The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II. Bourne Henry Richard Fox

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СКАЧАТЬ the sciences, and the arts. Rest not content with such limited success. Sheathe not the sword whilst the brutal Turk, the enemy of the progress of civilization and improvement of the human mind, shall occupy one foot of that classic ground which once was yours. Let the young seamen of the islands emulate the glory that awaits the military force. Let them hasten to join the national ships, and, if denied your independence and rights, blockade the Hellespont, thus carrying the war into the enemy's country. Then the fate of the cruel Sultan, the destroyer of his subjects, the tyrant taskmaster of a Christian people, shall be sealed by the hands of the executioners who yet obey his bloody commands. Then shall prophecy be fulfilled, and Moslem sway be overthrown by the corruptions itself has engendered. Then shall the sacred banner of the Cross once more wave on the dome of Saint Sophia. Then shall the Grecian people live secure under the protection of just laws. Then shall noble cities rise from their ruins, and the splendour of future times rival the days that are past."

      CHAPTER XVIII

      THE SIEGE OF ATHENS. – THE DEFENDERS OF THE ACROPOLIS. – THE EFFORTS OF GORDON AND KARAÏSKAKES. – LORD COCHRANE'S PLAN FOR CUTTING OFF THE TURKISH SUPPLIES. – THE ARGUMENTS BY WHICH HE WAS INDUCED TO PROCEED INSTEAD TO THE PHALERUM. – HIS ARRIVAL THERE. – HIS OTHER ARRANGEMENTS FOR SERVING GREECE. – HIS FIRST MEETING WITH KARAÏSKAKES. – THE CONDITION OF THE GREEK CAMP. – LORD COCHRANE'S POSITION. – HIS EFFORTS TO GIVE IMMEDIATE RELIEF TO THE ACROPOLIS, AND THE OBSTACLES RAISED BY THE GREEKS. – KARAÏSKAKES'S DELAYS, AND GENERAL CHURCH'S DIFFICULTIES. – THE CONVENT OF SAINT SPIRIDION. – THE BATTLE OF PHALERUM. – THE CAPTURE OF SAINT SPIRIDION. – THE MASSACRE OF THE TURKS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. – LORD COCHRANE'S RENEWED EFFORTS TO SAVE THE ACROPOLIS. – THE DEATH OF KARAÏSKAKES. – THE MARCH TO THE ACROPOLIS. – ITS FAILURE THROUGH THE PERVERSITY OF THE GREEKS. – THE BATTLE OF ATHENS. – THE FALL OF THE ACROPOLIS.

[1827.]

      After the conquest of Missolonghi, by which all Western Greece was brought under Turkish dominion, Reshid Pasha lost no time in proceeding to drive the Greeks from Athens, their chief stronghold in the east. The siege of the town had been begun by Omar Pasha of Negropont, with a small Ottoman force, on the 21st of June, 1826. Reshid arrived on the 11th of July, and, after much previous fighting, stormed Athens so vigorously on the 14th of August, that the inhabitants were forced to abandon it. Many of them, however, took refuge in the Acropolis, where a strong garrison was established under the tyrannical rule of Goura, and in this fortress the defence was maintained for nearly two months. Goura died in October, and the rivalries of the officers whom he had held in awe, now allowed to have free exercise, threatened to make easy the further triumph of the besiegers. The citadel must have surrendered, but for the timely arrival of Karaïskakes and Fabvier, each with a strong body of troops, who diverted the enemy by formidable attacks in the rear. Karaïskakes and his force continued, with various success, to watch and harass the enemy from without. On the 12th of December Fabvier, by a brilliant exploit, forced his way into the Acropolis with about six hundred men. He had intended only to give it temporary relief, but many of the native chiefs, gladly taking advantage of the arrival of a body for which, conjointly with the garrison already established, there was not room in the fortress, hastily departed. Thus the leadership of the garrison, comprising about a thousand soldiers, with whom were four or five hundred women and children, and more than forty Philhellenes from France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, devolved upon Colonel Fabvier. The besiegers numbered about seven thousand picked soldiers, including a regiment of cavalry veterans and a good train of artillery. The Greek regulars and irregulars, including a corps of Philhellenes, commanded by Captain Inglesi, who attempted to raise the siege, varied, at different times, from two or three thousand to seven or eight thousand.

