THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER VI.

The Outbreak of the Revolution in Greece.

 

 

It would require Shakespeare’s richness of language to give adequate expression to the intensity of passion with which the modern Greeks rose to destroy the power of their Othoman masters.

In the month of April 1821, a Mussulman population, generally of the Greek race, amounting to upwards of twenty thousand souls, was living, dispersed in Greece, employed in agriculture. Before two months had elapsed the greater part was slain—men, women, and children were murdered on their own hearths without mercy or remorse. Old men still point to heaps of stones, and tell the traveller, “There stood the pyrgos (tower) of Ali Aga, and there we slew him, his harem, and his slaves”,  and the old man walks calmly on to plough the fields which once belonged to Ali Aga, without a thought that any vengeful fury can attend his path. The crime was a nation’s crime, and whatever perturbations it may produce must be in a nation’s conscience, as the deeds by which it can be expiated must be the acts of a nation.

The feeling that a great social convulsion was at hand became general both among the Mussulman and Christian population of the Morea towards the end of 1820. The prolonged resistance of Ali Pasha persuaded every class that a revolution was inevitable, yet both Mussulmans and Christians carefully avoided every act tending to accelerate the outbreak. Each party seemed to be waiting for a signal from a distance, and the winter was passed in anxiety and hope.

The Greeks were unwarlike. The Turks were dispersed over the country in single families or in small towns, and without local leaders. Both parties habitually postponed adopting a decisive line of conduct. Procrastination is quite as characteristic of Greek bishops and primates as of Turkish pashas and agas. The Greeks expected aid from Russia—the Turks looked to the sultan for orders and for assistance. The Greeks, who were preparing for a revolution, formed no magazines of provisions, and collected no military stores. The Turks, who deemed an insurrection of the Christians inevitable, neglected to repair their fortresses, to lay up stores of provisions, and to fill the cisterns with water in the strong castles scattered over the face of the country, which were capable of being rendered impregnable to insurgents without discipline and without artillery.

During the summer of 1820, however, Sultan Mahmud was so much alarmed by the reports he received concerning the state of the Christian population in Greece, that he sent an officer to the Morea, to put the principal fortresses in a state of defence. With the exception of Tripolitza, all these fortresses were situated on the sea-coast, and in all there was a Mussulman population accustomed to bear arms. They might all have been repaired and provisioned simultaneously; but the Turks considered that their fleet could bring succour at any time, and the armed Mussulmans were confident that no Christian subject of the Porte would dare to meet them in the field. The sultan’s order was not carried into execution, though it is possible that he believed the contrary.

In the month of November 1820, Khurshid Pasha arrived in the Morea, with strict orders to watch the machinations of the Greeks and the intrigues of the Russian consular agents. He reported that in his pashalik there was no immediate danger of any disturbance; and the sultan, finding that Ismael was conducting the operations against Ali Pasha with great incapacity, ordered Khurshid to take the command of the army before Joannina, and leave a deputy to govern the Morea during his absence. Khurshid quitted Tripolitza in January 1821, leaving Mehemet Salik as his kaimakam, a young man of an arrogant disposition and no military experience. The garrison of Tripolitza was soon after strengthened by a reinforcement of a thousand Albanians.

The Philike Hetairia had made more progress in the Morea than in the other parts of Greece. Many of the higher clergy, the primates, and the men possessing local influence, had been initiated during the years 1819 and 1820; but the misconduct of some of the travelling agents, or apostles (as they were called), and the imprudence with which they admitted crowds of members, in order to receive fees, frightened the primates. Their distrust in the direction of the society was increased by an order to remit all the pecuniary contributions collected in Greece to the treasury at Constantinople. The impolicy of this order, at a time when it was a matter of the greatest urgency to collect stores in the mountains of Greece, where the Turks could hardly watch, and would be unable to control, the movements of the people, was so apparent that the Moreot Hetairists determined to establish a local treasury, and to investigate the mystery in which the direction of the society was enveloped. An active correspondence was carried on between the Hetairists in Greece and those in Constantinople and Russia, through the agency of the Russian consulate at Patras, which insured both secrecy and safety. In the autumn of 1820 the Moreots were informed that Prince Alexander Hypsilantes had assumed the supreme direction of the Hetairia, and that seven local ephors were appointed to conduct the business of the society in Greece. A local treasury was also constituted under the control of the ephors. This appears to have been the wisest measure ever adopted by the supreme direction, and it was forced on it by the common sense of the Moreot Hetairists. The conspiracy in Greece was now fully organized. Germanos, the Metropolitan Bishop of Patras, who has left memoirs of the Greek Revolution, was the most distinguished member among the ephors.

The confidence of the Greek Hetairists in the judgment of Prince Alexander Hypsilantes was soon shaken by the conduct of one of his agents. The most active apostle in the Morea at this time was the Archimandrite, Gregorios Dikaios, commonly called Pappa Phlesas, a most unclerical priest, but a bold conspirator. The licentious conduct, the carelessness of truth, and the wasteful expenditure of this man, rendered him unfit for any secret business where prudence was required. The Archbishop of Patras accuses him of shameful dishonesty, declaring in his Memoirs that the archimandrite sold eighty barrels of gunpowder, which were sent from Smyrna to Poros shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution. Pappa Phlesas spent the money in riotous living and travelling; and wherever he went he announced that Russia would soon declare war with Turkey, and send an army to deliver Greece from the Othoman yoke. To his intimate associates he revealed the plan of the ‘Grand Project’, which included the assassination of the sultan and the conflagration of Constantinople as a part of its programme. In the state of affairs in Greece, neither the discourses nor the financial co-operation of such an agent could do any good. Yet this man, with all his vices, proved that he possessed both patriotism and courage by his honourable death. After inflicting many deep wounds on political morality by his shameless peculations, and on the orthodox Church by his barefaced profligacy, he fell on the field of battle, fighting gallantly to arrest the progress of Ibrahim Pasha, as will be recorded in a future page.

It is difficult for those who travel from London to Constantinople in a week, to form any idea of the difficulty of obtaining information which existed in the East during the first thirty years of the present century. Little could be learned with accuracy concerning the events that happened in the nearest province, and the wildest reports were circulated, and obtained credence even among men of education. Newspapers were unknown, and private correspondents had rarely access to authentic sources of information. The Hetairists, therefore, found all men ready to believe their wildest assertions. We need not therefore be surprised to find that, in the Morea, the Greeks were universally persuaded that a Russian fleet would appear in the Mediterranean in the spring of 1821, and land an army to expel the Turks from Greece. The confidence inspired by this conviction was so great, that the primates deemed it necessary to adopt some precautions to allay the popular effervescence. They felt that they were exposed to become the victims of the precautionary measures which the Othoman government habitually adopted to prevent insurrections. They feared that they should be suddenly arrested, and carried off to Tripolitza as hostages for the tranquillity of their countrymen.

The Turks heard the reports which were current, and were quite as much alarmed as the primates. They called on the kaimakam at Tripolitza to take measures for preventing an insurrection of the Christians. At this crisis the leading Hetairists in the country round Patras held a meeting at Vostitza, the ancient Aegium, in the month of February 1821, to decide on the course they ought to pursue. The assembly was a revival of the Achaian League. Many bishops and primates were present. Pappa Phlesas attended the meeting, and when urged to be more cautious in his proceedings, he ridiculed the terror of the primates, persisted in his assertion that Russian aid was at hand, and pleaded the commands of Hypsilantes as his authority for urging on the people. The principal members of the assembly resolved to imprison him in a monastery, but no one ventured to arrest the impetuous priest. At last the meeting decided on sending two messengers to obtain accurate information concerning the projects of the supreme direction of the Hetairia, and the precise nature of the support it was to receive from the Russian government. One of these messengers was sent to Ignatius, the Archbishop of Arta, who was living at Pisa in Tuscany, and who was supposed to be well acquainted with the intentions of the Russian cabinet. The other was deputed to confer with Prince Alexander Hypsilantes, and ascertain the real extent of his military preparations. The agents of the supreme direction had already fixed the 6th of April as the day on which the Revolution was to break out simultaneously in every province and city of the Othoman empire in which the Greeks were numerous. The assembly of Vostitza now decided that in the Morea the outbreak should be adjourned until the ephors received answers to their communications from Ignatius and Hypsilantes.

Matters had already gone too far for the people to stop at the beck of the bishops and the primates. No fears for the personal safety of a few could damp the general enthusiasm. The Hetairists at Vostitza did not entirely neglect to prepare for the Revolution which they wished to delay. They raised among themselves the sum of £2000 sterling by a private subscription, and they deputed several monks of Megaspelaion to collect money to purchase arms and ammunition. But their counsels displayed more selfishness and timidity than was justified at a moment when even prudence dictated enthusiasm and boldness as the only safe policy. Indeed, it must be recorded here, as on many future occasions, that the Greek Revolution was emphatically the work of the people. The leaders generally proved unfit for the position they occupied, but the people never wavered in the contest, and from the day they took up arms they made every object in life subordinate to the victory of the orthodox church and the establishment of their national independence.

As soon as the kaimakam of Khurshid had received sufficient reinforcements, he summoned the principal members of the Greek clergy and the primates to a meeting at Tripolitza. He gave as a pretext for the assembly, that he wished to concert measures for counteracting the intrigues which Ali Pasha was carrying on among the Greek population, and which threatened to endanger public tranquillity. If the Greeks obeyed his summons, he resolved to detain them as hostages; if they disobeyed, he believed that he was strong enough to arrest and punish them.

