The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane - Earl of Dundonald Thomas Barnes Cochrane (guided reading books TXT) 📗

with the Egyptians, and returned to the neighbourhood of Missolonghi in the middle of November with a huge fleet of a hundred and thirty-five vessels, well supplied with troops and provisions. These he landed at Patras on the 18th, just in time to be free from any annoyance that might have been occasioned by Miaoulis, who returned to Missolonghi on the 28th with a fleet of only thirty-three sail. He had vainly attacked a part of the Moslem force on its way, and now, after landing some stores at Missolonghi, made several vain attempts to overcome a force four times as strong as his own. He soon retired, intending to return as promptly as he could collect a large fleet and bring with him further supplies of the provisions of which the Missolonghites were beginning to be in need.

The need was greater even than he imagined. Not only had the Capitan Pasha brought temporary assistance, in men and food, to the besieging force. Yet greater assistance soon came in the shape of an Egyptian army, led by Ibrahim Pasha himself. An overwhelming power was thus organized during the last weeks of 1825, and the defenders of Missolonghi were left to succumb to it, almost unaided. Their previous successes had induced the Greeks of other districts to believe that they could continue their defence alone, and almost the only relief obtained by them was from the Zantiots, who had all along been zealous in the despatch of money and provisions, and from Miaoulis and the small fleet and equipment that he was able to collect from the islands of the Archipelago. Miaoulis returned in January, 1826, and did much injury to the Turkish and Egyptian vessels. But he could offer no hindrance to the action of the Turks and Egyptians upon land. The rainy months of December and January, in which no important attack could be entered upon, were spent by Ibrahim and his companions in preparation for future work. The invaders were now well provided with every requisite. The besieged were in want of nearly everything. "Invested for ten months," says the contemporary historian, "frequently on the verge of starvation, thinned by fatigue, watching, and wounds, they had already buried fifteen hundred soldiers. The town was in ruins, and they lived amongst the mire and water of their ditches, exposed to the inclemency of a rigorous season, without shoes and in tattered clothing. As far as their vision stretched over the waves they beheld only Turkish flags. The plain was studded with Mussulman tents and standards; and the gradual appearance of new batteries more skilfully disposed, the field days of the Arabs, and the noise of saws and hammers, gave fearful warning. Yet these gallant Acarnanians, Etolians, and Epirots never flinched for an instant."[A]

[Footnote A: Gordon, vol. ii., p. 253.]

On the 13th of January, Ibrahim Pasha sent to say that he was willing to treat with them for an honourable surrender if they would convey their terms by deputies who could speak Albanian, Turkish, and French. "We are illiterate, and do not understand so many languages," was their blunt reply; "pashas we do not recognize; but we know how to handle the sword and gun."[A]

[Footnote A: Ibid.]

Sword and gun were handled with desperate prowess during February and March and the early part of April. In April, offers of capitulation were renewed by Ibrahim, and more disinterested attempts to avert the worst calamity were made by Sir Frederick Adam, the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. Both proposals were stoutly rejected. The Missolonghiotes declared that they would defend their town to the last, and trust only in God and in their own strong arms. But on the 1st of April the last scanty distribution of public rations was exhausted. For three weeks the inhabitants subsisted upon nothing but cats, rats, hides, seaweed, and whatever other refuse and vermin they could collect. At length, on the 22nd of April, finding it impossible to hold out for a day longer, they resolved to evacuate the town in a body, and, cutting their way through the enemy, to try to join Karaïskakes and his small force, who, hiding among the mountain fastnesses, were vainly seeking for some way of assisting them, and to whom they now despatched a message, asking them to advance and help to clear a passage for their flight.

After sunset four bridges of planks were secretly laid over the outer ditch of Missolonghi, and the inhabitants were ordered to prepare to leave in two hours. Many—about two thousand—lost heart at last; some betaking themselves to the powder stores, there, when all hope was over, to end their lives by easier death than the enemy might allow them; others, crouching in corners of their homesteads, deeming it better to be murdered there than in the open country. The rest obeyed the orders of the generals. All the women dressed themselves as men, with swords or daggers at their waists. Every child who could hold a weapon had one placed in his hand. There was bitter leave-taking, and desperate words of encouragement passed from one to another, as the patriots were marshalled in the order of their departure;—three thousand fighting men to open a passage and four thousand women and children to follow;—the whole being divided into three separate parties. At length all was ready, and the first party silently passed out of the town and advanced to the bridges. To their amazement, they no sooner appeared than they were met by volley after volley of Turkish fire. A traitor had revealed their plan, and every measure had been taken for their destruction. Some rushed on in despite; others hurried back, to fall into confusion, which it was hard indeed to overcome. They felt, however, that this deadly chance was their only chance of life, and they pressed on through the fire, and the swords of their foes, and by the sheer heroism of despair forced a passage to the mountains. Karaiskakes's aid—apparently through no fault of his—was only obtained when the worst dangers had been surmounted or succumbed to. Of the nine thousand persons who were in Missolonghi on the day of the evacuation, four thousand were killed in the town or on the way out of it. Only thirteen hundred men and two hundred women and children lived to reach Salona after more than a week of wandering and hiding among the mountains.

