Page 248 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

248 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Blockade districts – Dell’Adami, Streitkräfte

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now on. The Porte immediately agreed to the terms of the note except that it wanted to
negotiate on the details of the future government with the ambassadors and it wanted to
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have the term suzerainty replaced by sovereignty. The Greek king, however, rejected
the note and proposed to use Greek troops to pacify Crete instead. Moreover, the Greek
government argued, “the only solution would either be the union of the island with
Greece or the conduct of a plebiscite on Crete to give the population the opportunity to
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decide on own fate”. Colonel Vassos continued to support the insurgents with military
advisers and arms. After Greece had ignored yet another appeal to withdraw its forces,
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the great powers began with the blockade of Crete on 21 March 1897 at 8 a. m.
The Admirals’ Council now drafted a note to the Greek government with the follow-
ing instructions:
1. All Greek warships have to be ordered back to Salamis at a fixed date, otherwise they
will be forced to go there.
2. After the beginning of the blockade every warship in Eastern Greek waters will be
treated as an enemy ship.
3. Every torpedo boat, which approaches a ship of the international squadron, will be
shot.
4. Every hostile action of a Greek warship against a ship of the international squadron

35 HHStA, PA XII 283, Liasse XXXVIII Kretensische Frage 1897 III, fol. 5: telegram Calice, Constantinople,
1.3.1897; ibid., fol. 9: telegram Prince Francis I of Liechtenstein (Austro-Hungarian ambassador at Saint
Petersburg), Saint Petersburg, 1.3.1897; ibid., fol. 43: Széchényi, Athens, 2.3.1897; ibid., fol. 110-115: Calice
to Gołuchowski, Constantinople, 4.3.1897. See also Zürrer, Die Nahostpolitik Frankreichs und Rußlands, p.
351f.; Pangerl, Die Kreta-Mission der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine, p. 53.
36 HHStA, PA XII 283, fol. 178: telegram Calice, Pera, 6.3.1897; ibid., fol. 375-380: Calice to Gołuchowski,
Constantinople, 11.3.1897.
37 Tuma von Waldkampf, Kreta und die neueste Phase der orientalischen Frage, p. 50f. The official statement of
the Greek government is quoted in a series of telegrams written by Count Széchényi from Athens on 8 March
1897. See HHStA, PA XII 283, fol. 240-253.
38 Dell’Adami, Die k. u. k. Streitkräfte auf und vor Kreta 1897/98, p. 57.