The bishops and primates of the Morea usually met twice a year at Tripolitza, to receive the communications of the Othoman government from the pasha, and concert concerning measures of taxation and police. The meeting at Vostitza having decided that no movement was to take place until the return of the messengers sent to Pisa and St. Petersburg, several bishops and primates obeyed the orders of the kaimakam, hoping to deceive the Turks, for whose stupidity the Greeks have a great contempt, and expecting to obtain permission to return home before any general insurrection occurred. Others, however, did not consider it prudent to trust their persons in the hands of the Turks. Germanos, the Archbishop of Patras, the Bishop of Kemitza, and the primates of Patras, Vostitza, and Kalavryta, fearing lest the Turks had procured some evidence of their conspiracy, sought pretexts for delaying their journey. Germanos was at last compelled to set off, but he halted at Kalavryta, where he was joined by several primates, and a plan was devised to gain more time. The metropolitan and his friends forged a letter purporting to be a warning from a friendly Turk at Tripolitza; for though they were ready to consign every Mussulman in Greece and Constantinople to destruction, they thought it natural enough that a Mussulman should have some feeling of humanity towards them. This forged letter declared that the kaimakam had resolved to put several Greeks of influence to death, in order to prevent a general insurrection of the Christians, by depriving the people of their leaders. It was contrived that this letter should be delivered after the party had quitted Kalavryta. The letter was read in the presence of servants and muleteers. The clergy and the primates affected the greatest terror. A consultation was held by the roadside, and the whole party set off to the monastery of Laura.

The general opinion in Greece is, that on reaching the monastery of Laura they proclaimed the Revolution. But this is not correct. They sought to allay the suspicions of the Turks of Kalavryta and Vostitza, by informing them of the receipt of the forged letter, and by asking them to guarantee their personal safety at Tripolitza. In the mean time, to avoid being arrested in a body, they dispersed, and each began to collect armed men for his defence. This was not difficult, as the apostles of the Hetairia had persisted in fixing the 6th of April as the day on which the Revolution was to commence.

Various acts of brigandage were committed, in the confidence that impunity would soon be secured. The Turks discovered that several mills recently repaired by the Greeks near Dimitzana were not destined to grind corn, but were actively employed in manufacturing gunpowder.

The first insurrectional movements took place at the end of March 1821. Many Mussulmans were attacked and murdered in the mountains of Achaia on the 28^th. Three Turkish couriers carrying letters from the kaimakam to Khurshid, which were supposed to contain a pressing demand for additional troops, were waylaid by the Hetairists, and slain at the village of Agridha, in the valley of the Krathis. Eight Albanian Mussulmans engaged in collecting the haratch, were murdered near the lake of Phonia, by Soliotes, a Hetairist of some local influence, so called from being a native of the village of Soli, in the valley of the Krathis. A party of Albanian Mussulmans who had landed at the khan of Akrata, and were on their way to join the ranks of their countrymen in garrison at Tripolitza, were attacked at Bersova, and defended themselves vigorously. Twenty were killed, and the rest were compelled to lay down their arms.

The events connected with Germanos and the primates of Achaia have often been cited as the first revolutionary movements. But the truth is, that the people, at the instigation of the Hetairists, took up arms boldly while their superiors were temporizing. Asimaki Zaimes, the silent primate of Kalavrita, considering that his friends were carrying their evasions too far, endeavoured to force them to take a decided course by an act of brigandage. He had several armed Christians in his service, and he sent two to waylay Seid Aga of Lalla, who was transporting a considerable sum of money. Kyr Asimaki thought that an act of highway robbery of this nature would put an end to the indecision of his countrymen. Seid Aga escaped from the ambuscade, and carried his treasure to Tripolitza, where his report confirmed the prevailing rumours that the Greeks had taken up arms. The Mussulman rabble rose in tumult, and would have put to death the bishops and primates who had already arrived, had not the kaimakam saved them by lodging them in the house of the Hasnadar aga.

Amaout-oglou, the voivode of Kalavryta, was on his way to Tripolitza when some of his attendants were attacked by a band of Greeks lying in ambush at a mountain-pass near Kleitor. He immediately turned back, and gave the alarm to the Mussulman population of Kalavryta. The Turks hastily collected their families and their most valuable movables in several large houses which appeared capable of defence; for they were convinced that the long-talked-of insurrection of the Greeks had commenced. They were immediately besieged by 600 armed Christians. On the 2nd of April the outbreak became general over the whole of the Morea. On that day many Turks were murdered in different places, and all communication by the great roads was cut off.

On the 3rd of April 1821, the Mussulmans of Kalavryta surrendered, on receiving a promise of security. That promise was soon violated. About three hundred fell into the hands of the Greeks; and in the month of August, Colonel Raybaud found that the greater part of the men had then been murdered, and that the women and children were dispersed as slaves or domestic servants in the houses of the Greeks. Amaout-oglou, who was the representative of one of the wealthiest Mussulman families in the Morea, and who had lived on terms of intimacy and apparent friendship with several primates, was left in a state of abject destitution, while his former friends were members of the Greek government, and were wasting the revenues of their country in unseemly extravagance. He regained his liberty at an exchange of prisoners in 1825.

More decisive operations took place at the same time in Messenia. Petrobey of Maina, Theodore Kolokotrones, and Niketas, were the actors in these events. Theodore Kolokotrones and Anagnostaras, both celebrated chiefs of klephts, had returned secretly to the Morea, in order to prepare for the general insurrection. The Othoman authorities, hearing that they were lurking in Maina, sent a message to Petros Mavromichales, the bash-bog or bey, requesting him to arrest them. As Maina was under the jurisdiction of the capitan-pasha, the pasha of Morea could not do more than invite Petrobey’s co-operation in the measures which it was resolved to adopt for the purpose of maintaining order among the Christians. The Turks entertained no doubt of Petrobey’s fidelity. His rank was supposed to insure his attachment to the authority of the sultan, from which it was derived, and it was known that one of his brothers had embraced the Mohammedan religion, and risen to be a pasha.

Petrobey had been early initiated into the Hetairia. He was a restless, vain, bold, and ambitious man, lavish in expenditure, and urged to seek change by a constant want of money. He was deficient in ability, but more prompt to form courageous resolutions than most of his countrymen in high station. His frank, joyous disposition, and his numerous family of sons, brothers, and nephews, who were active and daring men, gave him great personal influence. He sent one of his sons to Tripolitza to allay any suspicions which the kaimakam might have adopted; but he continued to protect Kolokotrones and Anagnostaras, and to assist the machinations of the Hetairists. At this time another of Petrobey’s sons was at Constantinople, where he resided as a hostage for his father’s fidelity, according to the custom of the Turks. Both escaped to Maina, either through the negligence, the prudence, or the humanity of their guardians. Had Petrobey been a man of capacity, he might have placed himself at the head of the Greek Revolution, and rendered himself either the president of a Greek republic or the prince of a Greek state; but his habits of self-indulgence made him always sacrifice the future for the present. He neglected to make any political use of his great personal influence, and of the official authority he held among the warlike population of Maina.

The Hetairists had sent a supply of ammunition to be concealed in the recesses of Mount Taygetus. The voivode of Kalamata, hearing that bodies of armed Greeks had. assembled on the flanks of the mountain towards Messenia, and that long trains of pack-horses returned with heavy loads from the shore of Maina to the villages in his neighbourhood, considered that the insurrection was on the eve of breaking out. He called together the resident Turks, and they resolved to retire with their families to Tripolitza. It was already too late.

Murad, a Mussulman on friendly terms with the Christians, was the first who departed with all his family. He was stopped on the road by Niketas and slain. His widow and children were driven back to Kalamata. This happened on the 2nd of April, and served as a signal for a general rising of the Christians in Messenia. Before many hours elapsed a number of Turkish families were surprised and murdered.

On the following day, Kalamata was besieged by two thousand Greeks, led by Petrobey and Murzinos, another Mainate chief, and accompanied by Anagnostaras, Kolokotrones, and Niketas. On the 4th the place capitulated. The Turks received solemn promises that their lives would be protected, but these promises were given as a lure to prevent desperate men offering an obstinate resistance. The prisoners were soon dispersed among their captors to serve as domestic slaves, and before many months elapsed the men had all been slain. Phrantzes, an ecclesiastic and a Hetairist, but one of the most candid historians of this early period of the Revolution, owns, in the proverbial expression of Greece, that “the moon devoured them”.

On the 5th of April 1821, the Greeks sang their first thanks to God for victory. The ceremony was performed on the banks of the torrent that flows by Kalamata. Twenty-four priests officiated, and five thousand armed men stood round. Never was a solemn service of the Orthodox Church celebrated with greater fervour, never did hearts overflow with sincerer devotion to Heaven, nor with warmer gratitude to their church and their God. Patriotic tears poured down the cheeks of rude warriors, and ruthless brigands sobbed like children. All present felt that the event formed an era in the history of their nation; and when modern Greece produces historians, artists, and poets, this scene will doubtless find a niche in the temple of fame.

