Ibrahim at Krommydi with 2000 regular infantry, 400 cavalry and four guns. The Greek entrenchments were stormed at the point of the bayonet by Ibrahim’s fellahin at the first onset; the defenders broke and fled, leaving 600 dead on the field. The news of this disaster, and of the fall of Pylos and Navarino that followed, struck terror into the Greek government; and in answer to popular clamour Kolokotrones was taken from prison and placed at the head of the army. But the guerilla tactics of the wily klepht were powerless against Ibrahim, who marched northward, and, avoiding Nauplia for the present, seized Tripolitsa, and made this the base from which his columns marched to devastate the country far and wide.
Meanwhile from the north the Ottomans were making another supreme effort. The command of the army that was to operate in west Hellas had been given to Reshid “Kutahia,” pasha of Iannina, an able general and a man of determined character. On the 6th of April, after bribing the Albanian clansmen to neutrality, he passed the Reshid “Kutahia” besieges Missolonghi. defile of Makrynoros, which the Greeks had left undefended, and on the 7th of May opened the second siege of Missolonghi. For twelve months the population held out, repulsing the attacks of the enemy, refusing every offer of honourable capitulation. This resistance was rendered possible by the Greek command of the sea, Miaoulis from time to time entering the lagoons with supplies; it came to an end when this command was lost. In September 1825 Ibrahim, at the order of the sultan, had joined Reshid before the town; piecemeal the outlying forts and defences now fell, until the garrison, reduced by starvation and disease, determined to hazard all on a final sortie. This took place on the night of the 22nd of April 1826; but a mistaken order threw the ranks of the Greeks into disorder, and the Turks entered the town pell-mell with the retreating crowd. Only a remnant of the defenders succeeded in gaining the forests of Mount Zygos, where most of them perished.
The fall of Missolonghi, followed as this was by the submission of many of the more notable chiefs, left Reshid free to turn his attention to East Hellas, where Gouras had been ruling as a practically independent chief and in the spirit of a brigand. The peasants of the open country welcomed the Turks as deliverers, and Reshid’s conciliatory Karaiskakis. policy facilitated his march to Athens, which fell at the first assault on the 25th of August, siege being at once laid to the Acropolis, where Gouras and his troops had taken refuge. Round this the war now centred; for all recognized that its fall would involve that of the cause of Greece. In these straits the Greek government entrusted the supreme command of the troops to Karaiskakis, an old retainer of Ali of Iannina, a master of the art of guerilla war, and, above all, a man of dauntless courage and devoted patriotism. A first attempt to relieve the Acropolis, with the assistance of some disciplined troops under the French Colonel Fabvier, was defeated at Chaidari by the Turks. The garrison of the Acropolis was hard pressed, and the death of Gouras (October 13th) would have ended all, had not his heroic wife taken over the command and inspired the defenders with new courage. For months the siege dragged on, while Karaiskakis fought with varying success in the mountains, a final victory at Distomo (February 1827) over Omar Vrioni securing the restoration to the Greek cause of all continental Greece, except the towns actually held by the Turks.
It was at this juncture that the Greek government, reinforced
by a fresh loan from Europe, handed over the chief command
at sea to Lord Cochrane (earl of Dundonald, q.v.), and
that of the land forces to General (afterwards Sir
Richard) Church, both Miaoulis and Karaiskakis
consenting without demur to serve under them.
Cochrane and Church.
Cochrane and Church at once concentrated their energies on the
task of relieving the Acropolis. Already, on the 5th of February,
General Gordon had landed and entrenched himself on the hill
of Munychia, near the ancient Piraeus, and the efforts of the
Turks to dislodge him had failed, mainly owing to the fire of
the steamer “Karteria” commanded by Captain Hastings.
When Church and Cochrane arrived, a general assault on the
Ottoman camp was decided on. This was preceded, on the
25th of April, by an attack, headed by Cochrane, on the Turkish
troops established near the monastery of St Spiridion, the result
of which was to establish communications between the Greeks
at Munychia and Phalerum and isolate Reshid’s vanguard on
the promontory of the Piraeus. The monastery held out for
two days longer, when the Albanian garrison surrendered on
terms, but were massacred by the Greeks as they were marching
away under escort. For this miserable crime Church has, by
some historians, been held responsible by default; it is clear,
however, from his own account that no blame rests upon him
(see his MS. Narrative, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 34). The assault on
the Turkish main camp was fixed for the 6th of May; but,
unfortunately, a chance skirmish brought on an engagement
the day before, in the course of which Karaiskakis was killed,
an irreparable loss in view of his prestige with the wild armatoli.
The assault on the following day was a disastrous failure. The
Greek defeat
at Athens.
Greeks, advancing prematurely over broken ground
and in no sort of order, were fallen upon in flank by
Reshid’s horsemen, and fled in panic terror. The
English officers, who in vain tried to rally them,
themselves only just escaped by scrambling into their boats
and putting off to the war-vessels, whose guns checked the
pursuit and enabled a remnant of the fugitives to escape.
Church held Munychia till the 27th, when he sent instructions
for the garrison of the Acropolis to surrender. On the 5th of
June the remnant of the defenders marched out with the
honours of war, and continental Greece was once more in the
power of the Turks. Had Reshid at once advanced over the
Isthmus, the Morea also must have been subdued; but he
was jealous of Ibrahim, and preferred to return to Iannina to
consolidate his conquests.
The fate of Greece was now in the hands of the Powers, who after years of diplomatic wrangling had at last realized that intervention was necessary if Greece was to be saved for European civilization. The worst enemy of the Greeks was their own incurable spirit of faction; in the very crisis of their fate, during the siege of Missolonghi, rival Renewed anarchy. presidents and rival assemblies struggled for supremacy, and a third civil war had only been prevented by the arrival of Cochrane and Church. Under their influence a new National Assembly met at Troezene in March 1827 and elected as president Count Capo d’Istria (q.v.), formerly Russian minister for foreign affairs; at the same time a new constitution was promulgated which, when the very life of the insurrection seemed on the point of flickering out, set forth the full ideal of Pan-Hellenic dreams. Anarchy followed; war of Rumeliotes against Moreotes, of chief against chief; rival factions bombarded each other from the two forts at Nauplia over the stricken town, and in derision of the impotent government. Finally, after months of inaction, Ibrahim began once more his systematic devastation of the country. To put a stop to this the Powers decided to intervene by means of a joint demonstration of their fleets, in order to enforce an armistice and compel Ibrahim to evacuate the Morea (Treaty of London, July 6, 1827). The refusal of Ibrahim to obey, without special instruction from the sultan, led to the entrance of the allied British, French and Russian fleet into the harbour of Navarino and the battle of the 20th of October 1827 (see Navarino). This, and the two campaigns of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–29, decided the issue.
Authorities.—There is no trustworthy history of the war, based on all the material now available, and all the existing works must be read with caution, especially those by eye-witnesses, who were too often prejudiced or the dupes of the Greek factions. The best-known works are: G. Finlay, Hist. of the Greek Revolution (2 vols., London, 1861); T. Gordon, Hist. of the Greek Revolution (London, 1833); C. W. P. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Geschichte Griechenlands, &c. (Staatengeschichte der neuesten Zeit) (2 vols., Leipzig, 1870–1874); F. C. H. L. Pouqueville, Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce, &c. (4 vols., Paris, 1824),—the author was French resident at the court of Ali of Iannina and afterwards consul at Patras; Count A. Prokesch-Osten, Geschichte des Abfalls der Griechen vom türkischen Reich, &c. (6 vols., Vienna, 1867), the last four volumes consisting of pièces justificatives of much value. See also W. Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence (London and New York,
