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There were numerous massacres during the Greek Revolution perpetrated by both the Greek revolutionaries and the Ottoman authorities. The war was characterized by a lack of respect for civilian life and prisoners of war by both sides in the conflict. Turkish, Muslim Albanian and Jewish civilian populations of Peloponnese ceased to exist as a settled community, meanwhile the Ottoman Empire massacred Greek civilians especially in Ionia (Asia Minor), Crete, Constantinople and the Aegean islands.

Ottoman massacres of Greek civilians were instrumental in securing European sympathy and aid for the Greek cause, as Europeans were outraged by the fact that Christians were being massacred by the Ottoman Turks. However massacres perpetuated by the Christians were largely ignored.

Massacres in the Peloponnese

According to a number of sources, massacres of the Turkish civilian population started simultaneously with the outbreak of the revolt.With the beginning of the revolt, the bishops and priests exhorted their parishioners to exterminate infidel Moslems. Many Turks were attacked and murdered in the mountains of Achaia on the 28th of March. On the 2nd of April the outbreak became general over the whole of Morea and on that day many Turks were murdered in different places. On the third of April 1821, the Turks of Kalavryta surrendered upon promises of security but promise soon violated. Historian W. Alison Phillips wrote in 1897: "Everywhere, as though at a preconcerted signal, the peasantry rose, and massacred all the Turks —men,women and children— on whom they could lay hands. In the Morea shall no Turk be left. Nor in the whole wide world. Thus rang the song which, from mounth to mounth, announced the beginning of a war of extermination... Within three weeks of the outbreak of the revolt, not a moslem was left, save those who had succeded in escaping into the towns.

Massacres of the civilian population continued in parts of Greece where the Greek rebels took control of the area. The massacres in Vrachori commenced with the Jews and soon Mussulmans shared the same fate. . A general massacre ensued the fall of Navarino on August 19, 1821. Up to 30.000 people perished in Tripolitza alone. For the massacres that occurred following the capture of Tripolitza, Alison Phillips noted that : " For three days the miserable inhabitants were given over to lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared… So great was the slaughter that Kolokotrones himself says that, from the gate to the citadel his horse’s hoofs never touched the ground…At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of the Mussulmans were delibaretly collected, to the number of some two thousand souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighboring mountains and there butchered like cattle.”

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, during the Greek War of Independence, thousands of Jews were massacred by the Greek rebels and the Jewish communities of Mistras, Tripolis, Kalamata and Patras were completely destroyed. A few survivors moved north to areas still under Ottoman rule.St. Clair noted that Bishops and Priests gave orders for exterminations of the Jewish population as they had done the same for Turkish minorities .

Although the total estimates of the casualties vary, the revolution was successful in cleanesing the entire Turkish, Muslim Albanian and Jewish population from the Peloponnese whether through death or displacement. The Turkish and Moslem Albanian population of the Peloponnese had ceased to exist as a settled community. William St. Clair wrote that: "The orgy of genocide exhausted itself in the Peloponnese only when there were no more Turks to kill." George Finlay further claimed that the extermination of the Muslims in the rural districts was the result of a premeditated design and it proceeded more from the suggestions of men of letters, than form the revengeful feelings of the people.

Constantinople

The Turks massacred almost the entire male population of the Greek quarter of Constantinople. On Easter Sunday, 10 April, 1821, Gregory V is hanged in the central outside portal of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Ottomans. The door has remained shut and out of use ever since. ; his body was mutilated and thrown into the sea, where it was rescued by Greek sailors. One week later, the former Ecumenical Patriarch Cyril VI is hanged in the gate of the Adrianople's cathedral. This was followed by the execution of two metropolitans and twelve Bishops by the Turkish authorities.. Until the end of April, many prominent Greeks were decapitated by the Turkish forces in Constantinople, including Constantine Mourousis, Dimitrios Paparigopoulos, Antonios Tsouras, and the Phanariotes Petros Tsigris, Dimitrios Skanavis and Manuel Hotzeris, while Georgios Mavrocordatos was hanged. In May, the Metropolitans Gregorios of Derkon, Dorotheos of Adrianople, Ioannikios of Tyrnavos, Joseph of Thessaloniki, and the Phanariote Georgios Callimachi and Nikolaos Mourousis were decapitated on Sultan orders in Constantinople. In the large scale massacres of Greek civilians in Constantinople, approximately 30,000 perished in total

Asia Minor

In June, Turkish massacres of Greek civilians began in earnest in Ionia. In the town of Kydonia in Ionia, the Turkish garrison began plundering houses and massacred an estimated 25,000 people. There were also extensive massacres in Smyrna.

Aegean Islands

See Massacre of Chios, Destruction of Psara

The islands ravaged several Greek islands during the Greek Revolution. The most famous of these are the Chios Massacre and the Destruction of Psara. The Ottoman authorities soon after also began massacring Greek islanders, whose fleets were instrumental to the Greek cause. During the Chios Massacre in 1822, one of the most notorious occurrences of the war, a total of about 110,000 Greek civilians perished; about 42,000 Greek islanders of Chios were hanged, butchered, starved or tortured to death; 45,000 were enslaved and died subsequently; and 23,000 were exiled and are unaccounted for. The French painter Eugène Delacroix immortalised this massacre in his famous painting The Massacre of Chios.