A few days after this memorable celebration, Petrobey, as commander-in-chief of the first Greek army in the field, published a proclamation, in conjunction with a few primates who assumed the title of the Senate of Messenia. This document was addressed to all Christian nations: it declares that the Greeks were determined to throw off the Othoman yoke, and solicits the aid of Christendom in giving liberty to suffering Christians.

The Albanian Mussulmans of Bardunia abandoned their towers as soon as they heard of the murder of Murad Aga by Niketas. About sixty families fled to Monemvasia; the others retired more leisurely to Tripolitza. They passed through Mistra on their way. The unwarlike Turks of that city were thrown into a state of frantic consternation by this retreat of the warlike Barduniots. The whole Mussulman population hastened away with their co-religionists; and as they had no time to carry off their property, they deposited their most valuable movables in the houses of their Christian friends. The night was passed by the Turks in anguish, but by the Albanians in refreshing sleep. At daybreak, the well-mounted Albanians pursued their journey. They were followed by the Turks of Mistra who possessed horses, or had succeeded in purchasing or in hiring them during the night. But many families, old men, women and children, lingered behind, and were murdered on the road. The population of Laconia was estimated at 110,000 Christians and 15,000 Mussulmans. It is impossible to ascertain the exact number murdered in attempting to escape to Monemvasia and Tripolitza, or surprised before they could quit their dwellings; but it was at the time supposed to amount to two-thirds of the whole.

Some disorders occurred at Patras on the 2nd of April, but the outbreak of the Revolution took place on the 4th. Hostilities were commenced by the Turks in consequence of the arrival of some fugitives from Kalavryta, and a party of Albanians from the Castle of Lepanto. On the 6th, numerous bodies of armed Greeks arrived, under the direction of the Archbishop Germanos and several other leaders. One party carried before its leader the heads of five Turks who had been murdered at Vostitza. On the following morning, divine service was performed by the archbishop; and all the Greeks assembled took an oath to deliver their country from the Turks, or die in the attempt. Enthusiasm was not wanting, but anarchy rendered it unavailing. The primates, the city population, and the Ionians, who hastened to take part in the contest, conducted their military operations with singular awkwardness and incapacity. They were unable to form an effectual blockade of the small citadel which overlooks the town, and the insurgents who attacked the Albanian Mussulmans of Lalla so mismanaged their movements that they allowed that small but warlike tribe to effect their retreat to Patras. This addition to the garrison of the citadel saved that fortress at the commencement of the Revolution, and the Turks found means to keep possession of it during the whole war.

The Greeks soon gathered in considerable numbers on the hills round all the fortresses held by the Turks, and endeavoured to cut off their communications with the surrounding country. They were still unable to meet their enemies in the field. On the 11th of April they suffered a defeat near Karitena, and on the 15th a still more serious rout at Patras. But their determination to prosecute a mortal combat was in no way diminished by these checks.

In the meantime the Christian population had attacked and murdered the Mussulman population in every part of the peninsula. The towers and country houses of the Mussulmans were burned down, and their property was destroyed, in order to render the return of those who had escaped into fortresses hopeless. From the 26th of March until Easter Sunday, which fell, in the year 1821, on the 22nd of April, it is supposed that from ten to fifteen thousand Mussulmans perished in cold blood, and that about three thousand farm-houses were laid waste. Most of those who were then murdered were Greeks, whose forefathers had embraced the religion of Mahomet to escape the tribute of Christian children, and the majority consisted of women and children.

The fury of slaves who rend their bonds, and the fanaticism of religious hatred, have in all ages hurried men to the perpetration of execrable cruelties. Homer told his country­men that slavery robs man of one-half of his humanity; and three thousand years have not made men much better, though they have made Greeks a good deal worse. The extermination of the Mussulmans in the rural districts was the result of a premeditated design. It proceeded more from the vindictive suggestions of Hetairists and men of letters, than from the revengeful feelings of the people, or the innate barbarity of the klephts. Most of the historians of the Greek Revolution have recoiled from recording the crimes which the people perpetrated, but a nation’s cause is best served by writing its history in the spirit of Thucydides and Tacitus.

The Hetairists were generally civilians; of the apostles few became military leaders. They were men in a secondary social position; and, like men who believe that their merits have been overlooked, they were irritable and violent. Destitute of the generous courage and the warm feelings that would have enabled them to lead their countrymen to battle, they employed all their eloquence to fill every Greek breast with the fiercest desire of vengeance. It was their policy to render peace impossible by what they called baptizing the Revolution in blood. They awakened implacable hostilities, and left it to others to find the means of gaining victories. In a mortal struggle, they believed that the cause of the Christians was sure of ultimate success. They inculcated the necessity of exterminating every Mussulman, because the Turkish population in Greece was small, and could not be renewed. They knew that the Greeks were far too numerous to be exterminated by the Turks, even should Turkey produce a Mussulman Philike Hetairia. The slaughter of men, women, and children was therefore declared to be a necessary measure of wise policy, and popular songs spoke of the Turks as a race which ought to disappear from the face of the earth.

The military incapacity of the Hetairists and primates threw the conduct of the war into the hands of the chiefs of klephts. This was a sad misfortune for the nation, as it perpetuated a state of anarchy in the army of Greece during the whole of the Revolution. The military system that prevailed in the Morea will be best described by giving an account of the career of a distinguished leader. Theodore Kolokotrones offers the best type of the class. He became the head of a considerable political party; he has left memoirs that throw considerable light on his personal character and conduct; and general attention was so long fixed on his proceedings that he can already be tried before the great tribunal of public opinion.

Theodore Kolokotrones was fifty years old at the commencement of the Revolution. Age had somewhat tamed the violence of his passions without lessening his personal vigour, and both his physical and mental qualities fitted him to be a leader of irregular bands. A large head, a bold countenance, a steady eye, and a profusion of black hair, gave some dignity to an aspect that did not conceal looks of cunning and ferocity. His powerful frame exceeded the middle size, and his voice had the volume of sound required in mountain warfare. He possessed constitutional good health, and that self-complacency which produces habitual good-nature. His manners had a degree of roughness well suited to conceal his natural cunning; and he had adopted an appearance of boisterous frankness as a veil for his watchful duplicity. He possessed a persuasive style of discourse, and by selecting common popular phrases he gave pointed expression to his sound sense, and rendered his speeches more effective by their contrast with the Hellenic affectation of his lettered rivals. He was orator enough to lead his audience to a desired conclusion by a well-told fable, and to misguide their passions by a cleverly-selected apophthegm. But with these good qualities he had many defects. Nurtured as a brigand, he could never distinguish very clearly right from wrong, justice from injustice; and he had an instinctive aversion to order and law. His patriotism was selfish, and his occasional acts of magnanimity cannot efface the memory of his egoistical ambition and sordid avarice during the period of his greatest power. He received from nature a clear intellect and a hard heart, and his education and experience in life corrupted without enlarging his feelings

The family of Kolokotrones followed the profession of arms from the time the Othomans conquered the Morea in 1715, acting alternately as local police-guards and brigands. When the capitan-pasha Hassan Ghazi subdued the Albanians and re-established order in 1779, the father of Kolokotrones was compelled to seek refuge in Maina, where he was slain by a detachment of Turkish troops in the following year.

The young Kolokotrones was nurtured among the civil broils of the Mainates; but at the age of fifteen he settled in the district of Sambazika, on the northern slope of Mount Taygetus, and at twenty he married the daughter of the proestos of Leondari. For seven years he lived on his wife’s property, acting generally as one of the rural guards of the district. But the peasants observed that he was a man of the musket, and not of the plough. He was frequently, accused of poaching in the sheepfolds of the neighbouring villages, and at last some acts of brigandage against the Greek cultivators of Emblakika (the Stenyclerian plain) caused the pasha of the Morea to give orders for his arrest. This decided his fate. At the age of twenty-seven he became a brigand by profession.

For nine years he lived an irregular life, sometimes supporting himself by robbery, and sometimes sheltering himself from the vengeance of his enemies by taking service as a local guard with some primate or abbot. But the Greek peasantry of the Morea were at last so tormented by the rapacity and cruelty of the klephts that they invited the Turks to assist in hunting them down, and both primates and monasteries were obliged to abandon them to their fate. Dodwell, during his travels, witnessed some of the operations by which the klephts were destroyed. Several members of Kolokotrones’ family were slain. The bands were all broken up, and Theodore Kolokotrones, finding that there was no safety for him even in Maina, fled to the Ionian Islands in 1806. In his Memoirs, he complains of the suffering caused by the filth of long-worn garments as rivalling the pangs of hunger. Those who have seen a Greek army at the end of a summer campaign with unwashed fustanellas must feel some surprise at this declaration on the part of a veteran brigand.

When Kolokotrones escaped to Zante, the Ionian Islands were under the joint protection of Russia and Turkey; but the Russians patronized the brigand, though the enemy of their ally. During the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey soon after, Kolokotrones cruised in what he called a privateer, and others a pirate boat; but falling in with two Othoman ships, he was in danger of terminating his career at the yard-arm, when an English frigate, heaving accidentally in sight, saved him. England was then at war with Turkey, and the frigate (the Sea Horse) immediately engaged the Turks, which enabled Kolokotrones to sheer off.

