THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

 

CHAPTER III

Sultan Mahmud and Ali Pasha of Joannina.

 

In the year 1820, the Othoman empire seemed to be on the eve of dissolution. Ali Pasha was in open rebellion at the head of a warlike nation, and with reasonable hope of establishing an independent throne in Albania. An insurrection of the Greeks was also awaited with some anxiety by almost every Christian in the Levant, excepting the English consuls.

Sultan Mahmud II then ruled Turkey. He ascended the throne in the year 1808, in his twenty-fifth year, after a series of revolutions at Constantinople, caused by the attempts of his cousin, Sultan Selim III, to reform the public administration, and introduce military discipline in the corps of janissaries. Selim, who was dethroned in 1807, had neither energy nor talent. His successor, Mustapha IV, lost his crown and life, after murdering his cousin Selim in order to retain them, by a revolution that seated his younger brother Mahmud on the throne.

Mahmud II had reigned twelve years; yet few of his subjects were acquainted with his personal character. The fate of his cousin and brother warned him that it would be dangerous to attempt reforming the abuses which, if they remained unreformed, would inevitably cause the dissolution of the Othoman empire at no very distant day. Mahmud revolved the condition of his empire, and the difficulties of his own position, constantly in his mind, and he persuaded himself that, in order to restore vigour to his empire, it was necessary to begin by centralizing all power in his own hands. His own prudence, and the seclusion of the serai, enabled him to conceal his ambitious projects, while the iron firmness of his character enabled him to perfect the design which for years he was compelled to keep in abeyance.

The personal appearance of Mahmud may be known to many from the numerous portraits, which represent it with tolerable accuracy. His face was sallow, and his beard, naturally dark, was artificially stained of a shining black. His expression was that of sombre melancholy rather than of stern severity; it was repellent, though not offensive. There was, however, something so artificial in his whole appearance in public, that a physiognomist might have been baffled by the unvarying mask with which Othoman etiquette clothes a sultan’s countenance. He was of middle stature; but as, like most Turks, he had short legs, he appeared tall when on horseback or when seated.

Sultan Mahmud was long deemed a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant, and death was for many years the lightest punishment he ever inflicted. It was said that he ordered all the females of his brother’s harem to be thrown into the Bosphorus, and few travellers entered the court of the serai without seeing a head or a pile of ears and noses exposed in the niches at the gate. Dead bodies hanging from shop-fronts, or stretched across the pathway of a narrow street, were sights of daily occurrence, and proved that the sultan was indifferent to human suffering and regardless of human life. Yet he was really neither cruel nor bloodthirsty. The terrible punishments he inflicted were the result of habit and policy, not of passion. When his absolute power was firmly established, he ceased to inflict the cruel punishments which he had employed as a means of intimidation. The administration of his latter years was comparatively mild. Now, certainly, innate cruelty could not, after long indulgence, have assumed the mask of humanity; but policy may render a prince either cruel or merciful as he deems it expedient for his purpose. The fact is, that Mahmud, though he possessed little sympathy with humanity, restrained and ultimately subdued the Oriental ferocity which had from time immemorial formed a characteristic of the government of the Sublime Porte. When we count the number of lives sacrificed by public executions in the early years of his reign, it must not be forgotten that the power of life and death was then vested not only in the grand­vizier and the provincial pashas, but was also intrusted to the governors of petty fortresses, and to the captains of single frigates. Sultan Mahmud was a thoughtful, stern, and ob­stinate man, whose strongest characteristic was an inflexible will, not violent passions. The restraint with which he long suppressed his feelings, and the patience with which he waited for opportunities of carrying his plans into execution, misled many acute observers into the belief that he was a weak prince. Ali Pasha of Joannina was one of those who mistook the character of his master.

Few European statesmen in 1820 believed that it was possible to arrest the decline of the Othoman empire; many expected its immediate dissolution. Yet some competent authorities asserted that the reorganization of the sultan’s administration was not an impracticable enterprise in the hands of an able and energetic sultan, and that its success would restore strength to the Othoman empire. Both foreign relations and internal affairs, however, presented great difficulties to a reformer. Turkey was not comprehended in the general system of territorial guarantees established by the treaty of Vienna. This circumstance favoured the Russians in their schemes of aggrandizement, and the Greeks in their projects of revolution.

The Mussulman population of European Turkey was visibly declining both in wealth and number. This decline commenced when the Othomans ceased to recruit their ranks with tribute-children, slaves captured in war, and apostates. By some inexplicable social law, a dominant race almost invariably consumes life and riches more rapidly than it supplies them. In the wide extended empire of the sultan the whole military service was performed by the Mussulmans, and in all foreign wars and domestic hostilities the loss always fell heaviest on the Turkish race. The prejudices of a warlike people prevented the Othomans from engaging in those occupations in which wealth is most securely accumulated; and if they were not entirely an aristocratic class, they were invariably a privileged caste of the population.

The long duration of the Othoman empire in Europe is a historical marvel. No other government ever combined so much political wisdom with so great a mass of social corruption. Taxation was always oppressive to the agricultural population, justice was corrupt, so that in these two departments the Mussulmans suffered as much from the vices of the administration as the Christians. Yet, with all its defects, the sultan’s government retained hostile races and rival religions in daily intercourse without dangerous collisions, and ruled subject nations for generations without goading them to rebellion. Its peculiar feature was, that it always remained disconnected from every nation and race in its dominions. The sway of the sultan was not politically more closely identified with the supremacy of the Turkish than of the Arabic race. The theory of the government, even as late as the year 1820, was, that Sultan Mahmud was the despotic master of the empire, and that viziers and pashas exercised their authority in his name as his household slaves.

The empire seemed to be perishing from tyranny and weakness. Its tyranny had produced universal discontent, and among the Christians an eager desire to throw off its yoke. Its weakness invited ambitious pashas and lawless tribes to live in open rebellion. In some provinces the sultan’s authority was lost. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli were virtually independent. Egypt had been so under the Mamelukes; and under Mohammed Ali its allegiance was still doubtful. Syria, Servia, Bosnia, and a part of Bulgaria, had been recently in a state of revolt. The Kurds of Armenia and the Arabs of Mesopotamia paid the sultan only a nominal allegiance. Ali Pasha of Joannina had long acted as an independent vassal, and had been treated as a sovereign both by France and England. Many Derebeys, whose castles commanded only a single valley, claimed a kind of feudal inde­pendence, on the ground that they held their lands from the time of the Seljouk empire, in Asia Minor, on the tenure of' military service alone. The janissaries and the ulema, in Constantinople, were not more loyal than the feudal chieftains in the distant provinces. Anarchy and rebellion prognosticated to statesmen the inevitable and near fall of the empire. Omens and prophecies were cited as evidence that the fall was near by the people. The Greeks revived the prophecies which their ancestors had repeated when the Belgian Baldwin became master of Constantinople and was proclaimed Emperor of the East. Alexander I. of Russia was the flavus Rex, and the Turks represented the corrupted Greeks of the Byzantine empire.

The voice of nations attributed to Ali Pasha of Joannina the energy and talent which sultan Mahmud was supposed to want. His policy had increased the power of the Albanian race, and to the careless observer it appeared to rest on the firm adherence of a warlike nation. The Greeks were thriving in his dominions, and appeared satisfied with his government. Political speculators proclaimed that his independence would soon be established by a successful rebellion.

Ali was a type of the Albanian character. With all his energy and activity he was a mere savage. He was borne forward to power by circumstances whose current he followed, but which he was unable to control or guide. As a ruler he exhibited the qualities of an astute Albanian chieftain corrupted by exercising the despotic authority of a Turkish pasha.

The ancestors of Ali were Christians, who embraced Mohammedanism in the fifteenth century; though to Osmanlis and strangers he sometimes pretended that he was descended from a Turk of Brusa who had received a ziamet from Sultan Bayazid I. To his native clansmen he made no such boast. His family dwelt at Tepelen, a small town composed of a cluster of fortified houses inhabited by wealthy Mussulman landed proprietors. The agas of Tepelen enjoyed a degree of local independence which was maintained by something like a regular municipal organization. But the intense selfishness of the Albanian race broke out in frequent quarrels, and kept the place always on the verge of anarchy.

The great-grandfather of Ali, Mutza Yussuf, raised himself to considerable power by his personal valour. From him the phara of which he was the chieftain assumed the name of Mutzochusats. It is worthy of remark that in Albania, as in Greece in the time of Homer, no genealogy is carried by name beyond the great-grandfather of the most distinguished man. Mukhtar Bey, the son and successor of Mutza, was slain at the siege of Corfu, fighting against Schulenburg. Veli, the third son of Mukhtar, was accused of poisoning his two elder brothers to secure the chieftainship. Perhaps he poisoned himself, for, like his brothers, he died young.

Ali, the infant son of Veli, was left to the care of his mother, whose relationship to Kurd Pasha of Berat, a powerful Al­banian chieftain, secured protection to the infant. The young Ali grew up in lawless habits. Sheep-stealing involved him in local feuds, and, falling into the hands of an injured neighbour, he was only saved from death by the interference of Kurd Pasha. He then entered the sultan’s service, and was employed by Kurd as a guard of the dervens. He was brave and active, restless in mind and body, and utterly destitute of all moral and religious feeling: but his good-humour made him popular among his companions, and he displayed affection to the members of his family and gratitude to his friends. As he grew older and rose in power, he became, like most Albanians, habitually false; and, regarding cunning as a proof of capacity, his conversation with strangers was usually intended to mislead the listeners. During his long and brilliant career his personal interests or passions were the sole guides of his conduct. Within the circle of Albanian life his experience was complete, for he rose gradually from the position of a petty chieftain to the rank of a powerful prince; yet his moral and political vision seems never to have been enlarged, for at his greatest elevation selfishness obscured his intellect, and avarice neutralized his political sagacity. His ambition in some cases was the result of his physical activity.

Ali, like every Albanian or Greek who has risen to great power by his own exertions, ascribed his success solely to his own ability, and his self-conceit persuaded him that his own talents were an infallible resource in every emergency. He thought that he could deceive all men, and that nobody could deceive him; and as usually happens with men of this frame of mind, he overlooked those impediments which did not lie directly in his path. As an Albanian, a pasha and a Mohammedan, he was often swayed by different interests: hence his conduct was full of contradictions. At times he acted with excessive audacity; at times with extreme timidity. By turns he was mild and cruel, tolerant and tyrannical; but his avarice never slept, and to gratify it there was no crime which he was not constantly ready to perpetrate.

