THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

CHAPTERVII.

The Policy and Conduct of Sultan Mahmud II.

 

 

During the Greek Revolution, Sultan Mahmud gradually revealed to the world the full extent of his abilities, and the unshaken firmness of his character. His conduct has been justly condemned as combining Mussulman bigotry with the immemorial ferocity of the Othoman race; but experience seemed to prove that cruelty was the most effectual instrument for governing Oriental nations, and Sultan Mahmud knew how to temper his cruelty with policy. The Greeks entertained the project of exterminating the Mussulmans in European Turkey; the sultan and the Turks believed that they could paralyze the movements of the Greeks by terrific cruelty. Both parties were partially successful.

Sultan Mahmud is represented by the historians of the Greek Revolution as an inhuman monster. They have even attributed to him the project of exterminating his Christian subjects, which is said to have been discussed and rejected by two of his predecessors, the ferocious Selim I and the vicious Ibrahim. The Greeks have given him the epithet of ‘the butcher.’ Yet his conduct was guided by political principles, which in the year 1821 were considered prudent at Constantinople, and which would not have been considered unmerciful by Louis the Great or our James II, if applied to rebellious heretics. The acts of Sultan Mahmud were not the result of personal fury, they were the deliberate acts of a sovereign, regulated by the laws and customs of the Othoman empire. He treated the rebellious janissaries with even greater severity than the insurgent Greeks. Some excuse also might be urged for his passion, if he allowed revenge to increase the number of his victims after he discovered ‘the grand project’ of the Hetairists to assassinate himself and his ministers, and to burn his arsenal and his capital. He then tolerated massacres of the Greek population at Constantinople and Smyrna, which he might have suppressed by a vigorous exercise of his authority. But even in these cases, it ought not to be overlooked that his position was extremely difficult. He was suspected by the janissaries of hostility to their corps, and he knew that his enemies were the persons most active in inciting the fanatics to attack the Christians. Sultan Mahmud was one of those despots (not unknown on the thrones of Christian monarchies) who believed that Heaven had invested him with a divine right to rule his subjects. He was lawgiver and sovereign, caliph and sultan. It was his duty to punish rebellion, and to avenge the blood of the innocent Mussulmans who had been slaughtered as martyrs at Galatz, at Yassi, and in Greece. As Britons, we must remember the cry for vengeance which arose in our hearts when we heard of similar atrocities com­mitted on our countrymen and our kindred in India.

When the plots of the Hetairists were first discovered by the Turks, they were treated very lightly by Halet Effendi, the sultan’s favourite counsellor. But when the news arrived that the prince of Moldavia, one of Halet’s creatures, had joined the rebels, the Othoman government was awakened to a sense of the danger of a revolution among the Greeks, and the sultan’s confidence in Halet Effendi was shaken. The first measures of precaution were not violent. All Greeks who were not engaged in business were ordered to quit Constantinople, and search was made for arms in the houses of suspected persons. But when the sultan obtained some information concerning the grand project of the Hetairists he ordered all true believers to arm in defence of their religion, and summoned the patriarch and synod of Constantinople to excommunicate Alexander Hypsilantes, Michael Soutzos, and the rebels beyond the Danube, who were responsible for the murder of many helpless Mussulmans. This act of excommunication, signed with the usual formalities on the communion-table, was immediately issued as a proof of the loyalty of the orthodox church to its protector the sultan

Any good effect which the promptitude of the clergy produced on the Othoman government was destroyed by the flight of Michael Soutzos’ brother, and several other Phanariots, who were fortunate enough to learn the news of the invasion of Moldavia before it reached the Porte. During the time which elapsed between the 12th and the 20th of March, many wealthy Greeks escaped secretly to Odessa, and in ships bound to different places in the Mediterranean. These departures, and a general belief that an insurrection of the orthodox population of the empire would be supported by a declaration of war by Russia, caused great alarm among the Mussulmans in European Turkey. On the 21st of March the sultan was informed of the massacres at Galatz and Yassi, and on that day the grand-vizier ordered seven Greek bishops to be arrested, but at the same time to be treated with all the respect due to their high rank.

On the 26th of March the Turks in Constantinople mustered in arms, and a considerable number of irregular troops were brought over from Asia. On the 3rd of April, the very day on which the Christians in the Morea commenced the general massacre of the Mussulman population, the first execution of Greeks took place at Constantinople. Several Hetairists, whose complicity in the grand project was inferred on what the Othoman government considered satisfactory evidence, were executed. Some days after, sixteen Hetairists of inferior rank were also executed. But it was not until the sultan received reports of the murder of thousands of Mussulman families in Greece, that his vengeance fell heavy on the Christians. He then ordered the grand-vizier to select a number of Greeks invested with official rank, and regarding them as hostages for the good conduct of their countrymen, he commanded that they should be publicly executed in the manner best calculated to strike terror into the hearts of their co-religionaries. The recognizances of these men were held to be forfeited, and they were sacrificed as an expiation for the blood of the slain Mohammedans. On the 16th of April the dragoman of the Porte, Murusi, was beheaded in his official dress, and during the following week several Greeks of distinction were beheaded and others hung.

At last an execution took place which caused a thrill of horror from the centre of Constantinople to the mountains of Greece and the palaces of St. Petersburg. On Easter Sunday, the 22nd of April 1821, the Patriarch Gregorios was executed, or, as the orthodox say, suffered martyrdom, by order of the sultan, as an accessory to the rebellious scheme of the Hetairists.

Shortly after sunset on Saturday evening, the whole quarter of the Phanar was occupied by patrols of janissaries, who were stationed there to preserve order during the unseemly tumult with which the Greeks desecrate their ceremonies in commemoration of our Saviour’s death and resurrection. At midnight, the Patriarch Gregorios performed the usual service in his cathedral church, surrounded by the clergy. At the earliest dawn, the new dragoman of the Porte, Aristarchos, attended by an Othoman secretary of the reis-effendi, entered the patriarchate, and invited the patriarch to a meeting in the hall of the synod, to which the leading members of the clergy, the archonts of the nation, and the heads of the Greek corporations, were already convoked. The patriarch appeared. A firman was read, declaring that Gregorios the Moreot, having acted an unworthy, an ungrateful, and a treacherous part, was degraded from his office. Orders were immediately given for electing a new patriarch, and after the rejection of one candidate, Eugenios, bishop of Pisidia, was chosen, and received his investiture at the Porte with the usual ceremonies.

