Page 245 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

245
ActA
Consul Julius Pinter (together with the Italian, British, and Greek consuls) tried to es-
tablish contact with the rebels in cooperation with the new governor general Berovich
21
Pasha, but came into crossfire and had to give up the plan to stop the fighting. The
consul commented on the total failure of the law enforcement forces blaming the gov-
ernor general for not having realized how explosive and dicey the situation really was.
22
Berovich Pasha was obviously unable to cope with the on-going events. As a reaction
to the aggravation of the situation the Greek consul general Gennadis sent a telegram to
the Greek government asking for the immediate dispatch of “ships and an occupation
army” to the island as according to his opinion the commanders of the international fleet
anchoring off Canea remained passive. 23
As one of the leading members of the “European Concert” the Habsburg monarchy
took a vivid interest in the developments on Crete. This was also due to the fact that it had
quite some economic interests in the island and therefore had a consulate at Canea, the
seat of the Ottoman administration, and sub-consulates at Retimo and Candia. The Aus-
trian Mail Service had offices in all three above-mentioned towns; and the Austrian Lloyd
called at Cretan ports and was also responsible for mail delivery.
24
Therefore, on 3 February 1897 Consul Pinter asked the Viennese government to im-
mediately send Austrian warships to Crete once again to guarantee the safety of the
Austro-Hungarian and German subjects on the island, whereupon “Kaiserin und Köni-
gin Maria Theresia” and the torpedo gunboat “Sebenico”, which in the meantime had
anchored in the harbours of Piraeus and Gravosa (Dalmatia), were ordered to go to
Canea and then act in cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian consular authorities there;
25
they arrived off Canea on the following evening.
The Greek government had not remained inactive either and had sent two ships – the
warship “Hydra” and the battle cruiser “Miaoulis” – to Canea, of course with the sole
purpose of “rescuing the suffering”. The great powers immediately protested against
26
the dispatch of these ships as they feared that this would increase excitement among the
Greek public on the one hand and induce the Ottoman government to take countermeas-
ures on the other. The fact that the protest was not followed by any (military) action
encouraged the Greek government to send further naval units with volunteers, weapons,
and ammunition to Crete under the pretext of “humanitarian purposes”. And the Ethnike

21 HHStA, PA XII 281, Liasse XXXVIII Kretensische Frage 1897 I-II, fol. 201: telegram Pinter, Canea, 4.2.1897.
See also Verosta, Kollektivaktionen der Mächte des Europäischen Konzerts, p. 63.
22 Verosta, Kollektivaktionen der Mächte des Europäischen Konzerts, p. 60f.
23 Paschalidou, Military Operations of the Great Powers during the Cretan Revolution (1897), p. 124.
24 Verosta, Kollektivaktionen der Mächte des Europäischen Konzerts, p. 36.
25 HHStA, PA XII 281, fol. 199: telegraph dispatch OK/MS, 5.2.1897; ibid., fol. 205: telegram Pinter, Canea,
4.2.1897; ibid., fol. 224: telegram Commando SM Schiffes Kaiserin u. Königin Maria Theresia, Piraeus,
4.2.1897.
26 Ekinci, The Origins of the 1897 Ottoman-Greek War, p. 20. HHStA, PA XII 281, fol. 228, fol. 244: 2 telegrams
Count Manó Széchényi de Sárvár-Felsővidék (Austro-Hungarian chargé d’affaires in Athens), Athens, 5. and
7.2.1897.