In the 1890s, conflict erupted on the Ottoman island of Crete, exposing competing claims of sovereignty between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The island was of tremendous geostrategic value, boasting one of the deepest natural harbors in the Mediterranean, and the conflict quickly gained international dimensions with an unprecedented collective military intervention by six European powers.

In this lecture, Uğur Zekeriya Peçe analyzes the troubled history of Crete on the eve of the twentieth century by narrating a connected history of international intervention, mass displacement, and popular mobilization. The conflict on Crete drove a wedge between the island's Muslims and Christians, quickly acquiring a character of civil war and unleashing a humanitarian catastrophe with the displacement of more than seventy-thousand Muslims. By exploring both the emergence and legacies of violence, this talk demonstrates how Cretan refugees became the engine of protest across the empire from Salonica to Libya, sending ripples farther afield beyond imperial borders. As Dr. Peçe shows, the local history of one island tells us a broader story about the end of a whole empire.

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