While the new patriarch was assuming the insignia of his official rank, the deposed patriarch was led to execution. He was hung from the lintel of the gate of the patriarchate, with a fetva, or sentence of condemnation, pinned to his breast. The old man met death with dignified courage and  pious resignation. His conscience was at ease, for he believed that he had fulfilled his duty as a Christian priest by concealing from an infidel sovereign the existence of an orthodox conspiracy, of which he may have obtained detailed information only in the confessional. His only error may have been that of voluntarily placing himself at the head of the Greek Church by accepting the patriarchate after he knew of the existence of the schemes of the Hetairists, and when his official engagements to his sovereign were in direct opposition to his patriotic sentiments, and what he considered his Christian duties.

Three of the bishops, who had been previously arrested, were also executed on Easter Sunday.

In the evening, the grand-vizier, Benderli Ali, walked through the streets of the Phanar, attended by a single tchaous. On reaching the gate of the patriarchate, he called for a stool, and sat down for a few minutes, looking calmly at the body hanging before him. He then rose and walked away without uttering a word. Othoman justice is deeply imbued with the principle that men in high office are hostages to the sultan for order in his dominions, and that they ought to expiate crimes of the people which are attributed to their neglect. Several circumstances tended to make the Patriarch Gregorios peculiarly culpable in the eyes of Sultan Mahmud. He had allowed the family of Murusi to escape to the detested Muscovites; he had connived at the flight of Petro­bey’s son to join the rebellious Greeks; and a Hetairist had been arrested having in his possession letters of the patriarch mixed up with letters of Hypsilantes’ agents.

The body of Gregorios remained publicly exposed for three days. It was then delivered to the Jews to be dragged through the streets and cast into the sea. This odious task is rendered a source of horrid gratification to the Jewish rabble at Constantinople, by the intense hatred which prevails between the Greeks and the Jews throughout the East. The orthodox, who regarded Gregorios as a martyr, watched the body, and at night it was taken out of the water and conveyed in an Ionian vessel to Odessa, where the Russian authorities welcomed it as a holy relic, which the waters had miraculously cast up to strengthen the faith, perhaps to animate the bigotry, of the sultan’s enemies. The body was interred with magnificent ecclesiastical ceremonies and much military pomp. In Christendom it was supposed that the Jews had been ordered to ill-treat the body of Gregorios, in order to inflict an additional insult on the Christian religion; but this was a mistake. This outrage on humanity was then a part of Othoman criminal justice, and it was inflicted alike on Mussulmans and Christians. About a year after the execution of the deposed patriarch, Hassan Bairaktar, of the 21st oda of janissaries, headed a mutinous band of Mussulmans, who plundered many Christian families. He was shot resisting a patrol appointed to protect the Greeks, and on the 22nd of June 1822 his body was dragged through the streets of Constantinople by the Jews, and cast into the sea.

Gregorios was a man of virtue, and his private character commanded the respect of his countrymen. His talents for conducting official business induced the Othoman government to place him three times on the patriarchal throne; and on the last occasion he was called to his high office expressly that he might employ his acknowledged influence to preserve tranquillity among an excited population animated by the rebellion of Ali Pasha of Joannina, and by the prospect of a Russian war. Gregorios was therefore fully aware of the responsibilities and dangers of the position he assumed. He was versed in the intrigues of the divan and of the Phanariots. He knew that a great conspiracy of the orthodox existed; and there is no doubt that, like most of his countrymen, he believed that Russia would throw her shield over the rebels. He took up a false position as patriarch, which ought to have shocked his moral feelings. In executing him Sultan Mahmud acted in strict conformity with the laws of the Othoman empire. Every Mussulman regarded him as a perjured traitor. Every Greek still cherishes his memory as a holy martyr.

Various circumstances at this time made it a matter of policy with several influential classes among the Turks to encourage religious bigotry, and inflame the fury of the populace of Constantinople against the Christians. Sultan Mahmud was suspected, both by the ulema and the janissaries, of a design to curtail their wealth and diminish their privileges. They seized the opportunity now offered for embarrassing his government. They openly called on all true believers to revenge the Mussulmans whom the Christians had murdered, and they magnified the numbers of the slain. The sultan and his ministers were intimidated by the threatening aspect of the tumult which was created. A revolution seemed impending among the Turks, as an immediate result of the revolution among the Greeks. To calm the spirit of insurrection, and tranquillize the minds of the janissaries, Sultan Mahmud deemed it necessary to admit three members of the corps to permanent seats in the divan on the 5th May 1821.

Anarchy, or something very near anarchy, prevailed at Constantinople for three weeks. Bands of the lowest rabble, headed by agents of the ulema, and by insubordinate janissaries, paraded the quarters of the capital where the Christians resided, and visited the villages on the Bosphorus, robbing and murdering the rayahs. The patriarchate was broken open, and the monks escaped by the roof, and found the means of reaching some Turkish houses in the neighbourhood. To the honour of the Mussulmans it must be recorded that they concealed the Christian ecclesiastics from the fury of the mob.

Sultan Mahmud is said to have viewed the first outbreak of Mussulman bigotry with satisfaction. He interpreted it as a proof of enthusiastic attachment to his person and government, and as a testimony of patriotic zeal for the dynasty of Othman. He distrusted both Halet Effendi, hitherto his favourite minister, and Benderli Ali, his grand-vizier, whom he considered too favourable to the Greeks, and too fearful of Russia. He suspected them of advocating a policy of moderation, in order to serve their own selfish ends.

On the 15th of May, Salik Pasha succeeded Benderli Ali in the office of grand-vizier, and the executions of the Greek clergy and archonts immediately recommenced. Four bishops, previously arrested, and who had hitherto been spared, were now hanged in different villages on the European side of the Bosphorus, from Arnaout-keui to Therapia. As numbers of Christians escaped daily from Constantinople in foreign vessels, the Porte adopted measures to prevent the departure of its subjects without passports. On the 20th of May the patriarch informed the orthodox subjects of the sultan, that every five families were to give mutual security for all the members of which they were composed, and that if any individual quitted the capital without a passport from the Othoman authorities, the heads of families were to be severely punished. This measure surpassed the severity even of the Russian police.

