The uprising of the Greeks seeking their independence from the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent armed struggle, attracted the support of European and American citizens and progressively developed into the political-ideological movement known in modern scholarship as Philhellenism. The most direct manifestation of Philhellenism was the military action of volunteers during the Greek War of Independence (1821–9). Even though the motives of the volunteers’ employment in the Greek War were diverse and sometimes obscure, at times even rather suspect, it is beyond dispute that they had to fight under conditions completely different from those prevailing in Europe and arguably harsher. It is also a fact that the Philhellenes, who were professional and seasoned soldiers, contributed to the introduction of western methods to Greece and had some influence on the organization and establishment of a regular army.
The military involvement of the Philhellenes included the establishment and action of the so-called Philhellenes’ Battalion. In June 1822, this Battalion participated in the ill-fated expedition to Epirus under the leadership of Alexandros Mavrocordatos which led to the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Peta. The expedition was described by many commentators at the time. Of obvious importance are the accounts of Philhellenes, the study of which supplements the information we possess about the Epirus expedition and sheds light on the facts that led to the defeat at Peta. The majority of the Philhellenes were professional military men, whose memoirs are full of details about the military aspects of the expedition and provide important evidence, largely on the course of action of the regular troops. Their testimonies are invaluable in any effort to revisit the ill-fated expedition.
The present study is based on the memoirs of the Prussian military doctor Johann-Daniel Elster, whose text, though informative and reliable, has not yet received extensive scholarly attention.Footnote 1 Other Philhellenes who took part in the battle and wrote about it were Adolph von Lübtow,Footnote 2 Ferdinand von Kiesewetter,Footnote 3 Olivier Voutier,Footnote 4 BrengeriFootnote 5 and Heinrich Treiber.Footnote 6 However, Voutier's account is not reliable, and Treiber's very brief. Brengeri gives much interesting information, even though he copies Voutier extensively. A detailed account was also written by Maxime Raybaud, who was not present on the day of the battle, but whose testimony is based on accounts by other witnesses and can considered highly reliable.Footnote 7 Of the Greek leaders only Kanellos Deligiannis was present and left Memoirs,Footnote 8 while Gennaios KolokotronisFootnote 9 participated in the expedition but withdrew to the Peloponnese a few days before the battle.Footnote 10 Some interesting information was recorded by Petros Mengos, a Greek volunteer from Smyrna who fought at Peta with the regular troops in the ranks.Footnote 11 The expedition was later described by many observers and scholars on the basis of information and testimonies obtained from the participants. These are the works by Michael Oikonomou,Footnote 12 Palaion Patron Germanos (Germanos, archbishop of Patras),Footnote 13 Nikolaos Spiliadis,Footnote 14 Thomas Gordon,Footnote 15 George Gervinus,Footnote 16 Spyridon Trikoupis,Footnote 17 George Finlay,Footnote 18 Christos Vyzantios,Footnote 19 Lambros KoutsonikasFootnote 20 and Charles Douglas Chambers.Footnote 21 Basing ourselves on the aforementioned texts and on the reevaluation of sources and bibliography,Footnote 22 we here investigate and analyse the military aspects of the Philhellenes’ action and revisit the causes of their defeat.Footnote 23
Events before the Epirus expedition
During the autumn of 1821, several months after the outbreak of the war, the Ottoman Empire decided to mobilize its large but sluggish military mechanism, and its abundant financial resources, to suppress the Revolution. The plan was for one army, recruited in Epirus, to descend via Ioannina through the Makrynoros pass to the coast and cross over to the north-west Peloponnese, while a second one, recruited in Macedonia, would descend through the eastern part of mainland Greece, the pass of Thermopylae, Boeotia and the Isthmus to Corinth, in the north-east Peloponnese. Simultaneously, the Ottoman fleet, reinforced by Egyptian and Algerian forces, would attack the Aegean islands and the rebellious areas on the coastline, so as to put pressure on the Revolution from the sea.Footnote 24 During the first year of the war, important fortified cities in the Peloponnese had fallen to the Greeks, such as Tripolitza and Monemvasia. In 1822 Patras, Nauplion, Modon and Coron were still under Ottoman control. Nauplion fell by the end of the year, but Patras, Modon and Coron were not occupied by the Greeks until the end of the Revolution. Patras was very important: it controlled the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth and thus communications and sea routes to western Greece, the Ionian Islands and Europe.
