Ελληνική ιστορία και προϊστορία

Ελληνική ιστορία και προϊστορία
Ελληνική ιστορία και προϊστορία

Κυριακή 21 Μαΐου 2017

The Ottoman-Egyptian invasion during the Greek revolution and the greek prisoners in the white slaves markets of Egypt 1825-28

Ibrahim Pasha (1789 -1848) was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces when he was merely a teenager. In the final year of his life, he succeeded his still living father as ruler of Egypt and Sudan, due to the latter's ill health. His rule also extended over the other dominions that his father had brought under Egyptian rule, namely Syria, Hejaz, Morea, Thasos, and Crete. Ibrahim pre-deceased his father, dying 10 November 1848, only four months after acceding to the throne. Upon his father's death the following year, the Egyptian throne passed to Ibrahim's nephew (son of Muhammad Ali's second oldest son), Abbas. Ibrahim remains one of the most celebrated members of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, particularly for his impressive military victories, including several crushing defeats of the Ottoman Empire. Among Egyptian historians, Ibrahim, his father Muhammad Ali, and his son Ismail the Magnificent are held in far higher esteem than other rulers from the dynasty, who were largely viewed as indolent and corrupt; this is largely the result of efforts by his grandson Fuad I of Egypt to ensure the positive portrayal of his paternal ancestors in the Royal Archives that he created, which were the primary source for Egyptian history from the 1920s until the 1970s. Today, a statue of Ibrahim occupies a prominent position in Egypt's capital, Cairo.
On December 11, 1819 he made a triumphal entry into Cairo. After his return Ibrahim gave effective support to the Frenchman, Colonel Sève (Suleiman Pasha), who was employed to drill the army on the European model. Ibrahim set an example by submitting to be drilled as a recruit. In 1824, Muhammad Ali was appointed governor of the Morea (Peloponnese in Greece) by Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II. Mahmud actually required the assistance of the well-trained Egyptian army against the contemporary Greek Revolution, which his forces had been unable to quell: in 1822, the Greeks had decisively defeated an army of 30,000 men under Ibrahim's cousin, Mahmud Dramali Pasha. Ibrahim was sent to the Peloponnese with a squadron and an army of 17,000 men. The expedition sailed on July 4, 1824, but was for some months unable to do more than come and go between Rhodes and Crete. The fear of the Greek fire ships stopped his way to the Morea. When the Greek sailors mutinied from want of pay, Ibrahim was able to land at Modon on February 26, 1825. He remained in the Morea until the capitulation of October 1, 1828 was forced on him by the intervention of the Western powers. He defeated the Greeks in the open field, and though the siege of Missolonghi proved costly to his own troops and to the Ottoman forces who operated with him, he brought it to a successful termination on April 24, 1826. But he was defeated in Mani three times in a row. The Ottoman-Egyptian Invasion of Mani was a campaign during the Greek War of Independence that consisted of three battles. The Maniots fought against a combined Egyptian and Ottoman army under the command of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. On March 17, 1821, the Maniots declared war on the Ottoman Empire, preceding the rest of Greece in joining the revolution by about a week. The various Greek forces won a quick string of victories. However, disputes broke out amongst the leaders and anarchy ensued. The Ottomans seized this chance and called for reinforcements from Egypt. The reinforcements came under the command of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the leader of Egypt, Muhammad Ali. With the Greeks in disarray, Ibrahim ravaged the Peloponnese and after a four months siege he captured the city of Missolonghi in April. He then went back to the Peloponnese and turned his attention in June to Mani. Ibrahim tried to enter Mani from the north-east near Almiro on June 21, 1826, but he was forced to stop at the fortifications at Vergas. His army of 7,000 men was held off by an army of 2,000 Maniots and 500 refugees from other parts of Greece. Despite Egyptian and Ottoman artillery, the outnumbered Maniots managed to hold off the Ottomans. Ibrahim sent 1,500 men to attempt a landing near Areopolis and go north to threaten the Maniot rear. This force was initially successful; however the women and old men of the area fought back and repelled them with heavy losses. When the Egyptians at Vergas heard that Theodoros Kolokotronis was advancing on their rear they retreated. In August, Ibrahim renewed the offensive and he sent a group of regular soldiers down the coast and they reached Kariopoli before they retreated. Ibrahim sent a force of 8,000 men down to Polytsaravo and on the way they destroyed a tower that was opposing them. When they reached Polytsaravo, they were faced by the Maniots in their forts. The Egyptians and the Ottomans were forced to retreat with significant losses. This was the last time Mani was invaded during the War for Independence, as Greece was liberated in 1828.
