition that they should furnish men for the Venetian galleys, send a deputation twice a year to Canea, and work once annually on the fortifications of that town. The Sphakiotes loyally kept these conditions during the stay of Foscarini in the island, their district became a model of law and order, while their rivals, the Papadopouloi, were frightened into obedience by the threats of the energetic commissioner. He further organised all the native clans in companies for service in the militia under chiefs, or _capitani_, chosen by him from out of their midst and paid by the local government. This local militia was entrusted with the policing of the island, on the sound principle that a former brigand makes the best policeman. Disobedience or negligence was punished by degradation from the privileged class of free _archontópouloi_, and thus the military qualities of the Cretans were diverted into a useful channel, and a strong motive provided for their loyalty. Similarly since the union with Greece the Cretans have become excellent constables.

The next problem was that of the Venetian knights. It had been the original intention of the Republic that none of their fiefs should pass into Greek hands. But as time went on many of the colonists had secretly sold their estates to the natives, and had gone back to Venice to spend the proceeds of the sale in luxurious idleness. When Foscarini arrived, he found that many even of those Venetians who remained in Crete had become Greek in dress, manners, and speech. More than sixty years earlier we hear complaints of the lack of Catholic priests and of the consequent indifference of the colonists to the religion of their forefathers, so that we are not surprised to hear Foscarini deploring the numerous conversions of the Venetians in the country districts to the Orthodox faith through the want of Latin churches. In the town of Candia, where the nobles were better off, they still remained strict Catholics, and this difference of religion marked them off from the Orthodox people; but their wives had adopted Oriental habits, and lived in the seclusion which we associate with the daily life of women in the East. In Canea, which was a more progressive place than the capital, things were a little more hopeful, but even there education was almost entirely neglected. In the country, owing to the subdivision of fiefs, many of the smaller Venetian proprietors had sunk to the condition of peasants, retaining neither the language nor the chivalrous habits of their ancestors, but only the sonorous names of the great Venetian houses whence they sprang. All the old martial exercises, on which the Republic had relied for the defence of the island, had long fallen into abeyance. Few of the knights could afford to keep horses; few could ride them. When they were summoned on parade at Candia, they were wont to stick some of their labourers on horseback, clad in their own armour, to the scandal of the Government and the amusement of the spectators, who would pelt these improvised horsemen with bad oranges or stones. Another abuse arose from the possession of one estate by several persons, who each contributed a part of the horse’s equipment which the estate was expected to furnish. Thus the net result of the feudal arrangements in Crete at this period was an impoverished nobility and an utterly inadequate system of defence.

Foscarini set to work to remedy these evils with great courage. He proceeded to restore the old feudal military service, with such alterations as the times required. He announced that neglect of this public duty would be punished by confiscation of the vassal’s fief; he abolished the combination of several persons for the equipment of one horse, but ordered that the small proprietors should each provide one of the cheap but hardy little Cretan steeds, leaving the wealthier knights to furnish costlier animals. By this means he created a chivalrous spirit among the younger nobles, who began to take pride in their horses, and 1200 horsemen were at the disposal of the State before he left the island. He next turned his attention to the remedy of another abuse—the excessive growth of the native Cretan aristocracy owing to the issue of patents of nobility by corrupt officials. Still worse was the reckless bestowal of privileges, such as exemptions from personal service on the galleys and from labour on the fortifications, upon Cretans of humble origin, or even upon whole communities. The latter practice was specially objectionable, because the privileged communities exercised a magnetic attraction upon the peasants of other districts, who flocked into them, leaving the less favoured parts of the island almost depopulated. Quite apart from this cause, the diminution of the population, which at the time of the Venetian conquest was about half a million, but had sunk to 271,489 shortly before Foscarini’s arrival, was sufficiently serious. It is obvious that in ancient times, Crete with its “ninety cities” must have supported a large number of inhabitants; but the plagues, famines, and earthquakes of the sixteenth century had lessened the population, already diminished by Turkish raids and internal insurrections. In 1524 no fewer than 24,000 persons died of the plague, and the Jews alone were an increasing body. Against them Foscarini was particularly severe; he regarded the fair Jewesses of Candia as the chief cause of the moral laxity of the young nobles; he absolutely forbade Christians to accept service in Jewish families; and nowhere was his departure so welcome as in the Ghetto of Candia. The peasants, on the other hand, regarded him as a benefactor; for their lot, whether they were mere serfs or whether they tilled the land on condition of paying a certain proportion of the produce, was by no means enviable. The serfs, or _pároikoi_, were mostly the descendants of the Arabs who had been enslaved by Nikephoros Phokas, and who could be sold at the will of their masters. The free peasants were overburdened with compulsory work by the Government, as well as by the demands of their lords. In neither case was Foscarini sure that he had been able to confer any permanent benefit upon them. At least, he had followed the maxim of an experienced Venetian, that the Cretans were not to be managed by threats and punishments.

