In May 1896, "Hood" steamed from Malta to Crete to protect British interests and subjects there during unrest among Cretan Greeks who opposed the Ottoman Empire′s rule of the island. In 1897 and 1898, the ship served as part of the International Squadron, a multinational force made up of ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, French Navy, Imperial German Navy, Italian Royal Navy ("Regia Marina"), Imperial Russian Navy, and Royal Navy that intervened in the 1897-1898 Greek uprising on Crete. The squadron, which formed in February 1897, bombarded insurgent forces, put sailors and marines ashore to occupy key cities, and blockaded Crete and key ports in Greece, actions which brought organized fighting on the island to an end by late March 1897. Thereafter, the squadron maintained order on Crete until the island's status finally was resolved by the evacuation of all Ottoman Army forces from Crete in November 1898 and the establishment of an autonomous Cretan State under Ottoman suzerainty in December 1898.