Up to the end of 1821, the war against the Ottomans was waged exclusively by irregular troops led by local chiefs. The government formed in early 1822 did not have the financial resources to form a regular army, nor the strength to impose its authority on the irregular troops. Consequently, those Philhellenes who were in Greece at the time remained idle: there were no suitable Greek military units to join and fight with. Under these circumstances, the President of the Executive body (Εκτελεστικόν),Footnote 25Alexander Mavrocordatos, realized that only one solution was available: the foreign volunteers would form their own separate military unit. In time, the Philhellenes would join as officers the Greek military units remodelled according to European standards. The majority of the foreign volunteers accepted this solution and joined a battalion formed exclusively of them.Footnote 26 There were also political reasons for the formation of the battalion. The Mavrocordatos government did not exercise substantial control over the irregulars, so they needed some other reliable and loyal military force. The Philhellenes’ Battalion, although numerically small, would, in combination with a Greek regiment of regular troops,Footnote 27 provide security and give some prestige to the government.Footnote 28
At the same time, Mavrocordatos’ personal ambitions demanded a military expedition under his leadership. Mavrocordatos wanted to achieve the consolidation of his power and general acceptance. These goals would be accomplished if he could place the Greek military forces under his control. But Mavrocordatos’ military skills had first to be recognized by the Greeks, or he would be unable to impose his will on military leaders such as Theodore Kolokotronis. This recognition he could gain only on the battlefield. Thus he decided to lead in person the campaign in which the two valuable regular units, the Greek and the foreign, would take part.Footnote 29
It was decided that there should be an expedition in Epirus, in order to relieve the Souliotes by means of a counter-attack on the Ottoman forces besieging them.Footnote 30 Thus the Turkish army would be tied down in Epirus and would not be able to march southwards and suppress the rising in the Peloponnese. The government's plan was to capture Arta, thus distracting the attention of the enemy from Souli, and enabling the Souliotes to recover their strength.Footnote 31
The head of the Souliotes, Markos Botsaris, proposed that the leadership of the campaign should be assigned to Theodore Kolokotronis, who at the time was besieging the citadel of Patras. The Peloponnesian Senate (Πελοποννησιακή Γερουσία) ordered Kolokotronis to campaign in western Greece with 2000 men (5 January 1822).Footnote 32 Kolokotronis refused to abandon the siege, claiming that the fall of Patras was of paramount significance.Footnote 33 His political opponents wanted to take advantage of the campaign in Epirus in order to remove him from Patras and to weaken him militarily and politically.Footnote 34 For his part, Kolokotronis recommended that Mavrocordatos lead the campaign. In fact, Kolokotronis had previously dispatched his son Gennaios with three hundred men to assist Missolonghi (March 1822) and to participate in the Epirus campaign.Footnote 35 Kolokotronis believed that the choice of Mavrocordatos would contribute to the reconciliation of the captains of western Greece, who were in constant confrontation with each other.