The boasted ability of Ali was displayed in subduing the Albanians, cheating the Othoman government, and ruling the Greeks. His skill as the head of the police in his dominions gave strangers a favourable opinion of his talents as a sovereign. He found knowledge useful in his servants, he therefore favoured education. His household at Joannina had all the pomp and circumstance of an Eastern court; but it had no feature more remarkable than a number of young pages engaged in study. The children of Albanian Mussulmans might be seen in one antechamber reading the Koran with a learned Osmanli, while in another room an equal number of young Christians might be seen studying Hellenic grammar with a Greek priest.

Under Ali’s government Joannina became the literary capital of the Greek nation, for he protected laymen who rebelled against the patriarch and synod of Constantinople, as well as priests who intrigued against the sultan. Colleges, libraries, and schools flourished and enjoyed independent endowments. He ostentatiously recommended all teachers to pay great attention to the morals of their pupils, and in his conversation with Greek bishops he dwelt with a cynic simplicity on the importance of religious principles, showing that he valued them as a kind of insurance against dishonesty, and a means of diminishing financial peculation. Greek, being the literary language of southern Albania, was studied by Mussulmans as well as Christians. Poems and songs, as well I as letters and accounts, were written by Mohammedans in Greek, and many were circulated in manuscript. Unfortunately no collection of Mohammedan songs and poems has been published.

The cruelty of Ali excited horror in civilized Europe, but it extorted admiration from his barbarous subjects. The greatest compliment they could pay him was to praise his cruelty to his face. Persons still living have seen him listen with complacency to flattery embodied in an enumeration of his acts of direst cruelty, and shuddered at his low demoniacal laugh when his Greek secretaries reminded him how he had hung one man, impaled another, and tortured a third. Lord Byron might well say, that

‘With a bloody hand

He ruled a nation turbulent and bold.'

One of his most wanton acts of cruelty has been much celebrated, and the circumstances which attended it deserve to be recorded, as affording a characteristic trait of Ali and of his government.

A Greek lady of Joannina excited the jealousy of Ali’s daughter-in-law, the wife of his eldest son Mukhtar. Euphrosyne was the niece of Gabriel, the archbishop of Joannina, but she had neglected to study the lives of the saints, and turned her attention to naughty reading in the Greek classics. She possessed great beauty and singularly attractive manners. In an evil hour her classic tastes led her to revive the elegance and wickedness of the ancient hetairai, and for a time her graceful manners concealed her graceless conduct. Her husband visited Venice, fearing Ali’s designs on his purse, and disliking the attentions of Mukhtar to his wife. During his prolonged absence the house of the fair Euphrosyne became the resort of the educated and wealthy young men of Joannina, and she received private visits and rich presents from Mukhtar Pasha without much effort to conceal the disgraceful connection. This conduct caused much scandal, and it was said that married ladies, whose husbands were not so far distant as Euphrosyne’s, imitated her behaviour. A storm of indignation arose among Christian husbands and Mussulman wives. The complaints of Mukhtaf’s wife were at last made a pretext for punishment, but report said that Ali sought revenge because he had been an unsuccessful lover. His vices were notorious. Childe Harold remarked,—

 

                        ‘Yon hoary lengthening beard

Ill suits the passions that belong to youth’.

Men said that the hoary beard attempted to conceal its evil passions under a veil of public duty. It was resolved to eradicate the great social evil of Joannina by some effectual measure of reform. Ali decided on a general massacre of the culprits, and never was cruelty perpetrated with more ruthless deliberation or greater barbarity.

Ali was in the habit of dining with his subjects at their own houses when he wished to confer on them an extraordinary mark of favour. He signified to Nicholas Yanko, whose wife was one of the proscribed, his intention to honour him with a visit. The men dine alone in Eastern lands. After dinner the great pasha requested that the lady of the house might present his coffee, in order to receive his thanks for the entertainment. When she approached, he addressed her in his usual style of conversation with Greek females, mixing kindness with playful sarcasm. Rising after his coffee, he ordered the attendants in waiting to invite several ladies, whose conduct, if not virtuous, had certainly not been scandalous, to visit Yanko’s wife at her house.

Ali proceeded to the house of Euphrosyne, attended by a few guards, and, walking suddenly into her presence, made a motion with his hand, which served as a signal for carrying off the victim, who was conveyed to Yanko’s house much more astonished than alarmed. Ali rode on to his palace and engaged in his usual employments. The ladies of the party assembled at Yanko’s were soon discomposed by having an equal number of females of the very lowest order in Joannina thrust into the room by policemen. In a few minutes the whole party was hurried off to the church of St Nicholas, Yanko’s patron saint, at the northern extremity of the lake. There the unfortunate culprits were informed that they were condemned to death by the pasha. The wealthier were at first not much frightened, for Ali’s avarice was so notorious that they believed their relations would either voluntarily ransom their lives, or be compelled to do so by the pasha. The worst punishment they feared was imprisonment in the convents on the islands of the lake.

Morning dawned before the party reached the church of St. Nicholas, and Mohammedan customs require that the execution of a sentence of death on females by drowning must be carried into effect while the sun is below the horizon. For twenty hours, ladies of rank and women of the lowest class remained huddled together, trembling at times with the fear of death, and at others confident with delusive hopes of life. At sunset a violent storm swept the surface of the lake, and it was midnight before they were embarked in small boats and carried to the middle of the lake. There they were thrown overboard, without being tied up in sacks according to the Mussulman formality in executing a similar sentence. Most of the victims submitted to their fate with calm resignation, sinking without an audible word, or with a short prayer; but some resisted to the utmost with piercing shrieks, and one whose hands got loose clung to the side of the boat, and could only be plunged under water by horrid violence. When all was finished, the police guards watched silently in the boats until morning dawned; they then hastened to inform the pasha that his orders had been faithfully executed. One of the policemen present, who had witnessed many a horrid deed of torture, declared long after that the scene almost deprived him of his senses at the time, and that for years the voices of the dying women were constantly echoing in his ears, and their faces rising before his eyes at midnight.

Several days elapsed before all the bodies were found and buried. In this instance Ali’s cruelty excited extreme loathing among the Christian population. Seventeen females perished, and public feeling was so strong that their funerals were attended by crowds. Yet none of their relations had made an effort to save them, and the husbands of more than one were accused of being privy to the pasha’s design. Ali, when he saw the violence of public indignation, thought it prudent to apologize for his severity by declaring that he would have pardoned all those who could have found an intercessor, and that he deemed his victims deserved death since no one spoke a word in their favour. This was mere hypocrisy; he knew the selfishness of his subjects.

The beautiful Euphrosyne was twenty-eight years of age. Being the niece of an archbishop, the orthodox cherished her memory with affection, as if she had been a martyr, instead of viewing her conduct with reprobation and her fate with pity. But public feeling expresses itself before public opinion is formed. The cruel fate of the elegant Euphrosyne awakened sympathy, but her sixteen fellow-sufferers died almost unpitied, though many of them were less blamable. Several songs were composed on the subject of her death, which were repeated over all Greece

Ali’s habitual exhibition of cunning and sagacity was considered as a display of political wisdom. His artifice allured the intellects of the subtile Greeks and the fancy of the enthusiastic Albanians. Colonel Leake, who was several years the diplomatic agent of the British government at his court, recounts an anecdote which proves that he was unable to lay aside his habits of deceit even when his good-nature prompted him to do an act of kindness. “Not long ago he almost frightened to death the Bishop of Grevena, a mild and timid man, by a proceeding meant to increase the bishop’s authority. Being about to visit Grevena, he ordered the bishop to prepare the episcopal palace for his reception, but instead of proceeding there, went to another lodging, pretending to believe that the bishop had so ordered it. Having sent for the unfortunate holy man of Grevena, he assumed an air of extreme anger, ordered the bishop to prison, and issued a proclamation that all persons having complaints against him should make a statement of their grievances. Nobody having appeared, the vizier sent for the bishop next day, and congratulated him on the proof that he had no enemies, and that he governed his flock with kindness”.

Another anecdote deserves notice because it illustrates the manner in which the Greek bishops in his dominions served as instruments of his avarice. Having observed that the bishops possessed more authority than his tax-gatherers, he resolved to employ them in collecting his revenues. He began the experiment by obliging the celebrated Ignatius, metropolitan of Arta, who afterwards escaped to Italy and  resided at Pisa, to become the tax-gatherer of his diocese. The orders given to the bishop were severe, and he used little forbearance in his eagerness to win the pasha’s favour. This severity caused many quarrels, without bringing an increase of revenue. Disturbances occurred, and Ali was compelled to listen to the complaints of the sufferers. As soon as the bishop had paid all the money he had collected into the pasha’s treasury, Ali decided that a remission of taxation ought to be made, to the amount of £2000 sterling. The claimants compelled the bishop to refund the money, but Ali retained the fruits of his extortion.

It has been already mentioned that Ali was elevated to the rank of dervendji-pasha in the year 1787. The pashalik of Thessaly was united with that office. His activity obtained for him the pashalik of Joannina, in addition to his other commands, in the following year. His instructions required him to destroy the authority still possessed by the Christian armatoli, whose sympathies with Russia disquieted the Porte, and Ali carried out the views of the Othoman government with zeal and vigour.

At this period, a strong feeling in favour of increasing the direct authority of the sultan in the provinces far distant from the capital, had arisen both among Mussulmans and Christians. It was thought that the central government would restrain the exactions of the local pashas, and repress the feudal anarchy of the hereditary beys. Ali took advantage of this feeling to curtail the privileges of armatoli, ayans, and Mussulman and Christian communities alike. His firmness of purpose soon consolidated his authority both in Epirus and Thessaly; for at this early period of his career, justice and id equity were words constantly on his lips, and they appeared to direct his conduct. The armatoli had latterly become grievous oppressors of the peasantry. The ayans had always been the tyrants of the Christian population. The communities were powerless, except to increase the general anarchy. Ali constituted himself the redresser of wrongs, and he succeeded in establishing a degree of order which had not previously prevailed. Under the pretext of securing equal justice to all, he compelled every district which enjoyed the right of maintaining Greek armatoli to receive a garrison of Mussulman Albanians; while in those districts where the Turkish landlords were all-powerful, he placed detachments of armatoli to protect the cultivators of the soil. His energy secured to the people a larger share of the fruits of their industry than they had previously enjoyed, to that they willingly submitted to the contributions he impelled them to pay for his protection. His exactions were chiefly directed against the rich; and as he seldom allowed his agents to plunder with impunity, he was spoken of as a hard man but a just pasha.

