How did the Emirate of Crete survive for a century?

[Akrotatos]

I am curious how on earth did the Arabs manage to hold Crete for so long, considering how much closer it was to the Byzantine bases and the fact that the population was Christian.

I would understand it if somehow their fleet stopped all invasions but from what I read before the reconquest the Byzantines managed to land three or four times considerable forces that were somehow defeated.

Anyone with suggestions?

[TWWolfe]

My guess is that they simply holed up in the inside of the Island and waited for supply issues and other things to defeat/make the Byzzies leave. After all, Crete has a history of Pirates and Guerrilla warfare.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Also the terrain and food supply in Crete is a real . Making long drawn out wars a pain to fight on Crete. Crete was such a pain to fight in that the Ottomans avoided it all together until the 1600s. Besides one could bypass it for more favourable choices like Cyprus, Rhodes, Corfu or Malta which were closer to a favorable position for the attacker and just so much more valuable to capture. One of the reasons why there have not been that many invasions of Crete and ended up being successful.
I mean there was little value in Crete other than it was closer to Greece.

[Akrotatos]

Also the terrain and food supply in Crete is a real . Making long drawn out wars a pain to fight on Crete. Crete was such a pain to fight in that the Ottomans avoided it all together until the 1600s. Besides one could bypass it for more favourable choices like Cyprus, Rhodes, Corfu or Malta which were closer to a favorable position for the attacker and just so much more valuable to capture. One of the reasons why there have not been that many invasions of Crete and ended up being successful.
I mean there was little value in Crete other than it was closer to Greece.

That might be true in later times but Crete was the main base of operations for the Saracens that devastated the Aegean for more than a century. It was a priority target. I guess they used the heavily fortified Chandax and supply problems to defend as you said...

It's a pity there is not much research on this subject.

[Roma_Victrix]

That might be true in later times but Crete was the main base of operations for the Saracens that devastated the Aegean for more than a century. It was a priority target. I guess they used the heavily fortified Chandax and supply problems to defend as you said...

It's a pity there is not much research on this subject.

The Byzantines were incredibly weakened economically after the loss of the Levant and Egypt to the Arabs (then under the Rashidun Caliphate) two centuries before. This was all part of the larger campaign of chipping away at Christendom in the Mediterranean, including the capture of Sicily for roughly the same amount of time, invasions into southern Italy, the conquest of most of the Iberian peninsula minus Asturias in the north, etc. The Byzantines still had their "cash cow" of Anatolia to produce enough revenues for the state to maintain its existence and launch retaliatory campaigns against the Arabs, and later the Turks. It took a massive invasion force to finally recapture Crete, after several disastrous attempts. The island has a legacy for being quite defensible (and using piracy/raiding as an offense), but you're right, more research should be done for the matter.

[neoptolemos]

Some useful info can be found in the Cretam emirate preview of TGC mod
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ate-of-Chandax

[KostasHBK]

First of all, when Crete was conquered the Aegean control was already lost. The Byzantine fleet was occupied to Italy and the few ships on the Aegean were protecting the capital.
So let's take the thinks from the beginning. When a small group of Sarrasing took control of the island and by took control I mean that they drive out the local gourd of some locations, they mainly stay in the north-west part where the built a settlement named Handakas which was a very well fortifying position and not a city.The first attempts of the Byzantines to recapture Crete were unsuccessful because the Byzantines underestimated the Arabs. In the following years, the empire was busy in the Balkans trying to face Bulgarians, in the West where they were trying to keep southern Italy and Sicily and of course in the east.
The locale population was immediately put to death or slavery or forced to follow Islam,at least in the North of the Island where the Arabs was.
Also, some of the attempts of the Byzantines to recapture Crete failed because they were badly planed or because of the generals impotence. When Nikiphoros Fokas invaded the island with a respectable force in 960 he almost suffered the same fate because of bad preparation and because of the few but good fortified petitions of the Arabs.
He managed to recapture Crete in 961 and returned in Constantinople where he entered in triumph.