pursue. But the work was done. The defeated advance fell back upon the
main body; and that same night the whole army, panic-struck, ashamed,
and bewildered, commenced a precipitate retreat. From this moment Prince
Ypsilanti thought only of saving himself. This purpose he effected in a
few days, by retreating into Austria, from which territory he issued
his final order of the day, taxing his army, in violent and unmeasured
terms, with cowardice and disobedience. This was in a limited sense
true; many distinctions, however, were called for in mere justice; and
the capital defects, after all, were in himself. His plan was originally
bad; and, had it been better, he was quite unequal to the execution
of it. The results were unfortunate to all concerned in it. Ypsilanti
himself was arrested by Austria, and thrown into the unwholesome
prison of Mongatz, where, after languishing for six years, he perished
miserably. Some of the subordinate officers prolonged the struggle in
a guerilla style for some little time; but all were finally suppressed.
Many were put to death; many escaped into neutral ground; and it is
gratifying to add, that of two traitors amongst the higher officers,
one was detected and despatched in a summary way of vengeance by his own
associates; the other, for some unexplained reason, was beheaded by his
Turkish friends at the very moment when he had put himself into their
power, in fearless obedience to their own summons to _come and receive
his well-merited reward_, and under an express assurance from the
Pacha of Silistria that he was impatiently waiting to invest him with a
pelisse of honor. Such faith is kept with traitors; such faith be ever
kept with the betrayers of nations and their holiest hopes! Though in
this instance the particular motives of the Porte are still buried in
mystery.
Thus terminated the first rash enterprise, which resulted from the too
tempting invitation held out in the rebellion then agitating Epirus,
locking up, as it did, and neutralizing, so large a part of the
disposable Turkish forces. To this we return. Kourshid Pacha quitted the
Morea with a large body of troops, in the first days of January, 1821,
and took the command of the army already before Yannina. But, with all
his great numerical superiority to the enemy with whom he contended, and
now enjoying undisturbed union in his own camp, he found it impossible
to make his advances rapidly. Though in hostility to the Porte, and
though now connected with Christian allies, Ali Pacha was yet nominally
a Mahometan. Hence it had been found impossible as yet to give any color
of an anti-Christian character to the war; and the native Mahometan
chieftains had therefore no scruple in coalescing with the Christians of
Epirus, and making joint cause with Ali. Gradually, from the inevitable
vexations incident to the march and residence of a large army, the whole
population became hostile to Kourshid; and their remembrance of Ali's
former oppressions, if not effaced, was yet suspended in the presence
of a nuisance so immediate and so generally diffused; and most of the
Epirots turned their arms against the Porte. The same feelings which
governed _them_ soon spread to the provinces of Etolia and Acarnania;
or rather, perhaps, being previously ripe for revolt, these provinces
resolved to avail themselves of the same occasion. Missolonghi now
became the centre of rebellion; and Kourshid's difficulties were daily
augmenting. In July of this year (1821) these various insurgents,
actively cooperating, defeated the Serasker in several actions, and
compelled a Pacha to lay down his arms on the road between Yannina and
Souli. It was even proposed by the gallant partisan, Mark Bozzaris,
that all should unite to hem in the Serasker; but a wound, received in a
skirmish, defeated this plan. In September following, however, the same
Mark intercepted and routed Hassan Pacha in a defile on his march to
Yannina; and in general the Turks were defeated everywhere except at
the headquarters of the Serasker, and with losses in men enormously
disproportioned to the occasions. This arose partly from the necessity
under which they lay of attacking expert musketeers under cover of
breastworks, and partly from their own precipitance and determination to
carry everything by summary force; "whereas," says Mr. Gordon, "a little
patience would surely have caused them to succeed, and at least
saved them much dishonor, and thousands of lives thrown away in mere
wantonness." But, in spite of all blunders, and every sort of failure
elsewhere, the Serasker was still advancing slowly towards his main
objects--the reduction of Ali Pacha. And by the end of October, on
getting possession of an important part of Ali's works, he announced to
the Sultan that he should soon be able to send him the traitor's head,
for that he was already reduced to six hundred men. A little before
this, however, the celebrated Maurocordato, with other persons of
influence, had arrived at Missolonghi with the view of cementing a
general union of Christian and Mahometan forces against the Turks. In
this he was so far successful, that in November a combined attack was
made upon Ismael, the old enemy of Ali, and three other Pachas, shut
up in the town of Arta. This attack succeeded partially; but it was
attempted at a moment dramatically critical, and with an effect ruinous
to the whole campaign, as well as that particular attack. The assailing
party, about thirty-four hundred men, were composed in the proportion of
two Christians to one Mahometan. They had captured one half of the town;
and, Mark Bozzaris having set this on fire to prevent plundering, the
four Pachas were on the point of retreating under cover of the smoke. At
that moment arrived a Mahometan of note, instigated by Kourshid, who
was able to persuade those of his own faith that the Christians were not
fighting with any sincere views of advantage to Ali, but with ulterior
purposes hostile to Mahometanism itself. On this, the Christian division
of the army found themselves obliged to retire without noise, in order
to escape their own allies, now suddenly united with the four Pachas.