In the year 1808 he performed the exploit which added most to his reputation as a military chief. Ali Pharmaki, the most powerful aga of Lalla, was attacked by Veli Pasha of the Morea. The fathers of Ali Pharmaki and of Theodore Kolokotrones had formed an alliance of brotherhood during the troubled times which preceded and followed the victory of Hassan Ghazi. Ali and Theodore had never met, but so many reciprocal services had been rendered by daring klephts and turbulent Lalliots, that the tie of brotherhood was the strongest obligation on the honour of a klepht. The power of Veli Pasha, and still more that of his father Ali Pasha, the old lion of Joannina, intimidated the Albanian Mussulmans, and Ali Pharmaki could not find a single ally. His tower at Lalla was on the point of being besieged, and his own followers and relations were insufficient to defend it. He remembered his family alliance with Kolokotrones; and as a last resource he sent to Zante to claim the assistance due by their fathers’ ties of brotherhood. Kolokotrones recognized the obligation as a sacred duty, even though urged by a Mussulman, for the partisans of orthodox Russia had not then inflated the bigotry of the Greeks to the degree of rendering religion an apology for the violation of every principle of private morality and national honour. Kolokotrones collected sixteen good soldiers among his ancient companions, and hastened to shut himself up with Ali Pharmaki in his tower at Lalla. Veli attacked the place without artillery, and was repulsed. He then wasted several weeks in blockading it, but the local chieftains and his Albanian mercenaries were more anxious to prolong the contest than to capture Ali Pharmaki, so that the besieged found opportunities of renewing their supplies of provisions and ammunition. The discontent of a powerful party in his own camp at last compelled Veli to make peace with Ali Pharmaki, who, however, insisted as a condition of his submission that Kolokotrones and all his followers should be allowed to return to Zante in safety. The honourable conduct of Kolokotrones on this occasion gained him a high reputation among the Mussulmans, as well as among the Christians, in Greece.

After the Ionian Islands were ceded to France, Kolokotrones kept up his connection with the Morea, and became a dealer in cattle, which were imported in considerable numbers for the use of the troops. When the English took possession of Zante in 1810, he entered their service. He was almost forty years of age, and as he had no sympathy with the English character nor with British policy, his conduct was entirely guided by his personal interests. He received high pay from England, and the improvement of his social position enabled him to carry on his intrigues in the Morea with more effect. His reason and his prejudices alike taught him to regard Russia as the only sincere ally of Greece and the only irreconcilable enemy of Turkey, which the Greeks generally are very apt to consider as one and the same thing. Kolokotrones entered the English service as a captain, and was present at the assault of Santa Maura, where the Greek regiment gained no laurels. He was subsequently promoted to the rank of major, but his military service gave him no tincture of military knowledge, and he remained ignorant of tactics and insensible of the value of discipline. After the peace, he remained two years on the staff, drawing pay and doing nothing. He was then reduced, and returned to his old profession of a cattle-dealer.

The Russians had not overlooked his talents, and he was connected with all the projects formed under Russian auspices to prepare for insurrections against the Turks. He was early initiated into the secrets of the Hetairia.

On the 15th of January 1821 he left Zante to join those who were preparing for the outbreak. Landing at Kardamyle, in Maina, he remained concealed in the house of Murzinos, one of the most powerful chieftains on the coast, waiting the signal for the general rising of the Christians. It has been mentioned that he was present at the taking of Kalamata. On the 6th of April he quitted the Mainates, in Messenia, to seek an independent sphere of action at Karitena. His band consisted of 300 men, but of these only thirty were under his own immediate command. He assumed, however, the chief direction; and, on his march through the plain of Leondari, he ordered all the peasants to take up arms, enforcing his orders with threats to burn the dwellings of the tardy. He passed the ruins of Megalopolis, repeating the name of Epaminondas. But he knew nothing of the personal virtues and profound tactics of that great man; nor, had he known them, would he probably have felt a wish to imitate them, though the peculiar circumstances in which Greece was placed rendered those virtues and that science the qualities best adapted to make their possessor the hero of the Revolution, and to insure its speedy success.

Karitena was soon invested by 6000 men, but on the 11th of April a corps of 500 Turkish cavalry from Tripolitza attacked and dispersed this force, which was destitute of order. Kolokotrones was compelled to escape with such precipitation that he lost his rifle, and reached Chrysovitzi alone. A small church of the Panaghia stands at the entrance of the village. He entered it, and prayed for the deliverance of Greece with a fervour that remained impressed on his mind to his dying day. In the enthusiasm of his devotion he imagined that he received a revelation announcing that his prayers were granted, and he rose reanimated, and with all his vigour restored. Kolokotrones was too brave to conceal the circumstances of his flight, and too much of a veteran to complain of a panic among young soldiers; but the facility with which he saw 6000 armed men dispersed by 500 cavalry inspired him with a great contempt for the courage of the peasantry. This contempt became very prevalent among the military classes during the Revolution, though it was as unjust as it was impolitic. But most of the captains and soldiers attributed the successes of the Christians, often very erroneously, to the stratagems of brigands and the valour of armatoli. Yet a careful study of the history of the Revolution has established the fact, that the perseverance and self-devotion of the peasantry really brought the contest to a successful termination. When the klephts shrank back, and the armatoli were defeated, the peasantry prolonged their resistance, and renewed the struggle after each successive defeat with indomitable obstinacy.

In the Morea, the Greeks were soon masters of all the open country, and the whole Christian population was in arms. But in continental Greece the armatoli whose warlike habits and military knowledge would have insured equal success though against more formidable Turkish forces, remained for some time luke-warm. Many of their, captains were interested in upholding the sultan’s authority, for they were drawing high pay in his service. Many Christian soldiers were unwilling to quit Khurshid’s camp until the fall of Joannina, for the seraskier had promised to pay all arrears due to his troops as soon as he gained possession of Ali’s treasures. These circumstances, and the distrust felt in the leading Hetairists, rendered the armatoli slow to join the Revolution. But national feelings and religious antipathies could not be long repressed by personal interests.

The Albanian Christians of the Dervenokhoria took up arms on the 4th of April. Their primate, Hadji Meleti, who enjoyed great personal consideration, was a member of the Hetairia. The example of Megaris induced the Albanian peasantry of Attica and Boeotia to join the cause.

Salona (Amphissa) was the first town in continental Greece of which the insurgents gained possession. As soon as the news that the people were in arms at Kalavryta reached Galaxidhi, Panourias, who had served in Ali Pasha’s troops, persuaded the primates of Salona to proclaim the independence of Greece, and summon all the Christians to throw off the Turkish yoke. The direction of a revolutionary movement could not have fallen into worse hands. Panourias had been a robber before he became a soldier, and he remained always a chief of brigands, not a leader of warriors. He had acquired some knowledge of the fiscal and military system by which Ali Pasha extorted money and maintained troops, and he employed this knowledge at Salona for his own profit. General Gordon has correctly described him as a type of the klephtic chiefs, whose influence proved exceedingly injurious to the success of the Greek arms and to the progress of Greek liberty. These extortioners retarded the progress of the Revolution northward by their rapacity, which terrified several of the Christian communities on Pindus, Olympus, and Ossa, where there were many armed men, into opposing the advance of the revolutionary forces. Gordon’s words ought to be carefully weighed by those who desire to form a correct idea of the causes of the success and failure of the Greeks in their early military operations in continental Greece. He says, “Panourias was the worst of these local despots, whom some writers have elevated into heroes; he was, in fact, an ignoble robber hardened in evil. He enriched himself with the spoils of the Mohammedans of Salona and Vostitza; yet he and his retinue of brigands compelled the people to maintain them at free quarters, in idleness and luxury, exacting not only bread, meat, wine, and forage, but also sugar and coffee. Hence springs the reflection that the Greeks had cause to repent their early predilection for the klephts, who were almost all (beginning with Kolokotrones) infamous for the sordid perversity of their dispositions”.

The Turks of Salona retired into the ruins of the castle built by the Counts of Soula on the remains of the impregnable citadel of Amphissa. They were immediately blockaded by the Christians from the country round, including the sailors from the flourishing town of Galaxidhi. After some skirmishing, the Turks were cut off from the water, though an abundant stream gushes out just below the rock on which the castle stands; and on the 22nd of April they surrendered, receiving a promise that the Greeks would spare their lives. Yet before many days elapsed they were murdered, with other Mussulmans from Lidoriki and Malandrino. A few only were spared to serve as domestic slaves.

Livadea was the principal town in Eastern Greece, on account of the wealth and social position of its Christian population, though it contained only about ten thousand inhabitants, of whom eight hundred were Mohammedans. The town was a vacouf, and the civil government was administered by a voivode, who farmed the revenues from the imperial mosques. The military command was in the hands of the dervendji-pasha, who kept an officer with a small garrison to guard the defiles of Phocis. During the latter part of Ali Pasha’s administration, the Greek primates possessed more influence than the Othoman authorities. The resident Mussulmans were poor.

When the news reached Livadea that the Greeks had blockaded Salona, the place was occupied by a detachment of Mussulman Albanians and by a small body of armatoli. The Mohammedans, being far inferior in numbers to the Christians, retired into the deserted castle above the town, which is said to have been built by the Catalans while they were masters of the duchy of Athens and Neopatras. They were immediately besieged by the Christian population, strengthened by the arrival of many armatoli, who remained in the villages on Parnassus and Helicon, unable to continue in the service of Ali Pasha, and not having been admitted into that of the seraskier.

