Chapter 7: Men of War
Destruction of the Nasuh, Flagship of Kara Ali
Following the disastrous Dramali Campaign and the meandering mess that was Vrioni’s siege of Missolonghi the Ottomans withdrew to their winter quarters in Epirus and Thessaly. Outside of the routine supply ship circumventing the Morea and the random border skirmish, the coming thaw of Spring in 1823 saw little movement on the part of the Porte. This inaction was a result of a plethora of issues plaguing the Ottoman military at the time, the most prominent being the dearth of available commanders for Sultan Mehmed to choose from. In the past six months alone, the Ottomans had lost three of their top commanders and a plethora of junior officers both on land and at sea, with the most serious loss being that of the Kapudan Pasha.
The Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Navy, Kara Ali, had been directed by his Sultan to lead a punitive expedition against the Greek island of Chios. The inhabitants of the island had been accused of harboring dissidents and supplying the rebels on the mainland and for this they would be dealt with harshly. In truth though, the Chians had been an unwilling partner of the rebellion despite the prodding and plotting of their Samos countrymen who attacked Ottoman ships from the neutral harbors of Chios. This difference mattered little to the Turkish soldiers who gathered across the straits in Cesme waiting to attack. Chios as an important center of trade in the Aegean had become one of the richest possessions of the Ottoman Empire. It was said that at its height in the 18th Century, that even the poorest Chian lived a life of luxury. As such it proved to be an enticing target for many men seeking the spoils of war. Unable to prevent their crossing when Kara Ali’s fleet arrived, the Samiots fled leaving Chios to its fate.
Initially, the Ottomans treated the fearful Chians fairly, only punishing those that actively stood against them. However, this quickly changed in the coming days. Soon the Chians were being massacred in the streets and in the hills, even those who had sought the protection of the church were slaughtered. Over the next several weeks, the Ottomans subjected the Chians to every brutality known to man and when they were through, the once prosperous island of Chios, home to over 120,000 people, had been decimated. Over 90,000 Greeks lay dead, and the remainder were enslaved or forced into exile.
The brutality of the Chian Massacre was in large part due to the death of Kara Ali at the hands of the Greeks. While docked off the coast of Chios on the 7th of June 1822, a fleet of Greek fire ships descended upon the Ottoman armada in the dead of night with the Greek commander, Constantine Kanaris of Psara, singling out the Kapudan Pasha’s ship for destruction. The nimbler Greek vessels managed to tie themselves alongside the Kapudan’s flagship before setting it ablaze. In the mayhem that followed, Kara Ali was killed while attempting to escape when a piece of burning rigging fell atop him. His men in their anger took their revenge against the people of Chios who were made scapegoats for the death of their leader, while Kanaris and his men escaped back to the safety of Free Greece.
The loss of the Kapudan Pasha was soon followed by the Sultan’s own Serasker, Khursid Pasha. Khursid’s rapid rise to power in the Empire had earned him many allies but also many enemies, enemies which now made their move following the failures of the 1822 campaigns. Turning the Sultan’s ear against him, these vipers indicted Khursid with allegations of corruption and the theft of Ali Pasha of Ioannina’s treasure, treasure which rightfully belonged to the Sultan.
[1] Despite pleas of his innocence, Mahmud was convinced by Khursid’s foes and ordered his arrest. For Khursid Pasha, this would mean his likely death, either at the Sultan’s command or those of his many rival’s. Choosing suicide over dishonor, the Serasker took his own life by ingesting poison rather than face the ire of the Sultan or the blade of an assassin.
Dramali Pasha would himself meet with an unfortunate end as well, joining his hated superior in the afterlife.
[2] Following his craven flight from Dervenakia, Dramali Pasha reentered Corinth a broken man. His pride in tatters, his reputation in tatters, and his army in tatters; his health soon began to fail him too. When a strain of typhus broke out within his camp, Dramali Pasha who was already in failing health succumbed to the disease in the waning days of December 1822.
While Sultan Mehmed would eventually replace all three men, the loss in experience was still a bitter blow to the Ottoman war effort. Kara Ali, Khursid Pasha, and Dramali Pasha represented three of the most senior military men in the Ottoman Empire with over 60 years of combined military and administrative experience between them. The loss was felt most prominently in the Ottoman Navy, which was already dangerously lacking in skilled sailors following the defection of the Greek sailors and junior officers at the beginning of the war.
