'Fort of Suda [Souda], and entrance to Suda Bay, Candia [Crete], Octr. 24th 1857', 1857...

Creator: Admiral Sir Edward Gennys Fanshawe Mounted in album with PAI4673-PAI4696, PAI4698-PAI4716.; No.25. 19. No. 25 in Fanshawe's Baltic and later album, 1843-1883. Captioned by the artist on the album page below the image, as title. The twelfth and last of a series of drawings of the Mediterranean fleet's summer cruise, from Malta and back, between 3 June and 7 November 1857. Souda Bay is a long east-west inlet on the north-western side of Crete, with Souda itself in its south-west corner. This view looks out north-east from the south side of the bay, over the (originally Venetian) fort on Souda Island which covers the eastern entrance (the Souda Strait). The headland beyond is that of the Akrotiri peninsula, which closes the bay on the north side. Fanshawe's viewpoint is above the old coast road near the village of Megala Chorafia, along which figures in Greek costume and pack animals are passing. During the Second World War the bay was the site of a major Allied landing, and subsequent defeat under German air attack, in April-May 1941.