Diakos became the military leader of the Christians, a man justly celebrated for his courage and patriotism. He was a native of the village of Mussonitza, on the northern slope of Mount Vardhousi (Korax). His baptismal name was Athanasios, and though called ‘the deacon,’ he had never received orders, nor did he wear a beard. In early youth he was placed in the monastery of Aghios Joannes, at Artotina, where he grew up a strong, active lad, fonder of the mountain air than of his book, though he learned to write intelligibly, but with little attention to grammar and orthography. To avoid the infamous persecution of the voivode of Lidoriki, who saw him on a visit to the monastery, he quitted that sanctuary, and the hegumenos recommended him to the protection of a celebrated klepht, Skaltzodemos. Diakos soon gained the good-will of his new companions, and his reputation for courage became so celebrated, that a few years after, when he separated from Skaltzodemos, Ali Pasha admitted him into the ranks of the armatoli as an officer. When the sultan proclaimed Ali a rebel, Odysseus was intrusted with the command of the armatoli stationed at Livadea, and it was his duty to defend the Triodos and the roads leading to Salona by Delphi. Diakos was his lieutenant. Odysseus, without making any attempt to resist the advance of Pehlevan Pasha, fled to the Ionian Islands, and Diakos, seeing the forces of Ali dispersed, remained in privacy without seeking to enter the seraskier’s service. He appears to have had some knowledge of the approaching Revolution. The moment he heard of the movement of his countrymen he joined those who were besieging the castle of Livadea.

The Mohammedans defended that place until the 25th of April, when want of provisions and water compelled them to surrender at discretion, and men, women, and children were all slain. The victors thought only of dividing the spoil; but Diakos exerted himself with some effect to save a part of the booty for the purchase of military stores.

About this time eight hundred Mohammedans were exterminated in the district of Talanti.

The whole Christian population of Eastern Greece, Albanian and Greek, was now up in arms. The advanced spring had drawn many Turks into the country to inspect the state of the crops, to make their arrangements as spahis or farmers of the tenths, for sub-letting the pasture-lands, and for removing the flocks to their summer quarters. The majority were surprised and butchered. From Cape Sunium to the valley of the Spercheus, in hundreds of villages, Mussulman families were destroyed, and the bodies of men, women, and children were thrown into some outhouse, which was set on fire, because no orthodox Christian would demean himself so far as to dig a grave for the carcase of an infidel. The Turkish inhabitants of Thebes and of several villages in Boeotia and Euboea escaped into the fortress of Negrepont.

Athens was a town of secondary importance in Greece, fallen as the other towns of Greece then were. In population it was equal to Livadea; but one-half was of the Albanian race, and both the Christian and Mussulman inhabitants were an impoverished community, consisting of torpid landed proprietors and lazy petty traders. Yet Athens enjoyed a milder local administration than most towns in Greece. It formed a fiscal appanage of the Serail. Its ancient fame, and the existing remains of its former splendour, rendered it the resort of travellers, and the residence of foreign consuls, who were men of higher attainments than the commercial consuls in most of the ports of the Othoman empire.

The Mussulmans of Athens formed about one-fifth of the population. They were an unwarlike and inoffensive race. The voivode’s guard consisted of sixty Mussulman Albanians who were the only soldiers in the place. The Greeks were not more enterprising or courageous than the Turks.

The first reports of a general insurrection of the Christians caused the Mohammedans to transport their families and their valuable movables into the Acropolis, and to fill the empty and long-neglected cisterns with water. On the 23rd of April the Turks seized eleven of the principal Christians, and carried them up to the Acropolis as hostages. This act irritated the Athenians, who sent messengers inviting the Albanian villagers of Mount Parnes to come to their assistance. On the night of the 6th of May, the people of Menidhi and Khasia, who represent the Acharnians of old, though they are Albanian colonists of a recent date, scaled the wall of the town near the site now occupied by the royal stables. About sixty Mussulmans were surprised in the town and slain. Next day the Acropolis was closely blockaded. Hunger and thirst committed great ravages among the besieged as summer advanced, but they held out obstinately, until on the 1st of August 18m they were relieved by Omer Vrioni.

The real military strength of Greece lay in the population of Aetolia and of Pindus. But for some time the armatoli resisted the solicitations of the apostles of the Hetairia, and refused to take up arms against the sultan.

Mesolonghi was the first place in Western Greece that joined the Revolution. On the 1st of June a Greek squadron of twelve sail, manned by the Albanians of Hydra and Spetzas, made its appearance in the Aetolian waters, and the few Albanian soldiers in the place retired. On the 5th the inhabitants of Mesolonghi and of the neighbouring fishing­town of Anatolikon proclaimed themselves parts of independent Greece. The resident Mussulmans were arrested and confined as prisoners. As usual, most of them were murdered in a short time. Only the families of the higher ranks were spared. The men were crowded together in one room, the women and children in another. But even this lasted for a brief period. The men who had been spared during the first massacres were afterwards deliberately put to death, and the women and children were dispersed as slaves in the families of the wealthier Greeks. Colonel Raybaud saw a few of the men still alive in the month of August 1821, but these were all murdered shortly after. Dr. Millingen describes the state in which Lord Byron found the women and children at the commencement of 1824: “The wife of Hussein Aga, one of the Turkish inhabitants of Mesolonghi, imploring my pity, begged me to allow her to remain under my roof, in order to shelter her from the brutality and cruelty of the Greeks. They had murdered all her relations and two of her boys. A little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery”. This woman and a few more, with their children—in all, twenty-two females—then formed the sole remains of the Mussulman population of Mesolonghi. They were all sent by Lord Byron to Prevesa.

Vrachori, the capital of the province of Karlili, was the most important town in Western Greece. It contained five hundred Mussulman families, among whom were several great landed proprietors whose ancestors had received grants of the estates of the Frank nobles at the time of the conquest. The town is situated in a fertile district, on the high-road between Joannina and Lepanto, and at the commencement of the Revolution it was occupied by a garrison of three hundred Albanian Mussulmans. It contained about six hundred Christian inhabitants and two hundred Jewish.

On the 9th of June, Vrachori was attacked by two thousand armatoli, who entered the Greek quarter, and, by burning several Turkish houses, compelled the Mussulmans to intrench themselves in some large isolated dwellings, whose courtyards were surrounded by high walls. In a few days, the arrival of Varnakiotes, Tzonga, and some other captains of armatoli, increased the number of the Greek troops to four thousand. The besieged were soon without provisions.

The Albanians then separated themselves from the resident Turks. Nourka, their chief, the derven-aga of Karlili, was on terms of intimacy with many captains of armatoli. The Albanians were poor and warlike—the Turks rich and defenceless. Nourka offered to retreat with his band, if the Greeks would allow him to retire unmolested with his followers, carrying away their arms and all their property. The Greek leaders consented to these terms; but Nourka and his Albanians, not satisfied with their own property, determined to appropriate to themselves as much as they could carry away of the wealth of the Turks and Jews, in order that it might not fall into the hands of the Greeks. During the night, they plundered the Turks and tortured the Jews to collect money and jewels; and having secured the connivance of some of the Greek chiefs, they passed through the blockading force, and gained a long march before their escape was generally known in the Greek camp.

The Turks and Jews had expected to purchase the protection of the captains of armatoli with the riches which the Albanians had carried off. As soon as they could venture to do so, they informed the Greeks of Nourka’s treachery, and laid down their arms on receiving a promise of personal safety. That promise was immediately violated. The massacre commenced with the Jews. Men, women, and children were slain in cold blood, with circumstances of atrocious cruelty. The poorer Mussulmans next shared the same fate, and only a few of the wealthiest of the five hundred families that inhabited Vrachori escaped, through the protection of Varnakiotes and Tzonga.

The inhabitants of Zapandu, a small Mussulman hamlet about two miles from Vrachori, seeing that no promise could bind the Greeks, refused to listen to any terms, and defended themselves valiantly until their chief was killed. Worn out with hunger and fatigue, they at last surrendered at discretion, and were put to the sword. Only a few Albanian soldiers in the place were allowed by the armatoli to retire to Arta.

During the summer, the troops of Khurshid Pasha made two attempts to penetrate into Acarnania by the passes of Makronoros, but both were defeated. The second was repulsed on the 30th of June.

Thus, in about three months, the Christians had rendered themselves masters of the whole of Greece to the south of Thermopylae and Actium, with the exception of the fortresses, which were all blockaded. Had they understood the value of military discipline, they would in all probability have succeeded in expelling the Turks from Greece before the end of the year, for the fortresses were inadequately supplied, both with ammunition and provisions.

It has been already mentioned that nationality was a secondary feature of the Greek Revolution at its commencement. The Greeks furnished the greater part of the soldiers who fought against the sultan, but Albanian ships and Albanian sailors formed two-thirds of the Greek navy.

Those who believe that revolutions are invariably produced by the material oppression of governments must be at a loss to point out the proofs of their theory at Hydra, Spetzas, Psara, and Kasos, or to trace the Revolution in those islands to its true causes. Under the sultan’s government the four islands enumerated were lightly taxed, and allowed to regulate their internal affairs like independent republics. Fewer restrictions were placed on personal liberty and on commercial enterprise than in most Christian countries. The local magistrates were elective, the taxes were collected by Christians, and there were no resident Mussulmans. In few countries did the mass of the population live more at ease. Yet the inhabitants, whether Albanians or Greeks, were as discontented under the sultan’s government in 1821, as the inhabitants of the Ionian Islands under the protection of Queen Victoria in 1858. Their advancing civilization inspired them with a longing for political independence. They believed that the possession of civil and religious liberty would render every private citizen virtuous, and every commercial speculation prosperous.

