Part 8 (1/2)

Here was an insult which could not be forgiven: Ali Pacha was declared a rebel and a traitor; and solemnly excommunicated by the head of the Mussulman law. The Pachas of Europe received orders to march against him; and a squadron was fitted out to attack him by sea.

In March, 1820, Ali became acquainted with these strong measures; which at first he endeavored to parry by artifice and bribery. But, finding _that_ mode of proceeding absolutely without hope, he took the bold resolution of throwing himself, in utter defiance, upon the native energies of his own ferocious heart. Having, however, but small reliance on his Mahometan troops in a crisis of this magnitude, he applied for Christian succors, and set himself to _court_ the Christians generally. As a first step, he restored the Armatoles--that very body whose suppression had been so favorite a measure of his policy, and pursued so long, so earnestly, and so injuriously to his credit amongst the Christian part of the population. It happened, at the first opening of the campaign, that the Christians were equally courted by the Sultan's generalissimo, Solyman, the Pacha of Thessaly.

For this, however, that Pacha was removed and decapitated; and a new leader was now appointed in the person of that very enemy, Ismael Pasho, whose attempted murder had brought the present storm upon Ali.

Ismael was raised to the rank of Serasker (or generalissimo), and was also made Pacha of Yannina and Del vino. Three other armies, besides a fleet under the Captain Bey, advanced upon Ali's territories simultaneously from different quarters. But at that time, in defiance of these formidable and overwhelming preparations, bets were strongly in Ali's favor amongst all who were acquainted with his resources: for he had vast treasures, fortresses of great strength, inexhaustible supplies of artillery and ammunition, a country almost inaccessible, and fifteen thousand light troops, whom Mr. Gordon, upon personal knowledge, p.r.o.nounces ”excellent.”

Scarcely had the war commenced, when Ali was abandoned by almost the whole of his partisans, in mere hatred of his execrable cruelty and tyrannical government. To Ali, however, this defection brought no despondency; and with unabated courage he prepared to defend himself to the last, in three castles, with a garrison of three thousand men. That he might do so with entire effect, he began by destroying his own capital of Yannina, lest it should afford shelter to the enemy. Still his situation would have been most critical, but for the state of affairs in the enemy's camp. The Serasker was attended by more than twenty other Pashas. But they were all at enmity with each other. One of them, and the bravest, was even poisoned by the Serasker. Provisions were running short, in consequence of their own dissensions. Winter was fast approaching; the cannonading had produced no conspicuous effect; and the soldiers were disbanding. In this situation, the Sultan's lieutenants again saw the necessity of courting aid from the Christian population of the country. Ali, on his part, never scrupled to bid against them at any price; and at length, irritated by the ill-usage of the Turks on their first entrance, and disgusted with the obvious insincerity of their reluctant and momentary kindness, some of the bravest Christian tribes (especially the celebrated Suliotes) consented to take Ali's bribes, forgot his past outrages and unnumbered perfidies, and, reading his sincerity in the extremity of his peril, these bravest of the brave ranged themselves amongst the Sultan's enemies. During the winter they gained some splendid successes; other alienated friends came back to Ali; and even some Mahometan Beys were persuaded to take up arms in his behalf. Upon the whole, the Turkish Divan was very seriously alarmed; and so much so, that it superseded the Serasker Ismael, replacing him with the famous Kours.h.i.+d Pacha, at that time viceroy of the Morea. And so ended the year 1820.

This state of affairs could not escape the attention of the vigilant Hetaeria. Here was Ali Pacha, hitherto regarded as an insurmountable obstacle in their path, absolutely compelled by circ.u.mstances to be their warmest friend. The Turks again, whom no circ.u.mstances could entirely disarm, were yet crippled for the time, and their whole attention preoccupied by another enemy, most alarming to their policy, and most tempting to their cupidity. Such an opportunity it seemed unpardonable to neglect. Accordingly, it was resolved to begin the insurrection. At its head was placed Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, a son of that Hospodar of Wallachia whose deposition by the Porte had produced the Russian war of 1806. This prince's qualifications consisted in his high birth, in his connection with Russia (for he had risen to the rank of major-general in that service), and, finally (if such things can deserve a mention), in an agreeable person and manners.

