The Greco-Turkish War of 1897 or the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897, also called the Thirty Days' War and known in Greece as the Black '97 or the Unfortunate War, was a war fought between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Its immediate cause involved the status of the Ottoman province of Crete, whose Greek-majority population had long desired union with Greece. Despite the Ottoman victory on the field, an autonomous Cretan State under Ottoman suzerainty was established the following year, with Prince George of Greece and Denmark as its first High Commissioner.
Greek lithograph depicting the Battle of Velestino
The Greco-Turkish war of 1897 on the cover of Le Petit Journal
Col. Timoleon Vassos and his son at the Greek headquarters in Crete
The first skirmishes at the Melouna border post, Le Petit Journal
The Kingdom of Greece was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries.
Otto, the first king of modern Greece
King George I of the Hellenes
The Hellenic Parliament in the 1880s, with PM Charilaos Trikoupis standing at the podium
Fencing before King George, during the 1896 Summer Olympics