Early in the eighteenth century the sultans perceived that their treaties with the Christian powers had conceded privileges to foreigners which were ruinous to the commercial interests of their own subjects. Turkish and Greek traders were liable to pay higher duties, both of import and export, than strangers. When the sultans became desirous of reviving native commerce, they discovered that the first thing to be done was to protect the traders against the exactions of their own officials. They attempted to do this by exempting some barren islands from the fiscal administration of the empire. Under this protection colonies of Albanian seamen settled at Hydra and Spetzas, and colonies of Greek seamen at Psara and Kasos, who built ships and formed self-governing communities. In this way a considerable commercial navy grew up under the Othoman flag almost unobserved by Christian powers; and when the Revolution broke out, these four islands were populous and flourishing. The Albanians of the two first, who were much more numerous, differed considerably in manners and character from the Greeks of the other two. The Hydriots were the most sincere; the Psarians were the most courteous.

Two rocky promontories on the continent, Trikeri on Mount Pelion, and Galaxidhi on the Gulf of Corinth, were also commercial towns, enjoying self-government and many privileges under the sultan’s protection.

In 1821 the commercial navy of Greece, Albanian and Greek, consisted of nearly 350 brigs and schooners of from 60 to 400 tons, besides many smaller vessels, the whole manned by upwards of 12,000 sailors.

Psara was inhabited by 6000 souls. Its geographical position enabled it to watch the ocean-paths to the greatest commercial cities of the sultan’s dominions. The indefatigable activity of its seamen; and the illustrious deeds of one of its sons, Konstantine Kanares, have given it an honourable position in Greek history.

The government of Psara was democratic; all the citizens voted at the election of the magistrates, and among the lively and intelligent Greeks of the island the individual merits of each were recognized as titles to civic rank. Both the people and the government formed a strong contrast to those of Hydra, where wealth created a false kind of chieftainship, and the national traditions of the Albanian pharas were transmuted into feelings of party animosity. In Psara every man who possessed a house, who shared in the risks of a trading voyage, or who supported a family, though he might be only a private sailor, attended the annual assembly of the people, and gave his vote for the election of forty councillors. These councillors chose the demogeronts or magistrates, who held office for a year, and who consulted the councillors on all affairs of importance.

The government of Hydra was very different, as has been already narrated, being in the hands of rich oligarchs, and administered by twelve primates

The system of trade was the same in all the islands. The captains were as ignorant of the science of navigation as the sailors, but they were experienced pilots and good seamen. When such men were intrusted with valuable ships and rich cargoes, it was necessary that their interests should be deeply engaged in the success of the speculation, stimulated to constant watchfulness, and directly promoted by a quick voyage. But not only the captain—all on board also received a portion of the gain. The owner of the ship, the capitalist who purchased the cargo, the captain, and the sailors, were all partners in the success of each voyage, according to a settled rate. The division was made after deducting the capital invested in purchasing the cargo and the price of the ship’s provisions. Then five per cent, was set apart for the municipal treasury at Hydra, and one per cent, for the church and monastery. The remainder was divided into a fixed number of shares; the ship received its proportion as freight, the capitalist his share as profit, and the captain and sailors their respective shares as wages. Even the cabin-boy received a half or quarter share, as the case might be. Thus everybody was interested in performing a quick and safe voyage, and reaching the port of destination with an undamaged cargo. The consequence was, that the Albanian and Greek ships performed the quickest passages and realized the largest gains of all those that navigated the Mediterranean.

This system had its inconveniences in war as well as its advantages in peace. While it encouraged the crews to extraordinary exertions, it introduced a degree of equality and a habit of consulting those on board, which proved an insurmountable obstacle to the introduction of naval discipline during the war with the Turks. No difficult or dangerous enterprise could be undertaken without assembling all the quartermasters and old seamen on the poop, and discussing the project. Sometimes a second council was held before the mast before the captain’s orders were obeyed.

The general peace of 1815 caused a great reduction in the price of grain on the continent of Europe, and a fall of freights in the Mediterranean. In the year 1820 the gains of the Albanian Islands, which had the principal share in the carrying trade between the Black Sea ports and those of Italy, France, and Spain, were still further reduced by an abundant harvest in Western Europe, and by the fear of a war between Russia and Turkey. Many ships remained unemployed at Hydra and Spetzas. The sailors were discontented; and all classes began to look for relief to the revolutionary projects which had been disseminated among the people by the apostles of the Hetairia and by the agents of Ali Pasha. Towards the commencement of 1821 the revolutionary spirit had made great progress in all the naval islands.

Spetzas was the first to proclaim its independence. Several of the primates were members of the Hetairia. Their ships were rotting in the port; the sailors were clamouring for pay. Every Christian had of late made it a part of his creed that the Othoman empire was on the eve of dissolution. Everybody declared that a Russian war was inevitable. Ali Pasha employed the whole disposable force of the sultan. The Turks were despised as much as they were hated. Enthusiasm for civil and religious liberty animated every rank of society, and a general insurrection of all the orthodox in European Turkey would, according to the assurance given by numbers of political adventurers, soon insure the success of a revolution in Greece.

A public meeting of the whole population was held at Spetzas, and the flag of independent Greece, bearing the cross rising above the crescent, was hoisted on the highest mast in the port. Eight brigs were immediately fitted out to cruise off the coast of the Morea; and these vessels, knowing that an Othoman corvette of twenty-six guns and a brig of sixteen guns, greatly undermanned, were waiting at Milos to receive the annual contingent of sailors from the Albanian islands, sailed thither, and captured them by surprise. The Mussulmans on board were carried to Spetzas, where many were murdered in cold blood, and others were tortured with such horrid cruelty, that shame has induced the Greeks to throw a veil over this first victory of the Greek navy, in order to conceal the crimes which accompanied it.

Psara followed the example of Spetzas on the 23rd of April. The Psarians then commenced a series of depredations which made them a terror to all the Mussulman population on the sea-coast. The Turks were preparing an expedition in Asia Minor to relieve their countrymen in the Morea. Their preparations were rendered abortive by the destruction of a large transport laden with military stores, and by the capture of four small vessels carrying two hundred troops and a supply of provisions, destined for Nauplia. The Psarian schooners cruised up and down the coast from Tenedos to Rhodes, destroying or capturing every vessel that could not gain a secure port. By paralyzing the attempts of the Turks to send supplies to Greece, these operations facilitated the reduction of Monemvasia and Navarin.

While the Spetziots and Psarians were fighting the battles of liberty, the primates of Hydra were resisting the wish of the people to join the Revolution. At Hydra, as we have seen, wealth alone gave rank and power—the distinction of the different ranks of society was there strongly marked. The proportion of large ships was greater than in the other islands, and at this time the number of destitute was proportionably increased, so that the stagnation of commerce, which put an end to speculative voyages, caused much suffering among the families of the sailors. The people called loudly for revolutionary measures. The primates opposed a change, which would put them to the expense of fitting out their ships for an unprofitable and dangerous service. In vain the patriots of Spetzas and Psara urged them to hoist the Greek flag. A popular insurrection terminated their opposition by setting aside their authority. But it was not until the 28th of April that the people succeeded in proclaiming the independence of Hydra, and its union with the Greek state.

This insurrection affords an insight into the social condition of the Albanian islanders. The captains of ships, who were not themselves shipowners, formed a middle class, whose influence was not inconsiderable, particularly when want of employment rendered their interests identical with those of the people. Antonios Oeconomos, an unemployed captain, who was a member of the Hetairia, commenced enrolling a band of volunteers when the apostles transmitted the final signal for an outbreak. On the night of the 11th of April he assembled his followers, and at daybreak they rang the bell which was sounded to convoke public meetings. Oeconomos attended the assembly surrounded by a body of armed men, and invited the sailors to take possession of the ships in the port, and proclaim the Revolution in Hydra.

The demogeronts for the current four months were Lazaros Conduriottes, Ghika Ghiones, Demetrios Tsamados, and Vasili Budures. The governor or bey, named by the capitan-pasha, was George Bulgares the younger. These men, instead of holding their usual meeting at the monastery and communicating directly with the people, were so intimidated by the insurrection, which they knew well was directed against their treasure-chests, that they abandoned their posts and left Oeconomos master of the field. He immediately installed one of his own partizans, Nicolas Kokovila, as governor. The people were emboldened by this easy victory to declare, without any circumlocution, that their first business was to obtain money. Three days were spent in degrading negotiations, and all parties displayed the most revolting selfishness. The wealthy primates tried to diminish the demands of the demagogues by gaining over some of the unemployed captains to act as their advocates, while the popular leaders endeavoured to impose as large payments as possible on their personal enemies. In the end the people collected and divided among themselves the sum of 30,000 dollars. These affairs of personal interest having been arranged, the people felt less animosity towards the primates; and the popular leaders, in order to retain their ascendancy, found it necessary to direct public attention to the Revolution.