According to Gordon's history of the revolution, two months after Kara Ali's landing on Chios, 45,000 Chiots were enslaved, including women and children. "Whole cargoes were shipped off to Constantinople, Egypt and Barbary...and for a long a period the slave market at Smyrna displayed the bustle of active trade and attracted moslem purchasers from all parts of Asia Minor." Indeed, the extent of the massacres was so widespread by the time of Egyptian intervention that some have alleged the whole population of the Greek mainland was in danger of extermination.

Central Greece

Shortly after Lord Byron's death in 1825, the Turks came to besiege the Greeks again in Messolonghi. The commander of the Turks, Reşid Mehmed Pasha was joined by Ibrahim Pasha who crossed the Gulf of Corinth. During the early part of 1826, Ibrahim had more artillery and supply brought in. However, his men were unable to storm the walls. In 1826, after a one year siege, the Turkish-Egyptian forces conquered the city on Palm Sunday and exterminated almost its entire population. The death toll stands at approximately 8,000. The Turks displayed 3,000 severed heads off the walls. After this incident many people from western Europe felt sympathy for the Greek cause. Within four years Missolonghi fell into Greek hands again. Eugène Delacroix immortalized the massacre in his painting Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi.

Crete

In the great massacre of Heraklion on 24th June 1821, that people remember as "the great ravage" ("ο μεγάλος αρπεντές", "o megalos arpentes"), the enraged Turks massacred the metropolite of Crete, Gerasimos Pardalis, and five more bishops: Neofitos of Knossos, Joachim of Herronissos, Ierotheos of Lambis, Zacharias of Sitia and Kallinikos, the titular bishop of Diopolis.

Cyprus

In July 1821, he head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church Archbishop Kyprianos, along with 470 prominent Greek Cypriots, amongst them the Metropolitans Chrysanthos of Paphos, Meletios of Kition and Lavrentios of Kyrenia, are executed by beheading or hanging by the Ottomans in Nicosia. This act was followed by the massacre of about 10,000 Greeks of the island.

Prisoners of War

Both sides routinely slaughtered prisoners of war, despite guarantees. The Turks would typically offer captured Greeks the option of conversion to Islam or death, and most Greeks chose the latter being deeply attached to their religion, with the most prominent example being Athanasios Diakos. Turkish prisoners of war were typically at the mercy of the commanders that captured them, there exist examples of massacres of prisoners, such as the garrison of Kalamata, and of remarkably humane treatment such as the garrison of the Acropolis of Athens which was saved by Karaiskakis.

Janissaries

See The Auspicious Incident.

By 1826, the once elite corps of Janissaries, who were descended from Christian children that were kidnapped and forced to become soldier-slaves, were almost universally hated throughout Turkey due to the fact that they had become a hereditary caste of corrupt Turkish soldiers. When they noticed that the sultan Mahmud II was forming a new army and hiring European gunners, they mutinied, but the Sipahis forced them to retreat to their barracks in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. In the ensuing fight the Janissary barracks were set in flames by artillery fire resulting in a massive number of casualties. Survivors were either exiled or executed and their possessions confiscated by the Sultan.

References

1. Cite error: The named reference Jelavich_Balkan217 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. W.Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence,1821 to 1833,New york,1897
3. William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Oxford University Press London 1972 p.12 ISBN 0192151940
4. George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution and the Reign of King Otho, edited by H. F. Tozer, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1877 Reprint london 1971, p. 146 SBN 900834 12 9.
5. George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution and the Reign of King Otho, edited by H. F. Tozer, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1877 Reprint london 1971 SBN 900834 12 9.
6. Ibid.
7. W. Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833, London, 1897, p. 48
8. George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution and the Reign of King Otho, edited by H. F. Tozer, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1877 Reprint london 1971 SBN 900834 12
9. Bouboulina Museum, Spetses Greece. Greek Island Spetses. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
10. W. Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833, London, 1897, p. 61
12. William St. Clair, p.198 ISBN 0192151940
13. William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Oxford University Press London 1972 p.2 ISBN 0192151940
14. William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Oxford University Press London 1972 p.12 ISBN 0192151940
15. George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution and the Reign of King Otho, edited by H. F. Tozer, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1877 Reprint london 1971, p. 152 SBN 900834 12 9.
16. Fisher, A History of Europe, pg. 882
17. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Gregory V
18. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Cyril VI
19. The history of the Greek Orthodox Church http://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/history.html
20. University of Athens, Επίτομο Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
21. University of Athens, Επίτομο Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
22. The British and Foreign Review: Or, European Quarterly Journal, The late Revolution in Greece, p.244
23. Gordon, Thomas, History of the Greek Revolution p. 361. (2 vols.) (London) 1844
24. Fisher, A History of Europe, pg. 881
25. Dr. Detorakis, Theocharis. "Brief Historical Review of the Holy Archdiocese of Crete" http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/church_history/detorakis_brief_historical_review.htm
26. Cyprus brief historical survey
27. Putnam's Home Cyclopedia, G.P. Putnam & Co, p.343

Sources

• Finlay, George (1877). A History of Greece (Edited by H. F. Tozer). London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Finlay, George (1861). History of Greek Revolution. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Gordon, Thomas (1844). History of the Greek Revolution. London.
• Paroulakis, Peter H. (2000). The Greek War of Independence. Hellenic International Press. ISBN 978-0959089417.
• St. Clair, William (1972). That Greece Might Still Be Free - The Philhellenes in the War of Independence. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192151940.

• Greek War of Independence
• Massacres