The Battle of Lerna Mills was fought on June 24, 1825 in Lerna, Greece between the Egyptian forces and Greek forces led by Captain Ioannis Makrygiannis, Demetrios Ypsilantis and Konstantinos Mavromichalis. After the Greek army fled to Karitena, Arcadia, Ibrahim's forces captured Tripolitsa, which was completely abandoned. Immediately afterwards, Ibrahim sent 5.000 soldiers to the plains of Argos in order to seize the capital Nafplion. When Ibrahim's forces reached the mills of Lerna on June 24, Captain Makrygiannis and Mavromichalis organized a resistance force containing 350 Greek soldiers. Prince Demetrios Ypsilantis and several philhellenes volunteered in the defense of the garrison. Protecting Lerna was vital since the mills contained large quantities of grain that supplied food to Nafplion. The mills of Lerna were surrounded by a stone wall that was flanked by a deep pond and a marsh. Moreover, the garrison was supported by two gunboats that were anchored a short distance from the shore. Unfortunately, the Greeks did not repair a small break in the stone wall. As a result, a small contingent of Arabs exploited this weakness in the defensive structure and attempted to create an entrance by increasing the size of the break. When the Arabs forced themselves through the break, they were prevented from regrouping once they entered the courtyard. Thirteen Arabs were killed by a charge of Greeks and philhellenes led by Makrygiannis. Ultimately, the remaining Arabs in the overall contingent were forced to flee. The Greeks, afterwards, attempted to fill in the gap in the stone wall. Despite the constant reinforcements he received, Ibrahim was aware of the fact that the Greeks were prepared to staunchly defend the Lerna Mills and he eventually retreated to the plains of Argos. From there, Ibrahim took his army to Tripolitsa, Arcadia, on June 29, 1825. The Greek guerrilla bands harassed his army, and in revenge he desolated the country and sent thousands of the inhabitants into slavery in Egypt. These measures of repression aroused great indignation in Europe and led to the intervention of the naval squadrons of the United Kingdom, the Restored Kingdom of France and Imperial Russia in the Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827). Their victory was followed by the landing of a French expeditionary force in the so-called Morea expedition. By the terms of the capitulation of October 1, 1828, Ibrahim evacuated the country.
The Morea expedition is the name given in France to the land intervention of the French Army in the Peloponnese (medieval name, Morea) between 1828 and 1833, at the time of the Greek War of Independence. After the fall of Messolonghi, Western Europe decided to intervene in favour of revolutionary Greece. Their attitude toward the Ottoman Empire's Egyptian ally, Ibrahim Pasha, was especially critical; their primary objective was to elicit the evacuation of the occupied regions, the Peloponnese in particular. The intervention began when a Franco -Russo -British fleet was sent to the region, winning the Battle of Navarino in October 1827. In August 1828, a French expeditionary corps disembarked at Koroni in the southern Peloponnese. The soldiers were stationed on the peninsula until the evacuation of Egyptian troops in October, then taking control of the principal strongholds still held by Turkish troops. Although the bulk of the troops returned to France from the end of 1828, there was a French presence in the area until 1833.
Ibrahim Pasha used a number of pretexts to delay the evacuation: problems with food supply or transport, or unforeseen difficulties in the strongholds’ handover. The French officers had difficulties in maintaining the fighting zeal of their soldiers, who for example had become excited at the false news that an imminent march on Athens would take place. This impatience on the part of the French troops was perhaps decisive in convincing the Egyptian commander to respect his obligations. Moreover, French soldiers were beginning to suffer from autumn rains which drenched their tent camp, increasing the likelihood of fever and especially of dysentery . On September 24, Louis-Eugène Cavaignac wrote that thirty men of 400 in his company of military engineers were affected by fever. General Maison wished to be able to set up his men in the fortresses’ barracks. On September 7, Ibrahim Pasha accepted to evacuate his troops as of September 9. The agreement reached with General Maison provided that the Egyptians would leave with their arms, baggage and horses, but without any Greek slave or prisoner. As the Egyptian fleet could not evacuate the entire army in one go, supplies were authorised for the troops who remained on land; these men had just undergone a lengthy blockade. A first Egyptian division, 5,500 men and 27 ships, set sail on September 16, escorted by three ships from the joint fleet.The last Egyptian transport sailed away on October 5, taking Ibrahim Pasha. Of the 40,000 men he had brought from Egypt, he was taking back barely 20,000. A few Ottoman soldiers remained in order to hold the different strongholds of the Peloponnese. The next mission of the French troops was to “give security” to these and hand them back to independent Greece. On November 5, 1828, the last “non-Greeks” (Muslims generally) left the Morea. 2,500 Turks and their families were placed aboard French vessels headed for Smyrna.