Two Spetziot vessels appeared off the port, bearing the flag of Greece, and Oeconomos seized the occasion to propose that the ships in the port of Hydra should be armed without delay, and a proclamation issued throwing off the sultan's authority, and announcing that Hydra formed a part of the Greek state. The oligarchs availed themselves with prudence of the opportunity which was thus presented of recovering their influence. They opened direct negotiations with the captains and sailors who had previously served in their ships. The pressing wants of the populace having been relieved by the distribution of the money extracted from the primates, individual interests and connections again operated, and private sympathies and party feelings came into play. Oeconomos, who observed the reaction, made a vain attempt to deprive the shipowners of the right of selecting the captains to command their ships. He desired to form a revolutionary committee, whose members should exercise the whole executive government; but the character of his associates was well known, and did not inspire sufficient confidence. Fear, interest, and patriotism now combined to make both parties anxious for a reconciliation. After some concessions it was effected; concord was restored, the proclamation of independence was viewed as the ratification of a general amnesty; and on the 28th of April a solemn service was performed in the church, and the Greek flag was hoisted on all the ships at Hydra.

Spetzas, Psara, and Hydra lost no time in concerting common operations, and a Greek fleet soon assembled under the command of Jakomaki Tombazes, a Hydriot primate of some nautical science. He was an amiable and judicious man, but he was deficient in decision, and habitually sought the advice of others, listening often to those who had less knowledge and courage than he possessed himself. He could not comprehend that an imprudent measure, executed with promptitude and vigour, is in war more effective than a wise measure feebly and slowly carried out. He was one of the few men of rank in Hydra, at the commencement of the Revolution, who treated strangers with kindness; and an English Philhellene of the highest character, whose praise was only given where it was due, said of him emphatically, that he was a worthy and honourable man.

The enterprise which promised the greatest success to the Greek fleet was an attack on the Othoman ships then cruising off the coast of Epirus. They were ill-manned, and so unprepared to resist, that they would in all probability have fallen into the hands of the Greeks. A naval victory in the western seas would have weakened Khurshid’s army to such a degree that he would have been unable to send succours to Patras and Tripolitza; it would have revived the courage of the partizans of Ali Pasha, roused the Christians to take up arms in many districts where they remained quiet, and perhaps enabled the Greeks, with the assistance of the Suliots, to gain possession of Prevesa and Arta.

Unfortunately, just as the fleet was about to sail for Epirus, Neophytos Vambas arrived at Hydra, and induced the primates to change its destination with the lure of the conquest of the rich island of Chios. Vambas was a Chiot; he was a scholar and a patriot, but he was a pedant and a visionary. During the early period of the Revolution he obtained considerable political influence by attaching himself to Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes. Nature intended him for a professor, not a politician. His ignorance of the business of active life; his incompetence to judge men’s characters; his persuasion that all men could be directed by general maxims; and his own inability to appreciate the value of times and circumstances, and to seize the opportunities they afforded, rendered him an unsafe counsellor, and made his political career injurious to his country. On the other hand, after he was excluded from political life, his career as a teacher was honourable to himself and useful to his country, for he cultivated the moral and religious feelings as well as the intellects of his pupils, and formed some of the best, if not the ablest, men of his time.

The first cruise of the Greek navy was productive of no important result. Many prizes were made, and the sailors gained a good deal of booty; but no discipline was introduced into the service, and the little order that had previously existed in the ships while they were merchantmen was relaxed. Regulations for the equitable distribution of prize-money were adopted by universal suffrage before the fleet sailed, and it was decided that a proportion should be set apart for the public treasury, in order to meet the general expenditure of the war in which the nation was engaged. These regulations were disregarded by the crews which succeeded in capturing prizes; they cheated their companions and defrauded the public. Their piratical conduct, and particularly the plunder of an Austrian vessel at Tinos, caused them to be regarded with fear by all the commercial states in the Mediterranean; and the cabinets of Europe watched suspiciously the proceedings of a powerful naval force, in which no discipline prevailed, and which set all public and private law at defiance.

The disorderly conduct of the Greek navy, and particularly of the Hydriot ships, during this cruise, must be attributed in part to the wilful neglect of the primates. They tolerated the criminal proceedings of the sailors that they might win them over from the party of Oeconomos. They winked at every licence for the purpose of gaining their own selfish ends. One particular capture deserves to be noticed, because it occurred under circumstances where a little firmness on the part of the officers would have saved Greece from a load of infamy, and prevented the Turks from excusing many of their subsequent cruelties with the name of vengeance.

Two Hydriot brigs, commanded by Sachturi and Pinotzi, captured a Turkish vessel with a valuable cargo, among which were some rich presents from Sultan Mahmud to Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt. A recently deposed Sheik-ul-Islam, or patriarch of the orthodox Mussulmans, was a passenger on board, accompanied by all his family. It was said that he was on the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was known to have belonged to the tolerant party in the Othoman government. There were other Turkish families in the ship. The Hydriots murdered all on board in cold blood; helpless old men, ladies of rank, beautiful slaves, and infant children, were butchered on the deck like cattle. An attempt was afterwards made to extenuate this unmerciful conduct, by asserting that it was an act of revenge. This assertion is false. Those who perpetrated these cruelties did not hear of the execution of their own orthodox patriarch until after they had murdered the orthodox patriarch of their enemies. The truth is, that both by land and sea the war commenced as a war of extermination. Fanatical pedants talked of reviving the glories and the cruelties of classic times as inseparable consequences of Greek liberty. They told how the Athenians had exterminated the inhabitants of Melos, and how the Spartans had put all their Athenian prisoners to death after their victory at Aegospotami.

The manner in which the immense booty taken by Sachturi and Pinotzi was divided, proved as injurious to the Greek cause as the barbarous ferocity displayed in acquiring it. The crews refused to conform to the national regulations which had been adopted before going to sea. Violent dissensions arose with the crews of other ships entitled to a share of the booty, and the quarrels that ensued became so violent that several ships quitted the fleet and went off cruising on their own account. All united action became impossible; and thus the best opportunity of striking a decisive blow while the Turks were still unprepared for resistance was allowed to escape.

The wealth gained by the sailors diminished the influence of the popular faction under the leading of Oeconomos, and afforded the oligarchs an opportunity of re-establishing their power. The demagogue had made use of the selfishness of the sailors to win authority, by offering greater allurements to their selfishness; the oligarchs now deprived him of all power. Neither party addressed themselves to the better feelings of the people, who, if they had found worthy leaders, would not in all probability have been found wanting in patriotism and honour; but, as it happened, the passions of a turbulent population were excited instead of being restrained. The ambition of the oligarchs and of the demagogue was equally unprincipled.

When the Hydriot ships returned from their first cruise, Oeconomos saw that his only hope of maintaining himself in the position he had assumed was by placing himself at the head of a patriotic party. He therefore proposed to enforce the wise and equitable regulations voted by common consent before the fleet put to sea, and demanded that a portion of every prize should be set apart for the national service. The primates opposed this just and prudent measure because it was advocated by Oeconomos, and supported the sailors in their unjust misappropriation of the whole booty. They paid dearly in after days for this desertion of their country’s cause to gain their party objects. Oeconomos found himself without partizans, for no one trusted his patriotism, and he learned too late that honesty is the best policy, even in politics. The band of bravos who had joined him when he excited the people to plunder the rich, now adhered to the primates, who supported the sailors in plundering the national treasury. These bravos were an institution in the community of Hydra, and they knew that the oligarchs were always sure to want their services, while the demagogues could easily dispense with them.

The oligarchical party made an attempt to assassinate Oeconomos, instead of driving him from power by a public vote. The attempt failed, but a violent tumult ensued, in which the democratic party was defeated by a fire of musketry from the houses of the primates, and a few rounds of grape from the ships in the port. Oeconomos escaped in a boat, but was captured before he could reach the Morea. He was saved from the vengeance of the primates by the sailors, who allowed him to retire to Kranidi; but he was subsequently arrested, and imprisoned in a monastery near the lake of Phonia. From this confinement he escaped shortly after the taking of Tripolitza, and endeavoured to reach Hydra, where the people, informed of his escape, were anxiously waiting for his arrival, but he was assassinated at Kutzopodi, near Argos, by order of the primates.

The Samiots joined the Revolution as early as lay in their power. A Spetziot vessel anchored off Samos on the 30th of April. The people of Vathy immediately took up arms, and murdered all the Turkish families in the place. The primates of the island, however, succeeded in saving the lives of the Mussulmans who resided in Chora, with the aga and cadi. They were hurried into boats, and landed safely on the opposite shore of Asia Minor. Samos was then declared independent, and united with the Greek state. Its inhabitants lost no time in preparing to carry on the war vigorously, by making descents on the coast of Asia Minor.

The Othoman fleet quitted the Dardanelles on the 3rd of June. It consisted of only two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, and three sloops of war, and was very ill-manned, and altogether in bad condition. The Greek fleet had already put to sea on its second cruise. One division, under Andreas Miaoulis, a name destined to become one of the most renowned in the annals of the Revolution, consisting of twelve brigs, sailed to blockade Patras and watch the Othoman squadron on the coast of Epirus. The principal division, consisting of thirty-seven sail, under Jakomaki Tombazes, cruised in the Archipelago, to wait for the Othoman fleet.

On the 5th of June the Greeks fell in with one of the Turkish line-of-battle ships off the north of Chios. It fled, and anchored in the roads of Erissos. The Greeks who pursued it passed in succession far astern, and fired their broadsides without producing any effect. It was necessary to devise some other mode of attack, and it was resolved to make use of fire-ships.