The sultan supported Ali’s plan of centralizing all power in his own hands, as long as it was evident that he was only the sultan’s viceroy. The boldest beys were drawn into hostilities, and then overwhelmed with forces prepared in secret for their destruction. The wary were assassinated or poisoned. These murders generally removed men as cruel and treacherous as Ali, who, as the destroyer of a legion of tyrants, was considered a benefactor by a suffering people.

In the year 1796 he began to exhibit the ferocity of his character in its darkest colours. Khormovo was a Christian township, situated high up in the mountains, between the rivers Viosa and Dryno, and not far from their junction, the inhabitants were dangerous brigands; and it was said hat for several generations they waylaid travellers under the guidance of their priest. A hollow tree, in the pass near the bridge of Tepelen, was long shown to travellers as the place of concealment of this orthodox priphti (priest), from whence he uttered his oracular decisions concerning the fate of those who were plundered. If the unfortunate prisoner was a Turk he was hung on the tree; if a Greek in the service of the pasha or the sultan, he was drowned in the river; but if an Albanian, he was generally allowed to escape on payment of a ransom.

The Christians of Khormovo maintained their lawless independence by means of a close alliance with the Mussulmans of Gardhiki, a powerful community in the mountains to the south of the Dryno. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since the mother and sister of Ali had been seized in a civil war between the people of Khormovo and Gardhiki and the phara of the Mutzachusats. The ladies were treated with the grossest indignity, and they instilled into the breast of Ali their own rancorous longing for revenge. An occasion at last occurred of punishing the children for their father’s crime. The territory of Khormovo was laid waste, the inhabitants shot down, the son of the priest was roasted alive, and a Greek poem, by a Mussulman, recounts with Oriental ferocity all the details of the tortures inflicted by Ali’s soldiers on their unhappy prisoners.

The cruelty with which a Christian community was treated made very little impression, and was soon forgotten.

After a further interval of sixteen years, a new catastrophe struck all men with amazement and horror. The Mussulmans of Gardhiki were a powerful body, and their alliance with the inhabitants of Arghyrokastro enabled them to escape Ali’s vengeance for forty-five years. The cause of his anger was generally forgotten and never mentioned.

Demir Dost, the principal aga of Gardhiki, was a brave and honourable man, who had aided Ali in subduing Khormovo. Ali, having determined to deprive the communities of Arghyrokastro and Gardhiki of the local privileges which their alliance had hitherto enabled them to maintain, marched against them in person. The peasantry declared in his favour, Demir Dost and sixty agas of Gardhiki were admitted to conclude a capitulation which permitted them to retain ther property and territorial rights, on condition that they should reside at Joannina until the new civil and fiscal officers of the pasha were established in the district.

After the departure of the agas, the pasha summoned the people of Gardhiki to meet him at the Khan of Valiare, below Arghyrokastro, and on the other side of the Dryno. The pasha’s agents declared that he wished to enrol a strong body of Gardhikiots in his service, and no better lure could be held out to attract the Albanian Mussulmans, who scorn to cultivate their lands if they can gain their living by military service. Gardhiki also, like most Albanian communities, had been long in the habit of sending mercenaries to every pashalik in the Othoman empire. The hope of becoming the instruments of Ali’s power rendered the common people careless of the loss of a troubled independence, from which only the chieftains of the pharas derived any profit.

On the 27th of March 1812, about 670 Gardhikiots sat down to eat their midday meal in the Khan of Valiare, and in the large quadrangular court adjoining. Athanasios Vaïas, a Christian high in Ali’s favour, was ready with a band of soldiers, who mounted on the walls of the enclosure, occupied the towers at its angles, and closed the gates. They opened a sudden fire of musketry on their unsuspecting victims, and it is said that two hundred fell at the first volley. The soldiers then raised diabolical shouts, in order to overpower the shrieks of the wounded and the dying, and kept up a continual fire, without intermission, for an hour and a half, until not a limb moved in the quadrangle, and the khan was enveloped in flames. The survivors, after the first volley, had vainly attempted to climb the wall and force the gates. The murderer had prepared the means of baffling every effort of despair.

Ali had not ventured to intrust many of his officers with the secret of the premeditated massacre, and the firing created some confusion among his troops; but he diverted the attention of the Mussulmans, who might have been inclined to favour the escape of the Gardhikiots, by a proclamation that the plunder of Gardhiki was granted to the soldiers. When plunder is to be gained, neither Albanians nor armatoli feel any sentiments of patriotism or humanity. All the troops whom Ali distrusted and wished to withdraw from the see of the massacre were soon on their march up the mountain. The town of Gardhiki was sacked; the houses were plunder in regular succession, in order to insure to all a fair share of the booty; the women and children were carried off and reduced to slavery, in direct violation of the Mohammed law; and all the fortified houses of the agas were burn to the ground. Demir Dost and the sixty agas who has retired to Joannina were murdered at the same time by Ali’s order.

As soon as he had perpetrated this act of treachery and blood, Ali returned to Joannina, from whence he issued order for the murder of every Gardhikiot who had escaped the massacre at the khan and the sack of the town. But the cruelty exceeded the limits of human wickedness, and his orders were disobeyed even by his own sons, who conceal many of his intended victims.

The deliberate extermination of a Mussulman community of eight hundred families was an act of atrocity that roused the indignation of every Mohammedan; and from that day Ali was accursed in the opinion of all true believers. The deserted habitations, blackened with fire, the desecrated mosques with their ruined minarets, the Mohammed women and children weeping in slavery, cried loudly for vengeance. Yet Ali, in his intense selfishness, thought much of the wrongs of his mother and his sister, and so little of the sufferings of thousands of innocent individuals, that boasted of his wickedness, and commemorated his infamy an inscription over the gateway of the Khan of Valiare. The entrance was walled up. The bones were left unburied in the court, and a marble tablet informed the passer-by, in both Turkish and Greek, that Ali was proud of the vengeance which he had inflicted on the enemies of his house. A curious poem in Greek, consisting of sixty-four verses, was circulating in manuscript, which was said to be an exact copy of t inscription, and to have been read over repeatedly to the pasha. It is a strange production, in the form of a conversation between the khan and the dead bodies. The building ask for information concerning the cause of their death. The dead bodies reply, that fifty years ago they had burned Ali’s house and destroyed his clan, and they add, “For this he slew us here, he razed our town, and ordered it to remain for ever desolate, for he is a just man”. In conclusion, Ali speaks a few warning words in his own person: “I do not wish to do another similar act of severity, so let no man molest my house”.

Ali’s power at last alarmed Sultan Mahmud, who was labouring night and day to circumscribe the authority of his pashas and great vassals. He had hitherto made but slow progress in establishing his system of centralization, but he had prepared the Porte for pursuing his policy with success. He availed himself of the universal indignation manifested at the murder of the Gardhikiots to diminish the power of Ali. The first step was to deprive Veli, Ali’s second son, of the pashalik of the Morea, in August 1812, and send him to rule the insignificant pashalik of Larissa. Public opinion, which had favoured Ali in his plans of centralization at the expense of beys and communes, now favoured the projects of Sultan Mahmud at the expense of Ali. The Porte could alone afford protection against local tyranny: the sultan seemed to be the only authority in the Othoman empire who had a direct interest in enforcing an equitable administration of justice; every other authority seemed to derive a profit from injustice. Ali remained insensible to the change which had taken place in public opinion since he first attained the rank of pasha. This is not wonderful, for the ambassadors of the European powers at Constantinople, and their consuls in the provinces, were as blind to the increasing power of centralization as the Albanian pasha. The prudence of Sultan Mahmud was generally mistaken for weakness, and at the court of Joannina it was the fashion to speak of the anarchy and corruption that prevailed in the empire with great freedom, and of the dismemberment of Turkey as a probable event. The adroit flattery of Greek sycophants, the impolitic intrigues of European diplomatic agents, and the general improvement in the condition of the people under his government, induced Ali to believe that the hour had arrived when he might act as independent sovereign of Epirus with perfect security. Yet he had reached the edge of a precipice, and the vicissitudes of a long and eventful life, rich in social and political changes, had exhibited its lessons of experience in vain. He fell pursuing the course of selfish criminal gratification, which he had often combined with the measures which raised him to power.

In the year 1819 Sultan Mahmud took advantage of the numerous complaints against the lavish expenditure and illegal extortions of Veli, to remove him from the government of Larissa to the still more insignificant pashalik of Lepanto. Ali saw clearly that the object was to circumscribe his power; but he attributed the measure to the influence of Ismael Pasho Bey, his active personal enemy, and not to the deep policy of Sultan Mahmud. All his malicious passions were roused, and he resolved to strike a blow that would destroy his enemy and intimidate his sovereign.

Ismael Pasho Bey was an Albanian of family and wealth, allied to Ali’s house by blood. He had served the pasha of Joannina in youth with much devotion; but some cause of mutual distrust arose, and Ismael contrived to have his services transferred to Veli, when Ali’s unworthy son was named pasha of the Morea in 1807. The hatred of Ali increased; but Ismael, warned in time, fled to save his life. For some years he escaped notice, but, finding that Ali’s agents had discovered his place of residence, he removed to Constantinople, where he believed no assassin would venture to attack him openly. By attaching himself to the Ulema, frequenting the mosques with assiduity, and transacting the business of every Albanian who had any affair before the divan, he acquired some influence, and was named capidji-pasha.