Τhe expeditionary force and the establishment of the Philhellenes’ Battalion
In May 1822, the available forces for the expedition to Epirus were assembled in Corinth. The expeditionary corps consisted of a regiment of Greek regular troops, under the command of Pietro Tarella,Footnote 36 the Philhellenes’ Battalion under the command of Andrea Dania,Footnote 37 a small contingent of regular troops recruited by Greeks from the Ionian Islands (Zakynthos and Cephalonia) under Spyridon Panas, and the Greek irregular troops under Markos Botsaris, Kanellos Deligiannis, Panagiotis Giatrakos, Kyriakoulis Mavromichalis, Gogos Bakolas and others. At the head of the expedition was Alexandros Mavrocordatos, although in command of the regulars (the Greek regiment, the Philhellenes’ Battalion and the Ionian Islands troops) was General Karl-Friedrich Leberecht Graf von Normann-Ehrenfels.Footnote 38
The Philhellenes’ Battalion (consisting of German, French and Polish troops), under Dania and his aide-de-camp Maxime Raybaud, was organized in two companies. The first was under the command of Huissmans and Miezewsky, the second under that of Louis Chevalier.Footnote 39 The artillery was an independent unit, with its own commander, Major Carl von Stietz. The Battalion had two military doctors, as well as a small contingent of military musicians. Of special interest is that for the needs of the expedition a general staff was formed under General Normann, while Mavrocordatos too was surrounded by a large number of adjutants and staff officers, a fact that implies the effort to establish and maintain an – albeit rudimentary – western-style command.Footnote 40 This view is strengthened by the use of military maps by Mavrocordatos’ staff in order to plot the course to north-west Greece.Footnote 41 Both these factors, the staff and the use of maps, illustrate the attempt to introduce European ways, albeit in a limited way. During the march to Epirus, the staff increased considerably, a fact that according to Normann caused ‘obstacles’ due to ‘such a crowd of unnecessary people’.Footnote 42 As to the Battalion's military equipment, the sources report that it was extremely disparate, and thus undermined morale. There was no uniform, and therefore each chose his own mixture of national costumes.Footnote 43 Although they had not been supplied with rucksacks, they had good smooth-bore muzzle-loading flintlock muskets in excellent condition and were sufficiently proficient in their use.Footnote 44 Bayonets could be fixed on the European muskets, but not on those used by Greeks and Ottomans.Footnote 45 The artillery guns could be disassembled so that they could be transported on mules.Footnote 46 In any case, the general picture given by the sources – and especially Elster – is that of a unit organized along the lines of modern European armies during the Napoleonic wars, and in particular the adoption of innovations such as the establishment of a general staff and the use of military maps.
From Corinth to Patras
In mid-May 1822, the expeditionary force departed from Corinth in an atmosphere of enthusiasm. The available troops were divided into two groups. The Philhellenes joined the first group who, avoiding the inconvenience of marching on foot, boarded ships sent from Galaxidi (26 May 1822). This group disembarked at Vostitsa (modern Aigio). Four days later (30 May 1822) the second group arrived in the same town after marching on foot from Corinth.Footnote 47 The next day they headed for Patras, which was being besieged by numerous troops under Kolokotronis. The plan was for them to board the ships which had been sent from Hydra to patrol the Gulf of Patras and be carried over to western Greece.
But first, the army spent a few days in the outskirts of Patras and had an opportunity to rest. The location was obviously chosen because it was near the opposite coast, and the presence of Kolokotronis’ forces deterred any enemy counter-attack. Mavrocordatos was well aware that he had neither military knowledge nor experience: he may have chosen Patras not only because his troops could embark there in safety, but also because he hoped to obtain reinforcements from Kolokotronis and the advice of experienced war chiefs. It is probable that he also asked Kolokotronis, and other local political and military leaders, to cover his retreat to the Peloponnese, if the campaign failed.
In Patras the Greek army was strengthened by the addition of the irregular troops under Kanellos Deligiannis, Gennaios Kolokotronis and Panos Giatrakos, while in Missolonghi the forces of Gatsos and Karatasos were added. The march of the expeditionary force to the outskirts of besieged Patras gave the opportunity to the Philhellenes to observe the military tactics employed by the Greeks. Elster describes at length the Greek strongholds (tambouria) that provided the attacking Greeks with excellent cover from observation by the enemy. The tambouri Footnote 48 was a sort of redoubt, an improvised fortification made of stones and mud or tree trunks, behind which one could shoot while being protected from enemy fire. In most cases the tambouria would occupy the high ground, thus making it more difficult for the enemy to approach them. A tambouri was formed by a circular or semicircular wall about a metre high. There were loopholes for the muskets. Behind the wall a trench half a metre deep was dug. Thus the warriors fought standing and at the same time almost fully protected from enemy fire. At any one time half of the men behind the tambouri were shooting while the others loaded their weapons. It was very difficult for the enemy to overrun a well-made and adequately defended tambouri. The great disadvantage of the tambouria was that they were useful exclusively for defensive warfare.Footnote 49 Elster also reports that, when the muskets of the Greeks were rendered useless by the rain – because the gunpowder got damp – the soldiers were forced to retreat for safety to the mountains to avoid the Ottoman cavalry. When the rain stopped, the Greeks unexpectedly attacked the Ottomans, who were moving over the plain in search of the enemy, and caused considerable losses. The Greek irregulars fought using surprise attacks, entrapment, timely retreat, regroupment, and surprise attack once again.Footnote 50