The exposed situation of Psara, the difficulty of sustaining a contest with the large ships in the sultan’s navy, and the danger of an attack from the whole Othoman fleet, had been the subject of much deliberation among the Psarians. The destruction of the Turkish fleet at Tchesme was naturally much spoken of, and the success obtained by the three fire­ships of the Russians inspired the Psarians with high hopes. It was therefore resolved to fit out several fire-ships at Psara; but with the usual dilatory habits of the Greeks in carrying even their wisest resolutions into execution, not one of these was ready to accompany the fleet when it sailed.

After the Turkish line-of-battle ship had been cannonaded ineffectually at her anchorage in the bay of Erissos, a council of captains was held on board Tombazes’ ship. As there was some danger of the enemy putting to sea and escaping before a fire-ship arrived from Psara, various projects for his destruction were discussed. Some proposed cutting the cable during the sea-breeze, and letting the Turk drift ashore. Tombazes observed that an English naval officer, with whom he had spoken, told him that fire-ships would prove their best means of attacking the line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates of the Othoman navy. It has been erroneously supposed that Tombazes considered this as the first suggestion of the use of fire-ships by the Greeks. The Psarian admiral, Apostoles, then said, that it was not necessary to wait for the arrival of the fire-ships from Psara, as there was more than one of his countrymen in the fleet who had served with the Russians at Tchesmé, and knew how to prepare a fire-ship. The word was passed for any person acquainted with the method of preparing fire-ships to come on board the Admiral. A teacher of navigation at Psara, who was serving as captain’s secretary in one of the Psarian vessels, answered the summons, and undertook the task. His name was John of Parga, but he was generally known by the nickname of Patatuka, which is a term of contempt used by Greek seamen to designate northern merchantmen, with their heavy tops and small top­sails, and to depreciate the nautical science of those who navigate with small crews. A Psarian, named John Theodosios, gave up his vessel to be converted into a fire-ship, on receiving a promise of forty thousand Turkish piastres, to be paid by the treasuries of the three naval islands; and volunteers came forward to man her for a bounty of one hundred dollars each. This brulotto or fire-ship, was soon ready, but it was manoeuvred timidly, and burned uselessly.

On the 6th of June the cannonade was resumed, but at too great a distance to inflict any injury on the Turk, though the Greeks lost one man killed and two wounded. A second fire-ship was prepared, but a stiff breeze during the night prevented the Greeks from making use of it.

On the 7th one of the fire-ships fitted out at Psara joined the fleet, and on the morning of the 8th the Turk was again attacked. The second fire-ship, prepared in the fleet by John of Parga, was commanded by a Psarian named Pappanikolo, and manned by eighteen sailors. The fire-ship which arrived from Psara failed, in consequence of the timidity of those on board, who fired the train too soon. Pappanikolo displayed greater skill and courage in his bold enterprise, and he was well supported by his crew. He ran his ship under the bows of the Turk, and did not light the train until she was firmly fixed. He then jumped into his boat and rowed off to the Greek fleet. The flames mounted into the sails of the fire-ship in an instant, for both the canvass and the rigging were saturated with turpentine, and they were driven by the wind over the bows of the line-of-battle ship, whose hull they soon enveloped in a sheet of fire. The flames and the dense clouds of smoke which rushed along the deck and poured in at the ports, rendered it impossible to make any effort to save the ship, even had the crew been in a much better state of discipline than it was. The cable was cut, and two launches full of men left the ship. Many of the sailors jumped overboard and swam ashore; but it is supposed that between three and four hundred persons perished. About 11 a.m. the magazine exploded, and left her a complete wreck. This conflagration was the beacon of Greek liberty.

The remaining ships of the Othoman fleet were so terrified by the disaster of their consort, that they sought safety within the Dardanelles. The moment was favourable for a daring enterprise. The Turks were astounded and unprepared. But Tombazes was not a man of energy, and the Greek fleet was not disposed to obedience; so this opportunity of striking a great blow was allowed to pass unemployed, and no crisis of the war in future years occurred which was so favourable to the cause of Greece. Tombazes anchored at Moschonnesia, near Kydonies. He appears to have taken this injudicious step at the solicitation of those who wished to facilitate the escape of some wealthy Greek families. But it is possible that he shared the delusive hopes of those who believed that a million of orthodox Christians would take up arms in Asia Minor at the appearance of the Greek fleet.

Kydonies was a commercial town, which supported within itself, or in the adjoining villages, a prosperous Greek population of thirty thousand souls. It had only existed for forty years, and owed its flourishing condition to the privileges conceded to it by the sultan. Its municipal authorities were elected by the people, and the local administration was controlled by the bishop and the primates. No maritime city on the coast of the Mediterranean enjoyed a higher degree of civil liberty. But after the massacre of the Turks at Galatz and Yassi was known to the Mussulmans, the zealots became eager to plunder the wealthy inhabitants of Kydonies as a profitable revenge. The pasha of Brusa, alarmed for the safety of a place which contributed largely to the revenues of his pashalik, was desirous of protecting the Greeks, and to effect this he stationed a corps of his own guards in the vicinity, with strict orders to prevent any irregular troops from entering the town. His measures were effectual until the execution of the patriarch; but when it was known that the sultan had put many influential Greeks to death, their punishment was assumed by fanatical Mohammedans to be a licence to plunder and murder all orthodox Christians; and the bands of Turkish militia who were marching to suppress the insurrection on the Danube, sought eagerly for an opportunity to sack a wealthy Greek town like Kydonies. The news of the destruction of the Turkish line-of-battle ship on the coast of Mytilene gave them an additional incitement. To protect the place, the pasha of Brusa sent orders to his kehaya to take up his quarters, with a strong body of guards, in the town. The wealthy inhabitants, on hearing of the pasha’s determination, felt that they were no longer safe. Their protectors would make many purchase life with the sacrifice of their property, and put some to death, according to the usual principles of Othoman policy, which regarded intimidation as the surest means of preserving tranquillity. At the same time they saw little prospect of the kehaya being able to prevent the irregular bands from entering the place, and rendering it a scene of pillage and slaughter. They naturally looked out for any chance of escape. On the 14th of June they sent a deputation to Tombazes, begging him to assist and protect their embarkation on board the Greek fleet. On the same day the guards of the kehaya took up their quarters in the town. On the following day the embarkation commenced.

The launches of the Greek ships arrived at daybreak, armed with swivels, and manned by select crews. A party of eighty Romeliot soldiers was landed on the beach to protect the families who embarked. The kehaya in the meantime made his own arrangements for preventing the escape of the wealthy citizens, whom he regarded as pledges for the tranquillity of the Christian population. He occupied some houses near the beach, and endeavoured to drive off the Romeliots and the boats of the fleet by opening on them a heavy fire. The Kydonians, fearing lest their escape should be prevented, occupied some houses in rear of the Turks, and began to skirmish with them. The swivels of the launches, the rifles of the Romeliots, and the fire of the Kydonians, soon cleared a safe line of retreat. But the firing served as a signal to the Turks to commence plundering the town. The shops in the bazaar were first emptied; private houses were then ransacked, and at last women and children were seized, to be sold as slaves. An unparalleled scene of confusion ensued, but the disorder enabled as many as the boats would hold to escape without difficulty. The Turks, however, in order to prevent those who lived at a distance from the sea from reaching the beach, set fire to several houses in the middle of the town. The Greeks, to stop the advance of the Turks, set fire to other houses, and fire being used as a species of intrenchment by both parties, before night arrived great part of Kydonies was in ashes.

On the day of this catastrophe, the Greek fleet saved about four thousand persons, and on the following day one thousand more were brought off to the ships. Tombazes behaved with great humanity. He received seven hundred persons on board his corvette, and did everything in his power to alleviate their sufferings. He had a kind heart, though he was a phlegmatic man. But his example was not followed by many of his countrymen. Wealthy families were compelled to purchase a passage to the nearest Greek island by giving up the greater part of the property they had saved. Not a few of those whose houses at Kydonies had been filled with servants, were henceforth obliged to gain their bread as menials in Greece. Those who were unable to escape, were either murdered or enslaved. The slave­markets of Brusa, Nicomedia, Smyrna, and Constantinople, were for some months crowded with young Greeks from Kydonies; and if mere physical well-being were the great object of man’s existence, these slaves might be regarded as more fortunate than many of their countrymen who preserved their liberty.

On the 22nd of June, 1821, the Greek fleet returned home to secure its plunder and divide its gains. The sailors did not even wait until the month for which they had received payment in advance had expired. The honours of the cruise were won by the Psarians, in consequence of the bold exploit of Captain Pappanikolo. The booty gained was very great, but unfortunately no small portion of it was extorted from the fugitives who fled from their native homes in Asia Minor.

The squadron of twelve ships which sailed to the west coast of Greece performed no exploit of importance, though its appearance, as has been already mentioned, roused the inhabitants of Aetolia to take up arms. At its approach a Turkish corvette and four brigs quitted Patras, and retired under the guns of Lepanto, where the Hydriots did not venture to attack them. Cutting-out was not an exploit practised in Greek naval warfare, and an attempt to destroy them with fire-ships failed. The Greek squadron passed through the Dardanelles of Lepanto into the Gulf of Corinth during the night, and returned again, without suffering any loss from the formidable castles which command the passage through these narrow straits.

 

 

CHAPTER VII.

The Policy and Conduct of Sultan Mahmud II.