In the month of February 1820 three Albanians made an attempt to assassinate Ismael Pasho Bey at noon in the streets of Constantinople. They were arrested; and, finding that their victim was only slightly wounded, they expected to save their lives by confession. They declared that they had been sent by Ali, pasha of Joannina, who had assured them that, in case of success, several members of the divan were prepared to protect them from punishment. This insinuation, that Ali possessed an overwhelming influence in the divan, offended Sultan Mahmud deeply. The assassins were immediately executed, and Ali was pronounced guilty of high treason. The traitor was summoned to present himself as a suppliant before the Sublime Porte within forty days. The pashalik of Joannina was conferred on Ismael Pasho. The period granted for repentance elapsed, and the new pasha was ordered to march against the rebel.

While Ali was pursuing his course of wickedness, he was acting as an instrument in the hands of Providence to advance the social progress of the Greeks. Indeed, the career of this celebrated man, with all his power and wickedness, would hardly have merited a place in history had circumstances not rendered him the herald of the Greek Revolution. The scenes of his eventful life produced very little direct change either in the political condition of the Othoman empire or of the Albanian nation.

When Ali received the news of his condemnation he was fully prepared to resist the sultan’s authority, and his military arrangements for the defence of his pashalik were well planned. He had long revolved projects of rebellion in his mind, and the time appeared favourable for asserting his independence. The power of national feelings in upholding thrones and overthrowing dynasties was the theme of general discussion. A national revolution had just broken out in Spain, which was expected to produce great political changes in Europe. Ali was told by his political advisers that an appeal to the nationality of the Albanians and Greeks would induce them to unite in emancipating themselves from the Othoman domination and expose their lives and fortunes for his cause. He was liberal, therefore, of promises. He talked of constitutions and representative assemblies with as much fluency and as little sincerity as the kings of Spain, Naples, and Sardinia. He promised rewards to his troops, who believed in nothing but payments in coined money, and he invited the Greeks to co-operate with him in resisting the sultan, little foreseeing the consequences of his encouragement.

The soldiers of Ali were habituated to mountain warfare, and were intimately acquainted with every ravine and pass in the range of Mount Pindus. Every path that afforded ingress into Southern Albania from Macedonia and Thessaly was fortified sufficiently to resist Othoman infantry. A camp was formed to support every point which could be assailed, and easy communications were insured with the central magazines at Joannina by means of the lake. In everything the army of Ali appeared far superior to any force the sultan could bring against him.

The dispositions adopted for the defence of Southern Albania were the result of a long-meditated plan of resistance. From the north, Ali’s dominions were exposed to an attack by Mustaï, pasha of Skodra, at the head of the Mussulman Gueghs and Catholic Mirdites, who were as good soldiers in mountain warfare as the Tosks and the armatoli. But Mustaï was, like Ali, an Albanian, and his career had been so similar, that he was not likely to view the ruin of his fellow pasha with favour, particularly as they had never been involved in any personal contests of importance. Ali had also secured several friends among the chieftains in the north, and he apprehended little danger from that quarter. The task of opposing the Skodra pasha was intrusted to Ali’s eldest son, Mukhtar, pasha of Berat; but the right of Mukhtar’s line of defence was exposed to be turned by a Turkish army assembled at Monastir, under the command of the Romeli-Valessi, which could penetrate into Albania by the pass of Devol, and thus unite with the Gueghs. Mustal was the first of Ali’s assailants who took the field. He advanced as far as Durazzo without meeting any opposition; but, after he had occupied Elbassan, he was recalled to the north by some movements among his unquiet neighbours, the Montenegrins, or he made their movements a pretext for retreating, in order to paralyze the advance of the Romeli-Valessi, whom he had no desire to see established in the valley of the river of Berat.

The direct line of approach for an army advancing to attack Joannina from the east is by the pass of Metzovo. Two great roads—one from Macedonia by the valley of the Indji-karasou, and the other from Thessaly by the valley of the Salamvria—converge at this pass, and two powerful armies may be simultaneously prepared to force the passage, and maintained in its immediate vicinity by supplies from the fertile districts of Anaselitza, Grevena, and Trikkala.

To protect this pass, an army of 15,000 men was encamped on the eastern slopes of Palaeovuni, between the sources of the Viosa and the river of Arta. It was commanded by Omer Vrioni, an Albanian chieftain, who had acquired considerable reputation as a soldier, and great wealth by his military service in Egypt, during the troubled times which preceded the consolidation of Mohammed Ali’s authority. The Albanian camp was established near the position occupied by Philip V of Macedon after his defeat by Flamininus at the Fauces Antigonenses, or Kleisura of the Viosa, and where he lingered a few days, doubting whether he ought to march into Thessaly or fall back on Macedonia.

To the south of the pass of Metzovo there is another pass leading from Thessaly into the valley of the Aspropotamos, called Portais, or the gates of Trikkala; and there are several mountain paths farther south, by which light troops may march from the upper valley of the Spercheus and the head waters of the Megdova, by the valley of the Aspropotamos, into the valley of the river of Arta, and thus gain an entrance into the plain of Joannina. But the country through which these roads pass is intersected by successive ranges of high mountains and deep valleys, besides being occupied by d Christian armatoli and by the indigenous robbers of Mount Kotziaka.

Ali committed the defence of the passes to the south of Metzovo to many local chieftains, Albanians and Greeks, Mussulmans and Christians.

The greatest danger to which he was exposed lay in the facility of landing troops on the southern coast of Epirus. Prevesa was the key of his maritime defences, and he intrusted its command to Veli, his second son, who fled from Lepanto on the first approach of a Turkish force.

When the sultan proclaimed Ali a traitor, and named Ismael Pasho his successor, the imperial authority was almost nominal in many provinces of the Othoman empire, and Mahmud had no army ready to enforce his authority. The janissaries at Constantinople were as little under his control as the mercenaries of distant pashas. But no man then living had studied the condition of the Othoman empire with so much attention, or knew so well the strength and weakness of his own authority, as Sultan Mahmud. He alone understood how far he could make use of the instrumentality of rival pashas to destroy the rebel without allowing them to increase their own power. His systematic measures for strengthening the authority of the central administration, for reforming the Othoman government, and arresting the decline of the empire on the brink of destruction, were then as little suspected as the firm and daring character of the man who planned them.

The sultan intrusted the chief command of the army destined to attack Ali from the east to Ismael, the new pasha of Joannina. No person appeared likely to rally the discontented Albanians to his standard with so much certainty, and no one could be selected with whom it was more difficult for Ali to treat. Several pashas were ordered to assemble all their timariots and holders of military fiefs, and take the field with Ismael. The Othoman army was slowly collected, and it formed a motley assembly, without order and without artillery. Each pasha moved forward as he mustered his followers, with a separate commissariat and a separate military chest. The daily rations and daily pay of the soldier differed in different divisions of the army. Ismael was really only the nominal commander-in-chief. He was not a soldier, and had he been an experienced officer, he could have done little to enforce order in the forces he commanded.

Ali knew that his government was unpopular, but he acted under the usual delusion of princes who consider that they are necessary to the order of society. He considered himself the natural chief of the Tosks, and he believed that he could easily become the political head of the Greeks. He had heard so much lately of constitutions and political assemblies, that he expected to create a strong national feeling in his favour by promising the Greeks a constitution, and convoking the Albanian chieftains in a national assembly, though he had formed no very clear idea of what was meant by a constitution, or what a national assembly could really effect. His Greek secretaries, however, assured him that it would be easy to raise the Greeks in arms against the sultan, and his Mussulman councillors declared that every Albanian was ready to support him as their sovereign. To make himself a national monarch, in opposition to the Oriental despotism of the sultan, he convoked a divan to consider the question of raising supplies, that being the only means of assembling Albanian agas and Greek bishops in one assembly, without violating Mussulman usages and offending Mohammedan pride.

The divan met, and Ali addressed the assembly in Greek. He condescended to explain the motives which induced him to resist the sultan’s authority. He pretended that he was persecuted by the viziers of the Porte, because he supported the interests of the Albanians against the Osmanlis, and protected the Christians against ruinous exactions. He invited all present to urge their countrymen to support him and his officers in the approaching hostilities, and assured them that their interests would suffer as much as his own if the Othoman army penetrated beyond the passes.

The assembled Mussulmans were either his partizans or his creatures. They testified their approbation of his discourse with the humility of Eastern ceremony. Each bey repeated gravely in succession, with emphatic solemnity, some trite compliment, or pronounced, with the air of having made a great discovery, “Our lord, the vizier, speaks well; we are the slaves of his highness”. Even Ali felt that the scene was ridiculous, for he knew that the same words would be uttered, in the same tone, to his enemy Ismael, should he ever succeed in entering Joannina.

The Greeks remained silent. They felt no inclination to support the tyranny of Ali. It is certain that at this time the existence of an organized plan for proclaiming the Greeks an independent nation was not known to the clergy and primates of Northern Greece and Epirus. Though a secret society called the Philike Hetairia had made great progress in enrolling proselytes in Constantinople, the Morea, and the Ionian Islands, it had not succeeded in Joannina and among the armatoli. Greek historians tell us that the terror inspired by Ali Pasha’s government prevented the apostles of the Hetairia from visiting his dominions. But that is certainly not the whole truth. Many agents of the Hetairia travelled through Epirus, but they were deterred from attempting to make proselytes, from fear of treachery on the part of their countrymen. They found that both the bishops and the primates were too closely identified with Ali’s administration, and derived too great profits from acting as his political and financial agents, to feel disposed to plot against his authority. The fear of betraying the schemes of the Hetairia to false friends was stronger than the fear of Ali’s cruelty. The Hetairists were partizans of Russia, and the Romeliot Greeks did not generally connect their patriotic aspirations with Russian projects. They, moreover, generally despised the class of men who travelled as apostles of the Hetairia.

Suleiman Pasha, who succeeded Veli in the government of Larissa, was invested by the sultan with the office of dervendji when Ali was proclaimed a rebel. On assuming the official direction of the armatoli, and publishing the firman proscribing Ali, he invited all the sultan’s faithful subjects to take up arms against the traitor. A circular was addressed to all Mussulmans, to those Christian communities which retained the privilege of keeping armed guards, and particularly to the captains of armatoli, inviting them to expel the adherents of Ali Pasha from their districts. The Greek text of this circular assumed the form of a proclamation, calling on the Christians to take up arms for their own protection. It is said to have differed materially from the Turkish copy, and the pasha’s Greek secretary, Anagnostes, was supposed to have availed himself of the opportunity, in order to assist the designs of the Hetairists. Circumstances favoured the Greeks. The number of armed Christians in the mountains of Thessaly and Epirus was great, and both the belligerents felt the importance of gaining their assistance.