After a short stay in Patras, the expeditionary force under Mavrocordatos boarded eight ships (2 June 1822) and in a few hours reached Vasiladi, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the lagoon of Missolonghi. From there it was transported to the town on smaller ships.Footnote 51 They remained in Missolonghi for a few days, and on 4 June they departed once again, this time for Karvasara (Amfilochia). In the region Laspi near Karvasara they were joined by more irregular troops, ‘constituting an army of a total force of three to four thousand men, a number much smaller than the expectations of Mavrocordatos and, certainly, insufficient to fulfill the expectations of such a large-scale expedition’.Footnote 52
The Battle of Komboti
The first encounter of the Greek army with part of the Ottoman cavalry took place at Komboti, a village on the slope of a hill, on 10 June 1822. Amongst the various descriptions of this battle, Elster's is the most detailed. Before the battle, General Normann expressed his view of the tactical use of the Philhellenes: they should not seek ‘the tops of the mountains in order to defend comfortably’ but instead should stand ‘in the most important and dangerous places and they should not miss any opportunity to confront the enemy’.Footnote 53 According to this doctrine, Normann deployed the Greek regiment and the Philhellenes’ Battalion at the foot of the hill covering the route to Arta, while the Souliotes took up positions in a nearby ruined building. The Regiment and the Souliotes covered the right flank, while the Battalion was deployed on the left, where Normann himself was present, since it was on this flank that the main attack of the enemy was expected. The Ottoman cavalry did indeed focus their attack there. At first, sustained fire from the Philhellenes, combined with the fact that they held the high ground of a slope, stemmed the attack and inflicted heavy losses. But eventually the cavalry, six hundred men strong, broke their lines and forced them to form a square for mutual protection. The cavalry then attacked the right flank – the Greek regiment – without any significant results. The Battalion then moved against the Ottoman right flank and managed to overcome it, while the Souliotes charged against the left flank. Seeing themselves in danger of being encircled, the Ottoman forces were obliged to withdraw to Arta before the Souliotes could cut off their retreat. The Regiment and the Philhellenes’ Battalion, in a rather precarious movement,Footnote 54 pursued the Ottoman cavalrymen to the outskirts of Arta without any result. According to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, ‘this first brilliant success boosted their morale’.Footnote 55 Mavrocordatos and the general staff had been on the top of a hill and, according to the sources, had no command and control during the battle. General Normann may have exercised some form of command over a section of the troops, though his presence in the front lines would have made that difficult. As a result, the movements of the Greek troops during the battle were primarily the result of initiatives by the commanders of the Regiment, the Battalion and the irregulars.
Markos Botsaris tried to reinforce his compatriots with an expedition against the Ottoman troops at Pente Pigadia, but without success; since communications had broken down, the Philhellenes rushed to meet him. Elster describes several skirmishes in which the Philhellenes prevailed against the Muslim Albanians. However, when the Philhellenes realized the risk of being cut off by the enemy forces advancing to Peta, they managed to escape by means of a forced and exhausting night march.Footnote 56 This unsuccessful undertaking wore out the Philhellenes and, coupled with the lack of food, possibly reduced their fighting spirit to some extent in the ensuing battle of Peta. The already serious supply problems worsened when the Ottomans managed to neutralize the small flotilla under Antonio Bassano (or Passano), which operated in the Ambracian Gulf and was keeping the communication and supply line open.Footnote 57 Moreover, the Ottomans captured a Philhellene, an Italian named Monaldi, who – before his decapitation – provided accurate information on the numerical weakness of the Greek forces and the difficulties they were facing.Footnote 58
The Battle of Peta
Following their victory at Komboti, the Greek forces moved to Peta, a location suitable for encampment, close to Arta, and offering relative control over the area from the nearby elevations. The Philhellenes, having prevailed over the enemy at Komboti, were optimistic that they would again be victorious. On their part, the Ottomans had assembled powerful forces in Arta from all over Epirus, composed of both infantry and cavalry – mainly Muslim Albanians – calculated at about six to eight thousand men under Ismail Pasha Pliasa and Mehmed Reşit Pasha (Kütahı).