Nor, perhaps, would even this have been effected, but for the precaution
of Mark Bozzaris in taking hostages from two leading Mahometans. Thus
failed the last diversion in favor of Ali Pacha, who was henceforward
left to his own immediate resources. All the Mahometan tribes now ranged
themselves on the side of Kourshid; and the winter of 1821-2 passed away
without further disturbance in Epirus.
Meantime, during the absence of Kourshid Pacha from the Morea, the
opportunity had not been lost for raising the insurrection in that
important part of Greece. Kourshid had marched early in January, 1821;
and already in February symptoms of the coming troubles appeared at
Patrass, "the most flourishing and populous city of the Peloponnesus,
the emporium of its trade, and residence of the foreign consuls and
merchants." Its population was about eighteen thousand, of which number
two thirds were Christian. In March, when rumors had arrived of
the insurrection beyond the Danube, under Alexander Ypsilanti, the
fermentation became universal; and the Turks of Patrass hastily prepared
for defence. By the twenty-fifth, the Greeks had purchased all the
powder and lead which could be had; and about the second of April they
raised the standard of the Cross. Two days after this, fighting began
at Patrass. The town having been set on fire, "the Turkish castle threw
shot and shells at random; the two parties fought amongst the ruins, and
massacred each other without mercy; the only prisoners that were spared
owed their lives to fanaticism; some Christian youths being circumcised
by the Mollahs, and some Turkish boys baptized by the priests."
"While the commencement of the war," says Mr. Gordon, "was thus
signalized by the ruin of a flourishing city, the insurrection gained
ground with wonderful rapidity; and from mountain to mountain, and
village to village, propagated itself to the furthest corner of the
Peloponnesus. Everywhere the peasants flew to arms; and those Turks
who resided in the open country or unfortified towns were either cut to
pieces, or forced to fly into strongholds." On the second of April,
the flag of independence was hoisted in Achaia. On the ninth, a
Grecian senate met at Calamata, in Messenia, having for its president
Mavromichalis, Prince or Bey of Maina, a rugged territory in the ancient
Sparta, famous for its hardy race of robbers and pirates. [Footnote:
These Mainates have been supposed to be of Sclavonian origin; but Mr.
Gordon, upon the authority of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos,
asserts that they are of pure Laconian blood, and became Christians in
the reign of that emperor's grandfather, Basil the Macedonian. They are,
and over have been, robbers by profession; robbers by land, pirates by
sea; for which last branch of their mixed occupation they enjoy singular
advantages in their position at the point of junction between the Ionian
and Egean seas. To illustrate their condition of perpetual warfare, Mr.
Gordon mentions that there were very lately individuals who had lived
for twenty years in towers, not daring to stir out lest their neighbors
should shoot them. They were supplied with bread and cartridges by their
wives; for the persons of women are sacred in Maina. Two other
good features in their character are their hospitality and their
indisposition to bloodshed. They are in fact _gentle thieves_--the Robin
Hoods of Greece.]
