Dodecanese The few remaining Knights fled to Malta. Thus began a period of several hundred years in the Ottoman Empire. The Dodecanese formed a separate province within the Eyalet of the Archipelago. The population was allowed to retain a number of privileges provided it submitted to Ottoman rule. By Suleiman's edict, they paid a special tax in return for a special autonomous status that prohibited Ottoman generals from interfering in their civil affairs or mistreating the population. These guarantees, combined with a strategic location at the crossroads of Mediterranean shipping, allowed the islands to prosper. The overwhelmingly Greek population (only Rhodes
Greece in the Balkan Wars promises of the Young Turks caused much enthusiasm both inside the Empire and in the Balkan states, but they gradually adopted a policy of forced "Ottomanisation", which, coupled with the parallel rise of Albanian nationalism, threatened the interests of the other Balkan states. Italy too, in search of a colonial empire, took advantage of the turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, attacking Libya and seizing the Dodecanese islands during the Italo-Turkish War. The Italians promised to cede the Greek-inhabited Dodecanese islands to Greece, but in the end kept them. This aroused indignation in Greece. Coupled with Bulgarian aspirations for Macedonia and