A great disadvantage of the Greek army was the lack of unity of command. Each group of irregulars accepted orders only from its own leader. Normann commanded, as far as possible, only the regular troops, while Mavrocordatos did not exert any form of command and control over the expeditionary force. The lack of robust military command emerged during the war council that preceded the battle at Peta, at which contradictory views were expressed on the engagement of the regular troops in relation to the irregulars and the construction or not of tambouria. Many sources question Mavrocordatos’ ability to lead a military expedition, and Elster accuses Mavrocordatos and his staff of negligence and inactivity, considering that when the circumstances were favourable they did not order the attack for the capture of Arta.Footnote 59 Later, once the city's garrison had been strengthened, the operation became impossible: according to Elster, ‘Mavrocordatos, prone to postponements, neglected to carry out this important operation against Arta and so gave the Turks time to collect 3000 men from the Albanian army and the surrounding region’.Footnote 60 Mavrocordatos is also blamed by Elster for the decision to occupy Peta, despite objections raised in the war council.Footnote 61 We should note here that Mavrocordatos played an important role in defining the overall strategy and the operational plan of the expedition, but had neither the prestige nor the expertise to lead troops on the battlefield and order their movements, and so he wisely avoided intervening on matters of battle tactics. Thus Mavrocordatos and his retinue were stationed at Langada, a few hours away from the battlefield of Peta, with the purpose of controlling the pass of Makrynoros.Footnote 62
The village of Peta is located on a hill east of Arta. Westwards stands an elongated elevation (plateau)Footnote 63 where the regular troops were placed. The Greek plan of battle – according to Elster – was as follows: part of the Battalion was entrenched on the left of the plateau in fortifications (tambouria), exactly at the point where the enemy's harshest attack was expected. The rest of the Battalion, under Dania, was placed behind them, while the regular Greek Regiment was deployed on the right side. The Greek irregulars were kept in a second line and held the nearby hills and passes leading to Peta.
The Philhellenes were positioned in the location where the first and most formidable offensive was expected to be launched, on the left bank of Peta and the mountain. Divided into small groups, of eight to ten men, they occupied the entire front left slope of the mountain, in order to be able to face the enemy with multiple crossfire. These small groups had been entrenched in accordance with the system of the Greeks, who constructed semi-circular walls from solid pieces of rock, whose unevenness created natural emplacements, so that, without being seen, they caused great damage to the attacking enemy.Footnote 64
The cannons of the Battalion were placed on the left of the Regiment. At this point, Elster deviates from RaybaudFootnote 65 and the remainder of the sources (Gordon, Spiliadis, DeligiannisFootnote 66), who record that the artillery was placed to the right of the Regiment.Footnote 67 The total force of the Greek army could not have exceeded 1500 to 2000 men.Footnote 68
Elster informs us that the Battalion took up positions in tambouria, and this is confirmed by almost every witness who later wrote memoirs. The information is repeated by the Philhellenes von KiesewetterFootnote 69 and von Lübtow – with the only difference that von Lübtow reports that the fortifications were used by the RegimentFootnote 70 – and by captain Kanellos Deligiannis.Footnote 71 A Greek volunteer from Smyrna, Petros Mengos, mentions that the tambouria were mainly used by the Regiment.Footnote 72 An anonymous German volunteer, a member of the Philhellenes’ Battalion, also reports the use of fortifications by the regular corps.Footnote 73 Christos Vyzantios – in the first edition of his history of the Greek regular army (1837) – reports explicitly that ‘the men of the regular Corps were arranged behind some old trenches, named Tambouria of Gogos…’Footnote 74 In a long anonymous and undated letter on the actions of George Varnakiotis or Nikolous during the War of Independence, it is stated that during the battle of Peta ‘the Philhellenes moved from their tambouria’,Footnote 75 while in the same letter Varnakiotis is reported as advising the leaders of the Philhellenes to erect tambouria, but without giving any further information about their reaction.Footnote 76
