A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year. Volume 2 (of 3)Emerson, Edwin
History
A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year. Volume 2 (of 3)
Emerson, Edwin
History, Modern -- 19th century
The Sultan had thrown his whole land force into the Greek mainland.
Khurshid, after his defeat of Ali Pasha, marched to Larissa, in Thessaly.
Thence two armies, 50,000 strong, under Bramali and Homer Brionis converged
upon the Morea. In the face of so formidable an invasion, Maurokordatos
took the field himself. He mismanaged things badly. At Arta he sacrificed
his choicest regiment, the famous corps of Philhellenes, composed of
foreign officers and commanded by men who had won distinction in Napoleon's
campaigns. They were cut down almost to a man. Maurokordatos fell back to
Missolonghi. In the meanwhile Dramalis with 25,000 foot and 6,000 horse
penetrated into the Morea. The Greek Government at Argos dispersed. All
would have been lost for the Greeks had Dramalis not neglected to cover the
mountain passes behind him. While he marched on to Nauplia, the Greek
mountaineers rose behind him. Demetrios Ypsilanti, the acting-president of
Greece, with a few hundred followers threw himself into Argos. There he
held the Acropolis against the Turkish rearguard. Kolokotrones, calling out
the last men from Tripolitza, relieved Ypsilanti at Argos. The mountain
passage was seized. Dramalis had to give up his conquest of the Morea, and
fight his way back to the Isthmus of Corinth. Without supplies and harassed
by hostile peasant forces the Turkish army became badly demoralized.
Thousands were lost on the way. Dramalis himself died from over-exposure.
The remainder of his army melted away at Corinth under the combined effects
of sickness and drought.
[Sidenote: Capodistrias resigns]
A decisive turn in the Greek war for independence was reached. Europe
realized that the revolt had grown to the proportions of a national war.
Popular sympathy in Russia became more clamorous. Capodistrias, the Russian
Prime Minister, rightly measured the force of this long pent-up feeling.
Unable to move the Czar, who still floundered in the toils of the Holy
Alliance, Capodistrias withdrew from public affairs and retired to Geneva.
[Sidenote: Suicide of Castlereagh]
[Sidenote: Canning]
[Sidenote: Iturbide Emperor of Mexico]
[Sidenote: Battle of Pichincha]
[Sidenote: San Martin retires]
[Sidenote: Battle of Junin]
[Sidenote: Ayacucho]
[Sidenote: Independence of Brazil]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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