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relations between the two governments, and played the game of the chauvinist party led by Trikoupis' rival,
Deliyannis. Deliyannis' tenures of office were always brief, but during them he contrived to undo most of the
work accomplished by Trikoupis in the previous intervals. A particularly tense 'incident' with Turkey put him
in power in 1893, with a strong enough backing from the country to warrant a general mobilization. The sole
result was the ruin of Greek credit. Trikoupis was hastily recalled to office by the king, but too late. He found
himself unable to retrieve the ruin, and retired altogether from politics in 1895, dying abroad next year in
voluntary exile and enforced disillusionment.
With the removal of Trikoupis from the helm, Greece ran straight upon the rocks. A disastrous war with
Turkey was precipitated in 1897 by events in Krete. It brought the immediate _débâcle_ of the army and the
reoccupation of Thessaly for a year by Turkish troops, while its final penalties were the cession of the chief
strategical positions along the northern frontier and the imposition of an international commission of control
over the Greek finances, in view of the complete national bankruptcy entailed by the war. The fifteen years
that followed 1895 were almost the blackest period in modern Greek history; yet the time was not altogether
lost, and such events as the draining of the Kopais-basin by a British company, and its conversion from a
The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey 79
malarious swamp into a rich agricultural area, marked a perceptible economic advance.
This comparative stagnation was broken at last by the Young Turk pronunciamiento at Salonika in 1908,
which produced such momentous repercussions all through the Nearer East. The Young Turks had struck in
order to forestall the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but the opportunity was seized by every restive
element within it to extricate itself, if possible, from the Turkish coils. Now, just as in 1897, Greece was
directly affected by the action of the Greek population in Krete. As a result of the revolt of 1896-7, Krete had
been constituted an autonomous state subject to Ottoman suzerainty, autonomy and suzerainty alike being
guaranteed by four great powers. Prince George of Greece, a son of the King of the Hellenes, had been placed
at the head of the autonomous government as high commissioner; but his autocratic tendency caused great
discontent among the free-spirited Kretans, who had not rid themselves of the Turkish régime in order to
forfeit their independence again in another fashion. Dissension culminated in 1906, when the leaders of the
opposition took to the mountains, and obtained such support and success in the guerrilla fighting that
followed, that they forced Prince George to tender his resignation. He was succeeded as high commissioner by
Zaimis, another citizen of the Greek kingdom, who inaugurated a more constitutional régime, and in 1908 the
Kretans believed that the moment for realizing the national ideal had come. They proclaimed their union with
Greece, and elected deputies to the Parliament at Athens. But the guarantor powers carried out their
obligations by promptly sending a combined naval expedition, which hauled down the Greek flag at Canea,
and prevented the deputies from embarking for Peiraeus. This apparently pedantic insistence upon the status
quo was extremely exasperating to Greek nationalism. It produced a ferment in the kingdom, which grew
steadily for nine months, and vented itself in July 1909 in the _coup d'état_ of the 'Military League', a
second-hand imitation of the Turkish 'Committee of Union and Progress'. The royal family was cavalierly
treated, and constitutional government superseded by a junta of officers. But at this point the policy of the four
powers towards Krete was justified. Turkey knew well that she had lost Krete in 1897, but she could still
exploit her suzerainty to prevent Greece from gaining new strength by the annexation of the island. The
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