On the sixth of April, the insurrection had spread to the narrow
territory of Megaris, situated to the north of the isthmus. The Albanian
population of this country, amounting to about ten thousand, and
employed by the Porte to guard the defiles of the entrance into
Peloponnesus, raised the standard of revolt, and marched to invest the
Acrocorinthus. In the Messenian territory, the Bishop of Modon, having
made his guard of Janissaries drunk, cut the whole of them to pieces;
and then encamping on the heights of Navarin, his lordship blockaded
that fortress. The abruptness of these movements, and their almost
simultaneous origin at distances so considerable, sufficiently prove how
ripe the Greeks were for this revolt as respected temper; and in other
modes of preparation they never _could_ have been ripe whilst overlooked
by Turkish masters. That haughty race now retreated from all parts of
the Morea, within the ramparts of Tripolizza.
In the first action which occurred, the Arcadian Greeks did not behave
well; they fled at the very sound of the Moslem tread. Colocotroni
commanded; and he rallied them again; but again they deserted him at the
sight of their oppressors; "and I," said Colocotroni afterwards, when
relating the circumstances of this early affair, "having with me only
ten companions including my horse, sat down in a bush and wept."
Meantime, affairs went ill at Patrass. Yussuf Pacha, having been
detached from Epirus to Euba by the Scrasker, heard on his route of the
insurrection in Peloponnesus. Upon which, altering his course, he sailed
to Patrass, and reached it on the fifteenth of April. This was Palm
Sunday, and it dawned upon the Greeks with evil omens. First came a
smart shock of earthquake; next a cannonade announcing the approach of
the Pacha; and, lastly, an Ottoman brig of war, which saluted the fort
and cast anchor before the town.
The immediate consequences were disastrous. The Greeks retreated; and
the Pacha detached Kihaya-Bey, a Tartar officer of distinguished energy,
with near three thousand men, to the most important points of the
revolt. On the fifth of May, the Tartar reached Corinth, but found the
siege already raised. Thence he marched to Argos, sending before him a
requisition for bread. He was answered by the men of Argos that they had
no bread, but only powder and ball at his service. This threat, however,
proved a gasconade; the Kihaya advanced in three columns; cavalry
on each wing, and infantry in the centre; on which, after a single
discharge, the Argives fled. [Footnote: It has a sublime effect in the
record of this action to hear that the Argives were drawn up behind a
wall originally raised as a defence _against the deluge of Inachus_.]
Their general, fighting bravely, was killed, together with seven hundred
others, and fifteen hundred women captured. The Turks, having sacked
and burned Argos, then laid siege to a monastery, which surrendered upon
terms; and it is honorable to the memory of this Tartar general, that,
according to the testimony of Mr. Gordon, at a time when the war was
managed with merciless fury and continual perfidies on both sides, he
observed the terms with rigorous fidelity, treated all his captives with
the utmost humanity, and even liberated the women.
Thus far the tide had turned against the Greeks; but now came a decisive
reaction in their favor; and, as if forever to proclaim the folly
of despair, just at the very crisis when it was least to have
been expected, the Kihaya was at this point joined by the Turks of
Tripolizza, and was now reputed to be fourteen thousand strong. This
proved to be an exaggeration; but the subsequent battle is the more
honorable to those who believed it. At a council of war, in the Greek
camp, the prevailing opinion was that an action could not prudently be
risked. One man thought otherwise; this was Anagnostoras; he, by urging
the desolations which would follow a retreat, brought over the rest to
his opinion; and it was resolved to take up a position at Valtezza,
a village three hours' march from Tripolizza. Thither, on the
twenty-seventh of May, the Kihaya arrived with five thousand men, in
three columns, having left Tripolizza at dawn; and immediately raised
redoubts opposite to those of the Greeks, and placed three heavy pieces
of cannon in battery. He hoped to storm the position; but, if he should
fail, he had a reason for still anticipating a victory, and _that_ was
the situation of the fountains, which must soon have drawn the Greeks
out of their position, as they had water only for twenty-four hours'
consumption.
