The secondary son of George I of the Greeks, Prince George, landed at Chania On December 9, 1898, in order to take on the duties of the first High Commissioner of the Cretan State, an autonomous hegemony under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan and the protection of the Great Powers. The flag of the state was raised in the Firkas fortress, while that of the Ottoman Empire was maintained only in the fortress of Souda, as the last symbol of the Ottoman presence on the island. The period of Ottoman political sovereignty in Crete It was officially ended.
The next day, the Admirals of the Great Powers departed from Chania and began the difficult work of the Cretan state organization. Within a few months, elections were held to raise proxies, a constitution was drawn up and a government was formed, which was zealously served in the work of the island’s rule. Members of the Council of Ministers were: Nikolaos Yamalakis at the Ministry of Public Education and Religions, Konstantinos Foumis In the Ministry of Finance, Eleftherios Venizelos In the Ministry of Justice, Manousos Koundouros in the Ministry of the Interior and Hussein Genitsarakis at the Ministry of Public Security.
Around Venizelos, all those who felt unhappy with Prince George’s rule were united.
It was not too late, however, that protests occurred because of the supervisors granted by the Constitution of 1899 to Prince George, as well as disagreements on how the Commissioner managed the issue of the union of the island with Greece. In the criticism of George, he responded with authoritarianism. Indeed, in March 1901 he fired Venizelos from the government.
Gradually, all those who felt unhappy with Prince George’s rule were united around Venizelos. On February 26, 1905, Venizelos, Foumis, Manos and fifteen still prominent Cretan politicians drafted a notice calling for the implementation of the “national program”, the union of Crete with Greece. An armed uprising was now on the door.
The Therissos Movement soon gained many supporters across Crete, prompting George’s reaction.
Although the opposition, under Venizelos, leaked the information that the uprising would erupt on March 14, it eventually occurred four days earlier. On March 10, 1905, Eleftherios Venizelos, Konstantinos Foumis and Konstantinos Manos formed in Theriso, a mountain village in the prefecture of Chania, revolutionary governmentthe main demands of which were the removal of George from the Commissioner, the restriction of the powers of the Commissioner and the promotion of the Union issue. Therissos Movement soon gained many supporters throughout Crete, prompting the reaction of George who imposed strict police measures. These measures, however, proved to be inadequate.
In order to overthrow the movement, George called for the help of the Great Powers, which failed to limit the action of Therisos’ movement. Soon the crisis was postponed to the field of diplomacy, as Venizelos had estimated. Applying the policy of the major pursuit of the achievement of the minor, Venizelos raised the issue of the Union from the outset. When he realized that the Union of Crete with Greece had not matured in the perception of the forces, Venizelos tried to secure as much profits as possible, hoping to establish a regime in Crete, in which the Sultanate is shaky. After exhausting negotiations, the two sides, the revolutionaries and the forces, signed the final agreement in November, which stipulated that more freedoms would be granted to the Cretan people and applied reforms to the island’s regime.
Column: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poumenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
