Walter Alison Phillips

“ Had Reshid at once advanced over the Isthmus, the Morea also must have been subdued; but he was jealous of Ibrahim, and preferred to return to Iannina to consolidate his conquests.
The fate of Greece was now in the hands of the Powers, who after years of diplomatic wrangling had at last realized that intervention was necessary if Greece was to be saved for European civilization. The worst enemy of the Greeks was their own incurable spirit of faction; in the very crisis of their fate, during the siege of Missolonghi, rival Renewed anarchy. ”

“ Greeks, advancing prematurely over broken ground and in no sort of order, were fallen upon in flank by Reshid’s horsemen, and fled in panic terror. The English officers, who in vain tried to rally them, themselves only just escaped by scrambling into their boats and putting off to the war-vessels, whose guns checked the pursuit and enabled a remnant of the fugitives to escape. Church held Munychia till the 27th, when he sent instructions for the garrison of the Acropolis to surrender. ”

“ The peasants of the open country welcomed the Turks as deliverers, and Reshid’s conciliatory Karaiskakis. policy facilitated his march to Athens, which fell at the first assault on the 25th of August, siege being at once laid to the Acropolis, where Gouras and his troops had taken refuge. Round this the war now centred; for all recognized that its fall would involve that of the cause of Greece. ”

“ At sea, as on land, the Greeks opened the campaign with hideous atrocities, almost their first exploit being the capture of a vessel carrying to Mecca the sheik-ul-Islam and his family, whom they murdered with every aggravation of outrage. ”

“ A first attempt was defeated by Miaoulis on the 16th of November, and Ibrahim was compelled to retire and anchor off Rhodes; but the Greek admiral was unable to keep his fleet together, the season was far advanced, his captains were clamouring for arrears of pay, and the Greek fleet sailed for Nauplia, leaving the sea unguarded. On the 5th of December Ibrahim again set sail, and reached Suda without striking a blow. Here he completed his preparations, and, on the 24th of February 1825, landed at Modon in the Morea with a force of 4000 regular infantry and 500 cavalry. ”

“ On land the presence of a few educated Phanariots, such as Demetrios Ypsilanti or Alexander Mavrocordato, was powerless to inspire the rude hordes with any sense of order or of humanity in warfare; while every lull in the fighting, due to a temporary check to the Turks, was the signal for internecine conflicts due to the rivalry of leaders who, with rare exceptions, thought more of their personal power and profit than of the cause of Greece. ”

“ This held Dramali in check, and gave Kolokotrones time to collect an army. The Turks, in the absence of the fleet which was to have brought them supplies, were forced to retreat (August 6) ; the Greeks, inspired with new courage, awaited them in the pass of Dervenaki, where the undisciplined Ottoman host, thrown into confusion by an avalanche of boulders hurled upon them, was annihilated. In Western Greece the campaign had an outcome scarcely less disastrous for the Turks. ”

“ At sea the Greeks rapidly developed into mere pirates, and even Miaoulis, for all his high character and courage, was General character of the war. often unable to prevent his captains from sailing home at critical moments, when pay or booty failed. ”

“ On the 21st of March Ibrahim had laid siege to Navarino, and after some delay a Ibrahim in
the Morea. Greek force under Skourti, a Hydriote sea-captain, was sent to its relief. The Greeks had in all some 7000 men, Suliotes, Albanians, armatoli from Rumelia, and some irregular Bulgarian and Vlach cavalry. On the 19th of April they were met by Ibrahim at Krommydi with 2000 regular infantry, 400 cavalry and four guns. The Greek entrenchments were stormed at the point of the bayonet by Ibrahim’s fellahin at the first onset; the defenders broke and fled, leaving 600 dead on the field. ”

“ But a new and more terrible danger now threatened Greece. Sultan Mahmud, despairing of suppressing the insurrection by his own power, had reluctantly summoned to his aid Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, whose Intervention of Mehemet Ali. well-equipped fleet and disciplined army were now thrown into the scale against the Greeks. ”

“ In the spring of 1822 two Turkish armies advanced southwards: one, under Omar Vrioni, along the coast of Western Hellas, the other, under Ali, pasha of Drama (Dramali) , through Boeotia and Attica. Omar was held in check by the mud Expedition of Dramali, 1822. ramparts of Missolonghi; but Dramali, after exacting fearful vengeance for the massacre of the Turkish garrison of the Acropolis at Athens, crossed the Isthmus and with the over-confidence of a conquering barbarian advanced to the relief of the hard-pressed garrison of Nauplia. ”

“ Authorities.—There is no trustworthy history of the war, based on all the material now available, and all the existing works must be read with caution, especially those by eye-witnesses, who were too often prejudiced or the dupes of the Greek factions. The best-known works are: G. Finlay, Hist. ”

“ This cause, indeed, was helped more by the impolitic reprisals of the Turks than by the heroism of the insurgents. All Europe stood aghast at the news of the execution of the Patriarch Gregorios of Constantinople (April 22, 1821) and the wholesale massacres that followed, culminating as these did in the extermination of the Turkish reprisals. prosperous community of Scio (Chios) in March 1822. The cause of Greece was now that of Christendom, of the Catholic and Protestant West, as of the Orthodox East. ”