For all other and higher qualifications he was wholly below the situation and the urgency of the crisis. His first error was in the choice of his ground. For some reasons, which are not sufficiently explained,--possibly on account of his family connection with those provinces,--he chose to open the war in Moldavia and Wallachia. This resolution he took in spite of every warning, and the most intelligent expositions of the absolute necessity that, to be at all effectual, the first stand should be made in Greece. He thought otherwise; and, managing the campaign after his own ideas, he speedily involved himself in quarrels, and his army, through the perfidy of a considerable officer, in ruinous embarra.s.sments. This unhappy campaign is circ.u.mstantially narrated by Mr. Gordon in his first book; but, as it never crossed the Danube, and had no connection with Greece except by its purposes, we shall simply rehea.r.s.e the great outline of its course.

The signal for insurrection was given in January, 1821; and Prince Ypsilanti took the field, by crossing the Pruth in March. Early in April he received a communication from the Emperor of Russia, which at once prostrated his hopes before an enemy was seen. He was formally disavowed by that prince, erased from his army-list, and severely reproached for his ”_folly and ingrat.i.tude_,” in letters from two members of the Russian cabinet; and on the 9th of April this fact was publicly notified in Ya.s.sy, the capital of Moldavia, by the Russian consul-general. His army at this time consisted of three thousand men, which, however, was afterwards reinforced, but with no gunpowder except what was casually intercepted, and no lead except some that had been stripped from the roof of an ancient cathedral. On the 12th of May the Pacha of Ibrail opened the campaign. A few days after, the Turkish troops began to appear in considerable force; and on the 8th of June an alarm was suddenly given ”that the white turbans were upon them.” In the engagement which followed, the insurgent army gave way; and, though their loss was much smaller than that of the Turks, yet, from the many blunders committed, the consequences were disastrous; and, had the Turks pursued, there would on that day have been an end of the insurrection. But far worse and more decisive was the subsequent disaster of the 17th. Ypsilanti had been again reinforced; and his advanced guard had surprised a Turkish detachment of cavalry in such a situation that their escape seemed impossible. Yet all was ruined by one officer of rank, who got drunk, and advanced with an air of bravado--followed, on a principle of honor, by a sacred battalion [_hieros lochos_], composed of five hundred Greek volunteers, of birth and education, the very _elite_ of the insurgent infantry.

The Turks gave themselves up for lost; but, happening to observe that this drunkard seemed unsupported by other parts of the army, they suddenly mounted, came down upon the n.o.ble young volunteers before they could even form in square; and nearly the whole, disdaining to fly, were cut to pieces on the ground. An officer of rank, and a brave man, appalled by this hideous disaster, the affair of a few moments, rode up to the spot, and did all he could to repair it. But the cowardly drunkard had fled at the first onset, with all his Arnauts; panic spread rapidly; and the whole force of five thousand men fled before eight hundred Turks, leaving four hundred men dead on the field, of whom three hundred and fifty belonged to the sacred battalion.

The Turks, occupied with gathering a trophy of heads, neglected to 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 languis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sociates; 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 a.s.surance 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. Kours.h.i.+d 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 Kours.h.i.+d; 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 Kours.h.i.+d'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 Ha.s.san 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 a.s.sailing 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 Kours.h.i.+d, 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 Kours.h.i.+d; and the winter of 1821-2 pa.s.sed away without further disturbance in Epirus.

Meantime, during the absence of Kours.h.i.+d Pacha from the Morea, the opportunity had not been lost for raising the insurrection in that important part of Greece. Kours.h.i.+d had marched early in January, 1821; and already in February symptoms of the coming troubles appeared at Patra.s.s, ”the most flouris.h.i.+ng 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 Patra.s.s 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 Patra.s.s. The town having been set on fire, ”the Turkish castle threw shot and sh.e.l.ls at random; the two parties fought amongst the ruins, and ma.s.sacred each other without mercy; the only prisoners that were spared owed their lives to fanaticism; some Christian youths being circ.u.mcised 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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, a.s.serts 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Patra.s.s. Yussuf Pacha, having been detached from Epirus to Eub?a by the Scrasker, heard on his route of the insurrection in Peloponnesus. Upon which, altering his course, he sailed to Patra.s.s, 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 b.a.l.l.s, pa.s.sing over the Greeks, fell amongst a corps of his own troops. These now made three a.s.saults; 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 circ.u.mstantially, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ma.s.sacre 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.