This use of tambouria by regular troops is perhaps the one and only instance where European-trained forces adopted ‘Greek methods’ –those very methods of which they were critical.Footnote 77 Therefore, the well-known phrase addressed by Dannia to Gogos: ‘Our rampart is our breasts’,Footnote 78 implying a refusal to erect such field fortifications, cannot have been uttered before the battle of Peta but, as Simopoulos rightly points out, before the battle at Komboti.Footnote 79
The Ottoman troops, enjoying considerable numerical superiority, used a crescent formation to overrun the fortified troops at Peta. The Ottoman infantry attacked the vanguard of the Battalion. The long-barrelled muskets of the Ottomans had a longer range than those of the Philhellenes, so their first shots remained unanswered. Since the Muslim Albanians were not fired upon, they believed that the Greek troops had not occupied the foot of the hill, so they continued their charge. At a distance of one hundred paces they received crossfire from the Philhellenes’ tambouria.Footnote 80
The Ottomans were forced to rally and attempt a second attack – in which extra forces were used – compelling the Philhellenes to retreat. From Elster's description it seems that the bulk of the Ottoman infantry attacked the forces of the Battalion on the hill, attempting to overrun them. The struggle that followed is described as epic. The Muslim Albanians managed twice to reach the hill, but the Philhellenes drove them back with their bayonets.Footnote 81 The fusillade from the Regiment caused the retreat of the left Ottoman wing. According to Elster's detailed description, the Philhellenes’ two cannons fired canister shots that destroyed entire enemy lines.Footnote 82 Soon the defenders went on to the attack, the Philhellenes charging the left wing of the enemy with fixed bayonets. At this point, an Ottoman detachment succeeded in reaching the rear of both the Greek Regiment and the Philhellenes’ Battalion, thus separating them from each other and the groups of the irregulars.Footnote 83 The irregulars withdrew in order to avoid being surrounded. Elster, with the majority of sources,Footnote 84 attributes the appearance of the Turks at the back of the regular troops to treachery and to the abandonment of the positions that Gogos Bakolas and his men had been set to guard.
The Regiment twice tried without success to re-connect with the Philhellenes; in the first attempt the regiment's leader (Colonel Tarella) was killed and in the second General Normann wounded. The fire from the cannons – until their neutralization by the Ottomans – gave the opportunity to some Philhellenes to fall back to the village of Peta. From this point on, the Prussian doctor describes actions of heroism and self-sacrifice, while only a few of Philhellenes managed to flee.Footnote 85
The defeat at Peta was caused by the Ottomans’ infiltrating to the rear of the Greek forces. Whether the presence of the enemy was a result of Gogos Bakolas’ treachery cannot be definitively answered from the study of Elster's memoirs and the other sources.Footnote 86 However, the way irregular troops understood warfare may provide us with some clues about Gogos’ actions and whether or not they were blameworthy. The irregulars, being as a rule greatly outnumbered, waged a war of attrition; they chose their ground and attacked by surprise. Furthermore, they were quick to realize when their position became precarious, and before they were encircled they vanished, avoiding total defeat. Therefore it was natural for Gogos’ inferior forces to beat a swift retreat as soon as they saw the Ottomans at their rear. Thus the enemy was able to reach the rear of the Greeks undisturbed, forcing them to retreat and leave the rear of the Battalion unprotected. By contrast, the regular forces trained in open field warfare did not have the same flexibility, and according to their prevailing tactic – and for that matter their ideology – they were not prepared to abandon their position, even if the progress of the battle seemed unfavourable. It was therefore to be expected that there would be suspicion of Gogos’ intentions and actions,Footnote 87 while the Philhellenes did not disengage in time. It is very probable that the charge of treachery against Gogos is due to the very different perception of warfare between the European volunteers and the Greek irregulars.