The long siege of Missolonghi illustrates all the best and some of the worst features of the Greek Revolution. In it there was patriotism worthy, in its bursts of splendour, of the nation that claimed descent from the heroes of Plataea and Thermopylae. But the patriotism was often fitful in its working, and oftener wholly wanting. The Greeks could not shake off the pernicious influences that sprang, almost necessarily, from their long centuries of thraldom. Heroism was closely linked with treachery and meanness. The worthiest and most disinterested energy was intimately associated with ignorance as to the right methods of action, and with wilful action in wrong ways. The elements of weakness that had been apparent from the first were more and more developed as the painful struggle reached its termination. It seems as if, in spite of Reshid Pasha and Ibrahim and their fierce armies, it would have been easy for Missolonghi and its brave defenders to have been saved. But rival ambitions and paltry jealousies divided the leaders of the Revolution. They were quarrelling while the power that each one coveted for himself was, step by step, being wrested from them all; and when they tried to do well their want of discipline often rendered their efforts of small avail. No adequate attempt was made to relieve Missolonghi by land, and the brave conduct of Miaoulis on the sea was almost neutralized by the disorganization of his crews and the selfish policy of the islanders who sent him out.

"With respect to the Greek army," wrote General Ponsonby to the Duke of Wellington, from Corfu, on the 15th of June, "it is, generally speaking, a mob; and a chief can only calculate upon keeping it together as long as he has provisions to give it or the prospect of plunder without danger. There is nothing to oppose the Egyptian army but a mob kept together by the small sums sent by the different committees in foreign countries. The Greeks have a great horror of the bayonet, which, however, they have never seen near, except at Missolonghi. The Suliots, who chiefly formed the garrison of that place, are fine men, and certainly fought with great courage. Much has been said of naval actions, but there is no truth in any of the accounts. The Greeks are better sailors than the Turks, but no action has been fought since the beginning of the war, if it is understood by action that there is risk and loss on both sides. The Greeks, however, have done wonders with their fleet. They have destroyed many large ships, and, in the month of February last, with twenty-three brigs, they out-manoeuvred the Turkish fleet of sixty sail, and threw provisions into Missolonghi. This, though done by seamanship, and not fighting, was called a great battle and a great victory. I was within two miles of the fleets, and the cannonade for six hours was tremendous; but when I spoke to Miaoulis the following morning he told me he had not lost a man in his fleet."[A]

[Footnote A: "Despatches of the Duke of Wellington," vol. iii., p. 338.]

During the summer and winter following the fall of Missolonghi a series of small disasters, the aggregate of which was by no means small, befel the Greeks. It was the opinion of all parties, and admitted even by jealous rivals, that the tottering cause of independence was only sustained by the constant and eager expectation of the arrival of the powerful fleet which was supposed to be on its way to the Archipelago, under the able leadership of Lord Cochrane, the world-famous champion of Chilian and Brazilian freedom.

His approach was hardly more a cause of hope to the Greeks than a subject of fear to the Turks. No sooner was it publicly known that he had espoused the cause of the insurgents than angry complaints were made by the Turkish Government to the British ministry, and Mr. Canning, then Foreign Secretary, had more than once to avow that the authorities in England knew nothing of his movements, and had done all that the law rendered possible to restrain him. He had also to promise that everything legal should be done to keep him in check on his arrival in Greek waters. "We have heard," he wrote in August to his cousin, Mr. Stratford Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the ambassador at Constantinople, "that Lord Cochrane is gone to the Mediterranean; whether it be really so, we know not." He then proceeded to define the bearing of English and international law in the existing circumstances. "Lord Cochrane may enter the Greek service, and continue therein. He may even, as a Greek commander, institute (as he did in Brazil) blockades which British officers will respect, and exercise the belligerent rights of search on British merchant-ships, without exposing himself to any other penalty than that which the law will inflict upon him if ever hereafter he shall again bring himself within its reach, and be duly convicted of the offence for the punishment of which that law was enacted. If, indeed, he should do any of such things without a commission he would become a pirate, and liable to the summary justice to which, without reference to the municipal laws of his country, he would, as an enemy of the human race, be liable; and liable just as much from the officers of any other country as of his own."[A]

[Footnote A: "Despatches of the Duke of Wellington," vol. iii., pp. 357, 358.]

While that correspondence was going on, Lord Cochrane, as we have seen, was battling with a long series of delays, as irksome to himself as they were unfortunate to the Greeks. It was not till the 14th of September, about eight months after the time fixed for the arrival of his whole fleet, that the first instalment of it, the Perseverance, which he had sent on as soon as it was completed, with Captain Abney Hastings as its commander, entered the harbour of Nauplia. On the 26th of October, Captain Hastings wrote a letter, giving curious evidence of the estimate formed by him of the Greek character. It was left at Nauplia and addressed to "the commander of the first American or English vessel that arrives in Greece to join the Greeks." "An apprenticeship in Greece tolerably long," he wrote, "has taught me the risks to which anybody newly arrived, and possessed of some place and power, is exposed. They know me, and they also know that I know them; yet they have not ceased, and never