[3] Kara Ali’s successor as Kapudan Pasha, Kara Mehmet, had proven to be an incompetent naval commander losing first at Nafplion and again at Tenedos in late November before he was ultimately relieved of his post.
On land, the loss of Dramali and Khursid, while certainly painful, was more easily surmounted than the loss of Kara Ali. The real concern on land was in terms of manpower available. In terms of sheer size, the armies of the Porte could easily surpass the paltry sum of men opposing them, provided they could bring their full might to bare. Unfortunately for Sultan Mahmud II, other theaters took priority over the war in Greece, preventing the deployment of his entire army to the region.
To the East, Persia invaded Eastern Anatolia in retaliation for Ottoman sponsored raids by the Azeris. The war, while limited in scope and scale, occupied the attention of the vast Asian armies drawing them south and east. To the North was the Russian Empire, whose constant threats of intervention and ill will towards the Porte drew additional men to the border. Despite the Porte’s recent attempts to placate the Russian Bear, they remained angered by the execution of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the occupation of the Danubian Principalities. Finally, across the Balkans, men were needed to quell the rebellions of the Serbs and Danubians. While defeated, the Serbs and Danubians still proved to be a rebellious bunch, requiring constant oversight to prevent another insurrection.
The Persian Army invades Anatolia
While only a small fraction of the Ottoman Army was available to reconquer Greece, this fraction was still many times larger than the number assembled by the Greeks.
[4] These armies were augmented further by large numbers of Albanian mercenaries, who despite their high prices, proved to be adequate fighters. However, the Ottoman armies of Sultan Mahmud II were not the armies of Sultan Mehmet II. While they possessed quantity, they lacked in quality. Over the years, the discipline of the Ottoman army had been allowed to deteriorate over time. Units would often attack irregularly and without precision. Officers frequently ignored their commander’s orders owing to competition and rivalries. The morale of the Ottoman Army had also plummeted over the past century as decades of corruption and defeat on the field of battle gradually took their toll. Their weaponry, while leaps and bounds above that of the Greeks, was still largely outdated in comparison to most Western European militaries. Nowhere was this decay of military tradition more evident than in the Janissary Corps.
Once the pride of the Ottoman Army, by the beginning of the 19th Century the Janissaries were the epitome of everything wrong with it. Bloated by corruption and malpractice, they had devolved from a disciplined fighting force renowned for its prowess to a pathetic batch of rabble rousers and malcontents renowned for killing their leaders. They were self-indulgent, vain, lazy, and even craven to an extent. When previous sultans attempted to rectify the growing decadence of the Janissaries, they were swiftly removed from power by their so-called servants, usually meeting an unfortunate end with a blade in the back or a bowstring around the neck. With the offending Sultan removed from power, the Janissaries would install a more compliant Sultan to the throne before returning to their decadent ways.
Mahmud II had himself come to power through the machinations of the Janissaries when they killed his cousin Selim III and removed his Mustafa IV from the throne. By the start of the Greek rebellion, the Janissaries openly refused to even muster for the war, choosing to remain in their lavish barracks in Constantinople rather than fight in an arduous war.
[5] As such, Mahmud had come to despise them for their interference into his affairs and their constant resistance to reform, reform which he believed was becoming increasingly necessary for the Empire.
The Greeks on the other hand possessed many of the same problems as the Ottomans. Their leaders suffered from the same rivals and bickering that plagued the Turks. Their manpower was constantly an issue as the vast majority of their fighters were irregulars that disappeared following a battle. Most bands acted autonomously in complete disregard of orders from on high. Weaponry also proved to be a thorny issue as many Greeks carried antiquated muskets, and rifles were a rarity in Greece. It was more likely for a Moreot to enter battle carrying a sword than a gun in the first year of the war and it had improved only marginally over the second. Cavalry and artillery units were non-existent outside of a few rare cases What they lacked in numbers and equipment, though they made up for in morale and fighting prowess.