The battle commenced: and the first failure of the Kihaya was in the
cannonade; for his balls, passing over the Greeks, fell amongst a corps
of his own troops. These now made three assaults; but were repulsed in
all. Both sides kept up a fire till night; and each expected that his
enemy would retire in the darkness. The twenty-eighth, however, found
the two armies still in the same positions. The battle was renewed for
five hours; and then the Kihaya, finding his troops fatigued, and that
his retreat was likely to be intercepted by Nikitas (a brave partisan
officer bred to arms in the service of England), who was coming up by
forced marches from Argos with eight hundred men, gave the signal for
retreat. This soon became a total rout; the Kihaya lost his horse; and
the Greeks, besides taking two pieces of cannon, raised a trophy of four
hundred Moslem heads.
Such was the battle of Yaltezza, the inaugural performance of the
insurrection; and we have told it thus circumstantially, because
Mr. Gordon characterizes it as "remarkable for the moral effect it
produced;" and he does not scruple to add, that it "certainly decided
the campaign in Peloponnesus, _and perhaps even the fate of the
revolution_."
Three days after, that is, on the last day of May, 1821, followed the
victory of Doliana, in which the Kihaya, anxious to recover his lost
ground, was encountered by Nikitas. The circumstances were peculiarly
brilliant. For the Turkish general had between two and three thousand
men, besides artillery; whereas Nikitas at first sustained the attack in
thirteen barricaded houses, with no more than ninety-six soldiers,
and thirty armed peasants. After a resistance of eleven hours, he was
supported by seven hundred men; and in the end he defeated the Kihaya
with a very considerable loss.
These actions raised the enthusiasm of the Morea to a high point; and
in the mean time other parts of Greece had joined in the revolt. In the
first week of April an insurrection burst out in the eastern provinces
of Greece, Attica, Boeotia, and Phocis. The insurgents first appeared
near Livadia, one of the best cities in northern Greece. On the
thirteenth, they occupied Thebes without opposition. Immediately
after, Odysseus propagated the revolt in Phocis, where he had formerly
commanded as a lieutenant of Ali Pacha's. Next arose the Albanian
peasantry of Attica, gathering in armed bodies to the west of Athens.
Towards the end of April, the Turks, who composed one fifth of the
Athenian population (then rated at ten thousand), became greatly
agitated; and twice proposed a massacre of the Christians. This was
resisted by the humane Khadi; and the Turks, contenting themselves with
pillaging absent proprietors, began to lay up stores in the Acropolis.
With ultra Turkish stupidity, however, out of pure laziness, at this
critical moment, they confided the night duty on the ramparts of the
city to Greeks. The consequence may be supposed. On the eighth of May,
the Ottoman standard had been raised and blessed by an Tman. On the
following night, a rapid discharge of musketry, and the shouts of
_Christ has risen! Liberty! Liberty!_ proclaimed the capture of Athens.
Nearly two thousand peasants, generally armed with clubs, had scaled
the walls and forced the gates. The prisoners taken were treated with
humanity. But, unfortunately, this current of Christian sentiment was
immediately arrested by the conduct of the Turks in the Acropolis,
in killing nine hostages, and throwing over the walls some naked and
headless bodies.
The insurrection next spread to Thessaly; and at last even to Macedonia,
from the premature and atrocious violence of the Pacha of Salonika.
Apprehending a revolt, he himself drew it on, by cutting off the
heads of the Christian merchants and clergy (simply as a measure of
precaution), and enforcing his measures on the peasantry by military
execution. Unfortunately, from its extensive plains, this country is
peculiarly favorable to the evolutions of the Turkish cavalry; the
insurgents were, therefore, defeated in several actions; and ultimately
took refuge in great numbers amongst the convents on Mount Athos, which
also were driven into revolt by the severity of the Pacha. Here the
fugitives were safe from the sabres of their merciless pursuers; but,
unless succored by sea, ran a great risk of perishing by famine. But a
more important accession to the cause of independence, within one month
from its first outbreak in the Morea, occurred in the Islands of the
Archipelago. The three principal of these in modern times, are Hydra,
Spezzia, and Psarra. [Footnote: Their insignificance in ancient times is
proclaimed by the obscurity of their ancient names--Aperopia, Tiparenus,
and Psyra.] They had been colonized in the preceding century, by some
poor families from Peloponnesus and Ionia. At that time they had gained
a scanty subsistence as fishermen. Gradually they became merchants
and seamen. Being the best sailors in the Sultan's dominions, they had
obtained some valuable privileges, amongst which was that of exemption
from Turkish magistrates; so that, if they could not boast of
_autonomy_, they had at least the advantage of executing the bad laws
of Turkish imposition by chiefs of their own blood. And they had the
further advantage of paying but a moderate tribute to the Sultan.
