Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence (49 page)

These various kinds of
kapáki
were common in Roumeli north of the Gulf of Corinth but virtually unknown in the Peloponnese, for a number of reasons. Turkish forces were far more active in Roumeli from their bases in Árta, Iánnina, Tríkala and Lárisa, whereas in the Peloponnese they were confined to a few coastal strongholds until the invasion from Egypt in 1825. Also loyalties in Roumeli were more fluid because of the involvement of Albanians, who might be fighting on either side and who had often been colleagues of Greek captains under Ali Pasha. Finally, the Peloponnese had one pre-eminent military leader in Kolokotrónis, as Roumeli did not, and from the start Kolokotrónis did not hesitate to use force to compel loyalty, telling his son Pános ‘to burn the houses of those who did not rise’.
¹²

In late 1823 Stournáris, with Karaïskákis and other captains, withdrew to Mesolongi, since the Turks had ended their agreements by marching south through their territories on the way to a brief and unsuccessful siege of Mesolongi. Kasomoúlis went with them, and before he left had learned of the fate of his family. His father had fought at Náousa and had killed eighteen Turks but had been severely wounded. A Turkish bey who had been his friend looked after him, but he died some hours later. ‘I could not hold back my tears’, wrote Kasomoúlis, ‘at the loss of such a noble and patriotic father.’
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The bey also kept the Kasomoúlis family in his care, against the demands of other Turks, offering to release them for ransom, which Kasomoúlis tried unsuccessfully to raise. One of his brothers, Mítros, managed to escape, went to Serbia and then Austria, and eventually rejoined the Greek cause.

At the end of November 1823 Kasomoúlis with Stournáris reached Mesolongi, and they were there during Byron’s few months in the town in early 1824. Kasomoúlis refers only in passing to Byron’s arrival, his attempts to control the Souliots and lead them in an attack on Návpaktos, and his illness, which made them fear for his life, but does not mention Byron’s death and funeral ceremonies. Kasomoúlis was much more concerned with the new dissensions among the Greeks that he found in Mesolongi.

The governor of Mesolongi was Alexander Mavrokordhátos, who also held the post at that time of president of the Senate in the national government. Mavrokordhátos’ continuing aim was to form a regular army, controlled and, crucially, paid by the national government, to replace the diverse irregular bands loyal only to their captains. Two methods in
combination might achieve this. One was for Mavrokordhátos to keep the distribution of government money in his own hands, and the other was to make life difficult for any captain who came to an arrangement with the Turks.

Mavrokordhátos’ stratagem of control by cash did not go smoothly. He was accused of channelling money to his favourites, and of giving money to new captains and not to the established ones as the government’s military regulations required. On their side the captains cheated on numbers: ‘Troops were counted in one band today and in another tomorrow, and you never found a soldier’s name on the same captain’s list for two days running.’
¹⁴
Stournáris included in his lists men who were back in his home region of Aspropótamos. In any case the captains had their own sources of wealth, and though they competed fiercely for government money they were not wholly dependent upon it.

Eventually in December 1823 a commission of inquiry was set up to require Mavrokordhátos to submit accounts of the money he had received and how he had spent it. The commission was made up of five captains and five politicians, with Kasomoúlis as one of the official observers. At its first sitting there were violent disagreements, but the second sitting on the following day was calmer. Mavrokordhátos was called on to explain his handling of the money, but blandly answered that he had spent it all to serve the needs of the nation, and in any case that this was a matter for the national government and he would report only to them. Under pressure, which at one point reduced him to tears, Mavrokordhátos gave an outline of what he had received from the government, from Byron and from other sources, but would say nothing about how he had spent it, and his interrogators had to be content with that. As Kasomoúlis summarised it, ‘The commission began in discord and ended without a result.’
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The other part of Mavrokordhátos’ plan to control the captains was to discredit any who made agreements with the Turks. Many had done so, including supporters of Mavrokordhátos, but he made an example of Karaïskákis, as one of the most conspicuous captains, by putting him on trial for treason in April 1824. Five judges were appointed, and five prosecutors, including Stournáris, while Karaïskákis was left to speak for himself. There were thirteen charges against Karaïskákis. Three accused him of errors of omission in failing to stop Turkish attacks. Two concerned errors of commission in actively attacking Greek forces. The remaining eight related to arrangements with the Turks, such as secret communications, promising them his support and asking them to
endorse his captaincy of the Ágrapha region. Three of the charges carried the death penalty.
¹⁶

