The Latins in Greece: A Brief Introduction 7
antagonise the Turks, spent most of the 1460s campaigning for a new crusade
to stave off the Ottoman onslaught. The western powers, however, remained
non-committal and when war came Venice could only rely on her Hungarian
and Albanian allies, who were as threatened by the Turks as her own colonies.
The first Ottoman-Venetian war (1463–79) was a disaster for Venice, who was
forced to relinquish most of her possessions in Greece. The most traumatic
loss was the island of Negroponte, which fell despite putting up heroic resis-
tance. The brutality of the sack and the wholesale slaughter of the city’s popu-
lation shocked European public opinion. Despite the losses Venice held on to
Modon and Coron (until 1500), Monemvasia, Navarino and Nauplion (until
1540), and Lepanto (until 1499). She also managed to claim through treaty the
Ionian Islands, which the Turks had seized from the Counts Palatine, and hold
them, along with Corfu, until the dissolution of the Venetian Republic in 1797.
More importantly, she retained her most significant possession, the island of
Crete, until 1669. With the Venetians forced into a treaty, Mehmed was free to
turn his attention to the Knights Hospitaller, who, since their installation on
Rhodes had been the most aggressive of the Christian powers, albeit through
small-scale piratical attacks. In the summer of 1480 the town of Rhodes suf-
fered a horrific siege, but somehow the Hospitaller, mercenary and Greek
defenders managed to overcome the overwhelming numerical superiority of
the Turks and retain the island. The victory was widely publicised in the West,
but there was little cause for celebration: with Latin and Greek resistance gone,
a Turkish fleet was able to sack Otranto in the same summer. Moreover, though
the Hospitallers had won an important victory, it must have been clear to
contemporaries that their days in the Eastern Mediterranean were now num-
bered. Undoubtedly, one of the most unsavoury aspects of this phase of Latin
domination of Greece is the unwillingness of the Venetians and Hospitallers
to unite against their common enemy. During the Ottoman-Venetian war, the
Knights had actively disrupted the Venetian campaign; in 1480 the Venetians
returned the favour by remaining aloof while Rhodes was being pounded by
Turkish cannon.
The end of the 15th century found the Latin states of Greece all but extinct.
The dukes of the Archipelago were allowed to carry on ruling their islands until
1566 as were the Genoese lords of Chios, but both had been reduced to tribu-
taries of the Sultan long since. The Hospitallers continued to hold Rhodes and
the Dodecanese until 1522, at which point a second siege forced them to admit
defeat and surrender the island to the Turks. Only Venice continued to main-
tain a significant presence in Greece, well into the early modern period and
in the case of the Ionian Islands until the dissolution of the Republic itself.
Despite their sorry state at the end of the 15th century, it is worth reminding