THE GRECO-TURKISH WAR. 638 For awhile the new constitution worked fairly well, but after a few years there was renewed friction between the Greeks and Moslems of Crete, and after another outbreakof civil warin 1889 the Turks cancelled many of the provisions of theConvention ofHalepa,reduced thenumber of deputies in the assembly, and considerably limited its powers. The government of the island was now entirely in the hands of the Turkish governorand the Mohammedan officials, supported by the Turkish garrison and the irregular levies formed of the Cretan Moslems. But the Christians of the island had neverbeen really disarmed, and they were further supplied with weapons and organised for action by a Greek militant association,theEthnikeHetaireia ("National Association "), the aim of which was the liberation of all the Greek-speaking countriesfromOttoman rule andtheirincorporationin the kingdomof Greece. Inthe summer of 1895 the growing discontent in Crete ended in arenewedoutbreakof civilstrife.

and the Greek Emperors of Constantinople, from whomit was taken by the Venetians. For four centuries, under the rule of Venice, it enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity— the longestinits stormy history. It was conquered by the Turks in 1669, after its capital, Candia (the ancient Herakleion),had endured a siege or tenlong years.

In 1821 an abortive insurrection against the Turkish rule in Crete heralded the risings on the mainland. In 1829 Egypt, then under the rule of the ambitiousIbrahimPasha, the founder of theKhedival dynasty, was more powerful in the Levant than Turkey, which had just been defeated by Russia and coerced by the intervention of the Western Powers, and Crete was for ten years administered by the Viceroy of Egypt. This state of things came to an end in 1840, when a Turkish governor was again installedat Canea.

There had been repeated outbreaks against EgyptianandTurkish rule. Crete wasinEurope what Cuba wasin theWest Indies,an island the chief eventsin whosehistory werethe periodical insurrections. In the case of Crete they were generally organised by a committee that had its centre at Athens. There was a serious rising in 1859,repressedby the Turks with great loss of life,especiallyon theside of the insurgents. The CretanMoslems naturally fought on the side of their co-religionists against their fellow countrymen. Thus aninsurrection led to acivil war of more than ordinary bitterness, and the fighting wasmarkedon bothsides by deeds of ferocious cruelty. There was a stillmore seriousrising in 1866, and desperate fighting went on for two yearsuntil 1868, when the civil war was ended by the Turkish Government making large concessions to the Cretans, including the grant of a local assembly and a limited system of Home Rule.

During the winter a desultory warfare was carried on between the Christians andMohammedans,but it wasnot tillthe beginningof1896 that an event occurred which attractedgeneral attention to the growing importance of the Cretan crisis and precipitated the intervention of the Powers. Oneof the insurgent leaders had comeintoCanea under a safe conduct to confer with the Turkish authorities. He became involved in a dispute with some of the Mohammedans, and, stung by a gross insult,he drew his weaponand wounded oneof them. He was immediately killed, and thenthe Turks, regular troopsand irregulars mingling together, rushed through the streets, cutting down every Greek they met and breaking into, plundering, and burning many of the houses of the Christians. It wasnot until the foreign consuls had made a joint appeal to the Governor that he took steps to put a stop to this outbreak of massacre and pillage. The EuropeanPowers now sent several of their warships to Canea, and the ambassadors atConstantinople presenteda noteto theSultan's Government,urging the necessity of immediate steps being taken by fair concessions to secure the pacification ofCrete.

But, having served the purpose of securing the surrender of the insurgent leaders, the Cretanconstitution remained to a great extent a dead letter. The Greeks seized the occasion of the war between Turkey and Russia in 1877 to organise another rising in the island. England, on this occasion,by friendly intervention, effected a settlementby inducing the Turks to reaffirm tlae constitution of 1868, and the new basis of agreement with the Cretans was embodiedin the Convention of Halepa, which was noted in the Treaty of Berlin as summing up the conditions under which Turkish rule was to be allowed to continue in the island.

Under this pressure the Sublime Porteissued a decree convoking the Cretan Assembly at Canea, and at the suggestion of the Powers a Christian governor wasappointed for the island in the person of George Berovitch Pasha,Prince of Samos. In July the Assembly was formally opened at Canea, in the presence of the foreign