The first session of the court was held in the church of the Panayía, presided over by the bishop, even though he was one of the prosecutors. The public was excluded, and guards were placed at the doors. Karaïskákis, fearing assassination, entered with pistols and a row of cartridges in his belt. In spite of the seriousness of the occasion Karaïskákis lightened it with a characteristically earthy joke, ‘You’re 50 years old,’ said one of his accusers, ‘and you’re still in the habit of talking too much.’ ‘You’re 80,’ replied Karaïskákis, ‘and there’s a habit you and your wife still have.’
¹⁷
Everyone laughed. Stournáris said ‘We must hear what he has to say,’ and received a grateful look from Karaïskákis.

The second and last day of the trial was held in open session in the house of one of the prosecutors, which was packed with Karaïskákis’ supporters. One of them probably saved him from the death penalty with his address to the court. ‘Fellow soldiers,’ he said in a commanding voice, ‘I see that you unjustly want to bathe your hands in the blood of the blameless Karaïskákis after these false allegations. If you condemn him to death his innocent blood will be on your heads and on your children’s.’
¹⁸
Nevertheless Karaïskákis was found guilty, stripped of all his titles and condemned to exile as a traitor. All were forbidden to support or help him. The judgement was softened only by the concession that if he returned to true belief (
ta christianiká
) and support of his country he would be welcomed back. A summary of the decision was printed and posted on walls around the town.

As a result of the inquiry at the end of 1823 into Mavrokordhats’ handling of money and the trial of Karaïskákis in April 1824, two distinct factions had formed in Mesolongi: the supporters and the opponents of Mavrokordhátos. But the national government based in Navplion was now embroiled in the civil war that convulsed the Peloponnese from the end of 1823 to early 1825. Mavrokordhátos was recalled to Navplion to take up his new post as general secretary of the Executive. The government also called for the armed support of the Roumeli captains in the civil strife, and many answered the call, including Stournáris. Kasomoúlis joined Stournáris in Navplion, after a tearful parting from Photinís. Karaïskákis after his trial had been driven back to his region of Ágrapha by forces loyal to Mavrokordhátos, but he too led a body of troops to Navplion to support the government, making use of the offer of reconciliation in the trial verdict.

Within a few months Stournáris and Kasomoúlis were back in Mesolongi, which had now come under siege. In April 1825 a Turkish force
of some 8,000 soldiers, with their labourers and other auxiliaries and commanded by Reshid Pasha, moved south from their base in Árta to attack the town. In early April 1825, with the siege already imminent, Stournáris was appointed military commander of Mesolongi. Command of Mesolongi changed during the siege in response to the worsening situation: first there were two committees, one for military and the other for civilian matters, and later the two committees were combined and met daily, but Stournáris was a prominent member of these committees throughout the siege. In July he summoned Kasomoúlis to Mesolongi, where Kasomoúlis was joined by his brothers Mítros and Georgios, and all three were there to the end and took part in the final exodus.

Kasomoúlis quickly became aware of the realities of life under siege. When he first toured the ramparts he, unlike the already battle-hardened defenders, was the only one to duck when shots flew overhead. Kasomoúlis described these defenders: ‘With their faces bloodstained and streaked with powder and their hair covered in dust, they looked as if they had come out of a furnace or rather from a slaughterhouse. I was deeply impressed by their cheerfulness, their laughter, their indifference to danger and their steadfastness.’
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If a man was wounded he was carried away by his friends, and his greatest disgrace was to weep or cry out or complain, or to say ‘Ouch, my wound hurts.’ Instead he just swore. Kasomoúlis thought the Mesolongi troops were like wild beasts during the fighting and like angels in its intervals. He also praised the courage of the Turks, who apart from not being besieged were suffering the same hardships as the Greeks and bearing them steadfastly and without complaint.