The confusion may have been enhanced by two other important factors mentioned by the sources, and which have not been adequately pointed out by modern scholarship: first, Muslim Albanians and Greek irregulars wore very similar attire,Footnote 88 and second, visibility was very poor because of the smoke of gunfire and the dust raised by the movement of the numerous Ottoman troops. According to Deligiannis, the wind that blew during the battle was such that dust covered the Greek positions.Footnote 89 The confusion that prevailed during the movement of the Muslim Albanians at the back of the regulars is also confirmed by Mengos.Footnote 90 There are strong indications that this force consisted of just a few Muslim Albanian standard-bearers who covered their flags and thus managed to move unnoticed. When they flew their standards, panic spread among the Greek irregulars who, judging just from the number of flags, believed that a numerous hostile force was approaching.Footnote 91
Neither the fatigue of the troops from previous operations and marchesFootnote 92 nor the rivalry that had developed amongst the Philhellenes appears to have directly influenced their performance in the battle. However, it is a fact that poor nutritionFootnote 93 and the difficult campaign conditions, combined with the various illnesses and the desertions that occurred, reduced the numbers of the Greek forces and to some important extent affected their combat capability power.Footnote 94
Conclusions
The 1822 Epirus campaign would have had the chance of a positive outcome had more troops been available on the Greek side and an aggressive strategy adopted. But the Greeks fought a series of defensive battles, which simply could not meet the goal of the expedition.Footnote 95 Elster criticizes the Greek command for its indecision regarding the capture of Arta. By occupying Arta, the Greeks would have deprived the Ottomans of an important administrative and military centre and would have drawn their attention away from the operations against Souli.Footnote 96
The military operations of the Greeks during the Epirus campaign are a rare example of cooperation between regular and irregular forces. However, in the absence of strong central command, and since the purpose of the tactical use of the two types of troops was not clear, it was not possible to reap the full benefits of this cooperation.Footnote 97
It would be interesting to take a closer look at the tactics of the three opponents: the Ottomans, the Greek irregulars and the European volunteers. The Ottoman army was not a regular force (at least not in the European sense of the term in the 1820s) and the bulk of its men fought on foot. They were able to form columns and make some basic troop movements. They charged in mass formations but in an irregular manner, using muskets without bayonets and employing cutting weapons. Their cavalry was able to make some coordinated movements and was very dangerous against irregulars in the open field. The Ottomans made use of field artillery, but in small quantities.
By contrast, the Greek irregulars used the methods of guerrilla warfare. It was impossible for them to confront the mass of the Ottoman army in the open field: their numbers were inferior, and they did not have the necessary cohesion and discipline. They were also unable to stand up to the Ottoman cavalry, not having any of their own. They knew very well how to take advantage of rough and hilly ground in order to surprise and trap their enemy, and they made extensive use of tambouria.
The European volunteers were trained in the western military way: formations of foot soldiers marching in lines against the enemy, exchanging volleys of fire and ready to engage at close quarters with the bayonet. They made extensive use of massive and concentrated artillery fire with the aim of breaking up the enemy formation. In western European warfare it was the cavalry that was tasked with confronting the enemy cavalry or charging against disorganized infantry. As a result, western military tactics could be very effective against the outdated Ottoman mode of warfare: the massive coordinated volley fire of the regular infantry, especially, could have disastrous effects against the charging Ottoman infantry. To European officers the Greek tactics were inexplicable: following the exchange of the first shots, the Greeks took cover behind their tambouria, an act deemed by the westerners as cowardice, when it was simply the sort of warfare the Greeks had carried on for decades. More importantly, it had proved quite effective against the Ottomans.
The Greek governments, under the guidance of the European volunteers, tried to establish regular forces. Throughout the War of Independence these forces were small (not exceeding 3000 to 3500 men at the most), lacked cavalry and had inadequate field artillery, and for this reason were unable to achieve significant results on their own against the Οttoman forces. Thus regular and irregular forces had to cooperate. The ideas of organization and discipline on which the regular troops relied were not only culturally alien but opposed to the interests of the Greek traditional irregular groups.Footnote 98 For this reason the different ways in which they fought led to rivalry, reciprocal suspicion and often an inability to collaborate.