At Smyrna greater disorder prevailed than at Constantinople. Bands of brigands and fanatics, who had taken up arms in Asia Minor under the pretext of marching against the rebellious Christians on the banks of the Danube, entered Smyrna, where they knew there was a large Christian population, and where they consequently hoped to obtain both booty and slaves without any fighting. The Greeks in the city and in the surrounding villages were attacked and plundered as if they had been a hostile population. Fathers of families were murdered; women and children were carried off and sold as slaves. Many Turks of rank attempted in vain to put a stop to these atrocities. The mollah of Smyrna and several ayans were slain, for defending the Christians, by the Mussulman mob. The strongest representations on the part of the ambassadors of the European powers could only obtain the adoption of measures tending to protect foreigners. The Christian subjects of the sultan were left exposed to the attacks of lawless brigands, and some weeks were allowed to elapse before the military officers of the sultan made any effort to restore order.

At Smyrna the massacre of the Greeks was repeated when news arrived of the cruelties committed by the Christians after the taking of Tripolitza.

Similar scenes of pillage and murder were enacted in most of the principal cities of the empire which contained a considerable Greek population. At Adrianople, a deposed patriarch, Cyril, was put to death, and his execution served as a signal for the fanatics to plunder the Greeks in that city and in the neighbouring towns and villages. At Salonika at Cos, at Rhodes, in Crete, and in Cyprus, the Greeks were plundered and murdered with impunity. For several months during the year 1821, Greece and Turkey presented a succession of scenes so atrocious that no pen could venture to narrate their horrors. The Turks have always been a bloodthirsty race, indifferent to human suffering, and they had now terrible wrongs to avenge. The Greeks had by long oppression been degraded into a kind of Christian Turks. It is impossible to form a correct estimate of the number of Greeks who were massacred by the Turks: some have considered it as great as the number of Mussulmans murdered in Greece.

The sultan could not long forget that the wealth and intelligence of the Christian rayahs contributed to fill his treasury. He would not abstain from his revenge, but he wished to avoid weakening his own strength. The ingratitude of the dignified clergy and wealthy Phanariots on whom he had conferred high office, appeared to merit the severest punishment; but the cruel treatment of the common people compromised the order of society, and threatened to diminish the imperial revenues. He determined therefore to re-establish order and security of property; and the rare energy with which he carried his measures into immediate execution, enabled him to do so most successfully. He proved to the Christians that they could live in security, and continue to gain money, under his government; and he persuaded a considerable portion of the Greek race to separate themselves from the cause of the Revolution, and remain tranquil under his protection. While policy suggested that terror was the most effectual weapon for crushing rebellion, no monarch ever inflicted punishment with greater severity than Sultan Mahmud; but as soon as he felt satisfied that humanity would enable him to combat the progress of the Greek Revolution with greater efficacy in those regions into which it had not yet spread, he acted both with moderation and prudence. Unfortunately, both the Turks and Greeks in arms considered that the results of their cruelty proved the wisdom of inhumanity. By destroying the native Mussulmans in Greece, the Christians had destroyed their most dangerous enemies, and converted what might have been a civil war into a national struggle for independence. The Turks, by cutting off the heads of the leading Greeks in their power, had checked the progress of the Revolution, and retained one-half of the Greek population in subjection to the sultan.

A few examples of the manner in which the war was carried on will show the spirit of both the belligerents. The Othoman fleet, while passing near the island of Samothrace, embarked seventy of the inhabitants. They were accused of joining the Revolution, because the sailors of the Greek fleet had landed on the island, and collected a supply of provisions. Twelve of these poor islanders were hanged at Constantinople for the purpose of intimidation. It was impossible to suppose that they had committed any crime deserving so severe a punishment.

The Greek fleet, having captured some Turkish merchant­vessels, sent one hundred and eighty prisoners to Naxos, where they were treated as slaves. For some time they were employed by the Greeks of the island as domestic servants or farm-labourers, and they were generally well treated by their masters. But one after another they were waylaid and murdered. As the Greek proverb expresses it, the moon devoured them; and when a French man-of-war arrived to carry off the survivors, only thirty were found alive.

About forty Turks, of whom five only were men, were allowed by the Greeks of Laconia to escape to Cerigo, where they expected to find protection under the English flag; but they were murdered in cold blood by the Ionian peasantry, who had no wrongs inflicted by Othoman tyranny to plead as an apology for the assassination of Mussulman women and children. The indignation of the British government was roused, and five Cerigots were tried, condemned, and executed for these murders.

During the whole period of the Revolution the Greeks displayed a fiercer animosity to the Mussulmans than the Turks to the Christians. Gordon, a warm Philhellene, observes, “Whatever national or individual wrong the Greeks may have endured, it is impossible to justify the ferocity of their vengeance, or to deny that a comparison instituted between them and the Othoman generals, Mehemet Aboul-abad, Omer Vrioni, and the Kehaya Bey (of Khurshid), would give to the latter the palm of humanity. Humanity, however, is a word quite out of place when applied either to them or to their opponents”.

The Christian sovereigns who had ministers at the Porte, and especially the Emperor of Russia, who assumed that the treaty of Kainardji constituted him the protector of the orthodox subjects of the sultan, were reproached with their callousness to the sufferings of the Greeks. Several Europeans residing at Constantinople and at Smyrna were murdered by fanatics and brigands, yet the remonstrances of the ambassadors were treated with neglect by Sultan Mahmud. Under the circumstances it was thought by many that the Christian powers ought to have withdrawn their representatives from Constantinople. But these philanthropists over­looked a fact which forced itself on the attention of the Emperor Alexander I. It was, that the conduct of the Othoman government proved that the sultan’s hand was heavy on the Greeks, not because they were orthodox Christians, but because they were rebels : and the policy of the Russian autocrat was quite as hostile to a democratic revolution as that of the sultan was. But the Baron Strogonoff, the Russian minister, did not allow the execution of the Patriarch Gregorios to pass without strong complaints. The Porte, however, replied, that he had been justly condemned and executed according to law; that his complicity in a conspiracy to overthrow the authority of his lawful sovereign had been proved by irrefragable evidence; and that he had been deposed from his ecclesiastical dignity with the usual forms before he had been punished for his crimes. To all this the Russian minister could offer no reply.

