Al Hamidiyah
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For other places with the same name, see Al Hamidiyah (disambiguation).
Al Hamidiyah is a town on the coastal Syrian line about 3km from the Lebanese border. The town was founded in a very short time on direct orders from the Turkish Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Hamid II circa 1897, to serve as refuge for the Turkish Cretans fleeing the ethnic cleansing[1] in Crete in the aftermath of the departure of Turkish troops from the island. The town is home to about 8000 people, with the majority still speaking Turkish and Cretan Greek (with a distinctive Cretan accent) in their daily lives.
[edit] References
- ^ Henry Noel Brailsford (full text), an eyewitness of the immediate aftermath, uses the term "wholescale massacre" to describe the events of 1897 in Crete, in a definition corroborated also by other sources. The strictly applicable terminology awaits further scholarly research, in addition to those already made, on the basis of records left by independent observers, of documents available in the foreign ministries of a number of European powers, notably France, as well as of the Ottoman Archives and the sources already published by the Turkish General Staff (Genelkurmay).