Several bands of Christian troops remained attached to Ali’s cause. Odysseus, whom he particularly favoured, and who had been a page in his household, was intrusted with the chief command at Livadea. Stournari was stationed at Valtos, Varnakioti in Xeromero, Andreas Hyskos in Agrapha, and Zongas was sent to harass the communications of the Othoman army. But, as early as the month of June 1820, several bodies of armatoli joined the sultan’s forces, while at the same time some captains took military possession of their capitanliks, and expelled the Albanian Mussulmans io remained faithful to Ali. For some time the Othoman authorities encouraged these enterprises. The armed Christians, however, knowing that they had nothing to gain by a decided victory either of the Turks or the Albanians, showed disposition to remain neutral as soon as they had expelled the Mussulmans, and their attitude awakened the suspicion of the Porte.

The sultan was alarmed, and fearing some collusion with the rebel, he degraded Suleiman, and soon after put him to death. Mohammed Dramali was named his successor, and ordered to occupy all the passes leading from Thessaly into Epirus. In the meantime the main body of the Othoman army, under Ismael, advanced to Kalabak. The left wing, under Pehlevan Baba of Rutshuk, who was named pasha of Lepanto in place of Veli, descended into Greece. Pehlevan did distinguished himself as a leader of light cavalry on the banks of the Danube in the last war with Russia. He now marched at the head of the same active and disorderly troops trough Thermopylae to Livadea, from which he drove Odysseus. Veli fled from Lepanto, and Pehlevan occupied etolia and Acarnania without opposition, penetrated trough the pass of Makronoro, which is a western Thermopylae, and fixed his headquarters at Arta. Ali’s defences eere thus turned, and the road into the plain of Joannina was open to the Othoman army.

The summer was far advanced before the grand army commenced its operations, but its first movements were crowned with great success. Instead of attempting to force the pass of Metzovo, which Omer Vrioni was prepared to defend, Ismael sent a body of Albanians to seize the Portais or gates of Trikkala. This corps occupied the bridge of Koraki, took possession of the pass of Pentepegadhia, and opened communications with Pehlevan. Other detachments occupied the upper valley of the Aspropotamos and the valley of the river of Arta, where their arrival was welcomed by the native population, which consists of Zinzar Vallachs.

This branch of the Vallachian race makes its appearance in the history of the Byzantine empire, under its present name, in the eleventh century, and in the twelfth it was so powerful as to be independent.

Omer Vrioni, finding that his position was turned, instead of falling back on Joannina and concentrating Ali’s army in order to give battle to Ismael in the plain, treated with the Othoman commander-in-chief to obtain advancement for himself by deserting the rebel. He was promised the pashalik of Berat, then held by Ali's eldest son, Mukhtar. The army under his orders, which was encamped on Palaeovuni, dispersed. Many of the soldiers returned to their native villages to watch the progress of hostilities before choosing their side. Others immediately took service with Ismael.

Joannina was now besieged. Ali had barely time to burn the city in order to prevent his enemy finding cover in the houses. The citadel, which is separated from the city by a wet ditch, was well furnished with artillery, military stores, and provisions. The garrison amounted to six thousand men. Ali possessed an armed flotilla on the lake, which secured his communications with the mountains to the north. He expected to be able to cut off the supplies of the Othoman army, and compel Ismael to raise the siege before the arrival of his heavy artillery. The cowardice and treachery of his sons frustrated his plans.

A division of the Othoman fleet arrived off the Albanian coast during the summer, and as soon as Pehlevan occupied Arta, the capitan-bey besieged Prevesa. Veli possessed ample means of defending the place, but he was a coward. Ismael had been his friend in youth. Veli received promises of pardon, and was ordered to treat with the capitan-bey. He opened negotiations by pleading his filial obedience as an apology for his rebellion, and offered to surrender Prevesa with all its stores on being allowed to carry off his own wealth, and on receiving the promise of a pashalik, to which he might retire without degradation. Ismael ratified these terms, and Veli removed with his harem on board the Othoman fleet. The capitulation was respected, but both Ismael and Veli were subsequently put to death by the sultan’s orders.

Mukhtar, who had abandoned Berat to fortify himself in Arghyrokastro, soon followed his brother’s example. He was not destitute of courage, but he was brutally selfish, and he was bribed to desert his father by a promise of the pashalik of Kutaieh. In quitting Albania, he persuaded his youngest brother Salik to accompany him.

The surrender of Prevesa, Berat, and Arghyrokastro enabled Ismael to obtain supplies of every kind, but the communications between his camp and the fleet were so difficult and so ill-managed, that heavy guns and ammunition were brought up very slowly. His rear was often attacked by the partisans of Ali, and, being compelled to look out for allies among the Albanians, he remembered the glorious exploits of the Suliots, and their implacable hatred to Ali. Sultan Mahmud authorized him to put them again in possession of Suli, and the capitan-bey was instructed to treat with them. The Suliots had now lived as exiles at Corfu for seventeen years, eating the bread of charity bestowed on them in turns by the Russians, the French, and the English, as each became the masters of the Ionian Islands. The proposals of the capitan-bey were soon accepted; the Suliots crossed over into Albania, and received Ismael’s authority to invest the fort of Kiapha, which Ali had constructed to command Suli. The fort was garrisoned by Mussulman Albanians faithful to Ali. The numbers of the Suliots were not sufficient to blockade it closely, and the Othoman commander-in-chief neglected to furnish them with rations. In a short time they were in a starving state, and, to obtain the means of subsistence, began to levy contributions on the Christian peasantry in the pashalik of Joannina who had submitted to the sultan. Ismael, forgetting his own neglect, was offended at their depredations in his pashalik. Personally he was a bigot, and not inclined to favour the establishment of an independent tribe of Christians in the vicinity of his capital. The Mussulmans of Margariti and Paramythia, who had submitted to his authority, warned him against the danger of allowing the Suliots to gain possession of the strong fort of Kiapha. He felt the force of their reasoning as much as he wished to secure the assistance of the Suliots; and, hoping to gain time, he ordered them to join his army before Joannina, promising them both pay and rations, with which he could not easily supply them in Suli.

The starving Suliots were compelled to obey; but as their only object in returning to Albania had been to regain possession of their native mountains, they considered themselves cheated by the pasha, and henceforward they regarded all Ismael’s conduct with distrust. They found that they were stationed in the most exposed situation, and when Ali’s forces sallied out to attack them in overwhelming numbers the Othoman troops in the nearest quarters came slowly to their assistance. In this difficult position they owed their safety to their own vigilance and valour. They adopted every precaution to guard against a surprise either from friend or foe, and their military precautions justified the reputation they had long enjoyed of being the best soldiers in Albania.

In the month of October 1820, Ismael opened his fire on the fortress of Litharitza, which forms an acropolis to Joannina; but the heavy guns and mortars which he had transported from Prevesa were so ill-managed that the casemated batteries of the besieged suffered little; while the guns of the fortress enfiladed the whole site of the ruined city, and impeded the approaches of the Turks against the citadel of the lake, which was the centre of Ali’s strength, and from which he frequently made desperate sallies on his enemy.

The military incapacity of Ismael, and his unfitness for the office of seraskier, became daily more apparent. He had dispersed the fine army of Omer Vrioni, and gained possession of Prevesa without difficulty; he expected to conquer Joannina as easily. Instead, therefore, of pushing the siege with vigour, he devoted his whole attention to the measures which he considered most likely to render his pashalik profitable to himself. His care was confined to his own territory, and his general negligence enabled the partizans of Ali to attack his convoys, and permitted the cavalry of Pehlevan, and the Gueghs of Dramali, to plunder the country in every direction. The villages on the great roads in Epirus, Thessaly, and Northern Greece were deserted by their inhabitants. Ali, well informed of all that was passing, watched the progress of the siege without alarm. He was still ignorant of the character of Sultan Mahmud, and did not suspect that he was the real antagonist who was playing the game against him.

The Suliots felt that they were treated with scorn. Their rations were bad, and they received no pay. Ismael, and many Mussulmans in Albania and Greece, entertained a suspicion that the Greeks were plotting an insurrection in concert with Russia to assist Ali, and he was so imprudent as to display his ill-will to all classes of Christians.

Ali took advantage of his rival’s imprudence with his usual sagacity. Long conversations were carried on during the night between the Suliots and his Albanians. The Suliots told their grievances, the Albanians expressed sympathy, and boasted of their advantages. A formal negotiation was opened, and it terminated in the Suliots forming an alliance with Ali, whom they had long regarded as their bitterest enemy. The critical position in which both parties were placed forced them to cast a veil over the past. The Suliots regained possession of their native rocks. Ali resigned the proudest conquest of his long career. He abandoned the policy of his government to save his life. He promised to put the Suliots in possession of his fort at Kiapha; they engaged to join his partizans, and fall on the rear of the sultan’s army. Hostages were given, for both sides were suspicious, and looked with some anxiety to the result of their strange alliance.

About midnight on the 12th of December 1820, the Suliots suddenly quitted the seraskier’s camp before Joannina, and marched rapidly towards Suli by the road to Variadhes. A week after, Murto Tshiali, Ali’s faithful adherent, put them in possession of Kiapha, with all its military stores and provisions. He also paid a sum of money to each of the chiefs of pharas, in order to enable them to take the field. In January 1821 the Suliots formed a junction with a corps of fifteen hundred Mussulman Albanians under the command of three chieftains devoted to Ali, of high military reputation—Seliktar Poda (the sword-bearer), Muhurdar Besiari (the seal-bearer), and Tahir Abbas, a bey of great personal influence.

