Editing History of Crete (section)

==Modern Crete==
===Cretan State===
{{Main|Cretan State}}
{{needs more citations section|date=July 2024}}
[[File:Flag of Cretan State.svg|thumb|200px|Flag of the Cretan State (1898–1908)]]
After the expulsion of Ottoman forces in November 1898, the autonomous Cretan State (Official Greek name: {{lang|el|Κρητική Πολιτεία}}), headed by Prince George of Greece and Denmark, was founded under Ottoman [[suzerainty]] in December 1898.

Prince George was replaced by [[Alexandros Zaimis]] in 1906, and in 1908, taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey as well as the timing of Zaimis's vacation away from the island, the Cretan deputies declared union with Greece.<ref>Ion, Theodore P., "The Cretan Question," ''The American Journal of International Law'', April, 1910, pp. 276–284</ref>  But this act was not recognized internationally until 1913 after the [[Balkan Wars]] when, by the [[Treaty of London (1913)|Treaty of London]], Sultan [[Mehmed V]] relinquished his formal rights to the island.

In December, the Greek flag was raised at the Firkas fortress in Chania, with [[Eleftherios Venizelos]] and [[Constantine I of Greece|King Constantine]] in attendance, and Crete was unified with mainland Greece. The [[Cretan Turks]] minority of Crete initially remained on the island but was later relocated to Turkey under the [[Population exchange between Greece and Turkey|general population exchange]] agreed upon in the 1923 [[Treaty of Lausanne (1923)|Treaty of Lausanne]] between Turkey and Greece.

One of the most important figures to emerge from the end of Ottoman Crete was the liberal politician [[Eleftherios Venizelos]], probably the most important statesman of modern Greece.{{according to whom?|date=July 2024}} Venizelos was an Athens-trained lawyer who was active in liberal circles in Chania, then the Cretan capital. After autonomy, he was first a minister in the government of Prince George and then his most formidable opponent.

In 1910 Venizelos transferred his career to Athens, quickly became the dominant figure on the political scene and in 1912, after careful preparations for a military alliance against the Ottoman Empire with Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, allowed Cretan deputies to take their place in the Greek Parliament. This was treated as grounds for war by Ottoman Empire but the Balkan allies won a series of sweeping victories in the hostilities that followed  (see [[Balkan Wars]]).  Ottoman Empire was effectively defeated in the ensuing war and were forced out of the Balkans and Thrace by the Alliance, except for the borders which Turkey continues to hold to this day.

===World War II===

====Battle of Greece====
{{Main|Battle of Greece}}
In 1939, the United Kingdom guaranteed military aid to Greece if its territorial integrity was threatened.<ref name="Dalegre20">Joëlle Dalègre, op. cit., p.20</ref> The priority of the United Kingdom was to prevent Crete from falling into enemy hands, because the island could be used to defend Egypt, the Suez Canal and the route to India.<ref>Van Creveld, op. cit., p. 67.</ref> British troops landed on Crete with the consent of the Greek Government from 3 November 1940, in order to make the 5th Greek Division of Crete available for the Albanian front.

The invasion of mainland Greece by the Axis powers began on 6 April 1941 and was complete within a few weeks despite the intervention of the armies of the Commonwealth along with Greece. King George II and the Government of Emmanouil Tsouderos were forced to flee Athens and took refuge in Crete on April 23. Crete was also the refuge of Commonwealth troops that fled from the beaches of Attica and the Peloponnese to Crete to organize a new front of resistance.

====Battle of Crete====
{{Main|Battle of Crete}}
After the conquest of mainland Greece, Germany turned to Crete and the last stage of the Balkans campaign. After a fierce and bloody conflict between [[Nazi Germany]] and the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] (United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Greece) that lasted ten days (between the 20 and 31 May 1941), the island fell to the Germans.

On the morning of 20 May 1941, Crete was the theater of the first major airborne assault in history. The Third Reich launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code name of "Operation Mercury". 17,000 paratroopers under the command of General Kurt Student were dropped at three strategic locations with airfields: [[Maleme]], [[Heraklion]], and [[Rethymnon]]. Their goal was the capture and control of the three airfields to allow the arrival of reinforcements airlifted by the Luftwaffe from mainland Greece to bypass the Royal Navy and the Hellenic Navy who still controlled the seas.

On 1 June 1941 the Allies completely evacuated the island of Crete. Despite the victory of the German invaders, the elite [[Fallschirmjäger (Nazi Germany)|German paratroopers]] suffered such heavy losses, from the resistance of the Allied troops and civilians, that [[Adolf Hitler]] forbade further airborne operations of such large scale for the rest of the war.<ref name=Beevor231>Beevor, op. cit., p. 231</ref>

====The Cretan Resistance====
{{Main|Cretan Resistance}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-166-0527-04, Kreta, Kondomari, Erschießung von Zivilisten.jpg|thumb|right|Murder of Greek civilians in Kondomari by German paratroopers in 1941]]
From the first days of the invasion, the local population organized a [[Cretan resistance|resistance]] movement, participating widely in guerrilla groups and intelligence networks. The first resistance groups formed in the Cretan mountains as early as June 1941. In September 1943, a memorable battle between the troops of occupation resistance fighters led by "Kapetan" Manolis Bandouvas in the region of Syme resulted in the deaths of eighty-three German soldiers and another thirteen were taken as prisoners. There were [[reprisal]]s for resistance, German officers routinely used firing squads against Cretan civilians and razed villages to the ground. Standing out amongst the atrocities, are the holocausts of [[Holocaust of Viannos|Viannos]] and [[Holocaust of Kedros|Kedros]] in [[Amari Valley|Amari]], the destruction of [[Razing of Anogeia|Anogeia]] and [[Razing of Kandanos|Kandanos]] and the [[massacre of Kondomari]].<ref>Beevor, Antony. ''Crete: The Battle and the Resistance'', John Murray Ltd, 1991. Penguin Books, 1992. {{ISBN|0-14-016787-0}}.</ref>

