Against The Ottomans
During the Ottoman occupation of Crete (1669–1898), and especially from the 18th century onwards, the Greeks looked towards Christian Russia as its savior. Peter the Great, as part of his plan to expand southward to the Black Sea, promoted himself as a champion of the Christians residing in the Balkans. His overall policy, with some variations, was continued by Catherine the Great (1762–1796) in her wars against the Ottoman Turks. She dreamed of resurrecting the Byzantine Empire and placing her grandson as its emperor. Before the first Russo-Turkish War, she sent Russian agents to Morea and the islands in order to stir up the Greeks to fight against the Turks. One of the Russian agents reached a man named Daskaloyiannis and told the Sfakian from Anopoli to lead a revolt. This was ill advice since the Sfakians, let alone the Cretans in general, were hardly ready for such a revolt, as they had virtually no weapons.
Yet, when in 1770, a Russian fleet under Count Aleksey Grigoryevich Orlov appeared in the Aegean, precipitating the Orlov Revolt, Daskaloyiannis and his Cretan followers revolted. However, when the Russo-Turkish conflict ran to an end, the Cretans were left alone against Turkish troops from Chania, Rethymno, and Heraklion. The pasha of Crete had captured the brother and daughters of Daskaloyiannis and with the promise of leniency he demanded that Daskaloyiannis surrender. Daskaloyiannis decided to surrender so that he could see his brother and daughters released. Most of the other leaders of the revolt were killed, and the pasha had Daskaloyiannis first tortured in order to provide any valuable strategic information. Naturally, Daskaloyiannis refused to surrender his people to the Turks. Even after the pasha had the Sfakian skinned alive strip by strip in front of hundreds summoned at a public square, Daskaloyiannis did not betray his people.
Neither the failed revolt of 1770 AD nor the death of Daskaloyiannis went in vain since both events aroused the national sentiments of all Cretans. The revolts made by the Cretans and the legendary Sfakians contributed to the rise of the independent Cretan state in 1898, which also paved the way for Crete’s union with Greece in 1912.
Read more about this topic: Sfakians