When the declaration published by the emperors of Russia and Austria and the king of Prussia at Laybach on the 12^th May 1821, against revolutionary principles, was made known to Sultan Mahmud, he viewed it as an engagement of these powers not to protect the Greek rebels. In this interpretation of the policy of the Christian powers he was confirmed by the assurances of several foreign ministers, and he availed himself of the opportunity which was thus afforded him of improving his position. He ordered all vessels quitting Othoman ports to be searched, in order to prevent the departure of Turkish subjects without passports. This, being entirely in accordance with the principles of police adopted by Christian states, admitted of no objection on the part of Russia. But at the same time an embargo was laid on all grain ships passing the Bosphorus, and the sultan insisted on enforcing his natural jurisdiction over all his Christian subjects who continued to reside in Turkey, even though they pretended to a foreign nationality, in virtue of passports obtained from foreign ambassadors. The Russian minister objected to these measures; and on the 18th July 1821 he presented to the Porte an ultimatum, in which the emperor demanded that the ill-treatment of the orthodox should cease, and that the churches which the Turks had wantonly destroyed should be rebuilt at the sultan’s expense. No reply was vouchsafed to this document, which on some points exceeded the limits of international diplomacy. The Russian minister then broke off his relations with the Porte, and embarked for Odessa. This spirited conduct alarmed the Othoman ministers, who immediately sent an answer, which Baron Strogonoff declined receiving, as the Russian embassy had already quitted Constantinople. The reply to the Russian ultimatum was therefore transmitted to St. Petersburg.

In this reply the Porte argued that the Greeks, as well as all other orthodox Christians and the orthodox Church, had always been objects of the sultan’s especial protection, that the treaty of Kainardji had not been violated by the Porte, and that rebellion must be punished by a sovereign, whether the rebels be Greeks or orthodox priests. The Emperor Alexander was reminded that his predecessor, Peter the Great, had put a patriarch to death; and the sultan now demanded, as a proof of the emperor’s disapproval of the Greek rebellion and the lawless conduct of the Hetairists, that his imperial majesty should fulfil the engagement contained in the second article of the treaty of Kainardji, and deliver up the traitorous hospodar of Moldavia, Michael Soutzos, with the other traitors who had fled to Russia, in order that they might receive the merited punishment of their ingratitude and treason.

The Porte, however, was soon after induced by the influence of England and Austria to mollify the hostile feelings of Russia, and sought to avoid a war by removing the embargo on grain ships from Russian ports. Yet when Baron Strogonoff had an interview with the Emperor Alexander near Odessa, in the month of August, it was generally supposed by Russians as well as Greeks that a declaration of war would too take place. The policy of the Russian cabinet at this time was misunderstood in the East. The Emperor Alexander was a man of warm feelings and a weak character, and his personal direction of the diplomacy of Russia placed his negotiations with Turkey, particularly when they related to Greek affairs, under the influence of two irreconcileable rules of conduct. His fear of revolutions, and his sincere conviction that the preservation of peace in Europe depended on the unanimity of the sovereigns who were members of the Holy Alliance, rendered him hostile to the Greek insurrection. Yet, on the other hand, as Emperor of Russia, he believed that it was his duty to enforce his claim to be recognized as the protector of the orthodox subjects of the sultan, and the traditions of his government placed him in a state of rivalry with Turkey on political as well as religious grounds. In conformity with his determination to uphold the authority of sovereigns, he abstained from war with the sultan, and in order to uphold his claim to protect the orthodox in Turkey and keep open a pretext for war, he vexed the Othoman government with unceasing demands. As his estimate of the relative importance of his duty to the peace of Europe and to the dignity of his own empire was liable to continual change, his conduct was unsteady and his policy inconsequent. But for the present he took no further measures to coerce the sultan, and Russia did not resume her diplomatic relations with Turkey until George Canning brought the affairs of Greece before the cabinets of Europe, and succeeded in inducing Russia and France to co-operate with Great Britain in establishing peace between the Greeks and Turks.

The difficulties of Sultan Mahmud’s position in 1821 would have terrified a man of a less determined character; and when he was about to commence operations against the insurgent Greeks, prudence might have suggested that a war with so powerful an enemy as Russia was to be avoided at every risk. But the sultan saw the importance of separating the cause of the Greek Revolution from the cause of the orthodox Church, and of defining clearly the political opposition which placed the principles of the Russian cabinet in hostility with those of the insurgent Greeks. He succeeded, however, more in consequence of the moderation of the Emperor Alexander than through his own sagacity or boldness. Yet for a considerable time he continued to be surrounded by other difficulties, and many persons well acquainted with the state of the Othoman empire considered these difficulties to be insurmountable. In his capital the janissaries were seditious, and the ulema discontented. The enthusiasm of the Mussulman feudatories required to be excited, and the bigotry of the Mussulman populace required to be restrained. The rebellion of Ali Pasha of Joannina still occupied a large portion of the naval and military forces of the empire. The pasha of Acre was in a state of rebellion. The Druses were in arms against the sultan’s officers. An Othoman army was occupied in Vallachia and Moldavia, and the garrisons of the fortresses on the Danube required to be increased, on account of the threatening masses of troops which Russia had collected in her southern provinces. Amidst all these troubles, the true believers were appalled by the news that the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were threatened by an army of Wahabites; and the sultan, in this crisis, found himself obliged to declare war against the Shah of Persia, in consequence of repeated incursions into the eastern provinces of the Othoman empire.

