Dodecanese 18th century. The transfer of the name to the present-day Dodecanese has its roots in the Ottoman period. Following the Ottoman conquest in 1522, the two larger islands, Rhodes and Kos, came under direct Ottoman rule, while the others, of which the twelve main islands were usually named, enjoyed extensive privileges pertaining to taxation and self-government. Concerted attempts to abolish these privileges were made after 1869, as the Ottoman Empire attempted to modernize and centralize its administrative structure, and the last vestiges of the old privileges were finally abolished after the Young Turks took power in 1908. It was at
Massacre of the Acqui Division of the defence, Gandin and his men were either mutineers or "franc-tireurs" and did not qualify for POW status under the Geneva conventions. The Germans justified their behaviour by claiming the Italians were negotiating the surrender of the island to the British. The German claim was not entirely unfounded: in the Greek mainland, an entire division went over to the Greek guerrillas, and in the Dodecanese, the Italians had joined forces with the British, resulting in a two-month German campaign to evict them. An attempt to revisit the case by the Dortmund state prosecutor Johannes Obluda in 1964 came to