It was necessary for the Suliots to re-establish their authority over the Christian villages which had formerly paid them tribute or black-mail; otherwise they must have remained always dependent on Ali Pasha for their subsistence. The Othoman authorities already occupied several posts in the Suliot territory. The Suliot chiefs and their Mussulman allies resolved to make these positions their first object of attack. Two months were consumed in this operation. After some severe skirmishing, Devitzana and Variadhes, which command the two roads leading from Suli to Joannina, and Lelova and Kanza, which open an issue into the plains of Arta and Prevesa, were conquered. But in the meantime Ali’s position had grown much worse. The severity of the winter had not, as he expected, forced Ismael to raise the siege, and he had himself fallen into a trap he had prepared for his enemy. Letters which he had written to the Seliktar Poda and the Suliots, concerting measures for a combined attack on the Othoman camp, fell into the hands of Omer Vrioni. They were answered as if they had arrived safely at their destination, and the garrisons both of Litharitza and the citadel were induced to make a sortie, which led them so far into the Othoman camp that it was with great difficulty they effected their retreat, leaving half their number dead on the field. This defeat took place on the 7th of February 1821, and from that day Ali was compelled to act cautiously on the defensive.

Sultan Mahmud saw that the conduct of the pashas before Joannina was compromising the success of the campaign. He punished the incapacity of Ismael and the insubordination of Pehlevan by removing them from their commands. Pehlevan was immediately condemned to death; Ismael was sent to defend Arta in a subordinate position, and Khurshid Pasha of the Morea, a sagacious veteran, replaced him as seraskier before Joannina. Ismael’s misconduct, when Arta was attacked by the Suliots, the Albanians, and the Greek armatoli, in the month of November 1821, caused him to be exiled to Demotika, where he was decapitated. Khurshid assumed the command of the Othoman army at the beginning of the month of March 1821. The Greek Revolution broke out in the Morea shortly after, and both the fate of Ali Pasha and the fortunes of the Suliots became subordinate episodes in the military operations of Sultan Mahmud’s reign.

The Suliots henceforth derive their historical importance from their connection with the great national struggle of the Greeks. Their characteristics as an Albanian tribe were gradually lost after they were finally expelled from Suli by Sultan Mahmud’s officers, and became dependent for their existence on their pay, as Greek soldiers. But their condition when they returned from Corfu to regain possession of their native mountains deserves to be recorded, since it marks the great transition of society in Southern Albania during the first quarter of the present century.

During sixteen years of exile the Suliots were thrown into close connection with the modern Greeks. Their communal organization remained in abeyance; but their absence changed the condition of the Christian peasantry who had lived under their protection. Many of the cultivators of the soil found themselves better off as the tenants of Ali Pasha than they had been as the vassals of the Suliots; and when that tribe returned, they found the inhabitants of the villages in their former territory unwilling to become again the agricultural serfs of the Suliot confederacy. The Suliot warriors also were so reduced in number that they were compelled to seek recruits from among the Christian peasants, in order to counterbalance the strength of the Albanian Mussulmans with whom they were forced to act. It was therefore absolutely necessary to give the Suliot community a new constitution.

This was done. The subject villages sent deputies to a general council, and every soldier enrolled under a Suliot chief was admitted to the privileges of a native warrior. This circumstance was considered an event of great social importance in Albanian society. It separated the Suliots from the great family of the Tchamides, and overthrew the organization of the pharas. It is not easy for strangers to understand the change which this revolution produced. They cannot estimate the violence of the pride of class among the Albanians, nor the strength of local patriotism or prejudice among the Suliots. In the month of March 1821, when the Revolution broke out in the Morea, the Suliots knew nothing of the Philike Hetairia, and cared nothing for the independence of the Greeks, yet Greek ideas had already produced a change in the political civilization of this rude tribe of Albanians. The principles of civil equality and of the brotherhood of all the orthodox had been imprinted on their minds. They were made to feel that they were citizens and Christians as well as Suliots. They were, drawn into the vortex of the Greek Revolution without their forming any preconceived design to aid the Greeks, just as they had been led by circumstances to aid their enemy Ali Pasha. But, once engaged in the cause, they embarked in it with their usual vehemence, and formed the van of its warriors, sacrificing their beloved Suli, and abandoning all the traditions of their race, to join the modern Greeks and assume the name of Hellenes.

The intellectual progress of the Suliots in civil affairs, under the influence of Greek ideas, contrasts strangely with their obstinate rejection of the military lessons taught them by the Russians, the French, and the English, who placed the power of discipline and science in war constantly before their eyes. The legions of Napoleon and the regiments of England showed them the secret of rendering small bodies of well-trained soldiers a match for hosts of undisciplined troops, but they refused to learn the lesson. They deliberately rejected the advantages they might have derived from discipline and tactics, because no Suliot would sacrifice the smallest portion of his self-importance. The spirit of personal independence which made every individual Suliot pay only a limited obedience to the chief of his phara, rendered the chiefs of the pharas unwilling to obey a commander-in-chief, so that a Suliot army of 700 men was a kind of Polish diet. Unfortunately for the Greeks, the brilliant courage of the Suliots induced the unwarlike leaders of the Revolution to overrate the value of the Albanian system of warfare. The Greeks had taught the Suliots some valuable social lessons; the Suliots in return taught the Greeks to adopt the military barbarism of the Albanians, to despise the restraints of discipline, and to depreciate the value of the tactics and science of civilized nations. Their lessons entailed many calamities on Greece during the revolutionary war.

The Suliots had some reasons for adopting their system in defending their own mountains against the pashas of Joannina, which were inapplicable to the defence of Greece against the Turks. The nature of the Suliot territory, serrated with deep ravines converging at acute angles, forced the Suliots to guard several passes. Their numbers were small, so that their enemies were enabled to attack many points with overwhelming numbers. To meet this danger, it was necessary to adopt some system of defensive warfare, by which a few men could effectually check the advance of a large body. They obtained this result by selecting positions commanding those passes which their assailants could not avoid. In these passes a few men were posted in such a manner as to be concealed from the approaching enemy, but so disposed that each Suliot occupied a station overlooking the same portion of the road. A concentrated fire was thus brought to bear on the gorge of the pass. Every shot was expected to prove mortal.

The military science of the Suliot captains was displayed in the selection of these positions, and in disposing the men who occupied them. The great art was by a sudden fire to encumber the narrowest part of the pass with the dead and wounded. It was also necessary for every man to have a second rifle ready, in order to prevent the enemy from availing himself of numbers, and rushing forward to storm the Suliot position. A perfect knowledge of the ground, the eye of an eagle, the activity of a goat, and the heart of a hero, were required to make a perfect Suliot warrior. It has often happened that a band of twenty-five Suliots has arrested several hundred men, until their countrymen could arrive in numbers sufficient to throw themselves in the rear of the enemy and capture his baggage.

When circumstances rendered retreat unavoidable, it was an important part of the tactics of the Suliots to abandon their position simultaneously, and remove unperceived into some new position equally suited for defence. In these operations each warrior watched the movements of his companions as carefully as those of the enemy; for it was as great a fault to remain too long in a position as to abandon it too soon. A wound received by unnecessary exposure was, at Suli, as disgraceful as an act of military disobedience. No soldier was entitled to compromise the public safety to win personal glory. This species of defensive warfare required great powers of endurance, and a facility of moving unperceived among stones and stunted brushwood, which could only be acquired by long habit. An active youth becomes a good regular soldier in six months, but as many years were spent in exercising a Suliot warrior, before he was admitted to take his place in a chosen band appointed to defend an important pass. Every man was there called upon to perform the part of a cautious general as well as of a daring soldier.

The system of attack practised by the Mussulman Albanians bore great similarity to these defensive tactics. The assailants dispersed in an extended semicircle round the point of attack, and crept forward, covering themselves with every irregularity in the ground. The first object was to ascertain the exact position and the numbers of the enemy; the second to outflank him. The first approach was usually made during the night; and before the grey mist of the morning rendered objects visible to any eyes but those of Albanian marksmen, a volley was often poured on the sentinels, who looked up cautiously to examine the ground; or the two parties were already mingled together, and forced to engage hand to hand.

It has been mentioned that when the Suliots were joined by the Mussulman Albanians in Ali’s interest, they were compelled to attack the Othoman posts in order to expel them from the Suliot territory. Many of their allies had fought against them in 1803, but this circumstance only increased the mutual emulation. Tahir Abbas and the Muhurdar were not men to yield the palm of valour to Botzaris and Djavellas. Though the posts of Bogonitza, Lelova, Variadhes, and Toskesi were defended by strong bodies of Gueghs, they were stormed one after the other.

A curious story is told of the manner in which the Suliots gained possession of Variadhes. That position was occupied by about a thousand Gueghs and Sclavonian Mussulmans from Macedonia. The only well was without the Turkish lines, though completely under cover of their fire. Five Suliots crept to this well during a dark night, and let down into it a dead body and a pig cut up in quarters. In spite of the silence they maintained, the Turks suspected that somebody was attempting to draw water, and wounded two Suliots with their fire. In the morning the Mussulmans discovered what their enemies had done. They reproached the Christians with carrying on war dishonourably, and of using unlawful weapons. The Suliots replied, “The well is in our country, and if you don’t like the water, you can find many good springs in the territories of Ismael the seraskier”. After some disputing, the Turks were compelled to accept the terms offered by the Suliots, and retreat to the camp before Joannina.

Khurshid Pasha, who replaced Ismael as seraskier, assumed the government of the Morea in the month of November 1820. The state of Greece already caused some alarm at Constantinople, but the rebellion of Ali was considered the real source of danger, and the conquest of Joannina was therefore the first object of the sultan’s care. As soon as Khurshid reported that there was no immediate cause of alarm in his pashalik, he was ordered to leave a kehaya at Tripolitza, and take the command of the army before Joannina. On his arrival he found the Othoman army thoroughly disorganized, and he set to work with energy to remedy the evils created by his predecessor’s misconduct. Nothing astonished him so much as the military position which the armatoli had assumed in the confusion. He perceived, that though the armed Christians had generally ranged themselves under the banner of the sultan’s seraskier, they were employed in strengthening themselves, not in weakening Ali Pasha. His first business was to reorganize his troops, increase their numbers, and collect supplies of ammunition and provisions, preparatory to attacking Joannina with vigour. While thus engaged, he was astounded by the news that all the Morea, the islands, and a great part of continental Greece had suddenly taken up arms, and that his communications with his pashalik were cut off both by land and sea. During the whole of the summer of 1821, his operations were completely paralyzed; but he wisely determined to keep Ali closely besieged, and to redouble his exertions to destroy the great rebel. There can be no doubt that this was the most prudent resolution he could adopt in the choice of difficulties which was offered him.