Most Greeks though were proficient in the art of war, with many having served overseas in the Napoleonic wars for various states. Theodoros Kolokotronis had served in the British Army as a Major in the Greek Light Infantry Regiment, formed in the Ionian Islands. Demetrios Ypsilantis had served in the Russian army, albeit as a general staff officer, and various other exiles and diaspora Greeks had fought across Europe as soldiers or sailors on both sides of the war. Those that remained in Greece before the war generally made their way as klephts or armatolis, brigands and bodyguards. The Greeks were also extremely proficient in sailing and naval warfare thanks in large part to the islanders and their vast merchant fleets. While their small merchantmen paled in comparison to the mighty Ships of the Line of the Ottoman Fleet, their captains could deftly maneuver their nimbler vessels through the narrow seas and straits of the Aegean where their Ottoman counterparts could not follow. By far though, the biggest advantage the Greeks held over their Ottoman adversaries was foreign support.
Over the first year of the war alone, nearly 500 foreign volunteers arrived in Greece to aid the rebels in their quest for independence. They came from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Hungary, Poland, and even the Americas. These volunteers or Philhellenes were from all walks of life but many were veterans of the Napoleonic wars with years of experience fighting in the modern art of war. They came to Greece to fight, to lead, and to inspire, and while their efforts to instill their tactics and strategy into the Greeks were largely unsuccessful early on, their own martial prowess greatly surpassed both Greek and Ottoman alike. Unfortunately, the Massacre at Peta would do much to dampen the spirits of Philhellenes across the world. What had once been a flood of foreign support gradually dried up over the following months. While foreigners would continue to enlist in Greek units and donate supplies, money, and weapons, they would not reach the same level as before Peta.
Fortunately for the Greeks the Ottomans were themselves going through a period of reorganization over the Winter and Spring of 1823. With one army decimated, and another of questionable capability, Sultan Mahmud II was forced to call upon the services of his most fearsome, and rebellious, vassal, Muhammed Ali Pasha, Khedive of Egypt. While negotiations over his support would last well into the year, by Summer, the Ottomans were once again ready to strike against the traitorous Greeks. It is fortunate then that the Greeks during this brief respite had done some reforms of their own both militarily and politically, for soon their efforts would be put to the test once more.
The List of Philhellenes who volunteered in the War of Independence,
Located at the National Museum of History in Athens.
Next Time: The Assembly of Nafplion
[1] Khursid Pasha had been responsible for defeating Ali Pasha of Ioannina in 1821 and seized his vast treasure for the Sultan. The amount he gave was a sum of 40,000,000 Piastres, but Mahmud’s ministers reported Ali Pasha’s wealth at 500,000,000 Piastres, a sum worth roughly 25,000,000 Pounds Sterling at the time or nearly 2 billion Pounds in today's money. These charges of corruption combined with the failure of his subordinates ruined Khursid’s reputation allowing his opponents to pounce.
[2] Allegedly, Dramali Pasha, being a distant relative of Sultan Mehmed, considered himself superior to Khursid Pasha and had every intent on surpassing him. This in part explains his hubris and overconfidence during his Morea Campaign in 1822 which was his attempt at stealing all the glory for himself.
[3] Prior to the war, the Ottoman navy was almost entirely manned by Greek sailors, with Turkish officers in command of the ships themselves. When the war began these sailors defected to the Greek side, effectively leaving the Ottomans without any real experienced crews to operate their ships. This enabled the Greeks to gain control of the Aegean Sea for the first few years of the war in OTL while the Ottomans refilled their ranks.
[4] The numbers for the total strength of the Greeks is hard to come by as I don’t have any confirmed figures. During the later stages of the war in OTL, the Greek Government attempted to instate conscription across Greece and the sum of men they came to was around 30,000 over three years. This never actually came to fruition so its not extremely reliable, still it is a starting point.
[5] Though not confirmed, it is believed that the Janissaries set fire to the arsenal at Tophana on the Asian side of the Bosporus strait in Constantinople. The entire stockpile of ammunition, cannons, and guns were destroyed along with 50 mosques and thousands of houses. The event was officially blamed on the Greeks but likely the Janissaries were probably responsible for the fire.
The next part will probably be a little on the long side as well but it will be going over a very important event in the war with some important changes from OTL, so I hope you can bear with me on it.