He concluded his mission by strengthening the two harbours of Suda and Spinalonga, by increasing the numbers and pay of the garrison, by improving the Cretan fleet and the mercantile marine, and by restoring equilibrium to the budget. The Levantine possessions of Venice cost her at this period more than they brought in, and it was the desire of the Republic that Crete, should, at any rate, be made to pay expenses. With this object, Foscarini regulated the currency, raised the tariff in such a way that the increased duties fell on the foreign consumer, saw that they were honestly collected, and endeavoured to make the island more productive. But in all his reforms the commissioner met with stubborn resistance from the vested interests of the Venetian officials and the fanaticism of the Orthodox clergy, always the bitterest foes of Venice in the Levant. In dealing with the latter, Foscarini saw that strong measures were necessary; he persuaded his Government to banish the worst agitators, and to allow the others to remain only on condition that they behaved well. Then, after more than four years of labour, he returned to Venice, where he was thanked by the Doge for his eminent services. He had been, indeed, as his monument in the Carmelite church there says, “Dictator of the island of Candia”; but even his heroic policy did “but skin and film the ulcerous place.” Not ten years after his departure we find another Venetian authority, Giulio de Garzoni, writing of the tyranny of the knights and officials, the misery of the natives, the disorder of the administration, and the continued agitation of the Greek clergy among the peasantry. So desperate had the latter become that there were many who preferred even the yoke of the Sultan to that of the Catholic Republic[193]. The population of the island, which Foscarini had estimated at 219,000, had sunk in this short space of time to about 176,000. Numbers of Cretans had emigrated to Constantinople since Foscarini left, where they formed a large portion of the men employed in the Turkish arsenal, and where the information which they gave to the Turks about the weakness of the Cretan garrison and forts filled the Venetian representatives with alarm. Yet Venice seemed powerless to do more for the oppressed islanders; indeed, she inclined rather to the Machiavellian policy of Fra Paolo Sarpi, who advised her to treat the Cretans like wild beasts, upon whom humanity would be only thrown away, and to govern the island by maintaining constant enmity between the barbarised colonists and the native barbarians. “Bread and the stick, that is all that you ought to give them.” Such a policy could only prevail so long as Venice was strong enough to defend the colony, or wise enough to keep at peace with the Sultan.

The latter policy prevailed for nearly three-quarters of a century after the peace between Venice and the Porte in 1573, and during that period we hear little of Crete. The quaint traveller Lithgow[194], who visited it in the first decade of the seventeenth century, alludes to a descent of the Turks upon Rethymno in 1597, when that town was again sacked and burned; and he remarks, as Plato had done in _The Laws_, that he never saw a Cretan come out of his house unarmed. He found a Venetian garrison of 12,000 men in the island, and reiterates the preference of the Cretans for Turkish rule, on the ground that they would have “more liberty and less taxes.” But while he was disappointed to find no more than four cities in an island which in Homer’s day had contained ninety, he tells us that Canea had “ninety-seven palaces,” and he waxes eloquent over the great fertility of the country near Suda. It is curious to find, nearly three centuries ago, that Suda bay was eagerly coveted by a foreign potentate, the King of Spain, of whose designs the astute Venetians were fully aware, and whose overtures they steadily declined.