Yet, with all these embarrassments, and with disorder in every branch of the public administration, Sultan Mahmud never swerved from his determination of crushing the Greek Revolution by force of arms. His first care was to strengthen his authority in Thrace and Macedonia, and to extinguish the flames of rebellion from Mount Athos to Olympus. The prudent measures adopted by Khurshid prevented many of the armatoli from joining their countrymen at the commencement of the Revolution, when their defection would have inflicted a severe wound on the power of the sultan. Khurshid saw immediately that, if the insurgent Greeks could succeed in engaging the Christian population of Agrapha to embark heartily in their cause, they would secure the co­operation of the whole of the armatoli of Pindus and Olympus, interrupt the communications of the Othoman army before Joannina with its supplies at Larissa and Thessalonica, compel him to raise the siege of Joannina, and allow Ali Pasha to place himself at the head of a revolution of the Mussulman Albanians. The fate of the Othoman empire depended as much on the prudence of Khurshid as on the firmness of Sultan Mahmud. Any error of the seraskier might have thrown all European Turkey into a state of anarchy, and compelled the Emperor Alexander to interfere for the protection of the lives of several millions of orthodox Christians of the Sclavonian race.

Khurshid augmented the garrisons of Prevesa and Arta, and by so doing he checked the progress of the Suliots, and kept open his communications with the Othoman fleet, and with the Ionian Islands. He stationed about two thousand men at Trikkala and Larissa, under the command of Mohammed Dramali, to support the derven-agas and hold the armatoli of Pindus and Olympus in check. The timely arrival of reinforcements of Mussulman Albanians in these districts prevented the Greek armatoli from taking up arms when they heard of the execution of the Patriarch Gregorios, and the massacres of their countrymen at Constantinople and Smyrna. The prudence of Khurshid, after the insurrection broke out, was as remarkable as his neglect of all precautions before its commencement.

During the year 1821, Sultan Mahmud succeeded in suppressing the revolutionary movements of the Greeks in most of the provinces in European Turkey beyond the limits of the present kingdom of Greece. The Christians took up arms in Agrapha, in the valleys of the Aspropotamos and of the river of Arta, on Mounts Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, in the Macedonian mountains overlooking the plain of the Vardar, in the Chalcidice of Thrace, and on Mount Athos. In all these districts the Greeks were defeated, compelled to lay down their arms, and induced to resume their ordinary occupations. The fact that they remained peaceful subjects of the sultan during the whole period of the revolutionary war, and that when peace was established, and they obtained permission to emigrate to liberated Greece, they refused to avail themselves of the liberty of becoming subjects of King Otho, refutes the assertion of those Greek historians who declare that cruelty and oppression were the prominent features of Sultan Mahmud’s government. The cruelty which represses anarchy is never considered to be intolerable by the agricultural population, to whom it secures the peaceable enjoyment of their property.

In Agrapha the insurrection commenced at the end 0f June. The Mussulman Albanians in garrison at Rendin were expelled by the armatoli, who, in company with the peasant proprietors of the district, descended into the plain of Thessaly, where they burned Loxada and some neighbouring villages inhabited by Koniarides, a Turkish agricultural tribe, which is said to have entered Europe as allies of the usurper Cantacuzene, and to have settled in this district when he was dethroned. The Agraphiots were soon al tacked by the Othoman troops in Larissa, and driven back into their mountains. The reinforcements sent by Khurshid enabled the Mussulmans to recover possession of Rendin; and to restore the state of things which existed before the outbreak. Stamati Gatsu was appointed captain of the Greek armatoli of the district. Though he had been one of the leaders in the foray into Thessaly, he remained faithful to the sultan. His loyalty was secured by liberal pay, and his conduct was closely watched by a derven-aga with a body of Mussulman Albanians.

The Vallachian villages of Syrako and Kalarites, in the valley of the river of Arta, were garrisoned by a body of Albanians under Ibrahim Premeti. The position is of great importance to those who wish to command the road from Metzovo to Joannina. The Vallachian population of the district consists of a sturdy, industrious, and wealthy race but not of warlike habits. The people were instigated to take up arms, when they heard of the insurrection in Agrapha, by their primates, and by John Kolettes, a citizen of Syrako, who had been physician to Mukhtar Pasha, and who acquired celebrity as one of the most influential political leaders of the Greek Revolution. The primates of the Vallachian villages summoned to their assistance a body of armatoli, under the command of Rhangos, and succeeded in driving out the Albanians. But Khurshid, alarmed for his communications with Thessaly, sent the Mussulmans powerful reinforcements, which enabled Ibrahim Premeti to drive back the armatoli of Rhangos, and to regain possession of Syrako and Kalarites. The conduct of this Albanian officer was extremely prudent, and he succeeded in restoring tranquillity and order in the district over which his authority extended.

Nearly simultaneously with the insurrection of the Vallachian population in the valley of the river of Arta, the Vallachian population in the parallel valley of the Aspropotamos took up arms. About three thousand men, under the command of Nicolas Sturnari, prepared to invade Thessaly; but the armatoli of Agrapha, having already made their submission to the sultan, joined a body of Mussulman Albanians, and compelled the Vlachokhoria to remain at home on the defensive. In the meantime the Turks of Trikkala guarded the passes of Klinovo and Portais, and a body of Albanians detached from Khurshid’s camp, reinforced by a portion of Ibrahim Premeti’s troops, advanced into the valley of the Aspropotamos on the 12th of August. The Turks of Thessaly forced the pass of Portais at the same time. The Aspropotamites, surrounded on all sides, made their submission, delivered up their arms, and received tickets of protection from Khurshid, who declared a general amnesty, reinstated every man in his private property, and restored to the communities the full exercise of all their privileges. Considerable credit is due to the seraskier for his military combinations and political moderation during these operations; but his success in re-establishing the sultan’s authority over the Christian population in the range of Pindus was unquestionably greatly assisted by the rapacity of the insurgent leaders and of the Greek troops who entered these districts. They plundered friends as well as foes, and carried off the working oxen of the Christian peasantry as well as their sheep and goats.