The conduct of Khurshid has been severely blamed by some military critics. They consider his torpidity while the Greeks gained possession of Acarnania and Aetolia, a proof of his incapacity. But it must be remembered, that when the Greek Revolution broke out, his army did not exceed twenty thousand, and a part of his force consisted of Christian armatoli, on whom he could no longer depend. He was compelled to maintain the blockade of Joannina, to oppose the progress of Ali’s partizans and of the Suliots in Epirus, to keep open his communications with Arta and Prevesa, and to garrison the pass of Metzovo; while he could not summon a single man to his assistance from Thessaly or Macedon, lest he should be cut off from his magazines at Larissa and Thessalonica, and from direct communication with Constantinople,

Those who depreciate Khurshid’s military talents observe that his camp before Joannina was only eighteen hours’ march from the pass of Makronoros; that Arta and Prevesa were occupied by Othoman garrisons; and that Bekir Djokador (the gambler), who was governor of Prevesa, commanded the Gulf of Arta, with the flotilla under his orders. It is argued that by landing a body of troops at Karavaserai, the pass of Makronoros might be turned, and a body of troops marched to Vrachori in nine hours. The fertile plains of Acarnania would have enabled the Othoman cavalry to render good service by confining the Greek armatoli to the hills, and thus communications might always have been kept open with Lepanto and Patras.

The classic student is reminded of the rapid marches of Philip V of Macedon, and his brilliant operation in destroying Thermus, the capital of the Aetolians. The ruins of Thermus are still seen towering over the central plain of Aetolia, on a rocky hill about six miles east of Vrachori. Like many other classic spots, they have now a Sclavonian name. Both the ruins and the district in which they lie are called Vlokho. The operations of Philip V afford a signal proof of the wonders that may be effected by rapid movements, strict discipline, and able tactics. The Macedonian troops were landed at Limnaea (Karavaserai) in the afternoon. They marched all night, and reached the Achelous (Aspropotamos) at daybreak. The distance is twenty-five miles. Crossing the river, they pushed forward, and reached Thermus, situated about fifteen miles from the river, late in the afternoon. The city was surprised and systematically sacked. The public buildings were burned, and, as far as time permitted, the statues were broken to pieces. Next day Philip commenced his retreat The great fatigue which his troops had undergone during the two preceding days and nights compelled him to move leisurely, and his men were encumbered with booty. He spent three days in his retreat, before he crossed the Achelous and regained Limnaea2

Khurshid had perhaps more than once an opportunity of imitating the Macedonian king; but those who have written the history of the Greek Revolution have estimated the obstacles to his making the attempt too lightly. It was even difficult for him to calculate how far defection might spread among the Mussulman Albanians, if he absented himself from the Othoman camp for a single day. The Sclavonian beys and the Gueghs often behaved with great insubordination while he was present. There could be no hope of success unless he headed the expedition in person. His absence from the camp might enable Ali to raise the siege of Joannina; the defeat of the expedition might afford him an opportunity of rousing all Southern Albania against the sultan, and of forming an alliance with the insurgent Greeks. It must not also be overlooked that, during the month of May 1821, Khurshid detached nearly ten thousand men from his army, partly to reinforce the garrisons of Patras and Tripolitza, and partly to watch the vale of Tempe and the passes over the Cambunian mountains, and to keep in check the armatoli of Olympus and Ossa. By his prudence, chiefly, the Greek Revolution was prevented from spreading northward, after the execution of the patriarch Gregorios on Easter Sunday (22nd April).

The personal position of Khurshid was one of great delicacy. The interests of the Othoman empire, and his duty to the sultan, commanded him to prosecute the siege of Joannina, and keep Ali at bay in his last stronghold. But his own honour, and the safety of his family, called on him to march to Tripolitza, protect his harem, and save the Mohammedan population of his pashalik. The fate of the Othoman empire probably depended on his decision, and he chose like a patriot. It is the duty of the historian to give the just meed of praise to able and honourable conduct, whether the actor be an enemy or a friend, a Mohammedan or a Christian, a Turk or a Greek.

The Suliots did everything in their power to profit by the weakness of Khurshid’s army: they attacked Prevesa, and attempted to interrupt the seraskier’s communications with Arta. Their endeavours to gain possession of Prevesa depended for success on secret negotiations, not open assaults. They were frustrated by the conduct of their Mussulman allies, who feared lest they might become independent of Ali’s assistance, and abandon his cause to secure a separate arrangement with the sultan. Their operations on the Arta road also met with only temporary success.

On the 6th of August 1821, the united forces of the Mussulman Albanians and the Suliots attacked a convoy of provisions and ammunition on its way from Arta to the seraskier’s camp. The Suliots had not yet united their cause with that of the Greeks, so that no common measures were concerted with the Christians who had taken up arms in Acarnania and Aetolia. The Suliots still confined their views to securing the independent possession of Suli. The allied force, after plundering the Turkish convoy, attacked the troops of Khurshid stationed to guard the pass of Pentepegadhia, and stormed their position in a brilliant manner. In this exploit the Mussulman Albanians were more numerous than the Suliots. The Muhurdar had 500 men under his command, while Drakos, who led the Suliots, had only 200. Had they been able to retain possession of the pass, which might probably have been done with the assistance of the Greek armatoli, Khurshid would have been compelled to raise the siege of Joannina. The seraskier saw the danger, and sent an overwhelming force to recover the lost position and keep open his communications. This force compelled the allies to retire, and from that time the Suliots began to lose ground. Ali could no longer supply them with either rations or pay, and they began again to plunder the Christian cultivators of the soil, who sought protection from Khurshid, and with the assistance of these pillaged Christians the seraskier gradually succeeded in extending the sultan’s authority over the whole of the Suliot territory. The agas of Margariti and Paramythia also regarded the Suliots with increased animosity since the outbreak of the Greek Revolution. The Suliots now turned to the Greeks for assistance, who had already established themselves firmly in Aetolia and Acarnania, and were preparing to attack Arfa.

Mavrocordatos then acted as dictator in Western Greece. The captains of armatoli had already sent the Suliots several warnings of the danger of delivering Ali. The power of Khurshid was not feared. Indeed, the authority of Sultan Mahmud in Greece and Epirus was considered at an end. The agents of the Greek government, the friends of Mavrocordatos, and the captains of armatoli, all urged the Suliots to quit the cause of Ali and join that of Greece. They justly observed, that the cause at issue was that of Greece and Turkey, and that, whether Ali or Khurshid proved victorious, the victor would immediately turn all his forces against the Christians, and in the first place against the Suliots. The Suliots did not deny the truth of these observations, but they resolved not to break their plighted faith with the Mussulman Albanians, who had assisted them in their greatest difficulties. These Mussulman allies were at last persuaded that Ali’s interest required the support of the Greeks.

In the month of October 1821, Khurshid gained possession of Litharitza, and Ali found himself hard pressed in the fortress on the lake. The batteries of the besiegers destroyed several magazines, and incessant showers of shells rendered the place almost untenable. The Greeks began to be alarmed lest Khurshid should immediately get possession of the immense treasures which they believed were heaped up in Joannina, and became consequently of a sudden eager to form an alliance with the Albanian Mussulmans who still adhered to Ali’s cause. Several communications took place, and at last Tahir Abbas and Ago Besiari resolved to visit Mesolonghi, in order to confer with Mavrocordatos in person, and concert measures for assailing the rear of Khurshid’s army, and opening an entrance into Ali’s fortress.

Tahir Abbas was a man of experience and sagacity, whose long intercourse with the Greeks rendered him perfectly acquainted with their character, and prevented his being deceived by their wiles. On the other hand, the Greeks laid themselves open to his observation by underrating his talents. They considered him ignorant and stupid, because he spoke Greek with the rude accent and simple phraseology of the Epirot peasantry. Mavrocordatos and the Greek captains, with that overweening confidence in their intellectual superiority which makes the Greeks so often ‘the fools of their own thoughts’ trusted to their powers of deception for using Ali’s partizans as blind instruments. By feigning to see things as they wished him to see them, Tahir Abbas heard everything they ought to have concealed. He saw that many Greeks considered the Revolution a movement excited by Russia to destroy the Othoman empire, and that it would soon be openly supported by the Emperor Alexander. He perceived that the Greeks were fighting for their independence and for their religion; and, as a Mohammedan, he would have considered the contest a war of extermination, even had he not seen evidence of the fact at every step he took in his journey to Mesolonghi. Though familiarly acquainted with the captains of armatoli, he was astonished at the numbers of veteran soldiers he saw under their command. He was even more astonished at the spirit of independence already displayed by the rayahs or Christian peasantry. The Greeks committed a great error in allowing him to pass through Vrachori, where the blackened walls of Turkish palaces, the desecrated mosques and ruined minarets, could not escape his attention, and where their pride induced them to point out also the unburied bones of murdered Mussulmans, and the unveiled faces of women who had dwelt in the harems of beys, serving as menials in Greek families. The scrutinizing mind of Tahir Abbas seized the fact that a new phase had commenced in Turkish history; that henceforward the Mussulmans in Europe would have to sustain a long war with all the Christians who had been hitherto their obsequious serfs. When he reached Mesolonghi, he observed to an Italian whom he had known at Joannina, that the Revolution was the mortal combat of two religions. Of course he felt an internal satisfaction at making this declaration. As a sincere Mohammedan, he felt assured that though God might punish for a while the vices of the Othomans, eventually the victory would rest with Islam.

It did not require the sagacity of Tahir Abbas to perceive that it was impossible to conclude a treaty of any value either with Mavrocordatos or the Greek government. The intrigues and tergiversations of those with whom he negotiated revealed the anarchy that prevailed in the public administration, and the dissensions that existed among the leading men. Finding that he could obtain no money in Greece to enrol a body of Mussulman Albanians, and being convinced that it would be an act of folly to co-operate with Greek troops without a force sufficient to insure respect and good faith, he returned to his countrymen, who were still acting with the Suliots, determined not to serve as an instrument of Greek policy. He found that a part of the Suliots had already joined the armatoli.

