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Fifteen thousand Greeks perished at Patras; but the patriots were successful at Valtezza, where five thousand men repulsed fifteen thousand Turks, and drove them to seek shelter in the strong fortress of Tripolitza. The Greeks avoiding action in the open field, succeeded in taking Navarino and Napoli di Malvasia, and rivalled their enemies in the atrocities they committed.
This was in April, and by the middle of May all the open country had been swept clear, and the hosts joined hands before Tripolitza, which was the seat of Ottoman government at the central point of the province.
Of these, that of Tripolitza, with the city, fell into their hands, in the course of the summer. Having after these first movements obtained time to breathe, it became, of course, an early object to establish a government. For this purpose delegates of the people assembled, under that name which describes the assembly in which we ourselves sit, that name which "freed the Atlantic," a Congress.
We may rest assured that if it had been so, Byron himself would have told us of it. A note to the Siege of Corinth is suggestive of his unequalled restlessness. "I visited all three Tripolitza, Napoli, and Argos in 1810-11; and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in 1809, crossed the Isthmus eight times on my way from Attica to the Morea."
Two considerable military roads are, however, now in progress, one from Athens to Thebes, and another from Argos to Tripolitza. But these roads have been made without any reference to public utility, merely to serve for marching troops and moving artillery, and consequently the old roads over the mountains, as they require less time, are alone used for commercial transport.
Not a Turk survived in the Peloponnesos beyond their walls, for the slaughter at Tripolitza was only the most terrible instance of what happened wherever a Moslem colony was found. In Peloponnesos, at any rate, the revolution had been grimly successful.
In February, 1825, an Egyptian army was landed in the Morea, and met with rapid successes of such a nature as to arouse a suspicion that it was the fixed policy of its commander, Ibrahim, the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to depopulate the Morea. His advance upon Nauplia was checked by an order of the British commodore, Hamilton, and he retired towards Tripolitza and Navarino.
But the Turks also made their preparations for a renewed conflict, and Ibrahim Pasha felt himself strong enough to undertake the siege of Navarino, which fell into his hands after a brave resistance. Tripolitza also capitulated to the Egyptian, and the Morea was occupied by his troops after several engagements.
The Turkish garrison attacked, but was heavily defeated at Valtetzi by the tactical skill of Theodore Kolokotrónis the 'klepht', who had become experienced in guerrilla warfare through his alternate professions of brigand and gendarme a career that had increased its possibilities as the Ottoman system decayed. After Kolokotrónis's victory, the Greeks kept Tripolitza under a close blockade.
In Tripolitza alone eight thousand Turks were put to death. The excesses of the Turks showed to the Greeks that their struggle was one of life and death; and it is not surprising, therefore, that they often retaliated when the power was in their hands.
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