The progress of the Greek Revolution to the north was arrested quite as much by this shameful misconduct as by the prudent measures of Sultan Mahmud and the decisive operations of Khurshid Pasha. The Christian population of Mount Pindus, whether Greek, Albanian, or Vallachian, learned to look with aversion on the revolutionary troops whom they designated as klephts or brigands, and not as armatoli or soldiers. At this period it was a maxim of the insurgents, that the people ought to be forced to take up arms by the destruction of their property, and they carried their maxim into practice in a revolting manner, by appropriating the property of the people to their own use in the process of destruction. Neither the civil nor military leaders of the Revolution reflected that the destruction of property must prove more injurious to the Greeks than to the Turks. The Greeks could only draw their resources from the land they occupied; the Turks could carry on the war with supplies brought from a distance. When, therefore, a desert frontier was created, that deserted line of country, which soon extended from Makronoros to Thermopylae, formed an impassable barrier to the progress of the Greeks northwards, while it afforded additional security to the sultan in maintaining his authority among the Greek population on the northern side of this line.

Zagora (Mount Pelion) was a prosperous district inhabited by Greeks, who enjoyed the privilege of local self-government and an elective magistracy. But about the commencement of the Greek Revolution it suffered much from the weight of taxation, and from the failure of the crops of silk and oil in the preceding year. The people were starving, and the population was dense. Twenty-four village communities on the mountain contained forty-five thousand inhabitants. Lekhonia alone contained some resident Turkish families. The town of Trikcri, situated on a rocky isthmus at the entrance of the Gulf of Volo, was inhabited by a hardy and prosperous maritime population of about two thousand souls, who owned many vessels engaged in the coasting trade between Greece, Saloniki, Smyrna, and Constantinople.

Anthimos Gazes, a leading member of the Hetairia, resided in Zagora as a teacher of Greek, and many of the inhabitants were initiated into the secrets of the society. When the Greek fleet arrived off the coast, the people immediately proclaimed their independence. On the 19th of May, a body of armed men entered Lekhonia, slew the aga, and put to death six hundred Mussulmans, murdering alike men, women, and children. But instead of marching instantly to surprise Volo, which might have been taken without difficulty, and the possession of which could alone secure the liberty of their country, they wasted their time quarrelling about the division of the property of the murdered Turks. The Greeks of Mount Pelion had been long a prey to party discord, and their municipal institutions had tended to nourish violent dissensions. The slaughter of the Turks animated all their evil passions, and harmony was banished from their counsels. They succeeded, however, after losing some precious time, in constituting a government, to which they gave the name of the Thessalo-Magnesian Senate, and at last assembled a military force to blockade Volo. The people, however, displayed neither enthusiasm in the cause of national liberty nor valour in defending their local independence.

The first operation of Dramali from his camp at Larissa, during the summer of 1821, was to attack the insurgents of Mount Pelion. He moved forward to relieve Volo, and the Greeks raised the blockade at his approach. About four thousand Turks then penetrated into the mountain and encamped in the principal villages, where they committed the direst cruelties, to avenge the slaughter of their countrymen murdered at Lekhonia, as well as to gratify their native ferocity. When they retired, they carried off many women and children, whom they sold in the slave-markets of Larissa and Saloniki. The men generally succeeded in concealing themselves in the ravines and forests, where the Turks did not venture to pursue them. Anthimos Gazes, and the leaders of the insurrection, escaped to Skiathos and Skopelos. Dramali allowed all the villages to make their submission, restored their local magistracies, and furnished the people with tickets of protection, for which, however, his officers often exacted considerable sums of money. Four villages on the cape of Trikeri set his authority at defiance, fortified the isthmus, and maintained their independence. Many armatoli and klephts sought refuge within these lines, and made frequent forays both against the Turks of Thessaly, and against their countrymen who had received pardon and protection from Dramali. The great expedition of the Turks from Thessaly into the Morea secured them impunity during the year 1822; and it was not until 1823 that Trikeri was subdued. The capitan-pasha then granted it an amnesty, on condition that it should surrender all its vessels and receive a Turkish garrison.

In no part of Greece were the facilities for commencing the Revolution, or for defending the national independence, greater than in the peninsula to the east of the Gulf of Thessalonica, called anciently Chalcidice. The population was almost entirely of the Greek race, and its villages enjoyed the title of the Free Townships (Eleutherokhoria), on account of their many privileges.

A confederation of twelve villages, called Mademkhoria, or mining villages, occupied the central and mountainous portion of the peninsula, stretching northward from the isthmus that connects Mount Athos with the Chalcidice. Silver mines were once worked on a considerable scale by the Othoman government in this district. Nisvoro was the seat of the local administration, and the residence of a Turkish bey, who dwelt in the Mohammedan quarter, with a guard of twenty-five soldiers. This Mohammedan quarter was about half a mile distant from the township occupied by the Christians, where the Greek magistrates of the district held their meetings, and where the bishop of Erissos, or, as he was usually called, of Aghionoros, resided.

A similar union of fifteen villages, in the more fertile region to the westward, was called the Khasikakhoria. Polygheros was the place where the deputies of this confederation held their meetings, for the repartition of taxes, and for carrying on the local administration.

The peninsula of Kassandra or Pallene formed another union of villages under the inspection of an Othoman voivode who resided at Valta.

The three peninsulas of Kassandra, Longos, and Athos, running out into the Aegean Sea, form three citadels, which might easily secure, to a maritime people like the Greeks, the complete command of the whole of the Chalcidice. Of these, he most remarkable is Mount Athos, now called Aghionoros, or the Holy Mountain. With very little exertion it might have been rendered impregnable by land; and it is almost inaccessible to an invader by sea.

No spot was better adapted to the operations of the Hetairists than the Holy Mountain, had the Hetairists really been men of counsel and action. But to command Basilian monks, some glow of religious enthusiasm and a sincere love of civil liberty was absolutely necessary. No counterfeits could escape detection among the ascetics; and, unfortunately, personal egoism, political ambition, and religious indifference were marked characteristics of the chiefs of the Hetairia. They never trusted the monks, and the monks never trusted them.