The time had now arrived when the Cretans were to realise their desires, and exchange the Venetian for the Turkish rule. The Ottoman sultans had long meditated the conquest of the island, and two recent events had infuriated Ibrahim I against the Venetians. The Near East was at that time cursed with a severe outbreak of piracy, in which there was little to choose between Christians and Mussulmans. While the Venetians had chased some Barbary corsairs into the Turkish harbour of Valona, on the coast of Albania, and had injured a minaret with their shots, they had allowed a Maltese squadron, which had captured the nurse of the Sultan’s son, to sail into a Cretan harbour with its booty. The fury of the Sultan, whose affection for his son’s nurse was well known, was not appeased by the apologies of the Venetian representative. Great preparations were made for an expedition against Crete, and Ibrahim constantly went down to the arsenals to urge on the workmen. All over the Turkish empire the word went forth to make ready. The forests of the Morea were felled to furnish palisades, the naval stores of Chalkis were emptied to supply provisions for the troops. All the time the Grand Vizier kept assuring the Venetian bailie that these gigantic efforts were directed not against the Republic, but against the knights of Malta. In vain the Mufti protested against this act of deception, and pleaded that, if war there must be against Venice, at least it might be open. The Capitan-Pasha and the war party silenced any religious scruples of the Sultan, and the Mufti was told to mind his own business. As soon as the truth dawned upon the Venetians they lost no time in preparing to meet the Turks. Andrea Cornaro, the new Governor of Crete, hastily strengthened the fortifications of Candia and of the island at the mouth of Suda bay, while the home Government sent messages for aid to every friendly State, from Spain to Persia, with but little result. The Great Powers were then at each other’s throats; France was quarrelling with Spain, Germany was still in the throes of the Thirty Years’ War, England was engaged in the struggle between King and Parliament, and it was thought that the English wine trade would benefit by the Turkish conquest of Crete. Besides, the downfall of the Levantine commerce of Venice was regarded with equanimity by our Turkey merchants, and the Venetians accused us of selling munitions of war to the infidel. It was remarked, too, that Venice, of all States, was the least entitled to expect Christendom to arm in her defence, for no other Government had been so ready to sacrifice Christian interests in the Levant when it suited her purpose. Only the Pope and a few minor States promised assistance.

In 1645 the Turkish fleet sailed with sealed orders for the famous bay of Navarino. Then the command was given to arrest all Venetian subjects, including the Republic’s representative at Constantinople, and the Turkish commander, a Dalmatian renegade, set sail for Crete. Landing without opposition to the west of Canea, he proceeded to besiege that town, whose small but heroic garrison held out for two months before capitulating. The principal churches were at once converted into mosques; but the losses of the Turks during the siege, and the liberal terms which their commander had felt bound to offer to the besieged, cost him his head. At Venice great was the consternation at the loss of Canea; enormous pecuniary sacrifices were demanded of the citizens, and titles of nobility were sold in order to raise funds for carrying on the war. Meanwhile, an attempt to create a diversion by an attack upon Patras only served to exasperate the Turks, who became masters of Rethymno in 1646, and in the spring of 1648 began that memorable siege of Candia which was destined to last for more than twenty years. Even though Venice sued for peace, and offered to the Sultan Parga and Tenos[195], as well as a tribute, in return for the restoration of Canea and Rethymno, the Turks remained obdurate, and were resolved at all costs to have the island, “even though the war should go on for a hundred years.” And indeed it seemed likely to be prolonged indefinitely. The substitution of Mohammed IV for Ibrahim I as Sultan, and the consequent confusion at the Turkish capital, made it difficult for the Turks to carry on the struggle with the vigour which they had shown at the outset. The Venetian fleet waited at the entrance of the Dardanelles to attack Turkish convoys on their way to Crete, while the Ottoman provision-stores at Volo and Megara were burned. But these successes outside of the island delayed, without preventing, the progress of the Turkish arms. In fact, the Venetian forays in the Archipelago, notably at Paros and Melos, had the effect of embittering the Greeks against them, and, as a Cretan poet wrote, the islanders had to suffer, whichever side they took. In Crete itself, an ambitious Greek priest persuaded the Porte to have him appointed Metropolitan of the island, and to allow him to name seven suffragans. The Cretan militia refused to fight, and even the warlike Sphakiotes, under the leadership of a Kallerges, did little beyond cutting off a few Turkish stragglers. At last they yielded to the Turks, whose humane treatment of the Greek peasants throughout the island, combined with the unpopularity of the Latin rule, frustrated the attempt to provoke a general rising of the Cretans against the invaders. Nor was a small French force, which Cardinal Mazarin at last sent to aid the Venetians, more successful. Both sides were, in fact, equally hampered and equally unable to obtain a decisive victory; the Venetian fleet at the islet of Standia, and the Turkish army in the fortress of New Candia, which it had erected, kept watching one another, while year after year the wearisome war dragged on. Then, in 1666, a new element was introduced into the conflict. The Grand Vizier, Ahmed Köprili, landed in Crete, resolved to risk his head upon the success of his attempt to take Candia[196].