==== Liberation ====
By late 1944 German forces were withdrawing from Greece to avoid being cut off by the advancing Russian army moving west across Europe. By the end of September, German and Italian troops began withdrawing from Crete. A small force of British troops landed on Crete on October 13, and both Rethymno and Heraklion were liberated as the occupying forces were withdrawn to the Chania area.

Following [[VE Day]] British SOE officer [[Dennis Ciclitira]] arranged for ''[[Generalmajor]]'' [[Hans-Georg Benthack]] to formally surrender all German forces on the island to Major-General [[Colin Callander]].<ref name="IWM">{{cite web |url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30109356 |title=Head Shawl (Seraki) |work=Imperial War Museum |year=2016 |accessdate=10 February 2016}}</ref> On May 9, 1945, Benthack signed an unconditional surrender at the Villa Ariadne at [[Knossos]] to Callander, effective "10 o'clock Greenwich Mean Time on the tenth day of May 1945"<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.shealtiel.com/shealtiel/thereunions/speech_mamalakis.pdf |title=Constantin E. Mamalakis. Crete during the Second World War. Speech at the Historical Museum of Crete 25 June 2009 |access-date=14 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016061036/http://www.shealtiel.com/shealtiel/thereunions/speech_mamalakis.pdf |archive-date=16 October 2013 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

===Civil War===
In the aftermath of the [[Dekemvriana]] in Athens, Cretan leftists were targeted by the right wing paramilitary organization National Organization of Rethymno (EOR), which engaged in attacks in the villages of Koxare and Melampes, as well as Rethymno in January 1945. Those attacks did not escalate into a full scale insurgency as they did in the Greek mainland and the Cretan [[ELAS]] did not surrender its weapons after the [[Treaty of Varkiza]]. The Cretan branch of the [[Greek Communist Party]] (KKE) was well aware that the island was unsuitable for a long scale insurgency due to its isolation from the mainland and the popularity of [[Venizelism]] and conservative politics among its population. The presence of numerous bandits, escaped convicts and armed deserters in the countryside further complicated the situation. An uneasy truce was maintained until 1947, with a series of arrests of notable communists in Chania and Heraklion. This was followed with the mass arming of right leaning villagers and creation of the first Cretan {{Interlanguage link|Rural Security Units{{!}}MAY|el|3=Μονάδες Ασφαλείας Υπαίθρου}} units which were led by Bandouvas in Heraklion and "Kapetan" Gyparis in Chania. Encouraged by orders from the central organization in Athens, KKE launched an insurgency in Crete; marking the beginning of the [[Greek Civil War]] on the island. In eastern Crete the [[Democratic Army of Greece]] (DSE) struggled to establish its presence in [[Dikti]] and [[Psilorites]], after continuously clashing with local bandits, armed peasants and army units. The summer season severely limited the number of available water sources for the rebels, further limiting the space available for their maneuvers. On 1 July 1947, the surviving 55 fighters of DSE were ambushed south of Psilorites during an attempt to relocate to [[Mount Kedros]]. Commander Giannis Podias was killed and decapitated, the few surviving members of the unit managed to join the rest of DSE in [[Lefka Ori]].<ref>Margaritis, pp. 441–447.</ref>

The Lefka Ori region in the west offered more favorable conditions for DSE's insurgency. In the summer of 1947 DSE raided the [[Maleme Airport]], looting its warehouses and abducting 100 aircraftmen of the Royal [[Hellenic Air Force]], 12 of whom joined the rebels. On 4 July 1947, DSE struck a former German motor depot at Chrysopigi on the outskirts of Chania. DSE abducted the depot's guards, looted the warehouse and set it aflame; resulting in a big explosion that led to the mobilization of government troops across the island. Following the destruction of the DSE units in the east, Cretan DSE numbered around 300 fighters. Crop failure during 1947 had created food shortages in Crete which were much more severe among the rebels who lacked access to the cities. The communists resorted to [[Cattle raiding|cattle rustling]] and confiscated 70,000 [[Oka (mass)|okades]] of potatoes from the village of [[Lakkoi]]. This solved supply shortages only temporarily and the communists struggled to enforce discipline on their recruits or dislodge the mountain bandits residing in the areas under their nominal control. In the autumn of 1947, the Greek government offered generous amnesty terms to Cretan DSE fighters and mountain bandits, many of whom opted to abandon armed struggle or even defect to the nationalists. On 4 July 1948, government troops launched a large scale offensive on [[Samariá Gorge]]. Many DSE soldiers were killed in the fighting while the survivors broke into small armed bands. In October 1948, the secretary of the Cretan KKE Giorgos Tsitilos was killed in an ambush. By the following month only 34 DSE fighters remained active in Lefka Ori. The insurgency in Crete gradually withered away, with the last two hold outs surrendering in 1974, 25 years after the conclusion of the war in mainland Greece.<ref>Margaritis, pp. 447–452.</ref>