Mount Athos is a high wooded ridge of about thirty miles in length, running out into the sea, and rising at its extremity in a bold peak, towering over the Aegean to the height of six thousand three hundred and fifty feet. The isthmus that connects this rocky peninsula with the Mademkhoria is hardly a mile and a half broad; and the remains of the canal of Xerxes, which Juvenal thought fabulous, still afford considerable facilities for defending it. It might easily have been rendered impregnable against any attack of irregular troops, by constructing a few of the redoubts used by the Greeks and Turks in their warfare. Twenty large monasteries have been built round the base of the great peak. Their walls are constructed with the solidity of fortresses, and within they contain large and well-filled magazines of provisions. Several have large courts flanked with towers, capable of defence, and covered communications with secluded creeks, where boats can find a shelter. The rocky coast and the sudden storms, like that which destroyed the fleet of Mardonius, render a blockade by sea extremely difficult. Some dependent monasteries and innumerable hermitages are scattered over the peninsula. A town of monks, called Karies, is situated near the centre, where the deputies of the great monasteries meet to manage the civil administration of the whole mountain community; and an Othoman governor, with a guard of only twenty soldiery resided there, to perform the duties of police. A weekly market was held at Karies.

When the Revolution broke out, the Holy Mountain was regarded by the orthodox of the Levant as a seat of peculiar sanctity. It was celebrated in the traditions of the Bulgarians, Vallachians, Albanians, and modern Greeks as sacred ground, habitually trodden by blessed saints, and hallowed by a thousand miracles. In the minds of the common people in Greece it held a more revered place than the memories of Marathon and Salamis, for it moved their daily sympathies far more than the dull echoes of Hellenic history. When the Western traveller expressed his admiration of the ruins of Sunium to the Greek mariner, he was often astonished to hear him exclaim, “What would you say if you saw the stupendous monasteries on the Holy Mountain?”

At the commencement of the Revolution about six thousand monks inhabited the mountain, but several hundreds were probably absent managing the farms which the monasteries possessed in the Chalcidice and other places, or travelling about collecting alms. Many had been initiated into the secrets of the Hetairia, in spite of the distrust inculcated by some of the leading Hetairists. It is not worthwhile to point out in detail the measures which ought to have been adopted to secure the independence of Mount Athos, to support the Revolution in the Chalcidice, to threaten Thessalonica, and to interrupt the communications of the Turks along the Thracian coast. The Greek population of the Chalcidice could have maintained eight thousand armed men. The monks might have added to these a body of two thousand enthusiastic warriors. Supplies of arms, ammunition, and provisions might have been prepared on the Holy Mountain. The Greek naval force commanded the sea, and the configuration of the peninsulas doubled the efficiency of a fleet composed of small vessels. Nothing was wanting to secure success but constancy and prudent leaders. The incapacity and presumption of the Hetairists, the selfishness of the leading primates, and the lukewarmness of the influential abbots, joined to the general aversion to military organization which springs from the intense egoism of the Greek character, neutralized all the advantages which this district offered to the insurgents.

The first revolutionary movements in the Chalcidice were mere acts of brigandage. As soon as the invasion of Moldavia by Hypsilantes was known, bands of armed Christians, sent out by the Hetairists, began to infest the roads. Mussulman travellers and Othoman couriers were plundered and murdered; but the people did not take up arms and proclaim their independence until the month of May. Yussuf Bey of Saloniki, warned by the sultan of the danger of a general insurrection, demanded hostages from the Christian communities, and finding that his orders were disobeyed, sent troops to enforce his demand and conduct the hostages to Saloniki. When the Turkish soldiers approached Polygheros, the primates called the people to arms, and commenced the Revolution on the 28th of May, by murdering the Turkish voivode and his guards. Yussuf revenged this act by beheading the bishop of Kytria, and by impaling three proesti who were in durance at Saloniki. Many Christians in that city were imprisoned. The Mussulmans, and even the Jews, were invited to take up arms against the Greeks, who, it was said, were preaching a war of extermination against all who were not of their own religion.

The inhabitants of the Free Townships assembled an armed force, and compelled the Othoman troops to retire to Saloniki; but they neglected to profit by their first successes, and did not even adopt any plan of defence.

In June, the Turks having received reinforcements from the Sclavonian Mussulmans in the north of Macedonia, attacked the Greek insurgents. Emmanuel Papas, who had assumed the title of General of Macedonia, acted as commander-in-chief. He had no military knowledge, and was defeated by the Mussulmans, who drove the Greeks from Vasilika and Galatista. The defeated troops fled within the peninsulas of Kassandra and Athos. Yussuf attempted to force the isthmus of Kassandra, which the insurgents had fortified with intrenchments, but was repulsed with some loss. Yussuf was as ignorant of war, and carried on his military operations with as little judgment, as Emmanuel Papas. He was superseded by Aboulabad, who was appointed pasha of Saloniki. 

Aboulabad was a soldier who prepared his measures with some military skill and executed them with great energy. Yet he was unable to assemble a force sufficient to make a decisive attack on the Greek intrenchments at Kassandra until the month of November. He then carried them by storm. Most of the soldiers escaped with their leader, Captain Diamantes, on board the vessels anchored near the Greek lines. The people were abandoned to the mercy of the pasha, who captured about ten thousand souls, chiefly fugitives from the Free Townships. Of these it is said that the Turkish troops sold four thousand women and children as slaves. Many men were massacred in cold blood, but Aboulabad exerted himself with success to save the lives of the peasants. The sultan’s commands were strict, and his own interest led him to avoid as much as possible depopulating a district which yielded a considerable revenue to his pashalik. During the whole period of his government he treated the peasantry with moderation, even in matters relating to taxation; but he indulged his cruelty, or what he called his love of justice, by torturing the chiefs of the insurgents who fell into his hands with inhuman barbarity.

The re-establishment of the sultan’s authority over the religious communities of Mount Athos required to be effected by prudence rather than force. As soon as the monks joined the revolt of the Free Townships, they took into the pay of their community about seven hundred soldiers, and arms were found for about two thousand monks. Aboulabad knew that this force was sufficient to defend the isthmus against the troops he was able to bring into the field; and that, even should he succeed in forcing the isthmus, many of the large monasteries were strong enough to resist his attacks. He resolved, therefore, to try negotiation.