For two years and a half Köprili patiently besieged the town, with an immense expenditure of ammunition and a great loss of life. Worse and worse grew the condition of the garrison, which was commanded by the brave Francesco Morosini, who was destined later on to inflict such tremendous blows upon the Turks in the Morea. A ray of hope illumined the doomed fortress when, in June 1669, a force of 8000 French soldiers under the Duc de Navailles, and fifty French vessels under the Duc de Beaufort, arrived in the harbour, sent by Louis XIV, at the urgent prayer of Pope Clement IX, to save this bulwark of Catholicism. But these French auxiliaries met with no success. Four days after their arrival, the Duc de Beaufort fell in a sally outside the walls[197]. His colleague, the Duc de Navailles, soon lost heart, and sailed away to France, leaving the garrison to its fate. His departure was the turning-point in the siege. The houses were riddled with shots, the churches were in ruins, the streets were strewn with splinters of bombs and bullets, every day diminished the number of the defenders, and sickness was raging in the town. Then Morosini saw that it was useless to go on fighting. He summoned a council of war, and proposed that the garrison should capitulate. A few desperate men opposed his proposition, saying that they would rather blow up the place and die, as they had fought, like heroes among its ruins. But Morosini’s opinion prevailed, the white flag was hoisted on the ramparts, and two plenipotentiaries—one of them an Englishman, Colonel Thomas Anand—were appointed to settle the terms of capitulation with the Grand Vizier, who was represented at the conference by a Greek, Panagiotes Nikouses, the first of his race who became Grand Dragoman of the Porte[198]. Köprili insisted upon the complete cession of Crete, with the exception of the three fortresses of Suda, Spinalonga, and Grabusa, with the small islands near them; but he showed his appreciation of the heroic defence of Candia by allowing the garrison to march out with all the honours of war. On September 27 the keys of the town were handed to him on a silver dish, and on the same day, the whole population, except six persons, left the place. There, at least, the Greeks preferred exile to Turkish rule, and one of Köprili’s first acts was to induce fresh inhabitants to come to the deserted town by the promise of exemption from taxes for several years.

The cost of this siege, one of the longest in history, “Troy’s rival,” as Byron called it[199], had been enormous. The Venetians, it was calculated, had lost 30,985 men, and the Turks 118,754, and the Republic had spent 4,253,000 ducats upon the defence of this one city. Some idea of the miseries inflicted by this long war of a quarter of a century may be formed from the fact that the population of Crete, which had risen to about 260,000 before it began, was estimated by the English traveller Randolph, eighteen years after the Turkish conquest, at only 80,000, of whom 30,000 were Turks. Even before the siege it had been said that Crete cost far more than it was worth, and from the pecuniary standpoint the loss of the island was a blessing in disguise. But a cession of territory cannot be measured by means of a balance-sheet. The prestige of the Republic had been shattered, her greatest possession in the Levant had been torn from her, and once more the disunion of the Western Powers had been the Turk’s opportunity. Both the parties to the treaty were accused of having concluded an unworthy peace. Every successful Turkish commander has enemies at home, who seek to undermine his influence; but Köprili was strong enough to keep his place. Morosini, less fortunate, was, indeed, acquitted of the charges of bribery and malversation brought against him, but he was not employed again for many years, until he was called upon to take a noble revenge for the loss of Candia.

Venice did not retain her three remaining Cretan fortresses indefinitely. Grabusa was betrayed by its venal commander to the Turks in 1691; Suda and Spinalonga were captured in 1715 during the Turco-Venetian War, and the Treaty of Passarovitz confirmed their annexation to Turkey[200].