So favored, their commerce had flourished beyond all precedent. And
latterly, when the vast extension of European warfare had created
first-rate markets for grain, selecting, of course, those which were
highest at the moment, they sometimes doubled their capitals in two
voyages; and seven or eight such trips in a year were not an unusual
instance of good fortune. What had been the result, may be collected
from the following description, which Mr. Gordon gives us, of Hydra:
"Built on a sterile rock, which does not offer, at any season, the least
trace of vegetation, it is one of the best cities in the Levant,
and _infinitely superior to any other in Greece_; the houses are all
constructed of white stone; and those of the aristocracy--erected at
an immense expense, floored with costly marbles, and splendidly
furnished--_might pass for palaces even in the capitals of Italy_.
Before the revolution, poverty was unknown; all classes being
comfortably lodged, clothed, and fed. Its inhabitants at this epoch
exceeded twenty thousand, of whom four thousand were able-bodied
seamen."
The other islands were, with few exceptions, arid rocks; and most of
them had the inestimable advantage of being unplagued with a Turkish
population. Enjoying that precious immunity, it may be wondered why they
should have entered into the revolt. But for this there were two
great reasons: they were ardent Christians in the first place, and
disinterested haters of Mahometanism on its own merits; secondly, as
the most powerful [Footnote: Mr. Gordon says that "they could, without
difficulty, fit out a hundred sail of ships, brigs, and schooners, armed
with from twelve to twenty-four guns each, and manned by seven thousand
stout and able sailors." Pouqueville ascribes to them, in 1813, a
force considerably greater. But the peace of Paris (one year after
Pouqueville's estimates) naturally reduced their power, as their
extraordinary gains were altogether dependent on war and naval
blockades.] nautical confederacy in the Levant, they anticipated a large
booty from captures at sea. In that expectation, at first, they were
not disappointed. But it was a source of wealth soon exhausted; for,
naturally, as soon as their ravages became known, the Mussulmans ceased
to navigate. Spezzia was the first to hoist the independent flag;
this was on the ninth of April, 1821. Psarra immediately followed her
example. Hydra hesitated, and at first even declined to do so; but,
at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto of
adherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron of
eleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having on
the mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting them
to rally round the national standard: an address that was received with
enthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago where the Turks were not
numerous enough to restrain popular feeling."
"The success of the Greek marine in this first expedition," says
Mr. Gordon, "was not confined to merely spreading the insurrection
throughout the Archipelago: a swarm of swift armed ships swept the sea
from the Hellespont to the waters of Crete and Cyprus; captured every
Ottoman trader they met with, and put to the sword, or flung overboard,
the Mahometan crews and passengers; for the contest already assumed a
character of terrible ferocity. It would be vain to deny that they were
guilty of shocking barbarities; at the little island of Castel Rosso, on
the Karamanian shore, they butchered, in cold blood, several beautiful
Turkish females; and a great number of defenceless pilgrims (mostly old
men), who, returning from Mecca, fell into their power, off Cyprus, were
slain without mercy, because they would not renounce their faith." Many
such cases of hideous barbarity had already occurred, and did afterwards
occur, on the mainland. But this is the eternal law and providential
retribution of oppression. The tyrant teaches to his slave the crimes
and the cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood; and the
ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reaction of his own
wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now was indeed
beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare: "one
spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts of men;
and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from the dreadful
_acharnement_ which marked the war on both sides,--the _acharnement_
of long-hoarded vengeance and maddening remembrances in the Grecian, of
towering disdain in the alarmed oppressor,--that, in very simplicity of
truth, "_Darkness would be the burier of the dead._"