The Battle of Navarino

This series has three easy 5-minute installments. This first installment: Turks Besiege Athens.

Introduction
Lepanto and Navarino were two battles that determined control of the Mediterranean Sea. Lepanto in 1571 checked the Muslim powers’ naval ascendency and established parity with the Christian powers. At Navarino their sea power was destroyed.

The was also the decisive in the struggle of Greece. This event marked how much the world had changed since the days of the Greeks’ ancient glory and the Ottomans’ ascendency.

This selection is from History of England During the Thirty Years Peace by Harriet Martineau published in 1849. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was a British social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist.

Time: October 20, 1827
Place: Navarino Bay (modern Phylos), Agean Sea

By the end of 1826 the whole of Western Greece was recovered by the Turks; and the Greek Government had transferred itself to the islands. Men who find it at all times difficult to agree, are sure to fall out under the provocations of adversity, and the dissensions of the Greek leaders ran higher now than ever. It was this quarrelling which prevented the Greeks from taking advantage of some successes of their brave General Caraiscaci to attempt the relief of Athens, closely pressed by the Turks. The Turkish force was soon to be strengthened by troops already on their march; and now, before their arrival, was the time to attempt to relieve Athens. Some aid was sent, and some fighting went on, on the whole with advantage to the Greeks; but nothing decisive was done till Lord Cochrane arrived among them, rated them soundly for their quarrels, and took the command of their vessels, the Greek Admiral Miaulis being the first and most willing to put himself under the command of the British officer. In a little while Count Capo d’Istria, an official esteemed by the Russian Government, was appointed President of Greece for seven years.

The Turkish reinforcements had arrived, absolutely unopposed, before Athens, and this rendered necessary the strongest effort that could be made for the deliverance of the place. General Church brought up forces by land, and Lord Cochrane by sea; and by May 1st the flower of the Greek troops, to the number of ten thousand, were assembled before the walls of Athens. It was soon too clear to the British commanders that nothing was to be done with forces so undisciplined and in every way unreliable. The troops of Caraiscaci lost their leader, and incurred disaster by fighting without orders, and then through a series of mistakes and follies the issue became hopeless.

Between eight and ten o’clock in the morning of the 6th all was ruined. The killed and wounded of the Greeks amounted to two thousand five hundred, and the rest were dispersed like chaff before the wind. Of those who escaped, the greater number took refuge in the mountains. Lord Cochrane was compelled to throw himself into the sea and swim to his ship. General Church strove hard to maintain his fortified camp at the Phalerus, with three thousand men whom he had collected; but when he found that some of the Greek officers were selling his provisions to the enemy, he gave up and retired to Aegina, sorely grieved, but not in despair. Lord Cochrane kept the sea, generally with his single frigate, the Hellas, contributed to the cause by the United States, and now and then with a few Greek vessels when their commanders had nothing better to do than to obey orders. He was alone when he took his station off Navarino to watch the fleet of the Egyptian Ibrahim; and he had better have been alone when he went on to Alexandria to look after the fleet which the Pacha was preparing there, for when the Egyptians came out to offer battle the Greeks made all sail homeward.

The Turks now supposed they had everything in their own hands. On the intervention of the French Admiral de Rigny they spared the lives of the garrison of the Acropolis, permitting them to march out with their arms and go whither they would. Then all seemed to be over. The Greeks held no strong places but Corinth and Napoli and had no army; while the Turks held all the strong places but Corinth and Napoli and had two armies at liberty —- that of the Egyptian leader in the West, and of the Turkish seraskier in the East — to put down any attempted rising within the bounds of Greece. But at this moment of extreme humiliation for Greece aid was preparing, and hope was soon to arise out of despair. While Canning was fighting his own battles in Parliament, he had his eye on what was passing in Greece; and the fall of Athens and the dispersion of the Greek forces only strengthened his resolution that the powers of Europe should hasten the interposition he had planned long before.

It was important to Russia that Turkey should be weakened in every possible way; and Russia was therefore on the side of the Greeks. The sympathies of France and England were on the side of the Greeks, but they must also see that Greece should be freed in reality, and that Turkey should not be destroyed; so, they were willing to enter into alliance with Russia to part the combatants, preserve both, impose terms on both, and see that the terms were observed. The Duke of Wellington had gone to St. Petersburg to settle all this; and the ministers of the three courts laid before the Government of the Porte at Constantinople the requisition of the allies. The great object was to separate the Turks and the Greeks —- the faithful and the infidels —- who could never meet without fighting; and it was proposed —- or we may rather say ordained —- by the allies, that all the Turks should leave Greece, receiving compensation —- in some way to be devised —- for the property they must forsake. The Greeks were to pay a tribute to the Porte, and to be nominally its subjects, and the Turkish Government was to have some sort of veto on the appointment of officials, but substantially the choice of officers and the enjoyment of their own mode of living were to be left to the Greeks.

As might be expected, the victorious Turk was amazed at this interference between himself and his rebellious subjects; and if he would not listen to dictation before the fall of Athens, much less would he afterward. There was threat as well as dictation —- threat of enforcing the prescribed conditions; but the Porte treated the threat as loftily as it rejected the interference.

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