It took the Romans three years of brutal fighting to conquer Crete in 67 b.c., and they did so only by playing the rival city-states against one another.
The Romans were shrewd enough to play the rival city-states against one another.
When France fell in World War II, the FWI's administrator, Admiral Georges Robert, decreed allegiance to the Vichy regime, although most of the islanders were against the move.