Kasomoúlis was involved in the fighting himself. While helping to defend the ramparts he had just stepped back to reload when an explosive shell was seen flying through the air towards him. A comrade shouted a warning but too late. The shell hit Kasomoúlis and made an inch-deep gash in his right shoulder, throwing him to the ground. Before he could get up the shell exploded and hurled him sideways. His comrades rushed to help him, but in the true spirit of the Mesolongi defenders he shook the earth off and shouted ‘I’m all right, friends, you go back to your posts.’
²⁰

Brave as the defenders were they were not all quite as angelic as in Kasomoúlis’ description. Particularly troublesome were the troops from Soúli, the mountainous enclave just south of Iánnina. They were essential to the defence and their leaders, Nótis Bótsaris and Kítsos Tsavéllas, were two of the most prominent captains. The leader of a Souliot troop would, as so often before, claim pay for a hundred men when he had
only ten and keep the surplus. The same ploy was used over rations. Later, when bread became desperately short, the Souliots sold their surplus to others at inflated prices, jeering at any who could not afford them. The Souliots were accused of every sort of wrongdoing, including stealing other men’s wives. Nevertheless, of the three groups into which the population was divided for the exodus the Souliot captains Bótsaris and Tsavéllas were in charge of two, and Tsavéllas was the last to leave.

Mesolongi depended for supplies of both food and ammunition on its lifeline by sea and through Mesolongi’s shallow lagoon. Until the end of 1825, while Turkish efforts were concentrated on the landward side of Mesolongi, the Hydra fleet under Andhréas Miaoúlis was able to bring in supplies from the Ionian islands, especially from Zákinthos, though the fleet regularly returned to Hydra to reprovision and secure the next month’s pay. But from the beginning of 1826 the Turks switched their attack to the seaward side, progressively capturing the small islands in the lagoon, and Miaoúlis’ last supply drop was at the end of January. Kasomoúlis witnessed the Turkish attack on the lagoon island of Klísova only half a mile from Mesolongi. In response to the island’s desperate appeal, supplies of ammunition and water were sent across from the town on one of Mesolongi’s shallow-draught punts, poled by an oarsman and his young son. Before the punt reached the island the oarsman was killed. The boy rowed on, and was within a few yards of the shore when he too was shot dead. But the supplies were landed, and Kasomoúlis threw down his telescope in delight at their success.

Mesolongi also needed military help, and Karaïskákis was their main hope. He had harried Reshid’s lines of communication, which were from his base at Amphilochía, 40 miles north of Mesolongi, and he had made a successful attack on Amphilochía itself. Karaïskákis was now encamped at Dhervékista a few miles east of Mesolongi but, as one Mesolongi captain put it, he had just sat there counting the distant cannon shots. When the date for the exodus was fixed the garrison sent to Karaïskákis an impassioned plea to make a diversionary attack on the night: ‘You are our comrades in arms and our friends. Whoever loves Christ and God and our country must come to our aid. If you do not help us you will surely see what will happen.’
²¹

By February 1826 lack of food had become the most pressing problem for Mesolongi. The remaining supplies of flour and beans were collected and distributed equally to all, a cupful at a time. These were cooked with a bit of crabmeat, the only catch from the lagoon because the fish had been driven away by the gunfire. People now resorted to other sources
of food: donkeys and mules, horses (only four captains, one of them Stournáris, kept theirs), dogs (said to be delicious), cats (within a few days of the first being eaten none was left), seaweed (boiled five times to remove the bitterness), and mice (if you were lucky enough to catch one). Even cases of cannibalism were reported. Such diets inevitably led to diseases, including mouth ulcers, arthritis and scurvy. Nevertheless the defenders of Mesolongi repeatedly refused offers of surrender on terms, some quite favourable, while the Turks outside the walls shouted ‘Why are you sitting there, what are you waiting for, why don’t you give in?’
²²

The only alternative to surrender was mass exodus, and this was fixed for Saturday 22 April, the eve of Palm Sunday, and the supposed anniversary of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. The parallel was clear: Lazarus four days dead and restored to life, Greece four centuries oppressed and risen again. Portable wooden bridges were built to be placed over Mesolongi’s defensive ditch, and the escapers were divided into three groups to cross in succession. Initially the moon was obscured by cloud and the first crossings were made without incident, but then the clouds cleared, the escapers were visible and vulnerable and confusion followed, some shouting ‘Forward!’ and others ‘Back!’ Karaïskákis’ diversion never materialised. The Turkish commanders had learned of the planned exodus, and probably allowed it to happen. Mesolongi would then be theirs, and the refugees at the mercy of Turkish troops, especially cavalry, on the open plain. Of the 9,000 Greeks who left Mesolongi on that night some 4,000 were killed, 3,000 captured, mainly women and children, and only 2,000 escaped.