The occupation of the Morea by the Venetians in the early part of the eighteenth century secured the Ionians from disturbance so long as the peace lasted; but when the Turks set about the re-conquest of the peninsula they became involved in that last struggle between Venice and Turkey. In 1715 the Turkish fleet took Kythera, the garrison of which refused to fight, and the Venetians blew up the costly fortifications of Santa Maura and removed the guns and garrison to Corfù, in order that they might not fall into the hands of their foes[267]. Alarmed at the successes of the Turks, but unable in the degenerate condition of the commonwealth to send a capable Venetian to defend the remaining islands, the government, on the recommendation of Prince Eugène, engaged Count John Matthias von der Schulenburg to undertake the defence. A German by birth, and a brother of the duchess of Kendal, mistress of our George I, Count von der Schulenburg did not owe his career, strange as it may seem to us, to social influence or female intrigue. Entering the Polish service, he had compelled the admiration of his opponent, Charles XII of Sweden, and had afterwards fought with distinction under the eyes of the duke of Marlborough at the siege of Tournai and in the battle of Malplaquet. Armed with the rank of field-marshal, he set out for Corfù, where he rapidly put the unfinished fortifications into as good a condition as was possible in the time, and paid a hurried visit to Zante for the same purpose. The approach of the Turks hastened his return, for it was now certain that their objective was Corfù. They had requisitioned the Epeirotes to make a wide road from Thessaly down to the coast opposite that island, traces of which were in existence half a century ago[268]. Along this road Kara Mustapha Pasha marched with 65,000 men, and effected a junction at Butrinto with the Turkish fleet under Janum Khoja. In the narrow strait at the north end of the island, opposite the shrine of the virgin at Kassopo, which had taken the place of the altar of Jupiter Cassius, before which Nero had danced, a division of the Venetian fleet engaged the Turkish ships and cut its way through them into Corfù. But this did not prevent the landing of 33,000 Turks at Govino and Ipso, who encamped along the Potamo and made themselves masters of the suburbs of Mandoukio and Kastrades, on either side of the town. Meanwhile Schulenburg had armed all the inhabitants, including even the Jews, and we are specially told that one of the latter distinguished himself so much as to merit the rank of a captain[269]. But he wrote that he was “in want of every thing,” and his motley garrison of Germans, Italians, Slavs, and Greeks was at no time more than 8000 men. Even women and priests aided in the defence, and one Greek monk, with a huge iron crucifix in his hands, was a conspicuous figure as he charged the besiegers, invoking the vengeance of God upon their heads.