The leading monks favoured the Hetairia, because they had been induced to believe that it was a society countenanced by the Russian cabinet. When they discovered that they had been grossly deceived by the apostles, and that the insurrection was condemned by the patriarch, they ceased to wish well to the Greek Revolution. Like most established authorities possessing exclusive privileges, they were averse to change. They could not shut their eyes to the anti-ecclesiastical opinions of the political and military chiefs of the insurgents, nor to the fact that monks were losing favour with the people through the causes which produced the Revolution. The most influential members of the monastic community, consequently, ventured to suggest that the sultan was more likely to protect the ancient privileges of the Holy Mountain than the chiefs of the Greek republic. They contrasted the anarchy that prevailed wherever the Greeks commanded, with the order observed by the sultan’s officers. Aboulabad had at this time acquired a great reputation for his clemency. Many of the Greek proprietors in the Free Townships owed their lives to his protection after the storming of Kassandra. He subsequently granted an amnesty to the inhabitants of Longos on their delivering up their arms. He now promised an amnesty to the monks of the Holy Mountain, if they would deliver up all the arms in their possession, engage to pay the sultan an annual tribute of two million five hundred thousand piastres, and admit an Othoman garrison to reside at Karies. These terms were accepted, and on the 27th of December 1821 the troops of Aboulabad took up their quarters on the Holy Mountain. This occupation put an end to the Greek Revolution in the Chalcidice and its three adjoining peninsulas.

The submission of Mount Athos enabled Aboulabad to turn his attention to the Greek population in the mountains between the mouths of the Haliacmon and the Axius. Zaphiraki, the primate of Niausta, was the most influential Greek in this district. He was a man of considerable wealth; he had opposed Ali Pasha in intrigue, and held his ground; and he had assassinated an apostle of the Hetairia, Demetrios Hypatros, to make himself master of secrets which might affect his interest. Aboulabad ordered him to send his son as a hostage to Saloniki. Zaphiraki had already concerted measures for taking up arms should he be driven to extremity. He now invited Gatsos and Karatassos, the captains of armatoli at Vodhena and Verria, to meet him. These three chiefs proclaimed the Revolution, and, as usual, commenced their operations by murdering all the Mussulmans on whom they could lay hands. At Niausta, men, women, and children were butchered without mercy. The Greek chiefs then marched out to call the Christian population to arms; but the Bulgarians, who form the great bulk of the agriculturists, showed no disposition to join the cause of the Greeks. The Revolution was therefore propagated in these mountains by burning down the houses of the Christian peasantry, and by plundering their property.

These insane proceedings were soon cut short. At the first rumour of the outbreak Aboulabad marched to Verria, and as soon as a sufficient supply of ammunition arrived, he pushed forward to attack Niausta. On the 23rd of April 1822 he dispersed the troops of Karatassos after some trifling skirmishing, and immediately summoned the town to surrender at discretion. His offers were rejected, and he carried the place by storm. Zaphiraki, Gatsos, and Karatassos, driven with ease from their ill-placed and ill-constructed intrenchments, fled with a few followers. Passing through Thessaly as armatoli, and avoiding notice, Karatassos and Gatsos succeeded in reaching Greece in safety. Zaphiraki attempted to conceal himself in the neighbourhood, but his cruelty had made him so many enemies, that few were willing to assist him, and he was tracked by the Turks and slain.

Aboulabad allowed his troops to plunder Niausta, and permitted the Mussulmans of the surrounding country to avenge the murder of their co-religionaries on the unfortunate inhabitants, who had been driven to revolt by their primate, and who had taken no part in the cruelties committed by the armatoli. On this occasion the Turks rivalled the atrocities committed by the Greeks after the capture of Navarin and Tripolitza. The cruelties perpetrated by Aboulabad were so horrid as to make the description sickening. The wives of Zaphiraki and Karatassos were tortured, in order to force them to become Mohammedans, with as much inhumanity as was ever perpetrated by the Inquisition. They resisted with unshaken firmness, and were at last murdered. The wife of Gatsos only escaped similar tortures by abjuring Christianity.

An expedition, sent by Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes from Greece to rouse the inhabitants of Mount Olympus to take up arms, arrived off the Macedonian coast a few days after the storming of Niausta. It was completely defeated by the troops of Aboulabad, who attacked the Greeks immediately after they landed.

Thus, early in the year 182a, the sultan succeeded in re­establishing his authority over the whole of the Greek population in European Turkey to the north of Joannina and Mount Pelion; and the insurgent districts, which were reduced to submission, were governed with so much moderation and firmness, that they never again showed any disposition to revolt, and during the whole course of the Greek Revolution they enjoyed as much tranquillity and prosperity as they had enjoyed before the rebellion of Ali Pasha.

The difficulties which Sultan Mahmud overcame at this period of his reign were certainly very great, and his success in maintaining the integrity of the Othoman empire is really wonderful. He was himself the sole centre of adhesion to the many nations, religions, and sects that lived under his sway. Not only the Greeks, the Albanians, the Servians, and the Vallachians, but even the Arabs and the Egyptians showed a disposition to throw off his authority. The old feudal institutions of the Turkish population had decayed. The sandjak-beys and the dere-beys were generally either rebels or robbers. The military organization of the Othomans was utterly corrupted. The janissaries were shopkeepers, and the spahis were tax-gatherers. The ulema had converted the administration of justice into an establishment for the sale of injustice. Universal discontent rendered the Mussulmans quite as rebellious as the Christians. Sultan Mahmud seemed to be the only man in Turkey who was labouring honestly to avert the ruin of the Othoman empire. No sense of duty, no patriotic feeling, no common interests, no social ties, and no administrative bonds, united the various classes of his subjects in such a way as to secure harmonious action. He could depend on no class even of his Mohammedan subjects, and during the whole course of the Greek Revolution he was unable to dispense with the political services of those Greeks who were willing to accept employment in the Othoman government. He was even compelled to make use of the Greeks in civil and financial business, to arrest the progress of their insurgent countrymen, while he employed the Turks and Albanians to oppose them with arms. Yet in the midst of all the passions which bigotry and mutual atrocities had awakened, he succeeded, after one short burst of passion, in protecting the wealth of his Christian subjects from the avidity of the Mussulmans.

 

 

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GREECE AS AN INDEPENDENT STATE.