Siege of Tripolitsa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Siege of Tripolitsa | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Greek War of Independence | |||||||
 |
|||||||
|
|||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
.svg){kind=small} Greek revolutionaries |
.svg){kind=small} Ottoman Empire |
||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Theodoros Kolokotronis |
Kehaya Bey Mustafa | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| About 10,000 - 15,000 troops | 8,000 Turkish soldiers (plus 3,000 Albanian troops) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 100 according to Theodoros Kolokotronis | Over 30,000 (including civilians) | ||||||
|
|||||
The Siege of Tripolitsa or the Fall of Tripolitsa (Greek: Άλωση της Τριπολιτσάς) to Greek rebels in the summer of 1821 marked one of the first victories in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, which had begun earlier in that year. It is notable for the massacre of its Turkish and Jewish population, which occurred after the city's fall to the Greeks. As historian Alison Phillips noted that: "The other atrocities of Greeks, however, paled before the awful scenes which followed the storming of Tripolitza".[1]
Contents |
[edit] Background
Tripolitsa (also Tripolitza and Tripolizza), now Tripoli, was the administrative centre for Ottoman rule in the Peloponnese, making it an important target for the Greek revolutionaries who wished to capture the place in order to avenge the Greek population of the city, which, was massacred from the Ottomans a few months earlier, after the failed rebellion at Moldavia.
Situated in the middle of Peloponnese, Tripolitsa was the biggest town in southern Greece. Many rich Turks and Jews lived there, together with other Ottomans who had taken refuge there at the outbreak of the Revolution, escaping from massacres in the country's southern districts.[2]
The rebels' decisive victory in the Battle of Valtetsi, plus other victorious clashes in Doliana and Vervaina, meant that the Greek revolutionaries had the effective control over the majority of the areas in the Central and Southern Peloponnese.
Being aware of this, Theodoros Kolokotronis had in mind to strengthen his prior achievements. Immediately, he started to set up fortified camps in the surrounding places, establishing several headquarters under the command of his captain Anagnostaras in the nearby villages, notably Zarachova, Piana, Dimitsana and Stemnitsa where local peasants provided his men with food and supplies.[3]
Plus, a new, fresh, and compact force of Maniot troops under Petros Mavromichalis, the de facto Bey of Mani, arrived and camped at Valtetsi so as to take part in the final assault to the Ottoman capital of Morea.[4]
In the Turk-Albanian garrison, morale was already low before it received word about the Greek rebels having captured Ottoman fortifications in Corinth and Argos. The news significantly reduced the garrison's hope for a miraculous arrival of Hursid Pasha's reinforcements from the north and for Kehayabey Mustafa's skillful cavalry along with his experienced though exhausted infantry troops.
[edit] Siege
Although the siege had been going on for several months, its progress was slow as the Greeks were unable to maintain a continuous blockade and were often scattered by sorties of Turkish cavalry.[5] Even though conditions were worsening inside the walls because of the lack of food and clear water.
Taking advantage of this, Kolokotronis began to negotiate with the Turks for a capitulation. He wisely convinced the Albanians to make a separate agreement and to be allowed to leave to Argos, thus greatly reducing the strength of the defenders. The deal was guaranteed by Dimitrios Plapoutas, the famous Koliopoulos of Arvanite stock, giving some 2500 Turk-Albanians a safe passage out of the Peloponnese.[6]
Greek leaders were constantly in contact with the Turks for negotiations. The successive demands of the remaining Ottoman defenders for a truce were in the end considered by the besiegers as a trick from the besieged in order to delay the events for a hopeless arrival of Ottoman reinforcements. This developed that on September 23 the Greek army broke in by a blind spot in the walls and the town was completely overrun.[7]
The days that followed, the whole non-Christian population of the City of Tripolis was completely butchered. Only the women of the harem were saved, and Kolokotronis' effort to set order was useless. The rebels were fully committed to revengefully massacre every infidel and the looting of the Turkish and Jewish properties was total. Greek sources point out that only one Greek commander, the brave Nikitaras, whose nom de guerre was coincidentally Turkofagos (Turk-eater), refused to take part in those shameful atrocities.[8]
[edit] Massacre of civilians
Describing the massacres that occurred following the capture of Tripolitsa, Alison Phillips noted that:
"For three days the miserable inhabitants were given over to lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared. Women and children were tortured before being put to death. So great was the slaughter that Kolokotronis himself says that, from the gate to the citadel his horse’s hoofs never touched the ground. His path of triumph was carpeted with corpses. At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of the Mussulmans were deliberately collected, to the number of some two thousand souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighboring mountains and there butchered like cattle." [9]
There were about a hundred European officers who were present at the scenes of atrocities committed in Tripolitsa. Based on the eye witness accounts and descriptions provided by these officers, William St. Clair wrote:
"Upwards of ten thousand Turks were put to death. Prisoners who were suspected of having concealed their money were tortured. Their arms and legs were cut off and they were slowly roasted over fires. Pregnant women were cut open, their heads cut off, and dogs' heads stuck between their legs. From Friday to Sunday the air was filled with the sound of screams... One Greek boasted that he personally killed ninety people. The Jewish colony was systematically tortured... For weeks afterwards starving Turkish children running helplessly about the ruins were being cut down and shot at by exultant Greeks... The wells were poisoned by the bodies that had been thrown in..."[5]
Up to 30,000 Turks were killed in Tripolitsa and the whole Jewish population was wiped out.[10]
[edit] Aftermath
The capture of the city of Tripolis had a tremendous effect in the morale of the rebel troops so as to pursue their main objective of getting rid of the 400-year Ottoman yoke. In fact, after this decisive action, Greeks saw that their way towards self government of a country of their own was becoming possible since the whole Peloponnese became virtually liberated.
On the other hand, it also marked the first strong spot of disunion in a prior apparent cohesive force. The atrocities committed during the siege were at the moment strongly opposed and criticized by figures of the Greek War of Independence such as Dimitrios Ypsilantis[4] and Alexandros Mavrokordatos,[11] thus pointing the beginning of different perspectives between the Peloponessian chieftains (military faction) and the intellectual mentors of the uprising (political faction), that would develop in an internal conflict and later civil wars, within the same struggle for independence.
[edit] References
[edit] Sources
- William St. Clair. That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. ISBN 0192151940
- Phillips, Alison W. The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833. London, 1897.
- Kolokotronis, Theodoros. Memoirs. Ekdosis Vergina. Athens, 2002.
- Stratiki Poti. To Athanato 1821. Ekdosis Stratiki Bros. Athens, 1990
- Diamantouros, Nikiforos. The beginning of the constitution of the modern state of Greece. Athens, 2002.