During the Greek War of Independence, Ottoman Egyptian troops under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt ravaged the island of Crete and the Greek countryside of the Morea where the Muslim Egyptian soldiers enslaved vast numbers of Christian Greek children and women. Ibrahim arranged for the enslaved Greek children to be forcefully converted to Islam en masse.The enslaved Greeks were subsequently transferred to Egypt where they were sold as slaves. Several decades later in 1843, the English traveler and writer Sir John Gardner Wilkinson described the state of enslaved Greeks who had converted to Islam in Egypt: White Slaves In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are [for example] some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. […] In Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country. (Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, 1843).
Much attention and condemnation has been directed towards the tragedy of the African slave trade, which took place between the 16th and the 19 th centuries. However, another equally despicable trade in humans was taking place around the same time in the Mediterranean. It is estimated that up to 1.25 million Europeans were enslaved by the so-called Barbary corsairs, and their lives were just as pitiful as their African counterparts. They have come to be known as the white slaves of Barbary. Slavery is one of the oldest trades known to man. We can first find records of the slave trade dating back to The Code of Hammurabi in Babylon in the 18th century BCE. People from virtually every major culture, civilization, and religious background have made slaves of their own and enslaved other peoples. However, comparatively little attention has been given to the prolific slave trade that was carried out by pirates, or corsairs, along the Barbary coast, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, beginning around 1600 AD. Anyone travelling in the Mediterranean at the time faced the real prospect of being captured by the Corsairs and taken to Barbary Coast cities and being sold as slaves. However, not content with attacking ships and sailors, the corsairs also sometimes raided coastal settlements in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, and even as far away as the Netherlands and Iceland. They landed on unguarded beaches, and crept up on villages in the dark to capture their victims. Almost all the inhabitants of the village of Baltimore, in Ireland, were taken in this way in 1631. As a result of this threat, numerous coastal towns in the Mediterranean were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants until the 19 th century. Around 1600 AD, European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast, which enabled the corsairs to extend their activities into the Atlantic Ocean, and the impact of Barbary raids peaked in the early to mid-17th century. In comments which may stoke controversy, Davis claims that white slavery had been minimised or ignored because academics preferred to treat Europeans as evil colonialists rather than as victims. The slaves captured by the Barbary pirates faced a grim future. Many died on the ships during the long voyage back to North Africa due to disease or lack of food and water. Those who survived were taken to slave markets where they would stand for hours while buyers inspected them before they were sold at auction. After purchase, slaves would be put to work in various ways. Men were usually assigned to hard manual labour, such as working in quarries or heavy construction, while women were used for housework or in sexual servitude. At night the slaves were put into prisons called 'bagnios' that were often hot and overcrowded. However, by far the worst fate for a Barbary slave was being assigned to man the oars of galleys. Rowers were shackled where they sat, and never allowed to leave. Sleeping, eating, defecation and urination took place at the seat. Overseers would crack the whip over the bare backs of any slaves considered not to be working hard enough.
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt (1789 -1848), a 19th-century general of Egypt . He is better known as the (adopted) son of the Albanian Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Ibrahim was born in the town of Drama, in the Ottoman province of Rumelia currently located in greek Macedonia to a Greek Christian woman and a man named Tourmatzis.
Raghib Pasha (1819-1884), was Prime Minister of Egypt. He was of Greek ancestry and was born in Greece on 18 August 1819 on either the island of Chios following the great Massacre or Candia Crete. After being kidnapped to Anatolia he was brought to Egypt as a slave by Ibrahim Pasha in 1830 and converted to Islam. Raghib Pasha ultimately rose to levels of importance serving as Minister of Finance (1858-1860), then Minister of War (1860-1861). He became Inspector for the Maritime Provinces in 1862, and later Assistant to viceroy Isma'il Pasha (1863-1865). He was granted the title of beylerbey and then appointed President of the Privy council in 1868. He was appointed President of the Chamber of Deputies (1866-1867), then Minister of Interior in 1867, then Minister of Agriculture and Trade in 1875. Isma'il Ragheb became Prime Minister of Egypt in 1882.
Πηγή: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morea_expedition

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Pasha_of_Egypt

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman–Egyptian_invasion_of_Mani

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Lerna_Mills

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Muslims

http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/white-slaves-barbary-002171


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