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There were numerous massacres during the Greek Revolution perpetrated by both the Ottoman authorities and the Greek revolutionaries. The war was characterized by a lack of respect for civilian life and prisoners of war by both sides in the conflict. The Turks massacred many Greeks especially in Ionia (Asia Minor), Crete, Constantinople and the Aegean islands where the revolutionary forces were weaker, while some Greek revolutionaries massacred Muslims inhabiting the Peloponnese and Attica where Greek forces were dominant. Greek atrocities were largely limited to the first year of the war, whereas Ottoman atrocities continued throughout the conflict.

The Turks also practiced the profitable business of enslavement, which had been common in the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish 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.

From North to South, massacres can be analyzed by region:

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 Turks 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.

Peloponnese

See Massacre of Tripoli

The massacres in the Peloponnese were largely unique because nit was not only Greeks that were massacred in this region, both Turks and Greeks were slaughtered as there was widespread butchery of civilians. There is dispute as to whether or not massacres of Turkish civilians began with the outbreak of the revolution or that massacres of Turks were a response to the hanging of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople.

The two best known massacres in the Peloponnese are the Massacre of Tripoli and the numerous atrocities of the armies of Ibrahim Pasha when his forces invaded the Peloponnese. There exist different estimates regarding the numbers of Turks and Greeks killed in the Peloponnese. Estimates of Turks killed in the Peloponnese range from 15,000 to 60,000.

In the first year of the revolution, a Turkish army descended on the city of Patras and slaughtered all of the civilians in the city, razing the town. The forces of Ibrahim Pasha were extremely brutal in the Peloponnese, burning the major port of Kalamata to the ground and slaughtering the city's inhabitants. They also ravaged the countryside and were heavily involved in the slave trade.

During the first year of the revolution, Greek rebels committed numerous atrocities against both civilians and prisoners of war. The worst Greek atrocity in terms of numbers killed was after the fall is Tripoli in 1822. 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. 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.

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.

Jews

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Jews curried disfavour with the Greeks by supporting the Ottoman Empire and during the Greek War of Independence, thousands of Jews were massacred alongside the Ottoman Turks 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. Greek bishops and priests had exhorted their flocks to exterminate the Turkish and Jewish minoties.

Despite the fact that many Jews were killed, they were not targeted specifically: "Such a tragedy seems to be more a side-effect of the butchering of the Turks of Tripolis, the last Ottoman stronghold in the South where the Jews had taken refuge from the fighting, than a specific action against Jews per se." Nevertheless, many Jews within Greece and throughout Europe were supporters of the Greek revolt, using their wealth (as in the case of the Rothschilds) as well as their political and public influence to assist the Greek cause. The Greek state also attracted many Jewish immigrants from the Ottoman Empire following its establishment, being one of the first countries in the world to grant legal equality to Jews.

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 after they were promised guarantees of safety, 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.

The most famous Greek prisoner of war who was killed by the Turks was Athanasios Diakos. After a fierce battle in which Diakos fought bravely against overwhelming odds, the severely wounded Diakos was taken before Omer Vryonis, a Turkish commander, who offered to make him an officer in the Ottoman army if he converted from Christianity to Islam. Diakos refused the offer, replying "I was born a Greek, I shall die a Greek" ("Εγώ Ρωμιός γεννήθηκα, Ρωμιός θε να πεθάνω"). The next day he was impaled and roasted alive. By popular tradition, as he was being roasted he said:

Look at the time Charon chose to take me, now that the branches are flowering, and the earth sends forth grass (Greek: Για δες καιρό που διάλεξε ο Χάρος να με πάρει, τώρα π' ανθίζουν τα κλαριά και βγάνει η γης χορτάρι).'

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. Brewer, p.162
2. Fisher, A History of Europe, pg. 882
3. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Gregory V
4. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Cyril VI
5. The history of the Greek Orthodox Church http://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/history.html
6. University of Athens, Επίτομο Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
7. University of Athens, Επίτομο Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
8. The British and Foreign Review: Or, European Quarterly Journal, The late Revolution in Greece, p.244
9. Gordon, Thomas, History of the Greek Revolution p. 361. (2 vols.) (London) 1844
10. Fisher, A History of Europe, pg. 881
11. Cite error: The named reference Jelavich_Balkan217 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
12. W.Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence,1821 to 1833,New york,1897
13. St. Clair (1972)
14. Finlay (1877)
15. Harris Booras. "Hellenic Independence and America's Contribution to the Cause" Tuttle Co. 1934 p.24"
16. David Brewed. "The Greek War of Independence." Overlook TP 2003 p.64."
17. David Brewed. "The Greek War of Independence." Overlook TP 2003 p.66."
18. P. Paroulakis, The Greeks: Their Struggle for Independence, 126
19. 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
20. 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
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. Ibid.
24. W. Alison Phillips, The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833, London, 1897, p. 48
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
29. St. Clair (1972), p.198
30. Bowman, Steven, "History of the Jews in Greece" University of Massachusettes www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/30-F3-Bowman.pdf
31. Bowman, Steven, "History of the Jews in Greece" University of Massachusettes

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