A few weeks after the Peta defeat, the Greek irregulars under Theodore Kolokotronis scored an outstanding victory at the Dervenakia pass against a large Ottoman expeditionary force under Dramalı Mahmud Pasha. The tactics of the irregulars triumphed by trapping the exhausted Ottoman army in the passes and defiles. As a result of this victory, the Greeks became even more sceptical of western military tactics. The meagre resources of the government prevented the equipping and training of regular troops. The internal tensions and conflicts prevented the establishment of regular troops while the captains of the irregulars regarded the regular troops as a threat to their status and privileges, as for example in the share of booty. In fact, by the end of 1822 all Greek regular corps had been disbanded. The civil wars during the Revolution (1823–4) put a stop to any further attempts to form regular troops. The need for a numerous regular army urgently reemerged in 1825, following the invasion of the Morea by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, whose European-trained army the Greek irregulars could not possibly withstand. In the same year, the French colonel Charles Nicolas Fabvier and some French officers took over the task of training Greek regular forces. The enemy was no longer the Ottoman semi-regulars against which the guerilla tactics of the Greeks had been mostly successful: the Greeks had to adapt their tactics to the reality imposed by the emergence of a new enemy.Footnote 99 The problems created by the combined use of regular and irregular troops had become a cause of concern to the Greek leaders. According to Christos Vyzantios, who became an officer of the Greek regular army and later wrote a history of the Greek regular forces:
Karaïskakis, as an experienced military leader, even though without official military training or knowledge, but being very intelligent, realized that in a battle where regulars and irregulars fight together, the regulars should stay in reserve or the second line, while the irregulars fight, and the victory is secured, since each type of troops acts in their natural way.
In July–August 1826 a combined force of regular and irregular troops, under Fabvier and Georgios Karaïskakis respectively, campaigned in Athens to relieve the Greeks blockaded on the Acropolis. A battle took place at Chaïdari, on the outskirts of Athens, on 6–8 August 1826. According to Vyzantios, before the battle, Karaïskakis said to the commander of the regular troops, Colonel Fabvier: ‘My dear Colonel, I don't want your brave regulars to start the skirmishing, but stay in readiness, and when I give you notice, then you will order them to move to the aid of my irregulars.’Footnote 100 The idea is that the irregulars using their tambouria should act as skirmishers during the opening phase of the battle until the intervention of the regular troops. At Chaïdari these combined tactics worked well, and the Ottoman forces were defeated on the first day of battle (6 August). But on 8 August, Fabvier exposed his regular troops on the front line and the Greek forces struggled to hold their positions under enemy pressure; during the night they finally retreated and suffered some casualties at the hands of the Turks.Footnote 101
At Peta, when the dilemma of who should form the vanguard was voiced, the commanders of the regular troops reacted by imposing their view that their men should fight in the front line.Footnote 102 Despite the conventional wisdom of regular tactics, an important part of the regular forces that fought at Peta made use of field fortifications (tambouria): a case that appears to be an exception in the battles of the Greek War of Independence, and a fact that has not yet been pointed out by modern historiography. Spyridon Trikoupis’ account has led modern research to adopt the view that the defeat at Peta was a result of the insistence of the regular troops on fighting in the open field.Footnote 103 Yet Christos Vyzantios, in the first edition of his history (1837), explicitly mentions the use of fortifications by the regular troops at Peta. Based on the analysis of the testimonies, the use of fortifications by the Philhellenes’ Battalion and/or the Regiment must be accepted with certainty, and Elster's testimony has to be regarded as reliable. It is also important to emphasize that the regular troops and their guns were placed on high ground and not in the open field. Despite the usual perceptions of the European volunteers and the views of Normann and Dania, at Peta military necessity prevailed. The use of tambouria was not sufficient on its own to defeat the Turks. Positioning the regular troops in the front line was inadvisable. In order to increase the chances of containing the Turkish attack, the front line should have been occupied by the experienced irregulars who would act as skirmishers while the regulars would form a second – reserve – line able to intervene as needed.
The Peta defeat marked the end of the Epirus military operations and the capitulation of the Souliotes, who were now forced to leave their area. Conflicts arose between the armed groups and earlier disputes revived, such as that between the Souliotes and the war chiefs of Central Greece. The victory of the Ottomans gave them the opportunity to converge on Missolonghi, the key revolutionary centre in western central Greece. The Turkish forces marched – almost unhindered – to Missolonghi, which they besieged for three months (October 1822–January 1823), albeit with no positive result.
The battle of Peta illustrates two different ways of fighting: that which had evolved in Europe, where regular armies trained in a certain way were used, as against the traditional way of the irregulars. Although regular armies had proved to be indispensable to organized states, the Philhellenes were sorely worsted at Peta, because in the southern Balkans it was the irregulars that still dominated the battlefield.
Nikos Tompros is Assistant Professor of Political History and Nikos Kanellopoulos is Assistant Professor of Military History, Hellenic Army Academy.
