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Crete (Greece)

Krìti

History of Crete
Principality of Crete (1898-1913)
- National and State flag
- Naval ensign
Anti-Ottoman struggle

See also:

History of Crete

Crete was part of the Byzantine Empire from A.D. 395-1204; ruled by Venice from 1204-1669; ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire 1669-1898.
The Greek mainland, but not Crete, had become independent in 1833, and for the rest of the century the ethnic Greeks in Crete fought for union (enosis) with Greece. In 1898, the island, while still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, gained autonomy (unilaterally proclaimed in 1908), and in 1913 became an integral part of the Greek state.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

Principality of Crete

Enosis was proclaimed at a flag-raising ceremony in Hania, which is still ceremonially repeated every Sunday.
The following flags are displayed and described in the Naval Museum in Hania, which is located in the fort where the 1913 flag-raising occurred.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

National and State flag

by Santiago Dotor

The flag divided by a white cross, like that of the Dominican Republic. Three of the quarters are blue; the canton is red with a white star inside it. In a couple of pictures of the flag (e.g., one painted on a commemorative porcelain plate along with a portrait of the statesman Venizelos), the star is yellow and/or has one point (pointing towards the upper left corner) longer than the other points. This flag, as well as the Greek plain cross flag, appears on some locally-woven textiles, displayed in the museum, that depict Cretan soldiers and civilians parading with flags.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

This is the flag of autonomous Crete, 1898-1908. Crete was occupied by the big powers(led by Britain) a little more than 100 years ago and after some discussion became an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire with Prince George of Greece as governor. It united with Greece in 1908. I don't know if the flag has any legal status now (I doubt it), but I did see it several times being used for Greek patriotic purposes when I was in Greece last year.

Source: Hellenic flags. Insignia-Emblems. [kok97]

Norman Martin, 16 June 1998

This old flag of Crete is shown in an image from a German cigarette card in The World of Flags [cra90]. The author notes that "[Crete and the Ionian Islands] are now integrated into Greece," implying that their flags are no longer in use.

Nick Pharris, 16 June 1998

Naval ensign

The naval ensign of the Cretan Principality (1898-1913) was with blue and white stripes - like the Greek flag - but with a white star on a red field in the canton.

Phoevos Panagiotidis, 19 May 1998

Anti-Ottoman struggle

The following flags are displayed and described in the Naval Museum in Hania, which is located in the fort where the 1913 flag-raising occurred.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

Gianni Stathas's revolutionary fleet (1803)

The flag had a blue field with narrow white cross.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

The war standard of Demetrios M. Zoudianos (1897)

The flag has a white field with a light blue couped cross and three thin light blue horizontal stripes above, through, and under the cross. In the white stripes, on either side of the cross, is written, in blue:

IESOUS CHRI- STOS NIKA (Jesus-Christ victorious)
D Z (the initials of the commander whose flag it was).

The proportions of the flag are about 2:3.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

A related flag is white with a couped cross in blue charged with the figure of St. George and the dragon: this is the flag of the Sipahis of Epirus in the Pindus mountains.

Source: Hellenic flags. Insignia-Emblems [kok97]

Pascal Vagnat, 11 January 1999

Another flag from the independence struggle

The flag is white, with blue squares in the corners; a blue couped cross in the middle, its arms thinner than the Swiss cross. In the corners of the cross are the letters (in blue): iota, chi, nu, kappa (for Iesous Christos Nika "Jesus conquers").
This flag is slightly longer than it is tall.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

A possible variant of this flag is white with a couped cross in blue with the same four blue letters written around that cross. It was the Plapoutas flag.

Source: Hellenic flags. Insignia-Emblems [kok97]

Pascal Vagnat, 11 January 1999

The flag of the Cretan Grenadiers

The flag is an approximately square blue field with a white cross (not couped). The arms of the cross are one-third the width of the flag. In the middle is written in blue:

ENOSIS (Union)
T.E.K.
1897

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

The flag of the Sitia district

The flag has a blue field, a white cross (not couped) whose arms are thinner than those described above. In the horizontal arm of the cross, in red letters:

ENOSIS I THANATOS (Union [with Greece] or death)

Proportions are approximately 2:3.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

The flag of the Malevisi district

The flag has a blue field and a white cross as in Psara flag. In the middle of the cross is a picture of St. George slaying the dragon. In the lower left-hand corner is a white label that says:

TO NIKOLAO THIAKAKI (To Nikolaios Thiakakis)
ARCHIGO MALEVYZIOU (Warlord of Malevisi)
O SYLLOGOS KRITON (The Cretan Union)
PEIRAIOS (of Piraeus)

[Translation by Stelios Kutrakis and Phoevos Panagiotidis, 19 May 1998]

The flag is about 2:3.

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995

The 1881 revolutionary banner of Pompia village, Kainourion district

A multicolored icon-like picture of St. George and the dragon, with the following sentence written along the bottom:

DAPANI TON KATOIKON TOU HORIOU POMPIA (At the expense of the people of Pompia village)

[Text corrected and translated by Stelios Kutrakis and Phoevos Panagiotidis, 19 May 1998]

Bruce Tindall, 20 May 1995