In a key article of 1906, while Evans was excavating Knossos, the Ottoman Empire had lost Crete due to British intervention, and questions of the “sick man of Europe” were being considered by all the powers. Referring to the failing Ottoman Empire and the power vacuum that would be left when it fell, the young Myres published an article studying the balance of what he termed “sea-power” in the eastern Mediterranean in classical times. The word "sea-power" was intended to define his “thalassocracy.”