In the meantime the conquest of Litharitza had convinced the Albanians that it was neither prudent nor possible any longer to resist the sultan’s authority. Elmas Bey, who had commanded the Albanians, arrived from Tripolitza, and gave a horrible picture of the cruelty of the Greeks. Khurshid availed himself of this favourable opportunity to open negotiations with the partizans of Ali, and Tahir Abbas having informed them that it was impossible to come to any terms with the Greeks, the negotiations were soon terminated. The Albanians separated from the Suliots, but informed them that they would not act against them in the Suliot territory. The Suliots retired to their mountains, and the Greeks were compelled to abandon their operations against Arta.

Ali was now living in a bomb-proof cellar, clothed in a bundle of dirty embroidered garments, defending the castle of the lake with a diminished and intimidated garrison. Khurshid was watching his prey with the vigilance of a lynx. The Albanian beys, who had hitherto done everything in their power to thwart the operations of the seraskier, were now so much alarmed at the progress of the Greek Revolution, that they became eager for the triumph of the sultan. At last, in the month of January 1822, partly by treachery and partly by surprise, Khurshid’s troops gained an entrance into the citadel of the lake, and Ali had barely time to shut himself up in the tower which contained his treasures and his powder-magazine. From this spot he entered into negotiations with Khurshid, who readily agreed to all his demands. Khurshid promised to spare Ali’s life; and the aged tyrant, who had never respected a promise or spared an enemy, flattered himself that he could escape the vengeance of Sultan Mahmud. As he was destitute of any feeling of honour or of that pride which makes life insupportable after defeat, and as he had no personal vengeance to gratify by dying in defence of his treasury, he probably considered that at the worst it was more dignified for a pasha, and an unwieldy old man of eighty-two, to die by the bow-string than to be mangled in an explosion or slaughtered in an assault Khurshid, on the other hand, had received the express orders of the sultan to send Ali’s head to the Sublime Porte, and his difficulties rendered it absolutely necessary for him to get possession of Ali’s treasury. Both he and Ali knew that a pasha’s promise is valueless against a sultan’s order. Khurshid gained possession of the tower, and removed Ali’s treasures, which he found by no means equal to his expectations. Ali retired to a kiosk in one of the islands of the lake.

On the 5th of February 1822 a meeting took place between Ali and Mohammed Pasha, who was appointed Khurshid’s successor in the pashalik of the Morea. When Mohammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of equal rank, moved together towards the door with all the ceremonious politeness of Othoman etiquette. As they parted, Ali bowed low to his visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment when the watchful eye of the old man was turned away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali’s heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, and said to the attendants, “Ali of Tepelen is dead”. The capidji of the Porte entered the hall of conference, severed the head from the body, and carried it to the citadel, where it was exhibited to the troops before being sent off to Constantinople. A tumult arose between the Albanians and the Turks, in which several persons were killed; but order was quickly re-established by the seliktar of Khurshid, who rode among the soldiers, announcing that the seraskier had given orders for the immediate payment of all the arrears due to the army, and that he would soon march into the warmer and more fertile region of Thessaly, and prepare to invade Greece, where booty and slaves would be obtained in abundance. Everywhere he was received with acclamation, and the Albanians as well as the Turks shouted, “The dog Kara Ali is dead. Long life to Sultan Mahmud and his valiant seraskier, Khurshid Pasha”.

The head of Ali was exposed at the gate of the serai. A few weeks after, four heads of pashas occupied the same niche, placed side by side. They were the heads of Ali’s sons, Mukhtar, Veli, and Salik, and of his grandson Mahmud, the son of Veli. They had been allowed to live quietly in Asia Minor until the old lion of Joannina was hunted down. The heads were buried at the cemetery before the gate of Selivria, where five marble tombs, ranged in a line, still arrest the attention of the traveller. The wicked father and his worthless sons are united in death. Filial ingratitude and Othoman treachery are recorded in pompous inscriptions teaching piety.

 

BOOK SECOND.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER IV.

The Causes of the Greek Revolution.

 

 

Mahmud II was born on 20 July 1785, in the month of Ramadan. He was the son of Abdul Hamid I and his wife Nakşidil Sultan. He was the youngest son of his father, and the second child of his mother, he had a elder brother, Şehzade Seyfullah Murad, two years older than him, and a younger sister, Saliha Sultan, one year younger than him. According to tradition, he was confined in the Kafes after the death of his father.

His mother was Nakşidil Valide Sultan. In 1808, Mahmud II's predecessor, and half-brother, Mustafa IV ordered his execution along with his cousin, the deposed Sultan Selim III, in order to defuse the rebellion. Selim III was killed, but Mahmud was safely kept hidden by his mother and was placed on the throne after the rebels deposed Mustafa IV. The leader of this rebellion, Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, later became Mahmud II's vizier. Western historians give Mahmud a poor reputation for simply being the Sultan during a time of deterioration of the Ottoman Empire.

There are many stories surrounding the circumstances of his attempted murder. A version by the 19th-century Ottoman historian Ahmed Cevdet Pasha gives the following account: one of his slaves, a Georgian girl named Cevri, gathered ashes when she heard the commotion in the palace surrounding the murder of Selim III. When the assassins approached the harem chambers where Mahmud was staying, she was able to keep them away for a while by throwing ashes into their faces, temporarily blinding them. This allowed Mahmud to escape through a window and climb onto the roof of the harem. He apparently ran to the roof of the Third Court where other pages saw him and helped him come down with pieces of clothes that were quickly tied together as a ladder. By this time one of the leaders of the rebellion, Alemdar Mustafa Pasha arrived with his armed men, and upon seeing the dead body of Selim III proclaimed Mahmud as padishah. The slave girl Cevri Kalfa was awarded for her bravery and loyalty and appointed haznedar usta, the chief treasurer of the Imperial Harem, which was the second most important position in the hierarchy. A plain stone staircase at the Altınyol (Golden Way) of the Harem is called Staircase of Cevri (Jevri) Kalfa, since the events apparently happened around there and are associated with her.

The vizier took the initiative in resuming reforms that had been terminated by the conservative coup of 1807 that had brought Mustafa IV to power. However, he was killed during a rebellion in 1808 and Mahmud II temporarily abandoned the reforms. Mahmud II's later reformation efforts would be much more successful.

After Mahmud II became sultan, Turkish border wars with the Russians continued. In 1810, the Russians surrounded the Silistre fortress for the second time. When Emperor Napoleon I of France declared war on Russia in 1811, Russian repression on the Ottoman border diminished, a relief to Mahmud. By this time, Napoleon was about to embark on his invasion of Russia. He also invited the Ottomans to join his march on Russia. However, Napoleon, who had invaded all of Europe except the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire, could not be trusted and accepted as an ally; Mahmud rejected the offer. The Bucharest Agreement was reached with the Russians on 28 May 1812. According to the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), the Ottoman Empire ceded the eastern half of Moldavia to Russia (which renamed the territory as Bessarabia), although it had committed to protecting that region. Russia became a new power in the lower Danube area, and had an economically, diplomatically, and militarily profitable frontier. In Transcaucasia, Turkey regained nearly all it had lost in the east: Poti, Anapa and Akhalkalali. Russia retained Sukhum-Kale on the Abkhazian coast. In return, the Sultan accepted the Russian annexation of the Kingdom of Imereti, in 1810. The treaty was approved by Emperor Alexander I of Russia on June 11, some 13 days before Napoleon's invasion began. The Russian commanders were able to get many of their soldiers in the Balkans back to the western areas of the empire before the expected attack of Napoleon.

During the early years of Mahmud II's reign, his governor of Egypt Mehmet Ali Paşa successfully waged the Ottoman-Saudi War and reconquered the holy cities of Medina (1812) and Mecca (1813) from the First Saudi State.

Abdullah bin Saud and the First Saudi State had barred Muslims from the Ottoman Empire from entering the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina; his followers also desecrated the tombs of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Hassan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Abdullah bin Saud and his two followers were publicly beheaded for their crimes against holy cities and mosques.

His reign also marked the first breakaway from the Ottoman Empire, with Greece gaining its independence following a revolution that started in 1821. In the wake of continued unrest he had ecumenical patriarch Gregory V executed on Easter Sunday 1821 for his inability to stem the uprising. During the Battle of Erzurum (1821), part of the Ottoman-Persian War (1821-1823), Mahmud II's superior force was routed by Abbas Mirza, resulting in a Qajar Persian victory which got confirmed in the Treaties of Erzurum. Several years later, in 1827, the combined British, French and Russian navies defeated the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Navarino; in the aftermath, the Ottoman Empire was forced to recognize Greece with the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832. This event, together with the French conquest of Algeria, an Ottoman province (see Ottoman Algeria) in 1830, marked the beginning of the gradual break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Non-Turkish ethnic groups living in the empire's territories, especially in Europe, started their own independence movements.

One of Mahmud II's most notable acts during his reign was the destruction of the Janissary corps in June 1826. He accomplished this with careful calculation using his recently reformed wing of the military intended to replace the Janissaries. When the Janissaries mounted a demonstration against Mahmud II's proposed military reforms, he had their barracks fired upon effectively crushing the formerly elite Ottoman troops and burned the Belgrade forest outside Istanbul to incinerate any remnants. This permitted the establishment of a European-style conscript army, recruited mainly from Turkish speakers of Rumelia and Asia Minor. Mahmud was also responsible for the subjugation of the Iraqi Mamluks by Ali Ridha Pasha in 1831. He ordered the execution of the renowned Ali Pasha of Tepelena. He sent his Grand Vizier to execute the Bosniak hero Husein Gradaščević and dissolve the Bosnia Eyalet.

Another Russo-Turkish War (1828-29) broke out during Mahmud II's reign and was this time was fought without janissaries. Marshal Diebitsch was armed (in the words of Baron Moltke) "with the reputation of invincible success". He was to earn the name Sabalskanski (the crosser of the Balkans). Bypassing the Shumla fortress, he forcibly marched his troops over the Balkans, appearing before Adrianople. Sultan Mahmud II kept his head, unfurled the sacred banner of the prophet and declared his intention of taking command personally. Preparing to do so, he appeared, ill-advisedly, not on horseback but in a carriage. The Divan, British and French ambassadors urged him to sue for peace.