      That was the state of affairs when Lord Cochrane arrived in Greece. That the expulsion of the Turks from Attica and the recovery of Athens was the first great work to be attempted was clear to every one, whether native or Philhellene, who had the welfare of Greece at heart; but opinions varied as to the best mode of procedure. Nearly all previous efforts had been aimed at the direct attack of the besiegers in Athens and its neighbourhood. General Gordon had established a camp of about three thousand men at Munychia, the hill from which, two and twenty centuries before, Thrasybulus had gone down to deliver Athens from the thirty tyrants; and Karaïskakes, with some two thousand five hundred followers, was stationed at Keratsina, on the other side of the Piræus. But the operations of both leaders were restrained by Reshid Pasha's establishment of a garrison in the monastery of Saint Spiridion, midway between the two camps; and, without wiser leaders than the Greeks had hitherto possessed, there seemed small chance of their chasing the enemy from his strong positions. Another plan, feebly recommended and yet more feebly attempted before Lord Cochrane's arrival, was to starve him out by intercepting the supplies of provisions that were brought from Turkey by way of the northern channel of the Negropont, to be sent overland from Oropos, a well-fortified magazine on the northern shore of Attica.

      Lord Cochrane saw at once that this latter course was the one most likely to be of service, or, at any rate, the one rightly devolving upon him, while General Church was pursuing his operations nearer to Athens; and he was strengthened in this conviction by discussion on the subject with General Gordon, who came for a short visit to Poros, on the 21st of March, in his own yacht. To this end he laboured while he was waiting for the reconciliation of parties and the official recognition of his employment as First Admiral. "The fate of Athens," he wrote, both to Kolokotrones and to Karaïskakes, on the 29th of March, "depends upon our depriving the enemy of the provisions obtained by him from the north. The general and the soldiers who first devote themselves to this object will have the glory of raising the siege. For myself, I offer the heartiest co-operation of the fleet, accompanied by two thousand brave marines, and the use of all the war-steamers and transports in any port of eastern Attica. There is not a moment to be lost." This proposal was rejected by Kolokotrones. On the 2nd of April, Karaïskakes sent an ambiguous acceptance of it, which he cancelled on the 13th. "We are so mixed up with the enemy," he wrote, "that if we abandon the smallest of our positions we must resign ourselves to the loss of all. The Turks are so embarrassed by us that they can offer only a feeble siege to the Acropolis. Of this I am assured by several Greeks who have lately come from their camp. Therefore, my lord, I am deterred from assailing the enemy from the north; and I have the boldness to assure and promise you that, if you will aid me here, Athens will be free in a few days. With the help of two thousand good recruits, the enemy will not be able to resist our enthusiasm. I implore you, in the name of Greece, to assist me as soon as possible with the means of destroying him and of saving Athens."

      That letter, and the advice of all in office, whether military or civil, to the same effect, altered Lord Cochrane's plans. "As he," said Gordon, who afterwards blamed him on this account, "unacquainted with the country and the language, could not form a correct judgment on the innumerable reports transmitted to him, it is not surprising that he was deceived by letters written from the Acropolis, and entrusted to soldiers who, disguised as Turks or Albanians, slipped from time to time through the enemy's lines. In these epistles, Fabvier and the other chiefs painted their situation in the blackest colours, carefully concealing the fact of their having provisions for many months."3 By them native Greeks and foreigners long resident in the country were deceived. Lord Cochrane, still clinging to his project for injuring the Turks by cutting off their supplies, was constrained to defer it for the present, and in compliance with the requests of the Government, of General Church, and of Karaïskakes, to co-operate in the direct attack upon the enemy in the Piræus. "I now agree with you," he wrote to the latter, on the 14th of April, "that the time is past when a movement in the rear of the Turks, and the cutting off of their provisions, could have the effect of saving the Acropolis, and I see clearly the justice of your observation that a decisive blow must be struck at once against the enemy. The eyes of Europe are turned towards Greece, and on the success or failure of the measures now to be adopted depends the support of your glorious cause, or its abandonment in despair."

      Something was done by Lord Cochrane at once, however, towards the fulfilment of his first design. He despatched Captain Abney Hastings, with the Karteria and five other vessels, to the Gulf of Volo and the Channel of Negropont, СКАЧАТЬ